Balloon Classic? Maybe next year.

Kenny was so excited to take Lennon to see the hot air balloons this morning. I, on the other hand, like my sleep and would rather head down there in the evening for the glow. He has told me that one of his fondest memories is waking up early, getting orange juice, and heading out to see the balloons with his dad when he was growing up. He is really excited about starting this tradition with the girls. I will gladly join when they are old enough to remember me going ;) It just seems to me that those dang things are so unpredictable. This morning, it was too windy, so the ascension was cancelled. Their morning trip was all for nothing. I'm sure Kenny loved every second of it though.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, go here.

Well.....Um.....

This whole blog thing of mine has really been in the pooper lately, no? All that gets posted anymore are sad tales or monthly pictures of L. The reason? I have this thing where I am afraid to voice when things are going well with Lennon. I don't like to talk about it with other people and I especially don't want to blog about it. I am afraid that the second I voice it, it will change, and not for the better. When people ask me how she is, I just say great. I don't want to get into specifics. It's totally ridiculous, I know. I can't help it. But, if something is not going well, I figure no harm in talking about it. So, to sum it up that is why my blog sucks as of late. I guess you could say it's a good thing really.

I need to just write about other things and then it won't be an issue. I could talk about the fact that we get to go to St. Thomas in less than 2 weeks. Or, that Kenny now works in the Springs again and instead of having an hour drive to work, he is only 7 minutes away. Or, I could talk about the fact that his birthday is coming up pretty soon, but he gets no present from me. Why? Why am I a horrible, mean, uncaring wife? Because of wheels and tires. That's why. Ask him for details. Thank God the wheel and tire situation is over. It was becoming totally divorce worthy (not really).

Alright. I will try to be better.

Best.day.ever.

On Sunday, Kenny and I sat down and took a look at things. And when I say things, I mean our finances. Last week I wrote about how I did not have a choice when it came to going back to work. My good friend (thanks, Linds!) pointed out some other options that could possibly work out so I could stay home. Well, they worked out! I get to be a stay-at-home mom! Money is going to be a little tight, and I am still looking for something to do part time from home, but we can make it. It is going to be so worth it for our family and I could not be more thrilled about the whole thing! A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I have no stress anymore. I was so worried about trying to get her on a schedule before I headed back to work. I was worried about a million other things like what I would need to buy for the woman that was supposed to watch her to worrying that everything would go well from day to day when I wasn't there.

I am so grateful that I am now able to raise our daughter, Lennon, full time. I have the best job ever.

I can't do it

I can't do it. I can't go back to work. I absolutely have to go back, but I just can't. I don't want someone else watching her. I don't want Kenny watching her. I am sitting at the dentist office right now waiting for my appointment. It is Kennys first time with Lennon, alone. Is he capable? Completely. Does he have a single clue on what to do with her? Not one. He is a fantastic dad and helps out with her when he is home with me, but I am always there and I know what she needs. Before I even walked out the door this morning, she was crying for way longer than was necessary. She was hungry and Kenny was just lovingly rocking her trying to put her back to sleep. I know he will get it figured out-practice makes perfect-but I don't want him to have to. I want to be with her every day. Me.

The only way this is going to happen is if I:
1.Find a work from home job
2.Find a job where I can bring her
3.Win Powerball

Everyday I get more and more depressed about the fact that I have to go back to work the beginning of February. It breaks my heart.

I am going to have to find a different way to save the planet

I have learned that I hate cloth diapers. I love the thought of them, but actually using them sucks. When we were, Lennon would wake up every hour because she felt whatever masterpiece she created on her skin. It didn't even cross my mind that it was the diapers until one night we used disposable because all the diaper covers were dirty. She slept for hours at a time. Thinking maybe it was a fluke, we tried again the following night. Nope. The stupid-ass cloth diapers were keeping all of us awake. We were already on the fence with them, but this was a deal breaker. We have been using disposables ever since and they are so much better it's ridiculous. Blowouts have been reduced by 90% and sleep has been increased by a good 3-4 hours per night.

I still think that they are a great thing and some people really do love them. I think that they would work a lot better when she isn't so small and messy. We may go back to them. Probably not, but it's an option. I just want to keep an open mind not to upset Mother Earth. I tried, lady. I tried.

