Go Ravens!

Katie is showing her Raven spirit today as we celebrate John's football team's big win! Go Ravens!

Christmas 2008, Part 1

Happy New Year!

I'm hopelessly behind on this blog, so I'm going to throw up a few photos and a video of Katie enjoying some of her Christmas gifts, and will tell you our family's Christmas tale a little later with more photos.

Katie was sick on Christmas, so we spent Christmas Eve at home. Poor baby -- you can tell she doesn't look well in these photos. On Christmas Eve, she opened up some Sesame Street DVDs and a Melissa & Doug puzzle:


Since the rest of my family had been sick that week as well, we were thankfully able to get together with them on Christmas Day without worrying about spreading germs. Grandma and Grandpa (my parents) gave Katie several gifts, including an Elmo Live! doll and an interactive Elmo book:

My parents gave me a pretty pearl necklace/earring set, but Katie quickly claimed them for herself:

And Uncle Mike (my brother) gave Katie a giant car, which she loves riding around our house these days:On Christmas Day, Katie also got to open up another gift from Mommy and Daddy -- a barking, walking dog that we picked up for her at the beach. Despite the wierd expression, she loves her "puppy"!

Several days later, when we were pretty sure the flu was a thing of the past, we were finally able to celebrate Christmas with John's family. Here Katie's Aunt Laura helps her ride the beautiful neighing rocking horse that Uncle Jamie and Aunt Amanda gave her.

John's parents, Grammy and JayPa, spoiled a happy Katie with a boatload of gifts. That's what grandparents are for, right? Here Katie sits atop a packaged alphabetical/numerical puzzle mat while holding her new baby doll. The box with her new playhouse is at her feet.


Katie also received a LeapFrog magnetic farm from Aunt Laura (John's sister). The highlight of the farm should be that Katie gets to match animal heads and tails, but she's been having way too much fun dancing to the songs the farm makes:

Thanks to everyone who helped turn my sick daughter's Christmas week into a week of fun and toys!

Once We Had a Yard...

and now it's gone!

We're undergoing the house project of our lives right now. In preparing to finish our basement and turn it into a playroom, John discovered small cracks in the cinder block walls. While we were assured by many that it wasn't a huge deal, we've come to realize over many months that our foundation was never waterproofed, and thus the moisture from the yard outside has been pushing our walls inward and compromising the foundation of the entire house. Ugh.

I'm thankful for honest and helpful contractors who have helped us diagnose, and now fix, the situation. This week we are paying an exorbitant amount of money (equal to more than 50% of my early post-college paychecks) to a landscaping company who is pulling up all of our bushes, digging 7-foot trenches around our house, taking a closer look at newly-discovered cracks in the walls, waterproofing the foundation and walls, and demolishing our backyard in order to regrade it. This is no small feat. There are typically a half-dozen guys here working their butts off, and we've also seen some heavy machinery.

Boy I wish our little boy was able to see this -- he'd go crazy checking out the trucks! One of Katie's little boy neighbors has been watching intently from the sidewalk across the street.

Here are some photos of the demolition. I sure hope we have enough money leftover to actually do the playroom! And we're definitely interested in any of your recommendations for small, shade-friendly, low-maintenance plants that deer won't eat. We'll have to replant our entire yard.

Backyard:

In this first photo, you can see the top of a man's head in the trench near the corner of the house. The second shows all that's remaining of our backyard -- just the swingset and the shed! -- and you can also see the pieces of the window wells, which they had to pull out. The third photo is of a forklift, which was carrying huge cement slabs out of our yard. To be honest, I really have no idea where those slabs even were to begin with.




Front Yard:

This first photo is from our front door, showing the pile of just some of the trees and bushes that they've had to pull up. The second photo is another similar pile, and also shows the tree stump from a tree that John and our neighbor Sean pulled down this weekend by themselves (ack!). The contractor offered to pull up and haul away anything in our yard that John was able to cut down, so John took the opportunity to get rid of an ugly tree that was interfering with some power lines.

