Photo blog link

So, I finally decided to start a photo blog. It's a bit easier to give people a peek at their photos this way and it's just fun. :-) If you're interested, its at http://jensphotogblog.blogspot.com/.

Two-Month Stats, Rolling Over & Happy Thanksgiving

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a good Thanksgiving, full of Turkey and lots of goodies, with my family. Kaya & I (Jennifer) started out the day with some hot cocoa and the Macy's parade. (I LOVE holiday traditions!) After the parade was over, we made some Thanksgiving cards and then got ready for the festivities. I made blackberry pie and apple-cranberry tartlets for dessert, but most of that work was done the night before. That was our contribution to the wonderful meal of barbecued turkey (mmm...), mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, green bean casserole, and more that I'm probably forgetting. It was delicious and we had a wonderful time together as a family.

On to Ollie info... Oliver had his two-month check-up on Monday afternoon and we found out that he weighs 12 lbs 9 oz and is 23 inches long. In other words, he's a CHUNK. He's a very healthy boy outside of the colds that he keeps catching from his sister and his reflux, and almost always VERY happy. :-) On Wednesday, I realized that we hadn't been doing much with Oliver in the way of tummy-time. I was thinking that I'd lay him on his stomach, chat with him and maybe roll him over, just to show him how it worked. Well, I put him on his stomach and, to my surprise, he rolled over! I made him do it about 3 or 4 times before I gave him a break. :-) I don't know if it's because he's so huge or if his giant head just gives him some extra leverage, but either way, he's rollin'!

After Oliver's appointment on Monday, we went to the park to take some pictures. So here you go!

Halloween (late, I know...)

I know, I know... Still a bad blogger. At least I'm posting now though, right?

Oliver will be two months old tomorrow. No Ollie pics right now, but we're going to the park on Monday just for the purpose of pictures, so they'll be up soon. He's doing pretty good and we've been able to shorten the "up time" after eating to about 20 minutes (it used to be a half-hour). Last night, he didn't spend that time after eating upright and we had about an hour of screaming followed by a massive amount of projectile vomit. Yuck! So, yes, he does still have reflux issues, but they're getting better! He's still not sleeping in chunks any longer than 2 hours, but hopefully that will come soon.

Kaya loves being a big sister and wants to help with EVERYTHING. She loves her brother a lot. :-)

Now, on to Halloween... Kaya got to dress up three different times this year, which she was VERY excited about. She dressed up once for a costume birthday party, once for her preschool Halloween parade, and on Halloween. Everytime, it was slightly different. :-) Luckily, she's a pretty easy kid to please, so she just dressed up in the princess costumes that we already had and we didn't have to buy anything extra. So, here are the VERY late Halloween pictures...

Preschool pictures first...

Ms. Lily blindfolding Kaya

Yeah, I only eat the frosting...

Kaya and her princess friend, Ashlyn.

Festivals on Halloween night.

Look at that throwing arm. :-)

Marshmallow shooting.

Fishing

Almost three weeks...

I've been a very bad mom-photographer and an even worse blogger... sorry. I did manage to get a few pics this week, but nothing fancy. A wonderful friend of mine lent me a basket and a few of her blankets so that I wouldn't have an excuse not to take pictures, but I haven't even used them yet! I haven't actually done much "setting up" for any pictures; I'm just catching them where I can. :-)

Oliver will be three weeks old on Tuesday. We love him and Kaya LOVES being a big sister! Here's a re-cap of what our three weeks have been like.

Week 1: No sleep, but a very cute baby. :-) Oliver has his day and night mixed up.
Week 2: We still have a very cute baby. A couple of nights of 2-hour sleep stretches! Woohoo! He's figured out that nighttime is for sleeping and it's much more fun to be awake during the day. Now he has stomach issues though. Not sure what it is, but he's projectile vomiting and added bile to the mix.
Week 3: We now know that he has reflux. The vomiting is not a regular occurence as long as we hold him upright for a half-hour or so after he eats, but he still wakes up pretty uncomfortable. :-( This makes for (again) not much sleep. Two hour stretches are gone, but I'm hopeful that they'll return soon! We've discovered that Ollie REALLY likes lullabies and classical music. And, yep, we still have a very cute baby. :-)

So, here are a few of the pictures that I did manage to get.

After the first bath he actually enjoyed...

My messy haired child with my bald child.

This is how he usually wakes up. ;-)

His cute little smile. :-D

And a yawn...

