Matt's first blog

Kerri just taught me how to blog. There have been many requests to see my bloated wife. Sooooo, here she is. 39 weeks down... Our new little one will be here any day. Kerri is getting pretty uncomfortable. She gets up like 6 times a night to pee, which means so does her husband. No big deal, I guess its just training for the next few months. Sparing the details, the doctor said shes making some good progress and were getting close. In all a honesty, Kerri is pretty good at this whole pregnancy thing. She is being a really good sport about things and keeping in good spirits. The three of us are getting pretty excited.

My next post will most likely include a picture of a family of four!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I couldn't resist posting these already. Annie cried when I wouldn't let her wear her costume to bed last night. I promised her we would wear it today. So the first thing she said when I went to get her this morning was "Monkey?" She was pointing to the closet. So the time was officially 8:27 a.m. and Annie is ready to Trick or Treat :) As you can see, she still hasn't even finished her morning cup of milk. She's wearing jammies under the costume.
I'll post more pics later when we've had some actual Halloween fun.

Ok, some actual Halloween fun: We went to the AA library for story time and down Main Street where business were handing out candy. At first, Annie was confused but when she realized treats were involved, she learned pretty quickly :)

Annie and Mommy's Day Out

So lately I've been feeling bad for Annie. Whenever baby decides to come out (any day now, kid), her whole little world is going to change. I'm sure she'll be fine after the adjustment. I don't harbor any resentment toward my siblings. I love them and don't wish they were never born (generally). And Annie will probably never remember life without her sister, anyway. But I do feel bad that our Annie/Mommy time is almost over. So this morning we hung out :) We watched some Mickey Mouse and Tigger & Pooh, then we ran some errands and then headed to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.

The museum was awesome. To all my friends with kids, we will go there when you come to visit. Annie loved it! She ran from activity to activity. She spent a ton of time at a fun water table playing. She was fascinated by all the activities with levers and buttons and steering wheels. We didn't even make it to the upper level, and I had to drag her out of there at naptime!

Here are tons of pictures of the fun:

The buttons made little lights go on on the car model. You have no idea how exciting this was.

Playing at the water table. She stood at this thing for what seemed like hours. She even figured out how to make the little water wheels work! This is also her concentrating face with the mouth slightly open. Funny. :)

I swear I didn't even mention the hat. She found it and put it on herself. I told her she could be like Grampy, and that seemed to please her.

She loved the ambulance. Maybe she'll be a paramedic one day.

It was a toss-up for favorite activity between the water table and this. It's a "code station." There was another one across the way where you were supposed to use the lights to send your friend a code word. But seeing as how we didn't have any friends and Annie can barely speak English let alone a secret code, we just pushed the buttons and pulled the levers. Annie was in love with it.

Nesting

For those who are not familiar with it, the notion of nesting is when a very pregnant woman takes on all sorts of tasks around the house just before the baby arrives. People will do all sorts of weird and seemingly unnecessary household jobs. A few days before I had Annie, I decided I absolutely must wash the hardwood floors in our house on my hands and knees. This time, I've had none of the nesting desires. Matt and Annie, however, are making up for what I lack.

Matt spent today nesting. He finished all the fall yardwork, including trimming a tree that our subdvision is supposed to take care of for us. He cleaned out the garage, installed the baby's car seat, reinstalled Annie's seat properly, disposed of some old paint cans, and set up the baby's swing. He also asked me numerous times if I had any house projects I'd like him to take care of.



For her part, Annie has been practicing being a big sister with her baby doll. Today, all on her own, she decided to try to feed the baby some of her own milk. How sweet and generous :) She also likes to get out diapers for the baby, which is not as much helpful, but it's still nice of her.


Oh, and for those who have requested a 39-week photo of me, Matt thought that was a great idea. He has taken a picture of me, learned how to blog and promises to update. Great.

Guitar Heroes

Ever since we purchased Guitar Hero, Matt and I have incorporated Annie into the game. Mostly she is our back up dancer, a job she is happy to do. Sometimes she adds a bit of an extra challenge to the game by blocking our view of the notes or attempting to help us strum. She really wanted a turn when we were playing yesterday, so Matt helped her rock out.

However, Matt would like it to be known that "real rockers don't sit down." When he is rocking out for real, he stands up. He has also been known to dance, sing and generally live up to the highest of rock star standards, not that we'd expect anything less.

