Figured it out! & Leonora's pics

So, in the previous post, I was trying to figure out how to get my pictures on my blog since the normal means were not working. Anyway, that picuture worked! So I'm trying it again with the pictures I was trying to post in the first place! BTW, the previous post's picture is a lovely little bit of cloud over Hurricane, Utah back in July.

Test

Hi!howarya'll?

So, I realized the other day that it's been... hmm... a long time since I posted. Well, I've been busy! I've been getting my Tupperware business going. I've been working on getting more than one party a month, and so far I've had two and one more on the way! Whoohoo! :) Okay, I might be pathetic, but it is brining in a little money. I'm hoping to get to $1000 in personal sales this month so I can get a 10% bonus. Anyway, things are going well, Leonora is as beautiful as ever and William ia as troublesome. Aaron's been able to sell a few cars, and evetually things will be settled enough for me to post more often (haha... yeah, right!)

More cute kids

August06 003
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

I know you all are are probably in shock with all the pictures, but I finally found my usb cord and got my pictures uploaded today. Anyway, this is Leonora with another friend's baby. Wegot together for a little picinic at the park. Aren't they cute?

Little Flirts!

August06 015
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is my friend's little boy with Leonora. I think he's got his first (well, maybe second) crush! he was giving her kisses, and she was loving his attention!

dancing in the park

August06 037
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Last night my brother played his trombone with the Hurricane Jazz Band in the park. We went late and left early, but hey, we were there! When William heard the music, he just had to get up and move. He and my youngest sister were a big hit with the other concert goers.

Hello again

Well, Aaron sold his first car yesterday. I think I need some more interesting posts. This one probably won't be one of those more interesting ones. William needs to wash his hands... guess I'd better take care of that.

For Real This Time

So, we have officially relocated to Utah. We're staying with my parents for the moment, but hopefully not for too long. The weekend that Aaron got here we had a very full house. Lets see... Mom, Dad, Me, Aaron, William, Leonora, three brothers, and three sisters ranging in ages from 23 to 3, for a grand total of 12-five of which are under the age of 10. Crazy. My sister left Sunday evening so we're down to 11 now. Monday Aaron made some calls to a couple car dealerships that were hiring. He went in on Tuesday and got hired at Newby Buick in St. George. He started Wednesday, and just needs to get his fingerprints and a pasport photo for his sales license and he can start selling. This last week was also the county fair. My mom and I helped out with the Tupperware booth on Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow is the first day of school for the first and third graders in the house, Wednesday morning my mom is leaving for a Tupperware convention in Florida, and next weekend my college age brother brothers are supposed to be moving out-if they can find a place to live. They start school next monday. At that point, we'll have our own bedroom! Yay! Hopefully this won't be changeing too much in the next week or so. Hopefully it will go by quickly. In the meantime, if anyone wants some Tupperware or a car, let me know!

Leonora 2 months

kara's pictures 020
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Here's a picture of my beautiful baby girl the day after her 2 month birthday. I even combed her hair! I need some little clips that will stay in her hair. The only ones I have are little velcro bow things, but her hair is too fine for them to hold. Anyway, she's pretty without them (at least her mom thinks so!) Oh, btw, you can see more pictures by clicking on the "My Photos" link on the right.

Nevermind...

So, I'm in S. Utah now, and due to complications, there has been a change of plans. I no longer have a ride back to Sacramento. So, what now? Well, this has got me thinking about not going back at all-especially since that job that I mentioned didn't work out. They decided not to hire the people they certified. Six were certified, one was hired. How dumb is that? So, now we are wondering if it might be better for Aaron to join me rather than me going back to Sacramento. Aaron got a number to call a prospective employer in St. George, so we'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I feel like I'm living in a soap opera or something, but at least I can see my friends and family.

Finally!

Aaron went to a job interview today at a Nissan dealership, and they offered him the job on the spot! This is such a relief, I'm almost giddy! He starts training on Wednesday, and we can't wait for that first check! It's a little scary since he's never done commission based sales, but I think he'll do well, and he is guarenteed income during the training period, so... hurrah for paychecks! :) Whoopee!!! (someone say Yeehaw, please? thank you.) :)

Leonora at 1 Month

Leonora at 1 Month
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Leonora is almost 2 months now, but until I track down the usb cord for my camera, this is the most recent picture I can get online. Hopefully I'll track down that cord soon, 'cause I've got some more cute pictures! Oh, and for all you Southern Utah people, you'll be able to see the real thing soon! We're planning to visit for about a week and a half. I'll be getting there late Friday night! Whoopee! I am excited to be visiting my family and friends there!
Oh, and I don't think that I mentioned I've started selling Tuperware. (My mom talked me into it). So, anyone who wants to host a Tupperware party while I'm there... well, I could use the money, and hey, you'll get free and cheap Tupperware! And I'll make you a "Blizzard!" Can't beat that now can you!? So, who wants to be first? :)

Update...