My sleeping baby...

Oliver William Herring

Oliver William Herring arrived at 12:34 PM on September 23, 2008. He weighed in at 6lbs and 13oz. Mommy and Oliver are both doing well.

Induction tomorrow

Hey everyone,

Just a quick update - I'm set to be induced tomorrow sometime, so Oliver should be making an appearance soon! I don't know what time it will be happening (they'll call me when they have an open bed) and I'm still hoping to go into labor on my own before then, but either way he should be here soon!

Have a great day!
Jennifer

"A Baby Changes Everything"

I heard this song on the radio the other day and thought I'd share... I heard the DJ announce that they were going to play a song from Faith Hill's new Christmas album and thought, "Seriously? In September?" Well, being the Christmas-obsessed person that I am, I had to listen. Well, this is not your typical Christmas song - it is VERY good. So, when you get a minute, listen. :-)

Kaya, the weather girl

I'm not sure why I forgot to include these in the last post, but here they are anyway...

When we were at the fair, we went to the News10 booth and had Kaya's "weather girl" picture taken. (She LOVED pretending to be the weather girl.) Brief explanation: In the first picture, she was very serious about doing the weather...The people at the News10 booth thought that it would be a good idea to get a picture of her smiling, so they all told her to smile for the second picture. EVERY TIME someone told her to smile, her smile got bigger.



So, to sum it up - Picture #1 = Serious 4 year old doing the weather, Picture #2 = CRAZY child.

The State Fair and a new blog address...

As you can probably tell from the blog title, we went to the state fair this last week. I am one of those weirdos who LOVES the fair. I've been every year of my life and it's just one of those traditions that I don't see myself breaking any time soon... even when I'm hugely pregnant. Walking around the state fair when you're about-to-pop-pregnant is probably not the smartest idea in the world and definitely not super fun, but we still had a good time. :-)

Donovan, Kaya, & I went to the fair on Monday at about 12:30 and stayed for about 5 hours. Kaya's favorite part of the fair used to be the animals, but we've now started a new addiction... RIDES! She LOVES rides! We started off with one of the spinning rides. It was one where there are about 6 or 7 "bowls" (sorry, I can't think of a better word) attached to spider arms that spin while going up and down. Each of the "bowls" spins individually as well. Being that this was her first ride ever and that the "bowls" got pretty high, I wasn't sure how she'd react, but she REALLY wanted to try. So, Kaya & Donovan squished themselves (I say squished because Donovan's 6'4" and all legs...it was a pretty funny sight) into one of the bowls and off they went. Kaya's initial reaction was to freak out and grab Daddy's leg, but after about 2 seconds of that she was laughing histerically and thinking it was the best ride in the world. It was pretty funny to see her go from sheer terror to pure bliss in the matter of about 2 seconds. I think she's going to be a thrill seeker when she gets older -we're going to have our hands full! (I would attach a picture, but the ride was going too fast for me to get any good ones.)

After the first ride, we made our way over to the animals. Kaya loves the animals, but after a couple of goats tried to attack us in the petting zoo, she decided that she only like the small "cute" animals. Soooo, we looked around at a lot of different animals but didn't do much petting this year. Kaya's favorite animals of the day were the baby pigs. She also got to learn how to milk a cow and ride a horse. I didn't get any pictures of the cow-milking, but I got a super high quality ;-) cell phone pic of the horse ride. (This was the first year that she didn't want me to walk next to her horse.)

After we were done looking at the animals, Kaya got her first bumper car ride. This was, by far, her favorite part of the fair. She rode twice all by herself and had a great time speeding around running into people (after she figured out how to do something other than go in circles). After that, we decided our day with Kaya at the fair was done and came home. Donovan & I went back for a while that evening, but spent most of the time sitting... Boy, giant pregnant ladies aren't very much fun, are we? We enjoyed ourselves though and ended our evening with some gelato under the fireworks. All in all, it was a very fun (and exhausting) day.

On another note - I'll be changing the title and address of the blog pretty soon, so keep your eyes open for that!

And the name is...

We finally decided on a name...

Oliver William Herring

We like it and we hope you do too. If you don't, that's okay - just don't tell me. :-)

(I know - this post is way too short. I'll try to post again soon with other news.)

Boys, boys, boys

So, I was right... It's definitely a boy! I can't get a good scanned picture, but I have the proof if anyone wants to see it. :-)

EDIT: Here's the proof...

