Musings of a Future Father

Recently the computers at work stopped blocking YouTube so my tech and I have been filling the slow times by watching music videos that were popular when we were in high school.  Things that were creative, relevant, and harmless to high-school-Matt are now funny, ridiculous, and sometimes offensive to the older-more mature-enlightened-Matt.  We've had some serious laughs, but seeing these old videos got me thinking "would I want my kid to see this?"

It is that very thought that has lead to the semi-serious creation of my own Fahrenheit 451esque Blacklist.  The first thing to be added to this list?  "The Thong Song" by Cisco.  While still incredibly funny and embarrassingly catchy, if it turns out that Squirt is a girl, then this song shall never touch her ear drums!  

A number of hip-hop songs have made the list for content, while other non-hip-hop songs made the list because they are just plain crap music.  My prime example of this category?  The Macarena by Los del Rio which is runner-up if not the pinnacle of bad music.  I find other song/dance combos like "YMCA" are staples at celebrations (i.e weddings) and generally harmless.  I don't know what would happen if a toddler-Colvin child got a hold of this song and then began to utter that potentially horrible phrase they are known to issue as if it was one of the 10 Commandments... "Again!".  Listening to The Macarena once is bad enough, let alone 50 times.  Eventually it would get put on a CD and played ad nauseum in our minivan.  I just added mini-vans to the list too.  Other terrible songs added to the list:  "Who Let the Dogs Out" by Baha Men as well as any and every Kidz Bop album.

I do this to protect our child, but mostly to save my own sanity.  If you've got something you think should be added to the list, then please leave it in the Comments section!  

Disclaimer: As the author and creator of this list I reserve the right to arbitrarily add and remove songs.

m@

Our first Christmas in Denver

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year! Matt and I had our first Christmas in Denver, away from the crazy family for the first time since we were both born. :) Of course I'm kidding about the crazy family part... we missed seeing all their smiling faces but I have to tell you, this Christmas was the most relaxing Christmas I have ever had. 

On Christmas Eve while Matt spent his day sleeping after working a 12 hour shift, I went to our church to serve. We had 5 Christmas Eve services that day I was able to help out in the one's room for the first 2 services. When Matt woke up we went to the 5:00 service and he helped pass out communion and take the offering. It was a great message and music as usual. Church was packed full of families and lots of first time visitors. 

Red Rocks Church Christmas Eve service

Our very talented music staff shared a new song they wrote and made an awesome music video.  Here is a link if you want to check it out: http://vimeo.com/redrockschurch/rejo...

Christmas morning Meredith and I both slept in until 10:00 and made some monkey bread for breakfast, then we Skyped with the family during their Christmas party. Later in the day we made a delicious ham  dinner that was done just in time for Matt when he woke up for the day. We enjoyed a spiral honey baked ham, cheesy potatoes, broccoflower and french bread. Meredith's friend Jess came to share in the festivities and brought over some yummy puppy chow and presents for everyone. 

yummy ham dinner

Jess and Meredith just before they booze it up with some sparkling grape juice

Matt and I getting ready to dig in

After dinner we opened gifts. This year Matt got me a Kindle, some awesome Toms (shoes) and a Pregnancy/Newborn magazine subscription. Matt got some money to put towards powder skis and a Nick Lidstrom Winter Classic (Red Wings) jersey. Just before Matt had to head back to work he put together Squirt's crib and swing. It really is starting to look like a baby is coming to our home soon!

Check out the Justin Bieber wrapping paper

Matt putting together the crib, what a great dad!

the crib is ready for Squirt

The Bump at 24.5 weeks

We Hit MI For An Early Christmas

This past week Mel, Squirt, and myself flew back to Michigan to celebrate Christmas.  We had to celebrate early since I have to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas (for the 4th year in a row).  We pretty much canvased the state and packed in a ton of great stuff in the short week.


