Doggie Days

I have been wondering a great deal about how our dogs will respond to having a baby in the house.

Brody is absolutely a sweetheart, and I have no doubt will be a wonderful, loyal playmate as Baby Girl gets older. He loves kids, and his biggest fault is that he wants to follow them around and lick them non-stop.

He may be a little rough for her when she's tiny, but I also think that he has a pretty innate sense of how to respond in most situations, so he may intrinsically know to be gentle with a baby... and then again, maybe not. He is kind of a brute; a gentle giant, to be sure, but still. We'll have to wait and see. But generally speaking, I don't worry about him too much!

Eva, however, is another story.

She is quite the little lady of the house. And by lady, I mean spoiled rotten princess. For example, since she's so little, she is the only dog allowed on the furniture. And she doesn't just like to sleep on the couch. She likes to sleep atop the tallest pile of pillows or the thickest blanket possible....

Eva was my very first baby... the first living thing I ever truly took care of besides myself. She's quite attached to me, and she doesn't willingly share her time.

Little puppy Eva on the first day I brought her home!

Puppy after her first haircut. So tired!

Okay, so she's kind of a spoiled brat. The epitome of cuteness, but she definitely knows it and uses it to her advantage. She doesn't like anyone getting more attention than her, so that could be a very awkward transition!

Grateful

Today, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband.

We've been working on the basement for the past three weekends, and it has been a lot of work, but tons of fun! I genuinely enjoy working with Casey; it is always a welcome reminder of what an awesome team we make.

We did a lot of rennovating when we bought our house three years ago, and it was such a neat way to begin our lives together. It truly made us each appreciate the other one and the unique skills we bring to the table. Not to mention, it helped reinforce that we can really rely on one another when things get tough. It was an incredible gift to know that when I get stuck I can turn to Casey, and together, find a solution to the problem neither of us would ever have gotten to without the other.

Since the first year, though, we haven't really had much rennovating to do! A few things here and there - the yard, painting the master bedroom - but nothing as major as the many projects we undetook that first year.

So it has been really fun to have something to come together as a team to work on! As crazy as it sounds, I kind of missed working with my husband like this.

The first weekend, the basement needed a really thorough cleaning, and to have some lights taken down, re-routed and new ones put in.

The "before" picture of our basement. Lovely.

Last weekend, Casey rented a paint-sprayer and sprayed the entire thing with a hefty coat of Killz, since our dogs (and the previous owners' dogs) had pretty much always had the run of the basement. Casey cut drywall and built cabinets (along with the much-needed assistance of our friend Andrew, since I couldn't help with any of that) for a new entertainment center area. It turned out great!

Casey post-Killz. That paint sprayer really works!

Cut-outs for the new cabinets

Casey and his masterpiece

The newly-installed cabinets! Awesome!

This weekend, we had some much-needed drywall work done, which will be finished on Monday. Saturday, I painted the walls, edging around the drywall work, and gave all the doors and moldings a fresh coat of bright white paint. Casey took on the huge task of hanging wainscoting.

I love how it's turning out! I can't wait to see the finished project!

As much as I hate to admit it, I think I may have overdone it on Saturday, because I felt absolutely terrible today. I vascillated between nausea and just plain feeling like I was getting sick. I was dizzy when I stood up, and felt all around pretty yucky. I had wanted to help out with whatever I could today in hanging wainscoting, but instead, my wonderful husband worked absolutely all day so that I could lay on the sofa and feel gross. He didn't complain at all, and in fact encouraged me to lay down and focus on myself and the baby.

I felt horrible lying on the couch doing nothing when there was work to be done. But, I felt even more horrible when I got up and tried to move around. I am just so grateful to have this wonderful, talented and caring man in my life, who never fails to do everything he can to make all my dreams come true.

Ghost of Thanksgivings Past

I love Thanksgiving! Every year, I always forget just how much I love this holiday, which is often lost between the excitement of Halloween and Christmas, until about the week before Turkey day.

This year, though, I've managed to keep my enthusiasm for a day of giving thanks - perhaps because we have so much to be thankful for! As with so much in the fall and winter, we have holiday traditions that I have come to absolutely love.

Since we bought our house, the past two Thanksgivings have looked something like this:

*My mom comes over the night before and stays with us, so that she is there when we wake up Thanksgiving morning.

*I wake up ridiculously early Thanksgiving morning, not because I have to, but because I'm so excited I can't sleep. I turn on the TV and watch whatever is festive, make coffee, and get started on the stuffing.

...Sometimes Casey even gets up with me!

*Make "Awesome Breakfast" - a smorgasbord of hashbrowns, eggs, spicy sausage and cheese, which is Casey's favorite and which he asks about literally all year long. (No picture of this could be found, it just disappears too quickly!)

*Watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which makes me absurdly happy!



*Piece by piece, make all the wonderful, traditional food of Thanksgiving, while watching either a) the dog show, or b) football with my family lounging on the couch.

Hooray! The star of the show: Tom Turkey!

*About 2 or 3, Casey's parents come over, just in time for me to set the table.







*Eat, drink, and be merry with all the fam around the dinner table. I absolutely love having them all around! It's always a pleasure.

This year, I finally had to share the holiday... which, after two years of hosting, makes a lot of sense! Although we will have to run around a bit more this year in order to see everyone, I am still looking forward to getting to see all of my family at this wonderful time of year!

And I am still in awe, and increasingly aware of how much we have to be thankful for. This year, even more than in past years, Casey and I feel extremely blessed!

Beats of Joy

At 23 weeks, we can now hear Baby Girl's heartbeat with our at-home monitor!

We love this little device. We've been putting the headphones on and hopefully pressing it to my belly since about week 12, and so far we haven't been able to hear anything besides some unpleasant stomach noises.