And... Yesterday, my wonderful friends threw me a beautiful (and yummy) shower and generously contributed to a group gift which included a stroller, car seat, car seat bases, swing, and a TON more. Thank you all SOOOO MUCH! I will see what pictures Kaya took yesterday and try to get some of those uploaded tonight. :-)

On another note, Kaya has been talking a lot about husbands lately... She's really trying to understand who she's allowed to marry and who she's not. :-) For a very long time, Kaya has been saying that she wants to marry her friend Tommy when she grows up. This has made Donovan & I very happy. We LOVE Tommy and his parents, so this would be ideal. But then, things changed... Tommy & Kaya were both at a birthday party and were asked if they were brother and sister. Well, Kaya REALLY like this idea and decided that Tommy would be a great brother. I told her that if Tommy was her brother, she couldn't marry him and she said, "Okay, well I'll just marry someone else!" I tried to talk her out of that one... I like Tommy... There was no talking her out of it though. She really wanted Tommy to be her brother. Not wanting to let go of the husband idea (she inherited her mommy's love of boys), she started looking around at her prospects. In the last week or so, I think that she's said that she wants to marry every boy in her Sunday school class at least once, but none of them ever stuck. So, in trying to understand the boundaries of marriage, Kaya asked me this on Saturday, "So, if our baby is a boy, when he grows up and I grow up, can I marry him?" Back to marrying brothers... I explained that one again and she named a few more boys that she might want to marry. Not Tommy though - he's still her brother.

Well, then came Sunday. Tommy's mom, Kristina, was one of the gracious hosts of the baby shower, so Kaya got to play with Tommy for a while when the shower was over. That was the end of Tommy as brother. She is now in love with him again. :-) She told me when we got home that Tommy is now her boyfriend and they are going to get married when they grow up. The really funny part about this whole thing is that Tommy is completely oblivious. He has no idea that marriage plans are being made and that this girl has already decided his future. Hmmm, that could be a problem...

So, this week so far has been totally about boys. The one Kaya will marry and the one she will grow up with. I can't wait to see how things turn out! (Oh wait, I take that back... I can wait... If you ever read this, Kaya, please wait... please...)

So...

I don't think we're going to find out if this baby is a boy or girl. Oh well... If I had to guess I'd say boy, but we'll see! At this point, the baby is so big and there's so little room that it's highly unlikely that he/she will be able to spread his/her legs for us. That's okay! Now we just need to pick a boy name...

Also, two of my wonderful friends from church, Kristina & Paige, are throwing a baby shower for this little one on August 3rd. If I've forgotten you (it's nothing personal, I promise - I'm just forgetful) and you'd like to come, please let me know! And, for their sanity's sake, if you have received an evite and haven't responded yet it would be wonderful if you could let them know if you'll be able to make it. Thank you!!!!

(See Paige - I told you I'd post... ) ;-)

Well, it might be a boy!

I went back to the doc today and he now thinks that it might be a boy. :-) The kid was covering certain "parts", so we (again) couldn't tell for sure. I'm going back in again next week, so hopefully we'll be able to get a better picture then!

On another note, if you could please pray for the baby and the pregnancy, it would be greatly appreciated. The baby is looking nice and healthy, but my body is doing some things that may make it necessary for him/her to come early. We would obviously like to avoid that, so your prayers would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Camping and Old Sac

Some friends of ours, Paige & Oscar, were kind enough to let us use their already reserved campsite this weekend! (They were not able to use due to family illnesses - please keep them in your prayers.) Well, we found out about the site on Friday afternoon and left on Friday evening. (Who knew I could be that spontaneous?!?!) On the train on Friday morning, I spent about half the ride talking to my dad about how much I wanted to go camping, then Paige offered up the site the exact same day! How could I say no? Sooo, since Donovan had to work, Kaya, my mom, and I packed up and left. We had a great time! Kaya has decided that sleeping in tents and getting dirty are two of the greatest things in the world. I can't even describe the level of dirtiness that we reached. I was happy to let her get dirty and have a good time. :-)

In the rush to leave, I totally forgot my camera. I was quite bummed about that, but we had a really great time! We got there at about 7:20 on Friday night, set up the tent, started a fire, and roasted marshmallows. This was Kaya's first camping trip, so everything was fascinating to her. She didn't like the marshmallows roasted at all, but she loved sticking them in the fire! I told her that when you go camping you get to stay up late, eat junk, and get dirty, so she kept saying things like, "I'm hungry - can I have some junk?" It was pretty funny. We didn't get to bed until about 11:00 that night and Kaya woke us both up at about 6:30 in the morning. We spent today (Saturday) doing things like getting dirty, wading in the river water, pedaling a boat, watching peacocks, chasing lizards, bbq-ing over a fire pit, etc. We decided to come back tonight instead of early Sunday morning to make it back for Father's Day, so we left at about 8:00 and Kaya was asleep within about 5 minutes of starting the drive home. We're home now and had a great time! We made lots of good memories and Kaya has discovered that she loves camping!

