Friday, November 21, 2008

A Couple of Ultrasound Pics

Here are just a couple. We had them saved to a disk, so cool they can do that now. We didn't have the option 3 years ago when pregnant with Matthew.

Only 9 oz. here in weight. Less than a can of coke. It's amazing what technology can show us. The baby looked really healthy. No heart defects and the spine looks to be completely enclosed. It's amazing the detail that we could see and shows me again the miracle of life, babies, and the little beings that our Heavenly Father entrusts us with every day. We have a huge responsibility to raise our children right and teach them to love the righteous things in life. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by that responsibility and just hope that I'm parenting Matthew the right way.



She looks like she's sucking her thumb here, but who knows.


As a side note, I do have a lake (pooled blood) on my placenta. I guess they are pretty common in pregnancies and the Dr. doesn't say anything unless they are unusually large. Most are 3-4 inches, but the one she commented on is 7 inches across and thin. Next month when I go in they are going to do another ultrasound to see if it has shrunk or not. My Dr. said she wouldn't be really concerned until about week 32 as the baby isn't using much of the placenta right now to grow and that is what they would be worried about with the lake is that the complete flow of blood isn't getting to the baby as it gets bigger in the last 2 months. We're going to watch it for now and I'm not worrying about it so we'll see what happens next month. Hoping that it will shrink by then as that is what usually happens.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

So the baby is a........

GIRL!!! The Anderson tradition is still going strong. We haven't talked names yet, but I have a good idea of what I want so we'll see. The ultrasound tech said she knew from the moment she saw the baby but kept us in suspense as she looked all the other parts over. We'll try and post an ultrasound pic later after we get home from work.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Home Means Nevada

As you gathered from Karin's post, she's out of town for a week, so Matthew and I have been muddling through on our own. To break things up a little bit, I decided to take him up to Nevada for the weekend. I spent a day with my brother and his family in Vegas, and then drove the familiar road out to Beatty to spend a day or two with my parents. It was a short visit but well worth it. Going back to Beatty always brings a lot of memories to the surface, and this was the first time Matthew was old enough for me to start sharing a little bit of that with him. I'm also glad he got some quality time with his grandparents, to whom he became quickly re-attached.

On Saturday morning, we (sans my mom, who had to work for a few hours) went out to Rhyolite, the local ghost town, which about a hundred years ago was a lot bigger than Beatty. My dad has done a lot of work out there renovating a building appropriately called the "Red Barn," which is now serving as an art museum, so we went to check that out. The Red Barn sits on land which actually was in the town of Bullfrog, apparently, given that the old Bullfrog jail is right next door. My dad snapped this picture of Matthew "locked up":



Probably the most unique building in Rhyolite is a house made largely out of bottles. Matthew was a big Bottle House fan - he spent about 10 minutes just walking around the outside running his hand along the bottles. Here's another shot from my dad:

Karin here: I love this picture of Matthew and don't be surprised if you see it somewhere soon!
Here's another one I shot:
That afternoon after my mom got back from work, we went down to the Amargosa River (which is basically an underground river - just a little stream above ground most of the time).
Matthew was mostly interested in playing with sticks and rocks. He used this one to lead music for a while.
Karin here: People always tell me that Matthew looks like Jordan and I just didn't see it until I saw this picture and I really see Jordan in Matthew here.
At some point over the weekend, he started yelling in the middle of singing songs to try to scare my mom:
Karin here: I've played a game in the car with Matthew before where we sing songs and then in the middle either I sing louder or he does and then I act scared. I made it up one day when he wouldn't stop screaming (because he was upset) in the car home from work/daycare and we laughed all the way home doing these songs/scaring each other. We play lots of silly games together.

Unfortunately it was a pretty short weekend. I wasn't too excited to drive back today, but I did better than I thought I would on my own with him, courtesy of a portable DVD player, some Pixar movies, and Kung Fu Panda.
I'm so glad they had a great time in Beatty without me as it helped break up the week for both of them. Today Matthew was sad being dropped off at daycare and wanted to play with Jordan today poor kid.
Karin again: Our event just ended and we'll do some final packing tomorrow (Tuesday) and then I catch a flight home at 4 pm. I can't wait to see my boys again. I've really missed them this week. It's been a fun event, but I'm really glad it's pretty much over. It's hard being at an event where I can't participate as much as I would like because of my energy level. This is our last big event until February and it will be nice to have a few mellow months in the office. I've been traveling/out of the office way too much lately for my liking.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

El Capitan in Santa Barbara, CA

I am enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery in Santa Barbara, CA. I flew in on Tuesday afternoon to start setting up for our camp event that started on Thursday. I have never been here before and didn't know what to expect. It is so beautiful and my kind of camping. We are in cabins that have showers, but then we are in the beautiful outside. I just wanted to post a couple of pictures.

