Hilary and Elliott have started a new blog, you can read it here: mrwestlake.blogspot.com

Halloween 2008

This Halloween was a little different because we actually celebrated on Nov. 1st since we had a wedding to attend on the 31st. We had a great time just the same :) El put on his costume to wear to day care, and he enjoyed every minute of it, really! Then we introduced El to our traditional pumpkin carving contest...you be the judge, but I think El's takes the cake!

Elliott the lobster!


Mama prepared the pumpkins for everyone...


Elliott decorating his pumpkin.



The finished product!



Mama and her pumpkin...


Papa and his pumpkin...


The Pumpkin Family...


...and a big wet kiss!

life with El

In September, Elliott spent two weeks in Omaha getting to know his Mama's side of the family. He spent a lot of time with his two beautiful cousins, Aubri and Georgia.


Grammy set up the bouncy duck in the kitchen so El could take part in the action. He loved it!


Always a morning person!


Just like his big cousin Aubri, Elliott found a love for the Valentino's buffet. I'm not sure whether this is good, or bad ;)


Mama and Papa are so mean :(


Back in Pittsburgh, Aunt Trisha helped dress El up for his first Halloween celebration at Idlewild (a kid's amusement park). He borrowed a costume and some wheels from his big cousin Wes.


Mama bundled El up for a night out on the town. He enjoyed the outdoor Squonk Opera performance in Oakland on a busy (and chilly) Friday night.


Elliott has two new chompers! His bottom teeth are great for tearing into things, as they are razor sharp! Here, he's enjoying his first "teething cookie", which quickly became a favorite :)


El's generous cousins have all shared their outgrown toys with him. Here, he discovers the joys of Georgia's old activity set...George, he sees why you loved it so much! (and yes, that is Elijah's old pack-n-play in the background)


Here he is in action!




El and Papa had a guy's day out and went to watch the Penguins practice. They had a great time, and El watched the players on the ice! Check out that red hair!!



Don't mind the urinals in the background here...Elliott had a great time at the pumpkin patch! Here he is waiting in line for the tractor ride!


Mama let him try his first apple dumpling...which he LOVED!


He got a free ride on Mama all day!


He got to pick out his own pumpkin...


And, he got to hang out with Mama and Papa all day outside, which is his favorite thing to do!

Here is El having a good time on the tractor ride at the pumpkin patch.

One month....

It's been about/over a month since the last update. We have been pretty busy with things. Hil has been working six days a week, I started a new job and had to go out of town for training, and El doesn't take so many naps anymore.

Hil passed her praxis test with flying colors. Seems she works well under pressure. :) I interviewed for and accepted the job for Produce Team Leader and have been at it for a couple weeks now. It's not fast paced like the kitchen, but there are a lot of issues that are helping me build my leadership qualities... and it's also a nice break from the stress of the kitchen. It's different... I have only known kitchens. So being out of that element for even a couple days felt very weird. It's welcome, though.

Elliott is doing very well. He is getting bigger and his motor skills and awareness are refining. It's still amazing to see. We haven't been up to much recently... so we only have every day photos. We took a family trip to Ohiopyle (Click to learn) last weekend (photos next week)... and despite the heat and our forgotten bathing suits.. it was nice to get out of the city. It's a long drive (1.5 hrs or so...) and having a 4 month old and a dog.... it takes a lot more than it used to.

Elliott is no longer the youngest in the family but the middle child of the new generation. My older sister Trisha had a baby on July 2nd. Her name is Anna Mae (after our grandmothers Anna and Ida Mae). She has more hair than you. Guaranteed.

Anyways... onto some photos. As always... click to enlarge:

Mama and El.




Papa and El.


Emma and El. :) Best friends.










He's getting so big!


El in his chair. When he sees something he knows he wants to put it in his mouth and is now able to accomplish that task. :)






El had a MAJOR blowout.... worth taking pictures of. Sorry. The joys of parenthood. :)


Anna Mae Daniel.




Anna with Mom.


Anna with Great Grandma Anna.


We also took a trip out of town to Columbus (sans El.) to see a favortie musician of ours.. Tom Waits. We had better seats than last time but were discouraged to find out that a co-worker had seats in the VERY FIRST ROW!! And we went about getting tickets int he same manner. Some people have all the luck.

Here are a couple photos I took of TW. I'm obsessed:













We hope everyone is doing well. There may be out of town family coming to town this weekend for a visit... so stay tuned next week for photos.