Labor story

I have to say that I have been extremely lucky with this pregnancy and delivery. Everything has gone well, and I feel so fortunate for that. I don't take one second of it for granted and there are truly no word to describe it.

First, I was scheduled in at 8:30am on Friday morning to be induced, so this all happened at the perfect time!

Kenny and I were watching tv on Thursday night, just hanging out. Around 9pm, I felt like my contractions were somewhat consistent. I have been having braxton hicks for months now, so they were nothing I really paid any attention to. They were about 15 minutes apart but still painless.

We headed to bed around 10:30 or so. I woke up at 2am and was unable to get back to sleep. They were still relatively painless, but just enough to keep me awake. At 4:15am, I woke Kenny up and said, "Hey. You don't need to get up or anything, but I just wanted to let you now that I am going to go downstairs and watch tv. My contractions are about 4 minutes apart and I can't really walk or talk during them." He then reminded me that that is our queue to head to the hospital. I totally spaced out on that part. I thought they needed to be a lot closer together. Thank goodness for Kenny!

We showed up to the hospital at 5am and they were surprised I made it at home that long with as strong as my contractions were. I was already 5cm as well. (Sidenote-Kenny and I had a discussion a couple of days earlier about how I could totally see myself staying home too long. I have a pretty high pain tolerance and don't like to waste people's time. I told him how I would hate to go to the hospital too early just to get sent back home. Well, it happened! Totally waited longer than I needed to.) They admitted me and I got an epidural not long after I got there. I LOVE those things. It was amazing and made my experience pain free. I am not even kidding. Totally painless. The Dr. came in at about 10am to break my water. I was progressing well, and only knew I was having contractions when I looked at the monitor that said I was. The moms visited as well as the Bingman's. Noon rolled around and they told me I could start to push-so with just Kenny and I in the room, that's exactly what I did. We chit-chatted and had fun conversations (about what song she would be born to. We had some music on and were taking bets with the nurse) in between contractions. That's why the pushing takes so long, which I never realized. Since you can only push during those, there is a lot of time (couple minutes) between to rest or chat ;) Lennon was born at 1:31pm, about 5 minutes after the Dr. came into the room.

We let our visitors come back in and visit for a bit and then Kenny went to the nursery with her for her bath and a few tests.

It was a great experience, and a pretty short labor overall. We are on day 3 of her life and it's been wonderful. We are adjusting well and I am so happy to have Kenny home with us for the first week. He has been amazing and I love our new family.

Exactly what can we make out of this?

Kenny had the day off today. We went out to lunch, did some errands, visited a friend, and I had a Dr. appt. The entire day, I was trying to convince Kenny to go to the grocery store with me. We have no food in the house and I figured we needed to stock up before L arrives. I honestly thought it would be a couple hundred dollar trip. Here is a picture of what we ended up with. Really? What the hell can we make with any of this?

Tortilla chips
Summer sausage

Butter

1 can of pumpkin

1 can of soup

String cheese

Potatoes

English muffins

OJ

Creamer

1 box of club crackers

2 lbs of ground meat

That's it.

Pathetic. We are totally screwed.

WOO HOO

Today is my last day of work for 3 ½ months and what better way to start it off then to have Kenny try to sabotage me this morning? First, he turned my alarm off by accident. Then, while being super considerate, he took both car keys leaving me with no way to get to work. When he called to let me know what he had done, he was already 45 minutes away from home. Luckily, I was able to find rides to and from work.

No problem!

Doesn’t matter to me!

Don’t sweat it, Kenny!

It’s my last day! Did I mention that? LAST DAY.

One of the things Kenny is better at than me

FYI, if there is ever a bug in our house it is best if Kenny is there to take care of it. Spiders are the worst. Let me break it down for you.