Thanks once again to Jordan for watching Matthew while I am away for a week.



You can see more about this resort canyon by visiting http://www.elcapitancanyon.com/index.html

Monday, November 10, 2008

Kung Fu Panda and sexes of babies in my family

We rented Kung Fu Panda this weekend and Matthew LOVES it! We watched it as a family on Saturday night after I got home from my event and he keeps wanting to watch it. Pretty cute! I think we'll have to add to our collection. We need to rent Madagascar too as I think he'd really LOVE it.

So, my (Karin) six older siblings have had either a boy first and then a girl next or a girl first and then a boy second. Jordan comes from a family of all boys and his two brothers have had: Brother #1-Boy, boy, girl and Brother #2-Girl, boy.

Hmmmm....so what do you think we'll have??? Do you think we'll break the history of 6 children in my family and have a boy instead of a girl or do you think we'll follow with the streak and have a girl? Vote in our new poll on the right. We find out on November 20th what we're having so I'll announce and we'll see how many of you were right.

I'm on week 18 right now and I can't believe I'm almost half way through. It's been pretty easy so far except for the constant fatigue. I have a week long event that I am leaving for tomorrow and I just hope I can get through the long days with little sleep. It might just kill me off and I'll be excited for a few days break over Thanksgiving.

(I'm secretly hoping for a girl, but I really just want a healthy baby either way).

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

The Redskins streak continues

See in the post below, but apparently the skins are to follow when they play before Presidential Election time. See you in 4 years to see if it holds true for a 19th election.

Did you Vote?

Did you vote? If so, you maybe didn't need to. According to the Red Skins game last night the election has already been decided.

I am always amazed by the stats that Sports staticians come up with. Jordan was watching the Red Skins last night because one of their receivers needed to get him some fantasy football points (another day, another tangent-one thing this chick just doesn't get-watching a team on your computer that's fake).

Anyways, the stat that came up was that over the last 17 elections (17x4=68 years) if the Redskins won the game right before the election then whatever party was in office won the election and if the opponent won the game then the opposite party won the election.

Last night the Red Skins lost so that means according to their game that Obama will win the election. I have a feeling it will go this way anyways, but we are watching CNN right now as states come in.

This morning our plan was that Jordan would get up early and vote and then come home and I would vote and then we would go to work. Jordan was in line at 5:50 am and didn't get home until just after 7 and by then we needed to get ready and go to work. Also because of voting, traffic was really bad this morning and it usually takes Jordan 1/2 hour to get into work and this morning it took us almost an hour just to get to him work.

We left a little bit early from work tonight so I could get in line to vote and much to our surprise when we got to our voting area there was no line. Either everyone went this morning or we just beat the rush this evening. Either way it was very nice to just walk up and vote.

Whatever the outcome I hope that you did your civic duty and voted today. We're just hoping that our local bond gets passed so we can build a really nice library, more city parks, and a water/rec center that our relatively young city desperately needs.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Mandatory Halloween Post

We had a good time with Halloween this year, particularly because it was the first time Matthew really understood what was going on. Unfortunately, he was fighting an ear infection and didn't feel too great, but he pushed through it due to the associated candy and getting to wear his cowboy hat a few more times.

We started out thinking we'd spend some quality time at a pumpkin patch, and we found one on the internet that looked pretty good. Turns out, no one was there, and it wasn't too exciting. Matthew kept himself entertained by arranging the pumpkins, but we only lasted about 5 minutes. He did pick one out, and we carved it up a few days later for FHE (I'm assuming you are LDS; if not, Google FHE, and if you don't know what LDS is, Google that first, and then Google FHE). He helped a bit (pushed the eyes/nose/mouth out) and then just wanted to stand outside all night looking at it.











A few days before Halloween, our Disneyland candy was starting to wane, but fortunately my office has a trick-or-treat thing for families every year, and it's hard to beat the amount of candy you can get in about 30 minutes going from cubicle to cubicle.



The Hammond Halloween Party has become an annual tradition (along with soup in pumpkin bread bowls and now doughnuts homemade by Karin). Ray and EmmaLee have a good neighborhood for trick-or-treating, so Matthew did pretty well there too (he compensated for his somewhat weakened physical state by asking "one more please" at some of the houses). Karin dressed as an oven ("bun in the oven"), and although I probably should have been a baker, I was already too committed to dressing as myself (if I never mentally left high school) to change directions at that point. Karin thinks I make my costumes too complicated to understand, and she's probably right - you'd have to have known me in my glasses/letterman's jacket/Cure shirt/mustache days to appreciate it I guess (the mustache only lasted about six hours - Karin was not a fan).