You can fly!

You just need to think
of happy things. Thoughts of converse shoes, joyful times with brothers or kittens and green pens.

Or that time you talked to Kiel on the phone and Micah and I wailed and screamed for the pope or cute little babies.

Think of the golden lanes, a victorious Hayden atop a slide, and pretty purple flowers.
You can find a happy thought I know it.

This post is for my sister Cherise and her sore knee.
No more sad eyes Stuie.

fresh new face

I've played with color, layout and extras. Whadda y'all think?

snow!

Hooray for snowy fun! On Saturday morning the boys (the big one included) decided they wanted to find some snow to play in. Gear was acquired and visions of gigantic snow covered hills filled everyones' minds. Bright and early Sunday morning we bundled up and headed out to Tiger mountain. Spirits were high until we reached the summit and discovered little snow and not much evidence that it was going to fall anytime soon. We stopped to let the littlest boy eat while the bigger ones went into Safeway to get snacks. On return to the truck they announced that the cashier informed them of snow just a bit further up the road. So with hopes renewed we forged on and discovered the wintery wonderland. Cameron was astonished, he had never seen that much snow in his life and kept asking me how there could be that much and how it stayed there. Fortunately not being able to make head nor tail of it didn't stop him from having a great time :) Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely (especially Max) with the exception of Rowan getting a bit cranky before falling asleep and the drivers of two trucks who tried to drive up a snowy hill with just road tires and slid back down. All in all it was a great trip and MUCH better than having to drive all the way home defeated. Gotta love sisu :)

I believe this snowball was lovingly created with Logan in mind

I don't know how much Max enjoyed this...

Rowan wasn't asleep here, he was rubbing his little face on mine.
I LOVE this picture!

forgotten sunglasses = fashion statement

As you can see the snow day was a success. Before we got home Logan reported that we had all fallen asleep :) Aaand we brought it with us! When Logan got up for work this morning it was snowing! We don't have a lot and it'll probably melt within a day or two but for the time being it's snow on the ground in my backyard and I'm happy :)

He's really alert!

We went to the wonderful Indian restaurant down the road again tonight. It was our second dinner there and this time was DELECTABLE as was the first! When we set Rowan up in his car seat next to our table the waiter smiled at him, asked how old he was and said he looked really alert. The funny thing is that the same guy said the same thing last time we were there. But thats ok because it's true Abu! :)

Just look at them cheeks!

pictures pictures pictures! I'm not very good at self photography yet so I don't look best in most shots but Rowan is a freaking cutie! A big one at that too, on Friday at his 2 month appointment he weighed in at 14lbs 12ozs and measured 24 inches. He's in the 90th percentile in weight and the 75th in height :) He did pretty good with the shots he had to get, I was definitely more nervous while waiting for the nurse to get ready than he was. We both handled the actual shots better than I was expecting and he recovered faster than I thought he would also. He is all better now and didn't even get the low grade fever they said he might. So without further ado here are a small gaggle of photos of my big little guy :D

time sure flies

Wow, it was a pretty exciting holiday season. It's hard to believe Rowan's only been around two months. It feels like much longer. I am loving being a mother!! Since my last post we've been hanging out and enjoying the holidays :)

Here's a cutie on the couch with his big brown sheep

For Thanksgiving we visited Gremmy and Goddy :)

Logan dressing Rowan for his dedication
(unfortunately I forgot the camera in the car so we didn't get any pictures of the actual thing)

Our family (minus Max) Rowan isn't so happy...

Here we are visiting our new friend Carson who was just born on Jan. 1st :)

I'll post more pictures later but right now I'm late for a dinner date so I've got to hurry out of here. But before I leave I can't record sound on my camera but I can shoot videos so here's a silent video of my little guy hanging out in his bouncy chair a couple days ago. It's not fancy but I think he's adorable so I'm going to show him off.

One month :D

It's been a whooole month! ...nuts... it seems like he came home last week but it seems weird at the same time to think about what I did all day everyday without him here. We sure love our little man :D he's sure chubbin' up eh?


It's December now so we went out and got our tree :) it was a good day for it. Nice and cold with some snow "flurries" (as the weatherman put it this morning). This picture doesn't show it but it got snowing pretty good but melted just about the same time it stopped.

