37 Weeks and Junior's Room

We haven't posted pictures of Allison lately so we thought we'd better put some up. We're not far away from D-day. I guess we better start thinking about getting a hospital bag and the car seat ready.

We had a good weekend. Steph was in town for Junior's baby shower. We also had friends in town and it was fun to see some people we haven't seen for a long time. Junior was spoiled rotten at the shower and he thanks everyone for all the gifts.

While the ladies were off doing the baby thing, us men played some cards and watched a little college football. It was fun to see the Bison whip up on the Gophers.

Well, here's Allison.

And me too...

Allison did some more work on Junior's room and took a few pictures with her wide angle lens. They look pretty good.

Here's some truck pictures and the crib with the bedding and a few gifts in it.

Here's one corner of the room.

Thank you aunt Steph for the wall clock.

And once again...the grand finale.

Well, the World Series isn't too exciting so far. It looks like the Red Sox are whipping up on the Rockies.

A little baseball humor ...

A man walks into a bar with a dog. The bartender says, "You can't bring that dog in here."
"You don't understand," says the man. "This is no regular dog, he can talk."
"Listen, pal," says the bartender. "If that dog can talk, I'll give you a hundred bucks."
The man puts the dog on a stool, and asks him, "What's on top of a house?"
"Roof!"
"Right. And what's on the outside of a tree?"
"Bark!"
"And who's the greatest baseball player of all time?"
"Ruth!"
"I guess you've heard enough," says the man. "I'll take the hundred in twenties."
The bartender is furious. "Listen, pal," he says, "get out of here before I belt you."
As soon as they're on the street, the dog turns to the man and says, "Do you think I should have said 'DiMaggio'?

Later,

R&A

Granola

We've been making our own granola bars for awhile now ever since we saw it on an episode of "Good Eats" on the Food Network. I like these better than the packaged ones you buy in stores since you can put what you want in them and they're not so full of sugar. The official recipe is:

Dry Ingredients
8 ounces of oats
1.5 oz of wheat germ
1.5 oz of raw sunflower seeds
3 oz of almonds

The other ingredients
6 oz honey
1.75 oz brown sugar
1 oz butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Since I don't like to use the official recipe we have experimented a few times and found some combinations we like. In this particular batch we used a big pile of oats and smaller piles of wheat germ, flax seed, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.

1. Mix up the dry ingredients on a cookie sheet and toast for 15 minutes at 350 degrees stirring occasionally.

2. Bring the other ingredients to a boil on the stove top. We generally use half a honey bear, some brown sugar, vanilla, and peanut butter.

3. Take the toasted dry ingredients out of the oven and mix into the liquid.

4. Grease a glass baking pan and pour the mixture in. Press down firmly with another pan.

5. Bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes.

6. Let them cool and slice 'em up.

There, now everyone can be on their way to healthier snacks. Warning, these don't taste like the store bought variety and some people may not like them. If you fall into this category I would suggest purchasing the ones you like in the store.

Junior

We had an appointment on Friday and everything is going fine -- nothing new to report. There's another appoinment this Friday. We're in the homestretch now!

Allison had her baby shower this weekend over at Mike and Michelle's. We had friends in town from Fargo, Iowa, Omaha, and of course the Minneapolis metro area. Junior was very appreciative of all the nice presents he received. He's lucky to have such a great group of friends and family. I'll try to get some Junior related pictures up soon.

Good Night.

34 Weeks and Junior's Room

It's been a while since we've posted so we thought we'd better get some pictures up. Allison has been feeling good lately -- her back hasn't been bothering her as much as it was before. Junior has been kicking like a maniac. He must be trying to get in shape.

We had another appointment last Thursday and everything checked out fine. His heart rate is 142 bpm which is smack dab in the middle of where it should be. His little cocoon measures the right length according to the doctor and he's got his head down. Starting next week, the appointments turn into weekly visits.

We toured the hospital on Saturday to get an idea of where to go and to see what the room looked like. (It looked like a hospital room.)

Here's Mom at 34 weeks. Officially she's at 35 weeks today, but we took this picture last week and we feel that if we titled the post "35 Weeks and Junior's Room" it would be a lie. As lead editor of rossandallison.blogspot.com I strive to maintain an open and honest relationship with our readers. We feel that reputation is everything in this business.

Junior's room is all put together. We thought it would be a good idea to share what it looks like. Here's his diaper drawer/changing table. About a month ago this particular piece of furniture was simply known as Ross's dresser. I know what you're thinking, but no, this drawer has not always stored diapers and baby wipes. When it was known as Ross's dresser this particular drawer held t-shirts.


