It's a Girl!

Katherine Patricia Chilcott was born this morning at 8:20 am. She weighed in at 7 pounds 11 ounces and is 21 inches long.

More details to come later.

What the hell?

Has anyone else seen the commercial for this train wreck? It's Camelot, starring Lou Diamond Phillips. I have nothing else to say.

http://www.broadwayla.org/Read/

Comfy Kate

Still no baby. I'm sulking just a tad right now. I scrubbed the kitchen floor, bounced on my yoga ball, walked up and down the stairs far too many times and...nothing. I'm SO ready to be unpregnant. Keep those thoughts of excruciating pain coming my way. I'm prepared.
Ok, I'm being a little dramatic, but really, I'm ready for this baby to be OUT!

Quick Baby Update

I had my in home visit with the midwives yesterday. They assured me that the baby is NOT 11 pounds as I previously thought. Thank God! Also, she's head down and engaged. Yay!!! I have been given the green light as of today to deliver any time. (before that I would have had to go to the hospital) So, the waiting game begins. Lauren was 10 days early and Hayden was a full 2 weeks early. According to that pattern, she should be here any day!

I am actually having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions. (to those of you out of the know, they are pointless painless contractions that don't really mean anything) But today I have had a few that actually kind of hurt. Maybe by the time I start labor for real, I will already be half way! I know, wishful thinking...

Anyway, I will let everyone know as soon as she arrives! Hope it won't be long!

F*%K

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsPYJIat0lo

If you haven't seen any episodes of Deadwood yet, this may not be the best advertisement for it. If you can't handle the "f" word, do not watch this. If you can, rock on.

Pumped Up!!

Just a quick funny for ya. I was driving home from lunch with Hayden and Josh today. When we pulled into the driveway, I started having a contraction (not a labor one, just a stupid one). I literally couldn't reach the steering wheel to turn the ignition off. My belly was too hard to lean over. Cool, huh?

Not sure why this basketball is so huge, but it's kind of fitting...

Stuff & Nonsense & Stuff

Lauren had her classroom preview today. We got to meet her teacher and see her classroom. Unfortunately, we also got to see the creepy kid from last year. He bothers me and I don't know why. Oh well, her teacher is great and the classroom is cute. She's in the front row too, what a little teacher's pet. :)

We will find out tomorrow who Hayden's teacher is. Either of the two options will be awesome, so I'm not worried. He loves both of them and they are "fighting" for him, so he'll be happy either way.

I have a grease spot on the front of my belly. Do you know how fat that makes me feel? Gross.

Speaking of fat, I'm 35 weeks today, which means I only have 2 to go until I'm safe to deliver anytime. And she FLIPPED!!! I was really starting to freak out about it. I am not really worried about the home delivery or the lack of drug availability, but I was not excited about delivering a baby that is facing the wrong direction. From what I've heard, it's pretty miserable. In fact, Heather just had her baby that way. He did flip as he was coming out, but she had to go through hours of back labor before he figured it out. And even with an epidural, she was pretty much wasted.

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. There's no other reason for putting it up. Yes, that's James for those who don't know already.

Right at this moment, my kids are exhibiting some very special behavior. Lauren is pretending to feed Hayden "baby food" (playdough) with an actual baby food spoon. He's making baby noises. I should stop them, but they're not talking to me and that is goooood.

If you haven't noticed, I'm ready for summer to be over. They're driving me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once...

Oh my.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GRcQvEM3NU

This is quite possibly the sickest and funniest video I've ever seen.

Boycott

I'm boycotting Trader Joe's for exactly two days. I went there today and had a horrible experience. I was looking for bacon and found two packages that were open. The guy I told about it said, "oh, that isn't good" and then went and found me a good one. Nice, but still makes me wonder.

Then, while we were standing in line, Hayden's chin starts randomly bleeding. Alot! He was dripping and everything. The hole that the blood was coming out of was approximately the size of a pin prick. It was like he had sprung a leak. The girl behind the counter gave us some tissue to sop it up, but it just kept bleeding. I grabbed some more tissue for the road and we left.

As we are walking across the parking lot, Lauren accidentally trips Hayden. Down he goes, onto his knee and elbow. He's screaming like a little girl, so some nice guy comes up and offers us some wet wipes to clean him up. It was so crazy, it was actually comical.

