Introducing...

Jake Alan Calloway

6 lbs 9 oz 19.5 inches

our newest addition, born March 27.

I thought I would get to this post a lot sooner, but I've been kind of busy...weird. Anyway, I was induced again. My doctor check my fluid on Friday and while it appeared fine, there was a chance that the cord was wrapped around the boy's neck. They can't tell for sure (who knew, I thought they could tell everything FOR SURE) but the doctor said if it was wrapped around, it was quite loose and that if I was induced, it wouldn't have time to tighten and become a problem...but it could have been nothing. We decided to go ahead with the induction...I liked being induced last time so I figured might as well do that again. So I have two kids but I have still never gone into real labor...nor have I ever felt a contraction, I always have my epidural before they really kick in! The delivery went quite smooth and but it took almost all day. The doctor thought it would only take a few hours since it was my second and I had progressed a little on my own but no, we sat all day until he was born at 5:28 with the cord wrapped around his neck twice!

We are now at home adjusting to life as a family of four. We thankfully had Grandma here for the first week, but we are on our own now!! Ryan keeps asking where Grandma is, hoping that she is somewhere around so that they can play. Jake is a really good baby so far, hopefully he keeps it up. He doesn't cry very often and he is a pretty good eater, so he doesn't eat as often as Ryan did. And now, for the pictures...

What's in a name?

Well, we are getting real close to the end of this pregnancy (hallelujah) with only four weeks left to go. I have an appointment on Monday to check my fluid (again) and if all is well I will get to have this baby when I go into labor instead of being induced again. I had low amniotic fluid with Ryan and because of insufficient weight gain (I've made it to a grand total of 6 lbs...with an extreme amount of effort) they are worried that may be the case again. So we shall see if I have to go all the way to the end!

Problem: we don't have a name for this baby. Problem: I'm kind of a planner and would like to have this nailed down so that I don't have to continue to experience the stress of this unresolved issue. Problem: I read WAY too much into people names. Like I live by about 25 naming rules...some are very strict and some are flexible. But the fact is, if you think I haven't been thinking about it...you don't know me very well as I have more than likely been OVER thinking it. Problem (a great problem): I love our last name. I think it is a really good one that goes with everything...in fact I think a lot names sound BETTER when paired with our last name.

We do have two options in mind but we can't seem to lock it in and say that we have picked a name. I'm sure some of you are thinking we should wait until we meet the boy, and you may be right, however, I know people who have named their child in the hospital...and subsequently wished they had done things different. And also, I'm neurotic...doy.

In other news...the "projects" are coming along nicely. If you have spoken to me in the last month, there is no way that I have gone more than 5 minutes without talking about my "projects". We are finishing up and I will post pictures soon (I've been thinking about you Ciara, but I can't post until I'm DONE...as this is a major motivational factor.) But I will tell you this, the dining room is about 1.5 hours from complete (those dang drapes...but Aunt Diane you are going to be so proud), Ryan's room is done excepting a small furniture rearrangement and the nursery progressed to halfway complete today! In the meantime we have also installed extra shelving in the laundry room and we are organizing the garage with new shelving from Costco (love Costco). So we have been busy, busy, busy. And while I won't be exceptionally disappointed to no longer be pregnant, I need at least two more weeks to complete all of my projects. Wish me luck!!

Pregnancy

This is at 29 weeks which was almost 2 weeks ago.

I had a lengthy post but it sounded quite whiney. Suffice it to say, I have 9 weeks left and I couldn't be more excited to be done.

News

Well, Halloween happened. We went to a pumpkin patch with some friends and we carved pumpkins. And on Halloween we went trick-or-treating. Ryan was a dog and had to be wrestled into his costume. Once he was in it and he realized people would give him candy, he was fine with the dogsuit!

Christmas also happened and I was dismayed to see how few pictures I actually have. None of the cookie decorating that we did. None of our train ride, (but I believe my Dad at least has some of those) None from our get together on Christmas eve. None of the rest of Christmas morning. Hmmm...perhaps a New Years resolution to take more pictures?? Anyway, Ryan got this FJ Cruiser and he loves it. It has a little radio inside that he can control. Unfortunately it has been FREEZING here. The average temp should be about 50 and it has been in the 30's for two weeks. It is finally beginning to warm up again so hopefully we will be able to go outside again. But on Christmas morning, we took it out for a test drive. Notice from the picture, Ryan doesn't keep his hands on the steering wheel. He points to Matt where he wants to go!! We are working on that!

There are two things going around over here that seem to preclude me from blogging. One, for whatever reason we have a lot of projects going on. Odd, this house is new and so we shouldn't have to do anything (at least that was the idea when we bought it) but a year later the "to do" list is much long and the "complete" list remains sadly empty. BUT we have made serious progress in just the past few weeks. Who is silly enough to start a project before Christmas?? Yeah, I guess us. But we also worked on finishing some outstanding projects, and we are making really good progress. I haven't taken the after photos yet, but I hope to post the before and afters SOON. From these pictures you can see....Ryan LOVES to help Papa. This is his favorite thing. Luckily he was given some tools for Christmas so now he "help" with his own tools.

