Baby Registry

Hey Folks- We've been getting a lot of questions about what sorts of things we need for Ethan. We're registered at both www.target.com and www.babiesrus.com. If you search for baby registries using our last name you should be able to pull up our list. Some things overlap a little bit because I wanted to give people some choices...

We have lots of 3-6 month clothes but very little newborn/0-3 clothes. 6 month and beyond clothes are also totally welcome (who knows how quickly Ethan will grow!?). We've decided to do cloth diapers and I've got a good amount of those already. However, we are going to start out with disposable for the first few weeks and we'll use disposable intermixed later. Books and toys would be great- we don't have too many of those. And if there are any of the "rich uncle" types out there... it's not too late to fund a scholarship to pay for Ethan's college education (just joking- unless you're serious).

Hope that helps!

50 days!

Can you believe it? 50 days (more or less) until Ethan arrives. I already feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve... so excited for the big day. I need to tone it down or I'm going to drive myself crazy between now and July.

Things are going well- I am so glad that it is Friday (and Friday Afternoon at that) and the weather is supposed to be beautiful this weekend. It's going to be a good weekend. If there isn't a baseball game going on tomorrow I plan on walking around the park (I'm trying to get some exercise in when I can). I'm still terrified of the park after the baseball incident. Sunday Dave and I are hanging out with Dave's brother Chris- that will be a good time. That evening Dave and I are going over to some of our friend's for a barbecue. It's going to be a good day (lots of food!)

Anyway... I really just wanted to share how eager I am about meeting Ethan for the first time. Not too far away now! Really I am the most excited about seeing Dave hold his first son for the first time. :)

Belly

Well my little belly is starting to grow larger. People are actually noticing it now. :) I wanted to share what I looked like about a little over halfway through (I'm now 23 weeks along- 20 weeks is the halfway mark). Anyway, out of respect to Dave's wishes I'm only posting pictures of belly covered by shirt. The front views don't really show much belly so you guys only get the side view. :) Everyone says that I am still tiny. I am okay with that- it feels big to me. :)

Anyway, things are going great out here. We are finally getting a taste of spring. At least for today. This weekend we are getting a storm- thunder (I'm excited) and lightning tomorrow and some rain followed by some snow on Sunday. Boo. But at least it has been beautiful all week. Makes me want to skip the afternoon of work and play in the park. Ahhh... that sounds like such a wonderful idea- lay out in the sunlight with a good book and some food- that's my idea of a good afternoon. :)

We are leaning closer and closer to a name. We've decided on Ethan- for now. Once we meet him we'll know for sure. :)

Anyway, that pretty much wraps up life out here. Oh wait... we bought a new stove and a new bed (yeah spending money we don't have/shouldn't be spending). Unfortunately the oven was dead- or rather, on its deathbed. And Dave was spending as much time sleeping on the floor as he was on the bed, so it was time for a change. I'm happy with both of the new additions. Between that stuff and the baby's room, our little home is coming together.

Baby's Room

Well, the baby's room is finally put together. I think it looks great (I'm probably a little biased though). It will probably get rearranged as time goes on and the baby grows older. But here (for now) are the baby's room pictures. :)

PS: we found the baby his first soccer ball. We're pretty stoked about this. :)

The changing table

By the window- so there's plenty of light.

The crib and bookshelf (yes, my baby already has his own collection of books)

Close of up the surfing ducky hanging in the crib.

Fish mobile for above the crib (happy fish- the rest just look crazy)

All of the crazy hanging fish. I haven't hung this up yet though.

Sometimes it's just nice to stay home

(Almost) All of us girls: Top Row (L-R): Phegda, Mama (Carol), Julie

Bottom Row: Xan (Alexandria), Sima, Me (Deb), Stephanie

Bottom (Midget): Bella (Sima's daughter)

This weekend was a pretty good one. :) I had a chance to relax and I still got a lot done!

