Carving Pumpkins

Carved pumpkins this afternoon. Ansley did her first actual pumpkin design by drawing her face on a piece of paper, letting me cut the pieces out, and then taping them on the pumpkin for Daddy to carve. Both girls used baggies on their hands to dig seeds out and helped scoop with spoons. Hailey had a pumpkin for making pie, which Michael said made it hard to clean thoroughly, but it turned out good in the end. Ansley says my pumpkin looks like Spongebob.

17 weeks

Had another visit today. Nothing incredibly interesting. The heartbeat was 156. My weight has jumped to 161 (got my appetite back). And my blood pressure was 100/60, which is pretty normal for me. Found out they will let me go up to 42 weeks before inducing, but I doubt I’ll get that far. Told them we planned on delivering at Allen Presby. Saw Dr. Andrew Shimer, which means I have rounded out my exposure to all the OBs during office visits.

Stopped by the hospital on the way home and met Joy the natural-birth-friendly nurse (One of the OB's told me she was one of the few who like natural birth at Allen Presby). She said they were working on hiring more nurses who were comfortable with natural births and that any of the nurses there could handle it just as well (but she was standing right next to the nurses desk, so I'm sure she said that just to be nice).

Texas State Fair

We had wanted to go for some time, and realized the end of the fair was in sight, so Michael took off work when Ansley got out of school, and we headed down to Fair Park.

First thing we did in the Fair was go through How to Be a Farmer. Ansley and Hailey got buckets to hold their farmer goodies, and walked through several stations and picked up replicas of normal farmer's fare; fake vegetables, empty milk cartons, a piece of wool, etc. They got to wear aprons, ride little tractors, plant pretend seeds, the works. It was really fun (and they traded their crop at the end for pretend money, which bought them some fruit snacks at a cute little store).

AFter that it was off to the petting zoo. We saw shy giraffes and very friendly goats, even little baby ones that were so cute. Bison, llamas, alpacas, sheep, pigs, ducklings, turtles...it was like Noahs ark in there.

Next, we went and saw a sheep dog show. It was just like from Babe (the pig movie), some of the dogs even looked the same. The fun part was watching the dogs herd ducks, too.

Then we had corn dogs, hot dogs, cotton candy, and funnel cake. Ansley had said that if she could get cotton candy, then she would consider the entire trip a success.

After that, we rode the ferris wheel. It was so big and windy (and a little cold). We had fun looking at all the carnival lights and little people below.

Finally, we rode some kiddy carnival rides (that we spotted from the top of the ferris wheel). There was a log ride, a truck ride, a boat ride, and a fire engine ride. The log ride got both of their seats quit wet, but it was okay since we went home after that.

Christmas Present

Michael and I chose easy gifts this year. Michael has season tickets to the Stars Hockey team. When he got them, he said it would make a better Christmas gift than Birthday gift because it would fall during the season of Christmas, but well after his birthday. He went to a few games last year and just loved it, and I'm happy he got something he will really enjoy.

I got something I will really enjoy, too. A big part of it is coming from Michael's time and energy because he offered to watch Ansley and Hailey while I fly to Portland the week after Christmas to see my family and brand new nephew Oscar (who is due on the 21st and will most likey be there in person at some point during my visit). My mom comes down to visit us several times a year, but I really miss the rest of my family, whom I last saw at Kristina's wedding in April of 2005.

Three and Six-year-old pictures

I was secretly wondering how we were going to get pictures done this year. This is the first year Ansley is in school every weekday, and I personally know that the best pictures are taken right after a bath, late in the morning, and not on a Saturday (Picture People is like a zoo on the weekend).

So I was very relieved to remember we had fall break. And here it is, first thing Monday, and I've got some really good pictures. The other key to really good pictures is protein. In this case, it was chicken mcnuggets while we waited. I had double booked in anticipation of needing lots of warm-up time for Hailey, but she did just fine when she saw Ansley having a good time (the nuggets she ate probably helped, too).

Afterwards, we played on the playground, and then came home and Hailey went to sleep. She's had that exhausted, growth-spurt look on her face all day (woke up in a dreary mood), but amazingly came through for the photographer. Maybe she'll be a model-poser like her big sister in the near future.

I think you can see them a little bigger in slideshow mode (along with the two we don't care for) on the Picture People website. Those who know me know my email address (not the rezolutions one), and the password is the name of our oldest nephew followed by my maiden name.