We arrived Thursday evening and enjoyed a birthday dinner with Matt and Anna Zokoe (Anna and I share a birthday) before they took off for Florida.  Friday was my actual birthday and we spent the day finishing our Christmas shopping, seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie, eating a family dinner made by my mom, and catching up with friends over drinks. Everyone wanted to feel Squirt's kicks so there was lots of what looked like CPR going on around the house.


Saturday was one of my favorites!  We got up early and headed out  to the Great Lakes Crossings outlet mall in Auburn Hills and then to Detroit to watch the Detroit Red Wings play the LA Kings.  The Wings dominated the Kings right from the start scoring a goal ~90 seconds into the game and then again 15 seconds later.  LA had to pull their goalie (named Jonathan Quick) not even 10 minutes into game, which prompted Amber to say, "Boy, that was Quick" (pun fully intended).


We got back to Grand Rapids late Saturday night and were up early again on Sunday to run a 5K with my family.  Everyone participated in the event (except Mel) and had a great time!  Sunday evening/night was spent with Mel's mom's side.  We had pizza, a visit from Santa, went on a hay ride to see Christmas lights and sang Happy Birthday to baby Jesus, before doing the gift exchange at Aunt Linda's house. It was really nice seeing the cousins and Aunts and Uncles with their growing families, Mel and I each got to hold the newest addition, Mia Koenes (only 3 weeks old).


We crashed at the Arver (Mel's Mom and Steve's) house and on Monday morning we had a big breakfast and exchanged gifts with Kim and Steve before the ladies went off to do some shopping. Squirt even got some nice gifts from Grandma and Grandpa A.  I went with my sister to our grandma's house where we helped her setup for the Christmas party that night.  We had some great food and played some pretty fun Bingo (I won $5!) and did a consumable/food gift exchange.  Grandma was really happy with her new sunglasses and the load of kielbasa she got.


Tuesday we slept in and then headed out to the Hendriksen (Mel's Dad and Marybeth's) house.  Jamie and her two daughters met us out there also and we all hung out for the day.  Sadly, the lake they live on hasn't frozen over yet so there was no playing on the ice.  We received some more gifts for little Squirt, one gift was a book called Good Night iPad, it's like the book, Good Night Moon but much more high-tech. The girls and Melissa made "cookies" with play dough and later that night we played some cards and shared great conversation.


Wednesday started with Monkey bread courtesy of MB.  After breakfast we spent the rest of the morning packing and then met all the parents at Red Robin for lunch just before our flight.  With as much as I ate, I'm surprised the scanner guy at the airport couldn't see my food!  Despite our best efforts our suitcase was 2 lbs. over the 50 lb. limit, but the airline lady "let it slide" and didn't charge us.  Our connecting flight out of Minneapolis was delayed a bit due to weather, but we still got out.


We were pretty surprised when we landed in Denver in the middle of a blizzard!  Looking back, I'm surprised that the flight even left Minneapolis.  Denver got about 14 inches over night, so we'll be celebrating a white Christmas here!

Created with flickr slideshow.


m@

My first public observations

Well, it's official and I LOVE it, I look pregnant! It no longer looks like I over ate. 


Just before our flight home from Michigan I went unnoticed by the gate attendent and was handed 8 free alcoholic drink passes because she liked Matt and I. But while on the flight the attendant who was serving our (non-aloholic) drinks looked at my bump and back at me and asked "are you feeling okay?" Most women would take that as a insult as in 'I don't look good' but I could tell she was noticing I was pregnant and wondered how I was feeling. Then a few days later at the Salon I had someone else's client ask me when my due date was! I told her thanks for noticing and that she was the first brave person to say something to me about my growing bump. 


