As the Baby Grows

At my doctor’s appointment last week, he looked at our child’s anatomy. He measured and inspected such parts as the kidneys, liver, brain, skull, femur, arm bone (I don’t remember its clinical name), toes (so cute), abdomen, and genitalia. This is a picture of our child’s genitalia. Our doctor has been a doctor for many, many years and is an excellent ultrasoundographer. As we looked at this image on the ultrasound screen, he told us the sex of our baby. We just didn’t see what he saw. Do you? He said he was sure of the baby’s gender. Are you?


Here I am in my 23rd week of pregnancy. The baby has now added 25 pounds to me. Can you tell? I am feeling great: my energy is high, and I don’t feel nauseous anymore. Of course there’s other effects of pregnancy beginning: a sore back, swollen feet, and excruciating leg cramps at night (well, it’s only happened once so far, but it was so bad that I was afraid to fall asleep the next night).



The first snow of the season fell yesterday. It was very festive, and we had plans to put up our Christmas tree and decorations, but we didn't actually get to it until today, and this evening the snow has almost melted.

Baby's First Photos

These are some of our baby’s first photos. It is an awesome thing to see our child move around in the womb. During the first ultrasound in August he or she was only three centimeters in length, but was very active—kicking and moving its arms like a freestyle swimmer. What especially struck me was the sound of the tiny fetus’ heartbeat. The doctor turned up the sound on the ultrasound machine and the heartbeat filled the entire examination room—the stamp of human life at only 3 centimeters in size.



These two photos are from the end of September. The baby is quite a bit bigger and still just as active. Ryan was present for this ultrasound and asked the doctor, “When is it possible to find out the sex of the baby?” We hadn’t yet decided if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, and Ryan asked this question out of curiosity and not out of the desire to know our baby’s gender. But the doctor replied, “Well, let’s see.” And from then on he was in search for the genitals. He was able to get a pretty good angle of that critical region and said, “That looks like a penis.” Of course, at only 15 weeks it was far too early to guarantee, but now that we think it may be a boy, we are going to find out the sex just to make sure. If it is a girl, we’ll have an ironic photo for her baby book with an arrow pointing to the crotch and the word “boy.”



Ryan and I have been working on choosing a name for our child, and since our doctor thinks that he may’ve found a penis, we are focusing on boy names. So far the names in running are: Cash, Ace, Champ, Hrothgar, and Santa (‘tis the season, right?). But most recently, our family has been fixated on the name “Klaus.” Do any of you have any suggestions? Feel free to enter them in the comments section of this blog.

Harlee and Me

A lot has occurred since our last post (granted, it’s been several months and lot can happen in that time): we have two new additions to our family. One is in the form of a frisky feline who we named Harlee. The second is the baby that is growing in my belly (Jessie’s—in case it wasn’t clear).


Harlee was given to us by our friends Jesse and Danyale back in September. It took us a while to name her, but straightaway we noticed two of the most endearing qualities: she loves to play, and she purrs nonstop whenever we’re in her vicinity. Her domain is our newly insulated garage where we’ve rigged all sorts of toys for her: a beanie baby on a string. a plastic strip from the seal of a five-gallon paint bucket, ping-pong balls, paper bags, open boxes, etc. She runs free through all of our junk and has many secret passageways and hiding places. Sometimes I try to bring her in the house, but she’s just too hyperactive. The TV wires turn into jungle vines from which to swing from, our couch becomes a scratching post, and our book shelves a jungle gym. Maybe when she’s older and tamer we’ll let her in more often. So for now she’s our garage cat and once she’s spayed Ryan will install a kitty door in our garage so she can roam outdoors as well. Right now she only feels safe venturing into the yard if we’re there or if she steals out under the cover of night—but then we can’t see her, so we’re not very comfortable with that.



Some may wonder why the name “Harlee.” It’s because she purrs so much. Each morning when I awaken, turn on lights, and begin fixing my breakfast she awakens as well. I know this because the door to our garage is in our kitchen/dining room. As I sit and eat my breakfast I can hear her purring away on the other side of the door. I haven’t yet opened the door, petted her, or even spoken to her but she’s already purring. The vet was astonished at her purring abilities as well. As she gave Harlee her shots and washed all of the mites out of her ears with a soapy solution—Harlee purred through the whole thing! The previous cat had moaned and hissed and meowed, but our Harlee just purred. So instead of naming something like the Purrmanantor or Purrkalator, she’s Harlee like the big hogs that sputter and purr as they drive down the road—only the sound she makes us much more pleasant.





