one more day....

Well, tomorrow is the day it seems. The baby-to-be-named-later is not showing any signs of wanting to arrive earlier than planned so far. That's okay, we're tying things up at work, at home, etc. It is a little odd knowing, and having known, that tomorrow is likely to be the baby's birthday. On the other hand, we're probably about as ready as we are going to be.

Grandma H. arrived last night with no problems at all. Sara and I met Danette and Grandma at Maggiano's for a nice dinner out, and Sara could get her favorite - pasta. Heck, she even got the waiter to bring her two desserts not just one :)

A bit snowy this morning, supposed to be more today and tonight, but the forecast amount of snow for tonight has been reduced, so hopefully I will not be pulling out the snowblower at 3:30 am. Danette is, we believe, first on the schedule for tomorrow so by early/mid morning we should have a new little one.

So, how will you know? Well, eventually I will try to post a quick cell phone picture or at least a quick blurb before the end of the day. Eventually some nice pics will hopefully show up once I get home and can upload them, just like last time.

The blog doesn't seem to take pics from the cell phone directly. So, you may be able to find them at the following link, once there are some:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sahiispot/baby

Anyways, that's all I know. Have a good day!

2 days...

No new pics and no more news on the baby-watch front. Danette and the baby are doing well it seems. Since Sara didn't want to venture into the outside world without some help, maybe it isn't a surprise that this one isn't itching to go early either.

We have been having a pretty good week here. We had a great day with Sara on Monday, in fact it was probably one of the most fun days we can remember. Sara even said, to no one in particular, while she was playing before dinner on Monday "I had an awesome day." Which was a fair statement I would say. Then yesterday, it seems she had a repeat performance at day care, because one of her teachers said it was her "best day ever." Pretty good for a two-and-a-half year old. We were happy with one day, but two days in a row was outstanding.

Otherwise, all is quiet here. I finished teaching for a little while, since I have my class covered for the next two weeks while we are first settling in at home. And... Grandma H. will be here this afternoon, so that will be exciting too.

What does a lion look like? "Roar!"

A semi-day-off on Monday isn't such a bad thing I must say. Danette stayed home this morning while I had to teach. She and Sara went to a local PB Kids store where there was a Cat in the Hat event at story time that was quite enjoyable, if busy. This afternoon I stayed home, did a little grading while the little girl was napping, and then we went off to the local library to read some books and do some puzzles.

Otherwise, everything is going fine here. We certainly appreciate all the well wishes and thoughts and are definitely looking forward to meeting our new little one.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the last couple of days.



Playing with playdoh, and looking over at the plant Dad rustled while trying to take yet another picture



What does a lion look like? "Roar!" (of course)

A three-day weekend for three

We hope that everyone had a great Valentine's day yesterday... we had some good family fun here. We woke up and opened some nice cards yesterday and then went to the (indoor version) of our favorite farmer's market for the first time in 2009. Definitely not the same as when it is in full swing, but there is definitely something nice about seeing many of the faces and foodstuffs we are used to on Saturday mornings.

Yesterday afternoon we went out for a little shopping and walking after Sara's nap. We stopped at the bookstore where Sara likes to play with the train sets, and we even found a gift for her to give her little sister. Though, in a sign that we still have to readjust to thinking about infants again, the stuffed animal in question has plastic eyes and will have to sit on a shelf in the baby's room to look at instead of for playing with for a while... ah well, it isn't like the kid will be lacking for toys in our house. And then last night we played several hands of Uno with Sara. There is a nice simplified card set for little kids, and she knows her numbers and colors well enough that she can mostly go through the game with just a bit of help... something she really likes.

Otherwise, we are just sort of tying up loose ends around the house, enjoying the relative quiet, etc this weekend. Sara has President's day off, but Danette and I do not. I have a morning class, so we will be trading off around noon tomorrow. Grandma H. will be here Wednesday afternoon and then if we haven't gone in already, we will head to the hospital on Friday morning.

Well, here are some pictures from the last week of Sara, Danette, and the hiding baby-to-be-named later.

One week..... eek.

Well, one week from now we should have a new bundle of joy in our arms. Talk about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Danette is doing well, getting a bit more tired and uncomfortable but otherwise on track. Nothing really new to report on the baby front at this point.

We went out with our friends Leah and Paul last night and they brought a Valentine's gift for Sara, including a new hat that Leah had made. Sara is showing it off in the restaurant in great style. She was very excited to take it to school and show her teachers this morning.

Anyway, that is all...



Say Cheese!

9 days (or less)

For those keeping score at home, only 9 days (or less) until the baby-to-be-named later is born. Danette is doing well and still on track - no signs yet of anything imminent. We did ask the doc yesterday if he had a guess of how big the little one will be and he thought something in the 7 lb range. That would be about right if this kid is following the same trajectory as Sara, just a couple of weeks earlier.

