Transplanted Phoenician

Kadri's 2nd Birthday

2011-12-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

So our little girl is two. I don't know how it happened so fast, but it did. Here are a few photos of her special day. (Well, here are most the of still photos of her special day. I'm pretty sure I'll end up posting all but the one blurry photo we took. If I had the patience I'd probably do all the vidoes too, but I seriously doubt I have that much patience.)
Birthday Dinner was spaghetti, for the second year in a row. Lame? No. I don't think so. We knew she'd eat it. After all, who wants to have their special day dinner be something they aren't willing to eat?

This year she has moved up to a "big person" stool and ate her dinner with a fork, thus NOT requiring a clothing change between dinner and present opening.

Birthday guests at 9:00!!

Play-doh! Which Mom and Dad still haven't had the guts to let her play with. She did get to play with some at Nursery today and seemed to do okay. Maybe someday we'll break it out...

Opening the dump-truck and Mega Bloks she pulled off the shelf and didn't stop playing with for the duration of our last trip to Ross.

Playing in the tent from Grandma Philips.

Playing peek-a-boo from the tent from Grandma Philips. Incidentally she was quite excited about the two dollars she recieved in her card from Grandma and Grandpa Pulley. She showed them off to everyone and immediately gave them to Uncle Brian. We assume for safe keeping because she knows he works at a bank.

The birthay treats. She blew out her two candles on her free Barnes and Noble/Cheesecake Factory Cupcake and chowed down on the frosting (we only have video of this part of the party), while the rest of us had Chocolate/Strawberry Revel Bars, because Mommy wasn't in the mood for cake.

And finally, this photo had nothing to do with her birthday, but it sure did make me laugh when I saw it!

I just can't decide...

2011-11-13T16:05:00.001-08:00

...which of these darling photos of my beautiful daughter to post for the viewing pleasure of Kadri's Grandma Philips, so I'll just post them all.

Don't those blue eyes just about knock your socks off?

And thanks Aunt Janelle for the hand-me-down outfit. We've had a lot of compliments on it.

Just to take a few moments and update (brag) these are a few of Kadri's latest achievements:

1. She recognizes all of the capital letters of the alphabet, and can mostly tell you a word that begins with each of the letters. (Thanks Aunt Janelle for the alphabet puzzle that has made this possible.)
2. She can mostly count to ten. She used to leave out the number 4. Now that 4 has made it into the sequence, she leaves out the number 7.
3. She is learning some of the words to I Am A Child of God. We can sing part of a phrase and she can fill in a lot of the words.
4. One of her Mommy's favorite phrases she says is, "Where is Daddy go?" when she notices he has walked out of a room.
5. One of her Daddy's favorite phrases is "Howie's stinker." (He also likes it when she calls things "icky".)
6. She loves fruit. LOVES IT! We're talking she'd already eaten four clementines before 10:00 in the morning today.
7. She can name most of the animals we see at the zoo, and says hi to them by species. i.e. Hi, Giraffe. Hi, elephant. Hi, monkey. etc.
8. She literally wakes up bouncing almost every morning, with a chipper "Boing, boing, boing" to accompany each bounce. We know first thing if it's going to be a good day.
9. It has been sixteen months since she has learned to go up and down the stairs and she hasn't yet taken a spill. (Knock on wood! We've got a lot of stairs! And the stairs are the only place she likes to play catch, which Mommy DOESN'T love.)
10. She loves babies. She gets excited every time we see a child she assumes is even a day younger than her and wants to go ooh and aah over it. We think this is a pretty good thing, since TKPulley Baby #2 is due to arrive at the end of March (for any of you who don't already know - ANNOUNCEMENT! ANNOUNCEMENT! People started noticing in church today so the news is out).

Halloween at the Pulley House

2011-11-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

Halloween at our house started on the Monday before Halloween, when we carved our pumpkin, which was, as always, our one and only Halloween decoration.

This is how most of the project went: Tim carved the details, while Kadri played in a cup of water and with the spray bottle you see here.

The master artist hard at work. I eventually cleaned out the guts, which were surprisingly less messy than what I remember as a child. Maybe it was a dry pumpkin.

Kadri "contributing."

Final inspection.

The end result. Kadri dubbed him "Happy Cheeks." We didn't think he looked very happy (at least that wasn't the intent), but we went with it.

We didn't do much in the way of Trick-or-Treating. We went to our ward Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday night, and Kadri received a fair amount of candy that we all snacked on. On Halloween we didn't Trick-or-Treat to a single house, nor did we have single Trick-or-Treater for the fourth year in a row. So we enjoyed the candy we had on hand just in case we had one or two stragglers, and I mean really enjoyed it because this year we bought GOOD stuff that we like. Not just the cheap stuff.

We didn't manage to get any pictures of Kadri at the ward Trunk-or-Treat. On Halloween we didn't even manage to get Kadri in clothes, let alone in her costume. But when I had some time I did dress her up in her Sleeping Beauty dress and take these SUPER CUTE photos on another day.

This is how we roll.

2011-10-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

We bought Kadri the Easter dress that I fell in love with two days before Easter. It was darling on her. We finally had a professional photo taken of her in it at the end of July. And just today did we manage to get it scanned so that I can post it here. Yup. That's pretty much how we roll, but she is still darling!

My daughter: The tree hugger

2011-09-23T16:50:00.001-07:00

She talks to trees too. I'm not sure what she was saying, but it was quite a long hug and conversation. She's a nut!

Emma

2011-08-24T22:54:00.000-07:00

Kadri loves her cousin Emma. Every time I open the laptop to do anything on the computer Kadri runs up and says, "Emma". Which means she wants to look at pictures or watch videos of Emma. We watch a certain Emma video from Aunt Nik's blog no less than ten times in a row at least once a day. This is Kadri watching the video.

She and Emma have been rehearsing this duo for some time via internet and are pretty much ready for a parent recital performance. They are becoming great friends as well as close cousins. In other news, Kadri's #2 favorite is the red, furry Elmo... whom she loves very much as well... and who's name was interchangeable with Emma's for a short period.

Have you ever seen such blue eyes?

2011-08-22T12:57:00.000-07:00

Kadri News

2011-04-09T22:05:00.001-07:00

I was going to say that "Sometimes it surprises me to realize how grown-up Kadri has become in sixteen months." That's a little bit inaccurate. It surprises me at least several times a day how quickly my baby is becoming a little girl. There is pretty much no baby left in her. As you can see in the photo below. I took this photo before I left for work on the day she went to spend a few days with my sister and fam while Tim went out of town for my birthday. The whole morning as I was hanging out with her I just marvelled at how grown-up she seemed.

Today I had her sit in her chair long enough for me to put in her first pigtails. So cute!

Kadri spends a lot of her day hanging out in this drawer. She dumps out every toy we own and then sits in there to play with her toys or stands in it to watch Signing Time dvd's.

Look at that cute smile! And those cute teeth! Can you guess how many she has? I thought she had only four until a couple days ago, when I discovered that number five had made its way through her little gums. Then earlier today I noticed that number six is on its way. I wondered how soon we'd see seven or eight, but I made another discovery while I was holding her down to brush her teeth tonight... She has at least three molars through already! YIPES! She may have number four but she was done with me poking my fingers or her toothbrush around her mouth by that point. I love to watch her do all this growing up, but does she have to do it so fast?

Kadri says, "Thanks Grandma!"

2011-03-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

And some photos to make any Kadri-worshippers out there smile!

Puppy loves!

This is the best I could get of the new clothes, Grandma. She's a moving target!

President's Day Weekend

2011-02-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

Over the President's Day weekend we headed to Yuma for a weekend of playing Wii and hiking with our favorite Lochridge's.

Kadri was happy to be riding face first for the trip! She loves this pink car seat, a hand-me-down from one of her cousins.
Some photos of our hike at the slot canyons:

Howie, the Wonder-Wimp dog, kept up like a trooper, but when we all paused for a little break, he didn't curl up on the ground like any normal dog would do. Nope, our pampered pup picked the softest place he could find and curled up in the Lochridge's backpack. What a nerd face!
After all the fun of the weekend, and a LONG ride home for Miss Kadri, she was overjoyed to finally be reunited with her Pooh Bear. She picked him up on a visit to a second hand store with Daddy, and made sure that Daddy knew she was not leaving that store without him. She LOVES that Pooh Bear!

Cute clothes

2011-02-27T09:33:00.001-08:00

For play:

For church:
For surfing on Daddy:
A girl can never have too many clothes!

Curls!

2011-02-27T09:28:00.000-08:00

One Year Photos

2011-01-10T16:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2010

2011-01-03T16:57:00.001-08:00

A late-ish post, and a lazy post. Not many words. Just pictures. Enjoy!

