Fishing, Take 2-Manitou Lake

We had much better luck today on our fishing trip. Not only did Ethan catch his first ever fish, it was the first fish of the season!! It was the second cast. He, mostly, cast it by himself. Then when he started reeling it in he told me he felt something. Sure enough, he reeled in a trout! Unfortunately, when Michael dipped it back in the water to clean it it got the hook loose and swam away, but we got pictures.

He wouldn't touch it

For the next 15-20 minutes he'd go from me to Michael asking; "Did you catch anything yet?" Way to rub it in buddy.

This is our chipmunk buddy, that came to steal pretzels
We got really messy, but that's what camping (that's what E calls it) is all about
We ended up taking home 4 fish that Michael caught. It's the first time in Colorado that he caught more then 1 fish during one of our day trips!

Fishing, Kind of

So our first fishing trip of the season turned out to be, kind of, a bust. Although, we got to enjoy some beautiful scenery on a beautiful day.
We have Spring fever and have wanted to get into the mountains since, well,we were last up there in the fall. This past Monday was a gorgeous day so we packed up, stopped for a fishing license and headed out towards Rampart Reservoir. Well, who knew that the access road doesn't open till May 1 (yes I failed to do that part of my research). As we were driving away we noticed another parking area that had quite a few cars and a trail. So we decided that we would see where that lead and after 15 minutes, or too difficult of a hike, we would turn around. We met a lady right at the beginning that told us it was a very easy hike in. After about 20 minutes we met a gentleman that told us it was at least another 3/4 a mile. So we decided to turn around, Ethan was devastated, he really wanted to fish. So we stopped at the creek, lured up his rod and threw a few casts out.

Now we can't wait till next time!!

Back to Reality

Looks like we made it home from our vacation just in time, or maybe the traveling affected me and nugget.
Caution: If you are squeamish about pregnancy/girlie issues please don't feel it necessary to continue.
I want to start by saying everything is ok, baby is still snug in the womb and I am not on any restricted activities.
Yesterday afternoon I started not feeling so hot and went to lay down. After a few minutes I had to go pee, for the millionth time. Afterward I noticed some blood and, kind of, freaked out. Unfortunately the doctor's office was already closed for the day so we were recommended to go to the hospital to get evaluated. Thankfully, I have the best mom ever and she came over right away to watch E.
We got settled into a labor & delivery trauma room at the hospital, where they hooked me up to monitors to watch baby and to see if I was having any steady contractions. After about an hour the nurse came in and ran a few tests; it was determined that my water had not broken and I was not dilated. There is a test they can preform to see if my body is going to go into labor within the next few weeks, but unfortunately because of the blood the test would not be accurate. After a few hours of observation and some uncomfortable testing we were released. We already had an appointment scheduled for today with my OB.
At our appointment today my doc decided to start me on anti-labor medication (a once a week shot), a steroid shot to help develop nugget's lungs (just in case), and an type of muscle relaxer in case I have too many contractions. We also had our appointments moved from every other week to every week. The doctor was great, he helped to calm our fears, if baby was born now there is very low risk of any long term damage and the biggest concern would be lung development. He will evaluate whether bed rest is necessary at each appointment.
What a way to end vacation huh?

Happy Birthday Old Man

(That dog didn't stand a chance)

Posers?

Nah!!

Guess Who Got a Haircut?

This crazy, shaggy boy just got his first professional haircut. Yeah, after last summer's incident, I did not attempt the clippers again, leave this job to the experts.
AND, this shaggy man got his "dirty thirty" locks chopped too! (Although he didn't get to sit in a cool car, they did let him play a video game during the cut)

During...(before near meltdown occurred, I think he just lost his patience)
After... there are ears under that hair!!!
After for Dad... (trying to find suitcases in a mess of a closet, hence the forced smile)

I am tired, Ethan has not slept well in the past two nights, therefore, Mom and Dad have not slept well. I think he's trying to prepare us for whats to come, and he doesn't take the hint that we need to get all the sleep we can now so that way we'll be well rested for nugget's arrival (yeah right). So, here are some pictures that I keep forgetting to upload

Washing the car with Dad, although our hose leaks and it was not warm enough to get soaked with hose water

An attempt at taking his shirt off (he has been very fond of getting naked lately)

Sharing with his buddy, Cooper. One rides while the other pushes
Then, they switch (for those of you that are not aware, for most people, sharing is not a "natural" skill, it has to be learned)
Smashing a lego robot to bits (this, on the other hand, seems to be a more natural skill)
And then posing, champion of the battle
We had a doctor's appointment yesterday for nugget, everything is going really well. We start going every other week once we're back from vacation. They also started testing me for a protein that is released that tells if I'm likely to go into labor early (pretty cool science-y stuff). I should get the results back within the next few days, I think they will be doing this every visit until we get closer to due date. If the test comes back positive, they can either give me medicine to prevent preterm labor or, if its close enough, a steroid that will help baby's lungs develop faster.

The Ultimate Robot Book

My son has spent hours within the pages of this book. Michael found it at the library and it was an instant success. The book goes through the history of robot toys, robots in movies and even robot sculptures. He spends most of his time in the toy section, he likes the early 1950s and 1960s toys. He knows their names and most of what they do, we read him the pages and he retains the information. After we say goodnight for the night or nap time, he usually spends another 1/2 an hour reading this book. Thank goodness, the book is on order from Amazon so we will, eventually, be able to bring this copy back to the library.

The Name Game

27 weeks, almost 7 months, for you non-math whizzes out there. Baby is getting gigantic! (At least that's what my aching body tells me). Average nugget size at this stage is about 2 pounds (feels like 10). It's a lot different being pregnant with #2 then it was with #1. For one thing, I can't just go lay down whenever I feel tired, I still have a 3 year old to entertain. But it's also a lot more fun, he gets excited about baby and being a big brother. We've been thinking about names for awhile now and we have a top pick for a boy and a top for a girl (we still have no idea the gender and have no intention on finding out until d-day). But don't fool yourselves, we have to wait to meet this little nugget before anything is determined (example: Ethan would've been Mason). Ethan helped in narrowing down our choices, see if you can guess his favorites:


P.S.the kid loves to be on camera, but more, he likes to watch his performances, the second song usually goes on a bit longer, but he got too excited.