Camping

Let's see.. camping was fun for one night but also a lot of work for one night. It will be the only time we actually go camping this summer because I'm only going to get bigger and bigger! We had a good time but I didn't sleep well even though we had an aero bed. Maybe I'm still a little afraid of bears and mountain lions. The boys were told at the ranger station that because of the rain they have had there isn't as plentiful of a supply of berries as usual so to be careful and be on the lookout for bears. They neglected to tell us this until the next morning. Of course I still kept thinking of bear attack stories and the movie The Grizzly Man. I know, I know, there aren't Grizzlies in CO but still.

We didn't cook the best food but the views were amazing. It is sad looking at all the tree kill from the bark beetles. Poor trees.

Over the 4th we are staying in a condo with four of our friends. Maybe that is my kind of camping (at least until I'm not pregnant anymore).

James and his oreos.

Poor trees...

Burnt sausages anyone?

James's idea of roasting an oreo wasn't a

great one..

So peaceful..

Tired doggy.

Baby stuff

I can't believe I have been out of school for almost a month! Wow, where has the time gone? I feel so thankful to have the summer to unpack, do housing projects, get ready for baby, etc; however, it seems like we have overbooked ourselves a little bit. We looked at our calendar and realized we only have one free weekend until I go back to school. We have a lot of fun stuff planned but we need to make some time during the week to do the housing projects I guess.

I'm 26 weeks now and can't believe it. We are going to start childbirth classes soon and to be honest, the whole thing just scares me to death. I'm sure I'll shed a few tears just thinking about it. We are super excited about our little fellow but I'm not overly excited about the whole birthing experience.

We are busy planning for our little guy. We found a preschool for him and was really impressed when we took a tour. He won't start until January of 2010 because I'm taking three months off of school. I'm going to try it and see how it is when I go back. I'm really nervous about going back to work but it will give me some time to decide if I want to take the next year off or not. It's hard to know how I'm going to feel but I'll give it a try. Anyway, it felt so strange to fill out the papework at the preschool because we haven't even chosen a name, pediatrician, etc. We are having a hard time with names. We know we want James as a middle name but sometimes with boys it's hard to find names that you can imagine calling them when they are young and older. We have a list of about 6 names but we just haven't found one we love. I'm sure we will by September though.

Biking Studs

This past weekend James's friend Brady visited from St. Louis to ride a century with James in the mountains. They started in Keystone and rode for 100 miles, although Brady rode about 111 miles. It was cold and rained hard for the last 50 miles but at least they survived with no hypothermia. Brady decided to do the last little bit and climb another mountain (after 100 miles). He made it to the top but James rescued him on his way down. He was shivering and ready to jump in the warm car.
Molly and I relaxed at home for part of the weekend. I don't think I'll every do a century! Yikes. Let's just say that when the guys returned to Denver on Saturday night they were exhausted. James had a relaxing Father's day and is feeling much better. Way to go guys!

Life Books

Update: The two life books are now spoken for. I'm glad that I have found some people that will use them because they are just beautiful!

We have finished unpacking most of our things. I came across the two life books that I had purchased from someone (through the Vietnam message boards). I didn't have time to create the shell for the lifebooks and I thought that these were better than I could do. They are absolutely beautiful and I love them but I would rather see them go to blogging buddies rather than sit in a box in our basement. I'm giving them away for free but I think I paid around 60-70 dollars for each one (don't remember). So, if you would like one, please leave me a comment or email me at mizzoumel@hotmail.com. I really want them to go to someone who will use them. One is red and the other is blue.. The quotes were just placed in the book so you could change them if you wanted to and there are a few more pages that I didn't take pictures of. I hope someone can use them!

Having Fun and Staying Busy

James had a huge deadline and worked A LOT of hours on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday he was still up for doing some unpacking and housework. We powerwashed the deck (didn't quite finish), unpacked, did yard work, and organized the garage. We still managed to squeeze a little time in for some fun and I talked James into taking Monday off. We went hiking in Boulder and went to see a movie. Here are some pics:

A view from one of the bedrooms of our new house.

The sunsets over the mountains are amazing. I'll

have to get some pictures from a little earlier in the evening.

Tornadoes and Baby Oh My!

24 weeks


Molly knows there's something in there...



Tornado. We saw it from one of the bedrooms
upstairs. I was freaking out and ready to head
to the basement. Luckily it stopped moving our
direction.

