That face

OK, let me preface this by saying I love this new little guy so much, but when it comes to photographing him, he leaves a little to be desired. I finally got a few minutes to take some pictures of him awake and this is what I get:

Every stinking picture has the same scowl, even the one's of his feet. You can still see his face, blurry but scowling nonetheless. I am blaming his father for this one. It is the one trait at 28, 2 and 1 week that they all share. My goal this week --- atleast one picture without the scowl.

It's a boy!

We welcomed Alexander (Zander) Neil into the world at 6:18 p.m. March 20. He weighed 7 lbs., 5 ozs and was 20 inches long. And while all his stats sound average, his entrance into our family was anything but.

I went in for my final doctor's appointment at 10:20 Thursday morning. I was dilated to 3 and progressing nicely, but no real contractions or anything to speak of. We scheduled an induction for March 25 just in case I went through the weekend, but I asked the doctor to maybe speed up the process a bit by stripping my membranes during my exam. Before we left the office I was already beginning to feel the results of her work. But, I figured it was nothing and Mike and I went proceeded with our plans to go out to lunch.

During lunch the contractiony/crampy feeling continued, but I still was unsure if this meant anything or not. So many people get their membranes stripped and nothing happens, so I didn't want to get too excited. I told Mike to go back to work and make sure to get done what he needed to, just in case. I did the same and by 12:30 I was heading home. The contractions hadn't gone away and were getting a little more regular, though nothing intense.

I came home, got our bags together and called the doctor. They told me to lay down on my left side and when my contractions were only 5 minutes apart for an hour I could come in. An hour later, I was calling Mike and telling him to come home. We got to the hospital about 4:15 p.m. (yeah, you can start doing the math now). However, when the nurse checked me into the triage room, I was only dilated to 4 cm. Hardly any change from the morning, except the contractions were coming every 2-3 minutes and were intensifying quickly.

The doctor told me to walk for an hour and they would check me again. By this point I knew there was no way I would make it an hour, but Mike pushed me through four laps in 30 minutes (I was stopping for contractions about every minute). By the time I got back into the triage room it was 5:20 and I was begging for someone to come check on me. The contractions were so bad I was shaking from head to toe and had no clue how to deal with them (I am the girl who requests an epidural in the parking lot --- natural labor is not for me).

My water broke during a particularly intense contraction and I made Mike go hunt down a nurse to get me admitted, NOW! The nurse came in and moved me across the hall to my room where she proceeded to check me again. This time I was dilated to 8 or 9 --- and I still didn't have an epidural. As if I wasn't freaking out already, this is where my panic really started! I didn't think there was any way I could give birth without the drugs and I didn't think they was any way they could get the drugs started in time.

They convinced the anethestiologist to hurry up and give me an epidural, but it was a pointless effort. The man wasn't even out the door when my doctor told me it was time to push. She was having a hard time keeping the baby's heartbeat and was worried about letting me wait any longer for the epidural to kick in.

Three contractions and a vacuum pull later Alexander (Zander), was born. It took a little bit to get him crying, but he is doing wonderful now!

So much snow

Mike spent his entire Sunday morning on the roof of our house trying to shovel off the snow that had built up through the winter. In about 4 hours of work he managed to clear off the roof over our bedroom (where the leak is) and the three-season porch. The rest of the roof is very steep and he was getting tired and didn't want to chance falling so he called it quits. That part was raked, but hopefully we won't have anymore problems.

As for the bedroom: it is drying out. We got rain, freezing rain and snow last night, but couldn't tell from any of it if the actual roof was leaking or if the problem is something that will go away now that the excessive amounts of snow are gone. So, we are waiting.

Waiting for spring and waiting for baby. At this point, I am really hoping I wait until my due date to go into labor so that we can get our bedroom fixed before baby gets here.

Here are just a few shots I got yesterday. It was hard to do much with a 2-year-old in tow.

This was a block of snow he pushed off our porch roof. I wasn't much worried about exposure or anything, just documenting the little bit I could.



The picture below shows just how much ice had built up in our gutters. As the ladder absorbed sun it formed its own little groove in the huge block.

Is it spring yet?

This winter has been brutal. It started with snow in November, ice storms in December and then everything Mother Nature can throw at us since then. So, needless to say, there has been a lot of snow. And until recently, I was dealing.