When the chaos finally comes to an end, I get a band aid on his chin and we drive home.

As I'm unloading the grocery bags, I pick up a pack of juice boxes, only to find that two of them have been mysteriously skewered somewhere along the way and have pooled in the bottom of the bag (luckily, they were my cool new 99 cent bags and not paper). Good Lord.

I will keep my promise to boycott for 2 days. It's going to be really easy seeing as how I wouldn't ordinarily return to the store for at least a week anyway, but it makes me feel better.

The end

33 Weeks Today!

I can't believe I'm already at 33 weeks. It's crazy how fast this pregnancy has gone by. It's wierd because the date "October 4th" (my due date) sounds like it's forever away, but it's NOT! It's only 7 weeks from now. I'm starting to freak out just a tad.

There are a few things that need to be done before this baby enters the world (not to mention exits me). One big one is that the entire house has to be clean. I don't even remember the last time the whole house was clean all at once. It was probably in the same week we moved in, almost 4 years ago.

We have to get a dresser from Sarah and Rob for the baby's clothing. She is living out of bins for now. Luckily, she doesn't need to wear clothes yet.

I really would like to have the upstairs carpets steam cleaned too, but I'm kind of incapable of doing so. I almost passed out this morning from cleaning the toilet. Too much bending over the lump in the middle of my body. Kinda takes the breath right outta ya. Josh will have to do that if he can find the time.

The biggest thing though is that I need to get this baby facing the right way. I was told at my appointment last week that she is head down (thank God) but facing up, or towards my front. Since I'm delivering at home, there is no room for added pain. With posterior deliveries, there is a TON of back pain and usually takes longer to push. I don't want anything to do with either. So think thoughts of flipping for me please.

My Top 5 Desert Island Movies (with electricity and stuff)

Okie dokie...so Ashley posted a blog with her top 5 desert island movies and I thought it would be fun to do the same. So, I copy.

I do have one repeat too.

Pulp Fiction- one of the greatest movies ever made. As Ashley said, Tarantino can be an idiot, but mostly because he can't act worth a damn. As long as his character isn't too prominent in the movie, it's good stuff. I own this one and was just saying yesterday that it's one of the few movies I could watch just about anytime it's on. Favorite scene is when Mia Wallace dances around the living room to "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon". Great direction and editing, her feet are dirty when she stops and puts her foot up. Very realistic. Anyway....

Big Lebowski- some of the funniest dialogue you'll ever hear. There are too many reasons to love this movie, but I'll just stick to one. "Don't f*$# with the Jesus".

The Nightmare Before Christmas- beautiful movie with beautiful songs. Just the thought of this movie makes me feel good. I love the characters and the story is so original. Favorite part is when Jack comes back from Christmastown and tries to describe Christmas to his entire town. They totally don't get it, but they're so innocent and sweet about it.

Donnie Darko- God I love this movie. Partly because it's a really good movie, partly because it has really good music and mostly because it has Jake Gyllenhaal. Best part is when he stands up to the crazy speaker, played by Patrick Swayze, in the school auditorium. Awesome.

The Breakfast Club- oldie, but goodie. I know every freaking line to the entire movie, so I don't actually have any good reason to ever watch it again, but I could watch it right now. Ya know? Best part is when John Bender tells Brian Johnson about what his father says to him. "Stupid, worthless, no good, goddamn, freeloading son of a bitch. Retarded, big mouth, know-it-all, asshole, jerk. You forgot ugly, lazy and disrespectful. Shut up bitch. Go fix me a turkey pot pie. No dad, what about you? Fuck you. No dad, what about you? Fuck you. Dad, what about you? Fuck you." And then he dramatically punches at the air so his hair falls in his eyes. Oh yes.

So there are my top 5. What are yours?

The Committee

That's what my father in law calls my Home Owners' Association ever since they threatened to have him towed because he was "illegally parked" in front of our house for about 10 minutes. There are so many stupid rules that no one abides by, but they are still there and it pisses me off. We OWN our home.

Well, we have new officers now. Josh is one of them. (hahahahahaha) He got elected while we were in Seattle last month and is now the HOA secretary. It's just too funny. He will do a great job, assuming he accepts his position, but it's still funny.

