Who can resist a sneak peek?

It is quite "normal" here in Utah to do a gender determination ultrasound before your scheduled ultrasound at 20 weeks with your doctor -- I had never heard of doing this UNTIL moving to Utah. Every mall around here has a "Fetal Studio" in it. You pay someone $60-90 to use an ultrasound machine to see your baby. We actually caved and did it at week #18 for our pregnancy with Zach.

Now pregnancy #2 - we have been talking for about two weeks to decide if we wanted to know the gender of baby #2 before week #20. Then we learned that they start doing them at week #15....and Jen is week#16 right now....heck why not! So tonight we learned that baby#2 is a very active.........

BOY!

No mistaking it. We got shots at every angle possible. Jen is now seriously outnumbered in the house and Zach is gonna have a brother to pal around with!

The learnings of a child

Zach has been learning body parts lately...he knows his teeth, nose, eyes and ears really well. His favorite is the nose because when you grab the nose you make a honking noise. So tonight Zach was "honking" my nose and it hurt because there was a booger trapped inside (yes -- gross, but we are all adults)....so not thinking I just picked it so the pain would stop. Zach looked up at me, looked at his finger and then proceeded to put his finger up his nose.

Classic.

Laptop at a snails pace

Before we moved from Austin, Jen purchased a laptop for herself. Seemed like the thing to do as the then new desktop computer would be staying with Dustin while he was working in Boise for that next year. We found a good deal on a Sony VAIO - 100MB hard drive, 1GB RAM.


Now fast forward three years......


The laptop takes a LONG time to boot up. The hard drive has 2GB remaining free space. Dustin is getting grumpy because the laptop is too slow....his solution, wipe the entire hard drive and start over. Jen hesitates.


In the past few days.....


Dustin decides we should upgrade the memory to 2GB, compress unused files and defrag the hard drive (some were suggestions from a sony rep via web chat). Upgrading the memory is pretty cheap - about $30. We compressed unused files - got back 2GB of our hard drive, so now we have 4GB remaining space. We go to defrag the hard drive -- it won't do it! Apparently you need 15% free space to start a defragmentation. So now what? Dustin looks over the installed programs again....here is the conversation that took place next:

Dustin: Jen do you need/use this digital scrapbook software? It is taking up lots of space.
Jen: Uh yeah - I use that program all the time. It can't be that big.
Dustin: 3GB
Jen: How big is your world of warcraft software?
Dustin: Uh....18GB.
Jen: WHAT?!??!?! That is the problem...delete your world of warcraft game off my laptop.
Dustin: Nooooooooo!
Jen: It isn't suppose to be that huge is it?
Dustin: I don't think so. Maybe some of the patches they keep forcing us to download aren't deleting the old files properly.
Jen: Delete that program
Dustin: NOOOOOOOO!!!

The next morning......

Jen notices that a disk deframentation is running on the laptop (it ran all night and still wasn't done)...laptop says 23GB of free space now....guess what program got deleted off Jen's laptop??? WORLD OF WARCRAFT!

American Fork Steel Days

This weekend was Steel Days in American Fork.. Carnival rides, horse shoe competitions.. and yes.. car shows!! With the company of Dustin's dad Glen, we all went to Rotary Park in AF to see Mary and Leo's cars and trucks (56 Studebaker Golden Hawk, 56 Chev car, 47 Desoto, and a 77 Chevy pickup). Two of Mary's cars (restored by Leo's son Chris) won awards! Chris's newest restoration project was the 77 Chevy pickup. Here are a few of Mary's cars that were in the show.




We had a great time walking around past all of the cars. Here are a few that we thought were cool!



After the car show we went down to Main Street and met up with some of our work friends, the Borget's, and watched the cars drive through a parade. We had a great time. Zach loved seeing all of the shiny cars.





Dustin of course was drooling over all of the pickups counting down the days until his Dad and him finish restoring his Dad's '58 Chevy pickup. Lots of cool restoration ideas. :)

Camera found!!