How Kenny handles it:
1. Kill the spider
2. Throw the spider in the trash


How I handle it:
1. See the spider and then freeze in fear
2. Stare at it for another minute or so to make sure it isn’t going to move
3. If the spider is not going to make a crunching noise when I kill it, go to get one of Kenny’s shoes. The sheer size of his shoe alone almost guarantees that the spider will not be able to climb on the shoe and touch me
4. Stare at the spider some more to plot its demise
5. Oh my God. It looked at me. Back away from the spider
6. Throw the shoe at it in hopes the weight of the shoe will crush it
7. Argh! It looked at me again
8. Throw the shoe a second time because I missed
9. Look at it all crinkled on the ground
10. Put Kenny’s shoe on and step on it again, just to make sure it’s dead
11. Get approximately 1 entire roll of paper towels to pick it up and flush it. I can’t just throw it away, it could come back to life, climb out of the trash and touch me
12. The next 10 times I use that bathroom, I check the seat and bowl just to make sure it didn’t crawl back up the pipe and onto the seat to have its revenge. You never know if you killed a spider with scuba skills
13. Walk around the house for the next week, month, year will eyes peeled waiting for the next one and just hoping Kenny is home to take care of it

Non-pregnant pregnant pictures

Kenny and I had some non-pregnancy preggo pictures taken this past weekend. You can see ALL of them here! So, basically, they are just pictures where I happen to be pregnant. No tummy holding here!

Latest ultrasound

Our cousin, Amanda, owns a business called Miracle in Motion and when we were out visiting she offered to do a 3D/4D ultrasound for us. I was not planning on getting one, but I am so happy that I did! I can't believe that she only weighs about 3 lbs right now and she's already got those chubby cheeks! We had the room filled with family and it was a really good time. If you want to see the rest of the pictures from my appointment, they are on the link to the right.

Vacation pictures will be posted soon as well. My home computer didn't download everything it was supposed to last night. Stupid computer.

The doctor is in

Last night, while watching tv, I mentioned a few aches pains I was experiencing to Kenny. He started explaining why they were happening and what was going on. Uh, thank you Dr. McKee. Turns out he has been reading our What to Expect When You're Expecting book a little more closely then I have. I read the weekly paragraphs and skim through the rest of the chapter, but Kenny is on it. I am so glad he is a wealth of information about pregnancy.

If anyone has any medical questions, feel free to contact my husband. Who knows what else he has rolling around in that head of his!

Because I am concerned for your safety

A public service announcement of sorts

Never go see a movie with Kenny if there are any scary parts. Like, none what-so-ever. Even if the rest of the movie is puppies and rainbows with one jump-out scary scene, forget it. He is the easiest person to scare. He jumps out of his seat. On occasion, he has even hurt me by flailing his arms and smacking me with an elbow or other body part. I rarely get startled by the movie itself, but instead by Kenny’s ridiculous convulsions of fear.

Thank you

Let's just drive

Kenny worked way too much these past few weeks. Too many days straight and way too many hours. He actually had an entire weekend off, which is unheard of anymore, so we were really looking forward to spending a fun weekend together. Saturday morning, we woke up and decided to pack the car up and drive to Salida. We loaded up the bikes and the girls in the Element and took off. It was Fibark weekend-a rafting, kayaking, drinking, socializing festival so a lot of people were in town. We did some visiting and then went to watch the hooligan races. People make rafts out of whatever they want and try to float down the river. Pool toys, kegs, 5 gallon buckets, or whatever else they feel like duct-taping together. It’s an entertaining race to watch as most of them get torn apart while trying to get through the rapids.
As we headed out of town, we were trying to decide whether or not we were going to go home, camp in the car somewhere, or something else. We ended up at Kris and Patrick’s to spend the night. Sunday was spent hanging out and smoking food. We got home late Sunday night and then, of course, back to work today.
It was a really fun, spontaneous weekend!

Cue crying now

A friend of mine, Amy, got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to help with a story for Fox 21.

There is a test out that says it can predict a baby’s gender as early as 7-weeks after conception. It’s a kit that involves taking a blood sample from a finger prick. The sample is then sent in to a lab, and then they send you the results. They say the test is over 95% accurate, and say it’s a great way to find out the sex of your baby before you can find out from an ultrasound.

I am headed over to the station tomorrow to get pricked (insert pervy joke here, I almost did). I will let you all know how it goes! It will be pretty non-eventful, I assume.

