I can’t believe it’s 2010… Marty and I can officially say, “Our son was born last year.”  That is so weird.  2009 completely flew by and I’m sure with E approaching 2 months already, we’re expecting 2010 to fly by even quicker.  With 2009 officially over, I honestly have to say… it was a great year.  Looking forward to great things as we start a new decade.

So Christmas morning was very interesting.  I don’t know exactly what I had been expecting.  Yes, I knew Ethan was only 6 weeks old and I knew he liked to cry a lot… but for some reason I had a feeling that he’d get a good night sleep on Christmas Eve and wake up happy and ready to open presents on Christmas morning… in my mind, he was even smiling (even though he really doesn’t do that yet).  This was not the case.  Christmas morning Ethan ate and ate and cried and cried.  He was almost inconsolable most of the day and we were just happy for any moment of peace and quiet.  We were supposed to have Christmas dinner with friends but unfortunately they had come down with colds and we decided to keep Ethan home and so we had peirogies for dinner and pie for dessert.  It was probably better that we stayed in because Ethan really was behaving badly and was not in a mood to be social.

Luckily, most of that has passed in the 2 days following Christmas.  It must have been the “6-week growing pains” because since then he has been much more angelic.  On Sunday, he even quietly watched some football with Mom & Dad in between naps and he let us get a little yard work done in the afternoon.  When he did get fussy, it didn’t even seem that bad.  Let’s hope this is the start of a well-behaved, smiling-and-cooing, sleep-in-late baby.  I probably just jinxed it.

It’s been just a few days since our last visitors left and it’s been nice and quiet around the house (if you don’t count periods of constant crying).  Still though, I just can’t believe Christmas morning is less than 24 hours away.  We have our little fake 3 foot Christmas tree set-up and decorated plus a few other little holiday decorations strategically placed throughout the house.  I can only interpret Ethan’s crying as what must be his anxiety to open the many presents under the tree.  Ethan has presents from family and friends and I know he can’t wait to see and play with  all of his new wonderful toys.

Ethan is almost 6 weeks old now and he has grown so much.  Besides crying, sleeping and eating… we’ve also discovered that he loves ceiling fans and fixtures, standing on someone’s lap (with support of course), sleeping on Mommy or Daddy’s chest, and bath time most of all.  He’s started to grip things with his hands.  He held onto one of his rattles the other day for over 10 seconds and also has a really good grip when tugging on Mommy’s hair.  It’s incredible how much he’s learned and how he seems to get cuter and cuter each day.

With almost 3 weeks under our belt (that flew by fast)… I must say… raising babies is hard stuff!  Today I was driving around running a couple of errands to get me out of the house and I saw people out with their young children and I just wonder how they (and everyone I know) made it though the first few weeks.  Some days are awesome; Ethan sleeps a lot, wants to play a little and will sleep in 4-hour spurts at night.  Then other days, he spends every waking moment crying, wailing, and otherwise torturing me by refusing to sleep at night.

When he’s awake and looking around curiously, it’s the cutest thing ever.  Today, I thought I’d try to add up the amount of time he spends awake and not crying.  It was going so well.  However, after 20 minutes of successful happy-awake-baby-time, Ethan proceded to projectile vomit all over himself and me.  Funny thing… even after that happened, he didn’t start crying until 10 minutes afterwards and then he fell asleep 10 minutes after that.  I felt so bad for him.

He’s so angelic when he’s sleeping.  Just listening to him as he makes little cooing noises is so friggin’ adorable, I just want to pick him up and tell him how cute he is… but for one thing, he would have no idea what I was saying and secondly, the likelihood that he starts to cry is very high.  I know it’s probably bad but I really don’t want to wake him up now to change him but I know I must.  I wish he’d sleep through diaper changings but we’re not quite there yet.  Any day now… right???

Ethan Samuel Timmens arrived into the world on Saturday, November 14th at 1:48am weighing 6 lbs 7 oz, 19 inches long with a full head of dark hair (now I know why I had such bad heartburn).  He is absolutely gorgeous and perfect in every way!