Here's Logan cutting down our tree (notice that it looks straight vertically)

We bundled Rowan in layers, blankets and stroller hoods. He slept the whole time which was quite a feat since we pretty much were offroading that stroller and it was bouncin around like crazy.

I love this picture :) it just looks cool.

He's a big strong dad

here's an artistic shot I took stopped behind Logan at a stopped light.

And last but not least this is our tree set up in the living room. Don't worry, it's not falling over we discovered once we got home and tried setting it up straight that the trunk of our tree is crooked just below the bottom branches. So it looks like it might be falling over, which just makes me like it more :) it's

my big little guy

He's so big now! The picture on top was taken on Rowan's first day home wearing his cute dinosaur jammies they were a bit big on him but fit pretty good. I took the other picture yesterday and he's really filling that outfit out.
The little feet are actually full of feet now :)

I know he's growing steadily but to me he seems to stay one size for a while and then he's all the sudden a half pound heavier. It's happened twice that I've been carrying him and realized that he feels heavier and looks bigger to me. When I look at his face he seems like a big guy but yesterday we were lounging around watching TV (well... I was watching TV and Rowan was sleeping) and Rowan's hand was laying on mine and I was struck with how tiny he still is. I love him this size and of course I know he'll grow, probably faster than I think he will, and I think when he is bigger I will love him that size. I'm just trying to enjoy each phase while he's in it. I have to say though I can't WAIT until he smiles :) He's more adorable than I ever imagined he'd be right now I think he'll be ridiculously amazingly cute when he starts smiling.

fortnight!

Rowan had his two week check-up today and he is in fine form :) He's 8 pounds 14 ounces, 20 3/4 inches long and his head is 38 cm around which is about 15 inches and up 2 cm from his two day appointment. To celebrate I took a few pictures of my beautiful baby boy sleepin in his moses basket. I think he's wonderful :)





























And here's another picture of Rowan and his Dad chillin out :) the little guy was pretty relaxed

one week old

Well it's been a week and we're doin good. Rowan is doing good. Having a great time eating, sleeping and messing his diapers :) Yesterday he got his first taste of the internet hanging out with Dad. I don't think he could actually see that far but he sure looked cute in the outfit that Logan picked out.

aren't they a cute couple?

He's here!

This is Mommarazzi posting for Alyssa and Logan. They are a little preoccupied with a certain young man. They will be home from the hospital, hopefully, Sunday.

He is the most adorable baby. Here is a picture of him and of the happy family.

stiiiiill waiting...

This is not my favorite game.

I know today is only second day past his due date but I wish he were out now. It's not terribly uncomfortable to have him in I'm just nervous that I'm doing things that are slowing him down. Like sitting down or laying on my back while I sleep (accidentally) or not walking around all day up and down hills or eating a burger... and they just get more ridiculous from there. But honestly I've been trying the various natural labor induction things like walking around and I feel like they're silly because it seems that Rowan is pretty much calling the shots no matter what I do. I guess we'll see at our appointment tomorrow how long they'll let him chill out in there.

On the bright side we got to carve pumpkins, they're beautiful and I have chicken strips! Mmmm...






































Logan spotted this at the mall and just haaaad to have it ;) I think it's cute.

still waiting...

Well, Rowan is still hanging out inside but he is showing signs that he might be thinking about wanting to start heading out soon. I've got to almost 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced (which I was a week ago) but as of my appointment yesterday afternoon in a week he's dropped from a negative three station to a negative two. So he's making his way, slowly but surely :) I suppose that means he'll be a laid back little guy. His dad and I have been using this time to get his room ready, we're going to be getting a sweet blue rocking chair from Logan's grandparents which I'm excited about. Here's a shot of it with Murphy rockin a bit of a Vanna White vibe ;) though not quite as smiley....

Aaaaand we just finished painting! ... almost, there are a couple spots I want to touch up on the blue and green but we could get by just fine if I don't get a chance. It still looks good :)Here the green look a bit more yellow than it actually is, this smaller picture is a bit more true to life. I think they're nice baby boy colors, they remind me of winnie the pooh.