Two nights ago, that all changed. She was moving around a ton, so I was able to direct Casey to her location, and by a huge stroke of luck, he found her little heartbeat! It was so cool! It's neat to have that one additional sign that she is there and doing well.

Don't know what you have till it's gone

22 Weeks!

I love being pregnant! I even love my ever-expanding belly, and the many different challenges it presents. Baby Girl moves all the time now, which is absolutely amazing and awesome. So much so that I was even able to see it from the outside for the first time last night! I was laying in bed reading, and all of a sudden my belly was jumping all around, like popcorn was popping inside! My students continue to notice the difference in my growing size, too. One of the boys was absent and hadn't seen me in a few days, and his first observation today was, "Mrs. Strassner, I think you've gotten bigger since the last time I saw you!" I'd be offended, except I'm sure it's true!!

We had a doctor's appointment last week, and I am pleased to say that everything is still going wonderfully. She was very active during the appointment, so I was able to show the doctor exactly where to put the little heart monitor device. We found her heartbeat right away (very unusual for Baby, just like for her mommy), and it was strong and steady... except for the fact that she had the hiccups, which made everything a little uneven!


On a more sour note, Casey has not been feeling very well for the past few days, and having him down for the count has made me again appreciate how lucky I am to have such a wonderful, supportive husband. He is truly amazing, and I am extremely grateful to have him. He helps out with so many things, including making me breakfast in the morning and packing my lunch. I know that doesn't sound like such a big deal, but it makes an incredible difference when my energy is low. Beyond that, though, it's just so nice to know that he is there for me and involved - in ways that he can be - with our daughter.

I have been thinking about that a lot recently. Certainly, I could do this on my own if I had to. But having my best friend AND my partner around to help makes my life not only easier, but that much more blessed. He is always there for me, taking care of me and doing whatever he can to lighten my load so that I can focus my energy on the baby and all that making her requires. We may have a lot to learn about being parents, but in my heart I know that Casey is already a great daddy! We are extremely lucky to have such a strong, stable and loving marriage to bring our little one into.

Get well soon, Daddy! We need your help!! :)

Getting ahead of myself

...as per the usual! Somehow I never, ever seem to be able to wait the appropriate amount of time when I am excited.

So what if I bought Baby Girl's bedding set? She'll get here eventually! Actually, I found it online several months ago at Babies-R-Us, and knew it was the right one. Casey and I have been looking ever since, but haven't been able to find one that's quite as cute or right. I looked again last weekend and we couldn't find it; it had been discontinued! Fortunately, through the wonders of the internet, I was able to find it at an outlet store. Not wanting it to slip away again, I bought it.

I was so excited when the set got here! It is absolutely adorable!!! I like it because we knew we wanted something a little bit neutral so that we can reuse it with another baby, but it still seems feminine and soft enough to pass in a little girl's room. I wanted to take it out of its packaging right away and snuggle with it... fortunately Casey is a little more practical than I am. With 4 months left to go, that might not be the best idea ever.

In addition, we did a little bit of shopping for our little pumpkin. Nothing elaborate, but I couldn't resist a few purchases.

First pink clothing! From Auntie Jessica and Uncle Andrew. CUUUUUTE!!

Ducky towel... so soft and snuggly!


My personal favorite... for our spring baby

We also started our basement remodel this weekend. It's going to be quite a lot of work, but it will be totally worth it. We always knew we'd have to do this before we put the house on the market, and this way it just gives us that much more space to work with to get things ready for our impending bundle of joy.

My handy hubby taking down a really ugly light fixture.

I'd love to say it doesn't always look like this, but hence the need for remodeling. It was such a mess when we bought the place, we basically haven't done anything but store stuff.

Washing is about all I can do to actually contribute to getting it all finished. I'm good at helping with the design elements - not so much the execution! Thank goodness for Casey!

We're supposed to be focusing on the basement remodel so that we can clear what is now the office out of one of our spare bedrooms. Then, after Christmas we'll start putting the nursery together - or at least, that's the plan. It is extremely hard to wait! I have so much fun hanging the few things we've purchased for our little pumpkin in what will be her closet, and envisioning how it will all come together...

And, I'm dying for a rocking chair!!!

Spooky

Happy Halloween!

We love Halloween at our house. We have fabulous fall traditions...

Halloween 2008 - our graveyard this year was burried under a foot and a half of snow!

...none of which we actually got to put into play this year. That's okay; this year was extremely, abnormally busy! There was an entire array of big, life-changing events that took place during the month of October this year in our circle of friends, not to mention for us personally.

But we did keep up our wonderful Halloween night tradition: I made Broccoli Cheese Soup and baked awesome bread, we watch a scary movie (the new Halloween - pretty much just as horrible/awesome as the original!) and answered the door for the little ghosts and goblins of the neighborhood. And this year was just as fun and successful as past years in the decor department; we love to listen to the "oohs" and "aaahs" from the kiddos as they approach our house. Last year, we had a few that were actually too afraid to come up to our door. This year, those same kids were delighted by the spooky decorations! It's fun to see their progression and growth - they change soooo much in a year!

I always love Halloween, and I'm usually sad when it's over. Somehow, this year I just couldn't fully get into the spirit. Between all the big events, and the fact that we didn't get to do many of our traditional activities like haunted houses, and the crazy pre-Halloween blizzard, I never quite made it to my usual "Halloweenie," as Casey calls it. It was still a ton of fun, but I spent most of the day yesterday researching baby gear and nursurey designs... not exactly the most terrifying activity ever (unless you take into account how much everything costs!).

Somehow we managed not to get any pictures on Halloween, but we did take a little video of our awesome, spooky, Haunted Halloween house. Enjoy!