Kadri in her Christmas pajamas. Where is my baby disappearing to?

Kadri with her Nerf-dart cigar.

Kadri sitting in and playing with her cousins' Christmas toys.

How can you call it Christmas without croquet and salad?

Such a cute girl, but again, where's my baby?

Patty-cakes with Mommy.

So much attitude!

And so beautiful!

Howie showing off his super-athleticism.

Kadri's First Birthday!

2010-12-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

Yup. It's true. Kadri's first birthday was yesterday. Where did the year go?

We had a small birthday party for her at our house, and my sister and her family came for dinner, presents and her first birthday cake. Here are a few photos of the festivities.

Birthday Dinner - Spaghetti! It was a hit, as you can see.

One big pile of presents (they multiplied when the Shannon crew showed up) and the cute birthday girl (with spagetti remnants on her nose).

Opening presents

Presents received: 2 baby dolls, a bottle for the babies, a "CD Player", a book (The party pretty much stopped when she opened the book. We had to work really hard after that to get Kadri to finish opening presents.), and a new outfit.

What could possibly be more exciting than such presents?

Well, Howie's nasty, dirty rope toy for one!

And birthday cake for two! (It's supposed to be a daisy. Please forgive my botched first attempt at a cute birthday cake.)

Finally, a photo of Kadri with her first balloon. Which we found in the card from her Grandma, which we forgot to open until the day after her birthday. Oops!

Family Photos

2010-10-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month we went and had our first professional family photos done. This was inspired by my brother and sister-in-law's very effective use of the free portrait and no sitting fees deals that are going on at Sears all the time. I jumped on-line and found a coupon for this photo collage...

Then this picture was so cute I just had to pay the $10 it cost to have it printed for forever. I haven't had a moment of buyer's remorse!

And I have a coupon for a free 10x13 with no sitting fee. I'm thinking that for Kadri's first birthday we may have to do something with that...

Back by popular demand

2010-10-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

So, I've had lots of people requesting that I update my blog in the last month or so. I suppose that is a reasonable request, since it has been two months since my last post. Lame? Yes. Even Cat says so apparently. But I'm over it. I have no good excuses for not blogging, particularly now that we are on a TV strike at our house. We were wasting way too much time in front of it. I've just made other projects priorities - like cleaning, learning to play my guitar (again!), pilates, STUDYING the scriptures when I can stay awake, etc. But tonight, I will post. Mostly photos, but I guess that will be okay. I do have the cutest baby in the world!

If any of my readers don't know, Courtney, my youngest sister, came to spend the summer with us and to act as a nanny for Kadri. While Courtney was with us...

We hiked once...

Howie came too!

Kadri LOVED Courtney!

When Grandpa came to take Courtney home...

Grandpa and Kadri snuggled.

Now that Courtney is gone...

Kadri helps Daddy with the dishes...

Kadri's outfits don't always match...

And Kadri has to play with Howie when she wants to have fun!

Also, just to let it be known, Kadri does walk now. I would love to post some video of it. But I can't. Conveniently enough, every single rechargeable battery in our house has stopped recharging. Just in time for Kadri to start taking her first steps... If I didn't have so many projects to work on, maybe I'd make it to the store for more batteries...

Just Photos

2010-08-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

No Batteries!

2010-08-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

Kadri just had the cutest conversation with herself in the mirror of the closet in our office. I tried to capture it for your viewing pleasure. But alas, no batteries in the camera! *sigh*

At least Kadri is feeling better though! She's been running a fever for the last couple days, and it seems to finally be gone. Hooray! I don't think that Kadri will appreciate that this means she has to sleep in her own bed again though... This could be ugly!

Pretty little peasant girl

2010-08-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

So I took Courtney shopping at the outlets in Anthem this last weekend. While there I met up with my high school friend and her husband and their five-month old. Since we both have babies, somehow we ended up in a baby clothing store, and while we were there I found a little dress and matching head scarf that I couldn't pass up. We put them on Kadri for Sunday, and someone made the comment that she looked like a little peasant girl with her cute dress and head scarf and her bare feet. She sure makes a cute peasant girl though. What do you think?

This is the best photo of the dress itself. Kadri is really wiggly these days. It's hard to get a good photo sometimes.

This is the cutest photo of Kadri in the dress - although a little blurry. She was moving.

Just look at those blue eyes! Gotta love 'em!

Best Buds

2010-07-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Howie is jealous of how much time Kadri gets from mom and dad, no questions, but he really is a good boy and really does love her. He tries so hard to play with her! I wish I'd had the camera out a few seconds earlier when they were both trying really hard to play together. They haven't got it quite figured out, but soon...

Also, in case you didn't notice from the video, Kadri crawls! She's been a crawler for about three and a half weeks now, and it's taken me a long time to post video or blog about it because I've been busy, busy, sick and busy.

She also climbed all the way from the second (main) floor of our house all the way to the third floor, which is no small feat for someone as small as she is, considering we have nine foot ceilings. That's 18 stairs x 2! She's an animal!

This evening her aunt, uncle and cousins came over and we all swam in the pool (including Aunt Courtney who has graciously agreed to spend the rest of the summer with us [we hope!] and help watch Kadri while Tim tries to work from home). She is one tired girl tonight. Hopefully she'll sleep well and be ready to play cheerfully and hard in the morning.

My little narcissist.

2010-06-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

Need I say more?
I suppose just a quick Kadri update: She is still not crawling. She has been "this close" (imagine me holding my thumb and index finger as close together as possible without touching) for three weeks now. She just can't seem to get out of reverse into first gear though. Needless to say getting around is a little frustrating for her as she moves away from objects she'd prefer to move toward, and life is really frustrating when she gets stuck under the furniture. Silly girl!

A quick brag on my girl.

2010-05-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

It's been about a week ago that the story I'm about to share occurred. Why, one may wonder did it take me so long to share this story? Because I don't get enough hands free time when I'm home in the evenings to do much blogging. I have a five month-old after all!

Well, here is the brag: My five month old managed to get from her tummy to sitting all by her little onesie last Wednesday! She's so rad! The disclaimer: It was totally an accident and I'm sure it will be quite some time before the feat is repeated. All the factors in the universe of our living room just happened to line up at that point in time: She was on her tummy, she was scooting backwards like she tends to do, she found just enough resistance from my foot or from grabbing the rug between her toes, and ba-da-bing ba-da-boom! She was sitting up. Without any real assistance from me.

Finally, someone did mention to me the other day that my blog doesn't change often. This is true. I don't deny it. However, as mentioned before I have a five-month-old. And blogging takes too long with one hand. At any given time I usually have four or five blogs I intend to post sloshing around in my head. Sometimes they just spill out of my head before I find a chance to blog them. What can a mommy do?

Baby's first trip to the beach.

2010-05-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

A week ago we had the opportunity to take a much needed weekend vacation to beautiful San Diego. It was so fabulous! Here is a quick run-down of each day of our weekend and then I'll post a few of the many great pictures we took. This will probably be a photo heavy post!

Thursday - We left for San Diego and made it as far as Yuma before we were falling asleep, so we crashed at Tim's sister's house for the night.

Friday - We woke up and drove the rest of the way to San Diego. Spent a brief amount of time at Balboa Park where we met up with Tim's sister and her family, then drove to the condo where we were staying in La Jolla and took an evening stroll on the beach down to the pier.

Saturday - We slept in and didn't make it to the Temple which was covered in scaffolding and apparenlty the atrium was covered over so you couldn't see it anyway. Poor brides having their wedding photos that day! We spent the afternoon at the beach. So fun! Ate Greek food for dinner - YUM! Then we took a walk down San Diego Bay to see the big ships. To finish the evening we went back to the condo and watched "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (or something like that) which was super-funny and I highly recommend it. What the cuss?

Sunday - Church in the morning, then off to Balboa Park for the afternoon, where we attended a few minutes of the free organ recital at one of the largest outdoor organs in the world, the we swung on a tree-vine like monkeys and took a stroll through the conservatory. In the evening we drove to the "Children's Beach" which has been taken over by seals.

Monday - We woke up, cleaned the condo like mad and drove home. Along the way Tim and I both commented on how therapeutic the weekend was for us. We wouldn't mind moving to San Diego if it didn't come with such a hefty price sticker!

Our Funny Howie!

2010-04-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's time for another post.

2010-04-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

Tim kind of committed me to posting in the not too near future, since he told his family to stay tuned to my blog in a recent e-mail. So, dear readers/followers, you get a photo post!

I'm trying to think of any new and exciting Kadri milestones, or other events that we have to share, but I can't think of any at present. I suppose I could share that Kadri's visit to the pediatrician this week went very well. She weighed in at 13 pounds 3.8 ounces and I believe she was 27 inches... maybe. I'll have to double check. Maybe later.

