Hmm...

So we had our ultrasound Monday, but the tech had only been doing this for 3 months. The baby's arms were covering its face, and she kept poking the wand into my gut and wiggling it around trying to get the baby to shift. At the end of our two hour (oof) ultrasound, that poor baby had her face buried in my uterus, and both arms thrown high over her head. Perhaps she enjoyed the ultrasound just as little as I did?

At any rate, this technician said it's a girl. And I didn't see anything to suggest otherwise. So...pink booties, anyone? :o) That being said, I still have a sneaking suspicion this might be a boy. So looks like nursery colors will be green and blue and yellow, as planned. Maybe some maroon thrown in, once we get a little closer (or past) to the birth day!

We've Landed!

It seems crazy that we just moved a week ago, so much has happened this week!

Sweet Aunt LoLo, BBJ, and Louh Goung moved across the country

Garden box was torn to pieces, re-built, and filled with soil

Decades-old photinia was taken down with a chain saw and hauled to the dump (844 pounds!!) and we're about half way through taking out the stumps. Do I leave the ivy that we found underneath? I'll replace the 10-foot high photinia bushes with 3-foot high boxwoods from our backyard.

House has been vacuumed 3 times, at least.

At least an hour of "swing time" for Ernie on her new playset. That's a lot of pushes!

Three families stopping by and a play date have filled out house with giggles, shrieks, and fun over the week.

Kitchen, bedrooms, and play room are completely unpacked. Den and baby nursery, not so much. Has anybody seen our iron? Or camera charger?

Ernie replaced most of our heat registers. Go Ernie!

15 hours of nap time, and 77 hours of night time sleep for Ernie. She's a busy girl!

24 hours of study time for J, and about 30 hours of sleep. Can't wait for these CPA exams to be over!!!!!

Ernie learned how to take berries and leaves off my bushes, fill her bucket, and mash/stir it into some crazy elixir. I'm afraid to ask her what it's for!

New curtains for Ernie's room- I LOVE BLACKOUT FABRIC. And sales at the fabric store- I love those too.

Yard is weeded, lawn mowed twice.

It's been a busy week. A lot of people have asked for pictures, and I'll post them as soon as I can bear to take a record of how things look. Fair enough? :o) If you live in the area, watch out for an e-vite to our housewarming open house! Date TBD, but probably week after next.

Also, BTW, our ultrasound is Monday. Any guesses for gender?

TTFN

Ta-ta for now... we're unplugging the computer in a few minutes. Moving truck comes tomorrow morning!

And....public thanks are in order.

Thanks Dad, for being our General Contractor for a week, hanging out with the window guys and all their very dangerous tools, making runs to the dump with 25 years of accumulated trash from the property, and generally being Terrific! And, congrats on the sale of your company :o) Oh, and thanks for completely sacrificing 2 or 3 chainsaw blades to take apart a defunct and dangerous hot tub. Ernie is grateful!

Thanks, Mom, for taking Ernie ALL DAY LONG tomorrow so I can focus on other things, like where to put the couch. I hope she takes a nap for you!

Thanks Aunt LoLo, Casey, Carrie, and Janaea for all your help packing this week. I couldn't have done it without you!! (You too, BBJ and co. Thanks for keeping Ernie occupied!)

Thanks to J's family for all their well wishes and prayers. We're seeing miracles every day.

And, even though she won't see this, thanks to J's aunt's mother- she is providing lunch for all our hard workers tomorrow. Wow!

See y'all on the other side!

We did it!

We closed on our house Friday and picked up the keys from our real estate agent- we are the proud (and anxious) owners of two homes!

Friday night J and I picked up dinner-to-go and went over to check out the new abode- it's still great, and VERY dirty after probably a year of vacancy!

My dad, brother, and J all pitched in to make the house look a little more presentable today- they blew off the roof, mowed the lawn, sprayed moss killer, took down all the blinds for the window guys, and did general touch up work around the yard. Me, pansy that I am, I pulled a few dandelions, trimmed back the trees and bushes that hit us in the face when we walked by, vacuumed most of the upstairs, and made sure everyone was fed at the proper times. (I am alarmed to say that I THOROUGHLY enjoyed my double cheeseburger from McD's- I don't recall having one before, at least not in the last 10 years or so.) Oh, and I answered at least a thousand of Ernie's questions- my Dad can vouch for that. She was so excited by everything-

Mama! Bwrr bwrr!
Yes honey, it's a truck.

Mama! Bwrr bwrr...inneee!
Yes honey, you're sitting inside the truck.
*Grandpa rented a Chevy for two weeks to help haul stuff, and do other manly things like that.*

Mama! .... eh!
Yes honey, you have french fries

Mama! .......'ot.
No honey, they're not hot- they're fine.

Mama! .......braaaahr.
Yes honey, that's a really big french fry.

