Baby Bets

When will Spud bud?

Due date: September 22.

Time for 'baby bets" again! I've been having lots of contractions lately, so I'm really hoping for an early arrival! Guess the date and gender and weight /length if you want!

Mommy's guess: Ashlen, 09/08/07, 6# 1 oz, 19 1/2"

(We've pretty much settled on Ashlen Rain, or Brennen James...maybe)

Big Belly

This was our attempt at taking a nice artistic belly photo like the Millers (look at their blog!). Somebody just wasn't into it! But I almost prefer pics like these to perfect smiles, they show more personality.
I wanted to get one more family photo before Spud arrives. Our last one was taken at Christmas!

poll results

Here's the list of names I had on the babycenter poll and the % of votes:
out of 1366 votes,
Ashlen Raine 44%
Haley Rain 36%
Haylee Rain 20%

for boy's names, which are ones that only I like,
Dylan James 52%
Brennen James 40%
Dane 8%

Most people said they preferred Ashlyn or Aislinn (pronounced the same) to Ashlen, and the spelling Brennan. Lots of people pointed out the bad weather forecast with the name Haley (Haily) Rain! If we choose Haley, we will probably use the middle name Brooke. I know it rhymes with Cooke, but for a middle name that's OK. People either loved or hated the name Dane, and Dylan James was a nice normal favorite. Matthew really doesn't like Dylan, but Brennen is OK, and we thought of Hudson, which just OK. I'm not sure. For girls we're considering Heather again. What do you think? Please leave comments, since nobody could comment on my poll for some reason. Grandparents too!!

my name poll

My baby name poll made it on the babycenter homepage today! If you want to check out the votes and read what people are saying just go to http://www.babycenter.com/ and you'll see the link to it halfway down the page toward the left. **UPDATE** for those of you who are not a member of babycenter, you will have to enter your email address on the log in page. You don't have t0 put in a due date, or fill in the member profile if you don't want to become a member. Then it should take you to the main homepage. If you don't get to it today, click on the current name poll they have then find where it says "see featured name polls", and you'll find it. The comments are pretty much what I expected, with some good suggestions too! People have suggested Willow, which I like, and someone actually suggested Dane River! (I like River! Matthew doesn't.) I'm starting to re-think the middle name Rain. Maybe make that the first name?

Keelie

We are "trying on " a new dog! This is Keelie. He's a chocolate lab about the same age as Bingo. He's very good and mellow, but he smells very doggish, and needs to lose some serious weight! He takes pills for arthritis and seizures, which I think we won't continue...Losing 10 lbs. should help a lot with the arthritis, and if he happens to have a seizure, we'll give him a pill. We'll see. He belongs to a lady that works at Alaska Airlines, who is moving in a few months and can't take him. She's been trying to find him a good home but nobody has wanted him, so we said we'd try for a while. It didn't get off to a good start, because in his excitement about exploring a new place, he ran away, and went swimming and apparently drank some saltwater. When he came back, he threw up his dinner, then started shooting water out his bum!! AAHHH! (outside fortunately!) He did this for quite a while then I guess he got it all out and has been back to normal ever since! I was worried, wondering if it really was saltwater or if he was very sick! If we decide to keep him, he'll be an outside/garage dog for a while until he gets to smelling better. Bingo was the same way when we got him. Fat and stinky! The first time he came in the house I followed him around spraying Fabreeze! If there's anyone out there that wants Keelie, let us know! Here is a subliminal message: you want to buy our Jetta! It's a nice, cool car for a good price! $9300! Buy it! Buy it!

Meadow's lookalikes

Here's Meadow's celebrity lookalikes. I wanted to do Spud to see what he or she will look like.--It's pretty exact science you know...

Logan's celebrity lookalikes

Somehow I don't think this is very acurate! Poor Logan.

Pics of the Past

This was my senior prom picture from 1994. Like my lovely huge puffy sleeves?!! Matthew has an awkward look on his face. Prom was rather strange. We danced once, then just sat at the table not knowing what to do. Then another girl asked him to dance so he did, and left me sitting there! Little did he know he was dissing his future wife! We had more fun later bowling, where both of us got our highest scores ever- Matthew's was 235! I just found this picture which has been lost for the last 13 years! Matthew kept forgetting to take his home, so I hid it and told him I'd give it to him in 20 years when he would appreciate it more. He romantically answered back, "You won't even know me in 20 years!" Well, there's still 7 years left to go, but after 6 years of marriage and 3 kids, chances are we'll still know each other! (I gave him the picture early!)

This is the group that went to Bella Coola, BC. in 1994 I think. We are all wearing shirts that say "I survived the Bella Coola highway!" That's one of the scarriest roads you can go on. It's several miles of steep, winedy, gravel with a 1000 foot sheer dropoff along one side, and NO gaurdrail! Anyway it was a fun trip. We did a spontanious Vacation Bible School for the kids there. They seemed to respond well to it. Daniel Savala was there leading it. We also did some yard work for the pastor, some visiting and singing on the street.

Best Friends

Lane and Meadow became very good friends. Here they're laying in the little closet, Lane has a cell phone and Meadow has a bowl of cereal. I went to check on them and they were just chatting away!

They left on Monday. It was a sad goodbye, but they're safely back in Mexico now.
Bye Bye.
We waved to their jet from my parent's deck. My dad waved his orange coat, but I don't know if they could see us.