Last night, while the airshow fireworks were going on, I was outside talking to one of my neighbors. She was recounting the meeting we missed (the one where Josh was elected secretary...hahahahaha) and was telling me about our crazy neighbors three doors down. Apparently they have a camera on the front of their house to watch us. Us being the neighborhood, not me and Josh specifically. We were thinking of things to do to this camera. Josh's idea was to paintball it and I think we should moon it. Any more suggestions would be great.

PS The damn crickets are chirping again. I thought they were cured of that as they hadn't made a peep in months. Stupid crickets.

PPS This picture just cracks me up. It has nothing to do with anything.

Thriller!

You all may have seen this already, but it's worth watching again. This is what inmates should be doing in the US instead of lifting weights. Maybe it would humble them a bit. :)

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=879021&fr=yvmtf

Body World

Wow. What an experience. If you haven't already been to OMSI for the Bodyworld exhibit, go. Go now. It was amazing, to say the least.

There were a few things that stood out for me. One was the very first piece in the exhibit, the skin man. He was a regular looking guy, about 5'9" maybe. The wierd thing was that instead of wearing his skin, he was holding it. In his hands. It looked like a skin blanket and all I could think of was that scene in Silence of the Lambs, where Buffalo Bill is wearing the skin suit from his victims.

Another thing that pretty much freaked me out was the dude who was doing the splits, in all his naked (skinless) glory and was holding his own internal organs like a trophy above his head. Hmmm, interesting.

I think the wierdest display was the one of the central nervous system. There's no way to accurately describe it, so I found a picture. It's not a very good one, but I promise, it was really cool.

There was one more thing that really stood out. They had a glass box with two sets of lungs, one of a nonsmoker and one of a smoker. It showed that only 20 cigarettes a day (sounds like a lot to a nonsmoker, but that's just a pack a day) made these lungs almost completely black. The healthy ones were more of a creamy color. Right next to the display, there was a box where you could commit to quit smoking. It was almost full with business card size notes saying things like, "I will never smoke again, Dan" or "I will never try!-Jenny". There were also more than ten or so packs of cigarettes in there with the notes. Pretty moving, I thought.

At the end of the visit, we made our way to the fetal development exhibit, which is part of the regular everyday museum, but is amazing nonetheless. Turns out, it was done by the same guy who did the bodyworld stuff. It was really cool to see a 31 week old baby, which is how far along I am right now and how far along Emily was when she delivered Molly. What a miracle, no one's going to argue with me that God had nothing to do with all of that!

Anyway, if you have a free day and $21 bucks, it's totally worth the money and time, but don't bring kids. I'm glad I didn't. I can just imagine the questions they would have for the rest of their lives about what they would have seen.

No Impact Man

Saw something cool last night on tv, which is a rare occurence as most of tv is a waste of time and brain power. There was a special report on Nightline about this family who has decided to do an experiment for an entire year to see if they can live without making any or as little as possible of a footprint on the earth. This means NO electricity in their small New York apartment and no cars or public transportation. They ride their scooters (foot powered) and walk everywhere, including up many flights of stairs. See, elevators use electricity... Laundry involves them and their little girl, about 3 years old, stomping on the dirty clothes in the bathtub.

The hardest part for me to fathom is that they don't throw any trash away! They only buy things that come in reusable jars or without packaging. And with no refrigerator, they spend a heck of a lot of time at their local farmers' market, filling their reusable canvas bags.

It was really neat to see people with such a strong conviction to make a difference. I wish I could be that brave. There's no way I could do something that extreme. I'm already the crazy hippie in the family, like that wouldn't freak 'em out...

Anyway, here's a link to his blog. There's a lot more to the story, but you should read it for yourself if you are so inspired. http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/ What do you think?

Freaky-ass Moths

Last night, in the unbearable heat, we decided to go to the second movie of the day. Earlier yesterday morning, we joined our neighbors at the free kids movie at the Movies on TV theater. Monster House, which we've seen numerous times, was still hilarious. After going to lunch and making a bunch of Avon runs, we hooked up with Sarah and Audrey at the St. John's Theater to see Ratatouille. It was WONDERFUL. I love heeem, the rat that is. I would totally have a rat like that.

