Update on "Baby #2's" development

I get updates online as to what's going on with the baby at each stage of my pregnancy. Here's the update for this week:

Size Your baby weighs about 2.8 ounces (79 grams) and is about 4 1/2 inches from crown to rump -- roughly the size of a small gerbil.
Development At any time, you will begin to feel fetal movement as your baby's bones harden, and s/he starts a big growth spurt. Your baby has plenty of room: At this point, s/he could fit in the palm of your hand. This is a great time to be a fetus. At any given time, s/he might be playing with the umbilical cord (which s/he's now able to grasp), putting his/her thumb in his/her mouth, or kicking at the amniotic sac.

I'm so anxious to find out the sex of this baby and to be able to start calling him/her by name. We've got our boy name picked out, but can't decide on a girl name. Suggestions are welcome! :)

Hunting in the Back Yard

For quite some time now we've had a groundhog living in our pumphouse, which also houses my gardening tools. I hated going in there and would always kick the door so that I'd scare away the groundhog before I went in. Well, last night Kyle had finally had enough and said, "I wish I had a gun!" I reminded him that our neighbor, Brian, has one. Without another word, Kyle stalked across the street and got Brian. Since it would be illegal to fire a gun, Brian got his bow and arrows. I so wish I had taken a picture--it was funny to watch Brian and Kyle sneak around to get the groundhog. Brian got him with his first shot--the arrow went straight through the little rascal! After watching Brian, Kyle thinks he may want to give bow-hunting a try this fall :)

Spoelman Family Pics

Our busy weekend was a lot of fun! We had a great time at the wedding--it was beautiful! I, of course, loved hanging out more with Brittany (my brother's girlfriend); she's always so fun. On Saturday the pictures were a little hectic, but the evening was fun overall :) Here's the link to the whole album: http://oletimerphotography.lifepics.com/common/album/viewalbum.cfm?albumid=LP~5D035E00480155&p=1&viewType=Old enter event code "Dessie". I wish I could post a few of my favorites, but I'm not able to copy and past them. How about you tell me which ones are YOUR favorites! :)

Wow, have we been busy lately! There are some exciting changes in process at KeyStone that we're a large part of. We've had so many "dinner meetings" with people over the last few weeks that we're hardly ever home for dinner anymore! Ashlyn's pretty good at restaurants, but after a few of these "dinner meetings" I'm exhausted! Oh well, it's really helpful in the long run.

Ashlyn is so much fun these days! Last night she and I had a little movie night. We made popcorn and sat on the couch watching a video. She sat still for about 45 minutes...as long as the popcorn was in front of her :) She liked to occasionally feed the popcorn to me. And sometimes, when she put some in my mouth, I'd hold it in my lips and then feed it to her that way. She thought that was the funniest thing! It was a fun little special bonding time for us while Kyle was at his mens group.

Wednesday night Uncle Nate and "Aunt" Brittany came home from San Diego and Ashlyn was at the airport to greet them. While we waited for their plane to come in, we sat (with Grammy and Papa) outside and watched the cars go by. We happened to be sitting right by a stop sign and every time a car stopped, Ashlyn waved to them. She was like the unofficial airport greeter! She's one social girl--she had to "meet" everyone else who was waiting to meet passengers. When Nate and Brittany got off the plane, Ashlyn ran right toward them. She was up way past her bedtime (their flight came in at 9:30pm and her bedtime is 8-8:30), but she was a trooper! Then she got to go home with Grammy, Papa and Uncle Nate to spend the night. She was able to play with Nate Thursday morning and have him give her a bath--her favorite!

This weekend is another full one for us, but a fun one. We've got the wedding of a lifelong friend of mine tonight, then tomorrow we'll visit with one of Kyle's good friends and her family before we've got our Spoelman Family Pictures and Grandma & Grandpa's 60th anniversary party. The pictures should be interesting. The last time we took them was 10 years ago when there were 17 of us. Now there are 25--we've added 3 husbands and 5 kids :) I'm excited to have some professional family pictures taken of the not only the big family, but also my family (mom, dad, Nate, Kyle, myself, Ashlyn) and my immediate family (Kyle, Ashlyn, me). Hopefully all the babies cooperate ;) We'll post some of the pics later...