We brought Ethan home yesterday and I think he prefers his new accomodations much better than he did the hospital.  So far his favorite thing to do is sleep and even though his hours are a little different than we’d like, I’d have to say we’ve been pretty lucky so far.  He cries for normal things so far like being hungry, being tired, needing to be changed, and being gassy.  I’ve only cried one time and that was for the first diaper changing after his circumcision.  He sounded so upset and there was nothing we could do… heartbreaking.

He is so cute all the time but when he has his eyes open and stares at me, I completely melt.  Precious doesn’t seem to want to meet our new family member.  We’re trying to let her get to know him on her own time and so far she has only approached him twice to sniff him quickly and walk away, completely bored and disinterested with him.  She’ll come around eventually.

We’re so happy to be home.  Everything still seems surreal.  Surely, each day will likely bring new adventures and discoveries (and things to cry over… both good and bad).  Thanks to all for the congrats and well wishes.  Ethan can’t wait to meet everyone!

We are now amid our 37th week of pregnancy.  According to the calendar, we’ve got exactly 19 more days to go until we reach our due date.  I am now at that point where it looks like I am actually smuggling a soccer ball or small watermelon under my shirt and I feel like I’m about the size of a bus.

Since I’m approaching the end of my pregnancy and feeling it more than ever now, I’ve come up with my list of pros and cons of being pregnant.  If the shoe was on the other foot and it was up to men to have the babies, I wonder if we’d be living on a desolate planet.

The Pros of Being Preggers

• Knowing we’re having a baby!
• People/strangers are much nicer
• Never got morning sickness or nausea (very lucky)
• Feeling our little son move around in the belly (there’s nothing quite like it)
• Eating healthier meals overall since I’m eating for more than one
• Can’t clean out the cat litter box
• No worries about waking up hungover
• Can use the pregnancy card to get out of certain things (I should have used this/need to use this more often)
• Soon we get to meet our baby (hurry up and get here already)!!!!!!

The Cons List

• Being so tired but not being able to sleep
• Weight gain (it just makes it harder to do anything like stand up, roll over, can’t sleep on my stomach, plus the fear of stretch marks, my ankles have pretty much disappeared and I feel like I deserve my own zip code)
• Having to pee 1,000 times a day
• Can’t eat sushi or drink diet coke (plus a whole bunch of other delicious things restricted from the diet)
• Forgetfulness and clumsiness
• Moodiness (this is a rare one for me but it does happen)
• Acid reflux
• Fear of labor

I think that’s pretty much it.  With all that being said, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.  Soon we’ll have our baby and all the little discomforts will fade away and become a distant memory.  Any day now…

Precious is ready for Halloween this year… can you tell how much she loves to dress up?  (sorry kitty)

The little alien in my tummy got the hiccups today.  It only lasted about 5 minutes but we just thought it was the cutest thing.

We had Baby E's Shower this past weekend.  I have such wonderful friends and family.  I was so excited on Friday that I could hardly stand it and then of course it seemed like the entire weekend flew by.  Mom, Robyn and Aunt Baba all came to Austin for the shower.  And the girls worked around my "no games" policy and even managed to fit in some light games which I didn't mind at all.  We got to play with arts & crafts and made the cutest little onesies and bibs for the baby and I have a feeling this kid will never run out of clothes.  We also got a ton of books which is awesome because we went from having zero to having quite the library.  Thanks to everyone for being there for us... and for the gifts... we loved all the gifts!

This past Saturday was "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" and Marty and I went over to our friends place for a pirate party.  We knew our hosts would be decked out in pirate attire but we weren't sure about the rest of the guests.  One thing was for sure, I was not going to be dressing like a pregnant pirate wench so I opted for blue jeans and lose top, Marty chose to be a landlubber in a Hawaiian shirt.  We arrived and our hosts had a treasure chest full of pirate gear by the front door so I grabbed a hat and sword and became a pirate in the blink of an eye patch.  In the corner was a laptop and labels.  Each guest was to generate a pirate name and put it on a name tag to be identified for the rest of the evening.  I was transformed into Princess Pebbles Greenwell, Marty became Mad Wicket (oops, can't remember his last name... damn pregnancy brain) and little Baby E became Black Zipper Ritz.  I had the one name tag on for me and one on my belly all night.  It was very cute... my little unborn buccaneer. Super fun party!  Our friends really did it up right... themed foods, pirate sing-a-longs, jokes and stories, costume contest... savvy?   Arrrrrrrr... and now I will leave you with a pirate joke... What do a pirate and a pimp have in common?  They both say Yo Ho and walk with a limp. :)

