We are attempting to nest, but with Matt having about half an hour of free time a day and my back getting worse and worse as I get bigger and bigger, that has been challenging. We decided this week to start putting together things in boxes… Lets start with the changing table from hell.

Little did Matt know, as he was smiling away in this picture, that inside the box this P.O.S. was broken into pieces. Instead of sending it back like normal people, Matt assured me a trip to ACE Hardware, new dowels, a bunch of drilling, a glue-up and an extra 2 hours of construction could get us back to where it should have been out of the box.

There was a lot of swearing and grumping so I did what I do best – laid on the couch and ate cake.

We tackled the crib last night – or the baby cage, as Matt likes to call it. That was a monster box that has been sitting around for months, so I was a little worried after the changing table debacle. It turned out to be easy breezy! We realized once we put it together that it would not fit through the door to the baby room, F*#k! So we took it apart and put it back together in the baby room. I’m sure we are not the only expecting parents who have done this, right?

First try

Wade helped by licking all the parts and our hands the whole time.

I have also been nesting by online shopping at 4am when I have insomnia – Ohh, we need a ___ (fill in the blank). I think we have a rocking chair, clothing, and an extra base for the car seat on the way (among other things). For our budgets sake, I hope this insomnia passes!

Cute black pack pic of the week:

Pack support

Baby bump watch – 31.5 weeks:

side view was too scary

P.S. I have so many adorable pics and videos of Christmas with the red-headed nephews that I don’t know where to start – maybe I will have a Christmas throw-back post in a few weeks. Stay tuned!

Here are some things that we have come to know about Wade over the last 12 months…

Things Wade loves:
1. Food – he is a pig in dog’s clothing
2. His orange ball – he would literally jump off a cliff to follow that thing and he spends hours every night chewing on it

my precious, my only

3. Water – he has a drinking problem
4. Licking everything – he has the LONGEST tongue on the planet, like anteater long

5. Using his head as a battering ram – this is how he tries to get into our room every morning
6. Eating spatulas – mmmmmm, plastic. I think we only lost about 6 this year
7. Eating veggies from the garden and rotten compost – and we wonder why he farts all the time?
8. Farting and burping – he’s a disgusting boy, need I say more…
9. Having his ears rubbed
10. Snow – It is amazing that he is from AZ because he loves eating, cooling his undercarriage, and rolling in snow

Trouble, where?

c'mon Blue!

Things Wade hates:
1. Vacuums – Kill, KILL!
2. Skateboards – I can’t blame him, who really does like those damn loud wheels anyway?
3. Water – remember this

4. German Shepherds – they must all have their butts bitten according to Wade
5. Mechanical tools – Wade is a Luddite, he wants to bite saws, lawn mowers, weed eaters, power drills, etc.
6. Being kicked off the couch
7. Blue – She is his evil big sister, frienamy and wrestling nemesis

Because of his goofy/disgusting/bubbly personality we have come up with some nicknames that have stuck – here are the top 5:

1. Fart monster
2. Sir licks-a-lot
3. Wadester
4. Lil’ Wade
5. Mr. Pee Bucket (his bladder is the size of a pea and he needs to go every 2 seconds)

Wade is a very important member of our pack and we love him very much. Our lives would be so boring without his daily antics!

night night!

zzzzzzzzzz....

P.S. We entered the home stretch, trimester 3, yesterday. See you soon VBJ!

I found it!

Matt cut it (Blue was busy hunting)

I pretended to carry it

Matt actually carried it back to the car

Ta-da! Charlie Brown has never looked so good

Pregnancy Update – I bundled up for a long, cold, 1 block trek to the gas station last night for some pregnancy must-haves:

When I got home Matt dug into my ice cream and informed me that Pepto is not optimal to use during pregnancy according to his research, good thing I got back-up Tumms! See ya acid reflux!

There will be no cute Black Pack pic this week because they are driving us crazy!! Apparently they did not get the memo about the time change a month ago and have been waking us up at 5:45AM every day. We are taking dramatic measures because baby, baby mama and stressed out law student need their sleep!

Stay tuned for my 1 year anniversary tribute to Wade joining our pack on Dec. 16th. By the way he has been acting recently, I don’t think he knows that there is a 1 year return policy we can still use in the next 2 weeks… For example:

Mmmmmm, compost

I'm caught in the act!

Hallway to the bathroom (right door) and baby room (left door):

Before

During

After (almost, just need trim)

Under the stairs:

Before

During

Almost after

Matt would be upset if I didn’t mention that most of the trim is not done and there will be doors on the bottom cabinets when he gets a break from law school in January. The baby room has a ways to go, so sit tight for that big reveal – I promise it will be before mid-March.

