Conspiracy Theory

What happens when the unsuspecting mommies get together...

You just can't plan...

Well, today I was supposed to be induced, but apparently the full moon brought in many other pregos, and the hospital is full! So who knows when I'll have Spud! They said maybe tomorrow, but I'm thinking I might just leave the inducing till Sunday, which was the original plan, and allow more time for it to happen naturally! Sorry everyone planning my shower! It will have to be changed again!

Well Ugh.

I just had a Drs. appointment, and it seems things are not progressing!!! I think my body doesn't know how to go into labor on it's own. I was induced for the other two, and I'm now scheduled for induction on Sunday. Sept. 30th. That's actually the next interesting date I was hoping for because then our kids birthdays would be on the 10th. 20th, and 30th! I feel better than ever, so I guess I don't mind waiting....as long as Spud doesn't end up being a 9 or 10 pounder! Yikes!!

UPDATE: My inducing date has been moved up to Thursday, the 27th! So I guess we'll be seeing Spud in two days! Tomorrow is a full moon, which is supposed to make everyone who is due go into labor, so it may be even earlier! Hopefully they won't run out of room! There's only 5 rooms, and 7 or 8 people due by the end of September!

Last day of Summer

Today is Spud's due date, but a grand appearance is not looking likely. We went for a nice walk today, which caused some good contractions, but when I stopped, they stopped! Meadow wore her new rain boots and enjoyed splashing in every single puddle along the way! Maybe Spud will come out tomorrow, the first day of Autumn. What do you think of the name Autumn Rain? Maybe if it's tomorrow we should switch to that name instead of Ashlen. What's better?

Patience, Patience

Well, no Spud yet. I've decided to stop being inpatient, and just enjoy these last few days with two kids, a nice predictable schedule, fairly easy shopping trips, quiet evenings, and somewhat restful nights (if I find a comfortable position)! I actually have felt better this week than I've felt in months! -More energy, and my sciatic nerve pain is mostly gone! (It's a nerve in the lower back that gets pressed on by the baby, causing sharp back and pelvic pains). Maybe Spud just wants to be punctual, and will be born tomorrow on the due date! This is just a cute picture of the highlight of shopping at A&P...saying hi to the cheetah! As soon as we drive into the parking lot, Logan starts saying "Cheetah! Cheetah! Cheetah!"

9/8/7

Today is an interesting date...09/08/07. I had big hopes for Spuddy to be born today, but I doubt that's going to happen in the next 10 hours! But, you never know! Oh well. maybe we'll sell our car today instead. That would be nice! Somebody is coming to see it this evening.

Happy 9/8/7!

Who's Gonna Pop First?

It's a race!

We're two big mommas due on the same day!

It's September now

Thanks for all the baby bets! I'll try to think of a good prize for the winner! Dirty Diaper Duty perhaps?
I have good news to report: Meadow is finally potty trained!!! This last week she just started doing it all by herself! We've even done some diaper-less trips to town, and she's used the public bathrooms! She doesn't stay dry through the night yet, but hopefully soon. It's probably not that exciting for most of you, but I'm just so relieved that it happened before Spud's arrival that I have to tell all readers of our blog! Logan has shown quite an interest in it too! He just needs to learn that the toilet isn't a fun splashing bowl! At Walmart the other day Meadow picked out some new Tinkerbell underwear, and Logan cried and cried sadly saying "ingabell, ingabell" when I wouldn't get him some too! I got him some nice boy ones, but that wasn't what he wanted! (He needs a brother!) :)

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.

The Duck

Yesterday we went on the "Amphibious Duck" tour. It's the bus that goes into the water and becomes a boat. It was a nice little tour of town and the waterfront along the canneries. The kids enjoyed the boat ride.

Other Happenings

Well, some of the things I was shopping for on our trip were a dining set and a van. I found 2 sets that I like, one is solid pear wood, the other is the typical not solid wood kind, (about $200 cheaper.) Does anyone have experience with either kind and have advice as to what we should get? As for the van search....it all started last week when I sold my car, and we thought we had sold Matthew's car. There was a van in town that's been for sale for the last 3 months, which was perfect, everything I was looking for. We went to town to look at it and make an offer, but we were told it had sold an hour before! So obviously that wasn't the right van for us! Then after searching online for vans in the Seattle area, I only found 2 that were close to what I wanted (year, price, mileage, seats). One ended up being too far away to go to, and the other "just happened" to be loaned out for the day! We looked at a couple other car lots, but found nothing, and I felt it was time to stop looking. Well, God is obviously and thankfully in control of our 'car dealing' because the day we were leaving Seattle we got a call from the people who promised to buy Matthew's car, saying they couldn't buy it after all! This was an extreme disappointment because at the time they said they wanted it, there was another couple there at our house ready to write us a check and buy it right then! The other people saw them test driving it and called us pleading for us not to sell it because they wanted it first and promising that money, (more than the other people offered) would be wired into our account tomorrow! So we agreed, and told the others about Jenn's car, which they promptly went and bought! Well, that's the second time a 'sure sale' has failed. It's just worse that they made us turn away paying customers!! UGH! Oh well. We just want to do the right thing at the right time. I can see that God is helping us and will provide a buyer and the right van. I just hope it's soon! In 2 months all my children won't fit in the car! But I suppose God is well aware of that!
On a happier note, Logan is finally an official walker! He walks all the time now! On Sunday night he just suddenly decided to start walking! He even RAN to Matthew when he held out a spoonful of cream for him! Meadow has just started sleeping in a "big-girl bed". We took the side off her crib. She's now having to learn to stay in bed.

Family, isn't it about time? ha ha

(the title is from the latter day saints commercial on TV.) Anyway, here's what we've been up to lately...

The cousins love playing together! They get along really well!

The kids enjoyed their time with auntie Christy.

And their friends.

To celebrate Katie & William's 10th anniversary, we took them to Seattle. We left all the kids with the grandparents. They said they wanted to spend time with us instead of being alone, so we took them on our traditional date to the Cheesecake Factory in Bellevue, where we had much delicious food. The next day Matthew had an Alaska Airlines meeting, so Katie, William, and I spent the day shopping. They helped me look for a dining table set and a van, then they shopped and spent time at Borders bookstore. Not exactly the most romantic of anniversaries, but they said they had fun!

Well, we were supposed to come home that night, but the flight was full, so Katie & I stayed behind, and spent the night with Christy. We planned to get on the first flight home which started out late due to a mechanical problem. Finally we left, but about 20 minutes into the flight the pilot said they had "something abnormal" happen when they raised the landing gear, so we would have to turn back to Seattle...but don't worry it would be a normal landing. I was just hoping "something abnormal" wouldn't happen when they lowered the gear! Anyway we landed fine, and an hour later left on another plane. It turned out that it was just a circuit board problem which set off some alarms, but nothing was ever really wrong. So that was our little adventure.