Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!!!

I love Halloween!  It is by far one of my favorite holidays...well I guess I really love them all.  Tyler surprised me with a pumpkin to carve when he picked me up from the airport, which to a very hormonal pregnant woman was enough to make me cry.  Yep, it was embarrassing but I cried.  I cried because he bought a pumpkin and he loves me.  Yep, it's embarrassing that I'm even writing this.  So, we dressed up the dogs (I dressed up the dogs), we carved a pumpkin with an amazingly huge mouth, and now we are roasting pumpkin seeds.  Maybe the dogs will be spared next year when I have a baby to dress up, but I really doubt it.  It was also fun to see the kids in their Halloween costumes.  I wish I could have stayed for trick-or-treating, but it will be time to go back to work tomorrow.

MaKenna as a southern belle. 
 Mashaela is Cleopatra with her friend Bobby Jo
Isaiah is Yoda without a mask.  He is not super happy about wearing a costume.
Cyrus as you know who....
My first attempt.....
Tyler "fixing" my pumpkin

I'm almost as big as a pumpkin!!
Trixie is a pig with a tutu


 
Happy Halloween!!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

28 Weeks...

We are 28 weeks pregnant!  We had our 28 week check up yesterday and it went great.  I have gained a whole wopping 10 lbs but I'm measuring 27 inches so that's perfect.  The baby's heart rate was 150. 

We have been stocking up on cloth diapers and I should have enough for the newborn stage.

The crib is all set up and we got a dresser yesterday.

So, really we just need a baby now, but I am definitely ok waiting another 12 or 13 or 14 weeks.  However much time this baby needs. 

I have pictures of the baby room and my exciting cloth diaper stash.  I can't help but show it off they are so darn cute, but I'm spending the rest of the week in Montana so pictures will have to come later. 

Interesting fact I learned today:  all I need to do is push and the baby will come out of my ho ha.  I learned that from a 4 year old. 

Also...HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRISTIN :)  We had fun celebrating in the mountains last weekend and will have to post some pictures of that soon too! 

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Baby Room...Chair Rail

We have the chair rail up!  Doesn't it look like the room of a kid that will...

1  Destroy Ivan Drago pre fight.  The second that commie looked at my kids face...his knees quivered and came together.  Then the mat looked kinda yellow and you realized that dude just peed himself.

2)  Come out of the womb speaking, diaper trained, and kicking the azzy's of those that don't signal a left hand turn.

3)  Tattoo the words "I'm better than you" on their face.  Then...when you come to confront the parents to figure out why their baby's face was already tattooed, you find out that the baby already made the tattoo disappear...with it's mind!

P.S...sorry my voice is so lame slash creepy.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Bradley Class #1

So last night was our first Bradley Class.  For those of you that don't know Anna has elected to have an all natural birth at a birthing center with midwives rather than a hospital birth.

One of the requirements of the birth center is to take some sort of birthing class (kinda like Lamaze in 2010), and we went for the Bradley Method...AKA Husband Coached Birth.

P.S...Every time I think of the word coach all I can think of is the kids that Anna and I coach in Special Olympics Basketball that constantly scream "Put me in coach...I'm a shooter"!

Anyways...last night was class numero uno and everything was awesome.  We were both having a good time learning with the instructors and the other couple taking the class with us.  We couldn't stop laughing about the facial expressions that women in the 60's were making while giving birth (somehow they were able to contort their faces to resemble some sort of pissed off gorilla, which I think was one of the methods back then).

And then BAM...it hit me like my own fist on my own face...it was time for us to practice this weeks relaxation method


If you don't know me very well, I'm really immature.  Words like cervix still make me giggle.  I'm also very awkward, and nothing makes me more uncomfortable than things like I had to do last night.

Also, this is in no way a rip on the Bradley Method.  Just making fun of myself for how uncomfortable this made me feel.

So...Anna is instructed to lay down on the floor in a comfortable position, and I'm told to touch Anna's left foot.  The instructor tells Anna to make her left foot tense, and I am supposed to say...verbatum.

"This is tense.  This is bad.  This is what we want to avoid during labor".

What I'm thinking in my head..."This is tense.  The fact that I have to say this outloud is making me tense.  Seriously...my forehead is sweating.  And I think my hands just got clammy.  Aren't you glad I'm touching your barefoot?  Doesn't it feel good...kind of like the touch from a corpse"?

Now, the instructor tells Anna to relax her left foot, and I am supposed to say...verbatum.

"This is relaxed.  This is good.  This is what we want during labor".

What I'm thinking in my head..."I'm not relaxed.  I literally just saw a bead of sweat drop off my head and hit your nice pillow that you let us borrow (since we forgot to bring ours)".

During this entire practice I was also supposed to be massaging/rubbing her foot.  The thing is, I'm pretty sure that my hands were very cold and sweaty, and that my massage type motions felt more like twitches, yanking, and jerking.

This week we're supposed to do this nightly on different parts of her body, and here's my fear. 

By the time I can do this without feeling so weird, the week will be over, and next week will be a new method that will push my limits of uncomfortableness (I can't believe that was a word...I thought I was making it up) to the point that I will want a complete strangers fist to punch my own face.

Week number 1...only 11 more to go!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Why I'm a vegetarian

Listen people.  It's time to get preachy.

If you don't want to read, please don't.  This is for me...so I can put into words what I have a hard time explaining.  

Note...if I tell you not to read, and tell you I'll be preachy...you shouldn't read it.

I choose to not eat meat.  This decision is as hard as it sounds.  My favorite food by a land slide is chicken wings.  Naked, breaded, boneless or BBQ, I love them.  I bet that I will continue craving them until the day that I die.

I also bet that on my deathbed the only thing that I will want more than a smooch from my wife and a Broncos W is a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.  I think I'm drooling right now thinking about that tangy goodness.

Here's the thing.

Whether you believe in evolution or creation, the design was the same.  The sun gives the energy, which feeds the plants, which animals eat.  The animals excrete what they don't need, which feeds the plants. 

And around and around it goes.

By luck or design we were able to bust into this circle.  The sun gave the energy, which fed the plants, which animals ate, which humans eat, which gave us the energy to feed the plants.

Then we got smarter, or more efficient.

Today, we can grow chickens, cows, and pigs in half the time that nature intended.  Obviously, this comes at a cost.

Chickens have their beaks removed so they don't kill the other chickes in their one square foot abode.  Hogs have their tails removed so that they neighbor doesn't bit it off.  Cows stand in a foot of their own two.

They are so sick that the only way to keep them alive is to fill them with antibiotics, which is already leading to these drugs being ineffective on us.

What I'm left to ask is what was wrong with the original design?  The circle worked.  People ate, animals and plants kept the circle going, and we weren't killing the planet, ourselves, and the animals.

I believe that we should be able to shake the hand of the farmer that grows our food for us.  Whether it's plant or animal, we should know them.

I believe that we have responsibility to know that the animals that we eat were treated humanely and lived their lives in the way that they were meant to.

I believe that our food should be grown without chemicals.  We were fine for thousands of years without them.

I believe that until I can buy meat that is as easily accessible, affordable, and meets my standards, I'll stick to my veggies.  

That's it.

I convinced you?  (I knew I would)

What should you do?

Educate yourself (obviously I have recommendations).
Buy local.  Look at CSA's (Google it).
Buy organic (I bet it's also local!).
Grow your own food.
Start your own blog to brainwash others.

TD

Here are some happy chickens at Grant Family Farms.  www.grantfarms.com

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Nursery Step 2....

 Tyler and Stacey painted the baby's room today, and I love it!  It's amazing what a can (or two) of paint does.  Now it's time for some chair rail.....