Making cinnamon rolls

Three year old

This is a test

Halloween 2007

Pumpkin Carving

pumpkin guts!

Fire Fighter Max!

Notice the squirrels edited the jack-o-lantern a little bit for a much more scary effect! Also, the backwards fire fighter hat. There was nothing we could do to get him to wear it correctly. He needed the long brim to "keep the sun out of my eyes."

Handing out candy.


Nate & Max



Max & Lucy (AKA Snow White)




Candy Ecstasy!

Can you believe it?!

It's a boy!

Everybody was wrong! Well, except Adam and a few other people. We are going to have a baby brother around here! All his measurements came out great - he is a 14 ouncer at 19 weeks 4 days and all parts are intact. Now comes the hard part - naming the little bugger! Put your thinking caps on!

Happy Halloween!

Parents of . ..

ANOTHER BOY!

Postponed

We just got a call from the Perinatal Assessment Center and due to an ultrasound tech being out sick our appointment is postponed until 9:00 tomorrow morning!

Froggy in the rain

We enjoyed a bit of puddle stomping this weekend. Only it wasn't really all that fun because in true toddler fashion Max stomped the puddles, then cried that his boots were dirty, then stomped the puddles, and so on. Until we decided to just strap him into his car seat and put us all out of our misery. We drove to the Dexter Cider Mill and fed him this:He was, indeed, quiet. However, he did not want to take his nap.

Speaking of donuts, this reminded us of the first time he ever had a donut. It was at his Grandma Nancy's house and his somehow got his grubby little hands on a donut. On first bite his eyes lit up and (this was before he could speak in sentences) he was all "bagel." As in, "This is the best bagel I've ever eaten in my life." or "They don't make bagels like this in Michigan." At any rate, he was in awe. It was pretty comical. He now understands that sugar is the common ingredient in sweet food. Sometimes when we ask him what he wants to eat he just says, "sugar." At least he is honest. And he really enjoys those precious sprinkles on his morning oatmeal!


***The big day is tomorrow (Tuesday) when we get to check in on baby#2 and hopefully find out if it has any major health concerns and if it is a boy or a girl! It is pretty exciting! We will try to send a text message post to the blog from hospital so check in sometime after 2:00 Eastern Time.

Leaves

Officially Rec.ognizable Pregn.ant Lady

Pretty impressive, eh?Things have been going well with this pregnancy. The baby is kicking up a storm and making its presence well known. Adam has felt lots of kicks now, but Max has not had the patience for any. He does not seem interested in this phenomenon. He is mostly interested in himself and his "bigness."


For comparison:

This is me at 18 weeks with Max. Notice the normal shirt and normal pants! Ah, to have abs like that again. Now they are just a fond, youthful memory.

For further comparison:

Another nice belly.

Laundry Stories

Max likes to help me with the laundry, and apparently it is a time of deep philosophical thought for him.

Story #1: Max was helping me load wet clothes into the dryer. After some thought he pointed to the two machines and said, "This is the dryer and that is the wetter."


Story #2: Again he was loading wet clothes into the dryer.

Max: Why are the clothes wet?

Mommy: The water in the washing machine helps get dirt off the clothes just like water in your bath helps get dirt off of you.

Max: My doggy towel is my dryer!

Pheasant Hunting Report

Grandma Nancy and Aunt Shelley

the hunters

Cash the wonder dog

It was the pheasant hunting opening weekend in South Dakota. It sounds like they had a successful hunt getting their limit before the end of the day. Aunt Shelley was visiting from Alaska and getting the full South Dakota experience! Max, Daddy and even Mommy are a little sad that they missed out, but they'll be there for sure next year!

Getting excited

...and a little nervous too! There must have been a mix-up with scheduling because we got a notice in the mail saying that our Level II Ultrasound is scheduled for October 30. That means only 11 days until we (hopefully) find out if Baby#2 is a boy or a girl!

Ingenuity

Max's spinach pie was too hot to eat so he decided to go get the little airplane with the battery operated propeller Karin gave him and blow on his food! His parents, of course, think he is exceedingly clever.

Teddy

Max's teddy bear is a constant companion these days. He is always adjusting his blanket and "taking care" of him in general. The way he does things for Teddy over and over leads me to believe that his little brain is really processing this whole baby thing. I think he is going to be a great big brother!

Max and Dou Dou

Max, mid jump, and his best buddy from Green Room at the Fall Festival. (Max's blurriness is partly explained by the fact that they were serving donuts and apple cider!)

Back in the groove

We're back at home after an extended weekend in Chicago for Peder and Anna's wedding. It was really a great wedding, but of course we didn't take any pictures! This is getting to be a bad habit. Fortunately, our friend, Karin, is a semi-professional photographer and took a ton of pictures. Check out her pages here: Friday and the Rehearsal, Wedding Ceremony, and the Reception.

We also got to see Brooke, Emily and Sanna, and thankfully they watched our energetic guy during the wedding. Sadly, we have no pictures of them. Must improve photographer skills! How about turning on the camera for a start?!

In other news my belly has made one of those quantum leaps in size in the last day or so. That, combined with the kicks I regularly feel, makes this pregnancy very real all of the sudden! Adam even got to feel a kick the other day. I'm hoping this baby is a little gentler than Max. Memories of his 8 pound self rolling around in there have overshadowed any of the earlier pregnancy memories, but I do have a distinct recollection of getting seasick from his movements at a very early stage!

at Peder & Anna's wedding

Silly Goose

Quick Update

It is way past my bedtime so this will be quick! Things are going well here in terms of Pregnancy #2. I hardly even feel pregnant. This is a welcome change from the first trimester and the vast majority of my pregnancy with Max! Thankfully I am using my good feelingness to get a LOT of work done. I still have no idea how I will possibly accomplish a dissertation by December, but I am giving it a run for the money. Life is pretty limited to work, Max and sleep these days so sorry if I am out of the loop with a lot of people. My voice is also getting worse again - it is really oscillating a lot with this pregnancy. Thus, I'm not too keen on talking on the phone and that combined with my dissertation stress has my current status as downright non-social.

I just made a few changes to the template here. There are some things I have left to do, but I am just too tired to do it tonight! Please vote on the little survey on the right. We hopefully will be finding out the sex of the baby at our Level II ultrasound. It is yet to be scheduled but it will presumably be sometime in November. As for me, I have been wrong about 100% of the time so I am not even attempting to guess. I know we will love it no matter what! (Max is certain that it is a boy, yet he continually refers to it as his "Little Stister.")

Police Officer

Max has been wearing the police officer hat every night when we pick him up from school!

First Trim.ester Scree.ning

Check out the bebe! The pictures, of course, don't do it justice. It was having a grand time jumping and dancing around and not wanting to sit still for measurements. It really is amazing how much those little things move around inside of there. Based on today, I would say that we have another quite energetic little being in there; it is taking after Big Brother already!

Although we didn't do any screening when I was pregnant with Max, the predictive power of the technology available to us here has increased. The measurement of the nuc.hal translu.cency between 11 and 14 weeks gest.ation is very predictive of chromosomal abnormalities and some other problems. This is combined with a blood test to calculate an overall risk. Anyway, the nuc.hal translu.cency measured 1.3 mm, well below the cutoff for negative (2.5 mm). Also, the crown-rump-length was ~6.2 cm. That translates to a gestational age of approximately 12 weeks 5 days. Since we are at 12 weeks 3 days that is basically right on! The heart rate was 162 bpm. These are all indicators of a healthy baby. It is too early to tell the sex yet, but hopefully we can find that out at our Level II ultra.sound around 18 weeks gesta.tion.