17 Weeks and a day

Yesterday was the 17 week mark and everything is going great.  For the most part Karie is feeling pretty good.  However, she has had a couple more bouts of morning sickness which is a little odd.  With Samantha she had issues with getting light headed if she stood up too fast but once she got out of the first trimester the sickness was gone.  It seems to happen when we don't eat real well so I think it's just Karie's body telling her to eat better. 

The number of pillows in the bed seems to be multiplying every week and room is getting limited.  Before long I think the pillows are going to rebel and kick me out of the bed.

Karie and I have been thinking about what we wanted to do on the walls with the flowers.  In Samantha's room we put little lady bugs on the wall below her butterflies and also made a couple ladybug book shelves.  So we thought about putting up little bumblebees below the flowers.  So I printed out some mockups and put them on the wall and they look pretty good.  So once I am done cutting out, sanding, and priming the flowers, I will get started on bumblebees.

So far I have been able to cut out 15 of the flowers.  It doesn't take as long as I though it would to cut out each flower.  Once I get them cut out, I then have to make all the plugs for the middle and that may take a little more time.  But in the end it will be worth it.

Samantha

Samantha doesn't have a clue what is about to happen to her world early next year.  Samantha will never remember a time when she didn't have a little sister.  She is just too young to remember any time when it was just here in the house.  In her mind, the new babies room is just another room for her to play in.  It really upset her while I was painting that she was not allowed in there to help me.  She saw me doing some really cool stuff and wanted to join in so badly. 

I would have let her help but I just didn't have the energy to watch her that closely and I am sure I would be the one having to clean all the paint out of her hair.  And from what I have read lately the acetone in the latex paints are not suppose to good for pregnant women or babies.  So I tried to keep them out of the fumes as much as possible.

Well back to the original point.  Karie and I have had some discussions and we are curious how much regression we will see in Samantha when Rebecca comes along.  I am assuming we will see some around the bottles and the pacifiers.  Samantha never really took to the pacifiers but I am sure that one Rebecca has them Samantha will decided that she must have them also.  It's going to be a fun ride. 

While we were putting the new crib together, which is identical to Samantha's, she kept trying to climb into it.  I told her that is was a bed and that she didn't want to be in there.  But she didn't listen to her daddy.  Once I put her in the new crib is immediatley realized what is was and decided that she did NOT want to go "Nigh Nigh".

Karie got a good laugh out of this one.  We feel bad sometimes about how much we laugh at Samantha but we can't help it, little ones are pretty damn funny! 

Long but productive!

Wow, this weekend has been a very long but productive weekend.  Since we found out Thursday that baby two is a girl,  that removed all road blocks for work on the babies' room.  So after work on Friday, I got to work. 

The first thing to go up was the new ceiling fan because that room can get quite warm with the sun coming in those windows.  After that I painted the accent wall and taped up most of the room so I could paint it first thing Saturday morning.  I was a little concerned about the dark purple accent wall.  It was difficult to visualize how it was going to look with the rest of the room still chocolate brown.

Then I had to get up early on Saturday to get some builds done for work.  After I got my work done I was able to finish taping and paint the rest of the room.  It didn't take long before the room really started to lighten up with that light purple on the walls.  It took some time to get all the edges and around the windows done.  But I think it looks great.

Later that afternoon, I got the crib and the dresser together and in the room.  Then your mom and I got some accessories  after dinner and put the bedding on.

Sunday morning we attented the baptism of the twins and went over to Kevin and Wendy's for lunch.

After that I came home and started to work on cutting out the flowers that the family will paint up for Rebecca's room.

And to finish off, I finaly finished Emily's cross.

I am wore out, which means, it was a good, good, weekend!

Another little girl

16 Weeks

Several people have asked if I am disappointed that #2 is not a little boy and I have told them "no".  However, I don't think they really believe me.  To be honest, I don't really care if I have a whole load of girls.  When I think of my family, I just think of a bunch of little kiddos running around.  There isn't a specific girl, boy, girl, boy, etc pattern to it.  I am just happy that we have another one on the way and that everything is going great!

Changes

This weekend after a hike that Karie, Samantha, and I did out at Erwin park, Karie noticed that Samantha exceeded the maximum height for the car seat in the Xterra. The maximum height for the seat is 30 inches and Samantha is now 31.5 inches tall.  So after some research we determined the brand of booster seat and with some creative couponing we headed over to BuyBuy Baby in Frisco with two 20% off coupons. Since it was late on Sunday when we go home I didn't  get them  installed until today.  After they were installed, we went out to dinner.  Samantha looked around and jabbered the entire time.  She really enjoys facing forward and being able to see everything.

It has been a tough day.  Karie and I decided we needed to change the OB/GYN that she was seeing.  All of the doctor visits this time around start with a nice long wait.  Today Karie waited 90 minutes for 4 minutes of doctor time.   It's very frustrating because we are not having the same experience that we had when Karie was pregnant with Samantha.  Dr. Bailey stopping doing sonograms so we have to schedule those seperately and Dr. Bailey isn't in the office at the same times.  This has been building for a while, actually ever since the "miscommunication" over the hi-def sonogram, that wasn't really a hi-def sonogram.