Anyway, here are some recent pictures of Miss Kadri!

Easter dress photos! A lady from our ward gave us this dress for Kadri with shoes to match, but she still hasn't quite grown into the 0-3 month shoes, so the 3-6 month shoes sure didn't fit. Someday they'll make a debut!

Also, my mom sewed a pretty pink dress that we also could have used for her Easter dress, but we dressed her in it for Conference on Saturday and she had a little blowout in it before we could take pictures. Oops! Photos in that dress will come later though!

And, here are a couple four month old pictures (well, a few days more than four months old :) ).

She's mobile!

2010-03-31T22:30:00.000-07:00

Baby Kadri Girl rolled from back to front and then from front to back tonight. We oohed and aahed appropriately and then I said to Tim, "She's mobile now. Do you know what this means?" He does. And I'm not sure he's excited about it. He he! But our girl sure is cute.

Kadri's New Friends

2010-03-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

My mom made some super-cute bumper pads for my sister when her first baby was born. We are currently using said super-cute bumper pads.

We have an extra panel of the bumper pads propped up behind the pad on our changing table, which Kadri likes to look at while we are changing her. When she is laying in her crib or having her diaper changed, she likes to have conversations with the patchwork Teddy Bears on the bumper pads. It's super cute! Just melts her mommy's heart! Watch! It'll melt yours too!

My stupid dog!

2010-03-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

I took Howie outside to take care of his business for the last time at around 10:00 p.m. on Sunday. Being the sometimes good little dog that he is, he got right to work taking care of his business. And then along came a stupid cat, which let out a very unprovoked yowl upon discovering Howie's presence.

There isn't much that Howie loves more than chasing cats, so when the cat alerted Howie to his presence (oh yes, he was a boy cat), Howie tore off after him - stopped mid-business to chase the dumb animal, in fact.

Well, I've told Howie again and again that if he ever gets into a fight with a creature of the feline persuasion, he is going to lose. They are meaner than Howie and they are sharper too. Obviously, Howie didn't listen. He chased the cat and did manage to corner it. The first cat he's ever cornered that I'm aware of. They usually just jump on the wall that surrounds our townhome development and away they go. Not this time, and after cornering the cat, Howie came off the loser.

Don't worry. He didn't bleed or anything! At first I only assumed he was the loser because after he cornered the cat, Howie was the contender who ran away from the fight. So we went in the house. Then I smelled him. OH THE STENCH!! He smelled just like a litter-box! The stupid cat had sprayed him! Not even a bath helped Howie to smell better! Then Howie thought I would let him sleep in Kadri's room! Idiot! Not on his life!

Perhaps the next time he has the opportunity to chase a cat he'll stop and think twice about it and consider that I'm not kidding when I tell him he'll lose if he ends up in a fight with the cat. But I doubt it. He's just not that smart.

Kadri's Blessing

2010-03-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

We blessed Kadri on the first Sunday in March. Most of my family made it for the blessing (other than my brother, who is on his mission in Brazil, and my brother's-in-law, probably just because they are bums! :)) and Tim's sister and her family came as well. It was super fun to see all of them, even if it was a fast, furious and short trip for most of them! We are so grateful they all came. Here are some photos of the festivities.

Here's my little brother feeding Miss Kadri.

This is my four-year-old niece changing Kadri's diaper - she can't wait until she gets a new little brother or sister!

I had to share this one! Kadri is really a smiley baby, but when I bring out the camera the smiles suddenly stop! I'm grateful some awesome photographer was able to get this picture this weekend!

This is Kadri in her blessing dress, which is the dress I was blessed in, which was purchased by my Grandma Strupp. The pretty white blanket was made for Kadri by her Aunt Shiree.

Family photo!

Kadri SANNE and her namesakes - Grandma SuSANNE and Aunt Rox'S'ANNE.

Kadri and her cousin's who made it for her blessing.

Kadri with her aunts and uncles who made it for her blessing. (I just realized we didn't get a photo of Kadri with her grandparents who made it for her blessing. Oops! Maybe Tim will photoshop something!)

And we finish off this post with a picture of lunch, which was oh so good! I think we'll be having it again at the next family gathering when Tim and I are hosting the meal - Baked Spaghetti!

My how she's grown!

2010-03-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

Little Miss Kadri is now three months old, and I can't believe she's already doubled in size from when she was born - as far as her weight that is! She's still so little and fun, but she's so much bigger than when she was born. I can't even believe it! Here are a few photos documenting her growth.

This is a photo of Kadri when she was ten days old.

Here she is within a few days of being one month old.

And a photo from a few days after we celebrated two months old with her.

Finally within a few days of her turning three months old.

As an afterthought, I'm not sure I want to know what Tim was doing to elicit this response from Kadri!

Isn't he the best?

2010-01-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

A lot of things have been happening around here lately.

1. Arizona is finally having some weather to report. I think the meteorologists around here are really have to dig deep into the dark recesses of their minds where anything they've learned about the weather other than, "It's going to be another sunny day!" has been stored. Rain and snow like crazy! (Of course no snow here in the Valley of the Sun, but in the higher elevations... Look out!)

2. One of my best friends, whom I've known forever, had a baby shower this weekend. The shower took place in Prescott, which is about an hour and a half north of Phoenix. And I got to go! Hooray!

3. Kadri still isn't sleeping through the night, which means I'm not sleeping through the night, and I'm utterly perplexed as to how Tim always seems to manage to sleep through her fussing. I thought he was the light sleeper of the two of us!

Anyway, the culmination of all these happenings is that I was a little nervous about driving to Prescott all by me onesie for the baby shower, given that the weather could be ugly, and I could be very tired. Tim wasn't available to come with me, so I called my sister to see if she wanted to go. She couldn't. But she provided me with the next best thing other than company. The prayers of her seven year old son.

She called last night to say she couldn't accompany me and told me that my nephew, included me when he was saying their family prayer. It apparently went something like this: Please bless that Kira will be safe if she goes to the baby WASH. Ba ha ha!

Thank goodness for the prayers and faith of seven-year-old boys! I made it to the baby wash entirely without incident! He really is the best!

The prettiest baby!

2010-01-16T18:51:00.001-08:00

She was so little! She still is, but now she's up to 9 pounds, and she just seems so much bigger to me! I can't even believe that some babies are that big at birth!

Can you see why there was some confusion when I told a man who came into the office yesterday (sadly I am back at work! Six weeks went way too fast!) that I had a girl? I'm in a blue shirt, the bedsheets were blue and Kadri's blanket was blue also. Maybe I should put that blanket aside for when we someday have a little boy! Hopefully!

What a cute family! Howie is getting used to having Kadri around. I still get the cold shoulder from him occasionally, when he feels I've paid too much attention to Kadri though.

When I pick Howie up after we'd just come home from the hospital - two days after Kadri was born! An obnoxious story - I told him that he was a monster! Before Kadri was born I had always thought Howie was a little dog. After holding Kadri for two days and then picking up Howie who was twice her weight at that point, I changed my mind. Kadri is going to outweigh him soon enough though and then I'll go back to thinking he is a little dog!

I didn't get to go home the day after Kadri was born because I didn't sleep the night she was born, or the night before when I was in labor either, and I had a little emotional breakdown when the PA from the doctor's office came to check on me. I was pretty ticked that my doctor wouldn't just let me go home. It was nice that she wanted me to get some sleep, but I would much rather have slept in my own bed.

I blame some of my exhaustion on the incessant "visitors" I had at the hospital as well. Good grief! Not only were there nurses in and out all day and all night, but I was putting up with a zillion other people as well. There was the lady who did Kadri's first hearing check, who can be forgiven for her visit. There was the pediatrician, who can also be forgiven for his visit. I had someone from the cafeteria coming in two hours before every meal, then bringing my meals and taking my dishes away after meals. I did get hungry so they were appreciated visits, but still obnoxious! I had two visits from the lady who collected the information for the birth certificate, whose visit was necessary as well. The worst were the visits from the many community organizations established for the benefit of children - nothing against the organizations, just the visitors to my hospital room - who outstayed their welcome telling me things I already knew or had already been reading about taking care of a baby and oohing and ahhing about how comfortable Kadri and I seemed with each other. You think? We'd been pretty inseparably connected for nine months prior to Kadri's birth, and it wasn't the first time in my life I'd held a baby!

Anyway, I didn't even have a chance to take a nap during the day, hence my emotional breakdown over the fact that I was so tired, and then my doctor wouldn't release me from the hospital until Saturday. Annoying!

To finish on a happy note, here's another picture of my pretty girl!

Welcome to the World, Kadri Sanne!

