Easter family pictures

We had a wonderful Easter weekend, and I took waaay too many pictures. So as I slowly sort through and edit them, I thought I'd start with some of my favorites: the family pictures we took Easter morning before heading out to brunch. Considering we used the timer and tripod to get all 4+ of us, I'm pretty happy with the result:

^ We aren't usually the type of people to dress our dog, but I couldn't resist.

^ Check out my good-looking guys... at least one of them has a nice smile for the camera. :)

^ A more natural look. After he patiently (for a 3 year old, anyway) posed for a few of these shots, he requested one with his cars too, which is perhaps his most natural look.

First bocce night of 2010!

We've had some unseasonably warm weather lately, and went without snow in the month of March for the first time since the late 1800's. The forecast for yesterday was particularly amazing - the upper 70's - so Scott suggested an impromptu bocce night. We were delighted to find out that about half of our normal group could make it - not bad for short notice! So we were able to host the first bocce get-together of the season, a full 6 weeks earlier than last year's.

As always, there were adults at the party, but who wants to see pictures of them?

The kiddie table: (it always works out this way... kids sit and the adults stand around balancing plates!)

Mmmm... popsicles and ice cream:

^ Evangeline, Sawyer, Zach, Sidney; Scott practicing his dad multi-tasking skills - balancing beer, ice cream, and a baby

^ Even the newest member of our bocce league, 4 mo-old Eliza, got to have a taste!

Time for baseball (the only serious casualty was a popsicle!):

^Check out Stuart - he's ready to field Zach's grounder!

^Sawyer's big swing

Scott trying to wear everybody's kids out with an old-fashioned game of chase:

And no, not a single game of bocce was played...

34 weeks and road rash

Don't worry, the road rash isn't mine. It is, of course, Zach's. What is so funny about it, to me anyway, is that he somehow managed to get it on the slope of his nose and on his upper lip. And all he did was fall while running down the street. Did you know this was even possible? When he fell (twice), I was thinking chin, lower lip and/or teeth - expecting to see some blood. Nope - our kid manages to fall on the upper part of his nose and his upper lip - the tip of his nose was unscathed! I know the picture doesn't do it justice; it was hard to capture and it has already had a chance to heal for two days. But it does amaze me.

My babycenter.com update tells me this about our baby, who as of Sunday was at 34 weeks:
Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds and is almost 18 inches long. His fat layers — which will help regulate his body temperature once he's born — are filling him out, making him rounder. His skin is also smoother than ever. His central nervous system is maturing and his lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine.

All good to know, especially the part about being mostly ok if he came early. Whew. Then I read this: By this week, fatigue has probably set in again, though maybe not with the same coma-like intensity of your first trimester. Are they kidding me? Fatigue may have set in?? Not as intense as the first trimester??? I am trying to remember what this stage of pregnancy was like the first time around, and I vaguely remember not being particularly productive at work in the afternoon, and crashing on the couch as soon as I got home. But this time??? Maybe it's just how different the circumstances are, but by mid-afternoon every day I'm basically incapable of not taking a nap. And doing so does not even seem to help, I'm still fairly useless the rest of the day. And I still have 5+ more weeks to go!!

But, other than the fatigue, everything is going well. Unlike the first time, my blood sugars are remaining under control - hooray! I often have to set the timer on the microwave in order to remember to do the old finger prick at the right time. So now when the timer goes off, Zach says "Mama - are you going to taste your blood sugar now?" Close enough, I guess.

This last picture of Zach is another one where he wanted to get involved when I pulled out the tripod for the "belly shot." This time he wanted one on his own - with the timer though, I couldn't just take the picture. After a few of his cheesy grin/grimace, I talked him into laughing instead of smiling - this is the result. We're getting there.

Wheeee!!

I think I can sum up Zach's week with Grandma Cookie (Scott's mom) with a direct quote from the boy himself. As I drove away from the airport, Zach said in the saddest voice imaginable:

"I guess I'll just have to play by myself now."

We had a very fun week, filled with trips to the Y to swim, lots of yummy meals, trips to the Mall of America, and hours and hours of cars-playing. Grandma was a fantastic sport with way more patience and imagination than I have; one afternoon she played cars for almost three hours while I prepped and painted most of the baby's room.

