Baby's First Christmas Present

Just thought I should let you know - I've already bought Deakin's first Christmas present. Its not that I'm crazy - although I do admit to being a little crazy - its just that it was at Costco and it was awesome and you never know how long something will be there. So as you can see, I had to get it. I just can't tell you what it is because its a secret - don't want Deakin to find out early. :)

Baby Clothes

So I couldn't resist the urge anymore - I had to go buy some baby stuff. I think that the uncontrollable urge was given the final push over the edge by receiving an email that told me that Carter's was having a 50% off sale, and then giving me a coupon for an additional 20% off. See it is completely understandable - it would have been silly to pass up this opportunity right...never mind that they seem to have these types of sales every couple of months....

Anyways I thought that it would be a good idea to get Deakin some warm winter clothes. I figured that there is a good chance that Scott and I will have to bring Deakin into our schools on a regular basis - which means bringing him out in the cold in Jan and Feb - we have to walk between where ever we will be living and the metro and then metro and the school - lots of outside time. Further - if swine flu does get bad out here like they are predicting (metropolitan area etc) then I didn't want to have to take my newborn out to buy baby clothes. In other words, my brain was trying to rationalize my excuses for going shopping - and it worked. We got two fleece hoodies with coordinating pants, several long sleeved onesies, a couple of short sleeved onesies, a couple of pairs of pants and a really cute pair of fleece overalls. We also got a pair of adorable pants that have a money head on the butt - we made sure to get a big enough size so that he should be crawling by the time that he wears them...lol because really whats the point of having a monkey on your butt if no one gets to see it.

Its amazing how cute baby clothes can be. I know a lot of people say that they prefer to shop for girls clothes because there is more selection - and that is true at some stores, but if you go to a store with more selection I would pick boys clothes every time. I like that they are more in bright primary colors as opposed to pastels and really light colors. I don't think that they will stain as bad as a lot of girls' clothes and they have awesome things like dinosaurs on them. Its a good thing that we are having a boy...I was buying boys clothes before we knew what we were having. I guess if it had been a girl we could have bought little bows so that people would know it was a girl (Scott was concerned about people not knowing what the sex was - not sure why...but I guess everyone has their thing).

Baby Shower

My three amazing cousins were sweet enough to throw Deakin and I a baby shower while we were back in KS over the summer. They are sisters who all got married within about 18 months and now all have kiddos. Bridget (in blue) is the oldest and has three kids, Elaine (green) is the youngest and has a step child, a son and is currently working on #3, and Frannie (brown) just had her first baby. In fact, she had it just a few days before she was helping to throw me a shower. They are a great group of girls and I wish that I got to see them more often.

Here is a picture of Addison (Frannie's baby) - I believe that she was 5 days old when she was brought to the shower, and the proud grandma Darlene is in the background.

Deakin got all sorts of the stuff that he was needing at the baby shower - from diapers and wipes, to clothes and toys. I believe that this little guy might just end up spoiled - especially from his grandma Denise - she got him a pack n play (which will be his bed until we move after Christmas and get him a crib) and then filled it with presents - I think that she may have gotten him even more stuff then Scott and I have :) Scott's mom, aunt and sister all made it to the shower. It was great seeing them again before we left for DC. Kathy (his mom) got us an amazing infant seat - it bounces, vibrates, and plays music. I actually put it together the other night...and then realized that I didn't have batteries for it... Nancy (aunt) got us a cute tummy time activity center that turns into a tunnel, and Jennifer (sister) got us (and by us I really mean Scott) a cd of lullabies that are to the tune of Nine Inch Nails. :)

Deakin also got several home made blankets. Aunt Pauline made this cute rubber duckie blanket.

Aunt Laurie made this cute teddy bear blanket.

And of course (been on the blog before) my mom hand quilted this frog and dragonfly blanket.

And what baby shower would be complete without Wildcat clothes! Frannie told me after the shower that she had thought about putting a pink Jayhawk diaper bag on the table - my two favorite things - pink and KU :)

Trend Setters

It seems that Scott and I have set a trend for weddings. Scott's mom's cousin Stanley and his now wife Nancy got married in Galveston during the family's week at the beach. (yes Scott's family is so small that all of his mom's cousins their kids etc - squeeze into a single beach house for a week every year...not that it isn't very crowded :) The wedding was a very cute ceremony with several family members reading passages or poems. The dinner was a Thanksgiving feast - apparently that is Stanley's favorite meal of the year. It was really good - and I even got to see Scott eat mashed potatoes and stuffing - the boy is getting better!

The nieces were having a great time standing on the air condition vents watching their dresses flow up - that is until someone decided that they wanted to get a picture of it...then it was almost impossible to get the three of them to stand together - it took forever to get this picture...guess the cameraman should have been more sneaky and got it while they weren't paying attention.
So Scott and I are dressed up and looking pretty and we manage not to get a single picture of the two of us on our camera - besides this one....hmm...have to think about that next time.

