Natalie is Here!

Well, she finally, FINALLY came! After a few obnoxious hours of contractions, the doctor decided that Natalie was just not in the mood to be part of the birthing process anymore, and we got to do an emergency c-section. It was quite the adventure. We went in at 12:54, and at 12:56, she was born! She is 6 lbs, 11 oz, and 20 inches long. And she has HAIR. At least for now.

Four More Days!

At the beginning of the school year, I measure the kids with a piece of string and we keep it until the end of the year to see how much they've grown. This year, I measured my waist, and in three months I've expanded as many inches as 6-year-olds grow in a school year. Woo wee.

One More Week

Hooray! Apparently I get to go be induced at 9:00 pm on Tuesday the 7th, so a week from today, I'll hopefully be able to pop my back. We'll see. It can't come soon enough, though. I was thinking that I regret not taking more pregnancy-tummy pictures, so I took one -














And now I don't regret not taking so many pictures.


Here is a picture from a month ago at a Halloween party - I was a skeleton or something, and Brian was himself from high school:

More Goings On

At the beginning of the month, Brian went with our first grade class to the Zoo. He was the only parent to not lose a kid! Side note: don't ever take 25 six-year-olds to the super-hilly Hogle Zoo in the 90-degree heat in your eighth month of pregnancy. Speaking of which, I am huge:



















Or at least I just look enormous. My doctor says I'm measuring "perfectly", and that everything else is going "perfectly" and he keeps referring to me as being on "cruise-control," which is all fabulous, but it means we don't get a 34-week ultrasound because it's not "medically necessary." Lame.

We only have 7 more weeks (hopefully). I have my sub all ready to go, and luckily we have a two-week Christmas break this year so I only have to write about 13 days' worth of sub plans (hooray). The baby (Natalie) moves a LOT, especially at 10:00 pm, during what we call the "Baby Party". The Baby Party lasts from 10:00 to midnight and involves a lot of dancing, gymnastics, stretching and what I think is kick-boxing. It's always a fun party. Everyone is invited.


We also adopted the world's best kitten for a week. All he did was sleep. Here's a picture of him when he fell asleep while we were changing the sheets:



















His name is Cow. He is adorable. But Brian, being the logical person he is, had the forethought to recognize that we wouldn't want a kitten in a few weeks when we're changing a screaming baby's diapers. So now he lives with some family in Woods Cross. I resent them a lot.

We also went for a drive up the Alpine Loop to see the fall colors. We like the fall.

Our House

Here's the house we bought in February, with neat before-and-after shots.

Before

After - We got rid of that stupid black gate thing and the rocks in the flower bed and planted some things!












Also there's a cat that lives on our porch - it has a human face and talks.

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Before

After - pretend that we've attached the lazy susan cupboards. We got a new dishwasher, oven, microwave, counters, sink, faucet, and we painted the cabinets and added pulls. Also we got blinds.

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Before

After - We installed three new light fixtures and painted the top half of the walls gray.

We also got blinds for the windows and I made curtains! Yep. That's why the picture is from far away.

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Before

After - we haven't really done that much in the bathroom, except we replaced this horrible, huge cabinet that we kept smacking our heads on with this much simpler and normal-sized one.

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Before AND After ... there are sill stairs to the attic.

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Before

After - we put in a ceiling fan so I wouldn't die. Also, we added furniture, so that's pretty sweet.

Oregon and Also a Baby

We went to Oregon for a family reunion and Brian turned 24. Here is a picture of that:









Here is us being on the beach:












On Monday we found out we're having a girl! Here she is:









She is due December 7th. She likes root beer and she's the best.

Brian graduated on June 2 and is "officially" a surgical technician, although he won't be certified until he finishes his externship. Still, he looks mighty fine in a blue gown. He refuses to wear it when we go shopping. He thinks it's embarrassing. Not me, though. I wear it when we go get ice cream.

Clark Gets Excited

Goings On

We haven't done very many exciting things in the last few months, but here's some things.









I'm 23.










We went to the color festival. Here's the before picture.









And here's after.










Eating Dippin' Dots at Trafalga.










Then we won a giant Krusty with our friends Kory and Marianne. Marianne really likes Krusty, as you can see.






And Clark is doing well. On Monday he somehow climbed out of his tank and fell off the counter and was running around the classroom, but the joke's on him! Now his tank has a lid!

Las Vegas

Last week we got to go to Las Vegas. It was spectacular - we say Lance Burton float a Corvette, The Phantom of the Opera, In 'n Out, One Really Good Buffet (which we went to twice,) and lots of people gambling on the Super Bowl! Here is Brian in the conservatory at the Belagio, celebrating Chinese New Year (the Year of the Tiger) with all the other Asian tourists.












Also, we get to buy a (town)house. Here is a picture of that:

You should probably know that we're planning on getting rid of the satellite dish and black gate-door thing as soon as we close. Hooray!