Growing Like A Weed

Cullen says Scott is growing like a weed. It's what Andrew (who was his Best Man) always said about his daughter Rebekah when she was little. Scott is growing fast though. He's up to 9lbs and 7oz already. That's up 2 lbs from his birth weight. (Sorry, but I have no idea what percentile that is... the doctor didn't say and I really didn't care enough to ask.)

Today Scott and I are having our first library adventure. So far, he is sleeping well. He tends to sleep pretty well between 9 and noon everyday though, so it's not really surprising. I just have to make sure we're finished with the errands before he wakes up in another half hour or so.

This past weekend Scott got to meet his Grandma and Granddad. Cullen's parents were in town for a quick visit. I think he likes them :) Although, I also think I discovered that company of any kind after dinner time for Cullen and I seems to mess with Scott's ability to sleep. Meaning, it's harder for him to fall asleep and he wakes up more. Guess we'll try and limit evening visitors next weekend.

Next week we'll be having our first overnight visitors... Great Grandma and Grandpa Gardner. I can't wait to see them! They are going to be here at the perfect time too... besides the evening visitors thing, Cullen is going to be heading back to Lancaster for a business trip next week, about the same time Grandma and Grandpa get here. How convenient. Then on Friday, while they are still here, Patience goes for her yearly shots. It will be very nice to have an extra pair of hands at the vets office!

In other news... we grown ups, who had recently decided to retire from youth ministry are back. The youth director resigned a few weeks ago and another couple at church stepped up to take on that role. However, they left a hole where they had been teaching youth Sunday School. Cullen and I have agreed to help with youth Sunday School and we'll be switching off with another couple. We're all pretty excited about it right now and excited to get to know the youth at our new church better. Pray for us in this endeavor.

He's Here!

Scott Honor Keen was born on Thursday early in the morning at 12:53am. He's perfect- weighs 7lbs 7oz, and 19 1/2 inches long. He is nursing well and sleeping well so we are happy about both of those things. He sleeps between feedings pretty much all night long, which is great.

We made it to church yesterday, so he spent his first Sunday in the Lord's house. Today we are out and about... "visiting" Daddy's office, then we'll do a bit of shopping before his first visit to the pediatrician this afternoon.

Cullen will be home from work today and taking half days Tuesday and Wednesday before returning to a "regular" schedule on Thursday and Friday.

So all in all, things are going well. Off to visit the picture page and upload lots and lots and lots of pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Still Waiting

We are still waiting on this little one to make an appearance. Hopefully, it will be soon... or else the midwife will start pestering me to schedule an induction. We will go in for an ultrasound and NST on Wednesday just to make sure everything is still good if we don't have a baby before then. So, what sounds like a good day for a birthday now that 2-4-6 is past? 2-10, 2-11, 2-12, 2-13... I'd personally rather avoid Valentine's Day on Tuesday, but we'll certainly take what we get.

For the record- NO, I am not miserable. Just patiently waiting for a baby to get here. And I'm confident the baby will get here at exactly the right moment. (Someone asked me that the other day... and needless to say, it got on my nerves a bit.) Cullen also gets to face questions everyday at work. Though those questions are more just observations and not as annoying. You know "Still no baby?"

Patience had a good birthday this past Wednesday. She turned 15. I really never expected her to survive so long, but I'm certainly not complaining (Cullen might be though :)

That's all the randomness for today. Here's hoping I can write about all the cute things Leapfrog's doing the next time I come in to the library.

The Waiting Game

I'm back at the library. No baby news yet. Cullen and I enjoyed the SuperBowl with some friends last night... so now we are both tired today. I'm not sure why I'm tired, besides the whole baby thing though, since I slept really late this morning. I made my usual SuperBowl cake. But, I tried something a little bit different this year. I'm not eating chocolate, so I left off the chocolate frosting and Cullen helped me attempt to make brown buttercream frosting. Okay, so the football cake was an interesting slightly brownish shade of gray. It tasted great and is almost gone already.

I've decided this morning that it's a strange feeling to be sitting around waiting for a baby to arrive. I have plenty to do to occupy myself, so it's not a problem and I'm not complaining yet... but it is a weird feeling. I wonder when this little person is going to get here.

In other news... Cullen installed the new fan in the bathroom over the weekend and put up some of the towel racks. That bathroom project will get finished someday.

And Patience is going to be 15 years old on Wednesday! That's 105 in dog years. Wow. Can't say I ever expected, when I got her nearly 15 years ago, that she would live this long. I'm glad though. There's something nice about having a "guard dog" sleeping fairly close to you all day long. I was visited by some people from a religious cult like the Jehovah's Witnesses this morning and Patience was laying by the front door. She so wanted to go outside and smell them. Cullen suggested I have her sneeze on them and then they might go away faster :)

Happy Monday. Hopefully we'll have some baby news soon!

From The Library

Here's my first post from the library. But I've dawdled and only have 8 minutes left online. Oh well.