Father's Day 2008

Well, We took El swimming at my Aunt Kim's (yes... the nurse who delivered him. It was the first time she has seen him since! And come to think of it... should have gotten a pic of him with her....). He was in a VERY good mood the whole time... laughing, smiling, ... drooling. He kinda cried when we first got him into the water but calmed down quickly. He seemed kind of unsure, not hating it but not having tons of fun like he was out of the water.

Anywho... here are some photos:

As always... click to see the full size.


Stylin' in his new swim trunks!




Shades? Check.


Sun hat? Check.


Aunt Tracy? Check.




Here is Papa and El. Papa is wearing the shirt El made him for Fathers Day.




Mama and Elliott in the pool for the first time. He wasn't into it. :(






It took him a couple of minutes... but he started to calm down.


Completely unsure of what's going on...




Papa's turn.






:)


He had a better time out of the pool. Warning.... these photos are extremely cute!












With Cousin Wes.




LOVE this one...


After two days of watering my Fathers Day gift that he made me at day care started to sprout. Forgive the focus... I couldn't get it to focus on the right part. Damn point-and-shoot....




Two days after the above photo... It's taking off!





So... lots of photos and not a lot to say. He is getting bigger by the day (and eating A LOT more) and is 'growing up'... you can tell. He follows us around the room with his eyes and loves to giggle when Mama and Papa talk to him in a high pitched voice. He's also noticing Emma around a lot more.

Other than that not too much is going on. Hil took her gigantic test and feels as though she did pretty well. We shall see. I have my interview coming up on the 27th... So I'm getting ready for that... and by ready I mean nervous. I'm nervous until I walk in the room and see the 7 people sitting there... then It all goes away and I just act like myself. Wish me luck.

We hope everyone is doing well!

Time Flies...

On Monday the 16th, El will be twelve weeks old.

Think about it. Three months. Sheesh.

Things have been going well. Hil is taking her Praxis test today... which is pretty much the most important test she has ever taken (other than the pregnancy one.. har har!!). She feels she did very well on the first part this morning.. but is anxious about the second part. I'm sure she'll do fine. She always does. :)

I myself haven't been up to much. Working... I played hockey for the first time in a while on Tuesday.. ummm.. that's about it. Still waiting for my interview which is going to be sometime after the 25th. I'm preparing for that.

Anyways.. enough with the boring stuff... let's get to Big El Photos. We even have some video's this week.

He is definitely growing up. He notices things a lot more, uses his hands to bat at things hanging in front of him, scoots around the floor using his legs while on his back, ALMOST rolling over.. and we're starting him on sitting up. His balance side to side is ok.. but forward to backwards forget about it. His motor skills are definitely starting to refine themselves... and it's amazing to watch.

Oh yeah.... the photos... Click to see the full size:



The Sleeping El section.

Sleeping on Mama's legs...


Sleeping with Papa...








Non-sleeping photos:


We had a heat wave last week. El got plenty of naked tummy time. Here are some photos of him cooling down:

Hogging the fan...


Damp rag on his forehead..


I couldn't pick which one of these naked tummy time photos to put up... so I'm putting all of them up.













Happy boy!


Camera-phone Photos:








Here are some cute videos:

Here is El failing miserably at trying to NOT be cute....


Elliott playing peek-a-boo with Papa and Emma...


Elliott started to use his legs. Here he is in his bouncing chair. Note the phone book underneath so his feet can reach!



That's about all we got. He will be going swimming for the first time tomorrow... so stay tuned!

BONUS UPDATE!!!

I JUST took some photos of El playing with the animals that hang from his bouncing chair.. he was loving it! Here they are:












Also.. El made me a father's day gift at day care. I don't know what kind of seeds they are but I'm going to find out. I'll post progress photos when they sprout.

Boy's day out... with a girl.

On a day beginning with spilled coffee, drama at work, and other mind numbing things, Elliott, Emma, and I decided to go to the park. Instead of our normal trek to Frick... we decided to meet some friends at Mellon Park. There were a lot of people there.. but they weren't as good as the 'Frick' people (you have to be more dedicated as a dog owner to walk the trail to the dog park at Frick... this park was full of lazy yuppies who drove up the 'authorized vehicles only' road to get within 10 feet of the renegade dog area. It's not legal to have your dog off the leash ANYWHERE in this park without the impending worry of the $300 fine and/or 30 days in jail.)