Go Climb a Tree

We took Annie to the Chelsea Treehouse this morning. Our friends Jamie and Jerry and their daughter Riley came, too. The girls had a great time. The Treehouse is an indoor playground type place for the kiddos. It obviously has a treehouse theme, with bunch of stuff to climb, slide and swing. Annie will like it more when she is a bit bigger, but she still had a lot of fun. These are the only pics we have because I forgot my camera, and we took these with Matt's Blackberry (also known as the most amazing gadget ever!)

The front of the treehouse.

Here, Annie is walking across a little rope bridge type thing. Another mom was standing under it with Matt, and Annie was having a little trouble. She said "I don't think she can do it." Matt took this as a personal affront, and said he encouraged Annie until she did indeed cross by herself. No wonder the kid is a monkey. :)


In other news, I am still pregnant and no sign baby is coming any time soon. I am also having trouble finding shirts to fit on my body.

Bouncing

Matt had today off! So weird that one of his four days off this month is a random Tuesday, but we'll take it. We took Annie to the bounce house this morning to tire her out because she's been sleeping horribly lately. And our house is freezing because Matt said we can't turn the heat on until the baby comes. (Which, by the way, we've informed her that this Friday, the 24th would really work out best for us. If you could send us some good labor prayers, that'd be much appreciated).

Annie was such a little monkey. I wish we had the cord to get the video off our camera because she was climbing up the little ladder-type things to go down the slides. She also used a knotted rope to assist her climbing! It was pretty impressive. She is so fearless!

She bounced so hard her pigtails came out!

And a bonus pic of Annie before church on Sunday. She looked so cute in her dress and little shoes!

Who is this little girl?

And what happened to my baby?!?

Annie is such a big girl! Last night, she was sitting at the dinner table coloring in her Elmo coloring book with pigtails in her hair while I made dinner. It was the cutest damn thing I've ever seen. Nearly moved my hormonal self to tears. :) As usual, however, she was not cooperative when I tried to capture the cuteness on film.

And the pigtails--Matt has been asking me for weeks to put pigtails in her hair. So, I finally bought the little rubberbands that actually hold her hair, and we gave it a go last night and this morning. She was not happy about it at first. In fact, Matt was holding her head still (we're mean, I know!). But this morning, she loved it. She kept touching the pigtails and saying "Bows! Bows!" Close enough.

She was running away from me at the park, excitedly collecting leaves. But it's a good pic of her hairdo :)

Ride Your Pony

Annie and I went to the Dexter Apple Fest this past weekend. We really do live in small town America. There are festivals and outdoor activities all the time. Anyway, we went to experience the pony rides and check out the petting zoo. Both were marginally successful.

As you can see, the pony experience was enjoyable, but nothing to get too worked up about apparently. She actually didn't even want to get on it, but I paid $4 for the ride, so she was going --like it or not. And the petting zoo...well, let's just all agree that that's more of an Annie/Daddy activity than an Annie/Mommy activity. The goats were trying to escape (seriously, one jumped the fence!), and I was nervous about Annie and I keeping all of our digits. So we took a peek and then got the heck out of there.
We did buy delicious pumpkin donuts and Annie had a fabulous time picking up leaves on our way back to the car, so all in all, I'd say it was a success.


A final thought, I'm starting to become a freak show everywhere I go. I think people are scared I'm going to deliver the baby right there in front of them (if only it were that quick and easy). One lady told me she and her friends were taking bets on when I was due. Good thing I'm enormously pregnant and slow, or I may have just whacked her.

On The Potty!

Annie went poop on the potty yesterday! Who knew it would be such an exciting event! We are by no means serious about potty training right now. We're way too lazy for that, and with the baby coming there's really no point. But she does show interest sometimes. So we got her a little seat and when she asks, we sit her on the potty. Yesterday, she kept coming up to me saying "Poop, poop" and turning so I could check her diaper. She was clean, but then I saw the funny face she was making. So we ran into the bathroom, and she went! The best part is that as soon as she was sitting on the toilet, she said "My book!" She wanted the book she was reading when we ran into the bathroom. So I gave it to her, and she happily sat on the toilet "reading" her book and doing her business. She was so happy she even smiled for the camera and said cheese. She is getting to be more like Matt every day :) We are very proud of Annie. She's getting to be such a big girl!!
Oh, and for the record, the nice safari theme in the bathroom was not my decorating choice. We rent.