Finally, after months and months of hot weather and our lakes drying up, we've finally got some rain out here in Central Texas.  This morning, I had trouble sleeping so I was just lying in bed watching tv and heard a noise outside... I peeked out the window and one of our pecan trees had a few limbs pretty much resting on the ground.  They didn't snap... they were still attached... but the tree was not used to being so saturated and heavy that it decided to let a few branches lie low and take a rest on the ground.  Maybe now some of our other bushes, plants and grass will stop dying. But seriously... I'm really enjoying this weather so far!  Sure it's kind of dreary and gray but it really encourages my mid-afternoon nap and I don't feel as much like a bum when I just want to hang out inside on the sofa and relax.  Keep it coming!

Finally arrived in the 3rd trimester... and really feeling like it too!

Today I stood up straight and looked down and saw nothing past my tummy.  My feet are now gone.  I had to lean forward to see them.  It was a little sad.  So good bye feet... I hope to see you again in a few months.

It's official... we're now 28 weeks along in the pregnancy.  Sunday was our 28-week point, which makes me both excited and nervous.  We had a nice weekend and kept ourselves pretty busy since Marty started his classes today and I'm sure we won't be doing as much with the new Fall semester upon us.  Thursday night we went over to Padraic and Anita's place for dinner and movie.  Anita made these absolutely awesome enchiladas.  Then we went over to the sofas and popped in Scarface.  It's been ages since I've watched this movie and gosh I missed it.  Al Pacino is the best!  The funny thing was that we stopped the movie for an intermission to make some chicken nuggets and rosemary fries WHEN THERE WAS ONLY FIVE MINUTES OF THE MOVIE LEFT!!!  I told everyone how much time was left but those crazy people needed food and couldn't make it (I would like to point out that the pregnant woman was not hungry).  We ended up getting home a little later than I would have liked, but we had so much fun... as we usually do. Luckily, Friday and Saturday were a little more low key and gave some much needed relaxation.  We hung out around the house on Friday, playing Wheel of Fortune on the PS3 (winning against the competition online, might I add) and watching a movie.  Saturday during the day we took our hospital tour at the North Austin Medical Center.  Their labor and delivery rooms are huge and it was a little comforting to get to know our way around.  Then we went to the movies in the afternoon to see 'District 9'... I highly recommend it if you like action and sci-fi.  I thought it was put together very well and it was great to see a flick without knowing what to expect.  Only a few gross parts... I just can't stand to see people lose finger nails... it's so gross.  After that we headed over to Mighty Fine and had some tasty burgers and fries (Mmmmm) and then went and bought me a new pair of sandals (Yippee).  We need to have more days like that since we rarely get out to dinner-and-movie-dates and probably won't have many more after Baby E arrives. Then Sunday I went over to Renee's place for the Stampin' Up get together.  It was really cool to look at all the things you can make; cards and invitations, bags and baskets and even room decorations.  Gosh, I need to work on my creative side because it looks like it could be a fun hobby and I'm planning on trying my hand a making a few cards in the next month or so (with Renee's help, hopefully).  All-in-all it was a great weekend.

