Rob's Birthday

We celebrated Rob's birthday a day early as we were both home and together on Memorial Day (unfortunately, he is out of town on his real birthday, which is today). When I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, he replied that he would like to finish up some projects around the house. He has been wanting to finish cutting the vents bigger on the roof, but it has been raining off and on each weekend. Yesterday he got up bright and early and headed to Lowe's to rent a tall ladder. A really tall ladder! Our Little Giant is not tall enough to reach the roof on the west side of our house. He strapped the ladder onto Blue Lightening and zipped on home!

He spent the majority of the day up on the ladder and roof, cutting out bigger vent holes. He has now successfully completed that project! Our attic should now have sufficient ventilation to keep cool during the summer.

I ended up getting Rob a few gifts, but one that he has been asking for for a long time is the 2nd edition of Advanced Marathoning. Now that he is able to run again, I am hoping that he can run a marathon. It has been a goal of his for a long time now.

Rob is not a cake person. However, he absolutely loves ice cream! For his "cake" this year, I ended up getting him one of his favorite ice cream flavors- Moose Tracks! It was the easiest "cake" ever!

All and all, I think it was a fun birthday for Robert. I sure do love him! Happy REAL Birthday today Rob!

Love & War in Texas

Daniel, Robert's brother, had a layover in Dallas for about 3 hours last Thursday. We were able to pick him up and take him to Love & War in Texas. The food was good, but the company was even better. We always love it when family and friends come and visit, even if it is only for a few hours. It was good to see you Daniel!

Tidbits

Rob and I have continued going to baby classes. Last night we attended Baby Care and Infant Safety and CPR. The instructors were great. They shared some interesting tidbits with us. One of the funny (and yet shocking) stories they shared with us was about nails. When babies are born, their nails are attached to the skin. You should NOT clip there nails when they are born as it will cut their skin. They recommended bringing a nail file to use instead. I guess grandparents (most often) have a hard time leaving the nails alone. The nurses said they have gone into a room on many occasions to find grandparents BITING the nails of infants in an effort to tear them off! They do NOT recommend this activity.

Rob has been really great at helping around the house. We go to Costco each week when he gets home. He always loads and unloads the cart (doing all the lifting). We have made a big effort to start our food storage. Here is some of our most recent food storage work (we also have a closet upstairs with cans from the cannery). We still have a ways to go, but we are putting a dent in it. We are also starting to stock up on diapers and wet wipes. We are not sure how fast our baby will grow, so we have tried to have a good variety of sizes. We had radiant barrier sprayed in our attic. It should help keep our attic cooler during the summer, thus saving us money on cooling the interior of our house. However, the insulation blocked up all the vents outside. When Rob looked more closely at the vents, he realized they are cut way too small. We have bought a jigsaw and new vents, and Rob has been cutting out bigger vent holes and blowing the vents clear so air can circulate through the attic.

Rob cleaning the kitchen:

Some of our bulk storage:

Diaper storage (and clothes sorted on the shelves by sizes):

You can see the size of the vent cover, the actual cut out section, and the insulation inside:

I have been very neglectful of my hair for the last 8 months! I finally scheduled a time to go and get it done. I figured that because I am so horrible about getting my hair touched up, I may as well do a full color and go back to my natural color. It has been a long time since I have had all brown hair. On another note, we bought a car seat. It is a Chicco Keyfit 30. We have a car seat class at the end of the month. I guess car seats are usually not correctly installed in the car.

Although I do not care for pregnant pictures of myself, I felt brave and had Rob snap one of me. I am 32 weeks along in this picture (and I do not have any make-up on).

Last little tidbit: Rob can finally start running again! He has been going to physical therapy for his knee. Basically the ligaments and tendons in his left knee have been inflamed and super tight, so he has had to take an anti-inflammatory and then do all sorts of stretches. He went running for the first time in 8 months last Thursday, and ran 3 miles! (In the past, when he went running he could only go less than a mile and then his knee would cause him so much grief he would have to stop.) I am so glad he is able to run again!

Flower Crazy!

On Valentines Day, Robert and I made a trip to Costco. Rather than getting freshly cut flowers, I picked up A LOT of bulbs. Rob knows I have a weakness for flowers, so he told me he would trust my judgment in picking out how many bulbs I wanted, as well as what I wanted. BIG MISTAKE!!! I ended up getting a lot more flowers than he thought I would. Much to his astonishment, I have found a place to plant them all (my mom and sisters helped me put them in the soil). Here is what has come up so far...

These two pots are FULL of bulbs... they will be VERY full when everything comes up and blooms:


The green stems will bring colorful flowers this summer:



Here is the other side with LOTS of soon-to-be flowers!

I took these pictures at night because if I didn't take the picture now (at night), I don't know when I would ever get around to it!

Tulips

Here is a sequence of the life of my tulips! They are now trimmed and waiting to come up again next year...

Here they are poking out of the ground:

The stems are getting a little bit taller:

The flower is thinking about opening:

Blossoming so beautifully:

I just love flowers!

I cannot wait until they come back again next year...

Zoo

I appreciate animals... from a distance. When my mom and sisters came out, I decided that a fun activity would be to go to the Ft. Worth Zoo. I had heard great things about the zoo, and I was not disappointed. Although the zoo was very crowded the day we went, it was fun to see the animals and enjoy the wildlife. I saw some "new" animals while I was there. I cannot recall the names of some of these animals right now, so if you recognize them, please feel free to remind me of the names! These were 5 of my favorite pictures...

A cheetah:

A funny orangutan:

A kudu:

Not an alligator or crocodile... I can't remember its name:

A gerenuk:

Baby Showers!

My mom and sisters came down for my Spring Break. I had told them repeatedly that they would not need to bring a lot of luggage (as I have bathroom supplies, laundry facilities, etc.) here. However, when I picked them up from the airport, they had all checked a bag and brought a carry-on! I was shocked! I couldn't imagine what they had brought with them for 6 days! I started thinking that they had probably brought a couple of extra things for the baby shower my ward was throwing on Saturday. As it turns out, my family had sent out invitations before coming here to collect shower gifts. They ended up throwing me a surprise party! I am including pictures of me (I have had a lot of inquiries as to how BIG I am getting... you be the judge!). THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SENT GIFTS!!! (I am still working on thank you cards.)



Here I am at the shower that my ward threw me. They did such a beautiful job. I cannot thank them enough for all the work they did to make it a great experience for me and my family. Rob and I received so many gifts. Everyone was so generous... THANK YOU!!!

We are still collecting and organizing all the gifts we received. We have had few others ask what else we need, so Rob and I are going to register at Target (we are hoping to go next week and create our registry). It is such an exciting time for us!