That's Allison's hand holding this diaper. It's hard to believe they're that small.


Here's the closet (formerly known as Ross's closet in the guest room.) My shirts used to hang down just a little further than Junior's.


Mom and Junior will probably spend some long nights in this chair. We might move it into our bedroom for the first few weeks. I guess we'll just see how it all works out.


Here's Junior's crib full of clothes. Thanks Grandma!


And the grand finale...

This past Saturday we took Junior up to Carson's second birthday party (Paul and Jaime's boy.) Everyone there had kids running around. It was kind of an eye opener.

That's all for now.

Good night.

31 Weeks and Boston

We're now at 31 weeks and counting. It's kind of funny to look back at all the pictures and see the progression. We might have to put all the pictures together in one post near the end.

Junior's been doing great. He's been moving around in there a lot lately and is getting stronger every day. Yesterday Allison thought he must have been practicing his basketball moves because she said it felt like he was dribbling something.

He's had the hiccups twice now. The first time Allison noticed it she had me feel her stomach. Sure enough every couple seconds there was a little tapping feeling. About a week later Allison received her weekly newsletter describing what the little tike is developing each particular week and it said that our baby was just starting to practice breathing. The newsletter is a free service she found on some website and is pretty cool. I guess Junior's practicing breathing by inhaling the embryonic fluid to get his lungs in shape. He must have got a little too aggressive and gave himself the hiccups.

Here's Allison and Junior at 31 weeks:


Do you think it will fit him?


Last weekend we went out to Boston to visit Aunt Steph and Uncle Mike. Allison had some frequent flier miles we thought we'd use up since we probably won't be taking any vacations for a while. We had a great time out there -- it was a relaxing weekend.

Steph and Mike have a nice house in Jamaica Plain. Here's Steph on their deck.


Steph is an excellent cook. We ate like royalty while we were there. Thank you for being such great hosts.

Corn on the cob was on the menu Friday night.


The sisters on the stairs.



Saturday afternoon we spent some time in the Larz Anderson Park.




Saturday night we went out to eat at an Afghani restaurant. We've never had that type of food before but are willing to try anything at least once. It was very good. Here we are after dinner. What a nice looking group.


Monday morning we took the red-eye home. I went straight from the airport to work. Boy that was sure fun.

I apologize for there being no humor in this post so I found some childbirth jokes on the web. Enjoy.

Things Not to Say During Childbirth

• Gosh, you’re lucky. I sure wish men could experience the miracle of childbirth.
• Do you think the baby will come before Monday Night Football starts?
• If you think this hurts, I should tell you about the time I twisted my ankle.
  

Later,
Tall Guy

Labor Day Weekend

Junior apologizes for me not posting for a while but there hasn't been too much going on. This weekend was jam packed though. Grandma and Grandpa V were down for the weekend so he got to hang out with them.

Grandma and Grandpa stayed at Josh and Christy's in Fargo Thursday night and drove the rest of the way to the big city Friday afternoon. We grilled some big manmaker ribeyes that evening and then sat around and visited the rest of the night.

Saturday Allison and Debi went shopping and Steve-O went along for part of the trip. He's a lot braver than I am I guess. Belle and I stayed home and had a long talk about food, walks, and tennis balls. Brett came out for some pizza Saturday night and after dinner we watched the Ryan vs. Mohall game from my junior year which was Brett's sophmore year. We lost that one. I would have preferred to watch either of our games with the Yellowjackets from the 93-94 season for obvious reasons.

We thought we better sneak in a picture of Junior at 30 weeks.

Grandma and Grandpa V bought Junior a stroller on their Saturday shopping trip. Between his two wonderful sets of Grandparents and all his other family and friends he feels very fortunate to receive all the gifts. I think Junior already has enough stuff for 4 kids. Thank you everyone! (He also thinks he's pretty darn clever to be the first grandchild on either side.)

Here's Dad and Grandpa.

Mom and Grandma.

The whole crew.

Kyle was also in town this weekend. He and his friends Jessie, Danielle, and Cole went to a couple of concerts in St. Paul Saturday night. Chad hosted them Saturday night.

Here they are in Chad's basement. Notice the unsophisticated computer equipment in the background. One of these days someone should teach him something about electronics.

Sunday night we went to Big Bowl. It's a little Asian restaurant in Edina. I've never been there before -- it was pretty good.