Zach's favorite outing was probably when we went to the mall for "Toddler Tuesday" and he got to ride as many of the rides as he wanted. This was also the only time I remembered to pull out my camera, unfortunately.

^ Driving what he calls the Mack trucks; his cheesy "smile" on the Blues Clues ride


^ The Wonder Pets ride; it raises the kids up and then drops them little by little, bouncing their little bodies all over the place on the way down. Zach claims this is one of his favorite rides, but every time he goes on it, it takes him a little while to decide it's fun! He had to go by himself this time (we had a cranky ride operator who reinforced the "no chaperone" rule since Zach met the height requirement), and once again, looked like he'd cry when it first started. Then he seemed to notice how much fun the girl next to him was having, so apparently he decided to enjoy it too.


^ Zach and grandma scored the front car of the roller coaster!


^ What I think is truly Zach's favorite ride; these little cars absolutely whip you around the corner, and he laughs non-stop the entire time. :)

Thanks again Teri for the very fun week!!

New brother class, belly/family pictures, and more!

Sunday morning... Scott, Zach, and Grandma Cookie (aka Teri, Scott's mom) are off on a breakfast and swimming adventure, and I am going to catch up on some blogging while the house is unusually quiet. I've mentioned before that Zach talks a lot; to prove my point, just before they left, Teri, who has spent the last 36 hours alone with Zach, said "I noticed after Zach went to bed my ears were ringing." See? I'm not exaggerating when I say that our son talks nonstop!

Another funny example of his chattiness took place Monday night when we went to the New Brother/New Sister class offered at the hospital where the baby will be born. I didn't really know what to expect, since the ages ranged from 2 and up... would the kids really pay attention? I got my answer quickly when the teacher, a nurse, sat down with the kids on the floor around her and started showing them life-size pictures of very newborn babies. The reaction was amazing - they all immediately started asking all sorts of question: what is that thing on the baby's belly button? Why is that one crying? Why is that one's skin darker? And it continued - for the most part, all 10 or so of the kids sat, paying attention, following instructions as the teacher went through all sorts of "what to expect" scenarios. Amazing.

Guess who talked more than anyone else? And guess who talked louder than anyone else? Yep - our guy. I wish we'd brought our video camera. All the rest of the parents were just cracking up; the teacher would barely get a sentence or question out before Zach would be responding. He told her that he was having a boy baby, and that we didn't know what the name would be (which is only partly true; we're pretty sure we know, but we also know that if we told him everyone from the neighbor kids to the grocery clerk would know too!). I honestly can't even remember all the comments he made - there were too many. But my favorites were some of the questions he had. One was after the teacher explained that babies cry because they can't talk. Zach wanted to know why, if the baby was hungry, he couldn't just... and he did the sign language sign for "more." Good question.

We also got to tour the birthing suites at the hospital, which was nice, since that was a "to-do" we now get to check-off on our list (this is a different hospital than where Zach was born - closer to our house.) Zach got to trace his feet next to a newborn baby's footprint to see how much bigger he is, practice helping us change a teeny diaper and swaddle a doll, and bring home the newborn diaper and baby hat. While they didn't cover everything I had hoped (how on earth am I going to explain breastfeeding to this child???), I think it was good to have one more way to try to prepare this guy for the big change he's about to experience!

So after all that, the teacher was closing the class and asked if anyone had any more questions (one girl wanted to know what would happen if her sibling came out with different colored skin than she had - you should have seen the teacher squirm!). Zach came over by us, then apparently decided he did have one more question, so he ran back to the teacher and asked:

Why can't trains drive where cars do and cars drive where trains go? Another great question, although I don't think it was what the teacher had in mind. :)

If you're wondering about the pictures throughout this post, these are from my attempt to be better at capturing "belly pictures" throughout this pregnancy. Everyone talks about how you don't take as many pictures of the second baby as you did of the first, etc etc, and so I have been trying to get off to a good start by taking belly pictures as regularly as I did when I was pregnant with Zach. And, of course, I have often forgotten, so when I realized 2 days had already passed since the 32-week mark, I decided to get out the tripod and take the picture myself, rather than trying to remember to ask Scott.