And this project is actually done! But I don't have the photo to prove it. I am keeping them to do an entire before and after post when I am done with the other two projects. This will hopefully be in about three weeks.

This hole was large enough for my Dad to fit half his body into....

The other thing going on is hardly news at this point as I'm sure most of you already know. But we are expecting our second boy in about 11 weeks. We are really excited! Ryan is going to be a big brother! We are quite sure he has no earthly clue what we are talking about when we tell him this.

I looked back to when I was pregnant with Ryan (which also made me a very poor blogger, I have my reasons) and I have two pictures of me pregnant, (Well like the ones where you stand to the side and show off how pregnant you are) one at 29 weeks and one the night before I had him. I will be 29 weeks in about 2 days and I will take a picture to post. Because I'm sure you all want to see me pregnant (it really isn't that exciting but people always ask for pictures and I can see Jeni's comment right now asking for a picture...Mills don't worry I'm on it!)

So that's it. Kind of a lame post to recap like 3 months but now we can start fresh for the New Year!

Random

Sooo...it's been a while since we (I) have posted an update. Matt pointed this out the other day which is interesting because I thought he had zero interest in our blog. It's been about a month since I promised my Grandma in Canada that I would update with some photos of Ryan and I think its been about 3 weeks since my friend commented that my blog needed to be updated. I have another post I'm working on...actually that implies I have done more than thought of it in my head...so I'm not working on it, I just know that I have other pictures that I need to post. I'm the proud owner of two cameras. I have them for separate purposes but funny, I can't seem to find my camera with Ryan's birthday pictures on it. I could look harder, or I could post from the camera that I have sitting on my desk!! Since it could take up the rest of nap time to find the other camera and then you would all have to wait three more months for a new post...I'm opting to post with these random photos that I have accessible now!!


A long time ago Matt and I went to the Braves game (it would have to be over a week ago since they didn't even make it to the playoffs) Matt and I usually go to several games during the season and this year was no exception. But the game I have pictures of is from when we went to the Braves v. Yankees and got to stand on the field for batting practice. We were thisclose to the players and Matt was in heaven. He states it was totally "worth it" and would do it again.

If you follow baseball you know how old these pictures are as Francouer was traded to the Mets mid-season.

Matt kept making sure I was taking all these pictures of players...so these few are a representation of the over 50 that I have!!

Ryan went to his first movie with some of his friends from the ward....it was the free morning movie, good thing since he lasted about 30 minutes then wanted to get up and run around!

And this picture represents the over 100 (no joke) self portraits that I found of this camera. Ryan loves to take pictures (I also have a ton of random pictures of our computer and the carpet) but his favorite thing to snap a photo of is himself.

Here is what he looks like (since it seriously has been that long since I posted a picture) while he dances behind the desk to "his music." (Usually the Four Seasons).

Ryan has a very strange personality quirk. We used to think it was funny but now we find it kind of annoying. As far as I know it's not some two-year-old behavior so much as Ryan is just weird. But he likes to stack things. EVERYTHING. But only things that shouldn't be stacked. Stacking legos is not a challenge because they are meant to go together. He only likes to stack things that shouldn't be on top of each other. And when he can't, he gets pretty upset (that's the annoying part). So whenever he stacks something, he wants to show us. So he will come and get us to show us his latest accomplishment.

When he showed me this one I was kind shocked, he usually stacks his cars or other toys, I couldn't believe he didn't spill anything so I got the camera so I could show Matt later....well since then, he wants me to take a picture of all of his "creations" For your sake I only posted a few (actually its a lot but I have WAY more as this is really his favorite activity!)

This is one his early works, only two cars!

As you can see, he is starting to get more stacked together.

He loved this arrangement and did it over and over in different places all day.


On the couch is challenging because it isn't a hard surface, but don't try to tell him he can't do it.

His greatest accomplishment, four cars, on his racetrack. So excited.



I made him get in the picture, you can see he had raspberry crystal light with his lunch.

Old?

So I won my first ever item on eBay. I have been telling everyone I talk to about how I am so excited that I won my first ever item on eBay. Seriously, I can think of at least six people since Friday that I have shared the excitment of my "eBay win". They send you an email and say "you won" it's SO EXCITING that you almost forget that you have the pleasure of paying for whatever you bid on and you feel like you have won a real prize.

So, anyway, I pay for my item. Then when I get my confirmation I realize that I hadn't updated my address in eBay so its going to our old apartment. Yikes. I email the seller and I still haven't heard from them. I'm feeling kind of stupid and now my item is being shipped via FedEx to my old address, they don't have package intercept (thanks, Matt for pointing this out) so I will wait until tomorrow and they say that after it isn't delivered because its the wrong address I can go and pick it up at the FedEx location. Hopefully this all works out and they don't just leave it on my old porch for the new tenant to enjoy (like I did for several months with InStyle magazine that the previous tenant paid for.....) We shall see.