I bet I know where this girl got her dress - down at the strand...at least now I know what it will look like when I'm not preggo...lol. We thought the dresses were identical - but as it turns out they just used the next piece of fabric on the roll to make the dress and let the pattern fall where they lie - no one noticed that they weren't the same until we were looking at the pictures. :)

2nd Anniversary

Scott and I are lucky to get to go back to our wedding destination each year for our anniversary. We have decided to try out a new hotel each year - its nice to get away from the beach house for a day and get to spend time with just the two of us. This year we tried the Harbor House which is located right by the Strand on Pier 21. Even though we booked just a basic room - they were nice enough to put us in a large corner room for the night. We had windows on two sides of the room - very nice - with a great view of the harbor.

For dinner we took Yvonne's suggestion and tried out Yaga's cafe. It is a bright and colorful restaurant right on the strand. They had a wide variety of meal options and the staff were very friendly - even when I asked if we could pick a differently seat when they showed us to the back - much better to sit by the windows then the kitchen and the bathroom - not that I didn't have to make at least one trip to the bathroom - but I don't want to sit by it when there are other options available.

Scott and I started with fried jalapenos - they weren't too hot at first but they definitely were by the time that our food arrived...if fact my mouth was so hot from the spicy of the jalapenos that I couldn't eat my meal at the beginning because the hot temperature aggravated the hot spicy. My meal was Texas shrimp - large shrimp wrapped in bacon and smothered in cheese - very healthy I'm sure - but delicious. Scott has a "death burger." It was a cheese burger with bacon, chili, and jalapenos. He actually managed to eat the whole thing - I'm not really sure how...it was huge and we had filled up on fried jalapenos...

We also continued our yearly tradition of getting a caricature done - we weren't able to get one the year that we actually got married but I think that we are going to try and get him to do one off of a wedding photo when we go next year.

Here is the finished product - it took me a while to figure out what he was drawing in Scott's hands but once he was finished I couldn't stop laughing. I am so glad that I never had cravings for pickles and ice cream together - separately...yes...but never at the same time.

Its funny how fast our family is changing and that we will be able to document this change in caricatures (assuming that the guy continues to go to the strand and do them). We get married one year, the 2nd its just us, the 3rd I'm preggo, the 4th we will have a baby with us, and who knows maybe by the 5th we will have two kiddos with us. Crazy how fast time goes by.

Beach '09

Due to Hurricane Ike - the beach house this year was at a different location. It was still in Galveston but several miles closer to town. Even though this is a bigger more spacious house, I believe that next year we will be back at the original. The old house has too many memories to be left behind. I think that I actually preferred this house because it meant that Scott and I were sharing a full-sized bed instead of a twin, but I understand the desire to go back to the other.

Many of the houses in the front row of the beach were badly damaged and have to be torn down. There are even some houses that were not badly damaged but will still have to be removed because the vegetation line moved. In Texas, you are not allowed to own land in front of the vegetation line because the beaches are public. So there are several home owners who are trying to restore the vegetation line back in front of their houses so that they don't lose them. This house probably fell in the later category. It looked like it could have been repaired but it was now out on the sand. It was just down from the house we were staying at and we got to watch it be torn down.

Here are some of the people who stay at the beach house. As you can see it is becoming quite the full house.


This was Deakin's first walk on the beach. I sure hope that he likes the water otherwise he is going to have a lot of boring vacations in his future.

Here is Scott participating in the boccie ball tournament. I decided not to play this year because it was so hot outside and because I need to study for a big test that I was taking the next week - nothing ruins a good vacation like having a test to worry about. Scott was really proud of this photo - he would want you to notice that both of his feet are off the ground.
Scott's dad, Louise, and his half siblings all came down to the beach for part of a day as well. Its always great to get to see them, I know that Scott wishes he could see his dad more often. Scott and I stayed at their house for 2 nights after the beach but this was Jennifer, Andrea, and the nieces' only chance to see them. (not all of them are pictured below and the extra guy w/o a shirt is Colleen's bf) While at the beach house we also got to see Scott's cousin Daniel practice his fire twirling.

Its much more impressive at night.
We also went down to the strand which is the downtown business district. It is quite a ways from the beach but it sits on the harbor so it got quite a bit of water damage from Ike as well. Here on the window is a line that shows the water level. Almost a year later, most of the store and restaurants are back up and running but a few still haven't opened. The Strand was very quiet this year. My guess is that a lot of tourist still aren't coming back yet, hopefully by next year everything will be back to normal.

And last but not least, Scott and I played mini golf on our way to his dad's house. Scott just couldn't stand to go a year without playing this course.

Medieval Times

After we dropped the cats off in KS and spent a couple of days with mom and dad, Scott and I headed to TX. We were staying with his Grandpa Lee (who Deakin is named after) and Yvonne in Longview. Andrea flew into Dallas, about an hour and a half or so from Longview so we agreed to pick her up. Then we decided to make an adventure out of it - we decided that we would all go to Medieval Times, which is a dinner theater where there are knights, jousting, and fair maidens. Scott's mom, other sister Jennifer, and the 3 nieces also met us there. When we got there we were all given crowns of the color of the knight that we were to cheer for. There were six different options and we were given green. There was a fair bit of time before the show started and I needed a potty break so I left my bag with Scott - I guess that I was a trend setter and Scott became the defender of the bags...lol.