That’s enough about Harlee, now about me. And when you’re pregnant it’s “ALL about ME.” Kami (Ryan’s sister) has requested to see pictures of my growing abdomen so I’ve put my pride aside and posted the first two. Ryan made me start posing with the same outfit on in the same spot around week 14.



This picture is about week 18, and I will post the next picture in two weeks at the beginning of week 22. And for those who haven’t seen me in the past two weeks, I’ve really begun to poke out.

Before and After I

I have entitled this "Before and After I" assuming that there will be a "Before and After II."

We painted the kitchen red before we moved in.

No more blackberries or trees looming near the house!

Timmberrrrrrr!

Our 1/3 acre lot had several cottonwood, alder, and maple trees that were dangerously close to our house or neighbor's house. They had to come down. Jessie's Dad helped cut down four trees one Saturday. And it took all day.


For the next trees we called the professionals. They climbed into our huge cottonwood and maple trees and took them down piece by piece.



Ryan's job was to feed the branches into the chipper. At the end of the two days we had a huge pile of chips that we will use for landscaping.

Welcome to America Party

On June 10th our friends and family came to our first gala on Gala Loop. It was in celebration of our new home and Ryan's new US citizenship. Guests brought an American food or drink to share; our kitchen island was spread with such delights as mac-n-cheese, jello, salsa, chips, deviled eggs, hot dogs, beer, punch, and decaf coffee.



Of course it was not all celebration as some of our Canadian family and friends were not especially happy with Ryan and his crossing over to the "dark side." His cousin, Cole, brought him a bunch of Canadian paraphernalia which included this Canadian flag.

We required that our guests take a sample citizenship test. Some scored 100%, some the required 60%, some failed, and others chose not to take the quiz. See how well you do.

1. What do the stripes on the flag represent?
2. What is the 4th of July?
3. What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War?
4. What are the three branches of our government?
5. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?
6. Who becomes president of the United States if the president and the vice president should die?
7. How many Supreme Court justices are there?
8. How many times may a Congressman be re-elected?
9. Why are there 100 Senators in the Senate?
10. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens?

Angie's Birthday Party

Today is Angie's 30th Birthday so Ryan and I threw her a birthday party. We told her to have her house clean on Friday night and not to plan anything for her birthday. And fittingly, 30 people attended.

On the invitation we asked guests to bring Angie 30 of something for her present or something associated with the number. She received 30 recipes, 30 items from Trader Joe's, 30 socks, 30 pink balloons, 30 granola bars, 30 pieces of chocolate, 30 notes on the ukulele, and a tank top with the Roman numerals for 30.


After the BBQ, we loaded into vehicles and went to Whatcom Falls Park to play croquet and bocce ball. It was dark by then so we set up 24 candles and two tiki torches.

Workin' Around the House

Ryan and I are enjoying Saturdays in the yard. There is something about working with your hands in the dirt when you know that it's your dirt.



We are discovering that we need things that we never thought we'd need; we have borrowed our friends' trucks the last few weekends to pick up dirt/gravel and haul away old insulation from our crawl space. Speaking of crawl space, here's a picture of Ryan returning down under after a short breather (it's rather dank and smelly down there).

Our New House

For those of you who live far away and haven't had the chance to visit and won't have the chance for a while, here are some pictures of our new house. It is a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom rambler north of Lake Whatcom in Bellingham. We look forward to having you in our home, but until then these pictures will have to suffice.


To the left is a picture of our dining room and kitchen. One thing that we really like about this house is the open living area. The picture is being taken from the entry way/living room. We hope to enjoy warm meals, grueling games of Settlers, and much laughter in this space.



To the right, you can see the jungle that is our back yard. The house was built in 1985, but no ever bothered to put in any landscaping. So as you can imagine, blackberries (see the picture below as well) have claimed the territory. We WILL subdue them, however. The deck that the picture is taken from doesn't even have steps that lead down to the "yard." We hope to replace the deck after we cut down some trees and tame the land a bit. You can look forward to some before and after photos in the future


These pictures were all taken at the beginning of April before we had bought the house. We made an offer shortly after, it was accepted, and we moved in 3 weeks later (yes, it was quick).

We hope that you have enjoyed your first visit to our new home.