Merry Christmas!

http://www.miniusa.com/crm/ecard_holiday_2008/MyCard?pid=1001055&check=B242K62AEQCATI6I

Operation Move-Out has initiated!

Since the three of us live in an apartment about the size of a postage stamp, we're VERY excited to begin our move. We got pre-approved for a mortgage and started looking at houses. My favorite so far is a 2-story house with the front door smack dab in the middle--between 1st and 2nd floors. FUN.

Amazing recipes!

I'm not the biggest homemaker there is, and I normally don't like cooking, but I DO like making new things, new foods included.

So I found this website--www.kingarthurflour.com--and it has TONS of amazing FREE recipes that are actually easy and DELICIOUS. They even have a blog that shows pictures of each step of the recipe.

From their site, I've made:
Vermont cheddar soup
bread bowls
all-American ham and cheese roll
granola bars
pizza
spicy spiral bread
whole wheat pancakes
savory meat pie

Hungry yet? It's amazing.

Traditions

As we approach this holiday season, let us take a moment and ponder our traditions.Some traditions are linked to holidays, such as enormous feasts at Thanksgiving and bringing trees inside your house for Christmas.
Some traditions are linked to places. My favorite place tradition (okay, so I've only done this twice, but, hey) is related to foreign countries: in both New Zealand and Italy, we bought a tub of ice cream and ate as much of it as we could in our hotel room. FUN.
Some traditions are linked to time. I used to get sick/incapacitated every year during summer vacation, beginning, I think, when I was 8 and broke my arm. One summer, starting the DAY AFTER school got out, I got bronchitis and was sick for TWO WEEKS straight.
Apparently, I've continued that tradition, only I've moved the timeframe. Last November, I got food poisoning so bad...I'll spare you the details, but I passed out at one point (and I'm not the fainting type) and I was definitely dehydrated by the end of it.
THIS November, I decided to carry on the seeming-near-death illness tradition by getting an infection. It came on really suddenly, and within a few minutes, I was freezing cold. Jacob brought the tempertature up to 83 degrees, and I was covered in blankets, but was still freezing and shivering uncontrollably. My fingertips went numb and Jacob said my hands even turned blue. CRAZY.But, never fear, it's all good now. I spent yesterday in bed and I feel SO MUCH BETTER.
And whoever invented Tylenol (particularly Extra Strength Tylenol), is AMAZING. A few minutes after I took that, I was starting to feel normal-ish temperature and the shivering stopped. YAY. Also taking an antibiotic, which is VERY effective in killing off the icky infection.

blooooood

Aghhh!! Zade had a bloody nose last night--I was SO WORRIED!! It's terrible to see your little baby bleeding!! :( :( :( Fortunately, it was just a normal, small nosebleed (the air was really dry yesterday) so it stopped quickly, but I was plenty upset about the whole ordeal. ;)

Speaking of blood, I just finished reading this great book--a history on the Spartans. I read it as research for this book I'm writing. It was pretty interesting--the Spartan culture was just fascinating. The whole "speaking of blood" relevance is because the Spartans wore red capes into battle so, if they were wounded, the redness would hide the blood, and the Spartans would appear invincible.
Random!

misc

Being a mom is SO amazing! I love it!

Our little Zade is now 15 pounds--I think he's trying to catch up to his nearby cousins who are 7, 8, and 9 months older than him.

He's holding his head up amazingly well now. He talks and coos and laughs ALL the time, which is one of my FAVORITE parts.

Today, he was sitting in his swing with toys hanging over him and he kept giggling at them (especially when they wiggled). It is so cool to see how he's trying to figure out how to touch them.

Zade and mirrors

Zade can now see himself in a mirror. But when I'm holding him, he looks at me in the mirror, pauses a second, and then starts crying. I like to think it's because he sees me in the mirror and then thinks, "Wait a second--if mommy is over there, then WHO is this person holding me?"
It's so cute!

Zade laughing

After many failed attempts to catch Zade laughing on camera, I finally succeeded on October 17:

Zade got SHOT!

