Baby Aaron has arrived!

For those of you who haven't heard, Aaron was born Wednesday morning - about 5 weeks early!

Due to the early arrival, Aaron had slightly under developed lungs and has been in the NICU since his birth.
He will remain there for the next 7-10 days, however he has been improving with leaps and bounds and we even got to hold him today!

More details and a timeline of how we got from point A ("Brett, I think I am in labor") to point B (we are parents for the second time in 11 months!) is coming soon.

Thank you to everyone who has been helping with Peter, visiting, sending food and gifts, and praying for our growing family.

My sister wants to be just like me!

So, she started her own blog!

She titled her blog Just Katleyn: The stories and adventures of a girl trying to figure out her path in life.

I am guessing we will all get to witness as "K" moves out of State College, PA for the first time in 5 years, and goes from college student to "grown up." Should be an exciting transformation!

Click HERE to read Just Katelyn for yourself!

New games...

Brett and I have 2 new computer games that we have been wasting our time with...

The first is one that Brett's friends all play (no, not WOW)... Travian. This is a game that from what I can tell is all about building up a city/army and making it run. I don't actually play, but if I am using the computer and Brett wants something done I have been going on for him and building granaries and sending troops to war.

The second was introduced to us by my cousin Hannah and it is totally addictive... Copter. This is a seemingly easy game where your goal is to not run your copter into anything green. A click of the mouse is all you need to "fly" but actually it is really hard.

Our high scores:

Jill - 950
Hannah - 1560
Brett - 1870

The lowest possible score is 19... which I might have gotten a few times :(

I guess we have a few more weeks of waiting for Aaron before we officially have no time for these two new addictions.

Juke Box Diner

After the Community BBQ, my mother (who had been watching Peter), suggested taking us out to dinner to celebrate Father's Day and my birthday (better late than never I guess?). We decided to go to a restaurant near our house that we had yet to try - The Juke Box Diner.

The restaurant turned out to be pretty fun and the food (especially the fries) were amazing! Brett and I found out how much we are "inside each other's minds" when we each picked what we thought the other person would want off the menu (Chicken Philly for Brett, Cheese Steak for me!).

It was also a big first for Peter, who got his own big boy meal off the kids menu (grilled cheese and fries). He did really well finishing by himself, with only a little help from Mommy (and baby Aaron) taking a few bites of grilled cheese.

The only down side to the restaurant experience was that its names sake - the Juke Box - was actually broken!!! They did however have great music on, which of course we sang to, Brett played the air guitar to, and Brett and Peter danced to.

And yes, we still had our faces painted from the event at church, so between that and having the cutest kid ever we got a little bit of attention from the other patrons. Brett thinks that they assumed we were part of the Juke Box Diner experience!

Community BBQ wrap up!

This past Sunday, our church held a Community BBQ for the families of our congregation and the surrounding neighborhoods. A team of Christ in Youth missionaries from around the country were there helping us, and despite a quick thunder storm before the event it was a huge success.


As I had done in the past, the face painting station was my responsibility. I had my cousin Hannah, and friend Alana helping, and we not only painted the kids, but also each other!




In addition the BBQ included a moon bounce:

Songs for the kids:

An ice cream truck:

Cotton Candy:

And more!

We are hoping that this and other events will show our community who we are and bring new families to our super cool church!

Foot fettish

Alright, so MAYBE we should have stopped this behavior, but it was just too funny... I swear my feet were clean!

Guest star plays in the Westmoreland band!

This past Sunday we had a guest guitar player helping out the Westmoreland Band - my cousin Sam Kelly!

We knew that Brett was going to be the only guitar scheduled to play (because the other in the band is on vacation), and since Sam plays as well we decided to ask him to help out.

Sam was very excited, and practiced with Brett all weekend (even though I found out that one of the "practice" sessions had a Wii Mario Cart break). On Sunday morning, he was a great addition to the band and really worked hard to keep up with the "regulars." Everyone was so excited to see a new (YOUNG) face up front for worship, and thought that Sam did a great job!

Here is a video of one of the songs:



We hope Sam will be back to play next time he visits!

Puppets in the Park!

