Back from Seaside (and other updates...)

We just spent the weekend in Seaside, Oregon, for an Athletic Training conference. It was very rainy and wet, but it beat the snow that everyone up here on the Palouse was having! We did lots of driving and a fair amount of shopping, and it was fun to get away together for a little while. Since it was so rainy, most everything was pretty dismal, so there are no pictures to document the trip. Bella did fantastically in the car which was very nice. As long as we played the "backbone" song often enough, she was a happy camper (it's not actually a song about backbones, Bella just misheard the lyrics to a song and dubbed it "the backbone song").

This morning Bella woke up after sleeping for 13 hours straight and proceeded to dry heave her way through the kitchen and look rather puny for a few hours, so I have relegated her to the couch for the day. We're currently watching Cinderella and B is having a hard time staying put. She hasn't thrown up and seems to be her normal self again, but I'm not taking any chances. ;)

In other news, Andrew got voted on to the Moscow Ambulance Company last week, so I'm now married to an official EMT. He got his jacket, radio, and special license plate yesterday and is really loving this new position. And for those of you wondering, this is another volunteer position. So that makes for 40+ hours of 'normal'(read "paid") work a week, 4+ practices a week with the LaCrosse/Track teams (plus games and meets - his other volunteer job), plus his online anatomy and physiology course through UW which requires about 10-15 hours of work a week. We're adopting the motto that "You can sleep when you're dead". The great part is that we're having tons of fun with it all - Bella and I love having him at Track practice with us, Bella loves it when her daddy goes on the "ambliance" (and I think it's pretty cool too), they have a great time together when I go to meets, and Andrew is doing really well in his online A&P course. The days and weeks are flying by, but we're having a blast with it all!

Speaking of days and weeks flying by, you may have noticed that I'm down to less than nine weeks left in this pregnancy! Wow! Once we verify that Bella's old carseat is still working and get Eva's cradle finished and into our room we'll be all set. We have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow (they're every two weeks now), and I believe that I'm starting weekly non-stress tests next week, so we're really getting down to the wire! Top that off with the fact that I'll probably be induced a week or two early, and you realize that Eva could be here in 7 weeks! Time flies!

Lookin' Good!

So we just got back from our ultrasound and everything is looking great! Overall, Baby Eva is measuring about a week ahead of schedule, but her head is measuring a good 2+ weeks larger (about 32.5 wks rather than the 30 wks that she currently is). Ironically, this is exactly how Bella was as well - her body would measure right on but toward the end her head was measuring about two weeks ahead. The estimate is that she weighs about 3 1/2 lbs right now. Eva was giving the ultrasound technician a few gentle kicks and she asked if the kicks were always that strong, so I'm glad to have outside confirmation that this little girl is a very rambunctious baby! She's head down now with one foot down by her head and one up in my ribs which explains why I had a hard time figuring out exactly where she was! Kicking at both ends, oh my! Here's today's profile shot, and it looks like she has a rather oddly shaped (maybe just long?) nose, which we are already apologizing to her for.

Eva Update

Here we are at 27 weeks and 4 days. Baby Eva continues to grow and is beginning to run out of room in my belly and has been known to protest greatly at this new development. She's getting big enough that I can just about tell when it's a foot or an elbow poking out of my side. The 3rd trimester exhaustion has hit this week and I've been having an even harder time getting out of bed in the mornings (which is only going to get worse with daylight savings this weekend!). Other than that there's not a whole lot to report on the baby-growing side of things...we should be having another ultrasound around the end of the month to check up on a little kidney issue that they noticed at our 20 wk ultrasound. Eva had a little fluid around one of her kidneys but it was just barely over the "normal" range, so we're just checking to see if it's still there or not. It seems pretty minor, so I'm more excited to see more pictures of our little girl than I am worried about what might show up. All the same, we'd appreciate your prayers for a clean bill of health!

Oh, and a few people have noted that I seem to be quite a bit bigger this time around. Yes, it's true. So true, in fact, that I am currently of the same circumference that I was when Bella was born (39" at my belly button). I've still got a good 20 lbs to go though before I hit the same weight that I was when she was born, which is good since now is when I should really start to put on the pounds!

Little Darling

Like Mommy

We realized the other day that Bella's hair is now long enough to put back into a legitimate pony tail. So we slicked it back and here she is. It took us (Bella and I) about 2 minutes to both realize, "Wow, she looks just like her Mommy!". We both reacted differently to this realization though - Bella squealed with delight and said "I'm like Mommy!" and I kinda staggered backward and thought, "Whoah. When did she get so big?"

"Lotses Lotses and Lotses of it!"

Back when Scotty was little he used to put off going to sleep by lying in bed and saying "Let's talk about it! What we gonna do tomorrow?" to our parents. Tonight as we were putting Bella to bed she said to Andrew, "I want you to talk to me. Lotses lotses and lotses of it!". That is to say, she wanted Andrew to talk to her a lot, rather than saying goodnight and putting her to bed. Is this a universal thing with kids? I don't remember any stories of me doing it when I was little...

Dress Up

If you were to pop in to our house on a random week day, Bella would not be dressed. Well, not presentably. She usually starts by gradually shedding bits of her jammies and slowly replacing them with various dresses/skirts from her toy box, and then whatever else seems good at the time. And considering that most of you don't pop in to our house on random weekdays very often, I let her exercise her creative tendencies and look as ridiculous as she likes (hey, I'm the only one who usually sees it!). Here are two recent compilations.

Outfit One

In this picture, note the pacifier and cape and Bible (whoops, wait a minute, that's not her Bible, that's her "makeups" - I guess the Clinique green is very similar to the green color of her Bible and I got them mixed up!)


This picture hilights the bunny ears


And this one hilights the sparkly shoe (singular)



Outfit Two

This one is my favorite of the two. Here we have jammy shirt, inside out dress over it, contrasting colored tea towel cape, snow leopard print cap, sparkly shoes on the wrong feet, and a huge smile.