tired Saturday

Liza is still very cute. Sarah is very tired--tired enough to sleep through a parade. In fact, she's doing that very thing right now.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

How lovely are thy branches!

And they are quite lovely. Jordan found us a great Christmas Tree this year. On Wednesday Jordan took the day off, we borrowed a friend's truck and went up to Cloudcroft to find ourselves a tree. When we arrived, Liza had to eat so Jordan and Heidi went scouting. They found a great tree in about 20 minutes (compared to 1.5 - 2 hours last year)! Liza and I joined them and Jordan cut down our tree. Heidi had a great time running around and sniffing everything. Liza slept the whole time in her sling.

(Liza is in the brown bundle that I'm holding)

We forgot to bring our Mino with us so I took this video with Jordan's camera... unfortunately I forgot that we don't know how to rotate videos... so please turn your head 90 degrees for this one.

Today Liza is 1 month old!! :-) We really can't believe that that much time has gone by already. When we got out of the car to go into church, Jordan said, "Only 215 more months until she leaves us!" We both agreed that that doesn't seem like enough time.

After a good week, including one day of vacation to spend at home, Sarah and I are now enjoying the weekend. We watched Wall·E tonight and really enjoyed it.

Liza is a bit fussy lately, but she's just being a baby. Heidi has been a bit demanding and whiny lately, but at least she no longer goes crazy when Liza sneezes—only when we sneeze.

Apparently Liza is almost 4 weeks old. Yikes! That went quickly.

I took the day off today to stay home with Liza and Sarah. We both did a few errands, but we did get to spend a lot of time together, and then we went to Cloudcroft to cut down a Christmas tree. (Jeff and Sara, you were in our thoughts a lot today.) We were slightly more successful this year in finding a good tree, mostly due to the fact that there was so little snow on the ground.

Pictures to come...

I don't want to go to church!

This first picture is from Liza's first time going to church... She wasn't very happy about it and she wouldn't keep her socks on.

Hanging out with Mom

Hanging out with Dad

Hanging out on the play mat

Hanging out with the family on Thanksgiving

Today was Liza's first Thanksgiving. She didn't eat any turkey, but we went over to a friend's house where she met a ton of people! We had a great time and lots of food. We made the potatoes (sweet and regular mashed) and other people brought all kinds of other things. I'd say that overall it was a success. We even have left overs for later! We tried to take a family picture and that was the best we got. It took lots of tries to get Liza awake and happy!

For your enjoyment, here is a short clip of Liza hiccuping.

Also, I wanted to take a video of Liza "playing" on her mat, but she doesn't really do much! It's cute anyways though. I like the little noises that she makes. :-)

Poor Liza

So I think it's gas that's making her fussy, but every night for the past few nights Liza has cried and cried and cried. I don't know how long it usually lasts or if it always happens at the exact same time, but she just has had such a hard time! I know she's in pain because of how she's crying... I suppose I should try to figure out if I'm eating something that's hurting her stomach.

Liza had her first Dr.'s appointment yesterday! (Tuesday) She's doing very well and the nurse practitioner's exact words were, "Oh! she's just a thriving baby!" Liza has gained a pound since she was born so she now ways 9lbs. 15oz! I guess there's no need to be concerned with whether or not she's getting enough to eat! It was nice to go to the doctor and hear that everything is going well.

Tomorrow is Liza's first Thanksgiving! We're planning on going over to Jordan's commander's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It should be fun! I'll be sure to share how Liza's first Thanksgiving goes. :-)

The i is pronounced eye not ee

Liza not Leeza.

Liza's been sleeping in her crib for a week now! She's doing really well in there and doesn't seem to miss her laundry basket at all! :-)

Yesterday was Liza's first time going to church! I was hoping that she would make it through Sunday School, but she had a different plan. I ended up missing all of it and Liza and I hung out in the nursery the entire time. After Sunday School one of our friends took her and held her for the entire service. She slept like a baby... oh wait. Liza was very content to sleep in someone else's arms! I'd say it was a successful church visit overall.

Last night our church had a Thanksgiving dinner and Liza did great there as well! I was a little concerned about her because I thought she might wake up and want to eat early, but she waited until we got in the car to get fussy and she ate when we got home! Yay!

It's funny how these are now the things that I get excited about everyday... Liza sleeping and Liza eating... oh dear.

2 weeks!

Today, Liza is two weeks old. Yesterday was Heidi's first birthday and I didn't remember until around 8pm! She got TWO treats though and didn't even have to do anything for them. Wow I wish my birthdays were that good!

For Liza's two week birthday Jordan's squadron threw her a Luau! No not really but there was a Luau and we did go to it. It was basically just a BBQ and an opportunity for Jordan's squadron to kick back and relax. Lots of people got to see Liza and say how cute she is. One guy (I'm pretty sure his name was Jared) said "Oh, she's not that ugly." Thanks Jared! ;-)

When I got home with Liza it was time for her to eat and boy was she hungry! She ate a ton. I was changing her diaper (and of course she was crying) and when she suddenly stopped fussing I didn't think anything of it until I looked up and saw that she had spit up and was now lying in a pool of milk! It looked like a good amount got in her ear too. Silly thing. I guess she ate too much. She doesn't usually spit up after meals... not yet anyways.