When Marty and I moved into our new house back in June, I had the fabulous idea to plant a garden.  In my mind, this garden would flourish and grow and just be beautiful.  Oh wait, you mean that when you live in Texas and you plant flowers and plants, you actually have to take care of them and water them every day?  Bugs will eat away at the roots and devour my plants from the bottom up while raccoons or some other clawed animal will dig up my flowers?  Well, as you can guess after weeks of hard work keeping all of the plants alive it was just way too frustrating.  I began to despise my garden and plants and would curse at them while I watered them twice a day (I hear that talking to plants can be very therapeutic). Marty could see that my new hobby was becoming more of a burden than anything else so, the wonderful man that he is, he decided that he would replace my garden from hell with a new and improved (and bug-free) Zen garden.  First, we bought a new edge/border and threw away the rotted wood border that was home to thousands of little creepy crawlers.  Then Marty took away layers of dirt to lower my garden (and also get rid of more bugs).  He dug up my rosemary bush, geranium plants and zinnias and I replanted them in new ceramic pots.  The next step... put down layers of River Rocks to near the top of the border.  Then Marty put my newly potted plants on top of the rocks, also including one of my potted aloe plants, and organized them so everything looks coordinated and tranquil. Now my plants are in pots with lovely potting soil that has fertilizer and time-released water beads built in.  What more could a green-thumb wanna-be ask for?  When I water my plants now, I only say the nicest things to them.  And finally, after only 3 days, my plants are again beginning to flourish.  The bugs aren't getting to them  and they are all doing so much better.  It gives me a little peace knowing that everything we planted may not die (right away).  It may not be a Zen garden in the traditional sense, but it works for me.

Man... yesterday between work and meetings, grocery shopping, and beginning our registry at Target... I am just completely wiped out this morning.  I seriously think I put close to 100 miles on my car yesterday (which is a lot when you consider that I typically only drive 14 miles to and from work each day).  I even had to break-down and have a cup of Tazo "Awake" Black Tea this morning to try to get some caffeine in me and get me out of this funk.  Makes me realize how much I really really miss drinking coffee (maybe more than booze).  Hopefully work today will go by quickly and then it'll just be a relaxing evening at home with the hubby.

Look at him grow!

Marty Jr. likes Thai food.  Feel those kicks... he's gonna be a soccer player!

Wow!  Something very uncool happened today which caused me great embarrassment.  I'm not one of those people who likes to cause attention from bystanders, and really overall don't like attention of any sort from strangers where they think I'm in need of assistance.  So with that lead in, my boss Sean and I went out to lunch at my favorite new Thai Cuisine restaurant.  They are awesome... you walk in, seat yourself, it's easy to order from their one-sided menu, and then you walk up to the free appetizer bar for your choice of soup, salad, crab wontons, vegtable tempura, egg rolls, spring rolls, etc.  The food is so good, fast and reasonably priced.  Besides becoming a weekly visitor for the delicious food, the little baby in my belly is quite responsive to the spicy flat noodles and plays around and moves all over the place for 30 minutes to an hour after I'm done eating and I'm still in the stage where I love to feel him moving around. All throughout lunch, I sat with my legs crossed.  I know... this is a big no-no.  Not only is it no good for my swollen ankles and feet but as a person with bad blood circulation and at risk for varicose veins, I especially should never ever cross my legs at the knee (bad Lauren)!  We finished our food and paid the check.  I could tell my leg was asleep from the pins and needles I was feeling but I figured if I stood on it for a minute, I would walk it off.  This did not happen.  Instead I stood up and went straight back down.  I fell into the chair/table behind me which had a very quiet old man enjoying food from the appetizer bar.  Everyone in the restaurant turned my direction and looked to see the pregnant woman fall over.  I didn't fall to the ground but stood leaning against the chair for a moment as I tried to regain my footing, but still couldn't feel my leg and slightly fell again.  Sean came around the table quickly to help me stand and make sure I was ok.  After I had an extra hand from Sean, I was able to lift myself on both feet and limp out the door with one working leg and the other one in the slow process of waking up.  I could feel everyone's eyes on us as we walked out the door.  I was fine by the time we got to the car and luckily Sean only asked one more time if I was ok before he could see that I wanted the matter dropped.  I have officially learned my lesson... I will no longer be crossing my legs.  If my leg or legs are asleep, I will not attempt to get up until I can feel something in said leg(s).  I will accept that I am a little more fragile in my pregnant state and accept help when warranted.  Other than that... thanks for your concern and sorry for causing a scene... I'm totally fine (just slightly red from embarrassment).

Starting to show!

Our baby boy is starting to resemble Marty already at an early age!