2010-01-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

Now that Kadri is five and a half weeks old, I suppose it's time to update my blog with some information about how I went from looking like this:

To having this little bundle of joy:

The Reader's Digest version:

At 12:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 3, 2009 I woke up from having fallen asleep on the couch with pain in my uterus, which was something like unto menstrual cramps. Twelve hours and twenty minutes later, at 12:50 p.m., after approximately 30-40 minutes of pushing, Kadri was born. Hooray!

The longer, more gory version:

So, I woke up at 12:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 3, with what felt like unto menstrual cramps. I think that was my first true labor contraction, although, technically you could probably say I'd been in labor for at least six weeks, since I'd been dilating and my cervix had been shortening for that time. Anyway, I got up to use the facilities because that usually made any sensations even remotely like unto menstrual cramps go away. I must have lost my mucous plug at that point, although I didn't think at the time that it was my mucous plug. From everything that I'd read I wasn't prepared for it to seem that I'd started my period. So I went and consulted my What to Expect When Expecting book, and then called the hospital, because the didn't reassure that I had lost my plug. They said to come in and they'd check me, so I had Tim drive me to the hospital, and they monitored me for contractions and monitored Baby's heartbeat for a little while, and checked me for dilations, etc. Then they sent me home with an Ambien to help me sleep and said that my doctor would see me at my next appointment, on the following Monday. Ha ha!

So, the Ambien was a joke. It didn't help me to sleep at all! I started having real labor contractions by the time we got home from the short trip to the hospital at 3:00 a.m. After trying to sleep for several hours I took a bath and shaved my legs, because my sister-in-law had said a bath helps to relax her when she's in labor. At this point I wasn't 100% sure I was in labor, but I thought I must be. Unlike the Braxton Hicks contractions I'd been having for months, these contractions hurt! Anyway, the bath didn't help me to feel any better. I got up to take the bath at about 6:30 a.m.

Then I puttered around and got "ready" for the day really slowly because I was doubled over in pain a lot and not really able to move quickly. I called the office and told them that if I was in at all that day, I was going to be late because I was having really painful contractions. Not super regularly at that point, but regular enough - sometimes 10 minutes between contractions, sometimes 5, or 7 or 3. That was sometime between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m.

At around 9:00 a.m. or shortly thereafter, I was timing my contractions at about five minutes apart, so I called my mom to ask her what "real labor" felt like. I was not about to go to the hospital and have them turn me away because of false labor. I talked to her for a few minutes and she timed my contractions - about three minutes apart - and told me to go to the hospital. So away Tim and I went.

I will admit that I swore one time on the way to the hospital because a traffic light turned red. I was already in more pain than I'd ever experienced in my life and the accelaration of the car was uncomfortable, not to mention that sitting down in the car made the contractions hurt more and on top of that the light turned red! How dare it! Anyway, I'd warned Tim it might happen, and since I know he didn't appreciate it, I just covered my eyes for the rest of the trip to the hospital.

We were at the hospital by 10:00 a.m. Tim dropped me off and I went and checked myself in while he parked the car. They took me into triage, checked me - I was dilated to 7 cm - and hooked me up to monitor my contractions and Baby's heartrate again and I complained a little bit about having to lay in the hospital bed because the contractions hurt more laying down. They also stuck me in four different places trying to get the IV needle in. (I had some pretty good bruises for a couple weeks after Kadri was born thanks to my rotten veins!) Not long after I complained about laying down, they checked me again and I was between 8-9 cm, so off we went to the delivery room.

At this point, I lost all concept of time and I don't know how long anything took, or what time it was, etc. I had opted for an epidural so at some point the anesthesiologist came in and gave me the epidural. It only worked half-way. Next time I may not even bother with it. I didn't feel too much on the right side of my body, but on the left side, I felt everything!

Shortly after the epidural my doctor arrived and it was time to start pushing.

Poor Tim didn't realize that Baby was coming TODAY at the time we left for the hospital. He hadn't brought in the hospital bag or the camera after he parked the car, so my doctor gave him two minutes to grab it before she had me push. As soon as he got back, he got another surprise! He was hoping to just be able to stay near my head and hold my hand for the delivery. No such luck! The nurse gave him the assignment of helping to hold one of my legs, so he got to see the whole show! The episiotomy (sp?), Kadri's head making it's debut and her turning her head from one side to another and looking around, and then the delivery of the rest of Kadri and the placenta all at once.

I was a little surprised that I didn't have to wait for another contraction and another push to deliver the placenta. The doctor was stitching me back together and I was wondering about it and then the doctor was off to deliver another baby. I asked the nurse about it and she said it all came with the second half of Kadri. It didn't really have any other option. The umbilical cord was only 12 inches long. Short cord. The placenta was also relatively small apparently. She was a small girl though. What can I say?

According to Tim I was only pushing for 30-40 minutes. Not too bad compared to the nightmare pushing experiences people had been sharing with me for weeks! I sure didn't want to push for seven hours!

Anyway, Kadri Sanne was born at 12:50 p.m. on December 3. She was 20 inches long and weighed 6 lbs. 4.8 oz. and she was perfect!

More to come later on my hospital stay, and as requested by my sister Courtney, more photos as well!

The latest...

2009-11-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

If Tim were home right now, I'd have him take another baby belly picture, since I may not have my belly much longer! Aahhh! It's scary to think about. We're less than three weeks from the due date, and baby can come at any time as far as the doctor is concerned. She gave me permission to resume normal activities at 35 weeks and now we're at 37 weeks. Now when baby comes it will be considered full term. Hooray! Let's just all pray that baby hangs around inside of me until December 1 for a number of reasons!

1. Tim and I want to go to Yuma for Thanksgiving with his sister and her family. He has another sister who is going to be there for the holiday as well, so it sounds like a super-fun time and we hate missing super-fun times!

2. Tim and I want to attend his niece's baptism on Saturday - also in Yuma!

3. Benefits at work don't kick in unless baby stays in until December 1. We need benefits!

Based on the exam at my doctor appointment today I am dilated to 3 cm and 50% effaced. Lots of people have been skeptical Squirt is going to hang out until December 1. But we've been having little heart-to-heart talks, Squirt and I, and I've been telling him/her that he/she just needs to wait a little longer to make his/her debut for a lot of good reasons. I'm not 100% sure he/she has been listening, but there hasn't been any back-talking. That's a good sign, right?

Baby update and a rug.

2009-11-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

So the baby news is that there is no baby news! Which is a good thing at 34 weeks. I went to my doctor appointment last Tuesday and my doctor was quite pleased that I am still pregnant. So am I. (Mostly. But it's starting to be quite uncomfortable to be pregnant, so it's good I'm close to the end!)The doc was also quite pleased that I'm still only dilated to 1.5 cm and thought she was being quite generous by telling me I'm allowed to do light stuff around the house like cooking dinner and making short trips to the grocery store. Still no vacuuming or sweeping and mopping though. Sorry Tim! Anyway, I'm thinking that if that is all she is allowing me to do, she and the PA I saw last Thursday (who said I can go back to work if I take it easy) haven't really gotten together to compare notes, etc. about my "condition" and what I'm allowed or not allowed to do. So I didn't mention to my doctor that I'm back at work this week, and she didn't tell me I can't go to work and we're both happy. What she doesn't know, won't hurt her and I haven't gone into labor yet from being at work, so I think I'm okay.

On a different note, here are a few pictures of the area rug Tim and I bought a few weeks ago, for a screaming deal!

A couple of things:

1. I know they are practically the same photo. The photos from the other angles don't show the rug as well though.

2. I probably should have tidied up a bit before taking these pictures to post to my blog, but I had just done so the previous day and I was too annoyed at how the hot chocolate table had exploded overnight to tidy up again. And besides, I'm supposed to be "taking it easy"!

3. I also know the rug doesn't so much match the furniture, which I am really okay with for a number of reasons: I want new furniture anyway; in order to prolong the life of the current furniture, before we obtain said new furniture, we're going to get a new slip cover for the Ikea couch, and Project! We're going to refinish the hot chocolate table! I'm making Tim wait to start that project until after I'm done being pregnant so I can participate! Oh the possibilites this new rug has opened up in our lives! It's ridiculous how excited it makes me!

I don't know where to begin...

2009-11-01T16:03:00.000-08:00

So I suppose I'll begin with an update on the baby status. I went to the doctor on Thursday and I'm not any more dilated than I was over a week ago, so they said I can go back to work as long as I take it easy. "Modified bed rest" if you will. Whatever! Hopefully they don't change their minds when I go in again on Tuesday. I suppose when I go to work on Monday I'll just have to make sure to scan plenty of stuff that I can work on from home the rest of the week if need be.

Now on to Halloween...