First photo: A row of bushes used to frame the path leading to the backyard. Second photo is a huge piece of equipment (is it called a backhoe?) that they had to specially bring in today when they realized that our wall cracks went below the level they could dig out with their smaller machines.

Here's the trench in the front yard, as well as a larger view showing a very bare front yard.

As a point of comparison, here's what our house looked like six years ago when we bought it. Not that the landscaping ever looked that nice again after we assumed responsibility for it. :-)

Katie Performs for the Camera

These three videos astound me. I can't believe how quickly Katie learns things, especially if they're put to music!

Katie has learned the motions to "If You're Happy and You Know It", demonstrated on the beach on November 9:

From her obsessive watching of "Sesame Street" videos, Katie has learned many of the lyrics to the Madeline Kahn/Grover echo song "Sing After Me" (if you're not familiar with that song, you can watch the original version here).

And this weekend we introduced Katie to "The Muppets Take Manhattan", which was my brother Stephen's favorite movie as a preschooler. One of my favorite scenes in the movie has Miss Piggy fantasizing about what it would have been like to have been babies together with the other muppets (seen in this clip starting at the 2:00 point) (I believe this scene inspired my favorite childhood cartoon, "Muppet Babies"). Katie also loves this scene, and had a dance party on the couch this weekend to express her enjoyment:

I Never Thought I Would See This Day Again

Gas under $2.00. Did you ever think you'd see this day again? All I can say is, Praise God!

Halloween 2008

Well you know I'm behind on blogging when I'm not posting our Halloween adventures until November 19! Sorry!

Our Halloween adventures lasted a week, so let me give you the scoop chronologically.

Saturday, October 25

Our friends David and Emily threw a wonderful Halloween party. The kids' costumes were a big hit. Katie was Nemo (aka "fishy fishy" since she's never seen "Finding Nemo"). Her friends Hannah and Meghan also got in on the animal fun.

Katie got into the groove at the party by dancing in her fishy costume:

Friday, October 31

Katie went trick or treating for the first time. We only visited a handful of neighbors (the ones we know best) but she wasted no time learning how to show off for candy. :-)

Saturday, November 1

For me, the biggest event of the Halloween season is our neighborhood block party, which includes a costume contest. Last year Katie the Lion won 3rd place. Could she outdo herself this year?

Sadly, John couldn't come, so I recruited my saintly future sister-in-law Lindsey to help me watch Katie and take pictures. Katie LOVES her Aunt Lindsey!

But before we get to the costume contest, let me tell you about Katie's other fun block party adventures. She amused herself (and the rest of us) by trying to eat the ice in the drink bin, saying hi to a neighborhood dog, and picking up all the leftover toilet paper from a Dress-Your-Mom-Like-A-Mummy contest.

So now, back to the contest. Katie had stiff competition from about two dozen of the neighborhood kids:

The awards were given out based upon applause level, so when it was Katie's turn to shine, she made sure to applaud for herself:

Sure enough, her clapping must have helped, because Katie made the semifinal round. And when the applause was tallied again, Katie got... 2nd place! Go Katie!!!

Katie enjoyed the entire afternoon, but was glad to cuddle up with Aunt Lindsey and Sesame Street afterwards while Mommy helped clean up.

It's a Boy!

It took less than a minute for our sonographer to be able to tell us what gender our new baby is!

All measurements and indicators are looking wonderful. And John and I (and most everyone who ventured to guess) were right in our guesses that it's a boy. It's a happy discovery. I know that boys can be a handful. But it also means that our last name will be carried into another generation, and that John has a little boy to teach lacrosse to (although I'm sure Katie will also get lacrosse lessons from Daddy).

I'm even gaining less weight than I'm allowed to gain. If only I felt that way -- I feel huge! My second trimester has definitely been harder than my first. As Baby Boy Biddison gets bigger, he's pushing into my stomach, which means I'm often having stomachaches, especially at bedtime. And worst of all is my back -- it's hard carrying one baby in my arms and one in my tummy! Still, I'm really glad that our baby seems to be healthy -- it makes the rest worth it.

Thanks for your prayers!