Leonora is now 8 weeks old! and as soon as I find a chance to get on the correct computer (which isn't this one) I will post some pictures for you all. The other day I left her laying on her back on the floor after a diaper change and came back to see her on her tummy. This was actually the second time she rolled over! She first did it while Aaron and I were finishing up our packing to move to California. Btw, I can't remember what I posted before about our move- that is if I posted anything... anyway, we're living with Aaron's parents (and sister and thier beagle) in Folsom, California (near Sacramento). It's been interesting being here. Aaron's been looking for a job. He's had a couple of interviews, but we don't know about those jobs yet. He's still been applying for more jobs, and hopefully he'll be able to get started in a job soon. Like yesterday. Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to figure out how seven people (and a beagle) function in a three bedroom house. Since William doesn't have his own space, he tries his best to make trouble over the entire house. Leonora doesn't seem to mind too much. Personally, it wouldn't be so bad if I weren't being invaded by William all the time. Poor kid, he's got no place that he can just be an exploritory two year old. At least, no place that he won't get into trouble for it. Well, I could babble on longer, but Leonora is crying, so until next time...

Snopes.com

I just wanted to tell you all how cool Snopes.com is. It's a website that checks out all kinds of stories-many that come through email- and sorting out the fact from the fiction. I use it whenever I get one of those scary emails about how rapists and murderers seduce their victems. It's good to know what is and isn't likely to happen. Snopes.com also has lots of interesting facts, trivia, old wives tales and all kinds of things. I find it quite interesting and helpful. Anyway, it's a good website, and I highly recommend it.

Leonora-1st-week

Leonora-1st-week
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is Leonora wearing a cute litte dress that my mom helped me make while she was here.

Leonora's birthday

birth
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Here is a picture of Leonora the day she was born.

I'm Back!!

We are now in California. We'll be living with Aaron's parents for now-trying to save some money. The trip down from Seattle was long and hot, but somehow we survived even without air conditioning! So, now to unpack... this should be interesting. Anyway, I'm hoping to be able to post a little more regularly since we'll have internet access again. Maybe I'll even start checking some of your blogs again! :)

Introducing Leonora Grace

Leonora Grace was born last night, May 19th, at 6:56 pm. She weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces and was 22 inches long. I've been told she has lots and lots of dark hair. Both mommy and baby are doing well. I'll make sure to update with a picture as soon as I receive one.

Update

As you may or may not know, Kara was due on May 6th. So she is very overdue, two weeks overdue tomorrow. Two weeks is as far as she can go before she can't deliver at the birthing center anymore. She called me this morning to let me know that she has been having some contractions since about 2:30 this morning but they haven't been regular enough. She called her midwife group and they told her to come in and they are going to break her water, so she should have her baby before the day is out!

A Post From A Friend

Hello to everyone who reads Kara's blog! I'm Kara's friend, Melissa. Kara won't have internet access for a little while so I'm going to be updating important stuff for her. By important I, of course, mean stuff about when she goes into labor and has her baby. That way no one will miss out. That's all for now but I'll be back when something "important" happens!

ultrasound2
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is another picture from my ultrasound. It's her legs and one foot. We were very happy to find out that she doesn't have clubbed feet like her older brother did.

Ultrasound picture

ultrasound1
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Okay, I don't know how well you'll be able to see this. I didn't get a digital copy of my ultrasound pictures, so I finally just took pictures of the printout they gave me. The ultrasound was done in December. This one is her face.

Easter

Easter
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Here's a picture of William and his cousins Dari and Verah enjoying the spoils of thier Easter egg hunt.

Good Weekend

We had an exciting weekend! Saturday was my baby shower, which you can read about in my earlier posts. Then Sunday, of course, was Easter. We didn't do too much Sunday morning, but got ready for church. After church, Aaron checked his email and found out that he was accepted into an opera young artist program! He had been anxiously awaiting their email and we were both very excited to hear that they accepted him! Then while he was telling his family the good news, his cousin and her family arrived for our Easter dinner. We had a turkey, potatoes with gravy, veggies, cranberry sauce, rolls, and I'm sure something else... Anyway, it all turned out very good, and I think everyone had plenty to eat! After dinner, we sent the husbands and kids into William's room while the "Easter Bunny" hid eggs for everyone to find. It was a lot of fun watching them (including our husbands) finding eggs, candy, and a few little toys around the room. For the rest of the evening, we all consumed more sugar than we should have, but it was a lot of fun! It was a nice end to a good weekend!

