Big Sky Bound

We have had Wade for one year today, and what a year it was! Some of you may remember the lengths to which I went to get this little goof to Montana, for a refresher click here. Since then, Wade has had adventures hiking in the Montana wilderness, gone on a couple of river trips, made an indent in the couch where he sleeps every night, learned how to play fetch, and even dragged my friend Addy down the aisle at my wedding.

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

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

10. Getting stuck crawling under the bed
11. Snuggling (at inopportune times) -

11. Blue – she is his best friend, part time lover and partner in crime

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!

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

Matt and I bought a $5 permit from the Forest Service this past weekend and headed out into the wilderness (100′s of feet off the road) to find the perfect Christmas tree.

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:

Happy post-Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is recovered from binge eating, drinking and family time. I was looking forward to stuffing my face for two this year, but it turns out that VBJ is taking up the extra belly room I was reserving for food. We offered to host dinner, which meant that Matt went crazy trying to make progress on some house project loose ends. Here are some shots of the progress in action.

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

Under the stairs:

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!

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!

It’s no secret that pregnant ladies and dogs love chocolate. For both of us, Halloween is a GREAT holiday filled with candy, cookies and chocolate. While I should be watching my sugar intake, I just can’t help but indulge. VBJ loves sweets! Blue and Wade also love sweets, and especially chocolate, which happens to be toxic to dogs……

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!

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.

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.

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.

20 weeks of baby growing, 20 weeks to go. VBJ has found his/her kicking legs and punching fists and boy are they strong! I should mention that we had our “big” ultrasound and found out that VBJ has all its fingers and toes and we found out the gender. There are a few people who would like to be surprised in March when VBJ comes shooting out, so if you want to know the gender email me and I would be happy to share – tkatecenis@gmail.com.

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…

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!?

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:

This whole pending parenthood thing has turned out to be very exhausting! So exhausting that, in fact, I am writing from a cushy bed in the Staybridge Suites hotel on Reserve Street in Missoula. Check out our sweet suite – could this be our honeymoon?

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:

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:

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

The “chillin’” referenced in my last blog two months ago (how lazy am I!?) is most definitely over.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

*New* Baby Bump Watch:

July

Today

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!