Wahoo! We found Jen's 'little' camera!! While packing up the diaper bag for a full day event - it was tucked away in a side pocket that we hardly use. Whew - we torn apart the house last weekend looking for the camera and even had already looked in the diaper bag.....

We have an 18 month old?!?

It is hard to believe our little baby Zachary is 18 months old today. It just seems like yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital - now he is a toddler. We don't have his 18 month check up for another month (long story....apparently I am suppose to "schedule" that appointment at least 6 weeks in advance) - so I don't have any official "stats" to share with everyone....but here are some "stats" of our own:

Approximate weight: 25 pounds
Clothes size: 18-24 months
Shoe size: toddler 7
Diaper size: 4
Number of teeth: 12 (still missing the canines)
# of hours he sleeps at night: 11
# of naps a day: just started 1 a day (2-3 hours)
Latest injury: touched the car rims/brakes after a drive and burned the top of his middle finger - blistered up nicely.
Talking: oh yeah - lots of gibberish.
Understands us? oh yeah - he will do what ever we tell him (the best is throwing away his own diapers after they are changed!)
If Zach was in charge what would be his typical day in our house: Wake up. Drink milk. Eat lots of grapes. Go outside and watch the birds in the backyard. Watch TV (what ever is on Noggin). Eat crackers. Drink juice/water. Chase the cats around the house. Dig through the drawers in mom and dad's bathroom - find a travel sized tube of toothpaste and carry it around the house for the next three hours. Eat lunch (chicken nuggets and PB&J are his fav's right now). Take a three hour nap. Wake up - snack time. Head back outside, climb on our neighbors porch, pick up bark, go on a wagon ride, go to the swimming pool. Drink water. Head back inside - play with my toys in the basement, climb up and down the stairs trying to get to the basement. Dinner time. Tickle fest with daddy. Read books with mommy. Bath time. Turn on all the fans in the house. Chase the cats (again). Drink milk. Go to bed.

We are going to get his 18 month portraits next weekend - so stay tuned for pictures!

Fat tire

I am in one of those moods......

I was sitting on the bed and looked over at the mirror and I saw myself with a big "tire" around my belly. Urgh. I am at that time where I don't exactly look "pregnant" but...a bit chunkier - not quite big enough for maternity clothes but can't suck in any part of my tummy.

Week #15.

Pudding, sprinklers and cool dudes

This has been the first weekend in a while that we haven't had people in town visiting or some event to attend.....we officially did nothing all weekend....and WE ENJOYED IT! Of course this means all our time was devoted to Zach and finding fun things to do....I think we had a very successful weekend - take a look.

Pudding

Zach likes pudding - chocolate seems to be his favorite. We decided to let him feed himself his pudding.....looks like he enjoyed it! Notice the pudding hand prints on the table next to him?

Sprinklers

It has been hot (for Utah) and we decided to introduce Zach to a "sprinkler". Not sure he totally understood the concept - but he did end up soaking wet. This kid does LOVE the water!

Cool Dude

Zach has always had sunglasses - but until this weekend he refused to wear them. We aren't exactly sure what made him change his mind but now he wants to wear his sunglasses all the time. The ladies in Sam's club this weekend got a kick out of my kid running around in sunglasses (indoors). So he is officially a "cool dude" now - and according to Dustin, cool dudes don't smile for pictures as you can see up above.

Missing?!!??!

My lovely Christmas present has gone missing.....how I miss my tiny camera that always resided in my purse....what is a girl to do now?

Uno mas

Some know…..some don’t. We haven’t spread the news intentionally – just to make sure we had two thumbs up…today we got the two thumbs up!



We are pregnant! Due date for baby #2 is January 6, 2010 (maybe earlier? Keep reading) – Jen is 12 weeks along currently. Zach was born on January 17, 2008 – so this means our kids will be two years apart.

