on our way home finally!

a picture is worth a thousand words.... Katie's first day!

Katherine Elizabeth!

Katherine Elizabeth arrived on Monday March 3rd at 8:57pm. She weighed 6 lbs 14oz and is 19 1/4 inches long. We're all doing well and are home! I will get some more info and some photos posted soon, but for now, Craig and I are too busy admiring our beautiful Katie! (and trying to sleep!)

Oh... and if you ever want to be laughed at

try and call the airline and get them to add your "lap child" to a plane ticket. Before the kid is born.

Me: I'd like to add a lap child to my reservation
Agent Lady: Ok Ma'am, what is the child's last name?
Me: M***
AL: And the first name?
Me: Ummmm..... ummm... Baby?
AL: Your child is named Baby? Is it a boy or a girl?
Me: Well, its not here yet so I don't know, I'm due in 3 weeks-- but my ILs made the reservation and told me to take care of this ASAP
AL: :::Stifles a giggle::: OK Ma'am, you can take care of this later-- Good luck and congratulations.
Me: Thanks ::: hangs up mortified:::


Ah yes, I did this in my lab-- they will never let me live this phone call down.

Can someone tell the Tadpole it's time to come out now?

As I will attempt to show here, we are ready for the kiddo--- ok, as ready as we can naively be having never done this before. But still. The nursery is done. I got the house all cleaned and such. The guest room even has sheets and towels for my Mom. I even cleaned out the coat closet. Seriously, this is as clean as this house has ever been. Craig asked if this was finally "nesting" I nearly smacked him amidst the coat closet cleaning. Yes, me cleaning like this had better well be nesting cause the only other possible explanation is that I have been sniffing glue or something.

Here are some pictures of the completed nursery.

First up, the spiffy rocker and ottoman my Grammam got for us. (with random dragonflies on the wall and some curtains that I finally got washed and pressed (ok... not pressed, I don't iron, but I did toss them in the dryer and hang them promptly, so they are pretty well wrinkle free)) The toy box is from when I was little-- Dad got it all put back together and sturdier than ever, so in it went!

Here's the changing table thing and some more scenery on the wall . The plan is to put the Tadpole's name on the wall in the middle--- well, as soon as we figure out what the name will be! All the diaper supplies and onesies and sleep gown thingies are in the big baskets on the bottom too. So they are all put away. (well, the 0-3 month sizes that we got from the shower and the MOUNDS of clothing Shannon passed down to us-- the things that weren't very very girly or boy-ie. That stuff is all sorted into bins to be brought out as soon as we know if its a girl or a boy!)

Up next, the crib-- all assembled and with sheets and all that kinda good stuff. (and some more views of wall painting) Still undecided on the bumpers in or out thing. I have them in for now, and depending on my level of paranoia they will stay or go.

Last up in the nursery pictures-- the stocked closet-- see, the kiddo has TONS of clothes, and this is only the not pink/fireman stuff.... so there is EVEN MORE to add. And this is only the 0-3 month stuff... the Tadpole may never have to wear the same outfit twice! You can also see the second shelf Craig added for me and the second closet bar for more storage. The bins have toys, and socks and shoes in them. If you look just above the door, there is a little white circle thing on the wall... that's the baby monitor. It takes video (even in the dark!) and broadcasts it to the receiver thing so we can see the kiddo without having to go in... that should help with my paranoia and it met Craig's requirement for "cool gadgets".

Craig got the play pen and swing assembled this weekend and he is finally over his flu/strep/whatever-- so any time now that the Tadpole would like to show up would be dandy... in fact, the sooner the better. Today marks 39 weeks.... so its due, pretty well, NOW! Oh, and I got the carseat installed, so the kiddo has a way to get home safe and sound from the hospital too.

The playpen/bassinet/diaper changing station is downstairs in the living room (Yay for a super cheap clearance at target!!!), and the swing is pretty spiffy because it works on either batteries OR you can plug it in. So, no worries about the batteries dying in the middle of a nap or anything. (Plus, it has frogs on it, it was toooooooo cute to turn down)

So see, we're all ready for the Tadpole to get here, so if you could all just let them know-- telepathic waves, smoke signals, whatever you think will get the message through, please try! We want to meet our kiddo and show them off already!

I've already tried threats of grounding, bribes of not grounding, explaining how Murph really wants to lick the baby, explaining that they have TONS of toys and clothes and a neat-0 room waiting for them, bribes of shopping (claud's suggestion, in case its a girl), poking the kiddo, and explaining just how many people out here are excited to meet them... but so far to no avail. Ugh... still pregnant, oh well, at least we're all healthy and this is the big worry for us-- things really are very good.