Thank you Paige & Oscar!!!

On another note,

Last Saturday, I got to spend a little bit of time with Kaya in Old Sac and managed to get a few pictures. It's been so long since we'd had a chance to do this that Kaya wasn't really sure what to do and wasn't terribly cooperative. I can't really blame her though - there were a lot of fun things to do that I kept trying to pull her away from. After about 20-ish minutes of picture taking, I decided that I'd rather spend some quality time with her and we spent the rest of the evening having fun in Old Sac. I did manage to get a bit though, so here you go. As you can see, a lot of these are her own poses - very contemplative and serious... ;-)

Grammy & Papa's house for Kaya and Monterey for mommy & daddy

I know, I know - it's been a REALLY long time since our last post. But here we are again!

This last week, Donovan & I (Jennifer) were given the opportunity to spend 3 nights in Monterey and it was very nice! While we were gone, Kaya got to stay with Grammy & Papa.

While at Grammy & Papa's house, Kaya got to do all sorts of fun stuff. She got to help Papa make cookies, play outside (a lot), use chalk to draw on their driveway, go to the coffee shop with Papa, play with Emma the dog and Molly the cat, and lots more. She had quite a fun time being spoiled and did very well while we were gone. Apparently, Molly (the cat) is no longer afraid of Kaya and Kaya is no longer afraid of her. Here's a picture to prove it! (Just in case you can't tell what's going on, Kaya's swinging Molly's toy in front of her and Molly's getting ready to strike)

Since Kaya's now in her twin bed at home, her toddler bed is at their house. Here's some pictures of her in her PJs getting ready for bed.

And some pictures that Kaya took...

Self Portraits:



A lovely picture of Papa (which I'm sure he's going to love me for sharing ;-) )

And raisins. Apparently they're fascinating...

While Kaya was having fun at Grammy & Papa's house, Donovan & I were having a good time in Monterey. Our wonderful family and friends were kind enough to pay for a delayed honeymoon and it was quite nice to get away with each other. It was nice just to be able to see each other for more than a half hour in a day and even nicer that it was Monterey.

We left on Sunday morning and got there before check in time that afternoon, so went to see Indiana Jones at the movies. :-) Just in case you're wondering, it was very Indiana Jones-y, which we both enjoyed very much. We went to a local pizza place for dinner then settled in for the night. With the room darkening shade, we both slept pretty late on Monday & Tuesday and didn't leave the hotel room until around 11:30.

Monday, we spent the day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and on Cannery Row. The Aquarium was very interesting and Cannery Row was very nice. We ate dinner at Bubba Gumps and spent some time just sitting on the beach. Donovan had never even stuck his feet in the bay or the ocean so it took a little convincing, but once he did he had a good time.

Tuesday, we ventured out to Fisherman's Wharf and went to the History Museum, then spent the afternoon on the beack and walking around the shops on Lightouse (the street that our hotel was on). We had a very good dinner at a place called International Cuisine (which was recommended by a co-worker) and then brought ice cream back to our room and played some board games for a while before we settled in.

We had a late breakfast on Cannery Row on Wednesday, then left for Sacramento. We made pretty good time and got to my parents' house around 3:00. We had a great time and were very glad to see Kaya when we got back. She seemed totally okay with us being gone for as long as we were, which made being away much easier, but I (of course) still missed her. :-)

Here's some pictures from Monterey. Most of them are from the aquarium shot through glass (or splashed on plastic) with very bad lighting (in other words, very slow shutter speed and not the sharpest of pictures). Soooo.... the pictures aren't the greatest, but they're definitely enough to remember the trip by. :-) (Note: I didn't enhance these pics in any way - the colors are just that cool)

Thanks for looking!

(I'll post again after our next ultrasound on Wednesday afternoon.)