The crew's never seen our house so they decided to come over and stay the night with us on Sunday. We played a spirited game of Loaded Questions then hit the hay. Monday morning we had some breakfast and they were on their merry way.

Here's Kyle and me. In case anyone hasn't noticed we're tall.

Monday evening we brought Junior over to our friends Mike and Michelle's house for a Labor Day barbeque. Paul, Jaime and Carson, and Buzz &Tara were also there. A little bocce ball and a few burgers later we called it a night. It was a very fun weekend!

I better get to bed now since it's a school night.

Adios.

Weekend

Mom & Dad and Grandma & Grandpa were in town for the weekend. It rained non-stop all weekend so we hung out inside the whole time. I can't remember the last time we got such a constant rain over such a long period of time. There were some issues with flooding in the Winona part of the state but luckily we didn't have any of that in our neck of the woods.

Grandma and Grandpa stayed at our place and Mom and Dad stayed at Chad's. It worked out perfect plus we made some cash in the process. I only charged the grandparents $50 which I thought was fair. Before you say that seems a little harsh you have to take into account that it did include a continental breakfast.

Since Dad was in town I decided to put him to work building a hanging shelf in the garage. We're already running out of room with Junior's stuff and I'm sure it will only get worse. The best part of having a project to work on -- buying new tools!!! Home Depot had a battery operated Ryobi drill, circular saw, and flashlight set on sale for $75 that I couldn't pass up. It'll be just fine for anything I'll ever need it for.

There's just something about powertools. I wish I could convey the Tim the tool man grunt through words but it doesn't translate well. Looking at the picture though it doesn't look that manly since the saw's quite small and I'm holding it daintilly with two hands. Oh well, at least the saw screamed with power as it chewed through 2x4 after 2x4. There, that makes me feel better.


Here's the before shot.



And after. Total elapsed time -- 2 hours 30 minutes.

After the shelf was up we decided to play a lively game of whist. Guess who won. I'll give you a hint -- it wasn't Dad and Chad.

Here's the whole crew Sunday at Chad's.

Well, that's all for now.

Good night,

R&A

27 Week Picture, Painting, Camping

We did a little painting yesterday. We painted the upstairs bathroom and Junior's room. For Junior's room we decided to go with a dark brown. Neither Allison nor I like the way light colors look in our house -- I guess we're kind of earth tones type people. I hope Junior likes his new room. Here's a belly picture of Allison at 27 weeks in the newly painted room.



It didn't take us too long to paint the two rooms. We did the prep work Friday night by moving furniture and removing fixtures, went to Home Depot bright and early Saturday morning, started painting around 9:30 and were done by 3:00.

Camping

Last weekend we went camping in Fort Ransom, ND. Fort Ransom is SW of Fargo. Allison and I took Friday off and drove down to Fargo and stayed with Josh and Christy Thursday night. Then it was off to the campgrounds Friday morning. The weekend was spent relaxing, eating good food, playing lawn games, and kayaking. It was the first time we've ever kayaked and was quite fun. The rapids of the Sheyanne River were formidable but we made it okay.

Here's a group shot of the campers. Steve and Debi with Belle, Josh and Christy with their dog Hunter, and Allison, Junior and me.



Here's the crew playing a game of Bocce ball. The picture looks like something out of a movie with the way everyone is walking toward the camera. It reminds me of Reservoir Dogs.


Steve and Debi were victorious!

It was a great campsite. Plenty of room for two sleeping tents, the camper, the screen tent and of course Norwegian Golf. For those who don't know, Norwegian golf is the white contraption Allsion is standing next two in the picture. It consists of three crosspieces of PVC pipe connected to a PVC pipe stand. There are three sets of golf balls with holes drilled through the middle and connected by string. The object is to throw the golf ball strings and wrap them around the cross pieces of PVC. It's very fun.

Just call me Swatter.

Big Swatter.

Here's our bike parking lot.

Belle was not impressed with Hunter by the end of the trip.

Again, not impressed.

Dinner time.

We went to Brett and Bjorn's today and hung out with Brett, Bjorn, and Mehgan (Meg, sorry if I spelled your name wrong.) Mehgan's parents John and Alice were in town and were there too. I'm not sure if Allison snapped any good pictures but if she did I'll post them sometime this week.

Kyle and Brett got the last post's trivia question correct. If anyone's been unable to sleep at night because the question has been haunting them the answer can be veiwed by clicking on the comments link of the previous post. Congratulations Brett and Kyle, you've won an exciting prize.

Adios.

Ross