Dave's sister, Sima, came into town from Texas. So Friday night all of us girls got together for a girl's night at Stephanie's (another sister-in-law) house. It was so much fun! The excuse was to get to know Phegda (the newest member of the family- just married to Alex in January), but really we all just sat around telling great stories and talking about life. I had so much fun! It was so good just to hang out. The only girls missing were Darcie (SIL- married to Nick) and Sophia (One of the two nieces, Bella- the other niece- was there). I wouldn't mind doing that more often! :)

Married into it: Phegda (married to Alex), Me, Julie (married to Mark),
Stephanie (married to Chris), Missing: Darcie (married to Nick), Sophia (Julie's daughter)

The Originals: Xan, Mam, Sima, and Bella

Saturday was more family stuff. Dave and I went up to Xan's house and hung out with (almost) everyone. That was also a lot of fun. We had a great spaghetti dinner and I had a chance to talk baby with the girls. Sima brought a lot of Bella's old clothes, so if our baby turns out to be a girl, it is going to be one well dressed little girl. :) If it's a boy... well, we'll just have to go shopping.

(Some of) The boys: Dave, Mark, Chris

Sunday was the usual- just a quiet day- a chance to relax with Dave. :) And the best part? Not having to get ready for the week because it was a three day weekend!

Monday I woke up and just felt like getting stuff done. It was fantastic! I think that the weather helped. It was the "warm before the storm." It was pretty mild for most of the day- I had a chance to open up the windows and air out the condo (and we even turned off the heat!). It probably wasn't THAT warm, but it felt great to have fresh air. Lately I have been picking the oddest things to clean/fix up. I have a list as long as my arm of things that I want to do to the condo. The goods news is that some of it I can do myself. The bad news is that some of it can get pretty expensive. So I'll slowly be tackling those and just picking my favorites (or must-do's). I've been on a detailing kick so I have been cleaning the stuff that doesn't usually get cleaned- wiping down the walls, cleaning the baseboards, wiping down the area where the carpet meets the wall (the vacuum just doesn't seem to get all of the dust from there). Dave (smart cookie) just stayed out of my way. Oh yeah- and I painted our room. Just an accent wall, but I think I'll like it. We'll see. :)

And the joys of home ownership... Our drier is broken. It takes hours to dry one (small) load of laundry. I don't know what is going on. Anyway, so I think that we are going to have to find a new (cheap) drier (classified ads for sure). Oh yeah. And our oven is on the way out as well. It's not baking at a consistent temperature anymore and well, it's about 20 years old (maybe). So we have to pick up a new one of those as well. And for the win... we need to replace the surrounding walls in our shower. I'm tempted to just try to do it myself, but we'll just have to see about that.

PS: Ultrasound- one week- get your votes in now! If you look closely at the picture of me and the other wives, you might see the beginning of my baby bump!

Anyway, hope you all have a great week planned!

Randomness

So it's been one of those weeks where I've been stressing myself out for needless reasons. Well, at the beginning of the week it seemed like the end of the world, but now I just feel a little bit sheepish because everything is going to work out just fine.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but Dave and I are back in the "staying at the condo" mode. I think we are going to continue working on it and do some cosmetic touch ups. But we're going to try to make it work for us for a few more years. And we'll see where we are at then. It's been an abrupt 180 from last week, but it will all work out for the best. :)

As for this weekend- well it's a three day weekend. :) A nice, long weekend. Dave and I really wont be up to much. Maybe just more house cleaning for me but I am getting the itch to start buying baby stuff. :)

End of Week

I told myself I wasn't going to make any new year resolutions this year. But in the back of my mind I was thinking that maybe this year I would try harder to send out at least a card to my siblings/nieces/nephews/etc. But this is incredibly hard! And I've already fouled up (sorry Kenny- your birthday totally snuck up on me). I wish I could send out one massive blast of cards at the beginning (or middle- or end for that matter) of the year and just send everyone's card all at once. It's not that I am not thinking about a person- generally I know when everyone's birthday is, I just fail to follow through. Anyway... if you get birthday cards at random points in the year, that's me trying to let you know I am thinking of you. I guess I could just forego the birthday card and go with a "I'm thinking of you" card randomly throughout the year.

Anyway... this weekend is going to be short and sweet. We're going to be hanging out with Dave's brother Chris tomorrow. That kid cracks me up. :) Other than that, it will be a quiet weekend (isn't that what I usually say?).