Still Pregnant..

I'm still here, everythings good. Still pregnant. 38 weeks and 1 day today. ugh.


I owe everyone pictures from the shower and of the nursery now that its all put together, but my motivation has been seriously lacking. I am chugging through work right now to make sure I leave everything organized and planned for while I am away and by the time I get home I just want to sleep. Of course, that's not really happening either these days-- so I am entering walking zombie mode.

Oh well, things are good overall. Tadpole is growing and kicking and all those things it should be doing. And that's what matters!

As of 2 fridays ago, I was told by the doc to "not expect a 9 lb baby" (haha... oh darn, I thought that 9+lbs of baby coming out of 5 foot tall me would be a good thing.... and yeah, I was expecting to give birth to Shaq so now I am kinda dissapointed--- not sure why they all feel it necessary to warn me on that one) but that he was pretty sure I would "go early" and that if I did make it all the way to 40 weeks the Tadpole "might" be 7lbs max. (I wish I could have gotten that early guarantee in writing, or that someone could explain to the Tadpole that they should come early... either way!)

At last Friday's appointment, the nurse-midwife again warned me that we're getting a "small baby"-- by which she meant 6ish lbs. And then dashed all my hopes by explaining that the 24 hours of 6-8 minutes contractions I'd been having, well... they had accomplished much of nothing. I was 50% effaced, "fingertip" dilated and the kiddo is at a -2. So, not too much considering they'd kept me up all night. She also commented that I was going to be "skinny" when the kiddo got here-- I guess based on my only having gained ~8lbs since the beginning-- but the thought of referring to me as "skinny" is pretty darn funny.

It turned out alright that up through then no real progress because Craig managed to catch a nasty bug that laid him out most of last week and into this week. Thankfully, I managed to avoid it so far and I am keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way.

The whole contractions thing is getting to driving me bonkers... its been pretty much non-stop every 10-15 minutes since last Thursday and while they are not awful, they are distractingly uncomfortable and occasionally worse. So for now I am hoping that one more week of them will have accomplished something by the time I have my appointment on Friday. Or that the Tadpole will be here by then... that would be just dandy too.

Until Friday (or Tadpole's birthday) I am just hoping to wrap up some loose ends at work and praying that I'll get a reasonable nights sleep undisturbed by contractions before the kiddo gets here.

Stay tuned for baby news.... I'll keep you all posted.

oops!

Craig tells me I posted the "behind the scenes" instead of the ACTUAL music video. So just to make sure everyone is able to fully appreciate how cool it is. Here is the full song!





And the lyrics!

The PCR Song by Scientists for Better PCR

There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.
(Oooh) Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis,
Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.

Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers,
Nucleotides and polymerases too.
Denaturing, annealing, and extending,
Well it’s amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.

[Chorus]
PCR when you need to detect mutation (detect mutation)
PCR when you need to recombine (recombine)
PCR when you need to find out who the daddy is (who’s your daddy?)
PCR when you need to solve a crime (solve a crime)
[x2]

What did I do today? I did PCR!!!

50 days left...

According to my ticker thingy... 50 days left. wowo.... time flies!

Nursery Progress!

We found out about a neat little store about 15 minutes away that does all sorts of baby furniture and headed out there on Tuesday night-- we found the crib we'd been looking for and a changing table that would fit up the stairs! And, they were both on sale! Bonus!

Saturday at the crack of dawn, the delivery showed up (did I mention delivery was free... double bonus!) OH! And the lady at the store gave us a better price than what was posted on the items -- WOOHOO... did we luck out!!!

So Craig and the delivery guy hauled the crib box and the changing table upstairs and into the nursery. Then began the exciting day for the AMEX.... it had a heck of a workout yesterday. On top of the furniture, we needed a mattress for the crib (BabiesRus employees are useless by the way in helping to choose a mattress-- "umm... they have different numbers of coils" -- No crap lady, we are literate and thats on the sign, but can you tell us WHY they have different numbers and what that means and what some of the other features are that makes one mattress $60 and others $200?!?!?) So finally we picked a mattress (3 people walking through with their kiddos said they had that one and had liked it-- considered that reccomendation enough and went with it). After the mattress, we hit Michaels for some craft paint and baskets, then a carpet store where we lucked into a remnant of really nice plush carpet to plop down in the kiddos rooms, and then to Lowe's for some light-blocking/thermal curtains to cut down on drafts from the ancient windows in the house and some curtain rods to get all that hung-- and some wood and a closet bar to put in the closet in the Nursery. So it was quite the shopping day.

