The votes were tallied.
Nine voted for “boy.”
Six voted for “girl.”
We will have the results of the ultrasound after this break (the obligatory picture):
Drum roll please…
The “girls” have it.
Thanks to all who played along. Anyone who doubted this result apparently failed to appreciate the abnormally high levels of estrogen I have, or the impact of Karma in Jenny’s life.
Oh, and we will name her ‘Brian Jr.’
Today is the day. At 6:00pm, we will be at the ultrasound, and if everyone is cooperating, we will find out if we are having a boy or a girl.
Jenny, myself, and the girls have all voted.
What do you think? Leave your comment below. (If you haven’t left a comment before, you’ll have to register. It is painless, and comes with a lifetime subscription to Meyermix.com for the low low price of ‘nada’)
If you need inspiration, here is a photo of Jenny explaining to Gracie how the baby will shoot out her her bellybutton.
We haven’t had an opportunity to even read the owner’s manual, but that had to wait when we saw Olivia fall asleep at lunch today. I’m glad the pictures came out. Look closely at the second photo–see the grilled cheese sandwich in her grip?
Well, we took the plunge. I hope we get a lot of use out of this D-SLR before it becomes obsolete sometime next month! We paired up the D40x body with an 18-200mm super zoom lens. That’s one big honkin’ lens.
one fell on the other and broke her…
elbow.
Gracie was hurt Saturday morning, but there was no swelling, bruising, or anything. We finally took her to the Dr. on Monday, because she said it still hurt. It is a small hairline fracture on the end of her elbow. She has a temporary two-week cast/splint on.
The other monkey was Olivia by-the-way.
We visited Greg and Jill this weekend, and had a blast (I will try to post Jill’s Banana Syrup recipe on fronza.net–it was awesome on waffles!). On the way back from the trip, Jenny and I were treated to this image of the odometer. I told her, “first 100,000 down, next 100,000 to go!”
Around two years ago, I installed a new radio in our van after the original one died. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get it installed in a way that both secured it to the dash, and looked good. Earlier this week, I woke up in the morning and had an epiphany about how it should have been installed. So, I dismantled the car to “fix” the radio. In the process, I decided to remove the VCR and FM Modulator so they can be sold on Ebay. The VCR came out fairly easy, but the FM Modulator was connected to a ton of wires under the dash. I was able to take apart all but three wires. So I decided to wrap the modulator up in a bag, and shove it up into the dash. I figure that in about two years, I’ll have an epiphany about how to remove it, and then I’ll finish the job. Seeing the car in pieces freaked Jenny out. She captured the scene (and my hot slippers/socks motif) in a photo.
It was an interesting week in the Meyer family. When picking Gracie up from preschool on Wednesday, the teacher said to Jenny, “I need to speak with you privately.” You know that’s not going to be good.
Apparently when it was time to stand up and wish a peer ‘happy birthday,’ Gracie decided to stay seated with a friend of hers who also refused to stand. The teachers are aware of the other girls stubborness, but when they saw Grace still sitting, they said again, “Gracie, don’t you want to stand up and wish Jonathan a happy birthday?”
Gracie looked at her friend, and said, “no.”
Now if you could have called Jenny on her cell phone right at that moment, I think it would have been like the scene in A Christmas Story when Ralph’s mother calls his friend’s house to report that the boys were cursing.
I was home for the afternoon when they came back, and Jenny just said, “we need to talk about Grace.” I thought about running back to work, which certainly would have been more fun than anything Jenny was about to share following that statement.
Consequences for Gracie: a time-out, having to make an apology to her teachers, and she had to throw out her birthday cupcake from Jonathan. When getting her consequences, she was completely on-board. ‘Time out?” Check. “Apology?” Check. “Throw out the cupcake?” Whyyyy? Nooooo! Waaaa! “But what did I do!!?”
The next school day, the Teacher came out and said to Jenny, “We had a really good day today.” Which ticks Jenny off even more since she now has to get a behavior update each day. It was also another child’s birthday, and more cupcakes were given out. This time, just to be safe, Gracie stuffed the cupcake in her mouth as quickly as possible, before she even walked over to Jenny!
Think the story ends there? Nope. Our first ever bad behavior report from school was followed the next day with a knock on our back door. It was the neighbor (a mother of one of Emma’s schoolmates), who asked, “Has Emma’s principal called you guys?”
Apparently, four of the kids on the bus, Emma included, were given assigned seats because of horse play–two weeks ago! No one told us. Certainly not Emma. It is just great to know that you children can figure out in first grade what not to self-report. So of course, the kids kept it up, to the point that they were sent to the office. Jenny was very upset because she says ‘hello’ to the bus driver every day before and after school. Plenty of opportunities to share that Emma was heading down the long winding road of delinquency.