There's not much new to report. Liza likes to sleep, eat, look around and sleep again. Here are some new pictures though!

This is a picture from Liza's first outing. (Yes it was that cold, but this was just too cute not to put on her!) We went out to coffee with my parents one morning. I think this was on Monday the 10th! She was only 3 days old :-).

Here is Jordan hanging out with Liza... he already looks like a proud father.

This picture was taken last night. Liza had her second bath (her first was on Sunday) and was very cold afterwards! After we wrapped her up like this she was much happier. (If you're wondering why there's no cover on that changing pad it's because Liza pooped on it earlier.)

At last

Well I can finally give a little bit of an update about Liza and how we're all doing back here at home! I've probably had plenty of time to sit down and do this but my parents just left and I was enjoying spending time with them while they were here.

I'll start with last Thursday night (Nov. 10th). When Jordan and I pictured our trip to the hospital to have our baby, neither of us really pictured a leisurely drive up the mountain, but that's exactly what it was! We were supposed to get to the hospital at 5:30pm to start the induction process so we left a little early and ate at the Subway across the street from the hospital. Thursday night was fine. It was a little hard to sleep because I had to stay still. I couldn't lay on my side because Liza's heart rate kept dropping a little. At one point they decided to give me oxygen to make sure that Liza had enough. If you've looked at our pictures on Picasa, that's what those pictures are from. (By the way I'm not super excited about all of the pictures that Jordan put on there... I'm not sure I wanted the world to see me at my "best" while in labor!) Jordan didn't wake up when they came in to give it to me so when they left and I finally got his attention he freaked out for a second. ;-)

Friday morning at 8:30ish Dr. Harkins (our obstetrician) came in and started the pitocin. It wasn't so bad until they broke my water around noon. After that, I started to feel the contractions a lot more and by 5 I was really having a hard time. I had decided that I wanted to try my best to go without an epidural, but at 5 when they checked to see how far along I was and I still had a while to go, I realized that I needed to give in and just get the epidural. Boy was it worth it! ;-) Since I was able to relax more, the last part of labor went a lot faster and by 8:48pm we had our little Liza! I think Jordan was thankful for the epidural as well because he didn't have to be concerned about my pain and was able to just enjoy the whole experience.

Since we've been home things have been going really well. My parents were here and my mom helped out so much. She cleaned all sorts of stuff that I didn't even know was dirty, and she made us some meals that she put in the freezer for us to enjoy later. We played lots of Bridge too and Jordan and I really enjoyed that.

Now Jordan and I are alone with the baby! So far we're doing a good job, but this is only our first day. Liza got her first bath today and other than that she's just been sleeping. We'll see how I do tomorrow by myself all day with Jordan at work and no more parents, but I'm sure that all will go well. Liza has been really easy so far and just an incredible blessing. Jordan and I just love her so much and we can't wait to share her with all of you!

Since Jordan posted a video of Liza crying, I thought I'd at least try to share a video where she's a little more pleasant. This one is really short, but yesterday when my mom was changing her, Liza was just so happy to be on her changing pad and kick all over the place! I only caught the end of it but she's just so cute!

awake

My parents wanted to see some more of Liza awake and alert, so we took this video.

Liza

Liza Massie Firth
7 November 2008 at 8:48 PM
8lb 14oz
21½in






(Liza is short for Elizabeth)

Everybody is home and doing well.

Countdown

So that little baby countdown thingy is getting removed because it obviously messes up after you go past your due date. It's starting to add days back on! It now says 2 days left! What?! I don't think so... So don't think that the baby is here. She's not... she just doesn't have a countdown anymore. :-)

Due Date

Well I tried to talk to the baby today and tell her that it's rude to be late but I guess she didn't take too well to her first life lesson. Not one contraction today but I suppose there are still a few hours left. When I realized that she wasn't coming today regardless of whether or not I told her it was rude not to, I assured her that if she at least started trying to come out today then that would be alright. So far she hasn't cared too much about that either.

Jordan finished putting down the carpet in the storage room today! Now he has to put up trim and then we can start putting it together! We're getting closer and closer to an organized house. At this rate we'll be completely organized for a couple of days and then we can start packing for our move! Ha. I'm just teasing. Jordan is doing a fantastic job with all of our projects and they have all made our house look and feel a lot better.

Doctor's appointment tomorrow! We'll see what he says. :-)

1 more day?

Still no baby! The countdown thingy says 1 more day, but we'll see. The due date is tomorrow though! That's exciting because even if she doesn't come tomorrow, she will come soon.