In addition to the growing bump I thought I should share some more of my symptoms so I can remember what pregnancy was like when we read this blog to Squirt some day. I have had at least 4 nights of horrible leg cramps! They wake me up in the middle of the night and I have to scream out from the pain. They usually only last about a minute but it feels like I'm going to die. Also, my sciatic nerve has been feeling 100 times better the last couple weeks since Squirt as moved closer to my belly button. Because of the move forward I'm feeling him a lot more, even while standing. It's just a little pressure that I love right now but I'm sure as he gets bigger and stronger I will not find it as cute. Just this week I started noticing little pokes up by the my rib cage that feel really weird and my heartburn is back in full swing. I have learned to not even mess around with it anymore, Pepcid Complete is now my new best friend. For a while I thought I could just drink water to 'put out the burn' but I can't avoid the drugs any longer. As my body keeps changing to get ready for the growing baby so does our nursery.


While we were in Michigan last week our crib, mattress, swing and highchair all arrived at the house (all thanks to the grandparents). On Christmas Matt and I hope to put the crib together and post more some pictures. I can't believe how quickly these last 6 months have flown by, we have a lot to prepare before the little one arrives. We are currently planning 6 baby showers for the month of February and I've been updating the registries almost daily as I read about something else we can't live with out or as we change color plans due to finding some fabric for the window valances and a bed skirt. I'm so excited and happy things are coming together!

Squirt's first Red Wings game! The Bump at the Joe (24 weeks)

The fabric Matt picked out for the valances and bed skirt.
Behind it is the ABC quilt we will be hanging on the wall

Our newest ornament for the tree!

23 weeks and Matt's surprise

Today we had our 5th appointment. We were able to hear Squirt's heartbeat again (135 bpm) and ask some questions about the upcoming months. I was told I needed to get a tetanus/pertussis (whopping cough) vaccination and I made it, without a lot of drama! The nurse allowed me to lay down and was quickly in and out (literally) and when she was finished she offered me chocolate! I hope Squirt doesn't have the same anxiety as his mom does about needles. 

23rd week at our doctor appointment

Last Saturday I was able to surprise Matt with an early 30th birthday gathering with our friends in CO. We will be in MI for his real birthday and celebrate again there. If you know me at all you know that I have a really hard time keeping surprises from my husband or lying to him for that matter. So I was so proud of myself about this one. I had told Matt earlier in the week that I would like to go out to dinner on Saturday night since we would be going to lots of parties back in MI and I really would like to have some quality time with him here. When Saturday came Matt had a different plan, he wanted to go to the gym and train for the 5K that he and some family members are running in next week. I had to stand my ground since our friends were all on there way to the restaurant as I tried to convince him we should just go get dinner instead. He gave in to the pregnant one and asked "Where do you want to go?" and I said, "I don't' care. Let's go somewhere near by." It was so funny that he suggested Olive Garden or Outback and I told him that steak sounded really good. Thankfully he picked the right place where everyone was waiting for us. Upon arrival Matt noticed the parking lot was packed and complained that there was probably going to be a long wait for a table. I smiled and told him that if that were the case we could just go somewhere else. When we walked in the door the host asked us how many and for our name. All the sudden I was stuck. We didn't need to put our names in because we had a group there waiting for us; so I told the host that I thought I saw someone I knew and went running in the direction of our friends. After a slight pause Matt followed me and was so surprised! After we ate our steaks we came back to our house for cheesecake and candles. I took some amazing pictures of Matt with his blazing cake but they seemed to have disappeared into cyberspace so this picture of Matt eating a cake he made for himself earlier this week will have to do.

Why have a slice when you can have the whole cake?

Vail Weekend and Then Some

A couple months back I purchased a Groupon for a swanky hotel in Vail, so Melissa and I headed up this past weekend to use it.  The hotel was really nice and situated at the western base of the ski area.  It even had its own lift so you didn't have to shuttle to the main village, but since Melissa can't ski this season I thought it wouldn't be very nice or fair to ditch her at the hotel and ski.  Instead, we had a nice relaxing night watching the Red Wings and Lions each fail in their respective games at a local sports bar.  

