More video

Sophia tried to eat our dog. He's OK with it.

Sorry it's so dark.

This is the video that I've been trying to send to a person or two.

Mymusic player

When I went to share our Capsules song I needed a place to host the song. I found an online storage site that gave me 10G free. I figure that is more than I'll ever need, but I'm in.

OK, I'm loading The Capsules song, and a lot of other things onto the site. Videos to share, more music to share. Everything. But MediaMax is so slow. When they have traffic, they really have traffic. So the songs on my blog are sometimes not working, cause the site that they are on is slow. Or as I'm writing this, the site is totally down.

So I'm looking for another site. maybe Xdrive will work better. Whatever I find, I'd love to find something fast and reliable and I'l happily upgrade to a larger package.


Oh and here's a contrast picture of Sophia. I'm around her everyday, so I can't see her growing. But she has. and here are the pictures to prove it... Nevermind, she's exactly the same.

Look what it's doing today!

So we are having our first snowfall of the season and despite the recent warm weather we've had it is actually sticking (Probably due to the freezing rain and sleet we got yesterday) So since it's also the first snowfall in Sophie's life, we thought we would document the occasion.









She hated the snow blowing in her face- it was really cute! Maybe next year we will actually play in the snow.

Never shake a baby

Unless she's asking for it.

Lynette has been trying to catch Sophia on camera laughing as she does. She finally did it, but the camera is not perfect. It's a little blurry and it makes this look more violent than it actually is but here she is laughing up a storm. Enjoy.

Sophia's bouncing time



In other news, here's a funny story about Lynette. So she is into Kevin Smith and a couple of his characters, Jay and Silent Bob.

Recently she learned about a film she was unaware of, "Jay and Silent Bob Do Degrassi" Neither of us had any idea, but she signed up for Blockbuster Online specifically to rent this movie.

Turns out that Degrassi is a kids show. Kinda an older version of "Saved By The Bell" or a younger version of "Dawsons Creek"

So we have a collection of episodes of "Degrassi: The Next Generation" with special guest stars, Jay and Silent Bob. It's funny cause this is a horrible show and Lynette went so far out of her way to get it.

What's spookier than a bunny?

So I have Haloween pictures to share, but the day itself was standard with no great stories to tell. So instead I'll talk about my observations on childrens TV.

So as Sophie has been taking somewhat of an interest in TV, I've done what I can to learn what shows I will let her watch and what I won't. I can remember Mom saying that she didn't allow Tracy to see Three Stooges because of the violence. Tracy said she didn't allow her kids to watch Rugrats cause they are creepy-looking. Well I'm jumping on board. I don't want Sophia to watch The Doodlebops. It's a Disney show that seems to center around 3 puppet-people who are in a band. Seems that the purpose of the show is to tell kids they are only getting half the story. If you're any kind of fan you need to buy our videos and see our live show. It's like Pokemon where the premise of the show was to buy the figurines and cards. Same with Yu-Gi-Oh.

As annoying as I find BooBah and Oobi, I don't think that I will scream and hollar if Sophia actually wanted to watch them. But I'm gonna continue to screen and shield her from what I feel is wrong with our over-commercialized world. Seems like near the opposite of what I said before I became a father. I always thought that by letting the child make their own decisions you let them be their own person. Now I realize that they won't make their own decisions. So I have to chose if I want her decisions to be made by me or commercials.

And from the poo and slobber...

...a person emerges.

I know that my little girl is soooo special and I've been looking for those little things that makes her different from everyone else on the planet (she needs to have her hand on her face when she eats)

But now she's starting to develop her personality and her likes and dislikes. Sophia was in my arms and I was watching... I don't know... Die Hard(?) And she started telling me in her own way that she didn't like what we were doing. So I, almost jokingly, told her, "If you don't want to watch my show, that's fine. I'll turn on your shows." and I turned the TV to Noggin. She sat and watched Noggin for near 45 minutes.

