Short and sweet

I'm at Kirsta and Joe's house visiting my newest nephew Eli. He's adorable, and I have pictures to post, but here's the thing. Kirsta and Joe don't have wireless internet!! Joe gave me some lame excuse about how they only have a desktop computer so they don't actually need wireless. I tried to remind him that *I* need wireless, but he wasn't buying it. First I did what any normal person would do-- check to see if the neighbors have wireless. And they do, but ALL the available networks are secure. I don't know that I've ever seen that before. There's always SOMEONE who didn't secure theirs, but not here. So even though I have my computer here, I have to post on their desktop instead. Anyway, I'll have to find somewhere with free wireless to go so I can post the pictures on my computer. But not today.

I've been taking the pictures all along

And now I'm finally posting them!

26 weeks:

27 weeks:

29 weeks:

30 weeks:

32 weeks:

33 weeks:

Ummm, not really much to say about these, but how did I get to 33 weeks so soon?  Also, apparently I didn't take pictures for weeks 28 or 31.  Probably if I posted these every week (you know, WHEN I TAKE THEM) I wouldn't be missing any.  Oh well.

Seasonal

I loved living in Texas.  I really did.  But west Texas (for those of you who've never been there) is not very pretty.  I missed how beautiful Colorado is.  We've been back for long enough now to have seen summer, fall, and a little preview of winter and it's all beautiful.  I especially love seeing the seasons change.  

Some views from the house.

  

Believe it or not, those last two pictures are the same trees, taken only 10 days apart.  I think ALL the leaves fell off those trees in like 3 days.  Seriously.

Ah, Colorado.  It's good to be home.

Shoes

Kalena has recently developed somewhat of an obsession with shoes.  (Do all toddlers go through this phase?  It sort of seems like they do.)  She wants to try on any shoes that are laying around, or she'll bring you a pair of shoes for YOU to wear, or she'll ask repeatedly for her shoes until you put them on.  Although, you've got to pay attention because her word for "shoes" and her word for "juice" are essentially the same.  And by "juice" she just means something to drink-- water, milk, diet coke-- she calls it all juice. 

Anyway, it's pretty cute to see her in someone's flip flops, or walking around very carefully in my mom's high heels, but I just couldn't resist taking some pictures of her when she started wearing my boots.  I guess you can take the girl out of Texas...

Projects update

Alright, I don't know if you guys even care, but I'm telling you ANYWAY.  Remember WAY back at the beginning of the year when I talked about the projects I wanted to get done this year?  And then later I posted this about finishing one of them?  Well, I finished another one.  

I finally finished the stitchery for Kalena.  And it only took me until she was 16 months old!  Whoops.  I had to eat my words when she turned 1 because I definitely told Brian at some point (when he was making fun of me for taking so long) that I would be done by her first birthday FOR SURE.  My bad.  But now I'm done!  And it's framed and lovely and we just need to hang it up.

For the record, I think part of my problem is that I didn't go out and pick the stitchery until after she was born.  I already have a good start on this new baby's project.  At the risk of eating these words too, I should EASILY have it done by his first birthday. 

 

Moving on.  I am going to revise on of the projects I want to finish.  I had the memory quilt on the list, but when everything happened and we moved back to GJ that quilt got put into storage and there was no way I was going to go digging through our storage unit just to give myself more work.  So I had written it off as not going to get done this year.  And THEN I found it in a box in the garage.  Like 3 weeks ago.  But by that point I'd already decided I wasn't going to finish it, so instead I'm just switching it out with a new project.  I bought some cotton flannel and I'm going to make some receiving blankets for the new baby.  And since the new baby is coming before the end of the year, I'd BETTER finish these before then as well!  So there you have it.  The two projects left on my list: Kalena's baby book (about 1/2 done) and the receiving blankets.  I can still make it.  Right?

Loving it

In this post I talked about my weird pregnancy symptoms, and mentioned that most of my pregnancy symptoms are mild.  The more I talk to other people about their pregnancies, the more I realize I'm one of "those women."  Those women that pretty much every pregnant woman hates because I?  Love being pregnant.  LOVE it.  