Recently I came across a really nice park in Annandale called Mason District Park. This park has 8 tennis courts, picnic areas, dog parks, awesome soccer and baseball fields, and an amphitheater. The best part is that every Saturday at 10:00am there is a free show for kids at the theater all summer long!

This past Saturday was our first attempt at trying out the shows. I took my cousins Sam and Erin with Peter and I to check it out and it was actually pretty cool. The show we saw was a puppet show about penguins, done by a man who worked on Mr. Rogers and the Muppet's in the past. He was great with the kids, and very talented.

Peter is still a little young for this stuff, but he did watch a lot of it before he decided that crawling and eating wood chips would be more interesting. I think that this is something we will try to do a lot in the next couple years.

Ticked off... or in this case ticked ON!

Saturday morning, Brett went to play golf with his friends Mike Pritchard and Danny Douglass. Sunday morning, I discovered that Brett had brought home a "friend" from his golf trip!

We were getting showered and dressed for church when I noticed a new mole on the VERY upper part of Brett's leg. Upon closer look I realized that Brett's "mole" had legs!!!

After about a 10 minute freak out on both of our parts, which included googling and calling friends to find out how to remove a tick we finally got the little tick off.

We don't think it was a deer tick (it looked more like a wood tick) so we aren't that worried, but it was kind of nasty. However, I am very excited to post this song in honor of the event... All the actual versions of the songs were blocked from embedding into blogs, so you will have to deal with the chip monk version:

Weekend Visitors!

When I was a kid and into my teenage years I always took summer trips to stay with my cousin Shellie. It was a week or two to get away from my parents, help with her babies and enjoy family time.

Well, now Shellie's "babies" are 14, 11, and 8 - just old enough to help me with my baby! This past weekend Shellie dropped Sam (11) and Erin (8) off to stay with me, while she and her husband Mike spent the weekend with their older daughter Hannah and 2 French exchange students that they are currently housing to stay in DC and sight see.

Lots of posts to come documenting all the fun times that we had over the weekend, including a trip to the park, Sam and Brett playing guitar, trip to the pool, video games, our first time trying "Dibs" ice cream bits, and lots of help with Peter.

At the end of the weekend Shellie and Mike met up with us at church to take Sam and Erin back and leave Hannah with us. Hannah will be with us the rest of the week, helping me with Peter and spending time with her wise cousin Jill ;)

Community Cook-Out TODAY!

I haven't been on my computer much this week, but for anyone looking for something to do today there will be a Community Cook-Out at our Church (New Life Christian Church at Westmoreland) today, Sunday, July 27, 2008, from 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM.

Our church is located at 1988 Kirby Road Mc Lean, VA US 22101, and there will be free food and goodies, so come on out! Bring your friends and family!

My friends Alex Goode and Alana West will be helping me with face painting, and Brett will be working on the grill or moon bounce. It is sure to be a good time!

Hope we see you there!

Giant baby in my belly!

I had another check up this morning and learned that Aaron is not only growing well, but he is HUGE. Currently he is weighing in at 6 pounds 3 ounces and he still has 5 more weeks to grow. The doctor says that he will be growing at least a 1/2 pound a week at this point so he could be around 9 pounds at birth (depending on when he comes).

It is such a different feeling compared to when I was pregnant with Peter (who was only 7 pounds 2 ounces at birth - even though he was 5 days late). With my first pregnancy my belly wasn't this big and it was a lot easier to do everyday things. Now I don't really fit into my maternity clothes the same and my belly is a lot more of a nuisance.

We are just really hoping that we make it to the 19th, because at this point carrying all this baby around is making me exhausted!

Baby shower for Aaron!

This past weekend friends, Sarah Merrill, Alex Goode, Georgia McClure, and Leigh Robinson threw me a baby shower in honor of Aaron's arrival!

The theme and colors of the shower were to match Peter and Aaron's nursery. Everything was blue and yellow, and had moons and stars just like the bedding in thier room. It was so well planned and consistent, and I was really impressed (even the invitations were hand made and super cute!).

I especially enjoyed the scrap booking station that was set up for people to write notes welcoming Aaron into the world. It will be so fun to read them to him when he is older.