Updates

Our internet service won't be switched until Wednesday so I'm at the rental house and am supposed to be cleaning. The internet is more fun though. I went for my 24 week appointment today and everything is great. Baby C's heart beat is perfect and my stomach is definitely getting bigger! I'll post pictures soon. I booked all the rest of my appointments until my due date!

The house is great! It has been fun finding things we forgot we had. Molly is adjusting well and loves all the space. In our rental home there were only a few spots where she could go. Now we find her everywhere. I'll post some more pictures when we paint, etc.

On Sunday I was watching a little television in our bedroom when James started yelling for me to turn the channel to a local station. He was upstairs looking out the window in another bedroom and spotted a tornado. It looked like it was headed in our direction. Scary, especially since they didn't have it on the news right away. In Missouri we had a lot of tornado warnings, but I really didn't expect to see one in CO. It was funny because on Sunday morning the meteorologist said, "Today the air will stay cool and stable so there will be some rain but no storms." They are always wrong here! Wouldn't it be great to have a job where you could be wrong most of the time?

I hope everyone has a great week and I'll post some pictures soon.

Our House

Ever since school got out we have been in overdrive. My mom came to visit the day after my last day of school and let me just say that there were clean dishes in the dishwasher, clothes in the washer and dryer, and the house was a mess. The end of the school year is so busy but now it is over! It was a great last day of school but the kids were SO hyper. Next year I will remember the chaos and will not do a camping day without desks in the room. Also, having parents randomly send in treats all throughout the day didn't help. Really, a 2nd grader does not need multiple donuts, drinks, pizza, etc. in one day. They were out of control.

We have been moving our little things to the new house and the big move is this Saturday. Then on Sunday James has a century bike ride. It is nothing but crazy busy here. We also have some work to do on the house, especially the yard. The previous owners were so considerate that they trimmed ALL of the rose bushes and left the stems everywhere. Ouch!! We are also going to do some painting, or should I say that James is going to do some painting.

Here are some pictures of our house just a few days after closing:

oops..didn't take one when the garage wasn't open.

The twins...

Another family from our old agency just picked up their daughter from the same orphanage where the twins resided. She had said that she would check on them for us since we think of them often. Well, we found out that they just went home with an American family about a week and a half ago. We don't know how to feel about it. Of course we are happy that they aren't in the orphanage. That would have just broken our hearts. But now we have many questions. We withdrew our petition last July and are wondering after all the problems we had (8 months trying to get an approval) how did another family bring them home, especially with only having 2 months to get a referral (before September 1st). We were also told that when petitions are withdrawn that it takes awhile for them to be eligible for adoption. How could this happen?? I didn't think any other American agencies (besides the agency we were with) did adoptions with this orphanage. Maybe the referral was given out after September 1st because of extenuating circumstances. There were some cases like this, right?

This is so hard but if the family did receive a referral before September 1st and the twins just went home, it means there were problems because it took 7 months to get approval.

We strongly feel like we did the right thing but that doesn't make it any easier. We could have been the family they went home with but we aren't. It was hard hearing the news but we have to believe that we did the right thing. I think I'm in shock right now but am glad they are with a family. That's the important thing.

House

We closed on our house on Thursday. It was a little stressful leading up to the actual closing (James dealt with it more than I did since I was teaching all day) but it all ended up okay. We are excited to start slowly moving things into the house and then we will move the big stuff the first weekend in June. We will post pictures soon!! We don't get possession until today at 5:00 p.m.

We're excited about the long weekend and I'm looking forward to my last day of school on Thursday. If I'm done with all of my check out stuff that day I don't have to go in on Friday! Yay! My goal is to make it to the end of the year party at 3:00 on Thursday and not to have to go back to school.

Have a great weekend!

We are in love!

We were so surprised to hear, "It's a boy." The whole experience was very surreal! We were in the ultrasound room for about 45 minutes and seriously saw every organ and part of our baby boy's body. It was truly amazing. Some things we could really see and some things we just said, "okay, that's the femur." Our sweet baby boy is very active and the ultrasound technician told us that he was very squirmy. It was almost like he was trying to hide. During the ultrasound we saw the profile of his face but he was moving around too much to get really good pictures. His little feet are so cute. The best thing is that his development is perfect, his heart rate is good, and his size is good. He is 12 ounces, the size of a can of soda.