So we pulled out her Baby Einstein DVDs and started finding out what she likes and doesn't. She still isn't interested in what the TV is about. But she does like the bright colors moving on TV. Her favorite TV show is Maisy. It has the brightest colors with stark contrast and she loves it. I truely believe that she enjoys Maisy and I'm not making that decision for her.

Our little girl (set to music)

So the idea came before Sophia had appendages. My mother used to sing me a song she called, "My song" An old folk song that goes, "I love you, a bushel and a peck... etc" I don't know the title, but someone will surely say the title is something simple like, "bushel and peck"

Anyway, I wanted a song for my little girl. In fact, I loved the idea of her song being something like Goodnight My Angel by Billy Joel. It's a nice song that is sung in the 1st person from a father to a daughter. I loved the lyrics and was wanting to use that, until I found out that I wasn't the first to think of that. There is everything from a song to a childrens book with the lyrics. Seems great, but then I just felt that I was jumping on the bandwagon. Not what I was after.

So Lynette and I went to The Capsules. It's a local band that has released 2 1/2 albums that we enjoy. They were skeptical they could deliver what we wanted. But they took the challenge and sure enough. Today Lynette, Sophia and myself had dinner with Julie and Jason Shields to get the song. They sure came through with something great. In fact, I have 2 opinions.

Personally, I love the lyrics and the sound. It's dripping with The Capsules sound that Lynette and I have grown to love. It has Julie harmonizing with herself (which I love in their other songs) And the repetative scales (think Ave Maria) only adds to its childish charm (I think that phrase may be taken the wrong way. I only mean that it is meant for a baby, as it is)

Professionally (I know I'm not a professional) I was actually surprised that I was analyzing this song. Yet I couldn't help but notice the bold, yet confident steps they took with minors and incidentals. It shows development in style and more than an expected level of maturing. It only makes me more excited in hearing their next CD (which is still a ways off)

Without further ado. Here is Sophias song.

The Capsules

One Bright Shining Star

Shorter story for you: The shirt you see Sophia wearing is a gift from my friend Nigel who lives in Ireland. Yes, Sophia has an Irish shirt from Ireland. Anyway, Irish labeling says the size is 0-1 I assumed the shirt was equal to a 6-9 mo. But when we put it on her, we realized its 3-6 months and she's going to be grown out of it soon. It took me a bit before I agreed that she could wear it at all. Now I'm sad that she'll only be able to wear it a short while before it becomes too small.

Just like daddy

We went garage sale-ing a few weeks ago and I found a couple of hats for Sophie. I figured we should get something to put on her head since its getting colder and she still has NO hair to keep her head warm (She's going to be starting Kindergarten by the time she has hair at the rate it's growing now) Anyway, this hat reminded me of Ken and it was so adorable that I just couldn't pass it up.

Just a reminder of us

OK, if this is how I spend most of my day. In fact, I'd say 70% of the time that Lynette is at work, how is she able to grow and develop her muscles?

But she can. I don't know how, but she does.This morning SOphia was happy with sitting and watching some TV, she didn't want to take a lazy approach to it all. So she decided to sit up to get a better view at the TV.

So pictures is what you're after, pictures is what you'll get.

Sophia has been doing 2 new things. 1 is smiling at anyone who smiles at her. The other is learning what her tounge does.

Here is her in both poses.

Picture problems all around

I'm excited to see that Tracy and family had fun with the diet Coke and Mentos thing. I found out about it a while ago, I tried it and I've seen some interesting stuff on it.

They did an episode on Mythbusters about the phenom. Basically they said they already knew it to be true, so the show was about why it was true. They realized there is a chemical reaction between the aspertame, caffeine and something else (I think potassium benzoate) in the Diet Coke. And the gum and another long named chemical ingredient in the Mentos. Though you can get a reaction out of other beverages, it's not as big. But the biggest reaction came from something called nucleation. Basically the bubbles that are trapped in the Coke are violently released when they are able to escape via the dimples, cracks and fissures on the surface of the Mentos. I love Mythbusters cause they never are satisfied with giving us all the information about a myth. They also have to blow some stuff up.