At my last appointment, (last Tuesday) Dr. Harkins decided that he wanted to induce labor at 41 weeks. After realizing that he would be out of town that day (Monday, the 10th) he scheduled me for induction on the 7th which is this Friday! So only 5 more days no matter what! Please pray that the baby would come before that though. I really don't want to be induced and would rather have her naturally without the pitocin. (The drug that they give you to make your contractions start) If you think about it, your prayers would be appreciated. We're so thankful for all of you that are praying already. :-)

Heidi seems to be feeling much better! I was going to take her to the vet tomorrow, which I was a little concerned about because of how much it costs to take her in, but she has been so much better today that I don't think that I'll need to! She must have had some sort of doggy cold or flu. She had been coughing/gagging, had diarrhea and a runny nose, was scratching her ears, and was just really lethargic. Today she was smelling EVERYTHING. It was almost like her nose hadn't been working for a few days and suddenly today everything was new and needed to be sniffed! She seems much happier and it makes me feel better about taking her to the kennel when it's time for the baby to come. What a relief. :-) (She doesn't do very well at the kennel as it is so that's why I was concerned)

Well that's all that's new. I have another Dr.'s appointment on Tuesday so if I find out any new information I'll be sure to pass it along!

Still Waiting...

No baby yet! We're still waiting. My due date is 2 days away so... yeah that doesn't really mean anything. She's just going to come when she's ready!

Poor Heidi has something wrong with her ears. She's been shaking her head and looking around like she hears a noise. She's scratched them a few times too. If she's still bothered by them on Monday when the vet opens I'll take her in to see if there's something we can do for her. I just feel badly because she's miserable. If the baby comes, then I guess she'll have to just wait until we can take her in. Poor dog... she's already being pushed aside for the baby. Her life is about to change drastically! She'll do fine.

Weekend Visitors

We had quite the weekend this weekend! Some of Jordan's friends from his Academy days came to visit this weekend. Tripp and Carly Johnson and Sam de la Rosa came in on Friday night and just left this afternoon. It was great to catch up with them and spend some time with good friends.

Saturday we had a big breakfast, the guys tossed around the football in the park, Sam and Jordan went to the Space Museum, and that night we went to Casa de Suenos! Today we went to church, had lunch, and then went and walked around Cloudcroft for a while. They left from there and now Jordan and I are just relaxing before church. I wanted to share this video that we took of Heidi and the Johnson's dog Jackson playing together.

Jackson was really cute and really soft. He's a mutt that they got at Walmart a few months ago.

Well other than that there's not much going on around here. We're still waiting on the baby. According to our little countdown thingy there are 8 days to go!

storage room progress report

Tonight I worked on the storage room- one of our "bedrooms" that we are transforming from a storage room to a storage room. It does actually make sense though. Previously lots of things were stored in there over many months as I threw them on the floor; when we finish there will be shelves, boxes, and organization galore.

This room is in an awkward location in our house, so it is a natural for a storage room. It looked pretty bad though, and although I couldn't tell, it smelled pretty strongly of cat pee. After Sarah told me about it we decided to rip up the carpet (it's the only room in our house with carpet) and lay down some new carpet that was not infused with the stench created by years of cats missing the litter box. We were going to do this 2 weekends ago. So 2 weekends ago I ripped up the carpet with zeal, only to discover that it would take a lot longer than I first thought. I have been working on it ever since.

In the first place, as I was ripping the carpet up the smell nearly knocked me over. Gross! Once I had the carpet up I realized that I needed to clean the floor really well with TSP (and floors under carpets are DISGUSTING). That took an afternoon. Once I had clean floors I realized that it would be best if I painted the walls before I put the carpet down, and of course I had to repair the drywall before I painted the walls. I have been working on that for several days now.

Tonight I started painting, kind of. In an effort to keep the odor away, I sprayed some Kilz on the bottom of the walls and on the complete floor. I'm done for the night, so that is all the progress for now.

The Kilz was an oil-based spray primer labeled "odor-free" but the label was not even close to accurate. I kept the window and doors open, but I am still feeling not that great; it takes quite some time to spray paint a whole floor.

So, the process continues, but we are getting ever closer. Someday the room will be a storage/sewing/woodworking/TV room.

Jordan the writer

So yesterday we walk into church to go to Sunday School, and a lady stops us in the hallway and says, "Jordan! I read your thing in the paper!" Needless to say I was very confused because Jordan had neglected to inform me that he had written a letter to the editor of our local paper! He said that he had planned to tell me about it if they contacted him letting him know that they were going to publish it. They never did contact him, so I'm glad that our friend from church told him about it! Otherwise, we may have never known it was there. (We don't get the paper)

It's currently (Monday, Oct. 20) the 2nd most viewed thing on the Alamogordo Daily News website! Jordan and I have really enjoyed looking at comments that people have posted about it. Some people just don't understand satire.... others just want to start talking about politics! I guess that is what is on everyone's minds these days.

