Baby VR's Room

This past weekend Chad's parents helped (actually did most of the work themselves) paint Baby VR's new room. If you saw it previously, you will know it was GREEN. Seriously GREEN. Here are some pics of the newly painted room. We are still waiting on the valance for the window to come in and a couple of pictures for one wall, but you get the basic idea. The pink is super pale-hard to show accurately on the pics... No, there isn't a giant brown blob on the wall. That blob is masking our baby's name. Yes, we do now have an official name, but we have decided not to share that information until she arrives. I know. Those kind of people are really annoying and such, but oh well!! We decided it would be fun this time around to do it this way. So, until May, she is simply Baby VR to all of you. Yes, that means NO ONE knows the name (ahem, grandparents included). We hung our girl's name after everyone left. Aidan won't even tell. Heck, he just calls her "the plain baby" at this point. To him, she will have no name and simply be called "baby." Though we will share this, no one has any clue to her name and she is not named after any family members. That's all you get...The little table that the lamp is on is actually a project with Aidan and Grandma. She helped him paint the table all by himself. He was very proud :) The wall with the window on it will have a couple of pics of our girl when she arrives on it...

This is a small pics of the bedding...the valance is the same as the pillow edging...

Aidan's table...

Another view of the room...

So there it is. We are glad to have it all done. This means we are pretty much ready at this point finally. It feels good to have it all ready to go.

Chad (watching some news report with President Obama on it): "Aidan, do you know who that is?"

Aidan: "Yes! That's Tiger Woods!"

That's our boy :)

Kansas City and the Train Ride

This weekend we took Aidan to KC on the Amtrak. He has been wanting to ride a train forever now and we decided to make a weekend of it. Luckily, we would only have to ride one-way as Chad's parents met us there and drove us home. Friday morning we loaded up and headed to JC to the train station. There isn't a whole lot down there, just a little waiting room and the trains. Interestingly enough, I happened to notice a peculiar group of men waiting for our train also. They happened to all be wearing grey little uniforms, hmmm...oh wait, did you happen to notice the 2 corrections officers standing outside? Oh yes, those are freshly released state penn felons. Woohoo! 3 hours on a train with them! But seriously, what felon is going to screw up in the first 3 hours of freedom :) Actually they were very nice and chatted with us. Heck, Chad even let one use his cell phone, lol. The train rolled up and you had like 5 minutes to hop on and we were off. There were 4 stops on the way. I thought it would be a lot worse than it was. Aidan was beyond excited... Chad in the waiting room/station with his state penn buddies...

Me and my buddy...

Pulling out of the station...you can see Grandma and Grandpa out there seeing us off...

Our seats...

A view of our car...

It was pretty quiet on the train except for our little buddy. He was chatting away...

We arrived at Union Station (which is gorgeous). I was snapping this pic to show you the station, but added bonus, a little picture of one of our new "friends" from the Penn ;) Grey suit, prisoner belongings box...

Grandpa and Grandma Van Roekel met us there...

Of course we couldn't leave downtown without heading to Fritz's...Aidan had to show Grandma and Grandpa his favorite place

The weather was really gross so we walked around Crown Center for a while. Aidan did some art at the Crayola store...

Once we had lunch we headed to our hotel for some fun at the waterpark. Aidan LOVES this place. He went on these slides for 3 hours straight...then again 4 hours the next day...

Dad and Grandpa decided to have some fun on the big ol' waterslide too...

Graceful landings by both of course...

The family

A little more time on the waterslide of course

This "carmel" bird (Aidan's word for cardinal, yes I know it's a parrot) greeted us in the lobby each morning...

Saturday we went over to Cabela's, NFM and The Legends. We had lunch at T-Rex. Aidan made a new dinosaur friend.

Giving "Tommy" the T-Rex a bath...

We left on Sunday in ice and snow. KC got some nasty weather while we were there! By the time we got home, it was just rain. Grandma and Grandpa (and Chad and Aidan) began the next task of painting Baby VR's new room. It is still the Kermit the Frog green we had for Aidan's baby room so it needed some painting! Aidan was such a helper ;)
They have been hard at work all day today so I am excited to see what it looks like when I get home!!

Happy 5th Anniversary

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to the love of my life, my dear hubby. Five years ago today (and almost at this very same time!) we were on the beach of Hawaii saying our "I do's!" Boy what I wouldn't give to be in Hawaii right now!!! Lots of life has happened in the past five years and I couldn't be happier today! I love you, Chad!