A few days ago I noticed a musty smell in our bedroom. I blamed Mike's new workout clothes (the wicking material may stay dry, but dang does it smell once it's been in a gym bag all day), asked him to throw them directly in the laundry room when he comes home and thought the problem would go away. I was wrong.

I noticed the smell again today and eventually found a wet spot on our floor. Mike headed up to the attic but found nothing, so we settled on cleaning the carpet in that area and keeping our eye on it for the next few days. He tried using our wall as leverage to push our gigantic dresser out of the way and the extent of our problem came a little clearer. The force of his weight pushed a hole in the drywall. Now, Mike is no tiny man, but really, he's not that big, either.

Further investigation showed sever feet of our wall was quite wet as was part of our ceiling. An ice dam had built up on the roof and the rest is history. So, we now have a gaping hole in our bedroom wall, a smaller hole in our ceiling and a huge mess to clean up. Oh, and did I mention I am due to have this baby anytime in the next 21 days? Yeah, it's been a great day! I think the most irritating thing is it is obvious this has happened before. The insulation we pulled down is different from the stuff in the panel that hasn't been fully removed yet.

So, here are my photos of the day. They aren't anything spectacular, but it's what I got. Oh, and sorry for the really bad color on some of these. I didn't use the flash at first and they turned out really orange. Oh, and the black stuff isn't mold, it's just dirty (thankfully).

Why am I sharing these?

I have not documented this pregnancy at all. With Nick, I had pictures at least avery four weeks; this time, I have maybe two sets of belly pictures. I don't look any different, I just didn't do it this time around. But, this weekend I got up the guts to try maternity photos. I have yet to justify the costs of a professional studio for photos like this, so I thought we would just have some fun with it at home. Ok, so fun might be a little bit of a strong word --- how about we thought we would try it. Mike was kind enough to give up his usual playtime during our son's nap to help me out. I set up the shots, showed him how to run the camera and hoped for the best (for both of us). I am NOT a photogenic person and am not comfortable in front of the camera. However, I find myself sharing these here -- go figure. I know the backdrop is wrinkly, but I didn't have time to mess around a lot with PS and I'm not very good at that part anyway. I only have time to upload a couple today, so don't be surprised if you see a few more as I continue to work my way through them.


ISO 800
SS 1/125
f/4.0

ISO 1600
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f/5.0

Just like dad

Mike has been working out regularly since the beginning of January (I am so proud of how well he is doing and how excited he still seems to be about getting up early every morning to work out). We recently went out and got him some new clothes to work out in, including this Under Armour head band. Today was a bust at the gym (it's a 24 hour place, his key didn't work at this location and the staff never showed up), so he came home to ride the bike instead. This meant the head band didn't get used so Nick stole it instead. Again, I know these pictures aren't technically perfect, but a) I still like them and b) I won't ever figure out how to shoot with the lens wide open if I don't practice (really, what's the point of offering 1.4 if you can only get a tiny piece of the picture in focus at that f-stop?). Anyway, here is what I got today. And yes, the two upside down pictures were taken that way. I turned them around in photoshop and they just looked funny.

All shot at:
ISO 1600
SS 1/125
f/2.8

Cupcake kid

My youngest sister turned 10 on Feb. 1 but didn't have her birthday party until this Friday. My parents got a hotel room for her and a bunch of her friends and let the girls swim all night. We planned on going up for an hour or so and letting Nick swim, but ended up staying for about 3 hours. Nick is such a little fish; I am so glad the doctor didn't tell us we had to keep him away from water after the tubes went in.

I took more than 200 pictures that night, but unfortunately, I had to shoot wide open to get enough light in, which means barely any turned out. I am still sifting through them now, but can tell I am going to be disappointed in the whole grand scheme of things. Thankfully I only need a few shots of my sister and a few of Nick to actually look decent enough for a scrapbook page. It's just frustrating to take so many pictures and have so few look good at the end of the day. Anyway, here is one of the few I have found so far. It's grainy, not perfectly in focus and I had to turn it to black and white because the color was so off in there, but it's my baby, so of course I like it. I swear, this kid could eat a horse if I would let him. He devoured his cupcake (frosting first) and then ate half of mine! Definitely has his momma's eating genes!

I'll have to check with the rest of the family before posting any of them --- especially since some are in their bathing suits!

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SS 1/50
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