If you want to take a look at it here is the link to the letter on the Alamogordo Daily News website:

http://www.alamogordonews.com/opinion/ci_10752151

P.S. Be warned! It seems that whoever is in charge of advertising with our newspaper is a huge Obama fan! (Either that or Obama has just taken over the internet.) At any given time it seems that more than half of the advertisements on that site are selling Obama Biden. ;-)

Sarah is HUGE!

So here are some pictures from the baby shower last Saturday.

That's Kari Haug measuring her ribbon on my belly. Everyone guessed that my belly is bigger than it really is. No one's ribbon was too small... what does that mean??? I'll try not to think about it too much.

This is me measuring myself... I was exactly right. No overlap at all! The edges touched perfectly! It was a lucky guess I suppose.

That's Christie Hall there on the right. She's the one that told us about Dr. Harkins. She's been really encouraging throughout my pregnancy. She and her husband Kevin had Jordan and I over for dinner a couple of months ago and gave us lots of good advice. :-)

Finally, here is a picture from the Halloween party that we went to tonight. Do you get what we are?

Jordan is a speed bump warning sign and I am a (very large) speed bump! Jordan made those shirts this afternoon. He painted my tire with black craft paint and then ran over the shirt.

Well there ya go! More pregnant pictures and pictures from the baby shower. There are a few more pictures from tonight and from the shower here.

We're still waiting for the baby to arrive. I've had to chuckle a couple of times today when people have said to me, "oh! you're looking very... ready!" Haha I know that they almost said big but didn't want to hurt my feelings. It really doesn't bother me though because I know that the bigger I get, the closer we're getting to meeting our daughter. Jordan and I can't wait.

Third long weekend in a row!

So this is Jordan's third (yes third!) long weekend in a row! It's so nice to have him around so much! Two weekends ago was his first RDO (Regular Day Off). Now that he works at the Test Track he gets every other Friday off. They work an extra hour everyday in order to do that. Monday was Columbus day, and today was another RDO! Next weekend I'll be sad that I'll only have him here for 2 short days... Maybe the baby will come next week and we can make it 4 long weekends in a row! I'll have to give her a pep talk and sort that out.

Last Saturday some of my friends from Jordan's old squadron threw me a baby shower. It was a lot of fun. I do have pictures of it that I was going to put up here, but we've already packed the camera for the hospital, and I don't feel like digging through the bag to put them up. Yeah I know lame excuse, but I'll put them up later with the first pictures of our baby girl. I keep hoping that she'll come a little early (thanks to our Dr. saying that she might), but I'm trying to put it out of my mind since she's just going to get here when she gets here. Oh well.

Tonight we went over a to a new friend's house. He works in Jordan's new squadron and his fiancee came in for a visit. We played several games and just hung out for a while. It was a really good time. Tomorrow Jordan is going to continue working on putting down some new carpet in one of our rooms and I will attempt to organize the baby's room a bit. Then, we're going to have dinner with Jordan's BSU director from the Academy and his family. They're in town visiting his parents. After that, we're going straight to a Halloween party! Tomorrow will be a busy day for sure. We just got a new video camera in the mail today from my dad, so maybe we'll post something up from our adventures tomorrow night. :-)

this week

For those of you have not heard, I got a new job. I'm still at Holloman, but I moved to a new squadron, the High Speed Test Track. That has been going well and it seems to be a really fun job.

Last night I had a going away party with people from my old squadron. It was nice to have everybody in one place to say goodbye. As part of that I gave a gift to the squadron. That's the project that Sarah has been talking about.

I made a big (4' x 6') board with pegs on it for the squadron bar; they will put mugs on it. I bought all of the materials last weekend, but I did not actually start working on the project until Wednesday night. I had to stay up until about 1 in the morning both Wednesday and Thursday working on it because I had waited so long to start. It ended up looking really great, but I cannot put a picture of it here. Well I can, just not yet. It's at somebody else's house right now and I have not yet had a chance to take a picture of it. I'm going to help them hang it on the wall of the bar though, and I'll get a picture of it then. When you see a picture you'll understand why it took so long just to stain a board and glue some pegs to it.

Today a couple of friends came over and helped me set up my motorcycle (the carbs were very badly out of sync). I'm looking forward to riding it. Otherwise Sarah and I just relaxed and made milkshakes. Well, Sarah did have a baby shower this morning, but I don't know much about that.

...

I'm looking at that little countdown thingy to the right and thinking... 25 more days? .....ugggghhhh

I was so tired today. I'm sure that I'm still recovering a bit from Tuesday but sheesh. I pretty much slept the entire day away. I'm pretty sure that I slept for 8 of the 10 hours that Jordan was at work today. That's just ridiculous. I'm doing a lot better though if you're wondering. No nausea and yes, I'm drinking plenty of liquids (Mom).

