Week 21 - Looking Great in the Evening Light

Week 20 - The Babies on our Anniversary

A picture of mommy on her second wedding anniversary.  Week 20, and boy how the girls have grown (all three of them!).  Dawn has been feeling more movement from the girls, but we still haven't felt any verifiable kicking from the outside.  That should be coming soon, however!  With the way Dawn's belly is growing, there's bound to be some punching and kung fu going on in there as the girls become more crowded and more active.

With Dawn's growing belly has also come a growing appetite.  She's kind of like a Hobbit, needing first breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, pre-dinner, dinner,and post-dinner meals.  I think there might even be snacks in between those meals, too.

The nesting for Dawn has also started to set in.  The girls' room is almost complete, with only the cribs left to fill it out.  It's pretty darn impressive what Dawn has done with it over the past week or so.  She has also taken to cleaning obsessively, which I don't actually mind.  I'll just have to be careful about leaving dirty socks and gum wrappers around or risk incurring the wrath of the pregnant woman!

Happy Anniversary to my beautiful wife!  I love you!

Happy Anniversary!

I remember our sunny day very fondly from two years ago. The rain finally broke, friends and family travelled to see us, and a little mutt with a bow tie. Who would have thought we would have gotten married in a castle? I know it was never in my plan, but what a lucky dream wedding.

I’d have to say my favorite part was looking down the aisle at Nate and knowing that I was so lucky to have found him and we’d be very happy. We had spent many years laughing together at the office, another year or so travelling and doing fun things, and now we’d get to look forward together at a new life and more adventures. I knew there was something special about him the first day we met at work, but never expected anything like we’ve found together.

Last year, we were lucky to be able to have an almost first anniversary with more friends and family in the states for our long waited reception. It was great to see everyone and be able to share a wonderful day visiting and dancing.

This year is rainy, but definitely not in spirit. Once again, we have friends and family to share the day with us. We are looking forward to our two little ones joining us in the new year and their kicks getting strong enough for Nate to feel them too.

We start week 20 today. We’re halfway if we make it all 40 weeks, but just over if we are two weeks early as expected. The babies are about 6.5 inches each and weigh about 10 ounces. My tracker says to think of them as a cantaloupe this week, but I don’t look two cantaloupes in size. I think the belly is more like half a basketball. Nate should be taking my picture tonight to add to the blog.

Ahh, the memories...

Week 19 - Growing Noticeably Larger!

It's late here, so I'm not going to say much right now.  I will mention, however, just how fast Dawn's belly is growing!  It has definitely been noticeable over the past few days.

The Building of a Bench using Old Skis

I'll put some words to this later, but right now I just want to get the pictures posted!

Pregnancy Week 18 - a couple of new pictures

Dawn has been doing really well this past week, having a lot more energy and getting her appetite back.  This past weekend, we met our friends Carla and Johannes in Regensburg at a Japanese restaurant near their apartment.  Those of you at the wedding should remember these two - Johannes did the translation at the ceremony.  Well, they are also expecting a baby, due in early December.  Here's a picture of the two pregnant women before 'attacking the buffet' (and I use that phrase in the most literal sense).

Carla and Dawn showing off their bellies

A couple of shots of Dawn from Monday

Dawn and Osu playing carrot catch

I'm sure most of you are aware of our dietary changes in the past 9 months (which is going great).  It turns out, there is also a similar paleo diet for dogs, called the BARF diet (Bones and Raw Food).  We've switched Osu over to this new diet slowly over the past month or so, and he's loved it.  He has also responded very well to the change, having more energy, behaving better than ever, and losing weight.  Every morning, he waits patiently, yet eagerly, for one of us to head downstairs to feed him his 1/4lb of raw beef and whatever vegetables we have lying around.  At night, he does the same thing.  For the most part, his excitement mainly comes from the anticipation of meat.  He can't get enough of it.  Like me as a child, the vegetables always come last for Osu, and sometimes, he ignores certain ones altogether.  One day, he might love carrots and zucchini, the next, he ignores one or both of them completely.

Because of this, and because he needs his veggies, we've come up with a game to get Osu to eat more veggies when all he wants is meat.  Basically, it's fetch with carrots (or another vegetable), except that he eats the tossed veggie instead of bringing it back.  Of course, he loves this game.  It's great for supplementing his diet with more vitamins and minerals, and it gets him exercise, too!  Contrary to popular belief, not all dogs are good at searching things out.  The husky in Osu loves to run.  However, both the German Sheppard and Husky in him haven't given him a good nose or even that great of eyesight - at least when it comes to finding veggies in the yard.  It's quite comical watching him run around like crazy looking for a tiny piece of orange carrot in green surroundings.

Today we changed the game up a bit when Dawn got home from work.  The light was nice for pictures and it had been a couple of years since we last took pictures of Osu catching food in the air.  We'll have to try this again on another day as it was quite fun!  Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

       

     

There are a fee more pictures on my Flickr Site.  Just click this link!