Winter Wonderland

The last few weeks we have had a lot of visitors staying at our house which has been really fun. Starting this weekend, we have a string of 4 legged visitors coming to stay. Our friends Tom and Jess asked us to watch their dog Parker this weekend while they were out of town. He is such a good dog and Sasha always loves it when other dogs come to play. The dynamic seems to be Sasha wants to play with Parker. Parker wants to play with Stella. And Stella wants to be left alone with her afghan on the couch. But I think Parker is warming up to Sasha. Today Brian took them outside to play in the new snow we had and it was hilarious. Parker can definitely hold his own!

Racing back to Brian.


Parker trying his best to pick up the frisbee. It's about 1/2 the size of his body. Please don't mind the yellow snow in the background..I don't know how to photoshop.

Brian holding Sasha and trying to get Parker to let go of the frisbee.

Stay tuned as Sasha's other BFF Hunter (a beagle) is coming to stay for a few days on Christmas Eve!

Winter is here!

I'm not all that excited about it but considering I have no choice, there's nothing to do in MN except enjoy the winter and all the fun stuff it brings...like hot chocolate which is the only thing I can think of right now. At CHR we have a silent auction in August to raise money for charity. One of the items they auction off is an underground heated parking spot at work. I told Brian that I was going to bid on the January and February spots and he better not complain because just about any price was worth it to me not to have to heat up my car or walk on the ice my last 2 months of pregnancy! I won and I can't wait for the next 15 days to fly by so I can start parking underground. It's the best money I've spent during this entire pregnancy...and it went to charity.

Stella also HATES the winter. As soon as we turn on the heat, she strategically positions herself over or in front of a vent. If we are upstairs, she lays in the bathroom. If we are downstairs, she lays on the vent in the kitchen. I don't know how she doesn't singe her hair off because sometimes the vent in the bathroom is super warm and she will just press herself up against it.

Here she is in her 2 spots.

My mom was in town this weekend for Disney on Ice and The Nutcracker. We also got the chance to go have a 3D ultrasound which was really fun for her to get to see. The doctor confirmed that it's a boy! After the ultrasound we went to Babies R Us where my mom went a little crazy on the "buy 2 get 1 free" sale on Christmas stuff. Anyone who has been to my mom's house at Christmas time knows she puts Clark Griswold to shame..and she's trying to pass that onto my baby. She bought outfits not only for next Christmas but the Christmas after that AND the Christmas after that!!!!!! Poor Brian just looked at her like "seriously??" but he was nice and didn't say anything :)

Here they are..in order although the middle one looks really big compared to the one for next year.

The best part of the ultrasound was they give you this SUPER CHEESY DVD of the ultrasound with music in the background. Brian almost lost it when I put it on the big screen at home. I might just break it out every now and then when he irritates me. 27 minutes of a weird blob skeletor looking thing on the big screen with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star playing in the background. Priceless. Unfortunately because of where my placenta is, we didn't get the best pictures because his face was turned in most of the time. I do like this one where it looks like he's scratching his back. The ultrasound guy kept pestering me about which one of us he looks like. Umm sir? He has no nose cartilage, his eyes are just black holes, and I can't tell the difference between an arm and a leg. I would be offended if you saw a resemblance in either one of us right now!! :)

And one of his entire body - his head is facing away from the placenta.

DITTO!

I know..3 posts in one week is a lot but I guess it's been a busy week. This has nothing to do with babies but Brian's FAVORITE sportswriter Bill Simmons has a HILARIOUS wife who sometimes will blog about how lame her hubby's fantasy sports leagues are and I feel a sort of kinship with her. Brian just sent me an email that she took over her husband's blog for the week and her writing cracks me up so much I had to share the post.

I'm not sure if you have to annotate blog's but if I figure out where this came from, I'll add it. Probably from Bill Simmons espn.com blog or something. Here it is. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmonsnflpicks/091204

Enjoy!

GREAT CALL OF THE WEEK
I'm turning the Great Call of The Week over to the Sports Gal, and only because she gets 50 percent of my money if we ever get divorced in the state of California. As she reminded me during the Tiger scandal. Repeatedly. In the meantime, I am giving her this space for a week.

Here's what she wrote:
"Everyone is talking about Tiger the spineless cheater. I would like to talk about his wife, Mrs. Tiger, the former nanny from Sweden. Bill and I were at dinner when news broke about the 'incident.' Bill shrewdly predicted that she attacked the car and that's why Tiger crashed. I told Bill that if he ever cheated on me, I would do the same thing she did, only I would attack the car with his League of Dorks trophy and keep hitting him with it until he stopped breathing. I then tweeted this so he knew I was serious.