Jordan is still working on his project, and it's looking really good! We finished the staining which he's touching up a bit, and then he just has to put in the pegs! I know you're probably wondering what it is, but I'll let you wonder a little longer until it's finished. It's cool though. :-)

I'm really excited about Thanksgiving. Danielle Anders called me yesterday, and a bunch of Jordan's friends from the Academy and their wives (well those who are married) are going to meet up in Clovis, NM at Cannon AFB, where a good amount of people we know are stationed right now, for a Thanksgiving get together! Last year we were fortunate enough to be able to spend Thanksgiving with Jeff and Sara Johnson some good friends of ours, but they have since moved and we just weren't sure what to do with ourselves. This is definitely the next best thing to spending the holiday with family. Jordan and I are really looking forward to it. (Besides it's a WHOLE lot cheaper than buying another set of plane tickets to NC)

We'll be in Charlotte for Christmas though and would love to see as many of our friends as we can. We'll have our baby girl to show off! We'll be around from 18 December to 1 January. Make plans people! Make plans! :-D

My First Hospital Visit Ever

So, I had my first ever hospital visit. I tried to tell Jordan that it was actually a good thing because now I won't be nervous about being at the hospital when the baby is born, but he didn't buy it... truthfully neither did I. You have to try to find some sort of silver lining though right?

Anyways, I think I ate a bad taco at Taco Bell on Sunday night which let to some food poisoning on Monday. I was feeling better on Monday night but by Tuesday afternoon I was feeling worse. I threw up 6 times on Tuesday (twice at the hospital). I didn't realize that I was in trouble until about 2pm on Tuesday. I figured that I was just sick and I would get better but what I didn't realize was how much more easily pregnant women get to a point with dehydration where it's a vicious cycle of drink, feel nauseous from dehydration, throw up, drink, feel nauseous from dehydration, throw up, you get the idea... So when I immediately threw up my water on Tuesday afternoon, I thought... hmm this isn't good. Luckily we had an appointment with the doctor just a couple of hours later, so I talked to him about it when we got there.

He sent us over to Labor and Delivery and I got my first IV! (feeble attempt at some silver lining...) May I suggest not allowing someone who needs "practice" to attempt putting in your IV... it wasn't a pleasant experience. My blood pressure dropped and I almost passed out. I was also having some significant contractions. After that though I just continued to feel better and better (despite a couple of batches of nausea), but we did end up having to stay the night for more fluids. Jordan didn't sleep well in the pullout chair, but I suppose he did get some practice sleeping in one of those for when our little girl arrives.

All in all I got nearly 4 bags of fluids and didn't really feel like I had to pee the whole time. I suppose by 8:30 this morning though they figured that I was alright and let us go home. Poor Heidi was in her crate from 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon until 10:30ish this morning (Wednesday). We did have a friend stop by to let her out to go to the bathroom Tuesday night but still... That's a long time for a dog to be in a crate! I felt badly for her.

Everyone is good now! The baby is fine, I'm fine, Heidi is fine, and Jordan is fine! We were actually working on a little project tonight that Jordan is putting together for the 586 FLTS. He recently switched to working at the test track (the 846 test squadron) and he has a "going away" party on Friday night! I'm sure he'll be happy to provide some pictures of the finished product before he gives it away.

Thanks everyone for all of your prayers. It's encouraging to know how many people are thinking of us and our little girl.

!

I finally got some news about the Astro teaching position at the Academy. I called, and I was told "Actually, we have decided to," dramatic, disappointing pause, "pick you."

Wow. It was a weird couple of seconds, but now I know that the Astro department picked me, and if everything goes well I will head to AFIT next summer, and the Academy after that. Praise God!

School

For those of you who can't stand the anticipation, here's an update of all the departments at the Air Force Academy who do NOT want me to teach for them.

In June I applied to teach for Mech or Aero. In August I went to Colorado Springs for an interview with the Mech Department. They have since ranked me 6 of 8 for 3 spots. Then Aero contacted me and a week later told me that they had not chosen me. The day before Aero's denial, Astro contacted me out of the blue, and I had to consider whether I would want to teach for them or not (I said yes). Astro passed my info to Systems Engineering (which isn't properly a department at all) who then called to ask if I was interested in SE, which did sound interesting to me. I was their second choice, but the Air Force would not let their first choice go. But then they did, so I'm out of that now.

If you were able to follow that, you realize that I am now waiting on Astro to hire me (or not) and send me to grad school. Barring that though, there is still a chance that the Air Force would just decide to send me even without any departments choosing me. Updates here as they are available.

pictures of Sarah

So many of you have asked me for pictures of the pregnancy, and I've done such a bad job! You'd think that we would have taken more pictures of this change, but we just didn't. These are a few pictures that we do have so I thought that I would share. (finally)

This first picture is of us with our good friends Jeff and Sara who moved to Del Rio, TX. (sad) This is the beginning of May when I was about 15 weeks pregnant... there's a little pooch.

This next picture is from July. Here I'm about 23 weeks pregnant... pooch has enlarged, and face has plumped ;-)

In this last picture, I am 34 weeks (exactly) 6 more to go WOOHOO! Pooch is more than a pooch now, it's more like a hard round ball that likes to bump into things all on it's own. Other places have "enlarged" as well now, but the good thing about that is this, I sure will feel good about myself when I lose all the weight! In all fairness though I've only gained about 23 pounds which isn't bad at all. Heidi has gotten bigger too! She is almost 65 pounds now!