Once again we had zero Trick-or-Treaters. I fell asleep on the couch at 9:00 p.m. while Tim was experimenting with the surround sound speaker locations, and Tim didn't feel like waking me up when he finished at 9:30ish so we could go have Blizzards like we planned. That was pretty sad. But, Tim did carve our first Jack-O-Lantern of our married lives! Here are some pictures of his handiwork.
He's got some serious skills, huh? Oh, wait... That was a picture of Howie standing right in the way when I was trying to get a photo of Jack.

Here's Jack.

Such a good-looking pumpkin, but still not enough to woo the Trick-or-Treaters to our house.

This last week has been a cool one for this time of year in the Valley of the Sun. The temperatures have only been up into the seventies during the day and have dipped down into the fifties at night. Tim and I finally had to put a blanket on the bed for the first time since March or April. While the cooler weather has made Howie somewhat more frisky than he is in the summer months, I don't think he particularly enjoys the cool mornings and evenings. One day this past week I emptied the warm clothes from the dryer onto the bed and walked away for a minute, and when I came back, this is what I found.

He's nuts! And I sure like it!

So I have a hyper uterus... Can't I just go home?

2009-10-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry to have to tell any of you who may be watching my blog for updated baby pictures, that Squirt did not cooperate at the ultrasound last Thursday, and we really didn't get any good pictures. The little turkey was snuggled right up to the placenta for a lot of the ultrasound, and when he or she wasn't, there was always a little fist and a little foot right in front of Squirt's face. Good news though, Squirt has had a growth spurt! At the ultrasound we had at 28 weeks, Squirt was measuring in the 9th percentile. At the recent ultrasound - 32 weeks - Squirt is now up to the 30th percentile as far as size, etc. and everything looked good as far as he or she is concerned!

Things apparently didn't look so great concerning my cervix. It apparently looked short, which led to a very uncomfortable exam by my Doctor, which led to a diagnosis of being between 1-2 centimeters dilated, which then led to a two night stay at the hospital so they could observe my uterine activity for pre-term labor. Now, I've been sentenced to bed rest for at least a week, and probably longer. The Doctor keeps dangling my freedom in front of my face - I think so I won't kill her if she tells me I'll be on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy - but I don't think she has any intentions of releasing me from my bedroom, couch and bathroom privileges only confinement any time soon!

Fortunately, my new employers are very understanding and are willing to let me work from home. I think that a sentence to bed-rest would have been grounds for termination at my last job. The more I think about how awful my last job was, the more I really appreciate my new employers. Losing my previous job has turned out to be one of the greatest blessings ever for Tim and I and for Squirt! Props to the firm of Gibson Ferrin & Riggs, PLC! Down with the other guys! If I didn't like one of the people still working for the other guys, I'm pretty sure I'd be praying for their office to burn down, or for a massive client exodus for them. Christ-like? No. But that's how I feel.

Anyway, after two nights in the hospital and lots of medication - steroids to help develop baby's lungs in case I go into real labor early, and two types of smooth muscle relaxers - my hyper uterus still hasn't really calmed down, but nothing has been progressing as far as dilation. Hopefully that will still be the case later this week when I go for another check-up, and they'll let me get back to the business of living, sooner rather than later. I think Squirt is pretty happy hanging out inside of me for a while longer yet.

Itchy, itchy!

2009-10-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

So, we were supposed to have another ultrasound this past week so the doctor could measure Squirt and make sure he or she is growing properly. I've told some people to stay tuned to the blog so they could check out the latest pictures that I'm hoping we get to bring home with us. That didn't so much work out though, since I ended up being sick, and they preferred to not have me come into the office if I might pass along my germs to another poor soul, so you get the pictures included in this post instead.

Anyway, I ended up with flu-like symptoms on Sunday - fever of 100+ degrees and general body aches and feeling icky. I'd gotten over another bout with the flu a few weeks previously, and since that episode I'd heard it's common that people who get swine flu will get the flu, then get over it, and a few weeks later you catch the flu again, and the second time around it's bad!

Being slightly paranoid anyway since finding out Squirt is quite small, I decided to call my doctor and see if I should be taking anything or come into the office for a check-up in case it was swine flu. She called back and said whether it's regular flu or swine flu, she just wanted to get me treated and prescribed Tamiflu. Here is the result of said Tamiflu:

The photos are of a section of my baby belly, my upper arms and one of my hands. The photo of my hand doesn't look nearly as bad as it did even earlier in the day, let alone the previous days! The hives started showing up on Monday. On Tuesday I was too itchy to even wear a shirt so I stayed home from work. On Wednesday there was no improvement and by Thursday, when the photos were taken, the hives were finally starting to go away on my arms below my elbows. So there is hope they will all be gone eventually!

The moral of the story: I'd rather have swine flu than take Tamiflu. Ever again!

An Offensive Night Light & Craigslist Bargain Furniture

2009-10-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

So, check out this nightlight!

It doesn't look very offensive, right? It was a Christmas in August gift from Tim's parents. Thanks Steve & Cynthia!

Anyway, it's difficult to imagine that anyone could really have a problem with such a night light. Anyone that is, except this little guy:

Don't be fooled by that cute, little, innocent face! He's a killer! And when he noticed the night light for the first time yesterday morning, he sure told the night light who is boss around our house! He barked at it and growled at it and scratched his little hind legs at it. So Tim and I laughed at him for a few minutes, and then Tim went and unplugged the night light so Howie could check it out and now Howie is okay with it. He's so silly! He doesn't really know what to think about new things around the house, or things that are out of place. He'll bark at a box of cereal on the countertop, if it strikes him that it doesn't belong there. And forget about leaving a box on the stairs for a more convenient time to take it upstairs than the present moment! Howie comes unglued!

Fortunately, Howie hasn't minded the new baby furniture we found for a screaming deal on Craigslist!

Here is a picture of the changing table we found - complete with drawers so Howie won't be able to get into and chew up diapers!

And here is the matching crib!

And how much did we pay for these two awesome pieces of baby furniture you may ask? We paid the very low price of $100 for both! I told Tim that the price was a screaming deal, but he didn't believe me until his sister came to visit and confirmed that I found a screaming deal. He has a tendency to do that. Maybe one of these days he'll learn that I'm pretty much always right, and just listen to me!

Now that we've found this baby furniture, I've been a little bit sad that I don't have any more bargains to be watching Craigslist and Backpage for. I'm thinking though, that I may start watching for a great deal on another changing table to put somewhere downstairs. A diaper changing station downstairs would be much more convenient than having to haul myself and baby up eighteen stairs every time he or she needs a bum change and we don't happen to be upstairs already.

Oh Baby!

2009-09-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Okay everyone, as promised, here come the pictures of me and my big baby belly. The belly is much bigger than the baby! Based on the measurements at my ultrasound last week, baby is only about 2 pounds 6 onces - skinny little thing! So, here's the 29 weeks prego belly!

And, for a special treat, here are some of the favorites from the ultrasound!

This is Squirt Baby's foot. Who do you think he/she takes after?
Dad?
Mom?
Big Brother?

What a profile, huh? Now who do you think he/she looks like?
Dad?
Mom?
Howie? Any takers?
How about those skinny, little legs? Who does Squirt Baby get those from?
Tim?
Kira?
Howie? (I'm thinking if Howie gets any votes, it will be in the skinny, little legs category!)

And, finally, to finish off this photo heavy post, here are a couple more of my favorties! Sorry I didn't include any pictures of my ovaries or anything - they don't excite me as much as these others!

Tim's Happy Birthday!

2009-09-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

So Tim had a Happy Birthday this last week. One of "The Big One's" in fact. He turned 30!!! Whoa! That's pretty much old. But not really. Anyway, it was a very busy day, but I hope it was a little bit happy for him. He at least claims it was! He's a pretty great husband like that!

For his birthday, he got to come with me to an ultrasound appointment and that was super fun! Pictures of said appointment will be posted in a successive blog. After that I went back to work for a while and since what normally takes me 20 minutes to drive took an hour thanks to an accident on the freeway, I ended up staying at work a little bit late to make up for lost time.

So I got home late, and then Tim and I and Howie loaded up in the car and drove ourselves over to Rumbi Island Grill to let Tim pick out the birthday entree we shared for our dinner, thanks to a Christmas gift from his cousin, Rachel, which was a coupon for a free entree at said Rumbi Island Grill. Thanks, Rachel! We love free food!

Then it was home to prepare the dutch oven cobbler Tim requested in lieu of a traditional birthday cake. Half of the cobbler consisted of the recipe we used at his family reunion for the dutch-oven cook-off (and won, I might add!), and the other half consisted of a mixture of pears and berries, which I didn't think was as good as the original stuff.