Anyway, we go to meet with the new doctor on Thursday.  Hopefully we will like her since several people recommended her.  Since we are doing a sonogram, maybe they will be able to determine the gender of baby number two!

Lego time

Well it is Lego season again and our team meetings are in full swing. The game board and the challenges have been released. Along with some changes to the scoring changes for the qualifiers. Last year they had teams focus on a single aspect of the competition so the changes were made to discourage that. A team must be well rounded and in the top 40% of the robot game to make it to the finals

The boys were a little discouraged by this news at first but once we got to business they did really well. There was a ton brainstorming about the challenges this year. A couple of attachments were even build in the meeting.
I think team work is still going to be a challenge this year. The boys have a hard time trying to merge ideas even when some of them are really similar.

The two oldest boys have a tendency to pair up and do their own thing which can be good and bad. Good because when they are focuses they get a lot done. Bad because they can exclude everyone and don't listen to their fellow team mates.

I have high hopes that the team will perform better than 1st year even if they don't make it past the qualifier.

The tasks are very different this year. Time seems to be the biggest issue with a lot of the tasks. There are loads of small pieces that have to be moved around the game board. It will be interesting to see how other teams perform the tasks.

Losing Weight...

The last year has not been kind to me in the weight department.  I have put on about 40 pounds and I am not happy about it.  Up to this point, I have started and restarted and restarted my workout programs but haven't been able to get any traction.

One of my biggest problems is that Kevin isn't able to get out on his road or mountain bike due to time and health issues.  It's not that I can't ride without him it's just not as fun.  My older brother and I even commented that there seems to be less daredevil stuff and laughing on our rides without Kevin.  He was the comic relief a lot of the time.  I used to look forward to my Saturday mornings because that was our day we always got together pack the mountain bikes into my truck and head out on our Saturday adventure.  Sometimes it was only 30 minutes away and sometimes it was 2-3 hours away.  It was my time to be with my brothers and to relax.  To laugh at the stupid shit we will do when all of us are together.  Trust me, there has been a lot of stupid shit over there years.  Most of it ending with the phrase "Dooooooooood, are you alright!?!?!?!"

Time has been another factor.  I don't like eating into my family time with workouts because I like spending time with my family.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been able to start to get into a routine that allows me to get some workouts in without impact my family time too much.  David and I have started doing our Saturday rides again and it feels good to get out and hopefully Kevin will be back with us soon, asking us to sip from his power teet and mooning us from his bike.

Along with some strength training and some other cardio mixed in I should be able to start getting back into shape.

I am trying to get 30 lbs dropped by the end of the year and another 20 pounds before the second baby comes along.  Which will be another challenge for the workouts.

I just take it one day at a time...

Hiking at Johnson Branch

Every since we got back from Yosemite, Karie and I have been discussing our baby backpack.  We ran into some issues with the current backpack that we use.  While at Yosemite, Samantha fell asleep in the backpack and would lay straight back with her arms out.  This did not look comfortable for her and it made Karie and myself very nervous.  So over the last month, I have been doing research.  I found the Kelty backpack that we liked in stock at a local REI so we went to check it out.  I am sure the people in REI thought I was crazy as I walked around the store with Samantha in the backpack.  I wanted to make sure that she and I liked it before the purchase.  I tired on a couple of others but the Kelty had most of the features that I wanted.  My only disappointment is that there is not location for a hydration pouch, but I still may be able to rig something up.

Since we had the new pack, we decided to go out for a hike this last weekend.  Karie and I used to hike a lot before Samantha came along.  Since Karie is pregnant with #2 the hike pace was pretty slow but it didn't bother me because I had 30lbs. on my back.  Samantha did great in the pack.  We hiked for over 2 hours and Samantha didn't complain at all.  I tied her sippy cup to the pack with a shoe lace to prevent be from having to pick it up all the time. 

Over the hike, we would hand Samantha stuff off the trail.  The first thing we gave her was a long piece of grass that she thankfully dropped after a while.  She thought it was funny to put the grass in Daddy's face during the hike.  She also was given a dried up bean from one of the trees that she poked Daddy's neck and crumbled down his shirt.  But the mild annoyance was worth it because these things kept her entertained. 

After the hike we sat down at a covered table and had our lunch.  Samantha used the cooler as a table and ran around between bites to eat.  She seemed to be really enjoying herself.  She just loves being outside.

Once we had eaten, we drove over to the beach area and played for a while.  Since Samantha hasn't shown much interest in playing in the water before we didn't bring a swim suit.  I guess we should have because once Samantha got into the water, she didn't want to get out.  It was a lot of fun.  It was nice because we pretty much had the beach to ourselves and we didn't have to worry about Samantha getting trampled by bigger kids.  After about an hour in the water Samantha was starting to wind down and it was time to head home.

Samantha and mommy both crashed on the way home.  It had been a long good day.