So that's that! I promise to try to do a better job... that doesn't mean that I will, but I do promise to try. Don't worry about a lack of pictures of the baby! I know that we will take plenty of those.... we've taken plenty of Heidi. We're just bad at taking pictures of ourselves. I have another doctor's visit tomorrow which I expect to just be more of the same (listen to the heartbeat and measure to see how big she is). If anything interesting pops up though, I'll be sure to share!

Kitchen Pics

Here are some pictures of finished stuff in the kitchen for my Mom. It looks great- thanks Dad.

Weekend

My dad came out for the long weekend and we worked on several house projects together. Here is a picture of us in front of the cabinet/countertop we installed.

We needed several things done around the house and he helped me do them. Most importantly we replaced a section of our roof that was leaking. We also put in this countertop extension making our kitchen drastically more useful, and we put a track light in over the sink. All of them look fantastic. Thanks dad.

Old/New

finished

Well, I had my interview on Tuesday. Interviews actually. I was there from 8-330, with one major presentation and 6 mini-interviews. It was grueling and tiring, but it's done. So now there is nothing left for me to do but wait and pray for the job. And look up grad schools in case they pick me.

Wow

Jordan is amazing. I don't think I could handle a 6 hour interview/presentation day. I'm so impressed by and proud of him. I've been waiting around Colorado Springs all day looking at the clock and I finally get to go pick him up in about an hour. Pray for him if you think about it! No matter if he gets the job or not, we know that God's hand is in our future!

Our baby girl is doing well, but if you're pregnant and tall, it's impossible to find reasonably priced maternity clothes. I'm convinced that you just have to make it to the right store at the right time to find just the right thing. I found one store that carries long maternity jeans (Old Navy), but they were out of my size and not all Old Navys have maternity sections... ALSO, why doesn't every department store have maternity clothes???? So far JC Penney has been the only place I've found anything. So mom, no Sears does not have a maternity section.... at least not the two that I visited. I know that I'll find what I need online, but who really wants to pay for shipping???

I did find the newest MercyMe CD today for $7.99. That made me feel a lot better about my clothing failures.

Ready

Well, my interview with the Mech Department at the Air Force Academy is tomorrow. I just gave my practice presentation to Sarah, and I feel ready.

(it was the battery)

Disastrous Weekend

This was a disastrous weekend, electrically speaking. Fortunately, it was only a disaster and not a catastrophe.

It started on Friday when Sarah's car wouldn't. (Preliminary diagnosis: dead battery)

It continued as we were napping on Saturday: we heard a noise from our living room and the air conditioner turned off. After flipping the circuit breaker back on several times to try to locate the short, Sarah noticed the scent of an electrical fire and we were able to track it down to a dead power strip. Something inside had blown up and the wires were smoldering and melting the plastic. Fortunately it had not yet started to smoke or burn (Yay circuit breakers!)

Finally, our recently installed motion sensor light doesn't. One of the two just stays on all of the time. It looks like the internal electronic switch is toasted.

Sigh....

Land of Enchantment

weekend

Sarah and I spent a wonderful weekend with Sarah's parents. They were out here and we had a relaxing time with them, as well as getting a lot of work accomplised. Sarah and her mom worked on curtains and nursery items for several days, and I installed some lights and drywall. Here is the evidence:

These curtains are in the nursery


Here is a picture of the crib; they made bumpers, a coverlet, and a crib skirt.



They also made curtains for the family room.





Finally, I put up some exterior motion lights around the door that we installed about 6 months ago.


There are a few extra pictures here

and if you were wondering, our softball team didn't do so well and we're done for the season

some summer

Sarah and I have had a wonderful summer so far. Since we have not been giving you regular updates, I thought it would be nice to share some pictures.

We had to say goodbye to our dear friends Jeff and Sara as they left to go to Del Rio. We will miss them.


Shortly after that we went to Colorado for a long weekend to celebrate...


our first anniversary.

(the cake picture was actually taken a few weeks later--sorry I cheated).
Anyways, we had a great time in Colorado getting to see several friends and just relaxing: work had been pretty stressful before that.


Then I got promoted. Our squadron really did a great job for me.


Then we got to go to NC for a week or so on a vacation to see our families. We got to be there for father's day and managed to share dinner with everybody. Noah is gone because he is spending the summer in NY doing an AF program. He really enjoys it.

softball

Tonight our church softball team came one loss closer to the end of the year. It was the first night of the tournament. We won our first game which gave us a second game to play tonight, which we lost (to the best team). Now we're in the losers' bracket, but it was nice even to win the first game, and despite the score we didn't do so poorly in the second game either. Well, maybe I just feel that way because I did pretty well--better than usual.

Our next game is Thursday.

