Valentine's Day 2006
Tony surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of 24 roses sent to work. It took them several days to open up. This weekend I finally got an opportunity to take some pictures of them. I wanted to share them with you.

Here is the picture from our last ultra sound -- Notice the GA (Gestational Age) at the top says 30 weeks 2 days and the bottom says 33 weeks and 6 or 2 days!! I haven't figured out what all those acronyms mean yet and why there are 2 sets of data at the bottom right.

I can't believe that it has already been two weeks since our last post. Time flies by! We had another doctor's appointment yesterday. The baby is measuring big, three weeks big to be exact. It's kinda strange, the doctor said that his arms and legs are measuring normal size but his head and torso are measuring bigger than normal. He wants Jen to come back on Monday, Feb 20th for a 3 hour glucose test. They are wondering if her original glucose test was really a false negative and that she may actually have gestational diabetese. The doctor did not seem really concerned so we aren't really concerned at this point either. If the test results say that she does have it, then we will just follow whatever the doctor tells us to do. Anyway, pray for us that everything goes well for the rest of the pregnancy. We do have a couple more, new, ultrasound pictures and another video that I may try to get put up here on the blog.....that is when I have time inbetween 'getting ready for baby' projects. ;-)

7 months

Wow! It has been very hard for me to comprehend that we will have a child in 3 months (or less)! Everything has been going well. Our baby is moving A LOT! Now it has gotten to the point that I can see him move around rather than just feel it. I feel big. I have heart burn a lot and have resorted to sleeping on the chase lounge upstairs in the loft . Tony has graciously joined me on the other part of the sectional and we have moved the whole bedtime ritual of fan, ocean CD and alarm clock in to the loft! I sleep better in there, but that is not saying much. We just had our 28 week (7 mth) check up on Monday and when the Dr. measured me she was concerned about the size of the baby, that he was bigger than she had intended. So now we have to have another ultrasound when we go back for our next appointment which are now in 2 week intervals. So on Feb 13th we will have another ultrasound I am guessing to determine if my due date is accurate.

When she told me he was big, the first thing running though my head is my sisters 9lb 2oz children (yes both were exactly the same weight). That and the fact that this might become reality sooner than I am ready! So pray for us, not only for the babys health, but for our preperaton for him to come (since NOTHING is done!!)

Love to all! Jennifer

Christmas 2005
I know, I know this is very, Very late!!
I just haven't had time to post these pictures!

Tony and Annie watching some TV.

A very cool picture we took of our Christmas tree.

On Christmas we decided to break out the turkey fryer that we got LAST Christmas and had not been used yet. Tony did a great job! It was the best tasting turkey I ever had.

How does it look? Is it edible?

Never having fried a turkey we were all very hesitant, and weren't exactly sure what it should look like when it was done. But YUM! It was delicious!!

Well, this past weekend my dad retired from the Union Pacific Railroad after 35 years. I was lucky enough to be able to find an affordable roundtrip plane ticket (with a rental car included) and fly to Omaha to be there for his retirement dinner. It was actually a surprise for him and my mom. The included rental car was perfect for the surprise. I flew into Omaha Friday night and then used the rental car to drive to my dad's apartment. I then called him on my cell phone and asked him to buzz me into the building. It was pretty funny because he didn't believe that I was there at first. Even better, once I was in his apartment, I used his cell phone to call my mom, who was driving to Omaha with my sister and her husband. She asked what I was doing. I told her that I was sitting on the couch watching tv with dad. She was like, "No, your not." I had to tell her to look at her cell phone and see what phone I was calling her from. She couldn't believe it.

The retirement dinner for him was Saturday evening. There was a real good turn out of people from his work there. It was really nice. Sunday we packed up his apartment into a U-Haul trailer and him and my mom should be back home in St. Louis sometime today. Below are just a few quick pictures I took at the dinner with my cell phone.

Congratulations dad!!!
(Now, get that log home done!!!)

Well, an internet project that I have been working off and on with since about July of last year is finally officially up and running. If you know any groups, clubs, school sports teams, etc that would be interested in getting rhinestone logos or team/club names in rhinestones, for clothing, equipment bags, or the like, have them check out www.rhinestone-transfers.com. There is an examples page that will give ideas of what we can do. We create the rhinestone design heat transfers that you could then put on the clothes, equipment bags, etc. Just have them go there and fill out a quote request form and we will work up a quote for them and contact them with the info.

My actual part in this whole thing was getting the web site up and running and getting the automated quote request form working. (That was a pain in the **bleep**!) But anyway, tell a friend, co-worker, family member, a stranger off the street, anyone really, to go check us out.

Actually I was hoping to post this before Jen made her post but I didn't get to it. Before Jen posted it had been awhile between posts. Part of it was just the hectic times of the holidays but another reason was that my Uncle Dale passed away on New Years. His passing was hard on all of us. For me, this was the first time I have really had to deal with the loss of someone very close to me. I guess, in that respect, that I've been pretty lucky. I know that he is in a much better place in Heaven. I would just ask that you all keep his family in your thoughts and prayers, especially now that alot of friends and family have had to return to their homes.


We miss you Uncle Dale and look forward to when we are all together again!

Wow how the months fly!

What everyone wants to know.... What does Jennifer look like pregnant?!?
Well I really didn't start taking pictures until I was five months. So here they are!

5 Months

6 Months

Our baby boy still does not have a name although a lot of suggestions have been made.

We are still deciding between about four. We will let you know once we have made our decision. (Which might be the day he arrives, at this rate!) Mostly it is me holding up the final decision. This is a lot harder than I thought!!

Baby is kicking and moving a lot, unless Tony is around and then he seems to go stealth!

St. Louis Cardinals will be the theme of the baby's room. Tony has a ton of great memorabilia to bring into the room. Now we just need to get the rest of my stuff out and get painting!

Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Dale were the first to contribute to the theme, a baseball shaped rug! We are very excited about planning the room, just not the work to put it all together!

I will keep you up to date!

Well, here goes nothing. If this worked right, you should be able to view the ultrasound we had on Friday, right here in this post. It's a wmv file so as long as you have Windows Media Player (which if you are running Windows you probably have it), it should work. If you have a Mac, get Windows Media Player 9 HERE. I've been messing with the video alot so it loads quickly for me right now, probably because I have it cached. I would expect that you may have to give it a minute or two to load up but it should work. Post a comment and let me know if it doesn't work for you.

* Edit: Due to some confusion, I thought that I would clarify that there is no sound with the video.

Without further ADO, the ultrasound

We had our doctor's appointment today and I bet you are all waiting to see if you made the right selection in our poll. Well........if you chose 'girl'

you were.....WRONG! Jen and I were wrong with the rest of you, so don't feel bad. We are having a boy! He was moving around a lot during the ultrasound so the nurse had to really work to get the pictures she needed to get. She told us he is healthy and is right where he should be at this stage of the pregnancy. He currently weighs .95lbs.

So below are the pictures of the ultrasound that we were able to keep. I am hoping that I can get the video of the ultrasound up on the blog here in a few days. Here are the pics!

Here, his head is to the left and you can see his eyes (closed) and his nose. If you click on the picture and see the larger size, you may also be able to faintly see his ribs.

Not really sure how the nurse was able to do this one, but this pic is from behind the baby. You can see his eye sockets and eye lenses in this picture. You can also make out the spine. I think this is a really cool picture.

Here is the definitive pick that tells us it's a boy. If you follow the arrow...well, you get the idea. It was kinda funny but when the nurse first started the ultrasound, as soon as the picture came up, he was flashing us! Luckily we were wanting to know if it was a boy or a girl and not wanting to keep it a surprise. You can also see his hand, just to the left of the arrow. He was reaching down to grab his... foot. (get your minds out of the gutter!!)

In this picture the nurse actually labeled the body part because it was a little harder to make out. Right above the word 'FOOT' is, well his foot. Pretty much all for this picture.

Here is another shot of his face and this time his eyes are open. You can see a little black dot where his eye is and that is the lense. I think it looks like he is laying on his back and has his head turned to the right to look at the 'camera'.

So that was our trip to the doctor. Like I said earlier, I hope that I am able to put the video of the ultrasound up here in some form or another. It may end up being a link to click on to watch it but I am hoping to actually have it so you can view the video right on the blog. Now we have to figure out a name for the little kid. We'll definitely post what it will be once we decide. That's all for now folks!

Well, I flew an airplane for the first time today. No, not a Microsoft Flight Simulator plane, a real life, honest to goodness airplane.

Jen had bought me a "Discovery Flight" gift certificate as a graduation/birthday present. I got to use it today and she went with me and took pictures. Here are a few of them from the flight.

This is the gift certificate for the flight.



Here we are going over a few things before taxiing to the runway.



We are next up to take off!



We have lift off!!



The colors from the air were really awesome.



Here's the Mall of Georgia from about 2000 ft in the air and about 140 mph.



We flew over and made a few passes around Lake Lanier.



Here we were turning right over the lake. Even though it doesn't look like much of a banking turn you can see from how much the pilot and I were leaning that it was a pretty decent banking turn.



This picture gives a better idea of the bank of that right turn. It's a weird but neat feeling at the same time when you look to your side and you are actually looking down.



Here we are heading back getting ready to land and you can see the airport runway. This is out the left side of the plane. I actually got to perform the take-off and the landing.



Here's me and the plane we were in. It's a Cessna 172R with 160 hp fuel injected engine. I had a blast! It just re-enforced my desire to someday get my pilot's license. The instructor said that I flew well enough that if I had a log book he would go ahead and sign off for .6 hours of flight time towards my license. So of course a bought a log book. .6 hours down, 39.4 hours to go! ;-)

On the way

On our way to MO for Thanksgiving we saw these cool clouds in Tennessee during sunset.

Maybe some gold?

On the way home we saw this rainbow. Hopefully it shows up.

(Edit: looks like it came out ok. It was actually REALLY bright and the colors were extremely vivid. You could also see both ends of it. It was the most intense rainbow I've seen in a really long time.)

Welcome Jacob to our family!!!

I was able to meet Jacob this weekend when Debra* and Ben came to visit. Ben lives about 3 1/2 hours away so they were able to fit us into their very busy 'tour'. Jacob is now 2 month old. He loves to bounce and has a fixation on ceiling fans! Debra looks great, of course! and It was great to meet Ben.

Welcome to our family!


(*Tony Edit: For my family that doesn't know who Debra is, she is one of Jennifer's cousins that live in New York/New Jersey.)

No, He isn't mine!!! :)
Jennifer getting some well needed practice and
appreciation for my quiet time right now!

Debra on Mommy duty! Jacob loves baths and Debra is getting good at baby bantering moms must do!

Debra with a baby!

Wow who would have thought! :)

Bye Jacob! We will miss you.

Grow big and strong.

Keep mom on her toes!

One of my co-workers gave me this picture of the three of us. We can't do Halloween at our school but we had a storybook parade. (Yes there were spidermen and Dora's among our preschool crowd!) So we decided to dress up as Eric Carle books. Karen was the Grumpy Ladybug, Jane the Very Hungry Catepillar, and I was the Very Busy Little Spider. We had a great time. Some other Storybooks were The Three Little Pigs, The littlest Scarecrow(s) and more we had a great time!

Clown Car

Not sure how this will show up. I was following this car and it was made up to look like a toy car, complete with the thing you would twist to make it go. That thing actually spun around too.