Oooo.. one more story to tell. Bob loves to try and play with Kristina. Now that she smiles and is more responsive (and might I add opinionated), he loves to do anything to illicit these responses. Well this morning while I was getting ready for church, he lying on the bed playing with her. His game is airplane – swooshing her around in the palm of his hand. Well, after going awhile, he has her in mid air above his face, he asks her, “Gee, no smiles for daddy?” Her response was classic – just a straight shot of spit up, landing on his face. A sea of white starts to cover Bob, as he started to whimper, and puts her down. Couldn’t have commissioned a better shot – she has great timing, I must say.

It’s been a while – so much has been happenin’ I hardly know where to start. I will just provide quick run down…

While Bob was in France, Kristina and I took off for the lovely Seattle area to visit family and friends. She has built a good fan club up there, and we had tons of fun. Her cousin
Hannah (who’s middle name is Christina) just loved baby Kristina and thought she was so fun. She also had a “baby” too and we both got to feed our babies and change their diapers. I would have traded her diapers with her any day. Kristina and I also made a trip out to the family cabin too – and she got her first glimpse of the ocean while we were there which I am sure she will remember all of her life. Both her Morfar (Swedish for mother’s father) and Mormor (mother’s mother) thought the world of her. Morfar kept telling people how good she was, and how she never cried. Well, news to you Morf, you need a hearing aid, or you tune out the tears really well. Several times she was crying, and it seemed like he didn’t even notice. That was pretty funny.

Well… while all of us were out of the state, Hurricane Ike paid us a visit. Ikie must have been upset that we were gone because there was our tall pine sitting on top of our house. That was sad to see out tree go, and sadder to have holes in the roof. Luckily, we have great friends here that took care of the house for us, and helped minimize the damage and patch up things for us. Just on Friday we finally got a company to come in and take the tree off of the house, and we are in the process of getting bids for the repairs. Watching them take the tree off the house was really cool actually. In 20 minutes they had set up the crane, put straps on the tree, lifted it off the roof and on to the lawn, cut it up and cleaned everything up and left. Very efficient.

Bob’s brother Seanie left on his mission this week, so Bob and I drove down to Corpus to visit with him right after we both got back to Houston on the 20th. It was tough trying to get down there after all that traveling (especially for Bob with the 11 hour flight, and a 7 hour time difference!) but it was well worth seeing Seanie again before he took off. While in Corpus, Kristina had her first belly laugh. I was getting Kristina ready for bed – so I took off her dress, and then took off the diaper and looked in the diaper bag for a new one. When I returned to her, I found her wet from head to toe with pee (luckily, I had her on the changing pad). Well that was pretty funny to me… so I started to laugh. Well Kristina thought it was funny too and she started to laugh too. Then a tiny giggle turned to a full on belly laugh… the cutest and funniest thing I have every seen. Really there was a twinkle in her eye as to say, “Got you this time, Mom!”

Bob has been working like crazy… averaging 64 hours a week for the past two months. The sad thing is that his busy season only started 3 weeks ago, and they only ask for something like 50 hours a week. So life as been a little out of balance for him to say the least, but hopefully it will get back on track here soon enough.

With all this going on, I was slightly distracted on Friday (trying to find something to blame this on…), and made the 2nd worst meal of our marriage – only to be topped by tuna surprise. I talked to a friend that day, and had a conversation about Bob’s mom’s good Mexican cookin’. Well, it put me in the mood, and I thought I would just attempt to do the cooking myself. What a mistake. I burned the rice (a serious burn – probably will need a new pot) made the world’s chewiest corn tortillas, the meat turned out tough, and the beans were somehow tasteless. I did manage to microwave a can of corn ok, and cook up some peppers and onions but that just didn’t make up for the fact that everything else just stunk (literally – the rice stunk of smoke). Looks like I need more Mexican training.

Well… there’s the news. I will try to post pictures of the adventures (when I can figure out this whole ftp thing… it’s a little much for a non-computer nerd) and maybe even post photos of our new painted study. I might even shock the world and post again soon. But don’t cross your fingers for that one.