Baby Shower

Cutie
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Saturday I had my baby shower. Ann (a friend from church) was kind enough to throw one for me, and despite it being Easter weekend, we had a decent turn out. This picture is one of the outfits I got. There are some more pictures, and if you still haven't seen enough, you can click the link to my photos on the right!

cider
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

One of the guests at my shower brought a bottle of sparkling cider, so Aaron and I can celebrate our new baby!

quilt
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

My friends Melissa and Stephanie made this quilt for the baby. They sent the quilt and the rest of their present to the hostess of my baby shower, so I could open it there. What a special surprise.

bucketandstuff
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is the bucket that Melissa and Stephanie put together for me. It's got lots of pockets, and they were all filled with cute and useful things for me and the baby! Thank you Melissa and Steph!

A day in the park

ponyriding
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Okay, I'm a little slow to post lately... This was from a couple of weeks ago. We met Aaron's brother at a park in Bellevue. While we had lunch, William chased a couple of ducks around the tables. Aaron got William's kite up in the air for a while, and William had a lot of fun on the playground. Here's a picture of him riding one of the playground's springy pony toys.

Johari Window

My friend Melissa put one of these on her blog, and it looked like fun, so I thought I'd make one for myself. I'd never heard of a Johari Window before, but here's a description from the web site:

"The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up."

So, anyone who knows me well enough, come tell me what you think describes my personality.

Funny William!

williamisfunny2
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

One night, just before bed, William came out of his room with his hard hat, sunglasses, and Halloween pumkin. He was a little over exited about getting his picture taken and kept running up to the camera, so that's me trying to hold him back while Aaron took the picture.

Spaghetti boy

spaghetti1
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Okay, this picture is a little old too... Sorry it's taken me a while to get around to posting. Anyway, William loves spaghetti-well, any kind of pasta really. If there are noodles, it's spaghetti to him! He's doing better at getting food in his mouth, but those noodles are a little tricky!

Bath Time!

bubblebath1
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This picture is kind of old, but cute anyway! William loves baths, and it's a special treat to get bubbles.

Success!!

I've been so frustrated with William. We've been trying to potty train him before the baby gets here so we don't have to do double diaper duty, and I've felt like he's just not getting it. He likes sitting on the potty and will go if we put him on, but he hasn't asked to go UNTIL YESTERDAY!!! He had a diaper on in the living room and started taking it off. I got really irritated because usually if he takes off his diaper or training pants it means he's already peed them and doesn't want it on him. He wanted to go sit on the potty chair, so I followed him in there thinking that this was going to be pointless since he already went, but it wasn't! He actually went potty, and when I came back out to take care of his diaper, I realized it was dry! I was so happy that he'd actaully told me before he went pee! We give him stickers on a chart if he's dry, so I told him that maybe we could get some new airplane stickers for his chart (he loves airplanes). He insisted that we get them now, and I was so pleased with him that I decided it would be okay. We went to get some together. Last night he had 6 new airplane stickers on his chart! So far this morning things are still going well. With the exception of his bedtime diaper, he's been dry! My little boy is getting so big!

William, what cute sunglasses you have!

Tonight, when we put William to bed, he decided he needed to have his flip sunglasses on. These are a little kid version of the kind with shades you can flip up and down. Anyway, he had to put them on before we could have prayers. Then he couldn't decide if he wanted the shades up or down. You'll just have to picture him laying in bed with his binkie and flip sunglasses. Unfortunately, my camera has no batteries at the moment, but it was very cute! You'll just have to take my word for it.

Funeral

This last week has been an interesting one. Last Friday we found out that Aaron's aunt, who had been struggling with Lukemia off and on for a few years, passed away the night before. His Uncle lives in Boise, so we decided to take the trip to go to the funeral. We drove down on Monday, the funeral was Tuesday, and we came back Wednesday. I hadn't gotten much chance to get to know Aaron's aunt, but she was a really nice woman. One of the things that was said about her during the funeral was that she never met a stranger. I can say that I certainly never felt like a stranger the few times I saw her. She was an incredibly welcoming and friendly person. In some ways it's good that she is gone. At least she won't have to deal with the cancer anymore. But she'll be missed by everyone who knew her. We spent a lot of time on the road (about 9 hours each way including stops) but we were very glad that we spent the time to go say goodbye and see family.

Look what I made!

Andrea Shaw's present
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is a cute little dress that I crocheted for a friend who had her baby shower yesterday. I'm happy it turned out so well! Someone at the last baby shower I went to (I go to a lot of these for some reason...) made a blanket and a hat (and booties? I can't remember for sure) and I asked her where she got her patterns. She said to look up "Bev's Country Cottage," so I did and found the pattern for this there. (for anyone who wants the site: http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/baby.html ) Anyway, this was the first very complex pattern I'd tried to follow. I'm pretty pleased with the results, so now I need to get started on a couple of things for my baby!