It has been a busy week. Our house was quite hectic with our friends over- two families and two dogs (who weren't allowed to play together). While Sugar was here though, Heidi learned not to pee in her crate when we left her, and she hasn't done it since. I think she would have been embarrassed to pee in front of another dog. Previously she had peed every single time we left her.

I have played basketball at church for a couple of Saturdays now, and it is a really good workout. The same was true today. I also worked in the yard for a while, and while our grass in the front is a bit thin, thin looks better than thin and overgrown. Now we just have to plant some flowers and bushes and it will look great.

Heidi weighed 54 pounds last time we had her weighed, so she's pretty big now. I think that she's probably close to her full height and length, but she'll probably put on a few more pounds. We threw a frisbee for her in the park tonight for the first time and she really enjoyed chasing it. She never did catch it in the air, but she'll figure that out soon enough.

We also bought a crib at a garage sale today. Sarah is very happy about that.

Also, Heidi just spun in 6 consecutive circles trying to pick up the bone that was under her foot and making her slide around.

Sarah is still looking beautiful.

We have been doing our normal thing here in Alamogordo. Our dog was spayed last week and then got infected, but now she is doing fine. Work is VERY slow for me.

We are having a bit of trouble with our lawn this year. The grass doesn't seem to be waking up for the summer, and only 1 of the 4 rosebushes that I transplanted has survived so far, and its future doesn't look so good. The flowers that we tried to plant are completely dead, and it is hard to tell that they were ever there at all. This summer the state of New Mexico is winning.

We found out last Thursday that we're going to have a girl, and we can't be more excited. I was excited all along, and our baby was a girl all along, but it is fun to know. So we are now looking for female forms of Zebulon. So far we have heard Wilhelmina and Jess. Please post any and all suggestions in the comments below where they will promptly be ignored.


In other news, we got our Oreck air purifier in the mail today. The jury is still out as to whether it actually does anything or not, but the sentence will be the same either way; we're going to box it back up within a week and send it back. We ordered it only for the free dust-buster on a stick that comes just for trying it. It's been fun, Oreck.

home at last

Sarah and I returned from vacation today. We spent about 2 weeks with our families in North Carolina and it was really relaxing.

recent news

As you know, las weekend Sarah and I went to Colorado Springs. We went just for fun--it was a good chance to take a mini-vacation together. We really enjoyed getting to see so many of our friends.

We also got to go to Mona Lisa for our anniversary, which is a fondue restaurant in Manitou Springs. I had heard about it for years, and when I finally got to go it was just as good as I had heard.

We took a new way home, and the drive was much prettier and a bit more fun. When we got home we went straight to pick up Heidi and it was good to see her.

The week was pretty busy, and now I am in Florida for a few days. The beach was wonderful tonight, and it's very pretty here.

1!

Sarah and I took a trip to Colorado this weekend and celebrated our 1 year anniversary!

It was a lot of fun. More to come.

Also, we have another doctor visit on Thursday: be excited.

more baby pictures

We have some more ultrasound pictures online here.

Settlers of Catan

This weekend we played Settlers of Catan with Jeff and Sara, and we liked it so much that we bought it on our way home. We actually played again that night too.

Tonight we had Shawn and Mia over and played again. It was, of course, really fun. I recommend it to everyone.

Sarah has been feeling better lately too, so we're enjoying that.

We have had some toolshed problem lately, and they came to a head today. The wind had blown the doors open/off of our two sheds. We had a roll of fiberglass insulation inside one of them, and Heidi got into it this morning while she was out there by herself. We don't know why, but she loves the stuff. So now it's all over the yard and Heidi probably has a very itchy mouth.

back in NM

I'm back home from CA now. Only about one hour of the 3 day class was directly applicable to me, but it was good background knowledge and it was a nice break from my routine at work.

Sarah is not feeling so great tonight, but we have had a wonderful weekend together. Last night we saw the movie Expelled in El Paso. We also started planting some new flowers in our front yard. It's pretty sad right now but it's getting better.

Heidi now weighs over 40 lbs and is 22" long and tall. The other dogs make fun of her for being square, but we're trying to build her self-confidence anyways. She's been really helpful lately, and last night tried to cook dinner for us.

I'm in California this week, and being away from Sarah is lonely, but I wanted to share this excellent picture that Sarah took a while ago of Heidi.


Isn't it great?

Who is Zeb?

You see, in Jordan's excitment of sharing Zeb with the world, he forgot to explain that Zeb is not in fact the name of our child. We don't even know if Zeb is a boy or girl yet! Could you imagine a girl named Zebulen Firth? Oh poor thing!.. we would never do that to our child. ;-) (Possibly Faith Firth but never never Zebulen Firth) So, to clarify, Zeb is our nickname for the life inside of me that insists on making me sick everyday for the last 2 months! (Thank you Zebulen!) Zeb comes from Zeb's, a resaurant in Colorado that Jordan and I were both very fond of. So there it is! the secret of Zeb reveiled! When we have a name, we'll let you know and then we can all call Zeb by his/her real name.