Otherwise, things are okay. Sara had a rough day at school yesterday, rather defiant about wanting to quietly take her nap... apparently reinforcements were required. Of course, she woke up way too early upon hearing rain in the middle of the night, so that probably had something to do with it.

Anyway, we are just going about our business as usual.....

T-13 days

Yup, we are under the 2 week mark until the baby is here. Danette is doing well and apparently so is the little one. We are calmly and slowly getting a few last things together, but the calmness may be disbelief that we will have another baby around two weeks from now...

We had another week of crazy snow, and now it is melting away and near 50F outside. I have spend more time using my roof rake than I would like too, but it does seem to help keep the amount of ice buildup around the gutters down a bit.

Sara is doing well, of course. This week has been interesting because the young lady who usually falls off to sleep very quickly has been doing quite the opposite the last week to ten days. She has been routinely yapping to herself for at least 45 minutes to as long as 1 1/2 hours after we put her to bed; it doesn't matter if it is a nap (just shy of an hour of talking/singing today) or bedtime. Needless to say, something is going on. I suspect it is related to a noticeable jump in her imagination lately. Even her teachers have commented on it, in fact we got a note home from day care/school saying how busy she was that day with her buddies including getting in the car and driving to Minnesota for ice cream. The girl has never had ice cream in Minnesota, she was far too young the last time she was there, so she came up with it all on her own. Anyway, it is an interesting and often fun development.

Below are just some pics of Sara that I snapped while trying to get used to my new camera lens. These are nice because it his her face rather than her hair or neck that is in focus... I am getting better at it though.

Less than 3 weeks to go!

That about tells the tale of the tape. We are getting closer and closer to the due date for the baby-to-be-named later. In fact, we are headed to the hospital for a tour aimed at siblings-to-be today. Sara is looking forward to that. Danette is doing well and everything seems "normal" and on-track.

This week was another snowy one, in fact I think we are going to come up just an inch or so short of the snowiest January on record in Cleveland. We had a little melt back that resulted in close to half our snow disappearing, but all of that and then some has returned, all pretty much in one day this week. I now have some snow banks at the house that are getting difficult to see over.... reminds me of growing up in MN.

Sara is doing well, full of energy, etc. The last couple of weeks have been fun because she started spontaneously giving hugs and saying "I love you" at least in response to the same, which hadn't been her style before. She is also excited to help get the room ready for the baby whenever she can.

This week also so the delivery of my new fixed focal-length f/1.8 lens for my camera, so I have been playing with that. The plan is for it to be very useful for taking pictures of the the kids in natural light/low light in the house, etc. So far it seems like a good idea, but I do have to be far more careful with the focus.

Anyway, here are some pictures for the week.



Painting at her easel



Big smile before school



getting good at ignoring the man behind the camera - in a good way

Oy! down to 4 weeks.

Guess it has been a while since I posted anything... oh well.

2009 has been going well so far. Sara is being Sara, growing, learning more, and pushing boundaries everyday like a good 2.5 year old. The only downside of the month thus far has really been the weather - shoveling or snowblowing 2-3 times a day gets a little old. It also turns out that there must be a gap in the insulation(?) near where our computer sits, so when the temps approach zero, as they had been... the computer is avoided.



A morning pic (1/10) during the cold and snowy month



Snow at probably its deepest on 1/20

Even had to go out and "rake" the snow off the roof twice so far this month to try to deal with all the icicles that were building up.

We have been doing a few other things as well. As we are obviously getting closer to the new baby (27 days or less, one way or another), we have been trying to get a few more things prepared. Everything seems on track and everyone healthy it appears. We even made it out to pre-register Danette this morning and we will have a tour aimed at young siblings to-be next weekend.

However, much to our chagrin, we realized that we just were not going to get the baby's room stripped of its wallpaper and painted in time.... just not enough hours on the weekends that are left with all the other usual things to do. The wallpaper was the real nemesis, of course. So for the first time, we broke down and hired someone to come in and take care of the wallpaper and painting inside our house. Felt a little odd to not do it ourselves, but it is done now. Given that it took two pros a whole solid weekend, we are glad we don't have it hanging over our heads anymore.



Before



During, yup the walls were never painted/primed before the wallpaper went up - Nice!





After

Now we are just working to get the room set up.... but we have some time to work there...

Anyway, needless to say, at least someone enjoyed the snow when it was warm enough to be out for a while...



playing



snow angels



Even a pic with Dad



getting into games more and more, though a little difficult to find good age appropriate ones still, but she loves them regardless



Trip to the Children's Museum on MLK day.



Being Sara, getting up early and having breakfast w/Dad even though she could be sleeping.