I woke up a very hungry man the next morning and when we got to breakfast I put in some serious work at the buffet.  The waiter even made mention of how much I had already eaten when Melissa's food arrived.  Never underestimate a Dutchman at a buffet, especially a hungry one.

Our original plan was to take advantage of the recent high-country snow and do some snowshoeing, but since not a single town in Summit County was supposed to get warmer than 8 degrees we did some Christmas shopping instead.  The biggest shocker about this little trip was that despite bringing both cameras... I didn't take any pictures.  Matter of fact, the cameras never even made it out of the car.  Fortunately I took at least one on my phone.

I'll let the Grandmas fight over this one

Keystone on a blue bird day - Yes, I skied on my off week

m@

Christmas Comes to the Colvin House

First off, yesterday was a great morning as I was able to feel Squirt kicking for the first time.  I had my hand on Mel's tummy and he gave me a big one right in the palm of my hand!  It was amazing and kind of alien at the same time, but I can't wait to feel it again!

After kicking off the day (Ha!  See what I did there?) like that, we followed it up by picking out our Christmas tree.  Sadly there just weren't enough hours in the day to get it decorated before our Couples Bible study that evening, so it got tabled until Saturday.  Meredith helped us decorate and the extra hands were very welcome once I realized how many ornaments we had!  If you don't know me, then let me tell you that I love the holidays, but when it comes to decorating... I'm a grinch.  Check out the finished product + baby bump action!

(21-22 weeks)

Vegas Wedding

I just got back from a crazy weekend in Vegas with a friend/client, Lauren Zuyddyk. I flew in on Friday morning and helped run a few errands, then it was off to the strip for Lauren's bachelorette party. With her grandma, mother, his mother, 2 sisters and a few friends we all went and saw a show called "Tony and Tina's Wedding". It's an improv comedy where the viewers act as guests at the wedding. Crazy and strange things happen as the wedding party and their families get more and more drunk. I don't think it was anything that any of us girls were expecting. But we had fun riding in a limo and hanging out all night with Lauren's new blow-up doll named Fredricko.

Lauren with Fredricko and some happy elves

The trip wasn't all pleasure, it was really a work trip so I spent all of Saturday making the girl's hair look nice. There was a little bit of a rush at the end of getting everyone ready but everyone got done on time and looked beautiful! I was so happy with how Lauren's hair turned out that I spent the whole night admiring it.

It took an army to help Lauren ready and into her beautiful lace dress

Putting on the vail just before the walk down the aisle. 

(I burnt myself with my curling iron that morning, that isn't a hickey ;)

They were married in a little chapel on the Vegas strip

Congrats Lauren and Adam Zuyddyk!

There were about 23 wedding guests at the cute, short, 12 minute ceremony. The reception was in a huge suite at the Mandalay Bay, with an amazing view of all the lights on the strip. They had a fajita bar catered in and wedding cake with a snowboarder couple as a cake topper.

I'm very thankful that I was able to go share in this fun weekend. Squirt on the other hand, didn't love every part of the trip. I was on my feet for a lot of the time which lead to some painful toe cramps, sciatic nerve pain shooting up and down my back and some limping from my hip hurting. But all in all we made it and it's good to be home with my feet up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thought I would take a minute to write down a few things I am thankful for:

~ a loving, hard working and caring husband
~ a wonderful church and church family (that I got to share thanksgiving dinner with today)
~ the little miracle forming in my belly and for the surprises that are to come
~ my supportive family and that we all get along so well
~ that Grandpa Koenes is cancer free and for the health of all the people I hold dear to me
~ financial security and that I work two jobs that I love
~ that I have a wonderful Savior that I can thank

This year for Thanksgiving Matt, Meredith and I went to our friend's, the Mosers, house. We were joined by the Bynum and the Diaz families, along with the Mosers' grandparents and sister. We had a ton of great food and really great company.

Yummy! As you can see my friend Charity Moser is also pregnant at the same time as me! Due in February.