The nieces were hungry and since we had arrived early to get good seats they were soon bored of waiting. You can tell how excited they were to be there...but that soon changed after we got in and got our seats.
They didn't us a crown for Deakin so Scott was letting him barrow his.
Grandpa Lee opted not to come because he wasn't feeling well - so a friend of Yvonne's came with us instead. As you can see Ella is getting much more excited now - although she was really too little to enjoy it as much as the other two.

We drank from metal mug and off of metal plates. No utensils of any kind were to be found. We had falcon (chicken), dragon's blood (tomato soup), dragon eggs (half a seasoned baked potato), dragon (ribs), and a pastry for desert.


As it turns out, the green knight was the evil knight who had captured the prince and was trying to take over the kingdom. We got to cheer for him as he competed in a tournament and jousted against the other knights.
The knights also gave out flowers to fair maidens in the stands. Aiden was really getting into the show so it was great that she got to catch one of the flowers.

Jude's Trip Home

Jude is a sweet cat, but sometimes he can be a bit needy. Usually when we are traveling in the car he doesn't like to leave the cat carrier. Even when he starts getting brave he will leave his back feet in the carrier (it opens at the top like a duffel bag) and then put his front feet up on Scott or my seat. He will stay like that for so long that he will even fall asleep in that position - he just has to be near us.
On this trip however, he decided to venture out into the car, and he decided that the best place to be was between my head and my seat....kinda like a neck pillow that wiggles and doesn't like me to lay my head back on him.
But with the sun coming in my window and being preggo - I was getting way to hot with him there - cats have a body temp of about 102 I believe. So I decided that it was time for him to get down. It took both Scott and I to get him moved and then I had to be on the lookout...every time that I moved even the slightest bit forward he was try and dive back in behind my head. I tried using an actual neck pillow so that he would see that there was no room for him but at one point I guess I leaned forward to put in a cd or something and ended up with a cat between my neck pillow and the seat...silly cat.

After a while he gave up on me and decided that Scott might be a better option. He tried several positions out and then after being removed from Scott's arm because we stopped to get gas or something he decided that he was just going to sit in the back of the car and pout.

The New House

The house that we are staying in is 3 stories with a full basement - so really like 4 stories. This has made Scott and I realize that when we do end up buying a house that we would like it to be less then that...there are just too many stairs and too much separation for us - of course we had just been living in a little apartment and were used to being able to hear if not see each other at all times.

The house has a master bedroom, a 2nd bedroom, and an office on the 2nd floor. It also has a loft which takes up the entire 3rd floor which is like a bedroom but Scott is using it for his office so that I can use the office and be closer to the bathroom. The main floor is comprised of the kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and a tv room. There is also a screened in sunroom and a two level patio with a big grill. To put it mildly - it is a nice house.

One of my favorite parts is that there is a washer and dryer in the basement - no more using a pay machine that takes your money but doesn't work. Its just lovely! Of course if we have to move back into an apartment without a washer/dryer it will be that much harder - especially with a kiddo on the way. Right now Scott is talking about wanting to buy a house so that we don't have to move back into an apartment...so we will see how that goes - there will be more posts on that later I'm sure.

The Big Move

So I'm finally typing about the big move. Kyle flew out to help us get all of our stuff from one place to another - he was a big help. Our friends Mike and Aubry also came up to help out. Its amazing how much stuff they managed to fit on to that U-haul. We only ended up having to make one trip with it. We also took several loads over in our cars but for the most past everything fit in the U-haul. Scott assures me that the next time we move we will make two trips because it was a hassle getting it all on there. Of course by the time that we do it again in January we might have a new SUV to help carry stuff over, so we might still only need to make one trip in the U-haul, which would definitely be cheaper.

I don't really have any pictures of the house...except for the these two of the kitties. They made themselves right at home.

Week 28

So I was thinking that I would go in order of our trip for the purposes of keeping things in chronological order - but then this picture would be so far away from the last belly picture that i posted and would make comparisons difficult. It is amazing what 5 weeks at this stage can do.

Week 28

Weeks 22 & 23

So I know that I haven't posted on the blog for quite a while but now I'm going to try and catch up for the last month. I was hoping to blog during our month long travels but obviously that didn't happen.

These two pictures were taken before we left. As you can see the back ground is different then in the other photos. This is the study in the house where we are house-sitting. There will be a whole post dedicated to the move etc. later on.

Here you can see how I managed to survive the 2nd half of my internship at the FTC without haven't to buy a whole bunch of dress pants. The Bella Band was a life saver. It allows you to wear your old pants unbuttoned. You can stay out of maternity clothes longer and becuase the material is doubled over on top of the open fly it smoothes it out and make it pretty much impossible to tell that they are undone. It really just looks like you have a tank top on under your shirt.

Week 22

Week 23