Sara has also become even more aware of what's going on around her... or at least she is narrating it more. This week she saw a particular man on the TV, and said "That's Barack Obama!" yup, it was. She was also quite excited when she recognized someone talking about him on the radio on our way to school. Sara also apparently announced at school that she wants to be a doctor and drive the ambulance, but she has to wait until she is older and can go to college and be old enough to drive. Moments like these are pretty neat, especially when balanced with the other half of the typical two-year old equation....

Happy 2009!

Does this say I like to celebrate the new year with cupcakes or what?!?

Happy new year everyone! We hope that you have had a joyous holiday season. It has certainly been a fun and busy time here.

Grandma D. left on the 26th and Grandma and Grandpa H. showed up on the 28th (their anniversary, as usual) - and left this morning.... On the 27th we had unseasonably warm weather and Sara and I went to the park, yes, the park in December - 65 and breezy! We had a little more xmas on the 28th (see pics below). Sara had great fun helping everyone open their gifts, and in some cases trying them on!

Lots of game and book and toy time around the house the last couple of weeks, and sleeping-in, which is very odd for the little girl.... maybe she is growing - again.

The baby-to-be is doing well too, growing a lot. We are now zoning in on an auspicious end to the third week of February. Though, we do still need to get the room ready for the kiddo.....



December at the park



On the slide for the holidays!



Now I am really ready to cook.



I am helping Mom see how this looks!



Waiting for her last gift from Grandma and Grandpa

Let the holidays begin...

So, I am back from a week-long meeting in San Fran and ready for the holiday "break" (yeah, I am still going to work this next week, at least a couple of days...). I followed up my landing after a redeye flight with some xmas shopping and a little catnap.

Anyway, Sara did reasonably well while I was gone, though it appears that we have reached the age where she truly does "miss" a parent being gone now... just to make it even easier to travel...

Danette is doing well, and so is the baby, it seems it grew even in the four days that I was gone somehow. Grandma and Grandpa D flew in last night for the holiday, so the holiday has truly begun.

Today we took Sara to a holiday concert for young kids (3-6) at Severance Hall. A very fun brass quintet from the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra did a wonderful job of playing great music and teach about their instruments... Sara was full with an amazed and exhilarated smile the whole time. She had been looking forward to this day all week and it clearly did not disappoint.

Given that the holidays are upon us there will undoubtedly be more pictures to come, but here are a few taken in the last couple of weeks.



Sara in a new coat that she wore to the concert



At the concert



Laughing



Sara and Danette



Self-portrait for two

December cheer...

Looking at the archive of the blog it appears that I started this thing just over 4 years ago now... that's a pretty amazing to me that something I started on a whim just to see what a "blog" was is still active.... anyway, it is and now about what you are really here to see....

So we are starting off this month well. Sara is now sleeping exclusively in a "big girl" bed, which is great, except that we now have 3:30 am visits to our room that we didn't before... we are hoping that the up in the middle of the night and up early bit will wear off after she gets more comfortable sleeping in the new bed... getting her to go to sleep is a bit more of a challenge too, but that is probably quite normal.

We had her 2.5 year appt with the doc, which went well, not even a peep during her flu shot - a first - and she is back into the 95th percentile on both height and weight... she has grown over 2.25 inches in the last 6 months alone to 38". And our arms are definitely feeling the extra weight that goes with that growth.

We've started getting into the holiday spirit here too. The tree is up and decorated and the other decorations are up too... we actually have Danette's Santa Bears out for the first time since Sara was born, so that has added a little excitement to the living room :) Sara is also all about Frosty the Snowman lately too, having watched it on DVD, and singing along with the music at school.

Yesterday was pretty crazy, the little girl was up a bit too early shall we say... we actually went out for a little breakfast and Home Depot time and back home by 9am or something like that. Then in the late afternoon, Sara had her first serious birthday party to go to. It was at a local place that has a bunch of those inflatable bouncers for kids and the whole place can be rented for a party. Man, did she have a good time, and got a serious workout (as did I helping her and a few of her friends up the largest inflatable slide, hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have canceled that gym membership....). After the party (complete with ice cream birthday cake) we went straight to another party, my department's annual holiday party (read, more chocolate and cookies within Sara's reach). We stayed just a little while, but needless to say it was a long day, but she did great.

Danette and the baby-to-be-named-later are doing well too. The little one is doing more stretching and swimming around and trying to keep up with her big sister's growth spurts as well. 28 weeks down now, less than 3 months to go! We are making a little progress on physical preparations at least, the new dresser for Sara arrives this week so that we can move the one with the changing station into the baby's room. Also, keeping up with my plan for making sure that all kids have sufficient pictures taken of them, a new digital camera is arriving this week, basically I will only have myself to blame for poor pictures now :)

And speaking of pictures...



here is a pic of Sara reading to herself yesterday



Sara in her xmas dress for some pics for holiday cards, etc.