They looked for the next big thing in chemical reactions.

1. They piped methane into a diffuser in a bucket of soapy water. The result was a lighter-than-air column of bubbles which they were able to set off in a gassy fireball. Cool, but who has a tank of methane lying around the house?

2. They cut 2 holes into a pringles can, one on the top and another on the bottom. They pumped Hydrogen into the bottom hole, then lit the top on fire. It burned like a candle for a second or two, then when the pressure was lost in the can, the fire rushed into the can and BOOM! They can exploded, and considering the blast, the chips themselves were relatively unharmed. Again, super fun, but also a little dangerous.

So on to Sophia. I don't know if it's because I'm staying home with Sophia all day, or if it's because she actually is growing and learning. She is A-L-M-O-S-T able to roll over all by herself. She can get from her back to her side, and sometimes from her side to her stomach. She just can't seem to get past the hump on her side to make it all they way around. I know she already knew our voice but I'm pretty sure she is recognizing our faces. And it's really cool to see her more interested in the things around her. It seemed that only a couple weeks ago, she didn't care about the dangling colored things on her seat. Now she is interested in the colors and - this probably isn't on purpose - but she's actually hitting them with her hand. Lynette said that after a trip with grandma and grandpa to Powell Gardens she was VERY interested in all the colors of the flowers.

Yesterday I took our little girl to work with me. It was fun but she was having trouble taking a nap. In fact, she was tired for a lot of yesterday, but she would only nap for 10-20 minutes at a time. Then at about 4:00 I wrapped her up and gave her the 5 S's (It's a trick from this book I read) and she went down like a light. When Lynette and I went to the grocery store at 6:00 she was still asleep. When Lynette and I were eating dinner at 7:00 she was still asleep. After Sophia ate at 8:00 she was still asleep. When Lynette and I were watching TV at 9:00 she was still asleep.

It was about that time we realized that we need to get to bed ourselves. If Sophia has been sleeping since 4:00, there is no way we were going to get a full night out of her. We'll surely wake up in the middle of the night, so let's get to sleeping now. We went to bed at 10:00. Sophia woke up at 2:00 and ate, then went back to sleep! She woke again at 7:00 and finally she was up for the day.

I don't know what kind of growth spurt she hit. But something happened at yesterday she needed 15 hours of sleep.

Candy is Dandy but water is wetter

Sophia has enjoyed her baths from day 1. Lynette and I thought it may be the wooshing of the faucet, but we wanted to take her to the pool to see if she loved it as much as we thought she would. We looked at her swim suit (size 0-3m) and she long outgrew it. I'm not sure she would have fit into it at her 1 month mark. Thanks to Grandma, she has a swim suit that fits and some little swimmers that don't.

Why is it they make baby swimsuits as small as 0-3m but the smallest swimming diapers are 16 lbs and up?

She wasn't happy with the water at first, but that seemed to be only because she was so cold. Grandma kept getting her used to the water and we moved her into the jacuzzi part she was happy and loving every minute of her life.

Conservation

Thank you FletcherFive for the care package for Sophia. Seems that it is full of very useful stuff. I've never owned those pre-wetted towels from Lysol or Clorox and now that I have them, I don't think I can stop using them. The Dr Browns bottles do cut down on the gas. Lynette's not sure, but I could swear that she burps less when we use those.

And we are using every part of the gift. As you can see. Who needs a car seat? Who needs a crib?

Pictures, just pictures.

I like babysites too. I guess Lynette decided that I prematurely posted the information, so she quickly went to finish up the sites. It's done now, thanks to some quick updating on her part. But we are still in the free trial and not sure we want to spend the money to subscribe or not. We'll see how this works out for a while and maybe change.

