Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Mommy: It's St. Patrick's Day today!

Aidan: Will Patrick be coming to school with me today?

Monday, March 16, 2009

We’re having a girl!

A couple weeks ago, I had a dream that we found out the baby was a girl. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so I convinced myself that we were having another boy, which would have been fine with me. Tashi was guessing a girl…and he was right! I am so excited to dress her in cute dresses & pink, lots of pink!

This wonderful news almost made up for the not so good news. The placenta is partially covering my cervix, and if it doesn’t move up & away from my cervix, I’ll have to have a C-section. This also means I’m not allowed to exercise. I just bought a new maternity yoga DVD, so I was quite put out. I’m glad that I verbally expressed my disappointment at the thought of no exercise, because at first, my doctor told me that I’d have to wait 2 months before I had another sonogram to determine if the placenta moved out of the way. After I spoke up, she then said I really only had to wait 1, instead of 2 months – what a change! At least I get to see our little baby girl again at another sonogram in 1 month. I love seeing her move around on the monitor.

Aidan is so excited to be able to call the baby a girl, instead of “the baby.” We showed him the sonogram pics & he was so happy that he could actually see her head, arms & feet. He even kissed one of the pics!

The 1st pic below is a profile of her head & her little foot floating above her belly; 2nd pic is another profile with her hand near her nose & part of her leg. She sure was active during the sonogram! She kept nudging me, and kept trying to push against the sonogram wand!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Aidan at friend's Tae Kwon Do birthday party

Tashi's co-worker's son, Benjamin, invited Aidan to his Tae Kwon Do birthday party. Part of the fun was learning to break a wooden board. Below is video of Aidan breaking his 1st board, and the 'after' picture of his board in 2 pieces. He also jumped around in the Moon Bounce, did some of the martial arts training, and then watched the birthday boy cut his cake with a huge Samurai sword. Aidan had a blast!


Thursday, March 5, 2009

Aidan’s birthday & playing in the snow

Aidan wants to say “Thank you!” to all his grandparents for the gifts he received in the mail. We wish that you all could have been here to enjoy the looks on his face after he opened each one! He loves every single one & often can’t decide which he would rather play with first. They usually all end up scattered around the house until clean-up time.
Aidan would live outside if we let him. He begs us to go sledding, or to play in the snow at the first sign of snowflakes. He'll even bring his 'outside' toys to do some digging & shoveling if he can't find any icicles, sticks, or rocks.




We have a new niece!

My twin sister, Heidi recently gave birth to a little girl, Madison. Madison has a brother, 3 yr old Micah. Congrats to Heidi and her husband Jared on their new arrival!

This 1st pic is of my other sister, Jessica, holding Madison when she was just 12 hrs old. The 2nd pic was at Micah’s baby blessing back in Feb 2006 (it was the only pic I had of my sister’s family). I thought it would be cute to compare baby pics, as Heidi says Madison looks like Micah did when he was a baby. They’re both so cute! :)
I had to put in a recent pic of Micah, so this last pic is of Micah & Aidan in July 2008.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Welcome to our blog!

We'd like to share 2 main reasons for starting this blog:

1) One more item to check off my 'to do' list - after sitting on the list for far too long!
2) Our big announcement...Aidan is going to be a big brother! I'm due on August 3rd, and we find out the gender of the baby on March 16th. We wanted to make sure Aidan was independent enough before having another baby, because I was really sick when I was pregnant with Aidan. I'm so glad we waited, because I'm extremely sick, and Aidan is an angel; getting his own breakfast and lunch, and playing quietly by himself. Our new project is our garage and attic that have become rearranged, unpacked & repacked with getting all the maternity and baby stuff ready. We are so excited to welcome another little addition to our family!

Here's a summary of what we've been doing lately. This will especially be helpful for those with whom we haven't spoken to in over a year - sorry! After Tashi graduated from law school back in May 2007, he decided to pursue his Masters in Tax Law at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. We moved out to Maryland in August 2007 for Tashi to start the intensive 9 month condensed program. He graduated in May 2008, and is glad that after 8 years of school, he is finally done! He started working part-time with a technology company during his last semester, and they offered him a job, which started full-time in August 2008. After passing the Maryland bar exam in July, he became Associate General Counsel for the company. This basically means that he is one of the company's in-house corporate attorneys. He mainly works in business & contractual law, which is what he wanted to do coming out of law school. His office is about 10 miles NW of downtown DC, so occasionally after work he'll catch up with Aidan & me when we're downtown sightseeing, or at the zoo.

Our son, Aidan is almost 4 yrs old. He loves going to Joy School (pre-school), playing with airplanes & cars, and playing outside - especially in the snow. We live 1/2 block from a lake, so it's one of our favorite places to go walk around. When it's warm, we love to play at the sand volleyball court at the lake. Aidan is such a great helper & does his chores when asked, but I wonder how long it'll last? ;-)

We love living close to our nation's capital! There is so much history to see. Aidan loves going to the National Zoo, Smithsonian museums & of course loves visiting all the monuments. At least every couple days, Aidan asks, "Can we go the zoo, or dinosaur museum (Natural History Smithsonian)?" We go to these two the most often, as well as the Air & Space Smithsonian. Any time we drive by downtown, Aidan is usually the first to point out, "There's the Washington monument!" This is usually followed by, "Can we go visit George Washington's house & see the soldiers again?" He has only been to Mount Vernon twice, but he remembers the soldiers parading around the lawn of the famous manor home.

I have the wonderful opportunity to teach Aidan's Joy School once a month. I rotate teaching with the other 3 moms. It's an online program for home based schools that has everything we need to teach: all the lessons, handouts, songs, etc. Aidan's school days are 2 1/2 hrs long & meets twice a week. During my 3 week break from teaching, all I have to do is drop Aidan off at another mom's house for school, allowing me some alone time!

Tashi & I have been playing on co-ed volleyball teams for the last few years & still love playing together. I'm taking a break until after the baby's born, but Tashi continues to play volleyball & basketball every week. I continue my yoga & Pilates, even though it has to be modified for my changing stomach muscles. :)

We miss seeing so many of our family & friends. If you would like to visit the DC area, you are more than welcome to stay at our house for your visit. The best time to visit is in the spring or fall when it's not so humid!

My goal is to keep this blog somewhat up to date. I put off this blog so long, partly because I'm terrible at taking pics & journaling regularly, so we'll see how this goes. :) Thanks for visiting!