Well, as you can see, Zach thought the process was pretty interesting and soon wanted in. He was amazed that the camera was going off by itself, and thought it was hilarious to race to where we had to stand for the picture before the flash went off. After we took the first one together and then looked at it, I told him he had to smile for the next one. We ran back to our spot in front of the fireplace, and apparently Koskie thought this was great fun too, so he joined us as well. So now we have a 32-week belly picture with some extras!

Let's see, what else? Oh yes, I mentioned that Teri was here. She arrived on Thursday and will stay for a week - Zach is beyond excited. I think they may have played with every toy we have in the house! Teri is on spring break, which worked out conveniently for us, as it meant she could come and visit and watch Zach while we curled in one of our favorite bonspiels this weekend. I wasn't too sure about bonspieling this far along in the pregnancy... but since it's a shorter bonspiel than most, and the games themselves are shorter, I thought I'd give it a shot. Well, I learned my lesson Friday night when I was feeling good and thought I could sweep. Let's just say I didn't sweep at all during our Saturday games... I was sore in so very many places, most of which it's not polite to mention! When you feel as good as I do most days, you tend to forget that your body is compensating for all that extra weight and work... but it's not a lesson I'll forget any time soon.

As far as the bonspiel itself... we've got another championship to our names! This bonspiel is a very fun one, as it's mostly the same group that we curl with on Friday nights in the mixed league. "Mixed" means it must be 2 men and 2 women, so it's a very fun and social event. Adding to the fun is that we play people we know pretty well, and once again, we met our friends in the championship game! Our team is the two of us and our friends Adam and Jamie. The Nunberg rink, our opponents, is made up of our friends Aaron, Jen, Zac and Liz. As a side note - Liz is also pregnant - due in late June! Anyway... let's just say that we've played this team several times before, and the outcome has never been in our favor. But for the first time, yesterday we pulled off the upset. A nice ending to a fun bonspiel! :)

And now we have a few more fun days ahead of us while Teri is here - I'll keep you posted on our adventures!

35 Surprise

Scott's birthday was the Tuesday we were in Florida. And while I know he doesn't need me, or anyone, to make a big deal out of his birthday, I was feeling badly that the best I could do was tote a card along to give him on his big day. And sure, just being on vacation in a sunny spot is probably enough of a celebration, but since this was his big 3-5 I just couldn't let it go.

Knowing my husband's love of waterparks and just being surrounded by friends, I decided to try to surprise him by combining those things. I won't bore you with the details, but let me just say it was more complicated than I thought. Fortunately our friend Adam came through with some platinum points at a local hotel chain that had a waterpark. It could only be described as a waterpark if you are less than 4 feet tall, but it was better than nothing. And since none of us have fun if the kids aren't having fun, we might as well do our best to keep them happy too. And I think we accomplished that!

I also realized how difficult it is to keep a secret from Scott! Besides the fact that I'm used to telling him the more minute details of my life, there was the fact that any information that reached Zach was very likely to find it's way to Scott - quickly. I am still shocked that Zach didn't tell Scott about the cupcakes I made; although I think it helped that I didn't tell him why I was making them, never told him not to tell Scott, and immediately hid them out of sight - hoping he'd forget about them! And he did - whew. But the drive down to the hotel was long... with both of them wondering where on earth we were going, but only one of them asking over and over and over again. I'll let you guess who that was.


^ Zach & Kasey enjoying a ride; dads with kids

^Kasey has learned that birthdays = cake, and I think she just might be happy about it.

^Sylvia's 73rd time down the slide; Scott on the one true waterslide

Champions of the World

I couldn't resist the title for this post, after our friend Jen emailed me the picture of said champs (taken shortly after their big win - note the giddy expressions). I suspect they are still very much feeling like champions of the world!

So if you were curious what the guys who not only beat three-quarters of the 2006 US Olympic curling team, but also the 2010 National Champions, might look like, here they are:

2010 St. Paul Curling Club Men's International Bonspiel Champions

The Nunberg rink: Aaron, Reuben, Adam, and Scott