As soon as the neighbor left, Emma came slinking into the room saying, “Ummm, I have to tell you something…” Yep, that scene from A Christmas Story, second time in two days.
Consequences for Emma: No TV the rest of the night and the following morning, and sitting a the dining room table until bedtime writing two apology letters, one for the principal and one for the bus driver. She then delivered the apologies with mom by her side the next day.
Thanks to my membership to the Chicagoland Marine Aquarium Society (I carry the official ID badge in my wallet), I was able to get three tickets to go on a behind the scenes tour of the Shedd Aquarium. Emma and Grace accompanied me.
When we got there, we joined the 100 other Marine Aquarium Enthusiasts for a thrilling slide show presentation titled “Spawning of endangered corals off the coast of Puerto Rico.” The girls were thrilled! Following the slide show, we went under the Shedd to see the equipment rooms, the salt-mixing areas, the pumps, filters, etc. Emma turned to me and said, “I thought we were going to see fish today?”
Next we saw the service side of the shark reef. Here is a picture of the girls, taking photos of the sharks in the medicine tank:
The girls did start to enjoy this part, although I think they were still confused about the trip. Next we saw the top of the living reef exhibit, which is an awesome exhibit. But more importantly than the fish, were the huge protein skimmers on the other side. Look at these things. I have one under my tank, which is about twenty inches tall. And, as if you don’t already know, protein skimmers are the equipment that spins the poop out of the water. At the the top of the tube, is a clear upside down funnel filled with brown and green stuff. That’s the poop!
The next photo is of the old part of the aquarium. Emma and Gracie are looking into one of the exhibits, and you can see the sign that says don’t touch. The fish in this tank has the most powerful jaws at the aquarium. When it snaps it jaws, you can hear them from across the room. Cool! I held Gracie over the tank for a closer look.
Next we saw this little tank of Jelly Fish. They were just floating around in this small tank in one of the work areas.
This photo is of the display level/side of the Shedd. You can see the same blue walls that were in the earlier photo with the do not touch sign in it. Look at the size of this crab. It is a large as Emma’s Head!
The Shedd also has two exhibits I had never seen before, one is the living reef (that is a huge anemone next to the girls, not a sculpture of Leo’s intestines from his tummy tuck surgery) and the other is a new Lizards exhibit, where we saw a Kimono Dragon. It was the size of Emma. So these are the last photos to share from the trip. The girls had a great time in the end. Now only if I can convince Jenny to go with me next weekend!
Jenny and I started a savings envelope for a new D-SLR. After three months, we managed to save . . . nada. So, we went into the attic for plan B, and gathered everything we didn’t want. For those lucky family members who helped us move into this house four years ago, you might remember quite the volume of items that everyone else thought we didn’t need. After four years, we agreed.
Items for sale included rock climbing harnesses, climbing shoes, and climbing tools. Back in the day when I only weighed 220 pounds, I had a dream of becoming a world class rock climber. But now that I weigh 230 something, I realize that the sport of rock climbing doesn’t really have a Clydesdale class in it.
Also on the list were our backpacks from the Appalachian Trail, and our backpacking tent. I don’t see us taking four kids on a multi-week hike anytime soon.
The rest of the items included our film camera and lens (since we are raising funds for the D-SLR afterall), and several other random items. All-in-all, we sold 17 items.
Jenny and I were addicted to the internet last week, when it was all up for auction. We would check Ebay several times each hour. If our total sale budged a penny, we would scour over the list to find out what went up. I woke up in the middle of the night a couple times to check the auction–no kidding! It is a rush. And as the sale increased, so did my wish list. Why stop at a D-SLR, when we also could use two more lenses for it, a new camera backpack, a new computer, memory for the old one, a backup hard drive, a new camcorder, and a TV for the bedroom? Don’t even get me started on the fishtank upgrades!
But the best story of the sale was that we decided to sell our baby backpack carrier, because it was a basic model, and not built for serious baby-carrying-expeditions. And, Jenny actually uses it a lot (I would too, but my poor back!), so she wanted a better one for Olivia and the new baby. According to similar models, the carrier should have been sold for around $30 plus S&H, but instead it closed at just over $10, with $20 for S&H. Despite my constant dumpster diving on campus, I was also unable to find a box that we could ship it in. I ended up buying a box for $6, which wasn’t part of my S&H estimate. Then, it ended up being in the oversize category, which pushed the shipping cost to $25! So in the end, we sold our perfectly fine baby carrier for a -$1 sale.
The good news is that in the end, we are about 3/4 of the way toward our goal for the D-SLR. Now if I can only get Jenny to start saving for that computer!
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