Fall Family Festival

One of the communities near us had a Fall Family Festival today. It was great because it was small, uncrowded and had perfect activities for Lily's age (all for free). Also, the weather was absolutely beautiful. A perfect way to spend the day as a family!

The bounce house, with balls for extra fun. Lily practiced her "super soccer kick".

Putting in her request for a balloon animal

The finished product - a pink puppy

Firefighter Lily at the wheel

Showing off her butterfly face painting

Butterfly House

On Friday, Lily and I ventured out to the Butterfly House for a special tots program. It was nice, although not quite as good as the program at the Nature Center. Half of the time was spent doing various activities at stations they had set up around the room. The other half included a nature walk, story time, and making a tasty treat of orange juice slush. After the program, we checked out all the beautiful butterflies. Overall, a morning well spent.

Getting into the slimy gak

Gaining a better appreciation for the role of light in relation to our sense of sight

Lily thought that the hundreds of cockroaches surrounding her were super cool. Fear Factor, here we come!

Watching the butterflies in flight

Getting a closer look

The fake picture smile

31-week doctor's appointment

Today's appointment was all good things. Blood pressure looks great at 126/68! Heartbeat is good; measurements are good. I also inquired about the exact results of the 3-hour glucose test, and it was "better than good....just perfect....exactly where we would want it to be" as the nurse said. I was in the lower-mid range for all 4 readings. I was really happy about that. I guess the first test was just a fluke. It was a short and sweet appointment, as usual for this point in the pregnancy. I've actually started bringing Lily with me to my appointments because they are so short, and she does a great job. Today she pretended to be the doctor before my doctor came into the room, and then she assisted him once he arrived. The entire office is great about involving her whenever she comes with me. The doctor asked Lily where he should look for the heartbeat by pointing to different places on my stomach, and Lily told him to check on the far right side. Sure enough, she was right on, and the doctor thanked her for saving him some time searching for it. :)

And so it is time for one last baby name clue. The clue is that the name was in the top 100 names for 2008 according to the social security administration.* Although this initially may not seem like much of a clue, taken together with the previous clues, this narrows the possibilities to about 13 (in my quick estimation). And because I'm not willing to narrow it down any further, no more clues will be given. And, no, I will not tell anyone if they guess the name correctly or incorrectly. You'll just have to wait for the big day for the final answer!

*I'm not sure why I can't link this to the top 100 names for 2008 on the SSA website, but if you go to the bottom of their page, you can change the popularity from "Top 20" to "Top 100" and then hit "Go".

Daddy / daughter moments

Week 30 baby name clue

The second name under consideration is actually more popular (according to 2008 social security administration baby name stats) than the first name. HOWEVER, I now hear the first name all. the. time. (could be a regional thing). I heard it once again today, and now I'm pretty darn sure that we will go with the second name. So, since I gave 6 beginning letter possibilities for the first name, I will do the same for the second name. They are: B, C, D, M, N, W.

A sleepy Sunday afternoon

Lily has been asking us to see The Jungle Book for quite some time now, and we finally got around to renting it yesterday afternoon. Carl even got "emma-m's" and popped some popcorn for the occasion. Half-way into the movie, this is what I found.

Grant's Farm

Bottle-feeding the goats

Thirsty little guys

Brandon and Lily checking out the giant tortoise

Taking a peek at the hedgehog

Cooling off on the misting bridge on a hot day

A few pics from the week

On Wednesday, we went to see the play "Alice in Wonderland". It was such a nice production and perfect for little ones at only 1 hour. Of course, Lily had to bring her Alice in Wonderland doll to see the performance as well.

Alice and Lily pre-show

Yesterday we hosted a WUMCHA playdate. Lily loves to play hostess. I just don't know where she gets it from! :)

Oh boy!

The latest in babyland is this...

I failed the 1-hour glucose test by a small margin. I was really disappointed by this because when I did this test while pregnant with Lily, three nurses were standing around and actually passed my results around, and each one commented how well I did. One of them even told me to go eat a candy bar! Luckily, I passed the 3-hour test. So, we have avoided unpleasant diets, insulin shots, and any other yuckiness associated with gestational diabetes.

All else seems to be going well. I'm having some indigestion/acid reflux, but nothing that a couple of Tums can't handle. I also get swollen legs/ankles/feet if I sit or stand too long but completely normal stuff for this stage in the game. I feel too big for this point in the pregnancy, but I think that my weight gain is pretty much on par with my pregnancy with Lily. I honestly haven't kept track like I did with hers. I'm not uncomfortable and still sleeping really well; I just feel like a "brick house" (you know, as in "mighty, mighty").

When it comes to baby names, we are leaning toward the second name under consideration, but we're not 100% yet. We do know that it will definitely be one of the two names. So, I thought I would post clues for the second name (under consideration, not the middle name) that will catch us up to the clues given for the first name.

Week 20 clue: The new name still does not start "L".
Week 21 clue: This name DOES lend itself to nicknames (although we probably would not use any the nicknames associated with this name).
Week 22 clue: The name DOES NOT start with A, E, F, J, K, or S.
Week 23 clue: The new name IS a family name. This is the #1 factor for pushing this name ahead of the first one right now. Carl and I both like traditional names and like using family names.
Week 24 clue: This name is not a last-name-turned-first-name either.
Week 25 clue: This name has the same or more letters than Lillian.

More to come in upcoming weeks!

Mary's Birthday Party

The warm-up. One of these things is not like the others....

One of these things is still not like the others.

Getting ready to swing into the block pit - go Jane of the Jungle!

Katie in the block pit

Party-goers receive their medals!

Cake time!


We had a very busy weekend with Angela's bridal shower on Saturday and Mary's 5th birthday party on Sunday. Unfortunately, I was too busy playing hostess to get any good pictures of the shower, but I am currently on the hunt for some pictures. If anyone out there has pictures from the day, please e-mail them to me!

Many thanks to my cousin, Maria, and my Aunt Chris for the great birthday party for Mary. The kids all had a blast (and expended a lot of energy)! We are still not proficient with our new camera so many of the action pics turned out blurry, but we did get a few good ones. Lily loved playing at the gym. At one point, I asked her to stay with the group and do what the others were doing, and she responded, "I'm too excited"! The kids got to play in the block pit, jump on the trampoline, go through an obstacle course, walk on balance beams, swing on the low bar, and play with the parachute. Lily was in her glory!

Residents picnic

The setting: the beautiful grounds in front of the Art Museum in Forest Park

The picnic-goers: Second-year Pathology Residents and families


Lily made friends with the adorable 3-year-old son of one of the other residents.
The date starts with the boy feigning interest in the girl's all-important topic of conversation.

The girl then plays hard-to-get.

Boy tries to impress girl with his masculine ways while girl heads for the hills.

Boy reevaluates methods and decides to wow girl with his impressive ice-spitting technique (which they both participated in, by the way - repeatedly spitting the ice into the cooler thereby sharing more than just conversation...gross!)

Boy and girl decide they may need a bit more to get this party started. Cheers to a fun afternoon together!