Being crazy as usual.

Some of our Thanksgiving feast!

20 weeks and growing...

Video Difficulties

A number of people have said that they have been having problems watching the videos on our blog.  I just wanted to let everyone know that the problems have been rectified and all videos will now be hosted on Vimeo instead of YouTube of Blogspot.  


Also, all the videos are now iOS friendly... meaning all iPods, iPhones, and iPads should be able to view the vids in their respective mobile browsers problem free.


m@


Update: Apparently Vimeo is having problems with the embedded mobile vids, but they are working on it.  If you're trying to watch a video, then simply tap the "vimeo" logo in the video frame and it will take you to the video on their mobile site and it will play there.

Skiing is Getting Better

The snow has been falling up the mountains and that means more terrain has been opening at the ski resorts.  Nearly all the resorts are open now, but many with limited ski-able terrain.  Keystone and Vail have the most, but more is opening daily.  I chose to hit up Keystone since I only get 10 days to use at Vail and didn't want to waste one when I couldn't ski the areas I like.

Keystone got 4" of new snow overnight and was still cloudy when I got there at 9am for opening.  Since it's a holiday week and a lot of the kids are off school for the entire week in CO, it was pretty busy already.    As the day went on the clouds moved out and it was sunny and blue skies.  The crowd started to thin at lunchtime and made it for some great skiing.

I tried some new ways of mounting my helmet cam since there wasn't anyone else to video and made a little video from it.  I think it turned out pretty cool.

Keystone 11-22-11 from Matt Colvin on Vimeo.

Tried some new mounting techniques for my helmet cam. I think it turned out pretty cool.

View of North Peak @ Keystone

Breckenridge in the distance

m@

Praise God

Praise God for answered prayers! After Grandpa's surgery, last Wednesday, he had a few set backs in the hospital. He had a couple days of abnormal bleeding and some brain confusion and an allergic reaction from some meds he was on. But yesterday they took away his saline drip and oxygen and started him on food! Everyone says he's back to his old self and he can't stop thinking about eating Thanksgiving dinner.

Our family has so much to be thankful for this thanksgiving. Grandpa found out yesterday that they were able to remove all the cancerous cells from his colon with just the surgery. He will not be needing chemo at this time. They plan to send him home today or tomorrow, just in time for the holiday. They will watch him more closely with another colonoscopy next year to be sure he is still cancer free.

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers for our family, God has truly blessed us over the years. Grandpa's pain from surgery has gone away and he will continue to heal fully now. I think he looks forward to going home and getting back to his normal life. At this time, each year, Grandma and Grandpa decorate 3 Christmas trees in their house. One of the trees holds so many Precious Moment ornaments that they have no extra branches and they have to wire it to the ceiling so it won't fall over!

Cabin Weekend with Friends

Mel and I headed up the mountains for a relaxing weekend with our friends, Mark and Jammie Barrington. The cabin is just south of Leadville near Weston Pass.  The scenery was amazing and the cabin was comfortable and cozy.  We did some snowshoeing, lots of eating, played some games, shared great conversation, and did plenty of relaxing.  Check out the pics!

Enjoying the snow

Either she's imitating Home Alone or she's petrified I'm gonna land on her

All the jumping made me tired.... at 5:15pm

Great view of Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive

Deer roaming around the property

m@

20 Week Ultrasound

This morning was our 20-week US and Squirt cooperated for the most part.  After a bunch of squirming around while the US Tech was trying to take pictures and measurements, Squirt settled down for a nap at exactly the wrong time.  The position the baby was lying in made it pretty difficult to get anymore good pictures, but after Melissa got up and jumped around a little bit the pictures turned out just fine.


We also learned that our baby is extraordinarily average.  Squirt placed exactly in the 50th percentile in every measurement.  The US Tech estimated Squirt's weight to be around 10-11 ounces and the heart rate was 144.


