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:

Sandbox

We have been talking about getting a sandbox for Zach -- we had the perfect place on our downstairs patio for one (the place where Dustin's imaginary hot tub will go). Lucky for us on our weekend errands we came across a Toys'R'us we never knew existed in the Salt Lake area. They were smart and had the sandboxes on display out front. This was the most expensive piece of plastic I think we have ever purchased. Apparently the green turtles are no longer being made and your options are now the one and only red crab.

Summer TIME!

We have been excited for the opening of our neighborhood pool this summer season. Zach really likes the water and we wanted to start teaching him how to swim (or the best you can get with a 1 year old!). Our first summer pool experience was quite interesting......

Zach LOVED being in the pool - we was squealing, going underwater, doing everything you could think of.....all for about 5 minutes when he decided it was time to go #2. Yes, #2 in the pool. No big deal, he has on a swim diaper and his swim trucks are also swim diapers...the problem lies with what happened AFTER Zach completed all his grunting. Dinner decided to make its way up and go ALL OVER DUSTIN. Now Dustin is not a throw up man. If he even SEES throw up it makes him start to throw up himself. So imagine Dustin (covered in throw up) holding Zach trying to make it to the pool stairs to get out all while he is trying to keep down his own dinner. The best part -- the other people at the pool actually left after witnessing this event.

Dustin vows to never go back to the pool the rest of the summer -- somehow I don't think that will last.

Something is not right

I guess moms really do have intuition when it comes to their kids. This evening Zach was making a bit of a fuss after we put him to bed -- not uncommon. Jen is sitting on the couch making some funny faces. Dustin asks, "what?"....Jen's reply "Something is wrong with Zach -- that isn't his normal fuss -- can you just go peek in there and make sure he doesn't have his foot stuck in between the crib rails again?". Off Dustin goes. He returns with this:


Not exactly sure how he managed to do that with his shirt....but we are all grateful for a mother's intuition.

Tooth #11

They keep coming! Tooth #11 - Molar #3 has made its appearance. We've been living off frozen gogurts this weekend!

Oh my....

Who knows how he got in this position? He was stuck - we had to move the mattress from the bed frame to get him out!

Moab - guys trip

Dustin went on three night guy Moab trip...camping, kayaking, off roading and NO SHOWERING....I figured since Dustin has failed to blog about it I would give my own interpretation of the guy trip from the pictures.

Day #1 included Kayaking down the Colorado River - guided of course. The water was freezing cold - snow melt off. They enjoyed this activity - so much they returned with sun burnt feet - yes, only the feet got sun burnt.

Evening entertainment was the fire at their campsite. What more would you expect from three grown men than a big fire, men jumping over the fire...and apparently a dance party.

Day #2 included off roading in the 4runner. They met up with the same crew they went with last Fall - and I have been told the 4runner kicked a$$ this time. It better after Dustin pimped it out after his last Moab trip - and yes, the running boards were taken off.


Day#3 the guys did some morning hiking, then realized how much they missed their hot wives and decided to hit the road a bit earlier than planned. I am sure that three days of no showering didn't sway their decision one bit.

Thanks Dave, Cliff and Steve - I can tell you guys had a blast (and I am still laughing over the dance party pictures)...and I am sure another trip in the Fall is already in the works.

Kid free vacation

We just enjoyed our first kid free vacation in the past 15 months! Nick, Sarah and Glen graciously offered to watch Zach for a few days so we could get away. So we decided to head to Las Vegas for a few days with our friends the Krotoskys. We scored a sweet deal on our hotel stay at the Mirage and decided to drive (5 hours). So Saturday morning bright and early we headed out of town......


First stop - the gas station by our house for some road trip snacks. 6:30am and Dustin goes for the 3 foot long beef jerky and a mountain dew.


We made it to Las Vegas all safe and sound and were able to check into our hotel a few hours early. We had a nice strip view - and the rooms looked super sweet.

Some highlights from our trip....lots of time down at the pool relaxing! Seeing how much Las Vegas has changed since our last visit two years ago. Yummy food at some great restaurants. The cirque du soleil at the Bellagio....oh, and watching the cops pull over a random driver as a drunk college student decides to jump into the Mirage pool and climb the waterfall for a picture!

Oh - and of course we ENJOYED being able to sleep in as long as we wanted for TWO mornings! Thanks to everyone for letting us get a way for a bit!

We can see clearly now

The window in our master bedroom has been looking dirty for a while. We decided to do some spring cleaning a few weeks ago and wanted to get this window cleaned. We had put it off so long because the only way to get to the outside of this window is from our backyard - two stories up.

Well it turns out the "dirty" part is actually INSIDE the two panes of glass. HUH? Yeah - the window wasn't sealed properly when it was originally manufactured. So we contacted our original builder to find out who they bought the windows from thinking they must be under some type of warranty. We were RIGHT! The windows were under the original manufacturers warranty...but they went out of business. That is right folks - Linford windows is out of business. So we had to suck it up and pay a different company $250 to replace the outside pane of glass - that was even with a 30% discount (so they say). Why replace it you ask? Well - if we ever sold this house who would buy it with mold growing in between window panes?

So today we finally have a new view from our master bedroom:

Who knew $250 would look so beautiful?!

Something is missing

We had ravioli's for dinner. We went for an evening walk and I came back to see this:

Notice anything "strange" about this picture? How about the fact that there is no sauce on the top of the ravioli's. Yes - while we took our walk our cat decided to help clean up. The even better part....she was throwing up all night.