Here are some compare and contrast pictures. On the left we see Sophia with her cousin Caden. Caden is 6 weeks older and just a few ounces bigger than Sophia.

On the right is Sophia with our friend Kalea. Sophia is 2 weeks older than Kalea and more than twice the size as of this time we took this picture.

A little of this, a little of that

So I have a secondary location that you can visit. I thought that this blog was going to be a one-stop center for all your online Sophia needs, but Lynette has added something else.

See pictures at Babysites. We are there with lots of pictures.

Here, on the other hand are our attempts of getting a good smiles pictures from our little one. I know it's not a smile yet. But if she's not crying, and it looks like a smile, is it really that different?

The vocabulary of new parents

SO I'm learning everything about being a parent right now. When Lynette says that she feels bad about breastfeeding, I can tell her she is wrong until I'm blue in the face. But there are a couple of things wrong with that. First of all, you can't tell someone with extreme lack of sleep + post-partum that they are wrong about anything. Second, I have as much experience with children as she does and me telling her about what her body is going through is silly and wrong. The only way she'll listen is if you have an MD/RN in front of your name, or if you have gone through the exact same thing. So I searched for a friend who knows the hardship of breast-feeding.

The funny thing is that when I went to find someone who has been through the same uncomfort, helplessness and failure Lynette has felt while breastfeeding, the only criteria was a mother who breastfed and was awake at the time. I called my dear friend Sarah and boom! She said exactly what I already knew. Lynette was only feeling what any and every other mother has felt.

But as far as the termanology of being a parent, I'm picking up. I'm learning the difference between a sleeper and a gown. I know that a dirty diaper is not any 'used' diaper' because there is a difference between a dirty diaper and a wet diaper. I know that gas only refers to something that is coming out or needs to come out of our daughters mouth. (I don't know the nice way to refer to the gas that comes out the other end) And I know that you can never refer to your wifes breastmilk as 'boob-juice'

You know, the knowledge that human urine is sterile was always a fun fact and a wee bit of useless trivia for me. Once you have a child, that useless trivia becomes a huge relief when you have it all over your hand and can't leave the baby by herself to wash up.

"I know I wiped, but there is still a little bit on the diaper itself. Ahh, that's OK, it's totally sterlie."

But all-in-all, I love little Sophie more than anything. The only worry I have right now is providing for my little one and making sure Lynette knows that my love has grown to include Sophia, but still is just as strong for her.

Name and all, she is home.

It's been long and grueling, but Lynette, myself and Sophia Louise are home. I don't understand how single mothers survive. Lynette needed me. I stayed to be with her, I left to get everything set up for her. Mom and Jason & Sarah, and especially my darling sister Jessica all came over and helping clean the apartment, do dishes, laundry, made some food for our fridge and decorate the apartment with coming home decor. Even with all their help, it seemed like I was run ragged the entirety of Lynette's hospital stay.

Little Sophia is fine. There is a little bit of jaundice, but that is probably from the Hep B vaccination she recieved. Nothing to be worried about. We still have a perfectly wonderful little girl. The only thing she has to worry about is the emotional problems I will give her later in life (for some reason she might learn the phrase, "Ken is a dork" instead of a single first word)

Here are more of her from the hospital, and the first pictures of her coming home. Also, the first picture of our little girl with both of her parents. And her cousin Grant, who loves her very much.

Baby [Insert name here] is here

So we haven't had much time to talk about names. But that's only because we have been cooing over our new little one. She is perfect. 10 fingers, 10 toes, the smallest amount of brown hair. And a solid 9 lbs 0 oz. But just in case I made a bet with anyone about how she would be more than 9 pounds, she officially was 9 lbs 0.1 oz. She is 21 inches long and her and Lynette are perfectly healthy and where they are supposed to be.

Here are some pictures, with much, much more to come.