Zeb

Well, Heidi is still growing, but we haven't measured her or taken any pictures of her lately. But...we do have some pictures of Zeb.

We went to the doctor today and got an ultrasound. After 30 minutes of trying to get an unplugged scanner to work on Sarah's computer, I finally scanned them in. Ta-da!



For those of you who thought that we were having twins...don't be silly. Where would you get that idea?

Zeb is 2.42 centimeters long, so he's probably 3.5 centimeters tall or so. His heart was a nice little fuzzy spot (fuzzier than the rest of the fuzzy spots) and Sarah got to see his arms moving (I missed it).

More New Mexico

As you can guess, we're still in New Mexico. There's no reason that we would not be, but it was a bit of a drag this week. The problem was the springtime, even though it hasn't come yet.

In New Mexico the wind blows a lot for several months, and it has just started. It's really gross when that happens because the sky is blotted out with dust and it's too windy to do anything outside. It's even worse here because of the white sands. You can taste drywall just by walking outside.

Needless to say, it has been blowing recently. Blech. It was windy from Friday through Sunday. On Sunday we actually went to White Sands to meet a friend, and in the minute that our car door was open everything got covered in a thick layer of sand.

We also took Heidi to obedience class on Sunday, and she was much better this time. This behavior can probably be attributed to the prong collar that we bought her on our trainer's recommendation. The wind was annoying there too. People's hats were flying off, and just keeping your eyes open was painful.

We forgot to measure Heidi yesterday, but when she went to the vet last week she had only gained 1 pound. She hadn't been eating well for a while, so we have to put gravy on her food. Between wiping her after she goes to the bathroom and preparing meals for her, she is a bit of a high maintenance dog. That and she still freaks out when we leave the house. Oh well, she's just a puppy.

I've ridden my bike around town a bit and it has been fun. It's great to get some exercise while returning a movie, for example, and it's a lot of fun to travel at a more leisurely pace through alleys and streets that I don't normally see.

weekend

Here is another picture of Heidi. She's getting pretty big; today she was a 19 inch square. In the background you can see the piano we bought. It sounds and feels great.

We took Heidi to dog obedience class today, and she was worse than she has ever been--she wore us out and when we got home all 3 of us slept for 3 hours.

The dog trainer at our class today said that you can see how smart a dog is by hiding a cookie under a paper towel. A smart dog is supposed to lift up the paper towel to get to the cookie. We tried it tonight with a dog treat, and Heidi just ate a hole in the paper towel. We're not really sure what that means....

We also got to go over to our friends' house tonight to play Pictionary, which was a lot of fun. They had, however, forgotten daylight savings time, so when we called and said that we would be there in 2 minutes they were quite surprised. I guess it's good that we called.

Some more updates:

Yesterday we got to go help our neighbor out by fixing a gate that had blown down in a windstorm earlier in the week.

Friday we grilled some burgers at the squadron in the afternoon. Sarah made some fantastic baked beans, but the recipe was huge so we have several pounds left over. I was eating a lot of them as easy leftovers, but this morning Sarah asked me to stop....

Also on Friday Sarah fell while hiking and scraped her hand really badly. It's fine and getting better, but it looked nasty for a while.

Overall, today was a good day that was over much too quickly.

bikes

Sarah and I bought bikes this week. We rode them home from the bike store and had a great time. I also went for a ride tonight, but Sarah won't be able to for a while. She fell while on a hike with some friends and scraped her hand pretty badly.

Sarah was worried because she hadn't ridden a bike in years, but I told her, "don't worry, it's like riding a bike." She was fine. I had a bit of trouble though. It wasn't hard, it's just that it must use a new set of muscles though, because after our 10 minute ride I could tell that riding my bike would be difficult for a while.

Sarah made some fantastic baked beans today for a squadron event, and now we have a week's worth of beans in the fridge. Good thing I like them.

And She Keeps Growing....

Today Heidi is 18.5 inches tall and 18.5 inches long. She just keeps getting bigger! And judging from her paws, she has a long way to go! (Which we like because we wanted a big dog.) She's getting pretty good at "stay" now and when we're on a walk for the last couple of blocks we let her off the leash and say "go home!" She runs half a block, turns around, waits for us to catch up a bit, and runs another half a block until we get home. It's really cute that she knows which road to turn down to get home.

Yesterday Jordan bought me a SWEET new digital piano. I'm so excited about it. I started taking lessons again and instead of having to go to the church to practice, I can just go to my living room! Well that's about it for now. Things are going very well here in New Mexico.

Saturday

Today we woke up, had breakfast with some friends, and then decided to buy a piano. So this afternoon we drove to Guitar Center in El Paso, picked our favorite one (well, at least the best one we could afford), and brought it back. fitting it in the car was a little tough, but after about 15 minutes we were good to go. Sarah loves it.

Growing

Also, compare these two pictures of Heidi with keys under the table.