So far so good. Morning sickness lasted from week #6 through week #9. Jen is still super tired. Her thyroid TSH levels are normal ….but her thyroid antibodies are way elevated. The antibodies were elevated with Zachary, but this time they are even higher (normal is <35, 1st pregnancy it was 900, this pregnancy it is 4,100) – hence part of the reason we held off spreading the news until week #12….with high thyroid antibodies a woman is twice as likely to have a miscarriage. Also if a pregnant woman has a known autoimmune thyroid disease (in Jen’s case Hashimoto’s thyroiditis) the baby may be at risk of thyroid dysfunction since thyroid antibodies can cross the placenta and cause hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism in the fetus or newborn (apparently it doesn’t happen very often, but they still watch for it). So what does this all mean??? Extra ultrasounds – our 20 week ultrasound will be with a perinatologist. We saw a perinatologist at week #28 with Zachary’s pregnancy too. Jen is also more likely to develop pre-eclampsia (like the last pregnancy) and will most likely not carry to week #40 (so we may have a Christmas baby on our hands). This one will be delivered via a scheduled C-section as well.

We are excited – still a bit in shock – but excited. Zachary is such a keeper we want to have another one just like him! I guess we will be saving some money too….the Fall Hawaii trip is on hold…and the April 2010 Caribbean cruise is also on hold.

Fort Zachary

We were shopping at Target and were looking for a "fort" for Zach. We found this tunnel that attaches to a fort. Target was out of the fort, but had the tunnel. Jen figured she would just get online and buy the fort since the store was out......guess what.....the item was discontinued and no longer carried online. No store in Utah had any in stock - BUT - there was a store near Jen's parents in California that had "limited availability".....Grandma and Grandpa Twogood to the rescue! Two days later Fort Zachary arrived in the mail and the ultimate kid-dome was complete. Zach and Dustin did find ways to have fun with the tunnel for the couple of days we didn't have the fort to go with it!

The finished product:

rain rain go away

I think we have had our fair share of rain storms this month! Zach seems to be enjoying it....

Bubbles and Disco moves

We bought one of those bubble making machines. How can you resist when they are only $10 and the amount of bubbles the thing spits out in just a few seconds is amazing...especially when kids can't keep up with all the bubbles :) Zach has been loving this bubble machine and now knows how to turn it on. He also started to say the word "bubbles".....so tonight when was walking around the house saying "bubbles" we took him outside to play with the bubbles. We learned tonight that Zach apparently can dance on demand now. If you say "shake it" or "dance" he proceeds to twist his body back and forth and dance. Pretty dang cute. So I am sure our neighbors got a good laugh of us having a dance party on our front lawn with a million bubbles floating around. How is that for Friday night entertainment?

Date Night - Real SLC

Salt Lake has a soccer team - the REAL Salt Lake (pronounced REE-ALL). Our friends Jeff and Kristin have season tickets. They couldn't use their tickets this weekend and kindly offered them to us. Grandpa Gray was more than willing to babysit (game started at 8pm - kind of too late for Zach to go). We had a great time!

They "dedicated" the new stadium (that was finished October 2008) before the game - they had the air force drop some sky divers down - one was even carrying the American flag!

Then they had this whole "Charity starts at home" theme going. So David Archuletta sang the National Anthem and was hosting a concert at the end of the soccer game. The boy can sing, but we opt'd not to stay for the concert - too many high pitched screaming teenage girls were in attendance and we feared for our hearing.

The game was awesome. Salt lake started the second half by scoring the first goal of the game. Unfortunately - Colorado was able to also score a goal in the last 5 minutes of the game. So it ended as a tie 1-1.

Dustin was in charge of pictures during this date and here are the snap shots he keeps laughing about:

Notice the lady behind Jen? Dustin took this picture and then when he looked at it on the camera he started laughing out loud. He showed Jen the picutre and Dustin kept looking over at the lady next to Jen and laughing. The lady caught on we think...because she proceeded to change her seat. The reason Dustin was laughing is the look on the lady's face is her normal look...she didn't pose.


Dustin tried to get a "couple shot" and Jen tried to sneak a kiss for the picutre. She was a bit too late but Dustin couldn't stop laughing about Jen's eyes in the picure.

Birthday

Someone had a birthday today! We won't reveal the new age....

We enjoyed a nice dinner out and relaxing evening. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes.

Here is a snap shot of Dustin and Zach one year ago today: