I’m here:

Ummm Fingers:

Did I say I liked my fingers?

On occasion, I will open my eyes:

I like to pontificate like dad:

Smiles:

Boxer:

Eyes and Hair:

I’m cute:

Gazing in the distance

One of my first photos:

Trouble maker eyes:

We have to thank Grandma, also known as the Mamarazi, for her excellent photos.

Kristina Louise Bolster

She was born in the afternoon of June 19th 2008. She weighed in at 7 pounds and 13 ounces and measured 19 1/2 inches long.

We are so happy to have her as part of our family! Anna was absolutely awesome! Each moment I see her with Kristina only amazes me more.

My mother, hence Grandma, has special aversion to any Friday the thirteenths. Her aversion is so bad, that my little sister Becky was very close to being born on a Friday the thirteenth. My mother wouldn’t have it; she worked really hard to get the baby out on Thursday the twelfth instead of Friday the thirteenth. So having baby girl come last Friday would have made Grandma squirm.

Friday evening, I look down at Anna’s belly and said “Baby girl you are grounded for six hours. You can’t come out until today is over”.

Immediately, Anna and I both felt a kick her in stomach. Baby girl didn’t like being grounded. She already knew.

I thought: She’s already sassy? Now I know I am in trouble.

The last two weeks have taken us on a few car shopping trips. Finding a car that accommodates my knees has always been a problem. So we’ve been looking for the right fit, the right gas mileage, and the right style to fit our needs.

Anna turns to me today and asks “So what do you want for Father’s day?”

Bob: “A new car”

Anna: “I was thinking more along a line of some kind of cookies”

Bob: “I guess that will do”

Now, I was being serious when I said I wanted a new car. It is something we need to get done and hopefully it happens before little girl pops into this world, but I guess all I get today is a cookie.

I’ll smile at that.

Currently we are living in a sea of boxes - compounding the fact that this apartment has been too small for us for about - oh say - 2 years now. But relief is in sight, and we are excited to have more space to breathe in, and a yard for our little one to play in.

The fun part is now we need some furniture to fill the house, and another (more fuel efficient) car. So though I say I am ready to have this little girl come join us any time… really… I can wait a few more weeks ’til we get things taken care of!

Anna is due with our new baby girl at the end of June, 2008. Yes, I know, we’ve taken forever to announce it here, but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. So far baby girl is doing pretty well. Anna hasn’t been too crazy during pregnancy and has only made food demands like Chicken McNuggets from McDonald’s a few times.

We took some pictures on Sunday to show the growing belly.

We are way excited, though I still look at her once a week and ask “Are you sure you’re pregnant?” or “So when the baby comes, I only have to change one diaper right?”

It has been fun to get later into the pregnancy and feel the kicks of the baby. She tends to come out the most when we’re watching a movie together. We’re truly blessed and humbled with this great new endeavor.

Since no one else had any points in the Final Four she is going to win. For the record, she picked UCLA like I did, but I had Memphis washing out in the Sweet 16.

I think Anna has beaten me in the last three pickem games we have played. Whats going on?

Unfortunately, this car rental place didn’t have an automated terminal that allows you to print out directions. The woman at the counter gave me some directions and wrote them down on a piece a paper. However, when I left, I still wasn’t completely sure where I was going.

I jumped onto the highway and headed in what I thought was the right direction. After 15 or 20 minutes, I figured I had gone too far. I decided it was time to use one of my life lines, a call to Anna. Its always embarrassing to call Anna because I always tell her I never get lost—which is still true.

While chit chatting with the Anna, I saw one of those things that reinforced the fact that I am married to a Swede–IKEA. That’s right; the great, bright blue and yellow store was glowing off to the left. Here I was running around lost in Phoenix unable to find my hotel, but I could still find Ikea.

After making a really big circle, I eventually found the hotel. Though, the thought did come to my mind if I couldn’t find my hotel, it would probably cost the same amount of money to buy a new mattress and bed frame at Ikea as it would to pay for the hotel room. Then again, it would take me all night to assemble the Ikea bed frame. Go figure.

The week before Thanksgiving, Anna and I bought a small potted-pine tree from the store. We’re planning on spending Christmas Day out of town with family, so we didn’t need a big tree. Maybe I’m just a Christmas tree-party pooper, but I thought the little tree would work well.

The day before Thanksgiving my parents brought us this really nice Christmas tree stand. I thought it was pretty cool, but the small pine tree wouldn’t fit into the base of stand. I thought “Well, we can just put the stand somewhere and put something else nice on it and that will be it.”

Saturday, my parents came back to Houston on their way home to Corpus. The first thing they brought into the door was this huge seven-foot box. My father had a big grin on his face and said he brought us a Christmas tree for our new stand. At first was I was pretty scared. Our apartment is already over flowing with stuff. Storing the box was going to be problematic let alone putting the tree up in our living room. Needless to say the Christmas tree stayed in the box until my parents left.

Anna slept most of the afternoon on Sunday so I decided to put the new Christmas tree up. After some finagling I got everything in place and was able to make enough space for it to look good in our apartment. The result can be seen below:

It’s nice to have the tree up. We put the small pine tree outside our front door and we now have the big Christmas tree up in our living room. The site definitely makes it feel more like the holidays.
- Bob