The tech told us that she was able to see if Squirt was a boy or girl, but didn't tell us since we had decided to not find out.  It'll just have to be a surprise for everyone.


Get ready cause this is only the start of the kid pics.  I'm sure I'll burn out at least a few cameras in this kid's lifetime!

Right foot

View of Squirt's face

Nap time

Hand on forehead

Already a thumb sucker

Videos:

Squirt in the Fetal Position from Matt Colvin on Vimeo.

Tough to see, but it starts in the foreground and you can see Squirt's forearm, then moves back and you can see that the baby is lying with arms and legs tucked in while sleeping.

Squirt's Nap Time from Matt Colvin on Vimeo.

Squirt sucking his thumb and fidgeting while hunkered down for a nap

m@

A glance at last week

What has been going on in the last week?

Wednesday 

Matt picked up an extra midnight shift at work, he started his work week a day early. In the last 8 days he worked a total of 90.5 hours! In addition to his hard work he was able to catch up on all his latest anime shows and read 2 entire books.

Thursday

There was an emergency at the Y with a man who fell back into the pool when he was trying to exit. He took in a lot of water and needed to be rescued. I was the second guard on the scene and had to push the alarm button. After being taken away in the ambulance he is doing well. 

Also, on Thursday I starting feeling lots of fluttering from little Squirt. He is starting to make himself known and I love it!

Friday

Meredith, her friend and I went downtown to 16th Street Mall (google it, it's a cool place) to check out the first ever H&M store in Denver. It was huge, busy and beautiful but we bought nothing....

Saturday

We went on a double (blind) date with a cousin's friend who moved from MI to CO 5 years ago and is due with their first born in April as well. It was fun getting to know them and we hope to get together again soon. It's really nice to have someone who is in the exact same stage of pregnancy as I am. (Thanks Stephanie)

That night when we got home from dinner I was sitting on the couch with my hand on my bump and I felt my fingers move with the same movement I felt in my belly! It was the first kick that I know of! It's possible Squirt was kicking before but I didn't know what it was and chalked it up to gas or flutters.

Monday 

I woke up with more energy then I've felt since August and used it doing 5 loads of laundry, making a yummy dinner and starting dinner in the CrockPot of the next night.

Tuesday

I was feeling in the Christmas mood, even though I'm not allowed to celebrate before Thanksgiving I made Matt his favorite cutout cookies and listened to Justin Beiber's new Christmas Album.

Wednesday

Grandpa Koenes had a cancerous tumor removed from his colon. Surgery went well, the evening was a little drama filled but he is back to his old skin color and funny self. Please continue to pray for his recovery since he is in some pain and pray that the tests show that he is cancer free. The results should come in on Monday and if they weren't able to remove it all he will have to start chemo.

Thursday (Today)

There was an audit at the Y while I was the guard on the stand. The pretend victim appeared to be in trouble but I saw her take many breaths which confused me. After figuring out what was going on I jumped in and made the rescue. These random test we have 4 times a year really help put into perspective how important our jobs really are. I know I didn't do everything perfectly but I gained a lot of confidence in myself.

Tonight Matt and I will be going to watch Breaking Dawn, the newest Twilight movie, at midnight. I hope I can stay awake, I've been since 5:30 this morning.

Tomorrow we go to the doctor's for our 20 week ultrasound! I can't wait to see how much Squirt has grown! Video and pictures to come soon.  

Bored at Work

I'm sitting here at work and I'm bored. Not looking forward to tomorrow night knowing its going to be insane. Holiday weekends, while wonderful, tend to make work really crappy when all the surgeons try to make up for lost time and cram the surgery schedule full.

In the meantime, I get to stare at my computer screens for the next 8 hours.

I promise it's just as boring as it looks

 

m@

Squirt's Registry and the Holiday Season

Our registries are complete, WOW Squirt needs so much! 

