It's been four months since Abby last climbed the stairs, and in the intervening time she had decided that stairs were terrifying. Then a couple of weeks ago, she decided they might not be too bad, but only if Mom or Dad was holding her up while she climbed them. But this morning, with a little moral support from Elmo, she conquered those stairs!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Stimulating the Economy
We're doing our part to get the economy back on track - this afternoon we bought a minivan! It's a 2009 Volkswagen Routan SE in Antigua Blue. I think they threw some more acronyms at us, but that's about all I remember. I have mixed feelings. Part of me is pretty excited about buying a new car, and it's a pretty nice one. But at the same time, that's one more giant step towards being a soccer mom, and I always swore I'd never get a minivan. But that ship has sailed, so I guess I'll have to just focus on being excited about all that we're getting. Although I am sad to have traded in D'Artagnan. He was a good little car.
The van is definitely a lot swankier than D'Artagnan was, though. We were excited about the basics that come standard on just about everything anymore - power windows and locks, cruise control, LATCH system, that kind of thing. But we got so much more than that too. Adam's particularly excited about the auto-dimming rearview mirror. His old car had that, and he's missed it since we've started doing all of our traveling at night. Another cool feature, although I don't know how much we'll actually use it, is that the third row of seats rotates 180 degrees to face out the back for tailgating or a drive-in or something like that.
Here's the auto-dimming rearview mirror that's made Adam so happy:
We ended up getting a few things that we didn't necessarily want since they were in the one that the dealer had. So we now have the ability to play not one, but two DVDs (can't expect the kids in the 2nd and 3rd rows to watch the same thing), a hard drive to store our music so that we don't have to bring CDs in and out of the car, a touchscreen radio, satellite radio, a sunroof, a power lift rear gate, remote start, automatic doors (can't expect the kids to close a door), an engine block heater (useful if we ever move to Minnesota), all sorts of swanky things.
The next trick was to make sure that it fit in the garage. Surprisingly, it's a tighter fit lengthwise than heightwise, but we were able to get it in this evening, even with all of the other stuff we have stored in there from our myriad on-going house projects. I think Adam's a little worried about me running it into the wall, though. He mentioned hanging up a string or something where we should stop the front of the car to make it fit in there.
The van is definitely a lot swankier than D'Artagnan was, though. We were excited about the basics that come standard on just about everything anymore - power windows and locks, cruise control, LATCH system, that kind of thing. But we got so much more than that too. Adam's particularly excited about the auto-dimming rearview mirror. His old car had that, and he's missed it since we've started doing all of our traveling at night. Another cool feature, although I don't know how much we'll actually use it, is that the third row of seats rotates 180 degrees to face out the back for tailgating or a drive-in or something like that.
Here's the auto-dimming rearview mirror that's made Adam so happy:
We ended up getting a few things that we didn't necessarily want since they were in the one that the dealer had. So we now have the ability to play not one, but two DVDs (can't expect the kids in the 2nd and 3rd rows to watch the same thing), a hard drive to store our music so that we don't have to bring CDs in and out of the car, a touchscreen radio, satellite radio, a sunroof, a power lift rear gate, remote start, automatic doors (can't expect the kids to close a door), an engine block heater (useful if we ever move to Minnesota), all sorts of swanky things.
The next trick was to make sure that it fit in the garage. Surprisingly, it's a tighter fit lengthwise than heightwise, but we were able to get it in this evening, even with all of the other stuff we have stored in there from our myriad on-going house projects. I think Adam's a little worried about me running it into the wall, though. He mentioned hanging up a string or something where we should stop the front of the car to make it fit in there.
It's a . . .
surprise!
We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday, and our first chance to see Astronaut. The first thing we learned was that he's breech right now (but not a big deal because there's plenty of time for him to turn around). Unfortunately, breech is a bad position for gender determination, and we weren't able to tell whether we're having a boy or a girl. The ultrasound technician thought we'd come back in 3 weeks for another look, since he wasn't able to get all of the measurements and checks that they look for, but at the appointment following the sonogram the nurse told us that our doctor usually doesn't have people come back until 32 weeks. So it looks like it'll be the middle of November before we get a chance to find out whether he's a boy or a girl.
We also found out that the hospital has changed their policy, and they no longer let you get a video of the ultrasound like we had for Abby. That was a bit of a disappointment. We did get a few pictures though, so that was exciting. And everything is looking good so far. We were able to see all the important parts (heart, brain) and the fun parts (face, hands). And everything seems to be measuring at right around 20 weeks, which is where the original due date had us. I was hoping that they'd find out that we were actually due a week earlier and Astronaut would be here in time for Christmas, but it looks like we'll have more of a New Year's baby.
Here are the pictures we have from the ultrasound:
We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday, and our first chance to see Astronaut. The first thing we learned was that he's breech right now (but not a big deal because there's plenty of time for him to turn around). Unfortunately, breech is a bad position for gender determination, and we weren't able to tell whether we're having a boy or a girl. The ultrasound technician thought we'd come back in 3 weeks for another look, since he wasn't able to get all of the measurements and checks that they look for, but at the appointment following the sonogram the nurse told us that our doctor usually doesn't have people come back until 32 weeks. So it looks like it'll be the middle of November before we get a chance to find out whether he's a boy or a girl.