The food was prepared by Georgia and her soon to be father-in-law with spices straight from the garden. It was all Middle Eastern (one of my favorites) and absolutely delicious! I was excited to bring home left overs, however Brett managed to gobble most of them up before I got my hands on them.

After we enjoyed the meal, all the guests took part in games. First was the celebrity/TV show game, where guests had to come up with the names of children of celebrities and TV families. Regardless of my addiction to watching the E! network I didn't get them all; and my friend Andy Spray got 100% and dominated the competition.

The next game was my favorite! We teamed up with an "arch enemy" to battle for finding close pins in a box of rice. Sounds silly and maybe easy, but it was actually really hard and super fun. I battled Sarah Burnett and thought I would have the winning number with 12 pins. That is until my sister (i.e. Ms. Competition) stepped up to the plate and picked out an amazing 20 pins.

After games, I got extra spoiled with tons of gifts for Aaron! Most people helped out with the cost of a new baby by getting us diapers and formula (THANK YOU FOR THAT - WE DROP OVER $100 A MONTH ON THOSE ITEMS ALONE FOR ONE BABY RIGHT NOW). Other's got little outfits and blankets for Aaron so he wouldn't exclusively have hand-me-down clothes.

My kid's God Mother's, Alex Goode and Sarah Merrill, got me the most generous gift - a Medela Breast Pump! This time around Brett and I decided to go with the most well reviewed (and therefore costly) breast pump because with Peter we got the cheapest and it ended up breaking after 10 weeks.

Side note - I stopped breast feeding and got pregnant again at week 12 of Peter's life... can we thank the cheap pump for Aaron??? :)

Anyway, it was a wonderful way to celebrate Aaron coming into the world, and I was so appreciative of those people who attended, spoiled us with wonderful gifts, and helped with the planning and preparation. We are really blessed with awesome friends and family!

Practicing for having 2 kids!

My friend Heather Witherspoon is also a stay at home mom, however she goes into her office once a month for meetings. When she is at the meetings, I get to watch her 2 year old Morgan.

This morning I had Morgan (i.e. Peter's best friend), and caught them on video tape being extra cute! Enjoy their drumming skills (something Brett has been teaching Peter).

I heart Craig's List

I have never really sold anything on Craig's List before, but I decided to give it a shot. I posted all the furniture we were trying to get rid of around 2:00pm yesterday afternoon, and by 11:00am this morning almost everything was sold and out of my house.

The only thing we still have is the painting, but I actually think my friend Alex's mom wanted that for her kitchen so I might just ship it to Oklahoma for her.

I was even able to help out a single mother who was going through a divorce and didn't have a bed to sleep on!

Happy Birthday Bubbs!

Today is my best friend, Alex's (Bubbie to me) birthday! We celebrated her big 2-7 this past weekend with bowling at Lucky Strike in DC and then dinner at La Tasca.

At Lucky Strike we all learned that no matter how much Wii bowling we play, none of us are very good. Although, I like to blame it all on the belly being in my way. Service wasn't great at the bowling ally, but we had a great time and after we finally got our checks we were ready to eat!

Next stop was La Tasca, where we shared almost everything on the tapas menu as well as a few pitchers of sangria (not me of course). By than the night was almost over, so we all decided to take our full stomachs home and go to bed.

Today Alex is celebrating by going out to lunch with her work friends, and her new hubby, Troy, is taking her out for a surprise dinner tonight. Tomorrow I get my chance to spoil the birthday girl and will be taking her out to lunch, which will be followed by dinner with her mom-in-law before her birthday celebrations are through!

Wishing my Bubbs the happiest of birthdays!

Peter's trip to the Children's Theater in the Woods

Last Friday Peter and I met up with our friends Heather and Morgan Witherspoon to see a show at the Wolf Trap Children's Theater in the Woods. We saw the show: Lesole's Dance Project - Stomp South Africa, which was a series of dances that showed the history of South Africa. Peter absolutely loved the show because they were so animated and fun - especially the "gum boot" dance.

After the show we all sat down and ate lunch and let the kids play a little until we were all eaten alive by bugs. Morgan also taught Peter how to eat grapes, however he found them more fun to squish in his hands so we are still working on that one.