So ANYWHO... we met Josh, Ashley and their dog Maggie for a play session. Emma misbehaved but at least she got exercise. Turns out... days before there was a flower show complete with food stands and the like. The place was a mess. Straw everywhere because of the foot traffic, and smelly puddles of who knows what.. which the dogs LOVED to drink and roll around in. Emma has rolled around in some really smelly things... and THIS had to be one of the worst.

Anyways... here are some pics. I only got one of El... he was pretty disinterested in the whole ordeal and slept it out.

Big El was not very energetic.


Emma and Maggie. They were hard to catch with the lens. This was the best shot I could get.


She's not behaving.. she just wants the turkey bologna I give to her for her treat. Don't let the cute face fool you.








I forgot to post the picture that the surgeon took. This is the 'other side' of Elliott.. where he could have possibly had another hernia. They put a camera in the incision they made to fix the one side to look at the other. Ew!


Well... not much of an update... but Hil is working from 9am-10pm... so I needed something to do.

We've been busy...

Well. Today Elliott is 8 weeks old. Time flies.

Hilary and I are both back to work full time.. and it feels good to finally get a jump start to the day and to feel productive. We certainly will miss our time off... but for now we're happy that our lives are getting back to 'normal'.

Big week. First off... Elliott started daycare. :( It's kind of hard to take him and leave him.. but it will be good for him to get used to different people, sounds, and to make some friends. He was pretty fussy for the workers for the first day.. but seems to be coming along. They say he loves music time!

Elliott also had surgery on the 14th. He had a hernia.. which is fairly common and a routine surgery, but it's hard to not be overly worried and protective of a your little one. Everything went fine... he only had one side that needed to be repaired. They kept him overnight, and Hil stayed with him. It was hard for me to be away from both of them for the night.. but being that I had to work at 5am I needed a good nights rest to be on top of things.

Here are some photos from his big day:

Click to enlarge.

About to leave for the hospital and being comforted by his quilt from Nana.


Putting his gown on. He DID NOT want to be changed. He had also not eaten since 9:30 am. It was about 1:00 here. He was cranky. :(




Being comforted by Mama after that ordeal.


Papa's turn.


After FINALLY being fed post-surgery. He was really happy to see his Mama.






It's so hard to see tubes and electrical wires attached to someone you love. Here is his foot with the IV and sensors.




Here you can see his bandage. :(



Happy as a clam in his hospital bed!







He is doing really well, now. We get to take his bandage off today after his bath and then we'll be able to submerge him again. He also seems to be in a better mood now. They say that the hernia doesn't bother them... but it seems like he's glad it's gone. :)

Onto happier things! We ran (err.. walked) the Race for the Cure this year. It was my first time because I usually have to work. Mother's Day = one of the busiest days of the year. But since it was my last day of leave I took part. The rest of the family does it every year. Elliott ended up winning the race out of the family despite Aunt Tracy's best efforts. He tried to pass her numerous times close to the finish but she always shut him down. He waited until 15 feet before the finish line and took an outside path (on the other side of a group of people) so she couldn't see him coming, cutting her off and taking the coveted first place Thorne Family Trophy.

Here are a some photos:

El, Mama, and Papa


Mama posing with the big winner!


The Thorne/Muraca Family (Bria, too!)
Cousin Ed, Cousin Jessica (in back), Cousin Amanda, Cousin Erica, Cousin Wes, Aunt Tracy, Bria, Papa, Mama, and El.


Elliott ran for his Great Aunt Diane who passed away in 2005 and for his Nana, who is currently fighting.



Two nights ago Elliott spent the night in his room for the first time. Usually he sleeps in the cradle next to our bed... and we pick him up to comfort him when he starts to fuss. We have changed our approach so he can learn how to self-soothe. It was hard to listen to him fuss over the monitor for about half an hour... but with the help of lullaby versions of Radiohead, he fell asleep and slept about five hours!

Here are some photos from him first night in his own room. Sorry for the quality.. it was dark and I didn't want to use the flash.






Hey Papa!!! I'm over here!


Everything else is going well. I will be interviewing for a higher position in June. I'm feeling pretty confident about the opportunity and my chances are pretty good... so hopefully everything will work out.

That's about it!