Had my weekly appointment yesterday. Still no baby, and I didn't let her check me. So there. Leapfrog will be here soon. Cullen says today, everyday now.

I've been enjoying my time home this week... well aside from being sick with a cold and sleeping all day Sunday, almost all day Monday and a bunch on Tuesday. Yesterday I was up all day though and feeling much better. Not 100%, but colds take a while to get completely over.

Oh yeah, and we met our new neighbors. They have a 6 yr old son, and a 2 year old dog. Those two are very entertaining playing together in the backyard in the afternoon. The whole family seems really nice... definitely a huge step up from living next door to a group home. And since their house was a group home they have plenty of stories about things like emergency lights and soap dispensers to try and renovate away. It's fun to see all the houses in our neighborhood gradually being redone and to know that EVERYONE is having to get rid of green bathroom fixtures and not just us.

Well that's all the news for today. Hopefully next time I'll have a baby in tow!

Last Day at Duke

The end is in sight... very close sight. I'm actually just waiting for my supervisor to get out of a meeting to sign something. Then I'll be meeting with HR and turning in my badge to security and leaving Catawba forever. I wonder what next week will be like. I signed up to bring a dish for Wednesday night dinner at church, since I'll be home rather than racing from work to home to let Patience out and feed her and back to church.

We are about ready for Leapfrog to get here too. Ready- can you ever really be ready for a new baby? At any rate, the carseat is in the van, the hospital bags are packed, and the anticipation is building. (Hm, guess I still need to type up instructions for the doggy sitter, but at least if I forget I can just call them or have Cullen call them and fill them in.)

Cullen is still busy at work. Looks like there might be a conference in Charleston that we'll all be able to travel with him for in April. He's working hard trying to keep all his work organized enough for his coworkers to be able to pick it up when he's out for a week starting any day now.

Earlier this month we enjoyed a visit from Jessica, while she was job-hunting. Or maybe job-thinking is a better way to describe. She is in our prayers now as she tries to figure out where to go from here after graduating in December. During her stay, she did note several times how annoying it is that we don't have internet at our house. I'm sure job-hunting would be somewhat easier if we did have internet, but I'm glad we don't have such ready access to the www from home. Now to see if I can keep saying that next week. It will be interesting to note if my posts get more frequent or less frequent as I am forced to go to the library to use the internet and as I start my new job as a SAHM.

Onward to outprocessing world...

Wishlists

Check back here anytime you want to know what we think we might need... or just like to have.

The boys current sizes, if you're looking for what they can wear right now are:
Scott - 4 tops, 4 bottoms, shoes-10 1/2 W
Blaise - 3T tops, 3T bottoms, shoes- 7 XXW
Michael - 12M

Cullen:
Disney Gift Cards
TV Shelving (Ikea)
Khaki pants
Jeans
White dress shirt (long sleeve)
Long Sleeve dress shirts (not blue)
*No clothing from LL Bean

Cynthia:
Books on Homeschooling/Home-Preschooling
-Explode the Code - Get Ready for the Code series
-I Think I Can series - InspirEd (http://www.inspiredhomeschoolers.com/)
-AIMS Activity Books for Math/Science (http://aimsedu.org/)
Outdoor Thermometer (to hang away from the house)
Smart Wool Socks
Shorts

Scott:
Summer clothing (size 5/children's small)
Pants (size 4)
Trumpet
Puzzles (>20 pieces)

Blaise:
3T adjustable waist pants
Anything that's like whatever Scott gets

Michael:
Piggy Bank

Kids General:
Books:
-My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt
-most anything from Scholastic, Usborne or with FaithKidz guide
VeggieTales DVD's
Peter Pan DVD
Jungle Book DVD
Mary Poppins DVD

DVD's (to upgrade our VHS collection):
VeggieTales- Where's God When I'm Scared?
VeggieTales- Are You My Neighbor?
VeggieTales- Madam Blueberry
VeggieTales- Rack, Shack, & Benny
VeggieTales- Josh and the Big Wall
VeggieTales- God Wants Me To Forgive Them?
VeggieTales- The Ballad of Little Joe
VeggieTales- Silly Songs
VeggieTales- The End of Silliness?
VeggieTales- Ultimate Silly Song Countdown
VeggieTales- The Toy That Saved Christmas
Jonah- A VeggieTales Movie
Alladin
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (original cartoon version)
Star Wars- A New Hope (IV)
Star Wars- The Empire Strikes Back (V)
Star Wars- Return of the Jedi (VI)
Star Wars- The Phantom Menace (I)
Star Wars- Attack of the Clones (II)
Remember The Titans
Rudy
The Sandlot
Angels in the Outfield
Little Giants
Patriot Games
The Fugitive
Men In Black
The Santa Clause
Star Trek (any movies)

Winter Weather

It's been a pretty typical week for all of us. Work, eat, sleep, etc.