This is what Blue and I did while Matt was busting his butt…..

With the projects mostly done, we had 15 people over for turkey day including, 3 rambunctious boys, 3 pregnant ladies, and 3 dogs. It was a blast!

Banquet-style

Eating for 6!

Cute Black Pack pics of the week:

I decided to weasel my way into one of the dog pics – I am part of the pack too!

Winter - Yay! Can you tell who is who?

Mom (25 weeks preggers) and her bad babies

I came home yesterday to the baby gate knocked down and the trash from our trash can all over the floor. This was not the worst trash disaster in history, except that those little scoundrels had eaten 2 bags of Halloween chocolate. They picked the Snickers and Crunch bars (good choices) and only the bags were left…which means they even ate all the wrappers!

crime scene

I called the vet and she said to give them hydrogen peroxide to make them puke. A friend came rushing over with the goods and I tricked the dogs into drinking it with V-8. I will not torture you with pictures of the several piles of puke that came up, but I will just say that the proof was in the puke pudding – Wade was clearly guilty of all the chocolate snarfing. Don’t fret, in a couple of hours they were back to their annoying selves.

I’m also guilty of chocolate snarfing. I have never been a chocolate or dessert person, but boy am I now. I snuck a couple cupcakes into the cart at the grocery store with Matt, and was trying to rip the package open right when I walked in the door and ended up dropping them on the floor. I cried, cut off the dust and hair parts then ate them anyway….oh, the joys of pregnancy.

My pumpkins

Matt and I headed out on the town (for two hours) on Saturday night to show off our costumes and check out all the other freaks. We decided to be Hawaiian honeymooners since it looks like we will not be having a honeymoon anytime soon, and I can’t go to a work conference this week in Hawaii because of my dumb busted back, sigh.

Happy honeymooners (one on right would be happier with a Pina Colada)

fanny pack + socks + sandals = sinful

Cute Wu pic of the week:

I know that this may look more scary then cute, but this is how Blue and Wade make-out and kiss all day.

Me and the dogs in the future nursery

The baby part of our life has taken a back seat to the construction part of our life. In my last blog post I may have seemed excited about the pending baby room, while a little bit frustrated with the project. Fast forward two weeks, 5 weeks total of work men and compounding dust, and my frustration has turned to rage. In a very pregnant moment I told our dry wall guy (we call him Corn Dog our third roommate) that he was done and had to leave after running over by 2 weeks. He understood because as he eloquently put, I am nesting and hormonal…. So, now Matt has taken over the work. Look at him go!

I’m trying, in my own way from the couch, to help with the work and planning. My contribution so far has been picking paint colors, light fixtures and complaining about my expanding waistline. I would show you the color samples, but then you may be able to guess if VBJ is a girl or boy!

I am happy to announce that we have hired a cleaning crew because how can people live in this filth…

Makeshift dining room table = Matt's lap

Sick.

I did make the guys put up plastic so at least I could not see what was going on back there. Isn’t it a lovely touch to the room!?

The green monster - Boston comes to Montana!

Everyone keeps on asking me when will it all be done – All I have to say is, sometime before mid-March, 2012…

Cute Wu pics of the week:

Wade cuddling with his ball

Blade and our growing library of kids books from when I was young

Kitchen, living room, bedroom, pool, all-you-can-eat breakfast (they lost money on me)…What? Why sleep 4 miles from your house? Here’s why…

A growing family requires a place to put future family members. When we bought our little house we were more concerned with where our dog beds and flower beds would go, not an extra bedroom for a baby. The choices are, either the baby/toddler/teenager lives in our room indefinitely, or we remodel our house – you can guess which one Matt enthusiastically opted for.

Matt and the construction guys started destroying and re-building our house a couple of weeks ago, and by a cruel twist of fate, I started modified bed rest at the same time. It turns out that I ruptured a disk in my lower back 4.5 months ago, and it refuses to heal with this baby draining my life force. I have been exiled to the man shack to work for the next few weeks or months until I’m healed and back on my feet. Matt even built me a laying down work station:

The dogs think they are on bed rest too

Blue bonds with the baby bump

Here are a few reasons why I am staying out of the house 87% of the time – construction dust, smelly men, exposed nails, no heat, mud, tripping hazards, electrical wires, pure chaos!