Here are some photos of El hanging out on his quilt from his Nana:

Tummy time!!!








Oh... and Elliott says hello!

Back to the grind...

Well.. we are finally starting to settle into life with a little one. Hil started back to work full-time this week and I start back next week. Elliott will be going to day care at a local Presbyterian church. One of my co-workers takes his son there and he has nothing but good things to say about it. I could do without the religious references that are around the place.. but if they're good and the cheapest we found I can get past that.

Here are some photos taken since the last update:

Click the thumbnails for full size.


Elliott with Pap-pap Thorne


Elliott with Aunt Tracy


Elliott and Papa at Breakfast


Elliott, M ama, and Emma at Frick Park


Elliott laying back at Frick


More sleeping photos:






Elliott and Emma


Bath time.



We planted a maple tree in the yard. We had always intended on planting one.. and we happened to plant this one on his one month birthday. I also made a dog run for Emma. She likes to run along the fence barking at passers-by (much to our dismay).. and tore up all the grass and got covered in mud every time she went outside. This will hopefully help with that. We are planning on adding some more plants towards the back of the yard.

Here are some photos:


TJ planting the tree






Emma testing out the walk-way


The family in front of the tree



We have also found out that Elliott has a hernia in his groin. It's fairly common and an easy fix. He has surgery scheduled for May 14th. Its a simple procedure and he might even be able to go home that day. Hopefully everything will work out.

Everything else is going well. Saturday is Hil's first mother's day.. and on Sunday we will be taking part in Race for the Cure in honor of our friends and family, past and present, who have fought breast cancer. We will post photos from that day.

We hope everyone is doing well!

Oh.. and here is a cute video of Elliott getting a bath:

After three weeks...

Today Elliott is three weeks old. For his birthday I got up the motivation to put all of our digital images in order and I uploaded them to photobucket.

Elliott.. also known as The Fart Machine (actually... we don't refer to him as that.. but maybe we should) is doing very well. He has been drinking both from a bottle and the breast.... so Papa is able to feed him, now. It seems that every day he is becoming more aware, and his personality is really starting to come through. Ugh... can he BE more cute?

So anyway.. here are some photos from his first three weeks of life. Click the thumbnail to see the full size photo. Enjoy.

Here is the birth announcement that Mom McClendon made for Elliott.


Elliott wearing the outfit that TJ wore home from the hospital when he was born.


Could you ever have enough sleeping baby pictures? No.












We love this photo.


Papa and Elliott sleeping.


Mama and Elliott.


First bath at home.


Great Uncle Bob and Elliott.


Great Grandma Sis and Elliott.


Grammy McClendon and Elliott.


Great Grandma Ann and Elliott.


Aunt Trisha and Elliott.


Cousin Wes and Elliott.


Uncle Kevin and Elliott.


Nana and Papa and Elliott.


Grammy Thorne and Elliott.


Elliott and his Cadillac of a bath tub.


Well.... there's three weeks in review. A far as Mama and Papa go... well.. we went to the dentist (everything is looking good there!), Mama was invited to join the National Honor Society as a result of her hard work in school, Papa still plays hockey once or twice a week.. and that's about it. We're just getting used to the mid-sleep awakenings and life with a little one.

So far so good. :)

A short update...

Well, it's been 11 days since our lives were changed.. and it couldn't be better. Elliott is eating, pooping, sleeping... all the things that babies do, and he is a very alert little boy. When his eyes are open it seems he is absorbing everything he sees and enjoys hearing the sound of Mama and Papa's voice. He's just the perfect little thing!

Emma was very cautious at first... almost scared. She hid under the coffee table for about an hour while I sat on the floor with Elliott. Slowly, she made he way over and sniffed his head. She then backed away. 11 days later her tail wags excitedly when she smells her brother's head and has even licked it a couple times. She lays on his rug watching to door when Mama is feeding him in his room and we have 100% trust in her when she is around him. She and I had a talk about how she's no longer the baby in the family and that it's time for her to grow up and be a big puppy and we can tell she's changed. She's only 1 1/2 yeards old so she still has some puppy rambunctiousness in her, so she gets a little excited when company comes over.. and we have to calm her down when this happens and Elliott is in the room. But all in all... she's doing great with him and we couldn't be more grateful. Because if she was having problems with this whole thing it would make it a million times harder.