Actually, we had our first baby class at the hospital class on Monday. It wasn't bad. Not sure I learned very much, but perhaps one or two helpful things for getting started nursing.

Last night and this morning we've had some winter weather, which means freezing rain. Oh joy. So, this morning we took our time with the whole getting to work thing. Cullen went in a little late and managed to avoid the biggest traffic messes by altering his route slightly. I waited a bit longer and headed in to work after it had been light out for a while and I had no troubles either.

We're pleased that our church has decided to do the Candle Light service (which would normally be on Christmas Eve) next Wednesday, so we'll get to be there for that. And of course, we'll be staring in the choirs Christmas program this Sunday morning as Mary and Joseph. The best part of that is that we'll get to carry a real baby, who's only 3 weeks old.

10 days til Christmas. We're almost in single digits!

20 Days til Christmas

Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is fast approaching already. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Maryland. We got to see Mom and Dad Keen, Grandma and Papa, Uncle Buddy, Aunt Laura, and the cousins, and Jason and Amanda and Elizabeth. Wow, Elizabeth has really grown since the last time we got to see her- which wasn't really surprising, just lots of fun! And so have Nick, Kelly and Trisha! It was a great couple of days with the whole family there and we enjoyed all the activity... though it did wear Cullen out a bit, which is why I have at least one picture of him yawning.

The ladies surprised me with a baby shower on Friday afternoon, which was the best. We had a good lunch out and I got some cute and some useful baby stuff. I really enjoyed the time with them and I'm glad they thought to do that.

Patience was lonely while we were gone... she survived, unfortunately, her bed did not. I don't plan on leaving her behind again. Poor old puppy.

We've spent the past week and weekend getting decorated for Christmas and making some good progress on the bathroom. New pictures have been posted to the House Renovations Album today. The tile is down and the walls are painted. Now to do the grout, seal it, and get the toilet and sink installed. Ah, to have 2 bathrooms again. That should be done by this weekend. Then we'll see how long it takes to get the walls tiled around the bathtub. (While Patience doesn't like water at all, it's much better for ME to give her a bath than a shower and probably for her too- so it will good to have a bathtub again!) Also started baking Christmas cookies yesterday and we've been working to get Christmas cards out... just a couple of more addresses to get a hold of.

Leapfrog has been very active in my ribs lately. That's not always comfortable, but it is fun. We go back to see the midwife again on Thursday. Should be a quick easy appointment. Cullen won't be able to come this time though, because he'll be out of town for business meetings. At least it's just a routine appointment.

On with my rainy Monday...

Pushing 29 Weeks

It's been another busy week for us. This week we saw the midwife for our 28 week appointment. Hard to believe we're that close to having a baby. The appointment went well and I survived the lovely orange drink and passed the glucose test (blood sugar level of 96, which is normal.) Leapfrog was quite active while we were listening to him, even making my tummy bounce around, which was entertaining. We did get some interesting news today though. Apparently 3 out of the 4 midwives have left the practice over a recent office politics type issue. That shouldn't be too big of a deal, since there are 9 doctors in the practice as well, but I doubt we'll be getting the same true "midwifery" care we would since the 1 midwife will be trying to see as many patients as the 4 were seeing. Guess I never realized what a lost art midwifery has become- at least in this area. Anyway- we've reached the point now where we will have a checkup every 3 weeks, so the next appointment is for Dec 8.

Work on the house has been progressing. Milestones this week were getting the furniture moved into the living room and the computer desk moved out of the office. (I posted a couple of pictures in our winkflash account today, so Jessica could see the furniture.) We'll be gradually converting the office to the guest room and the guest room to the nursery- gradually, because it mainly depends on getting the new bathroom countertop out of the office. We'll be using the "dining room" for an office. We prefer dining in the kitchen, plus when we get to the point of having things spilling on the floor frequently, the tile is better for cleaning up than hardwood! Many thanks to our friend John for coming and helping to get the furniture moved. In a former life of mine that existed about 7 months ago, it would not have been the slightest big deal for me to help move the furniture, but that is no longer the case, so Thanks John! Another big house milestone this week was getting the building permit for the shed signed off. Legally, the shed is finished, yeah. Now to see what projects we decide to tackle this weekend.

Ah yes, let's not forget big game coming up on Saturday. Hooray for it being carried by ESPN2 instead of just Pay-Per-View. And of course, we'll be wearing our orange and hoping the Tigers soundly beat the Chickens for the 4th year in a row.

Besides the game and the house projects, it should be an even busier weekend, as I'll be baking most of the weekend. Getting ready to head to Maryland for Thanksgiving and needing to bring some of my comfort sweets... you know the ones like Grandma makes. On top of that we are bringing desserts for our Bible study feast on Sunday evening, so I'll be attempting a pumpkin pie and, at the request of Cos, a Lemon Meringue Pie. We'll see how that goes.

Take Note: 38 days til Christmas!