32 weeks: update

Adelyn wanted to take a picture today so I obliged, as long as she would let me take a picture of how tall she is getting (or maybe how tall Michael is NOT getting). Looking at this close-up shot, I'm wondering why I've never been asked if I'm hiding a basketball under my shirt, or a beach ball... I have had a 5 year old stranger tell me I had a very fat belly. Lucky for him, he knew it meant I was having a baby soon. Soon is relative though, 8 weeks to go!

Office SPACE!

This is Mike's front door (thank you Adelyn, for pointing that out). Notice he doesn't have set hours listed (he says it is so he can leave whenever he needs to to visit clients or take a lunch without anyone expecting someone there. We all know it's because he'd like to go to the office whenever he feels like it... which is a lot these busy, financial-preparing days).
These are the tables and desks that make up Mike and his employee's work space. Like about half the things in our house, half of these things were free. Makes for a delightful conglomeration. There is also one other desk to the right that I couldn't squeeze into the picture, but that's okay because the other desk does not belong to Accounting Professionals at all, but someone sub-leasing some space.

By the way, what is an accountant supposed to put on all those shelves along the top?

These are the cheez-it's that I bought Mike, plus some other snacks to but in his break room because he has been too busy to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner. The place is heavily equipped: refrigerator, microwave, snacks, and a filter for the water faucet (since the office used to be a beauty salon and Mike is afraid the water has chemicals since that's what is smells like).

After being in the place about 3 weeks, we all feel like it's home! It's been working out well, and it is a fun change. The kids and I have probably visited him more here than we ever did when he was in his garage. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.

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Princess for a Day!

Adelyn was so excited to finally be turning 4 years old. She wanted a train cake like Michael's, but I wanted her to do something special just for her. So we took a trip to the library earlier this week to look through some magazines for cake ideas and found a princess castle cake. She immediately and willingly wanted to switch from a train cake.She got a lot of fun pink, and princess themed presents including a princess room (complete with bippity boppity blue and fairest of them all pink paint). Hopefully she isn't too scared to sleep downstairs anymore since both brothers will be sleeping upstairs soon enough. Hopefully the princess theme scares away the comebuck (comeback?) monsters which she discovered a year back when she used to sleep down there. We're crossiing our fingers.

Surviving the Storm

I've heard there is a storm coming our way, and appears there is already quite a bit of snow outside. I'm not sure whether it had to do with the weather or not, but we encountered a 4-5 hour power outage last night. It was unfortunate for quite a few reasons.

#1, Mike had just got settled in for an efficient evening of work on his new computer, which was not hooked up to a battery back-up

#2, I had a meal in the crockpot that still needed a couple hours of simmering and was cold by dinnertime with crunchy onions

#3, Adelyn and I had worked on a special treat, French Bread and had it rising when the power went out... with no way to cook it an hour later when it was oven time

Solutions:

#1, Mike will have to get up early tomorrow morning for work :) but ended up playing most of the evening with us by a camping lantern light (I don't remember why Michael was wearing sunglasses since we hardly had any light. It is a current obsession of his)

#2, Yes!! We have a gas stove, so all it took was a match and we heated up our dinner

#3, No, our gas oven does not work, so we tried to grill the French Bread. It worked, it just tasted a little smokey. Although it was memorable, we won't need to do it again. It kind of ruined my pan.

Celebrate!

Mike's birthday is a great chance to pull out the fireworks and really have a ball! Thank yous go to Ruth and Tyler for throwing a great New Years/Birthday party and inviting our family! We had a great time! Adelyn and Michael never want to leave cousins because it's so fun!

I provided Mike's special birthday meal at Panda Express where I re-filled his water cup for him. We also shopped at IKEA for office furniture.

the "big" update

Boy, doesn't time fly! I'm already in my third trimester. As I ponder upon my life, I recollect enjoying a more "natural" look: less make-up, less hairspray, neutral clothing. But this belly doesn't seem anything "natural" to me. More or less, it just doesn't fit (both literally and figuratively I suppose).I sometimes wonder where we will fit the supposed growth spurt the baby will have over the next three months as he stores on all the fat that will keep him alive. I guess it's something worth documenting as a modern-day mircale.