I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. That's going to be the highlight of the day. It feels like this appointment came a lot faster than the first one. I have a feeling that the following will be the same. By my calculations, I think we'll be finding out what the baby is in March. So you'll just have to wait until then. Although it would be interesting to see what you guys think we'll have. :)

Next week Dave starts a Kung Fu class in the evenings. I figure that this is the last time (at least for a while) that he'll be able to take a class like this, in the evenings, so I encouraged him to do it. Plus he's always talking about how he wants to take one. But between that and soccer I won't be seeing him as much (I'm spoiled rotten, and selfish to boot, and I don't care).

2009

Well, a new year has arrived. (Sorry guys- I don't do internet on the weekends which is why it has taken me so long to wish you all a happy new year). Dave and I managed to stay awake until midnight, but I couldn't stay up much later than that. We have had 2 consecutive four day weekends and this is our first full week of work in a while. It's going to be rough. But at least we only have to do it for a few weeks before we get another 3 day weekend and mini vacation to Vegas. :)

It's been a quiet start to our new year so far. Unfortunately Dave and I were involved in a fender bender on Friday. That was no fun- but we did discover that our Subaru is a tank. :) The car behind Dave and I failed to stop (perhaps even failed to brake?), pushing our car into the car in front of us. The back bumper on the car in front of us was cracked, the front bumper on the car behind us was snapped/destroyed. Our bumpers? A scratch on the back bumper and the little license plate holder on our front bumper snapped. Yup, I love our little tank. :)

Wish that I had more to say, but it has been a quiet start to the year. It's going to be an exciting year though. Dave and I have lots planned for this year- including the birth of our first baby, getting sealed, lots and lots of traveling (both before and after baby arrives), and fixing up the house.

OH YEAH! Dave and I started our first house projects! We put a ceiling fan in our living room (getting rid of this nasty/horrible chandelier), a new faucet on our kitchen sink, and this next weekend we're going to put another ceiling fan in the baby's room (I am still working out how that room is going to look in my head). Next up: I'm going to learn how to tile and redo our bathroom. :)

Anyway, I wish you all the bestest in 2009- it's going to be a good year!

Christmas Eve

It's hard for me to imagine that it is Christma Eve... at least I have a half day today. And I don't have to come back to work until Monday. Once I get home I am going to start baking. I have some Christmas cookies (and last minute presents) that I want to deliver tonight. Well, more specifically, that I want Dave to deliver for me. :) (mwahhahahaha I love having a husband to run errands for me).

I am also going to prepare our Christmas eve dinner. We are doing a family dinner tomorrow so I want to be able to have a special dinner for just Dave and I this evening. We're going with the traditional Pond-Vogt dinner (Cornish Game Hens, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, etc) menu. I am excited. I had to convince Dave that Cornish Game Hens were really just mini chickens and not some weird alterna-food. I love those mini chickens.

Yesterday disaster semi-struck. I realized late in the afternoon that I had sent a package out but had forgotten to include a present for one of the family members. So basically, everyone EXCEPT ONE person got a Christmas present from Dave and me (and in some cases, people got two presents). Oh my goodness I was so embarassed and felt so horrible. So now I am rushing to try to get a present done and in the mail. With the next few days off I am sure I can get it done and in the mail on Friday or Saturday (fingers crossed).

The pregnancy is going okay. I am not as tired as I used to be, which is a great change. However I have started getting Evening Sickness. Actually I feel pretty sick on and off throughout the day, but by dinner time I don't even want to think about food or even cooking. The good news is that Dave gets to work on his cooking skills. The bad news- my evenings are pretty crappy. I'll be happy when this stage passes too. :) Our next appointment is at the beginning of January (the wait for the second appointment hasn't been as bad as the wait for the first one). We'll meet the doctor and listen to the baby's heartbeat again. :)

Oh yeah... if anyone knows a way to send some Korean Barbecue from Hawaii to Utah (quickly) please let me know. I have been craving (very specifically) Peppa's Korean Barbecue- the Meat Jun and the (red) dipping sauce that goes with it.