"Hello. How are you?
Have you been alright, through all those lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely nights
That's what I'll say. I'll tell you everything
When you come out to see us today yeah yeah yeah"

There's a little altered Electric Light Orchestra for you to get us ready for today. I have a moral problem with the Happy Birthday song ever since I found out it is not public domain and it owned by a Japanese corporation. I think they are something like a real estate corporation and has nothing to do with music. But even then, it's a birthday song and not a birth day song. So I made up my own. Thank you ELO.

I'm proud to say that regardless of being as excited as 10 Christmases rolled into 1, I slept through the night and got a full 7+ hours of sleep.

Now it's just a matter of keeping Lynette away from food for the next 4 hours and seeing what we can accomplish between now and then. We're thinking of heading to Blockbuster to check out a thing or two.

I'll post some pictures today or tomorrow. See ya later.

I promised some stories

So here I go. Sorry I don't have all the time in the world to go through all the side-stories. But here is what I promised.

So Lynette and I went to Parkville for the 4th of July. They had a lot of activity goings on at the time. On top of all the regular stuff they always have (it's a variable square of commercial activity) they also had a carnival, a row of carnival style food and more. Before the fireworks we had a bathroom problem and Lynette was able to sneek into the Power Plant Brewery and use their bathroom without a scene. Seems that pregnant women have a free reign of any bathroom they choose.

So we set up camp and waited and watched fireworks and they were wonderful. We were so close that we not only saw all the fireworks, if it weren't for the slight hill and the downward incline, we would have seen the people shooting off the fireworks.

After they were over we waited for the shuttle to take us back to our car, but the traffic was so bad that we had to wait... and wait... and wait. After 30 minutes of waiting and still seeing the bus that was too full for us to travel upon sitting only a few yards away, stuck in traffic. Lynette was a little too tired to decide to walk to our car, but her bladder decided that we should walk. So we trecked the 1/4 or less mile to our car, got in and waited... and waited... and waited. All in all, it was almost 2 hours between the time that we waited on the bus and the time that we got home. So later Lynette was told by her doctor that she had a bladder infection. The only thing we can spot as the reason is Lynette's 2 hours that she held it in. I offered to stop at the first opportunity, but it was only an additional 10 minutes beofre we got home. We sat so long in traffic that Lynette has a little long-term damage.

The other story that I wanted to tell is how The Capsules have our song almost ready for it. They apparently have the song done, it's just a matter of recording. In fact, on a recent e-mail they sent to us we realized that they were also at Parkville for the fireworks. I don't believe we saw them there, but if we did, I'm sure that we would of said something like, "That looks like Julie Shields, The Capsules lead singer." Without even considering that it could be them. I rencently met Peter Coyote, but because I wasn't expecting to see a famous Hollywood actor I didn't even think that I knew him from movies like Erin Brokovich, Jaged Edge and E.T. So I just thought to myself, 'Hey, he looks familiar, oh well.' Though I didn't even meet Julie and Jason Shields at the Parkville fireworks, I'm sure it would have been the same situation.

Anyway, they say that our song is done, they only need to record it, and that should be done on or about the 19th, when our child is born. So I'm excited to hear it finally, but at the time, I'm sure the the birth of our child will push the song to the background of the excitement in my life.

The final word on a date... kinda

We talked to the doctor more yesterday (Friday) and we did leave with more answers than questions. Seems that in the doctors eyes, there are 2 types of surgery, elective and emergency. There is a specific medical reason that she is having a C-Section and we need not worry about the insurance seeing the word elective and not paying. She told us the medical term for "big baby" but we forgot. But this is elective surgery by the doctors definition and she explained that she always has to be careful with insurance forms not to use the word elective, because they always look for a reason not to pay. But as for my worry that having a baby would cost us a few thousand dollars, I need not worry.

With that out of the way, Lynette still had reservation about a C-Section, because her only exposure was when her sister had one... After 20 hours of failed labor. But she's realized that the extreme pain in that situation was not due to the C-Section, but rather the fact that it followed such a difficult labor.