We got home and got to work on getting Tadpole's room all cleaned out and Craig's tools back to the garage and such. But we did have to hold on to a couple of the tools to assemble the crib. The store would have assembled it onsite for us for $15.... but it was WAY more fun for me to have Craig do it! So here are some pictures of the assembly process. All told it took us about an hour and half-- but that was with breaks to get the cat out of the way and to convince Murphy that laying on all those little screws was not helpful.

Starting out ripping open the box... Hope all those little pieces are in there!

Jesse in charge of Tiki guarding

Tiki insisting on inspecting ALL the instructions prior to assembly... that's the only reason Craig's looking at them... he swears, it was the cats fault.Some call them baby jails. here the nearly assembled crib is a husband jail. TADA! All finshed, no blood shed, few curses uttered and a sturdy new place for the kiddo to sleep!

And a picture of the changing table thing-- Craig spotted these baskets, which are just the right color and fit in there perfectly! Hooray for a little bit of storage in there!

Sunday morning, Craig got the second rod in the closet and all the curtains were finished too!

So once construction was done, it was on to decorating! Kim and Leah came over to help me paint some frogs and dragonflies on the wall. This design is copied off the bedding I got (yes, FOREVER ago) and then we used an overhead to project it on the wall. I have NO drawing skills, even tracing pushes my artistic limits... but I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

Over the crib, a whole frog pond scene.

Above the changing table, a few scattered dragonflies...And on the other large wall, some water plants and dragonflies.

Not too bad for an afternoon's work! (and you can see the curtains here -- yes, I need to iron them yet!)

A couple of random pictures and such.

Here are a couple of the pictures I took over Christmas with our brand new spiffy digital camera! (thanks mom, dad and grammam!!!!-- yes, I know we now owe you guys bazillions of photos of the Tadpole. )

First up, Mom and her new Steelers jersey.

And Grammam got some fuzzy froggie slippers!

Craig and I went to the PA farm show on Wednesday and ate... and ate.... and ate... fried mushrooms, fried cheese on a stick and some very rich milkshakes. I was too stuffed to make it to the potato donuts (they are DELICIOUS-- but the kiddo said no more food that night for me-- Craig is still crying over not getting any)

Then we wandered around, saw a variety of animals-- Craig got to see his much loved alpacas-- and got invited to go walk the alpacas at a nearby farm anytime he wanted. But we are still NOT getting a pet alpaca for the backyard. Just one more picture from the farm show this year-- the DEVIL bunny. Seriously, these things just look evil.

exciting news and prayer requests

John and Christina have finally been able to set a wedding date! So they are now just weeks away from actually getting married and having to deal with the joy of combining two people worth of crap into one home.... I wish them luck (and have offered any extra crap from our house they might want-- think I have ANY chance convincing them to take some? We'll even haul it down to Florida for them if we have to!)

Sadly, the Tadpole's semi-imminent arrival means that we won't be able to join them for the big day-- but we wish them all the best and expect a ton of pictures and some cake to be sent to us. (definitely send me cake!) If we have to miss it while I am house-bound, I think I definitely deserve pastry of some form-- and I am thinking I will not be up to any spectacular feats of baking in those few weeks anyway.

Anyway, send your best wishes to them and say a prayer for Christina's continuing improvement in health and that her ordered dress gets here in time for their big day! (I don't trust David's bridal... but it is a pretty dress!)

I don't expect we'll get to see them before the wedding and their settling into Florida, but we are planning to get down to Florida at the end of April for a wedding in Craig's family-- so everyone should get to meet the Tadpole then.

If you've got a few extra moments in your prayers tonight, add one for my SIL and her husband who are waiting for the final permission to go get their little girl in Vietnam and bring her home where she belongs. They've been patient so far, but its been months and she is over there without her family!

One quick update

Ultrasound this morning, placenta previa is GONE! yay! Tadpole is growing and is currently 3.5 lbs +/- .5 lbs! 8ish more weeks to go!

Updates and such.

Ok... so on to week #29!

Woohoo... in the past 3 weeks we

hosted our annual massive Cookies and Cocoa party (20 kinds of cookies this year! --- and yes, some are in the mail to the lucky folks!)