We also found out that the hospital has changed their policy, and they no longer let you get a video of the ultrasound like we had for Abby. That was a bit of a disappointment. We did get a few pictures though, so that was exciting. And everything is looking good so far. We were able to see all the important parts (heart, brain) and the fun parts (face, hands). And everything seems to be measuring at right around 20 weeks, which is where the original due date had us. I was hoping that they'd find out that we were actually due a week earlier and Astronaut would be here in time for Christmas, but it looks like we'll have more of a New Year's baby.
Here are the pictures we have from the ultrasound:
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
If It's Not One Thing, It's Another
We had a great time visiting with Adam's parents and grandparents and some of our old friends from high school this weekend. Our friend Ryan got married on Saturday (congrats Ryan and Christine!), so Friday night we headed up to Ligonier. Saturday morning, it turned out, quite a few of my friends from band were going to be in/near Warsaw, so we all met for brunch at Maria's House of Pancakes in Warsaw. It was a lot of fun to see people again, some of them for the first time since we graduated, and find out what everyone's been up to. And of course, it was a lot of fun to show off Abby! She did us proud, and looked very cute in the outfit my mom made her for her birthday. On a sidenote, we also learned that Mom needs to finish her projects herself. I was supposed to finish sewing in the straps on the top when I measured Abby to make sure that it fit right, and I think it'll hold, but it doesn't look anywhere near as nice as Mom could make it look.
The wedding was a lot of fun, too, especially seeing old friends again. My best friend from high school, Debi, has a three month old daughter who made an appearance at the reception. She's so adorable, and so tiny! It's funny, I know that Abby has grown a lot in the last year, but I tend to forget just how tiny she really was until I see a little baby again. Astronaut is going to seem so small! While we were at the wedding, Abby was busy entertaining Adam's parents and his aunt and uncle who stopped by for the evening. We're told she did a great job, playing and dancing with everyone!
Sunday Adam's grandparents came for the afternoon, and we celebrated his grandma's birthday. Abby was pretty shy around them at first, but when Grandma started giving her grapes, she suddenly got a lot more friendly.
One of Abby's favorite things this weekend was a digital organ Adam's parents have that has a few different songs programmed into it. She danced and danced and danced, all weekend long! All her stuffed animals got to dance with her too, since they like to do whatever she likes to do.
These days we travel at night so that Abby will sleep on the car ride, so it was pretty late when we got home on Sunday night. By the time we got the car unloaded, our little ones put to bed/condo, and got to bed ourselves it was a little past midnight. Around 4 o'clock, I woke up when Adam jumped out of bed, grabbed his glasses, and turned on the light. Then I saw what had made him get up - a bat flying around our room! I wasn't awake enough to think super clearly, which is good because I didn't scream (which seems to be surprising to everyone) and wake up Abby, I just ran out of the room, hoping that it wouldn't land in my hair on my way out. So we ended up spending one more night on the air mattress in the east room, and in the morning Adam went up there and killed the bat with a broom and a sledgehammer. I was a little nervous about going to bed last night, but it was incident free, so hopefully that was just a one-time occurrence!
The wedding was a lot of fun, too, especially seeing old friends again. My best friend from high school, Debi, has a three month old daughter who made an appearance at the reception. She's so adorable, and so tiny! It's funny, I know that Abby has grown a lot in the last year, but I tend to forget just how tiny she really was until I see a little baby again. Astronaut is going to seem so small! While we were at the wedding, Abby was busy entertaining Adam's parents and his aunt and uncle who stopped by for the evening. We're told she did a great job, playing and dancing with everyone!
Sunday Adam's grandparents came for the afternoon, and we celebrated his grandma's birthday. Abby was pretty shy around them at first, but when Grandma started giving her grapes, she suddenly got a lot more friendly.
One of Abby's favorite things this weekend was a digital organ Adam's parents have that has a few different songs programmed into it. She danced and danced and danced, all weekend long! All her stuffed animals got to dance with her too, since they like to do whatever she likes to do.
These days we travel at night so that Abby will sleep on the car ride, so it was pretty late when we got home on Sunday night. By the time we got the car unloaded, our little ones put to bed/condo, and got to bed ourselves it was a little past midnight. Around 4 o'clock, I woke up when Adam jumped out of bed, grabbed his glasses, and turned on the light. Then I saw what had made him get up - a bat flying around our room! I wasn't awake enough to think super clearly, which is good because I didn't scream (which seems to be surprising to everyone) and wake up Abby, I just ran out of the room, hoping that it wouldn't land in my hair on my way out. So we ended up spending one more night on the air mattress in the east room, and in the morning Adam went up there and killed the bat with a broom and a sledgehammer. I was a little nervous about going to bed last night, but it was incident free, so hopefully that was just a one-time occurrence!
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