By the way...

Did I mention that this came in the mail last week? 

MLK day

No pictures today, just a quick update....we got a crib!  Baby's room is started!

We're not very close though, because the office needs to be cleaned out and reorganized before we have a baby's room, and that's not very fun work.  We're very slow at it.  I have all the books out of the bookcases, so those are ready to move, but we're living among boxes of files and sorted bags of papers to recycle, shred, and store in the "new" office/guest bedroom.  We got a new shredder with Christmas money (thanks Aunt Karyn!!) and are impatiently awaiting it's arrival.  

I'm sure once the room is cleared of office stuff and ready for baby stuff we'll have a lot more fun and maybe be more efficient.

So, the most exciting thing here lately is that we have a crib! But no picture, since it's still in a box.  We got a crib and matching dresser/changing table at Ikea on Friday.  It's always a special and fun trip when we get to go, since it's not really close and we have to take a toll-road...we make it a date and enjoy it!  We usually only go about once a year, but it's such a fun store! Ikea is wonderful!! 

Except for...

we also needed another bookcase.  Being students, our book collection has outgrown the shelf space available.  Our bookcases are from Ikea, so of course we were planning to get one more while we were there.  Ikea was OUT of our bookcases though!  Temporarily-out-of-stock read the label.  

Way to slow us down on our office-moving, baby-room-preparing even more Ikea!  

We decided to try to look for it online when we got home.   I found it available online for the same price in-store, $19.99, and was in the process of checking out when the taxes and shipping & handling fees were added.  Guess how much shipping & handling is for one $20 bookcase?  

$119.00

Yep...Don't think we're doing that.  

We'll just pay the $5 in tolls, and $15 in gas to go back up to Ikea and get it ourselves someday when they have it in stock.  

Just thought you might enjoy a little bit of that craziness.  

22 weeks and showing off!

This was mostly an excuse to play with our camera.  And for some reason I didn't change immediately into my pj's when I came home from work today, so I was still presentable later on in the evening.  

Our girl is getting "bumpish".  Is that the right word for it?  

Modeling the baby.  

And the door behind me opens to the brand new finished laundry room!

Ornery model?

Picture with flash--shows off the color of the wall a little better.  

Active

I've felt our daughter move most days for 2 or 3 weeks now, but it's definitely becoming more pronounced.  She's a wiggle worm (when she wants to be--which was apparently not Monday morning when the sonogram technician wanted her to move to get a picture of her face)!

On Saturday, Ricardo was able to feel a kick (or punch or flip--not sure what it was) through my stomach for the first time!  And last night, we were laying in bed watching Lord of the Rings (the first one) and at about 11:30pm, she decided it was time to dance.  Her moving and kicking was so strong I pushed off the covers and lifted my shirt to watch my stomach.  And sure enough--her next kick shifted my whole abdomen!  Ricardo saw it too, and for the next 30 minutes we half watched the movie and half watched baby as she continued to move and kick and make my stomach move in funny shapes.  

I'm starting to wonder...if she's this strong at 21 weeks, what's going to happen in the next 19??

PINK!

Introducing: Baby Girl Rodriguez

She seems to be quite non-compliant as this is the only (brief) view we got of her face after 10 minutes of the sonogram tech pushing and prodding to try to get her to wake up and roll over.  (To be honest, the sonogram tech was great--she kept trying long after she got all the measurements and stuff she needed).  

As it turns out, our darling baby girl likes to sleep on her stomach, facing away from us with both arms up and over her head and face.  After the 10 minutes of the tech having me shift, roll to one side, then another, then back again, trying to wake up baby and get her to flip over, she finally caught a quick (seriously, 2-seconds) glimpse of a face and managed a photo.  

This is it!

Congrats to all of you who voted girl! You win! (But....really, we win because we get to keep her).  

Goals & Objectives

Surprise! 2 blog posts in 1 day! 

I guess that's what happens on vacation...

This is just a quick note to say I've completed my Goals & Objectives for the first day of 2009!  

Way to go me: done with my resolutions.  No wonder I was excited to write another blog entry.

I did start laundry (not finished, but if you read the last blog post carefully...ha ha), got my car inspection (plus a car wash and vacuumed out the jeep!), grocery shopped (plus a stop at the fabric store!),  showered, went to breakfast (bagels--yum!) with Ricardo, photographed and ordered our Christmas picture (I'm writing and addressing the cards right now), plus cleaned and organized our kitchen pantry.  

Christmas Photo 2008

Sigh, it's good to be done with the New Year's Goals & Objectives for another year.  