-Craig found out his job is ending at the end of the month... yikes! (S-- please don't tell your parents, we don't need more worrying) Since then, he's gotten 2 job offers and has had 4 more interviews-- so it will be fine-- but not a happy thing to hear 2 weeks before Christmas.

I "spectacularly flunked" my gestational diabetes screen (the docs words) and then a week later my results on the longer glucose tolerance test were completely normal... so go figure, but it definitely did have me very stressed out for a while there. Probably compounded by the fact that the naughty cat snuck out one night while Craig was walking the dog and was gone-- outside, in the cold and the wet overnight-- I found that out the same morning I found out I flunked and might have to give up potatoes and cookies... not a good thing to hear! Luckily, Tiki cam back after just over 24 hours outside, a little muddy but seemingly none the worse for the adventure, and we are now VERY VERY VERY careful that she does not get out the door. And thankfully, she had been fixed just 3 weeks before, so no worries about suprise litters of kittens this spring!

So end result, cat is home and safe, I am NOT diabetic... (thank GOD)-- I still have an ultrasound on Jan 2nd to check this whole low-lying placenta thing-- and I am on decent insurance starting the 1st-- Craig should start his new job (still here at the Med Center) ---so all of that will make it a less stressful new year.

Tadpole seems to be doing well... I am measuring right on schedule and finally managed to gain a whole 2 pounds! Hopefully I can keep doing well with the weight thing and come out skinnier at the flipside... (yeah, right!) I get my guts kicked out like crazy-- I think Tadpole must like TaeBo, and I have finally settled into "looking pregnant" instead of just chubby which makes me a happy camper. Now if only they made petite maternity pants so I could stop tripping over these freakishly long pants!

I will try and get some pics up of Christmas decorations and events before we head home for the holidays... so stay tuned!

To Ligonier to retrieve the animals

Murph and Tiki spent Thanksgiving at my parents-- and on the trip to retrieve them, we got to visit with my brother and his fiancee-- I only got one picture, but here it is!

Ok.. and a few gratuitous shots of the dog being well... the dog. He is utterly convinced that it is his duty to carry around HUGE branches... and then try and bring them in the house. Silly pup.

He is completely confused as to why he can't get inside, but nothing will convince him to just put DOWN the stick.

Presentation of Log the Third!

Murphy's favorite Christmas tradition took place this weekend with the "presentation of the log". For the past 3 years, the 6ish inches of trunk we trim off the bottom of the Christmas tree in order to fit it in the house has gone to the dog, and he couldn't be happier. He carries his LOG around all year slowly chewing all the bark off. And new LOG is the best because it has lots of bark and is all sticky and sappy and delicious. So, on Saturday, Craig and I got our tree (Craig said the really fat one I wanted was just toooooo big) and presented the Murph with his new toy. I think this goes in the same category of kids liking the boxes things come in almost as much as the toy-- because he goes NUTS for this thing. So here it is, the presentation of Log the Third!






mmmmmmm.....pine sap and bark (see, one VERY happy dog)

"What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs, rolls over your neighbors dog, its great for a snack, it fits on your back, its log log LOG. Its log, log, its big, its heavy, its wood. Its log, log, better than bad its good!"

Progress on the Nursery!

Well, seeing as how this baby is more than halfway cooked, it seemed like time to get cracking on the nursery. Craig and our borrowed middle school kid (child labor is GREAT!) scrubbed all the paste from the ancient wall paper off the walls and got them cleaned and ready-- and then Craig's Dad came in to get the next step underway. Craig and Roy spent the week before thanksgiving sanding off ancient (probably lead based) very very chipped paint, patching walls and then painting everything with a good coat of primer followed by some paint. I had the very stressful job of choosing the paint colors--- yup, it was rough!

I think it turned out wonderfully, and the colors go just right with the bedding I got for a fantastic deal on eBay! I think that Craig is still going to hang a white crown moulding around the ceiling, but if not-- I think it looks pretty amazing right now! Other than that the room needs one more coat of blue on those parts, and then I am going to put some frogs on the wall (basically copying the design off the crib bedding onto one of the walls-- maybe with a few dragonflies here or there.) and then its just furniture and curtains and we are set!

I know the color looks like fluorescent lime in these pictures, but it is really not-- the color is sort of aloe-y and is called "lettuce alone" The bedding I chose is the Sammy the Frog set... you can see it here

Thanksgiving!