I’ve finally put up our photo album application. I still want to make some changes so that pictures can be separated, but for now there are lots of pictures of Kristina’s first month of life. I’ll post some more pictures soon, to bring things up to date because she keeps growing.

Also, if you click on the pictures in the application a larger version of the picture will be shown.

Click on the photos link or go here:   Photos

- Bob

Things you think would have been obvious, but weren’t to us… and we tried them anyway.

1. Don’t buy a brand new mattress five days after having a baby. I demanded that it had to be really, really soft, since I was still in quite a bit of pain. The princess and the pea had nothing to my ability to feel non existent lumps in a mattress. Now – both Bob and I feel the one that met my approval is way too soft. Oops. A very expensive mistake…

2. Shopping for high price ticket items less than 72 hours after you give birth can lead to problems. Bob really wanted me to see some leather couches he had spotted, and I went with him leaving little Kristina at home with grandma soon after I was discharged from the hospital. Completely worried about the baby, we take off for the store. When Bob’s expected eyes didn’t find mine thrilled with couches, he was a little disappointed – but nothing like the turmoil from within my little soul – due to a healthy dose of hormones. Ultimately, the story ends with me breaking down in complete sobs in front of the store as we left, and Bob confused not really knowing what to do.

3. Forgetting to book a room the night that you are moving from one house to the next. Bob somehow thought we would both be fine sleeping on the floor. But me – being 37 weeks pregnant – didn’t think that was such a good idea. We ended up finding a (very expensive) room at midnight. Oops.

4. Buying a brand new car while trying to establish milk production for breastfeeding. We again, left Kristina at home in the care of grandparents as we trekked out into the wild world of shopping. The car sale associate took their sweet time… and then the finance guy took way too much of our sweet time. Mid way through his spiel, I could feel the big wet spots forming on my shirt. Soon I realized there was no amount of arm crossing that would hide the huge mess of milk on my shirt – now drifting down to my belly button. Luckily I wasn’t pulled over as I sped home in our old car – leaving Bob to finish up buying the other one – a full 6 and a half hours, and one soaked shirt later.

5. Allowing your newborn to cuddle up and nap in your arms a few times in a row. So fun to do yet it comes with a high price tag. The price is – now that is the ONLY way she naps. I put her down – and within about 15 minutes (usually more like 5 minutes), she figures out that she is not in my arms, or on my lap – and she wails! Yikes! So needless to say – she spends a lot of time in my arms.

Life hasn’t been a complete disaster however. We have been enjoying cuddling with lil’ Kristina, and we are enjoying our new home. So life is good!

Doing a little “housecleaning” online, and found that this somehow this never got posted. It was written some time in early June. I find it funny to read about a time that is so different from now. Man, that belly popping sure did change my world… anyway, here’s the post. And, now this is something that I can readily laugh at!

Pregnancy has been an interesting ride for me. I think that at some point or the other, I have had all of the less serious annoyances of pregnancy at one time or the other…. the swollen feet, the heart burn, and of course finicky sleeping habits interrupted by the need to use the bathroom every time I roll over. The sleeping is one of the worst for me – any one that knows me understands that I love to sleep, and get plenty of it. With pregnancy threatening to keep me awake, I have devised a vast system of pillows and other devices to get comfy for sleeping. This works pretty well most nights, and has helped me not have the insomnia problem that I was having at the 6 month mark.

Well, the other night I was up getting some house stuff done – actually unpacking for once – when I realized that Bob was no longer around. I found him in bed already (it was only 10:00) and I figured that I would just get a few more things done, then I would head to bed myself. Well, once I finished up and hopped into bed – Bob wakes for a moment. He looks at me with a steely, half asleep glare and then looks at my favorite pillow. He snatches it from me and says, “You don’t deserve it”. He throws it under his head, turns away and is right back to snoring in no time. All I could think was… what did I do?

I contemplated my moves from there – do I dare wake Grumpy to get my pillow back? Or do I just try to do with out for a night? Recalling that stare, I chose the latter, and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what in the heck I did that was so wrong to deserve a punishment that would leave me sleepless half the night.

I can almost laugh about it now. Almost.

-Anna