Aidan's First Dentist Appointment

Yesterday I took Aidan in for his first official dentist appointment. I was going to snap some pictures but figured he was nervous enough, that a crazy momma flashing a camera in his face wouldn't help :) He got an excellent report. We were advised that we had hit the "dental jackpot" with his teeth. He has perfect spacing and no decay. He was so proud. He also was completely elated with the new Cars toothbrush and kids Crest with sparkles ;) So he celebrated of course by having some insanely delicious iced sugar cookies at Grandma's, lol.

Pregnancy Side Effects

Things I forgot today:
My coat (it's snowy and COLD)
Deordorant (God Bless, I know)

Times I threw up today:
Twice before even leaving the house WHICH is why I believe I forgot the above mentioned items

The puking thing is really annoying. It isnt every day, but it is at least once a week, only in the morning. I will be happy to have that go away.

Little grown-up funny about baby showers I read today, and it cracked me up:

Dear The Bloggess: So at lunch today my boyfriend and I were discussing baby showers and how I do not like attending them because there are only so many times in your life that you can coo over ass cream (as in diaper rash cream) and be okay with it. The boyfriend assumes that the a$$ cream is for the mom. You know, as in lubrication for rectal rangering during the time that the mom isn't allowed to do the normal kind of sexy fun post-birth-giving. So my question is this? What in tarnation does my boyfriend think goes on at a baby shower? What should I do with this? Is it better that he thinks back-door-bingo is what he should expect after a baby instead of Blow-Pop-fun? I'm so confused. Best Regards, Random

Dear Random,
Wow. I’m confused too. How have I lived this long without ever hearing the phrase “rectal-rangering” before? Because honestly, it kind of sings. Except that my spell-check keeps trying to tell me that phrase doesn't exist and that instead I want “rectal-angering”. Honestly, I don't think I want either one. I don’t really have an answer for you but that phrase was just too good not to share. I salute you (and your extremely misled and destined-to-be-disappointed boyfriend).

NOT-PANTS

Apparently, American Apparel is aware of the issue because they’ve started printing this little message inside their leggings. You know it’s serious when your dealer tells you you have a problem.

Gymnastics and Firetrucks

We had a super weekend. Friday night was pretty low key. We went to out to eat in the yucky weather and went home. Aidan has been into renting movies so he watched his new Spiderman and Superman movies. Saturday we ran around town and then took Aidan to the MU gymnastics/wrestling event they had going on. Aidan calls wrestling "the fighting game." He was into it all at first, but got tired pretty quick. It started about 7ish and he hadn't taken a nap all day. I tried to get some pictures, but "no flash photography for the safety of the athletes" prevented a lot of that ;)

Don't these boys look thrilled, lol...

Sunday we went to church and got some lunch as usual. They were having a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new firestation in our neighborhood so we took Aidan to check it out.
When we were there he saw one of his friends from school, Ajith...

It was a tad on the chilly side, but Aidan had fun anyways...

A lot of the pics have squinty eyes :) The sun was peeking through the clouds in just the right way...

Aidan was really impressed by the Bomb Squad unit they had set up...

Later that evening we went over to Robert and Sally's for some Super Bowl fun. They have 2 girls about 4 and 6. There was another couple that had a boy who just turned 5. Aidan had a BLAST. He wore himself out. By the last couple of minutes in the game Aidan had crawled up in my lap and said he was just going to "watch" the others play. His eyes kept slowly closing :) We got home and he was asleep in less than 15 minutes!

Today I had a dr. appt. I had my gross glucose tolerance test. Hoping I pass that sucker! Everything is looking super of course. I am measuring large apparently. The baby, not ME. I have gained about 16 lbs. Baby girl is measuring about a week and half larger. Since Aidan was such a GIANT baby ( 9lbs 4 oz) they are going to check her growth again in 2 weeks and we may be doing another ultrasound to see just how big she is. That's about it. Nothing else to report!

Have a good week :)

Blog Funny

Found this on a girl's blog I read, and it made me laugh...oh so true... While suturing up a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand had been caught in the gate while working his cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama, and his being our president..

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Obama is just a Post Turtle."

Now not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked, What's a "Post Turtle?"

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle." The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he sure as heck ain't goin' anywhere, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there in the first place."

Happy Thursday!