In case you're interested, here is the recipe:

Peach-Orange Dump Cobbler

2 (30 oz.) cans sliced peaches; drained
1 yellow cake mix; dry
2 (8 oz.) cans mandarin oranges; drained
1 can Orange soda
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
4 Tbs. butter; cut into pieces
3/4 cup brown sugar
vanilla ice cream

Line a 12" Dutch oven with heavy duty foil. To Dutch oven add peaches, oranges, and cinnamon. Stir to mix. Sprinkle brown sugar over fruit. Dump cake mix in a large pile over center of fruit. Make a well in the center of the cake mix. Pour orange soda into the well then stir cake mix in to moisten. Spread mixture evenly over fruit. Dot top with butter.

Place lid on Dutch oven and bake using 8-10 briquettes bottom and 14-16 briquettes top for 45-60 minutes.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Serves: 8-10

Source: http://papadutch.home.comcast.net/~papadutch/dutch-oven-recipe-peachorangecobbler.htm

Try it! You'll love it! It's awesome!

Welp, our friend Scott came over to enjoy some cobbler with us, and sadly, the briquettes weren't as ready as we thought so they went out and we had to resort to the oven, but Scott couldn't stick around for the oven to make magic out of our cobbler, so just Tim and I had dessert. But it was sure good!

By the time we were done with dessert it was pretty late - nearly 10:00 p.m. I think, so we opened presents - pictures to follow - and then we went to bed like the OLD married fuddy-duddies we are.

I know this birthday is going to be hard to top next year, but don't worry, Tim. Somehow, I'll manage it!

Tim's very own, customize your own '30' flavors of ice cream presents!

A 'Manager's Chair' - Oooohh!

Tim and I at the Arizona Diamondbacks vs. San Diego Padres game, thanks to Scott! Great seats! Sixth row, down the third base line, so we saw some foul ball action and the D-Backs won off of a grand slam. It was a pretty sweet game! Thanks again, Scott!

Howie's First Camping Trip

2009-09-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well, now that we've been back from our two week Idaho trip for almost two weeks, I suppose it's time to start updating my Blog!

First things first, for all those who care to know, I did manage to find a job! Hooray, mostly. I have some mixed feelings about this situation, but I'm mostly grateful to have a job and a way to pay our bills for now. And if Squirt waits long enough to be born, we may have some insurance to help cover the costs of his or her birth if there are complications. And we really hope there aren't.

I'm also really grateful that I haven't been yelled at at this office yet, and no one has sworn at me, or told me they will "literally kill" me if I have a name misspelled in a draft document.

On to happier things!

While we were in Idaho, Tim and Howie and I met up with Nich and Kris one Saturday night at Rigby Lake for dutch over dinner and a one night camp out. It was super-fun!

Here are a few pictures of the festivities!

Nich and I setting up the tent, and that was my 22 or 23 weeks pregnant belly!

Nich and Kris preparing yummy blueberry cobbler!

Tim, the fire master! Also the smores stick master! He didn't get just any puny sticks for our smores festivities! He practically cut down whole trees to get to just the perfect sticks! Thanks, Tim!

And finally, a few pictures of Howie, the wild-outdoors dog!

Howie had a great time camping while the sun was up! He ran all over, while managing to stay pretty close to the campsite (always within hearing distance), and ate all kinds of things that he shouldn't have been eating probably. We warned him that there would be no expensive visits to the vet to save him if he ended up being sick because of what he ate. We told him he'd just have to die a slow, agonizing death! But he still persisted in eating things he shouldn't eat and managed not to get sick.

Once it got cold in the evening, Howie didn't love camping as much. He wasn't crazy about the fire (go figure!), and he spent a lot of the night snuggled up with me or his Aunt Nich to help him keep warm. At one point I went to grab something out of the car and Howie jumped into the car and was ready to go back to Grandma's house. He wouldn't come back out of the car, so he spent a few hours there by himself until I dragged him out and took him into the tent to sleep.

He was unsure about sleeping in the tent, and it took him a little while to figure out that if he crawled down inside the sleeping bag he'd be warmer, but eventually he did and he slept much better than either Tim or I slept on the air mattress that went flat halfway through the night. Ouch!

All in all, I think Howie would try camping again, and I sure hope he gets the opportunity!

News From Culver Street

2009-07-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

June 25, 2009 - The Pulley's turn off their water heater for the summer, as their only means to take a semi-cool shower for the remaining months of the Phoenix summer. Their cold water is literally too hot to turn on the shower with only cold water and shower. The water needs the time sitting in the water tank to cool off enough for purposes of showering and washing vegetables in a temperature that produces only semi-wilted lettuce, rather than "habbage".

July 14, 2009 - Tim finds a dead, decomposing kitten in the Pulley "Garden". Kira now has guilt that she always thought it was too hot to go out and look at the vegetables any time she thought about it in the last week. Maybe if she'd gone out to look at the vegetables the kitten could have been found before it died and started to stink to high heaven! Now the Pulley's have to deal with the odor every time they walk out their front door until at least Monday when the city collects the garbage again, or until they do some middle of the night reconnaisance work and switch garbage cans with a neighbor far down the street.

July 15, 2009 -
It's a squid.

It's an alien.

It's a . . .

Drum roll please!

. . . well, it's a baby!

For those of you who don't know yet, Tim and Kira are expecting their first child somewhere around December 12, 2009 (there is some disagreement as to the actual estimated date of delivery, based on what happens to be written on the charts any given day and that the earliest ultrasound readings put the kiddo about 6 days ahead of schedule as far as development goes based on a December 12 due date). Yup, it's true. We're 19 weeks/5 months pregnant! I wish we could tell you if it's a boy or a girl, but we kind of passed on that ultrasound today. It costs a lot of money, and that is something we don't have a lot of these days since Tim and I have both lost our jobs in the last nine months and health insurance is now a thing of the past for this child. That being said, we will gladly accept all donations to our meager (we've got nothing) supply of baby furniture and androgynous baby clothing. We're also accepting prayers that one of us can find a job so we can manage to pay all the upcoming bills associated with having a child.

Anyway, we're pretty excited for our newest adventure! Tim even got to hear the heartbeat for the first time today and is finally convinced that there is actually a baby inside me somewhere. We're just a little nervous about how our spoiled only-child (puppy) is going to handle the new addition to our family when he or she comes along!

Also, I know lots of people enjoy seeing pictures of how big pregnant ladies are at so many weeks along, but I think if I posted such a picture at this point, you'd be disappointed. There isn't much to see. I've expanded enough that I can't wear some of my regular pants/skirts, but not enough to notice in a picture.

A Photo Post

2009-05-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a busy day. Not only did we take Howie to the vet, but I also had Tim give me yet another tutorial on how to get the pictures off the camera and on to the computer. Hence, today I am doing some catch-up blogging.

These are just a few pictures of some of our activities from March and April (mostly March).

Tim and I at "Thunder in the Desert" airshow, which was totally awesome and worth the crowds, dust, walking, sun and very minor sunburn thanks to my Coppertone Sport SPF 48 sun block! (Also, Aunt Kim, we know that wearing sunglasses damages our blood, but there was an awful lot of sun that day and we didn't wear them the whole time!)

My very awesome birthday cake and my even more awesome birthday party guests. (I love the blue eyes on those munchkins!)

And finally...as if you hadn't guessed...Howie pictures!

Who needs Barbies or baby dolls for playing with their hair, when you've got Howie in the house? I think with a little more gel he could have passed for a puppy Who down in Whoville!

Howie Goes to the Vet

2009-05-09T12:08:00.001-07:00

I know, I know! Not another Howie story! But we don't have kids, so we don't have anything else to blog about!

Anyway, our little Howie is a great little dog. As you can see from my last post, he has no respect for me and thus will not listen when I give him a command. Despite the fact he doesn't respect me, he still loves me more than anyone in the world, so I can't really hold that against him. Who could, really? He's also super-friendly, mostly doesn't pee in the house any more, and mostly doesn't shed... until he goes to the vet.

Yesterday we took our little Howie-bazowie to the vet for one of his routine vaccinations and I was covered in his hair by the time we left. The poor little guy gets nervous the minute we walk in the door! He gets so excited to see the other dogs at the vet, but he is too stressed out by being at the vet to really make friends. It's pretty rough. And, it's also his own, darn fault!

Howie loved his first visit to the vet. He loved the girls at the front desk. He loved the other dogs. He loved the veterinary nurse. He loved Dr. Cortez!

He was super excited for his second visit to the vet, but this was the visit where he made the fatal mistake which has turned him into a vet fearer. He was too wiggly for the shots to go smoothly and as a result they had to stick him lots of extra times. Poor little guy.

On Howie's third visit to the vet he started the behavior that we see to this day at the vet. He doesn't like to leave our arms, in fact he snuggles up as close as he can get to us and tries to hide his little face in our armpits, thinking that maybe if he can't see what's coming, it won't come at all. He's so naieve. He starts to shed like crazy and he just shakes and shakes. It's truly pathetic. Yesterday, in his efforts to climb up me and get away from the vet, he gave the vet more of a show than I'm sure he wanted. Poor guy!