When I spoke to Amy about it, she told me that when the results come in, they are going to contact us and meet us somewhere to open the results. Oh, Lord. I hope they aren’t expecting much. When I called Kenny to tell him, he starting laughing until I told him he had to be there too. I have never been one to wear my emotions on my sleeve. Kenny and I were cracking up at the fact that they probably won’t even air our portion because of the lack of excitement. We will have to practice being sappy.

When I first went to the Dr., and she did the ultrasound, she seemed disappointed by my reaction. Yeah, it’s awesome. Yes, I see the heartbeat. Yes, I am excited. I don’t need to start crying, or tear up, or laugh uncontrollably, or do anything else over the top to prove it. She looked at me and with a confused look said, “Do you see? Aren’t you excited?”

I am pretty sure this is all my moms fault. She is so dramatic about everything and will cry at the drop of a hat. No thank you, I say. No thank you.

Hot feet

This happened back in March, but I can still smell it like it was yesterday. Let me preface by saying that my nose has always been hyper-sensitive. I can already smell things that no one else can, so being preggers has made it that much worse. I was headed home for lunch, and Kenny had the day off. He was smoking ribs for dinner. As soon as I got out of my car, I could smell the smoker and it was delicious. I was excited to get inside to tell Kenny how fantastic everything smelled , when it hit me like a ton of bricks. The second I opened the door, the smell of hot vinegar hit my face. My eyes started to water and I gagged. I instantly got really upset and felt myself wanting to cry. Let me also say, that I am not a crier. Not in the least bit. Well, at least I wasn't. I walked, or stormed, in and said, "Oh my God. What the hell Kenny? You couldn't have called to tell me the house smelled like feet?" I was irate (on the outside) but knew I was being ridiculous (on the inside). I even went so far as to microwave my soup and eat outside, on the concrete, where is was 35 degrees.

I went around the house and shut all the doors, opened all the windows, and turned all the fans on. It was still 35 degrees outside. Yikes. Kenny and I were already laughing about it before I even headed back to work, but the fact that I got so upset is hilarious to me.

How I told Kenny

My Thursday that week was spent buying and taking pee stick tests. They all came back with ghost lines. So faint, I wasn't sure if I was seeing things. I called the Dr. and they couldn’t get me in until 2 weeks later.

Screw that.

I knew Planned Parenthood would take walk-ins for that sort of thing, so I went by there. The test came back negative. What a flippin' waste of money.

Still not convinced, I thought I would just wait it out. The only problem was that I was supposed to meet my mom and some other people for happy hour the next evening. Kindof needed to know if I could have a beer or not.

I went out to dinner with Linds that evening and ended up telling her about my day. She told me to go buy more tests and take them in the morning. Sounded like a hassle, so I just went home and went to bed.

Kenny had no clue about my day. I told him nothing.

Friday at lunch, I left work, and on my way home I couldn’t take it any more. I went and bought another test. After taking it and waiting 2 minutes, I was still not totally satisfied with the result. "YES" or "NO" works a lot better than a million shades of a pink or blue lines. I know that if you see a line, you are preggo. No matter how faint. Still didn't believe it. I called Lindsley and told her about my dilemma. She told me to come over and show her and that is exactly what I did.

Friday night, I was waiting outside in my car for my mom to get to the bar and I was texting Kenny. There was a lot of small talk and then I spilled it.

Me: Ugh. It is going to be so annoying going to the bar and not being able to drink!

Kenny: Why aren't you drinking?

Me: (sent picture of test taken with blue cross on it)

Kenny: Holy S! You are preggers?!?

Me: So it seems.

Yes internet. I told Kenny over a text and I wouldn't change it for anything. Linds was trying to help me think of a cute and clever way to tell him and after thinking about it, I wanted no part of it. Anyone that knows me is not surprised that I did it that way and Kenny thought it was hilarious. We actually told his siblings via text as well.

The moms got a grandma card on their doors at their homes. My mom was less than thrilled (by the way we told her) , but that's a whole other blog.

My pants are so on fire

I would like to take this moment to apologize to everyone. I have been a bit fat liar pants for the past few months.