Let’s start at the beginning with a “before” picture from 2 years ago:

Stairs to guest room and door to baby room before

Planning from inside old baby room

demo begins with nasty old rug coming out

Blue is in future hallway to bathroom (door on right), Wade is in future baby room on other side of wall

Stairs are gone, new big beams are up

Red wall comes out, new wall and door are framed in to make hallway

Stair stringers

Half stairs

The stairs are up!

Now we just need some sheet rock over and under the stairs and down the hallway to make it a real baby room

I have been promised that this little project will be done by THIS Tuesday – HA! Yeah right. No matter if the project is done by Tuesday or not, it will still be a great day because we find out the baby’s gender! The baby has affectionately been named VBJ – Matt’s chosen baby name, Vigilante Bacon Jennings. He assured me that this would work for a boy or girl (Vigil or Jill for short). Bacon is a family name on my side, so that is less far-fetched, and awesome in Matt’s opinion.

Baby Bump Watch:

Matt said that I looked especially big today, I agree! Must have been the all-you-can-eat breakfast.

18 Weeks

It seems that we had an uninvited guest at our wedding in June that left us a most surprising wedding present… That’s right, the stork crashed our wedding and we are having a baby in March! The ides of March to be exact.

Matt and I are thrilled, though maybe a little unprepared for this new adventure. Matt’s idea of preparation has been to build more things and start more projects including a complete home remodel that will add a baby room. My preparation has been to read books on the basics, like what I am supposed to be eating (not just ice cream, cereal, gummy bears, and bagels I found out), changing diapers, tricks to fitting a fat belly into clothing and how to bring this baby into the world.

How the heck does this diaper thing work???

When we found out in July we realized, much to our dismay, that a honeymoon in Belize was out. Apparently Belize is the Malaria capital of the world and I would have had to get vaccination shots to go. We decided instead to float the Missouri River Breaks right here in Montana for a mini-moon and then travel to Belize when the baby is old enough to dump with a grandparent.

The canoe trip was amazing! We even brought the dogs, who annoyed us every step of the way – shocker, I know. Here are some highlights.

The night before we put our canoe in at Coal Banks Landing, we stayed in the little ghost town of Virgelle. We were the only ones there renting a rustic (no electricity) cabin. Wade was so excited that he puked all over the cabin – you’re welcome that I didn’t take a picture of that.

Rustic and cozy!

Day 1 on the river was a steep learning curve. We had hoped that Wade would calmly swim next to the boat most of the time, but that did not happen. Come to find out, Wade is OBSESSED with biting waves.

motor-butt

Die waves!!!

When he makes waves with his own paws from swimming, he has to bite them. In his wave mania he would swallow so much water and air that his butt would sound like an outboard motorboat motor. The words “water toxicity” kept floating through my head, so we kept him in the boat. In the boat, Wade was not sure how to tell us he needed to pee after slurping all that water, so he just peed in the boat, which got him a ticket back in the water. When we finally landed at camp, we were beat.

Big river

Supper time with a view

Blue found a dead animal to roll in somewhere along the way, so the dogs did not sleep in our tent. In fact, they did not sleep at all and neither did we because they were up barking and causing a ruckus all night. We still managed to take a morning hike.

Family hike, all 4.5 of us!

My baby bump is stuck

Day 2 was difficult on no sleep – damn dogs! We only paddled a few miles and found camp. Blue had been thoroughly bathed and we decided (for our own sake) that the animals could sleep in the two person tent with us. They loved it, and we slept.

Dead tired animals

my legs make great dog pillows

Blue the snuggler

The next day we did not see 1 other soul, we actually probably saw 4 other boats total during the whole trip – ideal!

The nuns

We pulled into this last campsite and started to unpack. Matt noticed (by almost stepping on) a rattlesnake right on the walkway. That jerk of a snake stayed right on the path all night which meant we had to leash the dogs and scramble through the brush to get to our stuff.

Shake shake little snake

That last night we managed to stay alive as the most scary wind/lightning storm came down on us. There was no rain, just cracks of lightning and thunder so loud I thought our little tent had been hit numerous times. The branches on the huge cottonwood trees above us snapped and fell all around and I thought we were done for. Matt pretended not to be panicked and the dogs just slept through it – typical. After the storm passed, the coyotes came out in full force and howled us to sleep.

We paddled to the Judith Landing take-out and on the drive home stopped in Big Sandy, MT (population 600). I was dying for something cold as our ice ran out 2 days earlier. I ordered the standard pregnant lady fare, strawberry milkshake and fries to dip in it, it was heaven!

What a great mini-moon as a family of 4 and a 1/2.

Cute Blade pics of the month: (I promise when the baby comes I will not stop posting cute pics of my dogs)

COWS!