Okay, so he got shots, not shot. Poor little guy. His face turned such an intense red, like a red crayon--THAT red. And then he started screaming bloody murder. Fortunately, he calmed down pretty quickly, but, man, I felt traumatized by it, too (ah, the joys of being a mother, eh?). Another fortunate thing was that the nurse was incredibly fast--she was starting the second shot before Zade even started screaming, and then all of the shots were suddenly done and there were cool Looney Tunes bandaids covering them. Talk about speedy.

smiles and laughter

Zade can smile now!!! On purpose and all! He's so cute! Jacob is especially good at getting him to laugh.

baby blessing

Yay! We were so lucky to have so much family close by who could come.. and even those not close by who came anyway (like Thomas and Dorothy, who drove for 3 hours just to get there!).

marathon eating...

Whoa... Zade must be going through a growth spurt... yesterday, he ate once an hour, almost every hour, from 4 pm to midnight. And these weren't little snacks, either, but full-on meals. He's getting so big and cute! He's nearly outgrown all his newborn-sized clothes and is moving on to the 3-month sizes, even though he's hardly a month old.

He found his thumb today! So cute. And he's getting a lot more control over his arms. He can also lift his head a lot more. So exciting!

Pictures will come when I upload them... (they can't be uploaded onto this computer b/c of the operating system, so I have to upload them onto a different computer, then transfer them to this one...)

Zade pictures

Zade: 12 minutes old:

Zade and his daddy:

Zade after his first bath:

ZADE!

Our litle bundle of wonderfulness is here! he's so absolutely adorable! will post pics once we upload them. :)
8 lbs, 11 oz, 18.9 in, born on 08/08/08.

Wedding pictures

These are from last year, but since I didn't have a blog then, you get the pictures now. :) I still can't believe we're married... or that someone as incredibly amazing as Jacob actually exists...




The getaway car:

Oh, baby!

Like father, like son: Here's a pic of the COOOOOOLEST maternity shirt ever! I'll get a better one posted when I have someone around to take the picture for me...





and a side view of the HUGE belly:





and the crib, all ready for the baby:

I went to the doctor last week... I was 3 cm dialated and 80% effaced, so that's good progress. We'll see the status again today... I'm hoping the baby will come THIS WEEKEND!! Crazy, eh? But I've been having lots of stronger contractions, so I'm hopeful.

my own boss!

YEAH! Talk about amazing. I'm gone from my day job of editing, and now am working as a freelancer. At the moment, I have two graphic design jobs going, which are actually lots of fun. It's the best.

And I have to say, it's amazing how God will bless you before you even get to the point of needing the blessing. I've been trying to find some sort of work that I could do from home, so I could be a mom all day, and here, before the first baby is even born, I have three different opportunities set up--the two graphic design jobs and an occasional writing job (for a magazine). It's amazing.

Italy!

ITALY!
For our (somewhat delayed) honeymoon, we went to ITALY ! Wow. Amazing. Incredible.

Rome
Our first stop, and my favorite city. It’s a crazy blend of modern and ancient—behind the roads filled with Mini Coopers (and even smaller cars) are ruins of one sort or another, in various stages of excavation or renovation.
The Colosseum is… wow, just amazing. During the day and the night.
The tour bus brought us back to the hotel in the early afternoon, but we wanted to go back to see the Colosseum at night, so we hopped on a random city bus. We were so far from the city center that we weren’t on any of the maps, so we had no idea if it was the right bus or not. But it got us to a station that actually was on the map and, with some help from the locals, we made our way to Rome.

Florence
Every day we were in Italy, we had perfect, beautiful weather—except the day we were in Florence. Fortunately, there’s this great little church (that used to be a granary) where we took refuge for a while.
And all the pictures, statues, and other replicas of Michelangelo’s David are NOTHING compared to the real thing, standing in all its glory at the Accademia Museum. Wow.
The Duomo was amazing, too, and the Gates of Paradise were breathtaking. Astounding.

Pisa
The Leaning Tower is pretty cool in person, even though it’s such a touristy place. The baptistery (for which the tower was built) is cool because it was built out of some other building—you can see words and random carvings from the previous building in the stones they re-used.

Venice
Ahh, Venice. And, yes, it does look just like the movies show it, at least from the waterfront. All the streets are about the size of alleys in America, since everything is so crowded together. We took a fun gondola ride and got to be in the boat with the musicians!