Here are the real reasons I did not go to/participate in the following:

Tony's with my mom and coworkers on February 6th: I said I was not drinking because Kenny and I were going to work out after I left. The real reason was because I found out I was preggers about 5 hours earlier.

Canceled getting a peel from Alison: Apparently putting acid on your skin is not good for a growing embryo.

St. Patrick's party at Kris and Patrick's: I said I woke up feeling horrible. Truth is, second hand smoke, and a lot of it, is also not good for a growing embryo.

St. Patrick's Day: I told all my friends they were lame for not getting back to me but really, I didn't "advertise" like I normally do, because I couldn't enjoy the day anyway! No green beer? Sacrilege!

I also lied to Amy about doing the Muddy Buddy this year. I avoided beer and alcohol on way too many occasions. I turned down a margarita-unheard of. Napa was a little less delicious because of the absence of wine in my stomach.

And sorry Linda, Pete and whoever else for lying straight to you face when you just came out and said/asked if I was. But, frankly, I do get asked all the time. It seems that the second someone is married, that is the only question people ask from there on out! Granted, it just happened to be true this time.

For those of you that feel I should have told you a long time ago, don’t be mad. Very few people knew-mostly just immediate family. It was hard keeping it from everyone, but we felt better waiting a while.

Due date: November 12th

Home again

We are home. Boston was great. We were out and about the entire time we were there, and like San Francisco, walked a million miles. My legs are still a bit sore.

Wednesday: We flew in Wednesday afternoon and after checking into our hotel, we walked around to see what was in our area. For dinner, we went to Bukowski’s. It was a great dive with delicious burgers. Not too exciting a day.

Thursday: We woke up and decided to walk the Freedom Trail. It was a chilly, but still a good time. We found Mike’s Pastry which was probably tops on my list and shared a cannoli. The whole trail is about 2.5 miles, but total, we walked closer to 5. After we were done with the trail, we took the T to the Samuel Adams brewery for a tour and tasting.

Friday: We took a bus out to Harvard and walked around campus. We went to their museum which had animals on display that were over 100 years old. It smelled like dust in there. That afternoon, we went to the Charles river and took a nap on a dock we found. We walked back to the hotel to get ready for our baseball game! What are the odds that the Sox would be playing the Yankees while we were there? I mean, seriously?!? They were, and it was not easy, but we got tickets! It was such an awesome game. The atmosphere was amazing and the fans, some of the best! The seats were completely filled. The game went 11 innings and the Sox won!

Saturday: We took a boat out to go whale watching. We got to see a few whales, and a seal, and even some dolphins. I started to feel a bit sick half way through so I took a break and laid down on the bench on the boat. It was freezing and windy, so Kenny and I thought we would go down to the second level where there was an inside cabin. We walked in there and there were a ton of people way worse off then I was. Their heads were leaning on the tables, people were lying on the floor. We had entered the sick ward. There was also a funk in the air and just as I noticed it, someone came by me with a full barf-bag. We were standing right next to the trash can so she had to walk right by me to throw it away. Then another person headed our way, but her bag was dripping (I am gagging while typing this). So, we went back outside. Kenny went to the first level cabin to see if it was any better-nope. Worse. Ugh-so gross. When we got back to land, we took a break and just sat outside for a bit. I hate that I get seasick. I can’t do anything about it.

Something I noticed while in Boston: Before we actually went, I was looking for restaurants online. I saw that there were a ton of French restaurants, from casual café’s to expensive, fancy places. When we got there, there were French people everywhere! I assume, they were mostly French-Canadian, because Quebec is relatively close. I swear we never went more than 5 minutes without hearing someone speaking French. I would say we had a 50/50 split between French and heavy Boston accents. Am I missing something? I thought Boston was known more-so for the Irish…..

Pictures on "Our life" link to the right

Off to Boston

Kenny and I leave for Boston next week! Neither of us has been and we both thought it sounded like a really great place to visit! I have no idea what we are going to do when we get there, but I am going to try to figure some of it out this weekend. I have had a few suggestions thrown out that sounded pretty good too! I am not even worried about it because 1.I won't be at work and 2.I will be with Kenny. What could be better?