Pretty girl

We were all hot and tired

*New* Baby Bump Watch:

July

7 weeks

Today

15 weeks - and lovin' the sweatpants

P.S. That is our new fence behind me in the pic. I will show you more of Matt’s projects next time – and no, it will not be 2 more months until the next post!

Since the wedding, Matt and I have been kicking around the house doing next to nothing and posing as part-time landscape design artists. We realized last weekend, as we were driving to a wedding up Rock Creek 30 miles from Missoula, that that was the first time Matt had left town since the wedding! What a homeboy.

A pressing project that we had to tackle was to get up a barrier between our house and the house 10 feet from ours. The bank foreclosed on the house last December and it has stood vacant since then, besides the homeless people and kids that go there to hang out – ugh! The house was slated to go up for public auction, so we decided to take some precautions against new owners peeping in our windows.

We built 2 trellis’ and planted a couple of Aspen trees…we waited until it was 100 degrees out for ultimate project misery.

The neighborly view into our living room

Matt finally lets me use the chop saw...must be a benefit of being married

Up! Ready to block

Honeysuckle - grow please

Our other big project was the boulevard in front of our house. It was nasty. weeds and dead grass and the occasional discarded beer bottle and Kit-Kat wrapper.

First we “solarized” the grass. I read online that to REALLY kill grass you should put clear plastic on your grass, soak it with water and let the sun do its thing. Well, needless to say it worked – look at those crispy critters!

Pre-solarization watering - look at our new tree!

peace out grass

Tilling

Weed mat and mulch

sooo much mulch!

Drum roll please….

Finished!

It’s nice to come home to a pretty boulevard with blooming flowers – and nobody has thrown trash on it…yet.

Stay tuned to see our new dining room table that Matt is staining as I type…sooo excited!

Cute Black Pack pic of the week:

Sunbathers

P.S. If you are wondering about Wade’s little stink issue. Well, the fart powder did not work, so we went on to fart antibiotics and they did not work either…so plan D! We changed his food and he immediately pooped in the house (twice) basically saying, this food sucks and gives me the runs! Pray for us.

Who wore their gown better?

Matt in his hospital gown moments before knee surgery on 6/3/11:

Sweet gown

Me in my gown moments before taking the plunge on 6/18/11:

Checkin' out my bum

A BIG thank you to everyone who pitched in at the ranch and weed wacked, mowed, constructed bridges, assembled puff balls (damn you Martha Stewart!), painted signs, took pictures, hung signs, picked flowers, planted flowers, arranged flowers, hung lights, fed me booze, cleaned, played with our animals and babies, cooked, forced Matt to sit down and made the big day unforgettable!

Here are some shots of everyone breaking their backs to get the ranch ready:

Madeline = weed wacker woman

Flowerista Jen

Uncle Tim, the sickle bar mower master

Puff ball making HELL!

Bride in the tree!

the crutched wacker...don't tell Dr. Schutte

Max on the chainsaw

The flower pickers

Jodi the flower guru

Post work beers

Here are a couple of pictures from getting ready and the ceremony that we stole from friends on Facebook – thank you Mother Nature for stopping the rain for an hour:

Bride of Frankenstein!

I do!

Is Matt a giant?

Matt decided his crutch didn’t match his wedding suit, so he whittled himself a stylish wooden cane for the day. Later in the night it was used as a pole vaulting stick…. Last week Wade ate it.

ready to launch...

Take-off!!

Pedro kicks it old school

Most importantly, here are candids from the reception – thank you Tom Catmull and the Clerics for getting everyone out on the floor:

Blue's new best friend Andy

Megan and Emmett, aka The Big E-Z

Henry and Lissa busting a move

Tom Catmull and the Clerics!

My pie hole got full!

The booth

A group of folks got together and got us a photobooth as a wedding gift which really let people cut loose. The best (worst for some) part is you can see all the good, bad and ugly shots here.

We decided the first thing we should do as a married couple, to ensure a lifetime of happiness, was to handle Wade’s farting problem. When we first got him, the vet told us he may just be nervous and that was why he farted (audibly) every 10 minutes. We now know that is not the case…. Being the dedicated dog mom that I am, I took a fresh poop smear in to the vet and sure enough, he has a bacterial infection that makes him a fart monster. He is now on antibiotics and some powder that may be illegal in 48 states that is supposed to solve all of his (our) problems. I have my fingers crossed; Matt thinks it may detract from his goofy personality if he doesn’t fart all the time…

Wade (right) is probably farting in this picture