Hil and I are both pretty beat.. with the feedings in the middle of the night.. which have become longer now that he is hitting his two week growth spurt. We are a good team. I change his pre-feeding diaper, Hil feeds, and I am the official burper. I would say I change most of the diapers, and obviously Hil does the feedings.. so I think we have a pretty good system.

Hil and I took six weeks off from work... and I might need to take and extra one depending on what happens with daycare, so we are having a great time bonding as a family.. something we never got to do to this extent before. We have always been busy with school and work or otherwise have something going on. So to take this much time off and spend every day together to focus on each other, Elliott, and the pup/kitties is really special and we are so grateful that we have jobs that allow us to do so.

We got some pictures taken of Elliott on his one week birthday.. here are a few.

Click to see the full size.












Hil's mom just left this morning, so in a couple days I will upload and post a ton of photo's from Elliott's first week and a half of life.

Well.. Elliott is starting to stir for a feeding, so I'll stop here.

The best day of our lives.

Apologies for the size of the photos.. I'll have to resize them later.

Welcome Elliott Westlake Thorne.
7lb 14oz, 20.75 inches long.
He was born 3/24/08 at 7:48pm.

We had the fortune of my Aunt Kim to be our nurse,, she just happened to be there and working the room we were in! Everything went perfect. Stay tuned for a more in depth update (with more photos no doubt)!

These are thumbnails... click on each photo to view a larger size.

Enjoy!

This ain't your grandmother's house....

Ok.... big update.

The third floor guest room/office is DONE!

ALOT of work was done.. and here are pictures of the final product.. well.. 99% of it. I still have to lay slate tile in the fireplace/hearth.

Enjoy!

Before

While removing paint and wallpaper...

After





Before

During

After





Before

During

After





Before

During


After





Before

After





Here is the room furnished and ready for our guest this weekend.. (Just in time... heh heh heh!) I'll post the "Original" picture again... just for shock value.








Here's Emma testing the bed out. She LOVES this room!!







And here are some pictures of the orchids Hil got to decorate the room..







Here's a long (too long maybe) exposure of the candles we bought to create a "fire" in the fireplace. It's a nice touch and looks good...




Here's a short little video with guest appearance by Hil.


I ended up putting my teeth through my lip playing hockey and required four stitches. I guess that's what I get for trying to be young. I now wear a cage... and it's already saved my handsome face from getting smacked with a stick once and getting hit in the face with the puck once. The accident was caused by a helmet. When fully swollen (which was for about 6 days) I looked like a Simpson's character. I was being called "Bart" all week long at work. For the interested parties... you can click the following links and see some gory (well... not TOO gory) pictures.

On the way to the hospital.
The stitches.
Inside the lip.

The inside cut turned into a big giant nickel sized canker sore.. which made it nearly impossible to eat, drink, and talk comfortably. It's all healed up nicely, now... and the vitamin e oil I'm putting on it is helping to make the scar not so noticeable. I guess you're never too old to get scars, eh?



Things with the baby are moving right along. Hil is starting to have Braxton Hicks contractions... and we went to the hospital to have the baby monitored during them. Patrick (and the nurse) said that according to the monitoring he is doing perfect! We are sooooo ready for him to come. Well... the house could be in better shape. But we ourselves can't wait! Hil's baby shower is this Sunday (3/09). Her father (Steve) and smother (Patty) are coming in from Michigan, and her best friend Sarah is coming in from Omaha. Oh yeah.. her aunt and cousin are coming in from Virginia, too. We're both really excited for the visits.

Hil had a be all/end all test (pretty much) for all the work she has done towards her teaching certificate scheduled for 3/15. She made the excellent decision to reschedule it for a later date... when she won't be pregnant and will be able to focus a little more and not have to get up to go to the bathroom every five minutes. I think she made the right choice... it just seems that life won't let her finish school. :(

Well.. it's getting late and we have another long day ahead of us. We hope everyone is doing well!

Lot's of work was done!

Well... Hil's cousin Steve came to visit and to help us with the house. Needless to say... he lit a fire under my ass to get some stuff done. All the work that needed to be done seemed so daunting, and it was hard to stay motivated. But with getting a ton of work done, it's feeling a lot more manageable and I can TOTALLY finish the rest by myself. I learned a lot from him and most importantly his presence made me feel guilty about spending way more time and attention to detail on things that didn't warrant it. So here are some before and after photos of some of the work we did. Enjoy.