Mama! Bwrr bwrr!
Yes honey, it IS a truck.

Now say all that really fast- see how it only took a few seconds? So keep going through it ten or fifteen times- that will get you through a pretty good rendition of the first five minutes of lunch time! (Make you to take little micro-breaks to eat a chicken nugget, or a french fry. Or be ignored when Mama tries to talk to Grandpa.)

Here's a few pictures- I never got the camera out until the very end of the day. It was a busy day!


Here's Ernie, who is *mighty pleased* to be sitting at a booth, waiting for our pizzas.

Look what they had for the kids! This might be a new favorite restaurant for Ernie.

Here's the very tired work crew, slightly pepped by our pizza supper.

Week In Review

It's been a week since we got our new camera! I'm so excited- here's a smorgasborg of what's been going on around here.

Here, we see Ernie carefully choosing her "treat."


I mentioned before that Ernie loves to help- I got her set up with an Ernie-sized vacuum the other day, with proper ear protection!


These next three are Ernie and BBJ getting ready for a snack.


Here are the girls- they're fine together as long as there's two of everything! Good thing we have two chairs, eh?

Ten Reasons to Have Another Child

Ten ways you know you've been really lucky with your first child:

1) When she was a baby, she only cried when she was hungry. Honest!

2) Yesterday, she very carefully looked at me and asked for an apple. (Of course, this was after she'd exhausted every manner of asking for a treat.)

3) When it comes time for diaper change, I send her to get her stuff and she comes out with diaper mat, diaper, and wipes. Desitin, too, if she can find it. Then she lays the mat down, and gets herself situated. Of course, this is probably a really good indicator that she's ready for potty training, but she won't believe me. Yet. (We move in two weeks, to a house with hardwood floors and a big back yard. Naked time, here we come!)

4) Now that all her toys are packed (or put downstairs), her favorite game is to open the Children's Songbook to all her favorites and either play along, do all the silly actions, or dance around the living room.

5) Whenever she grabs my face, looks deep in my eyes, and wetly "smacks" and "mwahs" my cheeks, chin, nose, and forehead. Melts my heart every time!

6) During a "time to leave Aunt Lolo's House" meltdown this morning, I pulled her onto my lap and explained the rest of the day, ticking it off on my finger: 1) Nap 2) Play 3) Come back to Aunt Lolo's 4) Family Night 5) Go to bed. After ticking them off herself a few times, she hopped down, grabbed her shoes, gave out hugs, and walked me home so we could get started on our list!

7) She can put together the United States of America puzzle, and knows Texas, Nana's State, Daddy's state, Washington, and Oregon by sight.

8) After her shower this morning she went and got a shirt, pair of pants, pair of socks, and a hair ribbon. Has anyone seen "Matilda"? Yeah, she has too.

9) She helps me sweep, vacuum, and load the dishwasher and drainboard.

10) She slept through the night, eleven hours, from 8 weeks to 6 months (that's when she started teething and stopped sucking her thumb!)

So...what do we think the next one will be like?

Backtracking

We had an amazing weekend- for anyone who wasn't here, these are the highlights:

1) Saturday afternoon went on a date with J. Had AMAZING tofu soup and bi bim bop, followed by perfect fruit smoothies with tapioca pearls.
2) Drove back to my parents' house to pick up E, driving through multiple climate changes. Finally ended up on their hill, behind a car going TEN MILES PER HOUR up in the hill in the quickly piling snow. Occasionally they would wiggle their steering wheel back and forth to.. what? Get better traction?
3) Quickly threw Ernie in the car, and made one unsuccessful attempt to get out of their hilly street (with my mother's admonition to just spend the night ringing in my head.) Made another attempt and just barely made it up, in a cloud of tire smoke. We looked at each other and shook our heads, and made our way back down the hill to see if there was any room at their house for three more people.
4) Had a lovely, slow Sunday morning at my parents house. Their church is at nine, ours is at one. And I was released as Relief Society president last week, so no more early meetings. We made it back to our house in time for Ernie's nap, and I started the bread dough for Sunday's birthday dinner for my brother.
5) After church we made our way, food laden, back to my parents house (roads were completely clear by then). For his birthday, I made naan, chicken tikka masala, basmati rice, beef coconut curry, saag paneer (including making the paneer cheese the day before), and mango lassi. My other brother manned the blender for lassis, Dad made the rice, J and LoLo took care of grilling the naan, J and Dad watched over the tika masala, and Dad basically made sure I always had a clean cutting board. It was a very successful birthday meal- I've never seen my family SO full of food and still picking at the serving trays and leftover bits of mango and cheese! We had two cakes for dessert- one from my little sister, and one from a girl who just thinks the WORLD of our little birthday boy!

Happy Birthday, Bucket Boy!