After all was said and done at yesterday's visit to the vet, we took Howie to a park and let him chase birds. We figured he deserved it for all the trauma we subjected him to at the vet. And they didn't even have to stick him yesterday! Next time it's going to take at least a can of special wet dog food to get back into his good graces I'm thinking!

Puppy Tortures...

2009-04-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Examples of two of our favorite forms of puppy torture. Enjoy! We do!

1. Ask him to "roll over".

2. Put Kix cereal on a bar stool.

We Are All Enlisted. . .

2009-04-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

... 'Til the conflict is o'er? Well, I don't know about that. But I did volunteer Tim and myself to go help out with a Habitat For Humanity build that the office manager at my work is in charge of for her church - St. Patrick's something or other. (I'm not sure where my t-shirt is or I could provide a more accurate name.)

We were painting stucco, and we showed up by 6:30ish in the morning and it was cold! Those first few brush strokes were pretty-shaky for me because I was so shivery! Another girl from work, Connie, came too and brought her friend, Amy. It was pretty fun to see her and the office manager in a setting other than work.

I can't remember the name of the group that brought in lunch for us, but for both Tim and I it was our first experience eating bratwurst and we were so pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted for having a name like brat"worst" that we've had them twice with Janelle and Brian and kids since then!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our day of painting!

The Tail of Rusty

2009-04-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

So, once again, it's been a long time since I last posted. It's not that we haven't done anything since February. As I'm looking through the few pictures we took, we did a lot of fun stuff actually. I'm just a lazy blogger.
So to begin catching up:
This is Rusty.

Here are Rusty and Howie together.

Cute, huh?
Yup, pretty much. And Rusty was a very affectionate dog. He loved to snuggle up with you and give you puppy kisses, and he just generally wanted to be loved. He and Howie played well together, and Rusty fulfilled his purpose of keeping Howie occupied so we didn't have to entertain him every second of the day.
That is where the good things about Rusty stop though.
I hated Rusty from day one, despite his cute face. Within five minutes of him coming in our house he'd "marked" the couches in four different places. I came home from work the next day to find he'd "marked" some of my walls. I would regularly come home to rivers of pee across my floor, and he coudln't catch on to the fact he wasn't supposed to go in the house. Even Howie caught onto that and he's a mix of dumb breeds when it comes to potty-training! Rusty shed like a beast. He'd try to snuggle up next to me and I'd push him away and be covered in Rusty hair. His hair was all over the couches all the time and we were sweeping up piles of it every week.
Before we adopted Rusty, we asked specifically if he was house broken and if he shed? We were told he was house broken, and he doesn't shed. I don't think the lady we adopted him from temporarily lied to us about these facts. She has seven other dogs though. She probably just didn't know.
So anyway, I kicked Rusty out. I gave him back because I couldn't handle all of his issues. I don't feel too badly about it either. The reason we wanted to adopt a dog that was a little bit older was to avoid a lot of the issues (potty training) that we had with Rusty.

I need a vacation!!!

2009-02-27T11:48:00.001-08:00

One of these days I need to get around to telling the "Tail of Rusty". The dog we adopted and a month later we gave, back, but it will not be this day. I don't know where the pictures of Rusty are saved.

Anyway, I am in need of a vacation! Fortunately I have one coming up! Next week my boss is going to Rome for a week and while he's out of the office, I am playing hookie! Tim and Howie and I are going to make the long trip to cold Idaho for a few days, and it's gonna be great!

I have discovered in the last couple of weeks, that when my boss goes on vacation, it's not always a happy thing. UGH!! He is already really busy, all the time, and before he goes on vacation it just gets worse! He's been trying to fit in every client possible before he goes and get as much work out the door as possible. Which is great! That is one of the things I do like about my boss - he takes very good care of his clients. But the thing is, he has been packing his days full of client meetings and not having enough time to review the files we have done work on and therefore we have been scrambling like mad for weeks straight to try and keep ours heads and his heads above water! The other day I even began to think the piles on my desk were getting so high that people wouldn't be able to see me when they looked into my office from the hallway! It's pretty ridiculous!

So, the point of all this rambling is that I need a vacation and I am taking it! Watch out Idaho, here I come! And Tim and Howie too!

Janice Kay "Jan" Drinkwine Brewer... Really???

2009-02-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

It's no joke. Those are the for real maiden and last names of Arizona's new surprise governor. Tim says her first name should have been Sherry. He he!

But really, I had the surprise of my day today when I checked out the Arizona Secretary of State website and found that there was suddenly a strange, and very much less feminine face than Ms. Brewer's on said homepage, posing as the Secretary of State. "What happened to Jan Brewer?", I asked myself. I surely did not remember voting for a new Secretary of State in the November elections!

The problem with me is I don't watch enough T.V. or check out enough of the national news on-line! I had no idea that Barry (Barak Obama) had tapped into Arizona's gubernatorial electorate for his Secretary of Homeland Security! Thus, Jan Brewer became Arizona's new surprise governor! Tim knew though! Why doesn't he tell me these things... Hmmm...

Transplant Rejection

2009-02-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

I think I'm going to have to change the name of my blog. I don't think that the transplant has taken. It may possibly even be in the process of being rejected.

I figure the transplant didn't take because if I really stop and think about, or to be more honest, without even stopping to think about it, I can say that I really don't care that the Cardinals made it to the Super Bowl. I'm even a little bit happy that they lost. Possibly some angst a co-worker of mine has toward the Cardinals has rubbed off on me. Possibly my distaste for the Cardinals comes from the fact that I didn't even know they played football until September. Or maybe it has more to do with my indifference toward football in general. Whatever the case may be, transplanting me to the Phoenix metropolitan area has not been a total success apparently. If it were I might feel a little more pride in the "home team" for making it to the Superbowl, and a little bit of sorrow that they lost. But I just don't. And I'm usually one to cheer for the underdog!

I guess we'll see how the Phoenix Suns season goes. I doubt I'll follow it closely, but that is the one sports team in the Valley that I could support with my whole heart.

Just Catching Up

2008-12-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

I know my last post says it was from October 18, but it wasn't. I have blogged more recently than that. That's why I was able to whine that we didn't have any trick-or-treaters and post pictures of Howie in his Halloween costume. Anyway, I don't really know why that was the date my blog entry shows, and I don't know what date this entry will say it is, but here goes! This is sort of a catch up entry of what we did last month. We celebrated our one year annivesary on November 16th. And to help us celebrate I took November 13th and 14th off of work and Tim and I just hung out together for the weekend. It was great. On the 14th we dropped Howie off at the vet to be altered, lucky dog, and we went and hiked one of the trails on South Mountain. It was a ton of fun and we reminisced all about how we ended up being married and committed ourselves to writing the story down for posterity . . . one of these days. It still hasn't happened. Anyway, here are a couple pictures from our hike.

We didn't get any pictures of Howie when we brought him home after his day at the vet. We really should have. He was pathetic. He didn't respond well to the anesthetics and they had to do an emergency IV to get his blood pressure up and he was just pathetic when we brought him home. He moaned every time someone touched him to move him and at one of the stop light on the way home he tipped over, moaned and wet in his car seat. It was one of his sadder days. When the veterinary nurse was briefing us for check out she told us Howie Ba-Zowie wasn't supposed to jump for two weeks after surgery. Whatever! These pictures are from the following day when he was feeling 100% better, and was jumping as much as ever, but he had to wear a cone because he wouldn't stop licking his incision. The cone was the post painful part of the whole experience for him. He hated it. It really humiliated him to wear it.

Now for Thanksgiving! Doot doo DOO! Tim's sister Roxanne and her family came up from Yuma to spend Thanksgiving with us and it was so much fun having them here, despite all the confusion as to whether or not Vance (Roxanne's husband) had to work Thanksgiving Day or not. I was a little nervous that Howie would try to eat the baby, Das, but since Roxanne and family brought their dog, Zoe, Howie didn't bother the baby at all. He pestered Zoe like crazy, but she was quite patient with him. Here are some pictures of our feast, Zaily and Thaeden, Zoe and the rest of us feasters at the holiday table (or bar in our case).

Finally, just because it's cute, here is a video of Howie doing the trick that Tim taught him. Howie thinks it's torture, but we think it's cute enough it's worth convincing a performance out of him regularly.

Halloween Fun!!

2008-10-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

Welp, Tim and I didn't really do much for Halloween this year. We went grocery shopping for the first time in almost four weeks, but we didn't bother buying any candy to hand out because I was pretty sure we weren't going to have any trick-or-treaters. I was right. The doorbell didn't ring once, which was a little disappointing. It was our first Halloween in our first house and I couldn't even talk my sister into bringing her munchkins over for some Halloween goodies! Oh well.