Our first Thanksgiving at home... other than a minor self-cooling turkey disaster (seriously... a 15.5lb turkey, fully thawed cooked for 7.5 hours at 350 and STILL was not done... who'd have thought that would happen?!?!) I'd have to say it was a success. I made a turkey (ok, I don't eat it, but I am told it was pretty good-- and Pappy actually asked for seconds which is pretty well unheard of, so it must have been darn good!), Stuffing with Sausage, Mashed potatoes with scallions, Candied Sweet potatoes with pecans, corn, peas, the infamous green bean casserole, rolls (ok, so pillsbury was responsible for those.... but crescents are SOOOOO good), opened the can o' cranberry jelly, and made apple galette with homemade caramel for dessert. (Fantastic stuff by the way!-- got the recipe from epicurious.com)


Craig's dad made these boiled dry peas ("Dad's peas" I am told) that only he eats--- so I will take no responsibility for that-- and Craig promises me that this is something that he has no sentimental attachment too-- just his dad. I suggested that if he wanted to keep that particular tradition going without torturing tastebuds, we could just donate some dried peas every year in honor of them... he thought that would be just dandy.


It was nice to spend the holiday at home, and it was great that Jane and Roy and my Pappy were able to join us (and take leftovers HOME with them!)



Craig with his Mom and Dad





Craig and Me. Not the most flattering photo of me-- but I'd been cooking since 8am-- and I was tired and HUNGRY.

One year ago (ok... so almost 13 months ago.... )

One year ago on November 4th, I was lucky enough to marry my wonderful husband Craig. Its been one terrific year and I am looking forward to all the years to come that we have to share. Happy Anniversary hon!

To celebrate, we headed off to DC-- where due to some fantastic connections through my SIL and her husband we got to stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner. Woohoo! It was wonderful to feel spoiled for a day. We drove down to DC, wandered the attached mall, lazed around (and enjoyed having cable for a few hours!) and then went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Mainly selected because they have guacamole made to order fresh... and well, my husband is a guacamole fan (I'd never had it before we met actually...) and had basically subsisted on the stuff while we were on our honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta last year. (ok, so it was guacamole, girly drinks, and amazing fine dining at night) I had cheesecake-- white chocolate raspberry truffle cheescake. YUM. (Cheesecake is healthy for pregnant gals right?!?! lots of calcium!-- just allow me my delusions)





After dinner we headed back to the hotel and were greeted with a suprise platter of cheeses and sparkling apple cider from SIL and her husband. It was a great treat and I felt utterly spoiled by the whole day. Of course... I was asleep by 9pm.... gotta love the pregnant thing. But Craig had cable, so he was pretty content-- and it was nice just to not have to worry about getting up or fixing the house or anything the next day... so a nice lazy sleep in was definitely called for!






The next day we headed into DC and got a FREE parking space RIGHT IN FRONT of the Natural History Museum. We spent the afternoon browsing the fossils and animals and minerals and generally had ourselves a wonderful geeky time that was just right for us.

All in all a great weekend to cap off a wonderful first year.

Halloween and Trick or Treat

We had a boatload of little monsters come by for Trick or Treat-- which for some demented reason, our county did a WEEK before Halloween--- but anyway--- we were MOBBED with kids-- went through over 300 pieces of candy at 1 to a kid! People come to our street from neighboring counties to get more candy (lots of participating houses, all close together)

Plus Craig did this outstanding pumpkin of a Murphy head.

Kim, Ange, and Matt came over to help dole out candy and we snacked the evening away and giggled at cute costumes.

Alex came over and helped hand out candy til it was dark enough for him to trick or treat and then he took Craig and Kim trick or treating. He was pretty funny all covered in black on the porch-- the cauldron of candy at his feet--- he would sit very still for the little ones, but older kids... he'd scare the crap out of them. MANY were surprised that it was a real person in there when he tapped their candy grubbing hands with that sword.

The cutest kid of the night was 2-3ish... he was dressed as a lion-- he crawled on all 4 up the stairs to the porch and roared. He earned extra candy. Later in the evening, his Mom came by and asked if Craig was a Mad Scientist (he was) because her son had asked-- turned out he was a pediatric cancer patient and wondered if the folks who mix up his chemo are funny looking like Craig!! So, I said an extra prayer for that kiddo and was amazed that he could be so sick and still be a "normal" kid.

On a lighter note--- Murphy and Tiki took part in Halloween this year--- Tiki somewhat unwillingly, but she is a cat, so what can you expect!?

Murph's ready for his letter from Hogwarts! (and flying lessons)Tiki, well.... she thinks she's supposed to be making up the potions, not be an ingredient! But meanwhile she will exercise her mind control skills on you--- so watch out!