James and I really thought we were having a girl for some reason. Thank you Laurie for the fun name website. We have already spent awhile on it playing around. It's difficult to pick boy names now because we had two that we loved but I know we will find the perfect name by September.

We close on our house next Thursday and will slowly start moving our stuff over to the new house. In the meantime, I'm shopping for a boy. :)

Any guesses?

Look for the obvious hint..What a fun day!! We are super excited....

Mommy to be at almost 20 weeks

Even though the baby hasn't been born yet James said that I'm still a mommy to be. He was the sweetest and surprised me early with a Cannon DSLR camera, a sweet card, and a yummy piece of cake. He said that he wanted me to have a chance to learn how to use the camera before the baby is born. We drove up in the mountains yesterday to test out the camera and play around with the shutter speeds. Even though it was a cloudy day it took some amazing pictures. I'm excited to really learn how to use it this summer. I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!






Camera fun!

Updates

We are finally done with all the negotiating for the house (after the inspection) and we close on May 21st! At least once every day we say that we can't wait to have some more space. Usually it is while we are both trying to get ready for work in the morning because we both can't fit in the one tiny bathroom. Or, it is when we bump into each other in the kitchen as we are cleaning up, etc.

I'm at week 19 now! It has gone by so fast and I'm almost half way there. We will find out next Thursday if we are having a baby boy or girl. :) I have started to pop. I mean POP! My kids at school like to mention it at least once a day, especially right after lunch. They keep telling me that my stomach is going to grow along with the baby. One said, "Wow, there really is a baby in there. How did it get there?" That kind of caught me off guard and I tried to avoid it by changing the subject. It worked that time.

I hope everyone has a great week. We are going to enjoy the 70+ degrees and sunshine this week. Yay! James is hoping to get into shape before his friend comes from St. Louis in June to do a century bike ride in the mountains. I'm just hoping to get some walking in.

Reasons to Celebrate!

1) We are going to accept a counter offer on a house. Phew... finally!
2) We got to hear the baby's heartbeat today. It was at a perfect 140 beats a minute. It was amazing to finally hear it. We are counting down the days until my next appointment so we can find out if baby C. is a boy or girl. I won't be able to contain my excitement and will definitely share with everyone.
3) I got to see James today/tonight. He has been working almost nonstop since Friday for a major deadline. He got home at 1:30 a.m. this morning and was very stressed about not being able to make the deadline. Because it is truly impossible they got an extension and the higher ups told his team to go home and get some rest.
4) We are going to see my family this weekend.
5) I only have 23 days of school (with students). I'm ready for summer!

17 Weeks

Tomorrow I'm 17 weeks along! Wow, it has gone fast. I will post a picture soon since I definitely have a pooch. I went shopping yesterday because some of my shirts aren't fitting and had a hard time. I'm not quite ready for maternity shirts but the next size up in regular clothes isn't quite working. I'm using the Bella Band and it has worked wonders since I am still wearing all my pants (I can't zip them but I'm wearing them!). I go on Wednesday for another prenatal check-up (my appointment was supposed to be last Friday but they closed the office early due to the snow) so maybe we can finally hear the heart beat. Then in 3 weeks we will find out if we are having a boy or girl. We are going to be surprised early! :) I'm feeling so much better now and I actually have energy to take Molly for walks after school. I told my kids at school and many of them said they thought that I was having a baby. I guess you really can tell, especially if my 2nd graders can tell. We might have found a house but we are in the negotiating stages. Keep your fingers crossed.

April Snow

I was hoping for a snow day today but the snow started too late in the day. :( I can't remember the last time we have experienced a spring snow storm in April. The snowflakes were huge and it was beautiful. After work we put on our pajamas and were all geared up to watch some t.v. but we lost our satellite reception. James and Molly had a great time playing in the snow.

Vacations go too fast!

We had such a great time in San Diego a few weeks ago. We finally got to downloading the pictures the other day and it made us want to go back. We are never ready for vacations to be over, especially when we have to go back to work.

View from the seafood restaurant.

James always had to have an extra drink for me!

One of the few pics of us on the trip. I was feeling

frumpy..

One of the adorable but lazy pandas at the zoo.

We rented this fun bicycle on Coronado Island.

We drove to La Jolla and then on the Pacific

Coastal Highway. It was gorgeous!

A seal and her pup. We could have watched them

all day from above.

More seals. They are so cute when they try to move.