Off to church!

Ethan and Emma are in new outfits. Trish just wanted to be part of the picture-taking fun.

Two winners

Ethan and Emma with their awards from indoor soccer.

V is for Saxophone

So says Emma, while reading through the alphabet in the menu at Applebees

Another goalie?

Emma seems to think she is. She hasn't figured out that she can stay near the goal and still kick the ball. All in good time...

Baby on the way

Yes, we are in fact expecting our third. Let’s get some vital stats out of the way:

• Our working due date is Aug 17.
• We know it’s not twins
• No, we weren’t trying.
• Yes, we are happy.
• Yes, we’re going to find out gender if we can.
• Morning sickness has been almost as bad as with Emma.
• No, you may not touch The Belly.

We found out ourselves about a week before all the Grandparents came out for Emma’s birthday. Trish did a fabulous job not saying anything to her mom so that we could wait until my parents arrived. We racked our brains for some fun, original way to announce it. We even called Jen for ideas - I still love her response — “Get out!” — when we told her. We talked about a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament with the 2006 crossed out and 2007 written in, but we thought that might be too subtle. I was surprised at how many really cool “I’m Pregnant” t-shirts are out there (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and best of all this) (yes, you have to click on all of them), but we couldn’t get them in time, or in the right size, or both.

The night we picked my parents up from the airport, we stayed up a few minutes longer (2-ish in the morning) to hang five stockings over the fireplace, figuring this would elicit some questions. Unfortunately, that clue didn’t work as well as we’d hoped. Tricia’s mom picked up on it about 20 minutes after she got up, but my parents had to be “informed” by the kids (who also didn’t figure out what five stockings meant). Ethan went on about how “his dreams have come true”. Emma practically adopted the baby from the very first — we made the announcement on her birthday after all.

At the first OB appointment, we got ultrasound pictures. Sorry for the blurriness - it’s hard to take a closeup with a camera phone, especially on that darned shiny thermal paper. According to both the ultrasound and a website we found, the baby is about the size of a coffee bean.

At the second appointment, we got another ultrasound picture as a side effect of not being able to locate the baby’s heartbeat using the little doppler wand thingy. (What a pain!) Now we’re up to an inch and a half, head to butt. We wrote it on a piece of paper for Emma, and found that’s exactly the length of her pinkie finger.

Now in Tricia’s 13th week (LMP), the baby is supposedly about 2.5 inches (head to butt) or 3.5 inches long (head to toe), and the morning sickness is starting to fade. Tricia’s still offended by certain smells and foods and sounds, but has been weaning herself off the anti-nausea medicine.

Now we move into the second trimester, when we can seriously start shopping for houses, and also shape up this house to sell it (ugh!). We’ve talked it over, and we just don’t think it’s really practical for us to stay in this house with five people. We’re looking into public storage as a way to “declutter”, and some necessary repairs, plus getting prequalified for a new mortgage. (Spammers: buzz off.)

Whew! Got this one off my list. Not having set the famework has made it really awkward to think about posting, since I couldn’t make offhand references to what I hadn’t said yet.

Watch soon for a special guest poster. He’s got a camera and he’s not afraid to use it.

Catching up...

Wow, eight days since my last post? That may not seem like much, but a lot has been going on that I really should have blogged.

I'll put a quick bullet list here, then put separate posts for each topic later.

• We're pregnant. Due date is August 17. We know it's not twins and have two rounds of baby pix. We don't have enough room in this house for a third child, so we're investigating moving.
• We've all been sick in various ways and degrees for the last two weeks. Right now it's my turn.
• I'm in the doghouse big-time because I have a business trip to Orlando next month and I decided we can't afford to bring the family, what with buying a new house. Hopefully she'll forgive me if we end up in the house of her dreams.
• Ethan cut his hair at school with art scissors again, so he's one of those weird kids who got a buzz cut just when the weather finally got cold. Or maybe he's one of those kids with weird parents who gave him... At least he looks good in a buzz cut.
• Ethan, Emma and I went sledding, which was fun until Ethan collided with another kid. Both kids went to the emergency room. Definitely more information in another post.
• The war on spam took a turn for the worse as spammers have started sending email from addresses in my domain. Now I'm getting spammed with non-delivery reports from legitimate email servers all over the world. Fear not, I have a way to strike back.
• Today is the day: I'm cutting off the email subscription to my blog right after this post publishes. For future updates, come read me on the web at http://www.toomuchblue.com/blog, or subscribe to the Atom feed at http://www.toomuchblue.com/blog/atom.xml
• For that matter, I've made some improvements to the layout of my blog, and I'm eager for comments.
• Ethan is in an indoor soccer league, and seems to be a natural for goalie.
• I found a couple more interesting websites on the development process. It'll take a little longer for me to get these out, because I'd like to talk about each one as I post it.

That pretty well hits the high points.

Not a hiatus...

I haven't been taking a break from blogging per se, just had some really busy weeks at work, and some really busy weekends to match. Trish and I spent last week in Universal City, CA. I was there on business, and for the cost of one extra night and her plane tickets, she was able to get a much-needed and much-deserved vacation. Meanwhile, her mom stayed home with Ethan and Emma, which gave them a much-needed vacation from their parents.

We're not sure yet if the adventure was a vacation for Dollie or not. Trish is hoping to do it again during another trip later this year, so I guess we'll find out when Trish asks her to watch the kids for a week again.

Last night, we took the kids to see Veggie Tales Live at the Star Plaza. They both had a lot of fun seeing the veggies, singing along and dancing. Ethan is really lucky he even got to go. He was supposed to be at a friend's house until 4. When he wasn't back on time, I went looking and found that friend hadn't been home but 5 minutes, Ethan wasn't with them, and Ethan was off playing in the backyard of someone else who also wasn't home. I wonder if he'll ever really understand how close he came to missing out.

Sick as a dog because of cats.

Not fun. Missed a trip to California today because I was throwing-up-sick, but I think Trish has it the worst.

It's been going around. On Friday, Ethan and Emma played outside at Grandma Barnes' house. (We were in Ohio for a welcome home party for Tricia's sister-in-law's dad, who had been stationed in Iraq). They got into the leaves, and we think the stray cats had been there previously.

Late Saturday night, Ethan threw up, then again Sunday morning. We ditched church and also the party to get an early start home. Good thing, because Emma let loose in the car. We all seemed to stabilize for Monday, but early this morning, Emma and then Trish both had trouble in short sequence. Just after I had called off the trip, my stomach joined the party.

Amazingly, Ethan has stayed well enough to go to school both days. He's been a trooper, bringing cold water to his parents when they whine. Emma keeps telling us she's all better, and so far, so good. I made regular visits throughout the morning, now tapering off, but still no appetite. Trish is still flat on her back - could only take a few bites of Chicken Rice soup, and feeling like it's going to come back again.

Now it's timesheet day, and I have to remain vertical long enough to enter my time... which is why I'm blogging, of course.