Pop Goes the Weasal and Kimmy's Belly Goes Pop!

(January 24)

24 Weeks - The speculating employees on the 4th floor of Building B at General Motors had heard the rumor, but hadn't verified whether or not it was true. No longer does the question remain as Kim has officially "popped." Those who were originally hesitant are now asking if what they heard was true and get the typical and unexpected reply from Kim, "Yep, I'm knocked up!"

And that she is, with each night being a reminder of what feels like a break-dancing baby in her belly. Kim's guess is regardless of the baby being a boy or a girl, we'll have a soccer player in the family based on the amount of movement she's been feeling.

Deep in the Brush

Saturday (Jan 17th),
Yes, this blog has been started and will continue to be structured around the new addition to the family, but we'll still keep you up to date with some of our everyday excitement....

It's that time of the year where "tundra" is officially frozen and our only chance to get out to trim the wetland behind the house. For those who haven't been out to the house, we keep a portion of the wetland between the house and lake cleared so we can keep a view from the yard. It also helps clear an area for the deer to come in and graze. So far, the largest number of deer we've seen has been a baker's dozen. We'll keep an eye out to try and get some pictures.

Granted it was near blizzard conditions, visiblity was poor and the thermometer read 20 below zero, I ventured out to the frozen tundra where the snow was 7.4 feet deep. OK, so maybe a bit of an exaturation, but there were a few flakes falling, the temp was just a bit above zero, and the snow measured up to being knee high in most placed (thigh high in some)...... Having the proper tools this year allowed the time spent out in the brush to be cut in half, which is a good thing because the temperature was also cut in half.... Saturday, I was able to get roughly half of cutting done and finished up on Sunday. Thank you to Kim's dad, Don, for helping out on Sunday.....









- Here's what we started with -

- Deep in the brush -

- A clean, cut view -

Gotta a babuh in my bellay!!

December 23rd, week 20, Kim's finally starting to show (a little)! She did have to pull her shirt back a to get an adequate shot, but not too much longer and we'll be able to park in the Expectant Mother's spot and not have to walk across the entire parking lot in these winter temperatures! (That was joke)

We had an early Christmas gift! We had the ultrasound which told us our baby is looking good so far! The heart has the appropriate four chambers and is beating strong, the brain is developing properly, 10 fingers & 10 toes can be counted, the spine looks good, and we found out it's going to be a girl!! Or a boy!! The tech is the only one who knows at this point and will be until our little bundle of joy comes screaming into the world.........

Reader meet Baby, formerly known as Blob, formerly known as Cystoblast.

Looks like we have a thumb sucker........

1o Toes.....

Snoozin'......

Showing a little leg......

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Thanksgiving had come and gone, which opened the flood gates to prepare for Christmas! With that, our first full weekend home after the trip we made our annual trip to the Dunsmore tree farm. As always, our tree is ONLY ONE STEP away from the Griswalds!

Yes, it fit through the door......

......., but it's not going to fit going out (At least in one piece).

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, ..........

......while Belle dreams of being an only child, "cause it's just not fare!"

Looks like it'll fit out the door now........

SnowBelle

We made it home without any weather delays and JUST in time. The snow had started just before we landed on Sunday and continued through Monday. Several inches of snow accumulated, which wasn't all that bad, but it was wet! As you can see below, looking out the back, it stuck to the trees and everything it landed on.

Late, afternoon I went out to shovel the driveway and threw the ball for her at the same time. As I continued to shovel, I continued to throw the ball for her and before I knew it - the snow wasn't sticking to only the trees!!

Yes, the picture is entertaining, but the video is a MUST see! Belle has played a lot of ball throughout the past winters, but this is the first time this has happened.....

Trip to Europe

We left November 15th for our trip to Europe. In a nutshell, it was a 15 day, 5 country river cruise where we visited the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and Switzerland.

Kim was at the end of week 13/beginning of week 14 at this point and STILL feeling the morning sickness, but not as severely. On the left is her first side profile. Nope, can't really tell there's much of anything going on at this point.

I felt bad on the days where I was enjoying a full, five course meal and she was barely getting carrots and potatoes down..... The servers were great though! Each morning as they saw us sit down for breakfast they immediately started hard-boiling eggs for her. It did take 3 or 4 attempts before they fully understood what a "hard-boiled" egg was considered by an American. The first two eggs brought must have only been in the boiling water for a minute or two becuase there were no signs of anything solid when Kim cracked them!!

The final count for pictures from the trip was 758. I still need to sort through them a bit more and then I will most likely post them elsewhere. Here's a few highlights in the meantime (in no particular order):

That's "Positive" we ARE pregnant or "Positive" we ARE NOT pregant?!?!

Alright. Here we are - signed up, username and password created, and completely unfamiliar to this world of blogging. Since this is our first attempt, be patient.

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Granted we're now into the first week of January, we have a couple of weeks/months to catch up on so we'll try our best to do a recap.

Most important things first. What got us started? The Blob. The Blob initiated this blog. You ask what's the Blob?

Reader meet the Blob, Blob meet the reader. Blob, formerly known as cystoblast and 1.08cm in size on September 29, 2008 or in pregnancy timeline terms Week 7. This ultrasound picture was taken the Tuesday following a pleasantly surprising Friday morning.

As I was half asleep, showering I failed to hear Kim's "Holy sh!t", however, as I finished rinsing my hair and opened my eyes and heard Kim saying, "Um, Ryan" with her hand in my face. It took a minute to focus in, but then I saw:

Once I realized what I was looking at, the next question that ran through my head was, "Positive" we ARE NOT pregant or "Positive" we ARE pregnant.........

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Throughout the next couple of weeks, Kim and I had a tough time keeping the news quiet, BUT we did. There were a couple times where it was not only difficult to keep the secret, but Kim was experiencing some extreme morning sickness. The biggest challenge was to make the road trip up to Sault Ste. Marie without her getting sick. The reason; our parents made plans at Stephanie's wedding for Kim's parents to visit mine in the Fall. We figured this would be the ideal opportunity to get the 'rents together and share the big news with them all at once. A bit of an endevour for Kim, but she played off the 'not feeling well' as car sickness and we made it!

Once we arrived to my parents and brought in our luggage, Kim and I stepped aside to the bedroom where she situated Belle so she could play the "Big Sister" role by sharing breaking news with the grandparents-to-be.

As Belle wandered into the kitchen, it took no time at all for the mothers to process what was going on..... as she stepped into the living room, where the fathers were, it took a second or two, and from there the flood gates of rampant baby news had burst open. In fact, if you didn't hear about it right away, you see the picture of the Blob on our parents T-shirts with the title across the top "Grandchild Under Construction." Um, yeah......