When the movie was over, it was still incredibly hot, so we meandered over to the Thompsons' house for some backyard kiddie pool action. The kids stripped down to undies and splashed while Sarah and I sat and laughed at Jack. He was eating/gulping down rice cereal and broccoli. Good thing he doesn't know how disgusting that is.

So...we left St. John's around 8:30 and made our way home. When we hit the bottom of Germantown, we realized we were in some sort of plague. The bugs were hitting our windshield so fast and furiously that it sounded like rain. I actually had to use my windshield wipers in order to see. When we got home, I ushered the kids inside as fast as I could, to avoid eating the bugs in the air. Josh was sitting at the table when we flung the door open. I said, "there's a plague outside, keep the doors shut". He wasn't really all that worried, but he's a boy.

At 5:45 this morning (I know) Hayden came running into my room yelling that there were 4 HUGE moths in the hallway. Come to find out, he's not the best with numbers...there were approximately 25 dead moths on the floor throughout my bedroom and the hallway. Ew. The worst part is that I'm not allowed to lift anything heavy, the vacuum included. I can't even suck the little buggers up because the vacuum is downstairs and the corpses are up.

The Couch.

Ok, here is the cowgirl red couch. I of course wouldn't have those nasty ass black pillows or the ugly glass table or rug. I'm thinking red and white striped pillows or something of that nature. Also, a cream rug and no coffee table.

It's really comfy and big enough for Josh to lay out on all the way. (something us shorties don't have to think about. He doesn't fit on either of our couches now.)

That being said...Whaddya think?

Some Pig

Ah, pregnancy. I saw this cartoon right after nearly peeing in my pants from sneezing. Yes, I felt radiant. Funny thing is, I seem to remember that Charlotte spun the word "radiant" over Wilbur in Charlotte's Web. Fitting.

We spent most of the day today searching for furniture. We found the perfect leather sectional at Dania. Only problem is the colors. They offer it in black and red. I LOVE love love the red, but Josh isn't sure. He's kinda freaked about a red couch, understandably (did I just make up that word?). We both agree that a black leather couch makes a statment we don't want to make. We'll see what happens.

In the earlier parts of the day, we went to Jackson's first birthday party at the skate park. He thoroughly enjoyed his chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. He was actually shaking and flapping his arms. At one point, he just leaned forward and started eating it off the high chair tray.

Before that, we went to a "not so secret shop" at a Fred Meyer in Portland. We met up with some uber hippies and learned about genetically engineered foods. They split us up into groups and had us fill a basket with items we would usually buy. Then we regrouped in the wine section and found out how terrible the ingredients in those foods are. It was kind of eye opening to see that even the things I thought were safe might not be. It was also fun to go pretend shopping with Josh and Aaron.

Lauren's BFF Lili is spending the night tonight. They are currently dressed up in the gawdiest dress up Lauren owns. There is a lot of toulle and sequin action going on. I'm just waiting for the lip gloss to come out. Silly girls. :)

Josh and Hayden are watching Lonesome Dove on tv. Hayden just told Josh that he really likes cowboy movies and then asked if there was going to be any shooting in it. So cute.

Whidbey Island

We are on VACATION!!! I know, I'm sitting here on my laptop on vacation. To my defense, so are James and Scott. We are all sitting in the living room geeking out. Earlier, it was Josh, Dad and Jon. Hilarious, I must say.

This house is unbelievable. There are 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. 4 floors of beautifully furnished and decorated luxury. I sound like an ad, but it's true. Every year, our family vacation gets a little better. And that's saying alot because the first one was a cruise, the second one was Leavenworth and last year was Lincoln City. The cruise was spectacular. Leavenworth was magical. Lincoln City was frightening out of my mind. But that was just the threat of the ocean coming in through the windows. The house was incredible and we had a really good time. This year has somehow managed to be the most breathtaking place we've gone. We are literally ON the water, (but not the ocean) overlooking a beautiful bay. There's a pool table in the house, a hot tub on one of the 4 decks and flat screen tvs in every room. The bathrooms are even gorgeous.

Oh yes, this will be a goooood week.

PS The picture is of mine and Josh's bedroom. Jealous?

Pencil Man!

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=531504&fr=yvmtf

Go here. It's really cute.