Sharing an original plan...

We had some plans for this week that obviously aren't happening. Every month that goes by we see what we would have been doing this week pushed back even further. This week we were suppose to have a baby, we are reminded of this not only by the calendar but by friends and family having their babies. Originally all these people having babies around the same time as us was exciting, other women sharing your experiences, someone to wait it out with. But more recently we are reminded of what we are missing out on. Some are a big deal that I notice everyday in some small way, such as watching Laura become a big sister or actually holding your baby, other are smaller and easier to miss for example we don't get to share pictures of our babies birth day with everyone and we don't get to dress her up in the clothes we lovingly picked out for the trip home from the hospital. Most of these things I can't control or change no matter how much I want to, I can however share a few pictures. (I tried to pick one that was less graphic.)

This was her the last time she had a haertbeat, the doctors think this was only hours before she died.

These are her hands obviously after her birth.

Sam's poor planning...

As everyone knows Laura has a irrational fear of Dinosaurs, I say irrational because as everyone should know dinosaurs aren't living anymore. Laura knows this but doesn't care, if she hears a noise in the house she asks "was that a dinosaur", when she has bad dreams at night she tells us "a dinosaur was trying to eat me". When we watched Toy Story she was very concerned about Woody's friendship with the plastic green toy dinosaur Rex. We mostly just ignore this and laugh about it.
Last week we decided to get out of the house and do something fun, how about a movie? The only age appropriate movie for Laura, and Sam too if I'm honest, was How To Train Your Dragon. Sam really wanted to check this movie out in 3D, the only 3D movies we have seen are the interactive ones at Disney that give you a headache after 15 minutes, we were hopping this technology was more advanced in the headache department. So we bought our popcorn and strapped on our 3D glasses. The 3D was great, Sam and I marveled at the 3D images in the Shrek preview. Then the movie started apparently we had overlooked just how close dinosaurs and dragons really are and how Laura seeing a dinosaur/ dragon come at her in 3D probably wouldn't ensure us a full nights sleep that night. Laura watched the movie without the 3D glasses and declared she liked it about 3 days later after we had spent many hours convincing her that those were nice dragons, like Elliot. We probably should have brought her to see a ghost movie, she once told me ghost aren't scary because they have no teeth.


This is Elliot a friendly Dragon that belongs to Pete!

Yes, I know it's probably a shock to learn that we were only 2 of what 10 people in the world who didn't go to the movies to see Avatar, but that would have required something that in our life's is equal to gold, a babysitter.

My regular Monday night plans...

Awww life, Last night I did what I like to call my "Monday night scramble." This might sound like a new fun game, but sadly the "Monday night scramble" is me scrambling to pick up the toys that are still all over the house from the weekend, mop the floors that have been trampled on all last week and deal with that pile of papers on the counter that never seems to go away. This is a Monday night scramble and not a daytime activity because despite good intentions I never get to it during the day on Monday. I always think I have more then enough time, there are endless hours in the day then 4:30 rolls around and I want to prove to Sam and the rest of the world that I haven't wasted the day and that there was no way the lunch dishes sat in the sink all day (to preserve my image I won't mention the breakfast dishes). Last night I started with good intentions and the bathroom is sparkling, but by the time I got to that pesky pile of papers and left over mail on the counter it was getting to close to my Monday night programming, so I just dumped them into the trash. I would have just moved the pile to the junk drawer, but it seems I did that last week and the papers are now taking over the drawer therefore now I can't find the scissors. Hopefully people know better then to send us important info via snail mail. Remember how I mentioned my sparkling bathroom, I doubt it will stay that way because as I type Laura is in there eating a fudge pop and splashing. This is in an effort to keep my couches fudge pop free, but what about my white tub? I miss when she was controlable in the tub.

Obviously this isn't a recent picture of Laura in the tub, that would be considered child pornography while this is just condisdered cute!

Crossing a birthday off my calendar...

In a couple days it will be my birthday. This year I think I'm going to ignore it, just refuse to turn 28. It's not really the number or the age that makes me reluctant to recognize my birthday, it's the acknowledgement that another year has pasted. Unlike everyone else in the world I have accomplished nothing in my 27Th year. I'm at the same place I was last year, well that isn't totally true last year for my birthday I was in Florida, but I'm not talking physically. Last year in April I was hopping to have a baby in the next year, looking forward to another year in warm weather and planning some family time for the summer. This April I'm hopping to have a new baby in the next year, looking forward to the warm weather and planning some family time for May. WOW this sounds supper familiar. Was my whole last year a waste?

Me on my 22nd Birthday!

An unobligated spring break...

This year spring break for ballet and school landed in the same week. Therefore Laura and I had no planned activities for the week. I thought this would be a nice break, we would be free of any obligations for the week, instead I remembered why we have those commitments set up. Laura generally hasn't stop talking since she learned to string a few words together, but this week she took it one step further and started asking questions nonstop. A few include: Why do we have to wear panties?,Are all dinosaurs made in China?, Where's Toby's mom?, Does Jesus love everyone or just kids?, Where did you get married? Do dinosaurs go potty?, and my personal favorite Why don't you go to work mom?

Laura at ballet.

Unplanned discovery...

This week I caught the Spring cleaning bug. I decided that all the boxes that have been piled up in the the garage can't have anything important in them or we would have at least opened them in the last 9 months. So I was determined to go through them and get rid of them for good. I discovered that some of the stuff in those boxes have been moving with us since our first move to California. A few of these boxes were labeled Sam's Junk I knew this wasn't a good sign. Sam squirrels away things because he things they will some day be worth millions, unfortunately most of these treasures are still waiting for that day to come. So I reluctantly skipped these boxes, they would be the easiest to dump but besides being out millions, Sam wouldn't react well if one of his riches went missing from these boxes. During my purging of a whole forest of stuffed animals, I have no idea where we picked those up, I found some video of Laura. When we took these I always thought they would be boring to watch again, but it turns out I love them and I actually wish we had more. In my memories of these events I always pictures Laura doing these toddler and baby milestones the way she is now, smart mouthed and demanding, but it turns out she was adorable back then. These videos really did remind me that we had a lot of great times with Laura but they also broke my heart because I can't wait to do it again.



Look how cute and little she is! I guess I'm just really missing the baby times, it turns out the obnoxious preschooler times are not as cute.

Need to plan a workout...

Today at Laura's school I got mistaken for Stephen's mom, usually this wouldn't bother me because Stephen's mom seems like a nice lady. But Stephen's mom just had a baby, like 2 weeks ago, so this is either a great compliment for her or a wake up call for me.

Laura wears a uniform to school, this is her in her spirit shirt!