So after those problems were solved, we said yes. July 19th at 1:30pm we are scheduled to have a baby! That is, unless Lynette goes into labor naturally before then. She still wants to go naturally if she can. But the date is set and we are good to go!

Speaking of Lynette wanting to go into natural labor. The doctor did check her to see how she was progressing. Apparently she is starting to dilate, but she is not very far. In fact, the doctor labeled her at a fingertip. I guess that's the term for dilated between zero and one. Though it is possible for her to go into labor soon, it's not looking likely. Though the baby is progressing fast, Lynettes body is perfectly on schedule.

In other, sad news. This week my grandpa died. It would be a lot more heartbreaking, but it was his time, so knowing that, it's very easy for me to accept. We also talked to the doctor about Lynette's ability to go to Joplin for the funeral. The doctor wouldn't recommend it for other reasons, but for this reason, she said that we just need to make sure to get out and stretch a couple of times during the trip and we will be good. Thanks to generosity from Mom and Dad we will be staying in a hotel room so we don't have to make the trip in such a hurry. We will be leaving on Sunday afternoon and coming back Monday evening. To put a happy face on an otherwise bad situation, we will also have this chance to finally meet Caden.

I do have other stories about Lynette's bladder infection (yes, it's kinda funny) and update on our song by The Capsules (They said their deadline to have it recorded and done is July 20th, but Lynette and I have plans on that date) So I hope to have a chance before I go to Joplin to write more.

Jae is right

So I haven't been posting as much as I should recently. But here we go again. It's not really for the lack of things happening in my life, more because I just didn't really have things to say.

So Lynette went to the sonogram last Thursday and we had some pictures taken. The doctor said she weighed 8 lbs 3 oz. The following day she went to the OB and they were talking about inducing and C-Section and everything. Looks like the OB wants to pick a date near the 20th for the C-Section, but we will wait and see what happens before then.

Lynette has been having about 5+ contractions per day, not Braxton-Hicks but full blown. We'll find out more about what this means tomorrow when she sees her doctor again. We also have questions about how "elective" it is when she says she strongly urges Lynette to have an elective C-Section. Doesn't 'strongly urge' and 'elective' contradict each other? Ah, we'll hopefully leave tomorrow with more answers than questions.

The cutest thing

On Lynettes most recent and final baby shower we got something from our good friend Laura. Lynette wanted me to post this right away, but I've been a little lazy. I'll give you this one and let Lynette post something about the showers themselves.

Laure gave us these and they are so cute. They remind us both of Avery. If only they were a little bigger I'm sure Avery would want to borrow them.

Chaetophobia

Actually, chaetophobia is a fear of hair. (the same source says Trichophobia is a fear of hair as well) But I have a fear of getting my hair cut.

My barber shop was closed, so I had to settle for Great Clips. There are 2 stylists working and a total of 4 people in front of me. As I'm waiting I notice that one lady has a "Stylist of the month" sign above her station. I won't make a fuss about who I get but I secretly hope to get her. Finally it's almost my turn and I'm going to be seated at the stylist of the month's station. As I'm waiting for her to get cleaned up a guy walks in with funny hair. He has a buzz cut on his entire head, but a large circle of shoulder length hair right on top. It's too much of a mullet to be considered a mullet. The top of his head looks pretty short, so I can't help but wonder what he's doing. Is he actually going to get it all cut off? His hair needs to improve, how will he do it?

He says to the lady, "I just got my hair cut here and she did it all wrong." Hooray. He recognizes that his hair looks silly. So MY stylist, the stylist of the month, sits him immedietly. Dangit. As he's seated, I'm listening in to hear, "The top is uneven." That's the problem? Not the freakin half-spawn between a mullet and rattail? Seems that except for a few long hairs on the top/front of his head, he was perfectly happy with this look.