"Now Mrs. Tiger is being portrayed as a crazy loon. Isn't she a hero? Did you see the parade of skanks that Tiger cheated on her with? Each one looked like she came with her own pole and lip plumper. Mrs. Tiger could have looked the other way and said, 'I am just lucky to live in America in this big mansion with my wealthy and famous husband who wins many golf tournaments. I will get back at him by having sex with cabana boys and masseurs.' Instead she stood up on behalf of women everywhere. Just because you are rich, famous and successful doesn't mean you get to humiliate your wife and kids.

"I wish Mrs. Tiger would admit what she did, if she did anything. She won't because Florida has strong domestic violence laws. California does not. If Bill ever follows Tiger's skank-chasing footsteps, I am going to beat him to death with his 2.8-pound book, while also having sex with cabana boys and masseurs. There will be no mystery about what happened. That's my Great Call of the Week."

DITTO...except I would use Brian's beloved softball bat insted of a trophy!! (And Brian is currently reading that 2.8 lb book) :)

10 on Thursday

There is another blog that I read (Life in Motion Photography ) written by a photographer who I love. She does a post "10 on Tuesday" which is 10 random thoughts every Tuesday. I thought it would be fun to do "10 on Thursday" although I'm not sure I can get to 10 but I'll try.

1. Best new show this season is Glee. If you've missed any I may or may not have all the episodes on our DVR. This guy is my favorite. I felt bad that I've been lusting after him because he plays a 16 year old on the show..but he's 27 in real life so I odn't feel guilty anymore.




2. I just got back from South Carolina and I'm so happy to be back home. I was only gone for 2 days but I missed my bed, the dogs, Brian, and just being home.

3. I'm also really enjoying the NCIS - LA show. LL Cool J wears a different tight henley shirt EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. Brian and I play the guessing game on what color it's going to be. It's usually gray, black, or blue but he spiced it up this week and it was red.

4. My name is Robyn and I'm addicted to Facebook. I am. I love it.

5. There has been a lot in the news lately about "sexting" (texting sexy I guess). So while I was traveling I sent a text to Brian that said: "Let's try some sexting. I'm wearing granny panties. Now you go." He didn't respond so I guess that's not what the kids these days are saying.

6. I'm really excited about watching some Christmas movies this season. My favorites are Elf, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Love Actually and Dr. Suess' How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

7. My one big craving so far during the pregnancy has been chocolate covered bismarck donuts that have the custard filling. So good.

8. I can't wait for my Mom to come up next weekend. We have tickets to Disney on Ice and the Nutracker. If I could throw in a New Kids or Brittany concert, it would be my Mom's dream weekend.

9. Our guilty pleasure is the MTV Real World/Road Rules challenges. These people keep coming back year after year to drink too much, beat eachother up, and do funny challenges to win money they probably blow the second they get the check. But we can't stop watching. I wish they would put the first seasons of Road Rules and Real World on DVD. That would be great maternity leave TV. (while I'm watching the baby of course.)

10. This is the nursery so far. We picked up the crib about 3 weeks ago and the other big box is the dresser. I have this feeling that Brian thinks if he puts the crib together, the baby is going to be here sooner. I hate to break it to ya pal, but this baby is coming whether or not the crib is up or not :)

99 Days to Go!

I can't believe we only have 99 days left! It seems like a lot but when you think that we started out with 280 days...we're into the home stretch. I also think with the Holidays right around the corner that the time will fly by. We have something scheduled almost every single weekend from now through February 7th (when we'll be watching the Vikings play in the Superbowl hopefully.)

I had a "Pretty Woman" moment a few weeks ago. I went to Pottery Barn Kids because I found some cute bedding there that I wanted to register for. It was a Monday night and I had a bunch of errands to run. I was wearing jeans, my UNI sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. Pretty low key. Well I couldn't get anyone at PBK to help me!!! I felt like yelling a few Julia Roberts' lines like "I have money to spend here." But instead I just bought an adorable advent calendar (to prove I had $70 to spend on something I didn't need) and then left. I should mention that the PBK is in The Galleria mall which is kind of fancy schmancy. It boasts a baby store where in a hurry I accidentally bought a $75 onesie and was too embarassed after she rang it up to tell her I didn't want it anymore after seeing the price! So the next Saturday night, Brian and I decided to go out for dinner at a restaurant in the Galleria and I thought since we were all dressed up, we should give PBK another try. They were so pleasant they actually told us they were locking up but we could stay and continue registering. Hrmph! I should have just told them off but once you see the bedding..you'll know why I bit my tongue. I can't resist this little elephant!





Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Ours was very relaxing. We had my mother-in-law and Brian's brothers and sister Amy over. During dinner the topic of "movies that you need to watch to be able to hold a conversation with Brian's family" came up because they thought I would want to keep notes for the baby. Brian thought this would be a great blog topic (even though I refuse to give him the password) and started taking notes of all the movies that would make the list. Obviously Brian was not a good choice to be note taker because as he was reading them back to us we all wondered how "The Longest Day" and "Hoosiers" made the list. Apparently Brian had just started adding every movie he has ever seen and liked to the list. So stay tuned for a future blog posting with the list. Later that night we started playing Scene It and The Three Amigos had a clip and several questions following the clip that you had to answer. This movie will be on the top 5 of the list and I'm not going to lie..my hands got a little sweaty worrying if I would miss a question and be voted out of the family. Thankfully I got all of them right and the baby and I can stay for one more year :)

We're engaged....again?!

Maybe I wouldn't call it being engaged again but maybe that we're officially married again? About a month ago Brian lost his wedding ring at a softball game. (pausing for gasp) I can't quite believe how this could happen with his fool proof safety keeping method of putting his ring IN A PLASTIC BAGGIE during the game. But alas, the unthinkable happened. Somehow that trusty plastic baggie that he's been using since May lost the ring. When Brian and I went to the ultrasound, I felt like I was on that MTV show "16 and pregnant" because Brian didn't have a ring on! Stupid, I know but that's hormones for you. I may or may not have told him that if he didn't get a new ring by March that the baby may or may not end up with the last name Gillespie. So tonight I went to the jeweler who luckily still had Brian's ring in stock and in his size. They actually had 2 but I resisted buying "the spare" because if Brian loses this one, he won't need another ring, he's going to need a casket. Anywho - it feels too important to just hand to him. AND thinking back..I realized that we got engaged November 14, 2005 so being that close to the anniversary sent the wheels in my brain spinning. Maybe I should "propose" to Brian this time?!?! The rest of this afternoon I giggled thinking of how to set the scene and I knew I had to do it.

November 14, 2005...

When Brian proposed to me, he put flowers and candles out in the living room and tied the ring around Stella's neck. So....I laid out flowers and candles and tied the ring around Sasha's neck this time. When he called and said he was on his way home, I have to admit I was a little nervous. Hopefully he would say yes!

Setting the stage...




When Brian walked in I think he was a lot confused and a little scared. Then he goes, "Are you proposing?" I was laughing so hard I was crying.




After my romantic proposal (on one knee) he asked, "Where did you find it?" Then I hit him.



The happy couple after the engagement....I'm sure Brian is calling all his friends and family to tell him that I finally did it (like I did 4 years ago!)



And a picture of me..2 days shy of 24 weeks pregnant and newly engaged/married.

I'm no pet psychologist....

But I think someone in the Kippley family is not ready for the baby to be born!!! After visiting our friends' Jess and Tom's new little girl Eloise, I told Brian that I thought I should take a break from reading Baby Bargains and shopping online for crib bedding and start reading about what we're supposed to do with this baby when he comes home! Brian's suggestion to "wing it" just doesn't seem like enough preparation for me. So Sunday night I pulled out my borrrowed copy of "Babywise" which helps you create an "exciting infant management plan." Sounded perfect. Sadly, I was asleep in 10 minutes which does not bode well for Baby Kippley. The next morning I went to work and came home at the end of the day to find a very guilty party...

You can see the first 21 pages of Babywise all over the living room floor and Sasha trying to look innocent at the scene of the crime. Maybe after reading my leftover pages of Babywise I should read about how to get your dog adjusted to life with a baby!

I would also like to just point out that "baby brain" is not a made up condition. Last night I was making dinner and then a friend came over to pick me up. Brian came home 45 minutes later and the stove top was still on. Oops. Then last night I lit an apple cider candle in the living room. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and sleepily thought how nice it was that Brian got up to make me apple pie for breakfast. Then I realized that the candle was STILL BURNING. Double oops. So I got a nice long lecture from Brian about blah blah blah blah. But I promise to be more careful in the future and hopefully this baby brain stuff doesn't get worse!

The size of a what???

When Brian and I first found out we were expecting, I found a website that said what fruit or vegetable the baby would compare to on that specific week. For a husband that works in the produce industry, this was pure genius. It was like a website that spoke his language...nerd produce language. The problem we ran into was in week 17, I sent the email to Brian that "baby is an onion this week." I should have known better. I quickly got a reply that asked "what kind of onion?" Who knew there were so many varities of onions??? Pretty soon "someone" was brow beating me to email thebump.com to find out more specifically if the baby was a white onion, red onion, green onion, sweet spanish, vidalia, walla walla..the list went on and on. Needless to say, the fun was taken out of that game really fast. :) But incase you're wondering, at 22 weeks the baby is a papaya.