Second Appointment

Today Kyle, Ashlyn and I went to the doctor for my second appointment. I wanted them to come to this one because we'd be able to hear the heartbeat for the first time today. The appointment went well and, even with listening to the heartbeat, it was pretty uneventful. I've lost 1.5 lbs since last month, my blood pressure was 120/70, and the baby's heartbeat was 168bpm. The nurse was able to find the HB right away, so there was no scare (like with Ashlyn, we couldn't find it at all at the appointment and I had to wait another whole month!). And it was pretty anticlimactic because Kyle was dealing with Ashlyn and I had to get his attention to make sure he heard it. Once Ashlyn's attention was on the noise she was hearing though, she did start to dance to the heartbeat :) Funny girl!
She's had quite the busy day so far today. She got up around 9:00 and went swimming with Daddy while I got ready. Then they met me at the Dr.'s office to hear the HB of her new little brother or sister. Then we went to take a look at one of the houses we (Renovation, LLC) are working on right now. After that we went to lunch at Kabookie's in East GR. It's a gorgeous day today, so we sat outside. She was much more interested in watching people walk/bike past us and crunching up her chips than eating. Usually she's a pretty regular "up for 2 (hours), down for 2" kinda girl, but we kept her up for 5 hours before she got home for a nap. What a trooper! I'm sure it helped that we were doing stuff and she got snacks along the way :)
Kyle and I have been working on the yard since we got home. It's SO overwhelming! I think that the wild grape vines and the raspberry bushes are going to be the death of me! I've taken about 4 large wheelbarrows-full of weeds, grape vines, raspberry bushes (ouch--they're so prickly!) to the back woods and I've barely put a dent in the island in the middle of the front/side yard! By the way, does anybody know anything about antique plows that people use as decoration in landscaping? We've got one that's pretty neat, but just not our style. I'm wondering what it would be worth. Any ideas?

KS Staff Retreat

Last week, the KeyStone staff and their families all went up to Pentwater to stay in some cottages as a retreat. We had 27 people there at one point--what fun! And I'll say this about the staff: there is never a dull moment! We left after church on Sunday to go up and stayed until Wednesday morning. We brought tons of food--I felt like I was eating all weekend long! Gene found a 14-year-old girl, Mackenzie, to babysit Ashlyn and Kaitlyn so that those of us with babies could relax too. Over the course of the week, we could do things like salmon fish, go on sailboat rides, take a canoe/kayak trip, go into town, sit and relax with a book by the lake or by the fire, and enjoy each other's company. This staff/family is so much fun to hang out with and we sure had our share of adventures!
Kyle was one of five people (Nick, Erica, Kyle, Tina, Jane) getting up for a 5:30am salmon fishing charter on Monday morning. He was frustrated to say the least that they didn't get much action, but they did end up catching 2 big salmon and a lake trout. The two salmon they caught fed our entire group...with lots of leftovers!! Nobody beat the Aasman family (and Jane), though...they caught 12 fish!! They were generous and shared bags of salmon fillets with everyone :)

Just relaxing at the cottage! Sharon and I steered the boat into the sunset...literally! And if we veered off course at all, we got FIRED!
One of our many adventures...on the last night, with ALL of us on the sailboat, we ran up on a sandbar! It was dark out--about 10:30--and we got completely stuck! After trying a whole bunch of things, Adam, Dave and Mark jump in to try to swim the anchor out as far as they could so we could pull ourselves off the sandbar. It wasn't working out so well, but luckily there were a few guys out fishing (why so late, I don't know) who pulled the anchor out about 150 yards for us. Finally, at about 11:30pm, we got free of the sandbar!

Another one of our crazy--not-such-a-good-idea--adventures was the canoe/kayak trip. 13 of us went canoeing/kayaking on a river that nobody--that we knew of--had been down yet this year. We were the "guinea pigs" if you will. Well, not a good idea to go down that river! I was in a canoe with Tammi and Ashley. And Gene warned us that it wasn't a good idea for the three of us to go together since we're not exactly "lightweights"! (the first of 2 times he alluded to that fact) But we wanted to go together so we braved it. At first it seemed like it was going to be easy...until we got to the first fallen tree. There were about 20-30 fallen trees that we either had to lie completely flat to go under or we had to get out of the canoe entirely to drag it over the tree! All of that wouldn't have been quite so bad if it hadn't been for the huge number of spiders and horse flies that plagued us the entire trip! About halfway through we thought we weren't going to make it back, but then the river started to get wider and there weren't any more trees or flies. It was actually nice--if not a little cold--for a while...then the thunder and lightening started! With three "not exactly lightweights" in the canoe it didn't really go all that fast. Luckily--for everyone involved--Gabby (9 years old) got tired of paddling her kayak and decided to ride in the double kayak with her dad. So I got out of the canoe and into her kayak and paddled my butt off to get back before the storm hit. It had only started sprinking by the time I made it back to the cottage, but I was freezing, tired and sore. Even though it was a crazy adventure, I was kind of proud to have made it back :)

You'll notice that Ashlyn isn't in any of the pics...that's because she was sleeping most of the time! I was a little worried about how she'd do with 27 people in two cottages, but I shouldn't have worried...she went to bed at 8 every night, woke up at 8, and took her two 2-hour naps each day. Some of the kids were bummed that she slept so much because they wanted to play with her :)

Even with our adventures--and probably because of them--we had a great trip. A true retreat with no work and all play!