On a side note: at the grocery store, two employees who were stocking the soup aisle commented on my cute (and tiny) baby belly.  This was the first time someone (who didn't already know) noticed I was pregnant!  

Christmas Adventures Part II

Happy 2009 to all!

Continuation of the Christmas Adventures:  The Gingerbread Houses.  

I brought down materials to make gingerbread houses with my nieces and nephews.  None of them had ever done that before, so it was a fun event for all of us (as well as a really big mess!) We took pictures of them with our cell phones, so the image quality is questionable, but I hope you enjoy it!

Beginning the process!

The older kids were given free reign on designing their own structure (the younger ones got a house that I pre-glued for them).  Here are Johana and Rogelio's finished products!

Keila modelling her candy-laden (she kept asking for more!!) house.

Nagay and her house...

Haziel favored decorating his house with lots of "snow" (frosting)...

While his sister Yarizel was very symmetrical with her candy placement.  Ricardo would have loved it!

Yadi was really creative with her Gingerbread person...

Daniela wouldn't hold still for a picture!

I made a pink house for my mother-in-law...

Village of Gingerbread Homes!  

Only one of the adults (my brother-in-law, Juan) asked to join in the fun. Can you tell he's an engineer?  He's working on a replica of the 7-star hotel in Dubai.  Seriously?

Anyway, it was a wonderful afternoon spent with sugared-up nieces and nephews (who LOVED their aunt Calia for it).  

I think this will be it for blogging our Christmas Adventures.  The rest of our trip consisted mostly of visiting and talking with family, decorating my sister-in-law's house for New Year's, holding my newest niece (1 month old!) and seeing some of Ricardo's friends, and the worse IHOP in the world in Midland, TX on our way back to Dallas.  

Today is New Year's Day, and my mom would probably ask what my goals and objectives are for 2009 (which I never do.  Ever.  I currently think year-long resolutions are a waste of time)...However, I can state what my goals and objectives for TODAY are: Shower, start laundry, go find breakfast with Ricardo (since there's nothing in the house), go to the grocery store, get the inspection on my car (if we can find an open place), and take our Christmas picture so I can get Christmas cards ready to mail (ha ha...it's really late for that!)  But, it's time for me to get moving so I can complete my goals and objectives!

Christmas Adventures

Lots to catch up on, since I've been out of contact with the technological world for the week we were in Mexico.  So...here's the news for now, however it might require multiple posts.  

It all began Christmas Eve.  We were packing, cleaning as much of the house as we could, and I heard a ruckus above my head.  I had been telling Ricardo that I thought we had squirrels in our attic (yes, again), so he put the live animal trap up in the attic to see if it was so.  And Lo and behold, there came a great noise the next day!  We caught a fat one!  So glad we heard it before we left home for a week.  Ricardo drove Mr. Squirrel a few miles away (so as not to find it's way back into our home) and we'll check for others this week. 

Not too shabby-looking...he's obviously been feasting on all the good insulation and other material in our attic.

We went to a lovely Christmas Eve service at St. Luke, and Ricardo played with the zoom lens for our new toy, since he was running the sound from the back of the church.  These are pictures taken from the farthest away point of the church--not bad!

During the opening prelude

George and Jim Angle in "Interview with a Shepherd"....hilarious!  Lee put it perfectly when he said it just gets better every year!

A little crooked, but Ricardo managed to get the whole chancel in a shot.  And yes, I am playing in the bell choir.  Such a church geek!  It was mostly an "I'm part of the ministry team and need to be supportive" effort, (Lee's up there too, he's the one on the end who looks like he's about to whomp the other guy in the head with a giant bell).

After the service, we bundled into our car to begin our overnight drive to El Paso, TX and then across the border to Juarez, Mexico.  No pictures of that trip...because really, there is nothing in the middle of Texas.  We arrived, and the next day Ricardo and I practiced our tamal-making skills.  We learned how to make tamales last year, but decided we wanted another go at it with supervision before we try it on our own.

I mixed the masa...

Ricardo put the chiles on to boil...

And started washing the corn husks...(longest part of the process--this took forever)

My suegra (mother-in-law) and I stacking the tamales in the pot to steam...

Yum!

Other random highlights from our visit: Cesar (best man from our wedding, for those of you who remember) stopped by to see us briefly! It was fun to see him again, I think the last time we saw him was at his wedding.

Ricardo and Cesar together, so cute!

This is how we entertained ourselves while in El Paso, trying to learn Guitar Hero. This is Juan on drums and my suegro, Domingo on guitar.

Another post with more adventures coming soon!