Tuesday, December 9, 2008

DAVE KNOWS!!!

I had an ultrasound today, everything looks good. 10 fingers, 10 toes, no cleft lip, closed spinal column, good heart, good kidneys and bladder, nice long femur, etc. I have been preparing myself to find out I'm having another boy, but at the last minute, I just couldn't do it. I turned my head away and closed my eyes. The sonographer showed Dave, and typed it out for him in code (extra clicks so I couldn't tell) and that was that. She was 99.9 % sure she was correct, which would mean boy 10 years ago, but with the high resolution on today's machines, I'm not letting that spoil my hopes that it is a girl. So, Dave is under strict orders not to tell a soul. I may change my mind and want to know at some point, but not now. Sigh.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Family Room Makeover

We finally decided to do something about our odd orange and pillared wall. First, We bought the behemoth, I mean beautiful flat screen. After living with that overpowering everything else on the wall, we had someone (Shane Seyboldt of Seyboldt Construction) put in shelves and build a cabinet below the TV.

Here is before (with sick kids watching whatever is on):


And here is after:


I just threw some photos and books and Christmas items on the shelves to take up space. If you look carefully, you can see Ben and Liam playing with one of the kids' nativities. It will take years to adorn these shelves properly, and many years, I'm sure, of them being cluttered. But at least they will balance the huge TV a little better, we think.

In other news, I went in to wake up the boys a week or so ago, and couldn't see Liam. Sometimes he gets up early and crashes on a couch, so I left the room and looked elsewhere. No luck. So I went back in and realized he was there all along at the foot of the bed rather than in his usual head of the bed location.



Going back a little further, we had a huge family reunion in Cottonwood, AZ for Dave's paternal grandmother's siblings and posterity. All of Dave's family was there, so we attempted a photo session in the cold and windy weather. There is not a decent shot in the 30 or so attempts, seriously. But here is one which captures the mood and shows the faces of our family, at least.


In closing, the only photo I have from Thanksgiving is a scan of one of Alex's first grade projects.