Before.. the "middle room" as we called it.. which is now the nursery


After we cleared out the furniture.. which included a bed, a desk, three dressers, and chest of drawers thingie, an irnoning board and a clothes rack.. we started the painting prep work. With 130 year old cracked plaster... there was a lot of patching to do.

Here are before and after photos.. taken at roughly the same angle.



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Here are some shots that don't have before versions... but you can see the finished product. Steve added a couple new outlets and installed a fan for us. The fan and light are remote controlled (hey.. the ceilings are 9.5 feet..). This will help us quietly check on the baby from afar during the night.









Now let's move on to the third floor. You can see a lot of 'before' pictures in previous entries. We hung drywall (I'm getting pretty good at mudding over joints and such...), did A LOT of patching, put in a new outlet and switch, and cleaned up/lowered to the truck bed by rope about 20 bags of plaster and other randomness.

Here are some photos of it's current state:











The patched cracks in the ceiling (with light that is original to the house):


Well... that's the state of the Thorne household. Steve also spent a lot of time installing a shower on the clawfoot tub in the bathroom.. which we both are TOTALLY loving. We just feel so much... cleaner. No more shaths for us!!!

Now.. I will be taking a couple days off from working on the house to do some things for myself... maybe go play some hockey... definitely go snowboarding.. and then it will be back to the grind on Thursday.

New Post for a New Year

This have been fairly busy lately, with Hil finishing up a semester in school (with a 4.0 no less!!), a trip to Michigan for a family Christmas, TJ 'fixing' (more like organized destruction) up the house, and TJ coming down with the flu. Please note that he also go his flu shot this year. Go figure.

Anyways.. We went to Augusta, Michigan to spend the holiday with Hil's Dad and her Step-mother (Smother), her sisters Rachel and Megan, Rachel's husband Mike, and Aubrey, Elijah, and Georgia.. the nieces and nephew. Emma came and had a great time playing with the family, jumping up onto the counters for food and making a new friend in Lily, Steve and Patty's new pup. Here are some photos:

Hil and the Baby made cookies to take to Michigan.


Here's a blurry picture of the tree...


Georgia is already giving her cousin tons of love...


Georgia also got a long really well with Emma...


Emma liked Georgia so much because she always thought she was going to get something from her...


Emma searching the bottom of Georgia's cup for something tasty...


An action shot of Emma playing with Lily. They did really well together...


All that playing (the family for Emma and Wii for TJ) can be exhausting...


TJ and Hil at xmas eve dinner...


Steve and Patty at xmas eve dinner...


The family on xmas day...


Hil sporting her new Cashmere Glove, Scarf, and Hat set...


That about sums it up. Good times with family.... and it was nice to get out of the Burgh for a weekend, but once we returned it was back to the grind, and this is a short video of the project TJ is 'working' on up on the third floor. Hil's cousin Steve is coming to visit and help out this weekend... so maybe it will be a lot close to being complete and our company will have a nice bedroom to sleep in when the baby is born.

I made a mess of things.

Some people may have been wondering what I do with my time. I know Emma does... she wonders why we don't go to the park every day like we used to. Here is the answer.

I started working on the third floor guest room in preparation for anybody who comes to visit... especially when we have the baby.

Here are some photos:

Before.. just a messy room.


My Uncle once tried to remove the wallpaper.... it's kinda hard.


So I bought a wall scraper to speed up the process. Now it's just a mess.


After scraping the one wall... the plaster started to come off... so I helped it along knowing that the chimney ran behind it.




And currently I am at war with the mortar.. removing the old so I can repoint it and get it looking sharp. Here's a photo of the battle storm:


Right now there is about an inch of dust covering EVERYTHING in the room.... including myself


The battery is charged and I'm heading back to the front line. Wish me luck. It's a dirty job.

The Big News!

On the 15th of this month we found out the big news....

We're going to be having a boy! Looks like, even with such few votes, that the majority of the people who took the poll on the right were feeling the correct vibe! I bet some of them voted after they knew. My vote was for a boy. And I didn't really notice it until after we found out... but when we refered to the baby as a boy.. it felt so right. Then Hil decided she thought it was going to be a girl... but it sounded so off when she said "She's wigglin' around in there!" I dunno.

We're both really excited to finally know so we don't have to keep guessing. Now the name game will be a lot easier!