I'm sure that comes in part because my symptoms ARE mild.  My "morning sickness" is just a vague nausea easily quelled by saltines and ginger ale.  I don't get overly uncomfortable (even as big as I got with Kalena.)  Tums are an essential part of my day by now, and I need considerably more sleep than non-pregnant me, but neither of those seem like a big deal.  But really what it comes down to is that I just FEEL good.  I enjoy seeing my belly grow; I love feeling the baby move; I even like how long it lasts-- it took me all the way until my due date with Kalena before I felt like I was 'done' being pregnant.  I feel comfortable in my skin when I'm pregnant in a way I never have before.  It is harder being pregnant this time around; running around after an 18 month old takes considerably more energy than working on spreadsheets for 8 hours a day.  But still.  I just enjoy it.  So what about you?  Love it?  Hate it?  Which camp are you in? 

Don't hate me

This is totally a cop-out post.  I had intended to write something else, but I blog after Kalena goes to bed and tonight it took an hour to get her to finally go to sleep.  So now I need to shower and blog and put away laundry and get to bed at a decent hour because 5 am comes early, especially when this cough and ear infection are causing middle of the night wake ups as well.  

Moving on.  For those of you who haven't heard, as of Monday I have another nephew!  Go check out Kirsta's blog to see pictures of the little guy.  I'm sure I'll be posting pictures here when I go up to meet him!

Pumpkin Patch

I know these should have come before the Halloween ones.  But here they are now.  The pumpkin patch was pretty fun, although Kalena seemed a little overwhelmed by it all.  She was very quiet and not very smiley.  But that may have been because she was tired and almost fell asleep while we drove around for 20 minutes looking for the patch.  Turns out our google directions were wrong.  (You already know how I feel about google maps.)  Luckily we found it anyway.

Made it there!

Checking out the animals.  I'm not sure Kalena actually understood that these were Real Live Sheep.  She just stared.  

Cousin Espen wasn't sure why this corn didn't taste as good as the other corn he's had.

Hanging out with the pumpkins.

Kalena was considerably more willing to sit than Espen was.  Again, I think it had to do with The Tired.  Espen, on the other hand, wanted to run around and touch every pumpkin in the patch.

We didn't actually carve our pumpkin because I didn't think Kalena would care (also, I didn't want to) but the trip was fun anyway.  Besides, at this age you really just do this stuff for the pictures right?  Well, that and to get out of the house to keep from going crazy.  Not that I claim to be sane.  Anyway, I would call this first trip to the pumpkin patch a success.

Halloween

We spend lots of time making sure our kids are aware of "stranger danger," and SPECIFICALLY telling them not to take candy from strangers.  Except on Halloween.  When it is not only okay to accept candy from strangers, we take them out to solicit candy from strangers.  Weird.

Anyway, I learned a couple things this year.  As kids we always used to wonder why anyone would go trick-or-treating before it was even dark out.  This year we were the people out before it was dark.  Because a 7 pm bedtime doesn't leave much time for trick-or-treating in the dark.  Although, we only went to like 4 houses so it really didn't take much time anyway.  I also learned that toddlers are adorable in Halloween costumes.  (Okay, maybe I already knew that.)  Here's the evidence.

Kalena with the candy bucket.

Espen ringing the doorbell at my parent's house.  Repeatedly.  Luckily that was the only one he could reach without help.

The best of the two of them.  I have no idea what they're both looking at.  Never the camera.

Even giving them each a piece of candy and putting them on chairs didn't encourage them to smile for our pictures.    

No, I didn't forget

Here we are, day one of NaBloPoMo.  So far I'm off to a good start!  I have plenty to write about for the month, but I did realize the other day that I need to hurry up and learn how to use the photo editor on my MacBook because otherwise I'm going to have many, many picture-less posts.

For anyone who's wondering, switching to a Mac has been easy.  I haven't had any problems using it, although I can ask Brian any time I have a question about how to do something or where to find something so that probably makes things even easier.  Unfortunately, Brian doesn't ever edit photos.  (Or take photos, or really even look at them unless I am showing him.)  So I'll have to figure out this editor on my own.  I've heard good things.  I'll let you know.