Happy Birthday, Brent!

Yesterday, the monkey-boy turned 3. We decided he really should have a party because he recognizes and understands parties and all the balloons and decorations and presents and figured he would get excited about it. It was just immediate family, a small cake, and some steaks and beer, but Brent seemed to have a GREAT time. :) Get rrrrrready for piiiictuuuures!

Brent helped us with decorations:


This is Will baking the birthday cake (how sexy is that??):


Never too young to start a crazy new fashion trend:


What a monkey-boy can do to a cake in about 2 minutes of "Hey, Brent's awfully quiet..." time (he was double- and triple-dipping a cookie into the cake, for extra flavor dontcha know):


Opening presents came before cake because everyone was FULL from dinner and my inlaws were exhausted and wanting to go home. Lil B liked the bows as much as the presents themselves, and pre-removed all of those before officially starting:


Probably the biggest hit of the party, the gift from Aunt Kate of a new wading pool with a sprinkler/bubble blower, as well as a pair of blow-up hands for Brent and Daddy:

And I HAD to share this one. The boys are having a water kick splash fight and I timed the picture by sheer luck so it looks like they're doing some kinda white-boy version of a Native American war dance:


And finally, we did cake. (By the way, I did protest the red tshirt with the safety orange shorts. But when Will helps me dress the boy, Will chooses the outfits):

Brent wanted to cut the cake himself. Considering it was his birthday (and the cake was already half demolished) we all laughed and said, "Suuuuure!"

See the knife?

And the classic "face" a 3 yr old pulls when he discovers that Mama's not just being mean when she says, "Don't eat the candle."


Just a couple more playing with presents pictures, because the boy looks awfully cute in this one:

And so does my man, my manly man, making that noise... you know, the one little boys make when they're playing with their car and truck and boat toys:


And that's finally all I'll torture you with. Let me just say, I'm glad I won't ever have to do another birthday party pregnant again. And that we still have a couple of years at least before we have to do it with a houseful of kids rather than just helpful adult family members.

We have POTTY POWER!

So, this weekend I mentioned to Will that Brent KNEW what to do but in my opinion just hadn't made the connection between his potty power routine and the sensations of a full bladder and actually going to the bathroom, etc. I thought a good solution would be to train him like we trained our puppies (which took all of 2 days, thank you): let him run around monkey-nekkid, keep a close watch on him, and as soon as he started to have an accident, scoop him up and run him to the toilet. This is something I cannot do right now! So, Will agreed to try it, and IT WORKED! He only had to do one scoop and run, and Brent was so thrilled with himself and with all the rejoicing that ensued we've only had one little accident since Sunday with NO diapers worn around the house whatsoever except at night. BUT this morning he woke up and asked me to take it off so he could use the toilet!

I'm super proud and so happy with our lil man, who is now officially a "Big Kid" in Potty Power terms. (I give so much credit to the great Potty Power video by Mazzarella!) I know it's only been a few days but we have a really solid start here, and I'm hoping it's soon enough that he'll be firmly in the habit by the time Gianna is born and the regression then won't be too bad. We'll see.

Introducing Gianna!

(We haven't settled on a middle name yet.) Here she is, in some 3D sonogram images from Wednesday:





Ain't she already a little looker? ;)

Wii Fit is Fun!

I've hit the homestretch of this pregnancy -- which is to say, I'm big as a cow and feeling about as energetic lately. I'm staying home more, but getting less housework done. One bright spot has been the Wii Fit package my great mother-in-law sent us. Even if my stomach is too big for me to fish socks out of the bottom of the washing machine, pulling pots and pans out of the bottom rack of the dishwasher leaves me panting, and chasing down the monkey-boy to force-change a poopy diaper sends my abdomen into painful cramps and my heartburn skyrocketing into I-can't-breathe territory, I can still do a daily weight check and keep myself feeling halfway active with light yoga poses and step aerobics routines. (And the male trainer avatar looks a little like Jensen Ackles, which really helps. Now, if I could just change the wussy voice to something with a bit more drawl and smartassedness...)

Those of you curious about the program, I highly recommend it! Here's a fairly in-depth review of it which I thought was pretty accurate to my experience so far, though the spelling leaves some to be desired.

I'm about to order a new digital camera for myself with birthday money I haven't spent yet so that I can be better about putting photos up. Right now, I'm still depending on Ana and she's been busier and busier lately so being my camera-monkey is getting pushed further and further back on her burners. Now, if I can find one that I can figure out how to use...

Eeyore's Birthday Party 2008
Brent played in the Drum Circle!

Dateline 4/26/08. We took Brent down to Pease Park specifically to check out the drum circle, since drumming is such a passion of his. It took him a while to warm up to the sheer noise and the mass of humanity surrounding it, but once he did, he took up a pair of proffered sticks from a kind drummer (the guy in the 1st photo -- thank you!) and wailed away for what seemed like forever to poor Will, I'm sure.





And this is what he looked like on the ride home, after an hour of drumming hard in the sun on a warm, spring day:

Two FOs in one day

The Devan I've been working on for over a year is finally done! To be fair to Holli Yeoh, it's more properly called a FrankenDevan. I followed the pattern in the most haphazard, keep-changing-sizes fashion ever until the sleeves, which I completely freestyled because the body is so misshapen that properly made sleeves wouldn't fit, and then I added all the ribbing on the edges. Still, it's done, I worked my bum off on it, and I love it. And the baby won't complain! (If it ever fits...)


And the golf club cover I promised my father-in-law for Christmas, hehehe. I started it and then promptly went into no-energy, morning sickness hell. And I feel really dumb for having let it sit for so long because I picked it up this afternoon when I was done with the Devan, and finished the whole thing, seaming and end-hiding included, in one evening. I hope the poor man didn't already give up waiting and just buy himself a cover for that 7 club.


Surgery Fundraiser Update

Wonderful news! My father gave us his tax refund, one of the emergency clinics refunded us several hundred dollars worth of overcharge, and our bank accounts are really looking much better than I had feared. So, I think that no radical destashing will be called for -- yay!!

Tyler is recovering!





Those close to us will already know that sleep has been scarce and hope only recently rising since Thursday when Tyler suddenly started vomiting repeatedly and refusing to eat and then, at the emergency vets', starting having seizures. Diagnoses shifted from possible organ disease to tumors to rampant infections and finally settled on a hugely enlarged gall bladder after a sonogram that was a bear to get scheduled, what with this happening so close to the weekend and all. (Isn't that always the case?)

Tyler went into surgery Saturday afternoon and had his gall bladder removed, his intenstines flushed of the nasty mucous the gall bladder was putting out, and his liver biopsied to make sure the mucous and other things haven't sent it toward disease. We don't have the results of those or the analysis of the sickly gall bladder, but Tyler himself has bounced back from the surgery like a CHAMP, according to the doctors and we're picking him up to bring him home as soon as my dad calls me back to accompany me. (Of course, this happens when I'm pregnant as can be and can barely lift myself, much less ailing beagle boys.)



Is that his gall bladder??? EW!!! NO, NO. Just kidding. :P

SURGERY FUNDRAISER

Actually, I'm going to be destashing much of my beloved yarns, including that lovely mohair laceweight and much else, in order to try to put an IV into our checking account, which as of right now is looking almost as bad as Tyler did on Friday. PLEASE check back for more details soon if you're interested in helping and scoring some cool yarn. I have some nice stuff!!!