BUT back to the question of me losing my mind. I am hoping the seller will email me back. I mean c'mon, please acknowledge that it's the wrong address or SOMETHING. And so I'm clicking around in my eBay account. Trying to figure the dang thing out. Then I have this little "1" by my name. It's FEEDBACK. How can I have feedback? The person says in December that I am a great eBay-er??? What? BECAUSE THIS IS NOT MY FIRST ITEM. I've won on eBay before...about six months ago. And now that I remember what I bought, I also remember that I was just as excited then about "my first win on eBay" So basically if I can just keep forgetting parts of my life it will continue to be super exciting because everything is NEW!

Title?

So if you scroll through my archives (which I'm sure you all do multiple times a day) you will see that I often give a shout out to great products, services (like Brian at OTB) or retailers (Costco). But I don't think I've ever used my blog as a rant on bad products, services or retailers. Which is a shame if you ask me because truly, before I try anything I go online and try to read about what other people are saying about it...like are they happy, was it everything they expected, has this product entirely changed their life, you know the usual stuff :)

WELL, I am so SUPER annoyed with AT&T I can't resist. My phone broke. The screen is black. I had this super neato phone that I got at Costco (swoon, I love Costco) they were selling it with a coupon for only $10 regularly $115! What a smokin' deal. Well the phone LOOKS cool but has never been a real champ of a phone. It doesn't get the best reception (which truly, I've never thought AT&T has the best reception) and the buttons are pretty weird, they look cool, but it turns out they aren't really that functional....not a huge deal since I am a pathetic "texter" anyway.

So anyway, I bought Matt a new phone for Father's Day, early so that I could steal his phone and replace my broken one ;) Well, when I get said new phone, they INSIST that I buy a "protection package"....sounds like a good idea right....yeah, except it only covers the phone if there is a software issue or internal battery malfunction. No coverage if it is damaged by Matt...or Ryan (let's be honest here). SO BASICALLY I am buying protection so that if the phone you are selling me turns out to be crap all on it's own you will give me a new one....SO IT'S PROTECTION from you selling me a crappy product? AND I GET TO PAY EXTRA?!?! Awesome. I buy it anyway and go on my way. Annoyed. Not annoyed enough to rant about it on my blog....that comes later.

Then I find out yesterday that I had bought the phone one week later it would have been $100 cheaper. Yum. That tasted good with my breakfast (thanks Chris Uno for calling me and eagerly reporting this fact!). Annoyed. But hey that's technology....what can you do?!

Well it turns out the phone I "stole" from Matt totally sucks. Honestly, not sure how he has been using it. Seriously. It's a problem. As in it sounds muffled when I talk to people (if I have EVER talked to you, you know I'm like one of the loudest talkers known to man) and they can't hear me. The buttons are stupid and weird and I can't find anything and its dumb and I hate it. So my dad says isn't your phone fairly new...like only 8 months old? Why yes, yes it is! Call warranty. Cool.

Just spent an hour with them on the phone. They transferred me all over Timbuktu (and I think it literally was Timbuktu because I'm quite sure I wasn't talking to anyone in America) and will not be sending me a new phone. They will only send me a new one if they can repair my old one. Like with a software up grade. Oh good, so the warranty on this phone is only good for software issues. Good thing I didn't have to pay extra for that!! Since I'm pretty sure you can't hack into a phone that isn't a smart phone!! And the worst part is that they keep transferring me to some one who can help me....I end up talking to a dude in billing who has no idea why we are even on the phone....we said good night and hung up. Whatever. I'm annoyed. Less annoyed as I finish this post. And kind of sorry to all those that have to read it. Matt isn't home to listen to me rant and I OBVIOUSLY can't call anyone to complain about it since my malfunctional phone will probably push me over the edge. So I will get over it by posting this LONG post on my blog.

Summary. I don't recommend AT&T I have never been satisfied with their service. Customer service and phone service. (The only reason we have them is because we get a awesome discount through UPS). So, if you are thinking of switching carriers...think about NOT switching to AT&T. You won't be happy in the long run.

In other news, I have been wanting to throw a shout out to Publix. I love that store. Not as much a Costco ,but a lot. I'm starting to think that they may drug their employees as they truly are the happiest people on earth (probably the only real competition is the people who work at Disney). I would grocery shop everyday if it was always at Publix. The free cookies. The stickers. The car carts. The carry-out service (which is a Publix service and they explicitly ask you not to tip them). The woman who runs to get Ryan a new box of Goldfish after he dumps an entire box all over the floor in front of her check out and then she only charges me for one. Love that place. Seriously. One time I said excuse me to one of their stock boys and he was like "oh excuse me ma'am, this is Publix where shopping is a pleasure, not an inconvenience." And he was serious. Seriously. And shopping there is a pleasure. (For those who don't know, the tagline is: Publix. Where Shopping is a Pleasure.) Never has a tag line meant so much.

Sorry for all the time you have wasted reading this post. Next time I will post about something fun. Like our trip to Florida perhaps....