Click on the following links to view them:

Amazon.com registry

Babies "R" Us registry

After lots of research from the web, friends, and family we have completed our registries for Squirt! With so many friends and family members living so far away, we thought it would be best to register online at Amazon.com with the option to ship to us and at Babies "R" Us with the option to ship to the store by our house or right to our home. There are many things at Amazon.com that they didn't have at B"R"Us so they aren't exactly the same. We currently have Amazon Prime which gives us free shipping and since many of the items on Amazon are cheaper, we would rather purchase things on there if needed.

We wanted to do our registries early so we can update things as we need and not have to just throw one together quickly before my showers. A good friend has offered to throw me a shower in Colorado on Saturday, Feb 4th, which I'm really looking forward to. We are also planning showers for the last weekend in February, when Matt and I are back in Michigan for a friend's wedding. We haven't narrowed down the dates for all of them yet, but we know we will be in MI from February 23-29.  All these dates seem so far away but with the holidays approaching I know the time will fly by.

Speaking of flying, we have just booked flights to visit MI in December! Thanks to the generosity of Matt's parents we will be there the week before Christmas, since Matt has to work the holidays again this year. We will be there from December 15-21. We are currently in the process of planning Matt's 30th birthday celebration, a Red Wings game at the Joe, and 3 Christmas parties! I love the business of the holiday season! Let's hope Squirt and Matt will feel the same way this year. For some reason I'm already in the Christmas spirit, but we have rules in the Colvin house that we celebrate one holiday at a time. Matt gets mad if any Christmas music or decorations are on/out before Thanksgiving.

Before I get in to much trouble I better focus on Thanksgiving instead of Christmas since it comes first. This year for Thanksgiving we will have a traditional turkey dinner at our friend's house with anywhere from 4-11 people. Much to my pleasure I've found out that the Moser's enjoy the same family traditions that I do! We are planning to go around the table and share what we are thankful for, I better start thinking about what to share now or the list could be endless! We have so much to be thankful for this year! 

I'm forever thankful for such a fun and loving family that I will miss very much during the holidays. I've been noticing more and more lately how much I take for granted their unconditional love, support, and health. Next week on November 17th my mom's dad, Grandpa Koenes, will be have a cancerous tumor removed from his colon. Please keep him, the doctors, and my family in your prayers. We pray that the tumor is contained, that the cancer hasn't spread, and that the surgeons are able to remove all of it. The "C word" has never come up in my family so it is a very scary time for us. We know that God has a plan in mind and we are trying to rely on our faith to calm the fear and worry.

Beginnings of a Nursery

I originally planned to head up the mountains to be present for opening day at Keystone Ski Resort this past Friday, but I changed my mind and decided to stay home and spend the day with my wife instead.  Naturally, this meant we would go to Ikea... which is exactly what we did.


From my experience with Ikea furniture, I knew it could be somewhat wobbly so I was very proud that the dresser we wanted seemed quite sturdy when I tried to rock it on the showroom floor during a previous shopping trip.  When we got there we went to make sure that they still had what we wanted and I decided to give the display a good shake again just to be sure.  Again, I was amazed at how the piece didn't budge despite the amount of raw man power I was using.  At this point I decided to look at the footings of the dresser to see what gave it such amazing stability and realized that it had been bolted to the floor.  On the plus side, I don't feel as weak now.


Anyway, I managed to get Melissa out of there without getting any meatballs and back home so I could start assembly on the furniture.  I did the majority of the construction in the same fashion that I try to do most things around my house... without pants.  Following are pics of the completed pieces (all of which I'm wearing pants in).  Nothing fancy, but I think the white pieces look good in a green room (I doubt our U o fM family members will think so).  Hahahahahahaha!  Melissa said she'd never put our kid in MSU colors, but I guess they can sleep in a room with the same colors?  On a side note, the dresser turned out to be quite sturdy without me having to bolt it to the floor!

Assembling the Dresser

Book shelf

Dresser

More of Grandma's homemade goodies

  m@