The only down side is the walk from the parking lot to the theater... up a huge hill, then down, then up another again to the theater. I have a feeling that once I am not pregnant it won't bother me, but right now it is pretty intimidating!

Getting rid of the old...

Now that our basement renovations are coming to a close we need to purge a bunch of stuff, since the guest room will now be used as a play room. Brett and I have listed the following items on Craigs List:

Zebra striped ottoman - $15

Antique side table - $20

Mirror - $5

Floral painting - $25

Full sized bed with box spring and mattress - $75

Antique chest of drawers - $75

If you know anyone who would be interested in any of these items please let us know!

Prices are not final, and we are more than willing to donate to a family in need if they can pick up on or before this Friday July 25!

Baby ate my brain...

Since Brett bought me a Garmin for my birthday a year ago, I have become a complete slave to that machine. Even when I am driving somewhere I know how to get to, I always make a habit out of entering in the address and following the nice lady's instructions on how to get where I need to be.

For some reason, however, this morning on my way to church I opted out of entering in my destination set out to McLean without any directions being shouted out by our navigation system. The next thing I knew I was driving over the American Legion bridge into Maryland (5 exits past our church) confused as to how I got there.

I quickly entered the address of our church into the Garmin and found my way, vowing to never rely on my own sense of direction again... at least not while I am pregnant and apparently a total flake!

How is it that I am in trouble for this one...

I have a sort of rude neighbor living next door to me. Well, scratch that, he is really nice when you first meet him, but a little bit clueless when it comes to treating women respectfully. Anyway, we are currently both having work done to our homes, so of course that topic of conversation comes up all the time.

Yesterday I had picked up some stuff from Home Depot, including a ClosetMaid set for a closet that is being renovated in our basement. The box was pretty tall and very heavy, but Brett wasn't home so I decided to move it myself. Right then the neighbor came outside and says, "we finished up with our renovation today, come see when you are finished bringing that box in!"

I smiled, but kept thinking - Do you see that I am 8 months pregnant and struggling with this box, COME HELP!" Please also keep in mind this man has 2 children and a pregnant wife so it isn't like he doesn't know a pregnant woman shouldn't be moving heavy things.

Later last night I told Brett the story, waiting for him to agree with me that our neighbor was being a jerk. Instead I got a big lecture about not moving heavy stuff anymore and taking it easy when I am pregnant.

Aaron's C-section date changed!

For those of you who marked your calendars for an August 25th arrival for Aaron, you might want to pencil in a new date. Due to his rapid growth and the fact that my doctor doesn't want me going all the way to my due date we moved the schedule up to the morning of August 19th.

Peter was 5 days late, so I guess I am making up for it by having Aaron 5 days early... if we make it that long :)

Crib notes...

Peter took another developmental step yesterday.

When I heard him waking up from his nap and crying for me I went in his room to find him STANDING in his crib. Up until recently he had been too scared to pull himself up to stand on by anything but Brett or me so we knew this day was coming.

He is also a master of the stairs now so I call our house a "gated community" since we have baby gates posted at the top and bottom of both sets of stairs.

Just waiting for those first steps!

Prayer works!

Most of my friends have heard me say this before, but today it was proven again!

A few months ago we found out that Aaron had a single uterine artery which could cause restricted growth during pregnancy. After hearing this we were worried and asked friends and family to pray for Aaron to grow strong and healthy.

This morning at my doctor's appointment I learned that Aaron is now 4.9 pounds and in the 90th percential for his current justation age (To give you some reference, Peter was in the 20th percential during most of my pregnancy with him)!

Thanks so much for your prayers, we are delighted that Aaron is going to be a big healthy boy!

Buildtopia Softball game and summer BBQ

Last week Peter and I headed up to Rockville to watch Brett dominate on the softball feild for the Buildtopia softball game. Brett was the star of the game!

He pitched
Hit
Played short stop
Ran bases
And let his son play in the dirt

Sadly, Brett couldn't hold his team and they ended up losing in the last inning 8-10. However, it was a great time and afterward we went back to his boss's house for a BBQ and hanging out with his co-workers and their families.