SO then I sit down. At the other lady's stand. She starts asking me a bunch of questions that I don't know the answer to, and a bunch more questions that don't matter.

"So you want a 3 on the back?" What's a "3"?
"Do you want me to square off the back or round it off?" I may have an opinion if she wanted to give me zig-zags. But I'm willing to bet that 5 out of 100 guys my age have a true preference. The other 95 just say whatever.
"What are we going to do with these bangs?" Cut them? Maybe? Unless you can lengthen them and turn them into pretzels. That would be OK too.
"So you off work today?"
"Do you have any kids?"

Normally talking about my expected child is one of the funnest things I can do. But small talk with barbers and the like is just so uncomfortable. Talk always leans toward a short list of subjects. Weather, local sports (in season), occupation, kids.

"Did you see the [insert local team name] game last night?"

"Yea, it was good they won/bad they lost."



"I hope it rains soon. We sure do need some rain."

"Yup, we do."

And that is why I hate getting my hair cut.

The Baby's Room

Lynette was talking to our friend Sarah (who is now expecting with their second, Wooo Hooo!) and talking about how we finally moved into this place and now have a room for the baby. Lynette was feeling a little bad that we only had 2 months before the room needs to be done. Sarah tried to make Lynette feel better by telling her how Sarah's baby room wasn't finished until Sarah was 7 months pregnant as well.

But When Lynette was 7 months pregnant we hadn't even started. In fact, when she was exactly 32 weeks, we didn 't even own a babys room. But now we do. And though there are still some bits and ends to finish up, we are actually ready-ish. There is some organization and a couple of things left to buy. And Lynette wants to sponge the walls to make them look pretty. But here you go. And if you look at the crib, you will see hoe many clothes we have. Before the baby is born, we have alredy filled a rubbermaid tub of stuff that we are giving away.

On a side note, not only do I realize that we are 6 weeks away from Lynette's due date. I also realize that when the doctor said that she hopes Lynette will go into labor at 36-37 weeks. That's only 2 weeks away.

Though I realize that waiting is in the cards, and I'm very used to waiting. It's crazy to think that Lynette is nearing the point of being ready at a moments notice to have our child.

It is finished

The dresser has a couple of spots I can touch up. And there are a few spots that need to dry before I can move it inside. But I am finished painting the dresser.

So since that was all I had to say in this post, I wanted to tell you about my new camera. Fact is, I've been saying that I need an new Sony camera. I have fallen into the trap that Sony has set. I own SOny products, therefore I have MemorySticks. Now that I have the MemorySticks, I really don't want to buy something with CompactFlash, SD, etc. But if I were to have my way, there are a few features in a camera that I want. And if I could chose anything, I would chose a Canon. That's exactly what I got, every feature I want in a Canon. And to top it off, a 256m SD card to boot. No worries about getting a new memory card.

And as Dad said, "Well, I figured that you printer is older than your computer anyway." So I have a Canon Pixma printer/scanner to go with it. Again, everything is more than perfect. This is my way not only to brag. But to brag so openly to let Mom and Dad know how much I enjoy their very generous gift to us.

Thank you.

What have I been doing?

So I haven't been posting, I haven't been replying to others posts. What have I been doing?

Everything else!

A staff change kept me at the restaurant for most of the week, then finally on Sunday I had the day to myself. In fact, Lynette had her baby shower and I was at home. Not even my friends Kirby or Mike were going to be in town. But I spent the day working on the dresser.

Lynette's parents gave us the dresser that Lynette used when she was a baby. It's perfect. A little aged, but we are taking care of that.

I spent the day stripping all the old paint off of it. I sanded it down best I could. Now Lynette and I are painting it. We have white, pastel pink and pastel purple. The colors look too light, so we'll see if they all blend together or not.

It feels really good to accomplish something on your own. I shouldn't be saying it yet. I need to at least wait until it's done. But today is the day. There is no way I'm turning back now.