Tim and I did go to Hollywood video and rented a couple of movies - not so much scary because I don't do scary movies - using a giftcard I got at a bridal shower, I believe, and they were pretty intense! We rented "Premonition" with Sandra Bullock and watched it for Halloween and it was enough intenseness for me for a while! Then later in the week we watched "Red Eye". I'd seen it before but it still made me so nervous at some parts that I couldn't watch!

Anyway, we did dress up our little Howie for Halloween (not that anyone saw him in his costume since we had zero (0) Trick-or-Treaters). He was a super-cute, if not fierce, Pirate Puppy. Here are a few of my favorite photos!

Howie and Scallywag Tim

In this picture he looks a little bit stealthy and pirate"ish".

Here he just looks humiliated about the costume we made him wear. Poor sad Howie!

And this is how he felt about his hat!

Finally, just for kicks and giggles, and because I think they are the cutest ever and deserve to be adored, here are a few pictures of our nieces and nephews in their Halloween attire!

The Sandall Coven (Stephenie Meyer's Edward Cullen has nothing on these vampires!) and Spider Man to save the day!

The Harry Potter gang - Hermione, Harry and Dobby!

A Butterfly and Iron Man!

HOWIE'S LITTLE EARS

2008-10-17T17:37:00.001-07:00

This post will be dedicated to the evolution of our little How-dawg's ears. I can't say what they looked like when he was born, because, well, I never saw them. The first time I ever saw his ears he was nine weeks old and they were really cute and flopsy forward and looked like this:

And just because he is so dang cute, here's another picture from our first day with the How-dawg!

Then, a couple weeks after we got our little bundle of hair (he doesn't have fur and therefore doesn't shed too much! Happy Day!)his ears looked more like this:

They were flopsy backward and they were so cute! Tim thought he looked girly and he wasn't such a fan, but everyone at the vet's office thought he was just the CUTEST thing! And he was!

These days Howie's ears look more like this:

And he's still the cutest dog ever!

Our House - Doot doo DOO!

2008-10-05T21:20:00.000-07:00

Now that it has been about six ages since I have posted on my blog, I have a lot to catch up on, and will hopefully be doing so over the next (let's be honest here and not commit me to catching up on too much, too fast) several weeks or months. Whatever it turns out to be. I probably won't write too much tonight. I'll post lots of pictures though, since I finally have a few pictures of our house that I can post! So, enough of the chit-chat! Here are the pictures.

Well, I'll say a couple more things, I guess. The first pictures are from our move-in day, June 21st. The rest of the pictures are more recent. Probably within the last two weeks when we finally got pictures on the walls downstairs so it looks decent enough to show to people!

So, without further adieu . . . here are the move in day pictures.

This is our free piano!! The bishop of our ward down here knew we were moving on the same day he gave his wife a baby grand piano for their eighteenth anniversary. So when the new piano was delivered they just had an extra piano and nothing to do with it. Tim got a phone call with their offer for their free, old piano. All we had to do was figure out how to move it.
Fortunately, we had the moving truck and a two other people (thanks Brian and Claudio!!) who were willing to help us haul it up the eighteen stairs from the garage to the living room! You just can't beat a free piano! Thanks Bishop and Sister Bruce!!

This is our free couch! Thanks Brian for looking out for us, and thanks Larry and Nancy Shannon (Brian's parents, and Brian is my brother-in-law) for hooking us up with a great couch! Now that Howie is big enough to get on the furniture there's no keeping him off of it. He loves it!

And now, the more current pictures!

The plant corner! We love plants and have recently started growing some herbs and some vegetables, now that it's not so hot that everything will sprout and then die from the heat!

It's a Boy!!

2008-07-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been a while since I have been at this blogging business! And I've had lots to write about! Finally getting the main level of our house mostly unpacked, the Pulley Family Reunion - good times had by all - good, although short, visits with some awesome friends on our Idaho trip, getting a free couch!

What brings me to my blog tonight though is the newest addition to the Tim and Kira Pulley family. A mostly happy, and healthy little boy!!! He's the cutest little boy in the world! I'd like to say he looks smashing in blue, as most baby boys apparently do, but we've never put clothes on him, so we wouldn't know. Here's a picture!

So this is our little guy, and he's very little. His name as it turns out is Howie Barketti Pulley. We needed an Italian inspired middle name in honor of his Italian heritage. He's a Yorkie/Italian Greyhound mix. He's nine weeks old and maybe weighs as much as two pounds of butter. Fully grown the breeder doesn't expect him to be more than 5-6 pounds. That's not even as big as Cat! He's a snuggle-bug and he hates to be alone. He also hates to go potty in the designated area. Oye ve!

He's also got a good start at being mischevious we think, based on the fact that he managed to climb out of the bathroom that serves as his home base while we are gone at work, by climbing on the big stuffed monkey that keeps him company while we're gone and then climbing over the baby gate that we put up to keep him in. A fat lot of good that did!

Anyway, there will no doubt be future posts regarding this addition to our little family. So stay tuned for more pictures and more of Howie's antics. And, with any luck, we'll manage to get pictures off our camera and onto my computer so I can get my blog updated and post the very highly requested pictures of our new house! (Be forwarned: They'll all have a puppy in them!)

Uh Oh! Tim's in Trouble Now!

2008-06-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Poor, sad Tim. There's no help for him now!

I'm afraid that tonight I have started him on the long and downward spiraling path of patholigical liarness! DUN, Dun, dun!

I know, I'm a very bad influence, but it all starts out just in fun, and then before you know it - or in this case before I know it - I've inspired a lie that we've shared with all his family. I'm going to be kicked out, I just know it, and that makes me sad because I really, truly, 100%, hands down, no question and no competition have the coolest in-laws ever! But alas, perhaps no longer.

You see, it all started when my sister-in-law asked in an e-mail where we'd be after the end of this month since we'd dropped a subtle hint that we'll only be located at our present address through the end of the month. Then, an idea struck me and the little devil on my left shoulder wouldn't let me resist the urge to share it with Tim. "Let's tell her we're going to be in Madagascar! He he he!" So, I shared. And then, it snowballed.

Instead of sending an honest and true e-mail saying that we're buying a house and therefore our address will be changing at the end of the month we sent an e-mail to his entire family announcing that we're going to Abu Dhabi as part of his firm's summer intern program, and even included an Arabic phrase to close which is something equivalent to saying "My hovercraft is full of eels" in English.

So, I'm sorry Tim. Now that you are on this path, there may be no getting off of it, but we're sure going to have fun in the meantime!

Elder Cody Michael "Dork Brother" Philips

2008-06-04T21:43:00.001-07:00

My brother isn't really a dork. But of course I wouldn't ever tell him that! What kind of older sister would I be?

Well, my favoritest brother that has outgrown me so far left for Brazil yesterday to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm going to miss that kid! I don't even live in the same house as him anymore and I miss him. Explain to me how that works, because I'm not sure I get it.

This is a picture of my very handsome brother in his suit. He's going to break a lot of hearts in Brazil, for sure, but the Brazilians beauties are just going to have to deal with that as best they can. I informed Elder Philips a long time ago that I have reserved exclusive rights to hand-pick my future sister-in-law, and since I won't have any opportunities to get to know the Brazilian chicas, they are out of the running. Poor, sad girls. : (

What Joy There Is!

2008-05-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

Oh what a joyous thing it is to go appliance shopping! We've done no buying yet, but I sure had a good time in the 45 minutes or so we spent with the salesman - half an hour of which was after store closing time - learning about the different features of modern washers, dryers, refrigerators and ranges.

I'm just trying not to get my hopes up too high for the convection oven, on which one of the three shelves can be reduced to half the size of the rest and thus you can fit taller dishes in the oven along with the short stuff. What a glorious thing that would be!

So keep watching. Someday soon, if all goes according to plan, we'll have appliances to fill these holes in the wall!

I'm Not Very Good At Being Home Alone

2008-05-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Today is Tuesday. Tuesday means Tim goes to choir practice and Barbershop practice. I'm quite happy to have a husband who has talent in the vocal arena. I love to sit next to him and listen to him sing. But on Tuesday nights I'm just here in our little apartment all by my onesie, just wishing I wasn't home alone.

I'm not very good at being home alone. It gives me too much quiet time to sit and think about all the family and friends I would love to be playing with, but they are too far away and it makes me depressed. You can see some of said friends in the photo above. (I miss you girls!) I need to make more friends down here. That's all there is to it. I may not really like being a transplant Phoenician right now, but by jove, if we're staying here long enough for home ownership to be worth it, I'm going to like it. It's going to take a lot of brownies though.