When Posts Go Wrong

I really want to change the title of my last post. Flickr just posts the title of the picture, and I never think about it until after I've alreardy posted it to my blog. Usually, it's not a big deal. I just go in and edit the post to give it the title that I want. However, it's slightly more difficult this time as there is no record of that post ever having been made. It's there everytime I go to the site, but if I go to "edit posts," that post is not included. It's a conspiracy. Someone wants the whole world to know that Andrea Shaw got a present from me.
Anyway, I want you all when you read "Andrea Shaws Present" to pretend it says, "Look What I Made!" I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and Andrea seemed to like it too.
Okay, I'm going to stop babbling now...

This is an edit... The post that I was posting about (everyone confused about which post I'm talking about?) has now disappeared. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm thinking I may not have "republished entire blog" when I posted it, and I think that might have something to do with it. Anyway, it's gone, so I'm going to re-post that now (hopefully with the correct title.)

girlie outfit

girlie outfit
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is the first girlie outfit that I've gotten for our baby since finding out we're going to have a girl.

Happy Birthday to Me

I just realized it's been a while since I posted... There's not really anything big going on. Today I've been relaxing and enjoying my birthday! Whoopee! (Someone say "Yeehaw" please... ...thank you.) Aaron served me breakfast in bed, and we spent most of the rest of the day relaxing and playing with William. Overall, a nice day-except for the rain...

YYZ

Last night I took some medicine that's supposed to be helping this nasty cough that I've had. I was kind of worried about the effect it might have had on the baby. I hadn't felt anything for most of the evening which is unusual since she's usually most active at night, and it was kind of bugging me. I told Aaron, who was listening to some music on his headphones, and he thought that a little rock music might wake her up. So her official first song is YYZ by Rush. :) We guess she liked it, because she gave us a little kick! Aaron is excited. He was joking afterward that now he knows she must be his baby, since she's a Rush fan. Silly husbands!

Rainy Days

Seattle is really rainy. Okay, you probably knew that, but this month has been exceptionally rainy. I haven't been able to find an official record, but I've heard that the record for most consecutive rainy days in Seattle is 33. We are currently on day number 26. That's a lot of rain-even in Seattle.
According to Weather.com:
255 PM PST THU JAN 12 2006
...EVEN MORE RAIN ON ALREADY SOGGY PUGET SOUND REGION SOILS THROUGH FRIDAY...
THE PUGET SOUND AREA HAS HAD DAILY RAINFALL SINCE THIS WET WEATHER PATTERN BEGAN ON DECEMBER 19TH...NOW 25 STRAIGHT DAYS. SOILS ARE SATURATED AND THOSE ON STEEPER SLOPES ARE PRIMED TO GIVE WAY IN LANDSLIDES.
LANDSLIDES HAVE OCCURRED IN VARIOUS WESTERN WASHINGTON LOCATIONS SINCE LATE LAST WEEK. ON FRIDAY JANUARY 6...THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ISSUED AN ADVISORY FOR ADDITIONAL LANDSLIDES DUE TO WET SOILS. THE ADVISORY STATES THAT LANDSLIDES ARE HIGHLY POSSIBLE DURING INTENSE RAINFALL OR WHEN RAINFALL AMOUNTS EXCEED ONE INCH IN 24 HOURS. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST FOR RAINFALL EXCEEDS THAT AMOUNT.

Looking to Relocate

If I could be anywhere else today, it would be at Boskovich Farms in Oxnard, California. They grow strawberries. Mmmmm.... Strawberries...

A Tale of Cars, Curbs, and Keys

Last night I realized that we were pretty much out of milk, so I left Aaron and William to get ready for bed and headed to the grocery store. On the way out of our appartment complex, I sort of ran into the curb. Ooops. But I just continued on the way to the store. About halfway there, the car started making funny noises and kind of vibrating, so I pulled off onto the next side road and discovered that the front passenger side tire was completely flat. We just got this car in December, and I knew it didn't have a spare tire (this is something that we knew we would need to get, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet). Well, the tire shops had closed, and we didn't have much choice but to leave the car there overnight. After locking the keys in the car (also something we don't have a spare of), and retrieving them wih the help of a dent fixing tool (and the dent fixer himself), I was finally able to get back home just before 11:00. This morning Aaron was lucky enough to be able to get a ride to work, and I (with the help of the dent fixer again) have spent most of this morning retriving and replacing a tire.
I will be watching out for curbs in the future, and keeping spares of a few important items!

Better than Chicken Noodle Soup

My favorite food when I'm sick is pizza. I don't know why, but it always makes me feel better. Right now, we've all been sick with a nasty cold, so last night we got pizza. I'm eating some of the leftovers for breakfast. It's a Papa Johns "The Works" minus the mushrooms (Aaron's allergic) plus bacon. Mmmmm.... Pizza!