Wow, what a difference a year makes!! Last year at Halloween we went to a party and dressed up as Juno and Paulie Bleeker. This year I actually am pregnant and instead of a Halloween party with hours of flippy cup, we watched a scary movie with a couple of friends. I've always been what I like to call a "vivid" dreamer. Brian would say that I wake up screaming bloody murder about once every few months. Apparently being pregnant makes this happen more frequently. On Saturday night (after watching The Thing) I woke up twice screaming. Sasha even left the room to sleep in the spare bedroom I scared her so bad. My friend Erin had the unfortunate luck of sharing a room on a cruise ship with me a few years ago and I may have forgotten to tell her that this could happen. I apparently started screaming and because we had no window in our room (and both can't see a thing without our contacts) she thought someone was murdering me in the bed across from her. She started screaming which woke me up and made me start screaming all over again. I wish I had a videotape of that. And worst of all...not a soul came to check on us. Thanks Carnival Funships. When I told Erin about my Saturday night screaming, she replied "I hope your baby can sleep through your screaming madness once he is here!" Me too!!

Here is a picture of Brian and I last Halloween...after many rounds of tippy cup. Eventually I will post pictures of my growing belly but for now there's not much to show.

EDIT: I just had to come back and share. My dad apparently is a blog SKIMMER. And after reading this post, he said to my mom "She sure is getting a big belly already." My mom just laughed at him and said the picture was from LAST YEAR. But regardless, does he really think we walk around wearing clothes like that??!?!?! Brian especially in those shorts!!?? Seriously Dad...no more skimming. There will be pop quizzes.

A Few Firsts!

I'm not sure how great these will turn out but I wanted to try to get some ultrasound pictures on the blog. I also bought our first outfit for the baby. Of course it has daschunds all over it. Brian told me that I cannot buy everything I see with a doxie on it. I say "why not?" And I actually bought 2 different sizes so he can wear them for longer than 3 months! So take that! The other exciting news is we found out Baby Krieg (due 4 days after Baby Kippley) is a boy so now he will have one more BFF to wrestle with! Congrats Sara and Brendon!

Here's a picture of the PJ's.
(No, I won't post every outfit that I buy tempting as that might be!)

This picture was taken right at the end of the ultrasound. He flipped over so his hiney was in the air. In the actual picture, you can see his spine really well.

I can't for some reason get this to go the other way but this was the profile picture.

1/2 Way Through

Welcome to our first blog post!

We (I) have been thinking about starting a blog since we found out the news that we were expecting. I kept putting it off wondering if it would be interesting enough, would I commit to updating it and would anyone even read it?! But in the end Brian and I both decided it would be a fun way to document what is going on in our life as we prepare for the baby and then life after the baby is here.

For the next 20 weeks, readers should prepare themselves for posts about the following:

+ our dogs Stella and Sasha
+ anything and everything to do with the baby (with 5 close friends all delivering in the next 5 months..this is a high possibility)
+ reality TV (especially So You Think You Can Dance or SYTYCD as it will be known)
+ any TV (it's been a great fall season so expect there to be more TV than baby posts)
+ if Brian takes over any posting, prepare yourself for fantasy football talk. He's very excited about how well his League of Dorks teams are doing. No, that's not their name, it's just what I call them because I can't remember his dumb team names.

One thing you will not read about on this blog is Brian's softball games (thank your lucky stars.) He had his last game of the season (which lasts 7 months) tonight and he's already ready for spring season to start next May! I think I caught a sparkle of a tear in his eye when he got home.

Please don't post any mean comments or I will ban you from the blog. I don't know how to do that yet, but I will figure it out. :)

And last but CERTAINLY not least. I will end my first blog post with some exciting news. Brian and I had our "big" ultrasound last Friday to (as my friend Jess put it) confirm that we were having a girl. Ever since I saw on the Chinese predictor chart that it was going to be a girl around week 4, I've only looked at girl bedding, names, clothes, etc. I hate to say it but I even would slip and say "she" when talking about the baby. So you can imagine my surprise and shock on Friday when the ultrasound tech said she saw something there. I asked "like a penis??" in dismay which is exactly what she saw! IT'S A BOY! But I'm over the shock and we are both ecstatic that most importantly he looked healthy and has all the right number of limbs and organs.

This is our life right now. Hanging out on the couch, watchin TV and snuggling. I have a feeling that next year, our family picture will look a lot different! :)