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!