What A Man

Don't be fooled by the white collar he's been sporting. Or the pending birth of his second daughter, which will increase the already large amount of estrogen at the poor guy's house. Even though he doesn't play football or work in a factory anymore, Matt is a man. A real man. He fixes stuff. Like his car.
Last week, a lady hit Matt while he was stopped at light on his way to work. There wasn't a lot of damage, but she broke his headlight and front blinker. And because he's such a man, Matt went to a junkyard, purchased a new headlight (in cash, of course) and installed it himself in our driveway. He also repaired the blinker when that still wasn't working. He didn't even call his dad to ask how. So here's to Matt, maintaining his manliness despite all the lovely ladies in his life. :)

More Pumpkin Fun - With Neighbors!

Living where we do, it's a bit more rural than we are used to. But, that means more pumpkin patches! There is another little farm store down the road from us, and they've set up a fall fun fest on their property. There is a hay stack maze, horse-drawn hayrides, pony rides, pumpkins and all sorts of delicious foods. We decided to take Annie the other night to tire her out. Our neighbors were also going to go, but decided against it. Their daughters, however, were still very excited to go, so we took them with us.
Sabrina and Madison live next door, and they are great entertainers of Annie. It's fabulous having them so close when Matt is on call and I am tired. :) They love to play with Annie and now know all her little sayings and preferences. They even come over, ring the doorbell and ask if she can play. It's so cute.
So, we all went to Jenny's Farm Market to experience the fall fun. Sadly, we went at the end of the day, so we missed the hayride and the pony rides, but we still had a great time.

Jumping on the hay stack

Checking out the horses and a donkey (which Matt called a "jackass" in front of the girls. I said that was inappropriate because they are in first and fourth grade. In his own defense, he said "That's what they're called! It's their name!")

Madison, Sabrina and Annie

Annie and some more punkins. We didn't actually buy these, but she liked to carry them.

Punkins!

Annie loves pumpkins. There is a giant pumpkin patch down the street from our house, and every time we drive by she points and yells "Punkins!" (It actually sounds kind of like "monkeys," but she's going for "pumpkins"). She gets so excited every time. So, Matt and I took her to that very pumpkin patch for some pumpkin picking, animals visits and a hayride. (Everything but the pumpkin was free!)

This picture does not reflect how gigantic this cow was. Matt kept trying to get me to move closer to it. When I refused, he took Annie and walked right up to it like a real man. Then the cow mooed loudly and licked him with an insanely long, white tongue. At which point, Matt yelped like a girl and jumped back. This is as close as he would get after. Annie was also scared of this cow. She did love the goats and pigs, though.

She wants the giant punkin.

Just sittin' around. (I don't know why her pants rode up so high. They really do fit.)

Helping Daddy carry our pumpkin back to the hayride.

She was more interested in the hay.

Annie and Mommy

Happy Halloween Family

The little photo op spot. Annie was sick of pictures and had little interest in posing. This was the best we could get.

And, as an added bonus, here's a pic from last year's pumpkin patch fun. What a difference a year makes!!

Rock Star

This is what happens when Annie and Daddy are left alone in the bathroom, where we also keep our hair products.

And, yes, she's wearing a hoodie over her pajamas because we haven't turned on our heat yet. And she's playing in the baby's crib. Maybe if it seems fun now, it will seem fun with a baby in it... :)

She's A Genius

Annie is getting smarter and smarter every day. She amazes us sometimes with the things she remembers and is able to say. She is very interested in numbers and letters. However, her skills in those departments are a bit lacking. Every number is 2 and every letter is E. Makes her look pretty smart sometimes, and just cute other times. Here she is "counting." Listen closely and you'll hear her count to three by saying "Two, two, two."

Zingerman's

My parents were here to visit (well, really, they came to do a bunch of stuff for us because they are awesome). They had had Annie for the past few days, so they drove up to drop her off and help us out. In return, Matt and I let them take us out to eat. We even picked the place for them. We selected Zingerman's Deli, an authentic Jewish deli that we'd been hearing about ever since we announced our move to Ann Arbor. It's quite the AA (I can use that now because I live here) landmark. When we arrived we saw why. It was packed with meats, cheeses and breads. It smelled amazing and had an overwhelming amount of sandwich options. It was, however, very, very small, so we had to eat next door. I loved my sandwich (and the piece of buttercream cake we ate later). So, friends...here's another enticement to AA--we'll take you to Zingerman's, or we'll let you take us. :)
And I felt like a weirdo taking pictures inside, so I just got these.

They gave Annie a balloon, which made her happier than is reflected in this photo.

These were hanging over the counter. My dad says they are "hindquarters." We'll go with that.