Other than painting I've busied myself with washing and folding clothing and bedding. Even though I'm not up to much I feel like I'm going a bit nuts. The other day I started five or six different small jobs like washing dishes, cleaning off the coffee table, putting Rowan's stroller together and cooking a grilled cheese sandwich without finishing any and had two or three more things in my head that I wanted to start also. I feel scatterbrained :P (just incase you're wondering I only burnt the sandwich a little bit) I hope I have everything ready for this little guy when he decides it's time to come out. I wish I at least had a window of time...

a good start

I went to the doctor last week and inquired so the midwife checked and said that I was about 1 cm dilated and 75% effaced :D I know that I could stay that way for a while or even be more so and still wait days or weeks for my little guy to show his face but I'm still excited. That's 1 centimeter that I my body won't have to worry about during active labor and 75% of thinning that I'm already done with. A good start indeed.




Oh, and Aunty Kara needs to create a blog so she post comments to my face that I should update.
I love you Aunty Kara, we want to see pictures of you and yours!

running out of room

Someone please convince my son that it is quite impossible for him to stand up inside me... I don't think he believes me... With regard to my earlier post (below) I wonder who is rubbing off on whom the inclination to rebel against their physical situation... ;)

Of course I know he's not consciously defying the confines of the womb... it just makes everything a lot more fun and bearable to attribute motives and/or specific actions to his movements :) 'cause it seriously does feel like he's trying to do a handstand on my bladder sometimes :P and it's in those moments when a sense of humor really helps. I like to imagine being able to see in there with one of those xray screens from old cartoons that I could just step behind and see a silhouette of my body and Rowan inside a white oval doing gymnastics and p.t. with a boxer's robe and headphones on with some little Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee posters on the wall.

illogical

I should not get hungry before 6am... even if I have been not very asleep since around 4:30am


I tend to mentally rebel against my body at this time of the morning, not the best thing I'm sure but it just doesn't make any sense to me. I fell asleep later than usual and woke up early and felt hungry shortly thereafter, what's up with that? Logan does not agree that this is unusual or illogical claiming the apparently numerous times he has woken up hungry at very early hours. I pointed out that he most likely did not do so after eating a decent dinner the night before. All of his times were probably on the ground of the backside of some mountain in Georgia after hardly eating anything for more than a day, marching a lot and it was probably cold.

vacation

Well, it's been a fun week and a half. I got to visit Portland, then Sisters, then Portland again! :D Joylynn and I got a double baby shower in Portland last Tuesday. It got a little nutty around present time with two mamas opening gifts simultaneously while the big siblings/cousins helped to open a few presents and keep things interesting :) It was a great time, even if to Wyatt's disappointment though the party had balloons, cake and presents it wasn't anyone's birthday. After hanging out a bit more in Portland Logan's mum fetched me from Wilsonville and gave me a ride down to Sisters.

[I arranged this and a few other vases for the baby shower in Sisters which had a fall theme and was really pretty]

I love visiting central Oregon it's so beautiful and it's even better when I get to be spending time with Logan's family, they're awesome. It's also great to watch Max get to be a ranch dog he always looks so happy bounding around and playing with Murphy (Logan's parents' boston terrier). He had a bit of a close call this visit when he found himself in the middle of a group of alpacas who almost stomped him but Logan's dad plucked him from danger and tied him a safe distance away. No harm done and Max is a smarter dog for it so apart from being a nervous when it was happening it didn't really phase me. After a few days hanging around in Sisters Logan's parents, their dog Murphy, Max and me drove back up to Portland. I got to spend some more time with my family and I also got to meet Logan's uncle Steve who flew in from New Zealand for a visit.

[this was on the way to the pet store Harold is a sweet little kitty]

After a wonderful breakfast yesterday morning with Logan's parents and uncle I said bye to them and turned to the pressing matter of the cats that were still around and needing to find homes. My Mom called a pet store out in Beaverton and they accepted the three remaining kittens after they passed their health check with flying colors. It was a lovely large pet store with friendly employees that seemed very comfortable handling the kitties and I felt really good about leaving them there.

I'm confident they will find good homes. So now it's down to just the mamas and it's going to be a waiting game because the soonest appointment I could get for them at the humane society was October 29th. Since Rowan is due only two days before that the cats are being taken care of at my parents' house so I don't have to be cleaning any more cat boxes. It's really nice to have one less thing to stress about while preparing for a baby and a home coming. I'm very glad that my Mom, Dad and siblings like cats and can help me out with them :) Thanks guys!! You're totally BEST.

Now I am home and being pretty lazy today... but you know I won't have many more days when I can just sit around for very much longer so I think I'm not too upset with my slothful self ;)