shenanigans

All –

 Apologies for not being as diligent as some of you have expected.  I know I promised to keep you all up to date with new pictures of the baby girl…but as those of you who have had infants can attest, you don’t have as much time every day as you think you might.  I’ve been working on consolidating pictures from 4 different sources into time relevant folders, but that turned out to be a little bigger task than I first thought.  Imagine pictures from phone A have names like IMG_0001 and pictures from camera B have images with the same name, but are of course not the same image.  I had to use due dilligence to ensure I got all pictures taken by my sister, mother, wife and myself without overwritting any.  Long story short, it wasn’t a quick drag and drop activity.  I started sometime on Saturday thinking I could have them consolidated, albums built and files transfered to the server before I went to bed…LOL.  Well, you can see it has taken till mid week to get it done.  But it is finally done.

 So without further adu…go to the albums page and check out the new albums.  I took the time to update the Happy Birthday Katelynn album to include some photos I didn’t have at 4am the morning Katie was born.

Enjoy, and I love you.

Quack

This weekend went well, Dad arrived on time late Friday night and left Sunday afternoon.  It was truely nice to have him here.  I’m glad he decided to visit for the weekend, not sure if it was Katelynn or Mom that was the motivator for the trip.  Either way, he came.  He was cute…classic Opa behavior.  “No, I don’t need to feed her or change her diaper, just cuddle.” 

I’ll write more later.

Quack

Appoligies for the delay in the updates, especially if you are a remote loved one…cause god knows, no one within arm distance has avoided me pulling out the iPhone and showing them daily updates.

 Without further delay, please go see these newest pictures. 

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.  And for a personal update, both mom and dad are fine too…just in case you were wondering.

Love ya’ll

Quack

Oh yeah…the last couple of images are of my mother hamming it up after I FORCED her to don that cute little bib.  This is just a taste of how much fun she is…wish you could be here.

I’ll keep this short and sweet…it is 3:50 am, I’ve uploaded the initial pictures from our little girls first big day.  She finally came out to say hello to her mom and dad at 11:58pm the 7th of July.  Katie weighs 5 pounds 14.7 ounces…but they say they round up…so 5 15, 19 inches long and has a great set of lungs!

Both mom and baby are fine and resting.  I’m sure Barb will be back up in a couple of hours for a feeding while I came home to check on the dog and post the pictures on the web for friends and family to enjoy.

Barbara had a scheduled check-up yesterday afternoon, she is attending them weekly now since she is now in her 35th week, about a month from the due date, July 24Th.  After the exam, her doctor told her that her cervix was dilated to 3cm (about one inch).  Needless to say, she was directed to go to the hospital for some tests and to be placed on several monitors.  Of course, when she called me to tell me the status, I promptly left work so I could meet her at the hospital.  The tests went well, the baby’s signs are really good according to the medical staff.  Barbara however is showing some signs of pregnancy induced hypertension and has been placed on STRICT bed-rest.  The doc says if she starts to deliver, she won’t stop her because of the blood pressure issue.  We are a little concerned because she has a month left but the doctor says Katelynn should be just fine.  She would be officially considered a Premature baby until the 37th week, which is then considered full term. We are hopeful she can make it to her 37th  week or further but, what ever happens at this point is fine.  We are as prepared as we are going to get.  I’m happy to report we finally got a crib, so Katelynn won’t have to sleep in the sock drawer as initially planned.

Wish us luck! 

For those of you who don’t know my family or haven’t heard me talk about them…here is an insight into our CRAZY dynamics.  My dad’s birthday was this past weekend and because it coincided with the long Memorial Day weekend, we all (minus Ben (my little brother) and his family, they’re in Europe and excused for missing it) converged on my sister’s NEW house in Knoxville for the weekend.  My parents drove in from southern Maryland on Friday. Barb and I drove down from Kentucky on Saturday.  And Nicole (my little sister) drove up from Atlanta Saturday as well. 

When my family gets together, there is one guarantee…lots of fun and laughter will be had by all.  This weekend was no exception.

A little background…my lovely family has a tradition of getting gag gifts for each other.  We are really just a bunch of pranksters.  This tradition is usually reserved for Christmas, but this weekend an exception was made for my dad. 

My mother, who is the ring leader, planned this prank weeks ago and had everything set.  She went to the store and had an empty cardboard box decorated like a cake.  Let me tell you…it looked real!  They did a great job.  After she brought it home, she was very careful to keep it hidden.  She even took it to the car and covered it up so my dad wouldn’t see it before the time was right.  Little did we know, he saw it in the back seat when he was packing up the car and said he thought to himself “AWWWW how nice, she bought a cake for my birthday”.  He deduced it was supposed to be a SURPRISE, so he didn’t mention anything to my mom. 

Sooo…Saturday night, we pull out the “cake” and present it to him…candles and all (don’t ask me how my wife and sister got those candles to stand up on that damn box). 

He did his part and acted all surprised.  We brought out the plates and handed him a knife…

Note: this is a large video…about 57 meg…sorry it’s so large, but boy is it worth it.

You have to watch this video to get the full appreciation. 

Enjoy.

In the Army, soldiers who couldn’t keep track of theirs stuff had it tied to them with 550 Cord  (Fondly referred to as Dummy Cord).  Especially appropriate when folks had stuff tied to themselves, like weapons.  Only a dummy would need to keep that tied on so they didn’t loose it. 

In civilian sector there are other solutions, not so degrading, but just as effective. 

I (without admitting anything) MIGHT have used some dummy cord in the past and find it hilarious that the Basis team came up with this solution to collect up all the stuff I leave behind.

NOTE: This collection device is in a different building and on another guys desk!

Thanks guys!

 Quack

We have decided on a name for this little-one.  Here are her first “photos” taken since the decision has been made.  It is amazing to watch her development occur.  The 3d images at the bottom are specectacular in the detail they provide…and just think, she is just over 1.5 pounds at this point.  Enjoy.

It’s A GIRL!

 When I asked the Doc if we could FINALLY find out what the sex was, this is her response ”Either you should contact Guinesses book of world records for the worlds smallest boy parts or it’s a girl”.  

Now knowing my parts, there is still a remote possibility that we’ll be making that call, but we are assuming the latter.  LOL

See if you are any better about determining what your looking at in this Ultrasound below than I was.  I needed an explanation from the Doc, so I’ve provided that in the second pic.  I don’t know how they do it…I suppose it’s experience. 

It is OK to announce the BIG news now.  Barb and I decided to wait until after the first trimester to announce publicly.  We told our parents at Christmas but have waited till now to tell the world.  So if you are reading this and are surprised…you probably know me and have heard me say more than once Barbara and I aren’t going to have children.  WELL as you can see things change.  We did in fact plan this…we didn’t have to wait long once we started “trying”…I suppose that’s from all the previous years of practice. 

 Enjoy the ultrasound pics…I’ll keep you posted!