You can also see that the pictures I have are a lot more clear than the last ones. That is thanks to Mom and Dads baby shower gift to Lynette and myself. They got us a new camera. One that takes video and a printer to go with it. It's great. And I didn't actually know that screaming for something on my blog will get it for me. So let me try this. I NEED A DOWNPAYMENT ON A HOUSE!

Check us out

It's nice to see that everyone has blogs.

Out of the 4 kids, you can see the oldest at adventuresindicoccoville.blogspot.com
The next at fletherfive.blogspot.com
myself right here fletcharia.blogspot.com
and the youngest at thecraigzone.blogspot.com

We are all here

Now onto baby business. SO at Lynette's last doctors appointment her doctor told her that the baby, at full term, looks to be about 10 lbs. This is telling her that Lynette will hopefully go into labor naturally before the 38 week mark. If that's not the case, our doctor will see the progress and determine if inducing or even a C-section is in the cards. It's too early to tell right now, but we'll see later on. As it is, look for our baby to join us before July 27th (our due date) but a day or a few weeks before, we don't know.

Recent thoughts and rants

I don't think I have any pictures to go with this, this is just random things that I've been thinking of recently.

If there's 1 thing I've learned from Walden Pond it is this. You can never live a cheaper, fuller and healthier life than if you do it yourself. This leads me to believe that I can be healither and cheaper by cooking myself. But this is not always the case. I can go to the store and spend $1 on carrots, $1.50 on celery, $1 on onions, $6 on a chicken, I'll sy that I spend about $.50 on spices, a buck or 2 on noodles and I have 4 to 6 servings of chicken noodle soup for a total of $12. But I can buy a can of it for $2. So either I make it for $2/ serving or I can buy it for the same cost. True, my soup tastes better than the can. However, it also takes 2 min to make it from a can and about 10-12 hours to make it from scratch. So there's some give and take both ways. My soup may be healthier but the Campbells can sit on the shelf for a year, available for me anytime.

I realize that Thoreau would say I was silly. By raising my own chickens and using veggies from my own farm I could create gallons of chicken noodle soup for pennies or less. And on a more obvious note he would probably say that his book was talking about a quality of life, not cheap chicken noodle soup. But hopefully you see where I'm coming from with this.

Now that I've established my thought process I can jump to the point. As much as I hate the idea of putting all the additives from processed food into my body. As much as I can use my skills to cook just about anything. The fact is, it's difficult for me to pass up things like Hot Pockets $2 each, Totinos Pizza for a dollar each or chicken pot pies for $.60 each.

You can take this baby and stick it...

... in our new apartment.

I know, I know, Tracy graciously pointed out that I have not posted on here in a while. It wasn't so much that I forgot, or was lazy. Simply this. I was busy, and no new baby activity has happened.

I spent all day Friday doing a lot of work for the restaurant, and alternately starting the move to our new place. We are just down the road from our new place, but we are in a differnt apartment complex and we are in a larger 2-bedroom apartment. Saturday was all about work, and Sunday was all about actually moving, then Monday we spent the day cleaning our old apartment. And from Saturday to Tuesday, I didn't have a computer and Internet connection in the same place. Just when I thought that I'd have some re-coup time on Tuesday to sit down and write, or catch up, everything else had to be done (including an unfortunate flat tire that needed replacing rather than fixing.)

So here you see some pictures of our new place. I really enjoy the kitchen, and it is totally unpacked. That is actually the only room that is 100% ready for viewing, but the living room is not bad either. That is the reason that those 2 rooms are the only ones pictured. We also have a dining room that is filled with boxes and odds and ends (you can see the table through the breakfast bar, and the second bedroom, hence known as the baby's room, is still just a load of boxes.

P.S. Something else you can see is the grainy pictures we get from our older than dirt digital camera. You know, if anyone is reading this and interested, Lynette put a new camera on her baby registry... Was that too blatent? No? Then BUY US A CAMERA! There. That is.