Another pic of the happy girl all dressed up.

200!

Wow, blogger tells me that this is the 200th post. Who knew?

Things are well here, a bit more snowy and cold than I'd like, but at least it isn't Duluth weather. Last weekend I spent half a day blowing/raking/hauling leaves in the rain because a week of snow was in the forecast.... and indeed we have had the snow, but fortunately not as much as it could have been. That's especially fortunate since my snowblower is in the shop and not scheduled for a return until sometime around the first of December....

Sara continues to grow, be tired, and therefore more cranky than we would like. Needless to say we have reached the battle of the wills that is supposed to happen around 2 and half... though it is a little better if she actually sleeps. She has had a bit of a cough and sniffles this week, so her naps at day care have been, well, micro-naps. She finally slept in yesterday and I took her into school a little late and she slept in this morning too, but still a lot of sleep to make up. Sara had school pictures this past week, so we are looking forward to those coming back to see how they turned out.

Danette and the baby be to be are doing well too. The little one is making its presence known a bit more all the time. Kicking, etc is more common and even Sara and I have felt it now. Danette's sleep is getting more fitful now too... but hey, only 97 days +/- 8-10 days to go.

We are getting ready for Thanksgiving too. A couple of friends will be over for a little while, but otherwise, a quite year. Starting to think about the whole holiday season... we are even considering a fake tree now, D's allergies really picked up last year with a real one, and that certainly wouldn't be fun while pregnant if it happened again. Still haven't actually looked much at them though, so we'll have to see what finally happens.

Well, how about some pictures:



Hanging out after cruising the farmer's market earlier this month.



Probably a last hurrah at the park for the season.



Reading the paper last weekend.



A happy post-bath Sara-burrito

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! The pic above was taken about a week ago at Boo at the Zoo. Sara had a good time on a Thursday night going to the zoo in her costume. Grandma D. was here for a visit, so it was a bit extra fun.



Here they are having some fun.



Sara on the Drum.



Out for trick-or-treating for the evening (we expanded from the 1 house the last 2 years, to 4 houses this year).

In other news, things are going generally well here. Grandma D was here for a visit a week ago. I have been traveling a bit to DC and soon to Boulder for meetings. The baby is making its presence known more all the time, the kicking and moving around has begun in earnest... another usual checkup next week. Danette is doing generally well other than a cold that seems to have gripped our house this week. Sara is doing pretty well this week, and next week she has some changes coming. She and some of her friends are moving into their own new room at day care... they are splitting off the older two-year olds, which includes Sara. The new room is in next door to the preschool rooms, so that is pretty exciting and a good next step to prepare for that next year. She has been over to the new room a few time with her buds and they all seem excited from what we hear.

Have a good November.

21

Twenty one in one of those interesting numbers in life... 21 often reminds me of the game of basketball which is getting into swing now. My friend Nate and I have revived our fantasy basketball partnership for the upcoming NBA season... and I am a bit out of shape, shall we say and have been cramming for the test next week known as draft day. 21 can also refer to the umpteenth attempt to legalize gambling here in our fair state through a proposed amendment that would grant a monopoly to one company in the constitution. Or roughly speaking, 21 is about the number of days until little Riley turns one month old.

Twenty one is also the number of weeks along that Danette happens to be.... *insert dramatic pause here* Yes, we are expecting to make this family of three into four around the end of February. Admittedly, many readers are already aware of this fact, but it hasn't appeared here until now. Danette is doing well. The first trimester was generally fine, but the second is certainly better. Sara is excited to be a big sister, even if she doesn't fully understand what is on the horizon for us all. There have already been a couple of ultrasounds and other typical tests all appears to be well with the baby-to-be-named-later, II. We are starting get plans for preparations going (yes, just plans mostly). We are going to turn our office into the nursery so that Sara will hopefully still sleep through the night when the baby does not. Unfortunately, that is going to be a bit of an undertaking to get set up, but we will get there. We have even ordered a new dresser for Sara so that we can move the one with that has also served as the changing table into the baby's room. Regardless, we are all looking forward to the end of February.

No ultrasound pics or the like, the scanner is not connected to our newish computer, nor do I know if it would work anyway at this point. So, today's pics will be of our trip out to the Arboretum this afternoon and the little miss. This morning we picked up some new shoes for her (and learned that the new ones are a half-size larger than 3-year-olds typically wear). Then this afternoon after her nap we drove out and took in the colors and had a nice little hike. A little nippy today, around 50 for the high, but it was all good. Sara had a good time, though she was mostly interested in the crushed pebbles and rocks that made up the walking paths than the vibrant colors of the leaves.



Sitting by the pond for a minute.



The other side of that pond.



Another pic of the colors and walking path.