Here's the sonogram:

Moments to pay attention to:
1:10 - Hand Movement
2:30 to 2:45 - He's drinking the Amniotic Fluid!
3:00 - Good view of his little beating heart!
3:40 to 3:48 - Big Kicks!
4:18 to 4:24 - "The Goods!"

Yay! Privacy!

JC Penny was having a HUGE sale on blinds about a month or so ago... so Hil and I indulged. We got three blinds for the living room, and two for the soon-to-be baby's room. We had been living with the 60 year old blinds in the living room since we moved in, and since they weren't 100% operable, we had to keep some ugly yellow drapes up. I didn't realize how expensive blinds were. When they lady said $430 I thought she meant that was the total for the one room... but she was talking about the price of ONE (1) blind. My jaw dropped, and then she said the sale price.. $160. All in all we got $3,000 worth of blinds and shades for under $1,000. What a steal! We should have gotten some for each of our 22 windows.

We got some cellular shades for the baby's room.. and some (real wood) Cherry Wood blinds for the living room. Here are some pics of the living room:

Before. They didn't go the whole way down... hence the ugly yellow drape.


When I touched the blinds to take them down.. they pretty much disintegrated...


Here.. you can see why they did. But hey.. these blinds lasted for SIXTY years! My mom tells tales of taking them completely apart to clean them... each and every slat...


And here are the new ones...


We can finally have complete privacy... and that's a good feeling with the street we live on. And they look good from the outside, too!

"Better Late Than Never" Helloween Post

Hil and I finally managed to get out and away for a party at a friends house. Due to lack of costume motivation and time to pay attention to detail, we had some pretty sorry costumes:



Hil was a pregnant cat and I was a Bible Camp Counselor (with his own agenda... if you know what I mean...). Hil donned cat ears and whiskers and dressed in all black. I, on the other hand, wore a cheesy wig, creepy mustache, glasses, prayer pads, and a name tag from In Touch Ministries (yes.. a real organization. A pretty unfortunate name if you ask me considering all the "things" going on in some of the catholic churches nowadays. You can click HERE to visit their page....) Bible Camp for Young Boys (I made that part up... and used the name of a friend/coworker.). I also carried a 'Bible'. I didn't have a real bible so I used the only book we had that LOOKED like it could be a bible, which was... well.. Darwin's Origin of Species. Irony not totally intended.

We weren't able to stay too late because of our demanding schedules, but it was nice to get out and be social.

Here are some pictures of the 'Max-o-lantern' I carved for a co-worker. I am not as pleased with this one as I was with the first one I did... but it still came out pretty decent. I lost my pumpkin scraper, so I don't think I scraped it thin enough for the mid-tones to come through as much as they did on the Zach-o-lantern. See for yourself:

Original


Max-o-lantern


That's that. You can check out his blog (here) to see a photo sequence of it rotting, if you're into that kind of stuff.

Due to Hil being in school and myself being in Daytona for a very good friends' wedding, we were unable to pass out candy this year. We'll definately try to be around for it next year though.. baby included. Wow that is weird to imagine at this point.

Pumpkin Time!

Hil and I carved our annual pumpkins on.. hmmm... I can't remember what day. It was a couple of days ago.

Anywho... here are some pics:

In the light. Mine on the left.. Hil's on the right.


In the dark.


TJ and his pumpkin posing together.



I also carved another pumpkin for work. Each department had to carve one and I thought it would be cool to do a "Zach-o-lantern"... in honor of my boss, Zach. It was the first time I ever tried something like this.. and had always wanted to. So as I was carving it, the whole time I was kinda disappointed at how it was coming along... thinking it didn't look anything like him. Imagine my surprise when I lit it up... you be the judge.

Here is the picture I used.


Ok.. now.... THIS is the pumpkin lit up in darkness.


Yeah?!?! Yeah?!?!

Just in case you don't believe that's a real pumpkin.. here it is in the light.


It only really looks completely amazing in complete darkness... it makes it 'pop'. This pumpkin took me about 2.5-3 hours to carve. Well worth it.

I've already been commissioned to do two more... which I am doing today... for my co-worker Max (click for his blog).

Pictures of that to follow, soon.

Also soon to follow are pictures of our costumes from a party we went to last night.

Unfortunately.. I'll be on my way to Daytona, FL for a friends wedding, and Hil will be in school on Halloween... so we won't be around to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.

Anyways... Happy Helloween!