First Gifts

We have received our first baby gifts!

The first batch was from my dear friend Jenn. She was one of the people I blabbed to a little early... we were talking babies and I spilled the beans. Jenn is a wonderfully generous and thoughtful person and she sent me a box of awesome parenting books. She's an editor at a small publishing company and we found her name in the acknowledgments of some of these books - how cool!

The second package came from my mom, a first time grandma. It bugged me out to hold up that little shirt (it says "peace") and picture having a baby that small... then bugged me out even more when I read the tag and saw it's for a six month old! I can't imagine having such a teeny baby, even though I have held my fair share of newborns before. 

The socks are adorable, in a set of six different colors and all printed with a sneaker pattern. The book is a fun little fill-in-the-blank keepsake book with a goofy, silly style that is perfect for Mike and me. The illustrations are really cute 60's style cartoons... we're going to enjoy writing in that together.

So we went "fantasy shopping" at Nebraska Furniture Mart today and just picked all the things we would buy if money were no object... not just baby gear, but we still need furniture for most of the other rooms in the house as well. It's somewhat hard to find pieces we like, since we don't share the Midwest's love affair with shades of brown, but there were a few cute things to add to our fake shopping cart, like a cute lime green loveseat and a retro red leather sofabed (not for the same room!). We managed to find a few simple cribs that were acceptable, though most of them were huge hulking behemoths. I don't understand why cribs now look like giant sailing vessels that need their own zip codes - ? Babies are still really small these days, right?

The Third Human

Happy New Year friends & family!

In 2009, we resolve to... add another Human to the family! And we are on our way, as I'm 9 weeks pregnant today. We waited until Christmas to begin telling everyone, but we've known since the day after Thanksgiving. It was hard to keep quiet - we are not good at keeping secrets, and actually we blabbed to a couple of people early and swore them to secrecy til Christmas.

On Christmas Eve I had my first doctor's appointment. I did not think it would be too exciting so I told Mike to skip it and go to work as usual. The doctor gave me a mild fright when she examined me - she said that we probably would not be able to hear the hearbeat until I was 10 weeks along, and I was only 8 at the time... but the moment she touched my belly she ran out of the room saying "I'm going to get the Doppler!" I lay there thinking, holy crap what if I'm like 12 weeks along and didn't know it?? But when she came back she said that because I'm so slender we might hear it... and sure enough, she found the beat - strong and fast, at 144. I wish Mike had been there for that - it was so cool - but he will hear it next time. 

To answer the most commonly asked questions: Yes, we were trying. Yes, we will find out the sex as soon as we can (it will be at the end of March). No, we don't really have a preference but we are both guessing girl. We do have some ideas for names but nothing we want to publicize just yet. I feel really well, I have had no morning sickness, have been a little tired some days, but not every day, and other than that don't have any unpleasant symptoms. I do want to eat everything in sight sometimes, and at other times all food tastes like wood. But overall I'm great. The doctor did clear me to work through my pregnancy and said that I should wear a mask for safety, but that paints these days are pretty harmless. And my estimated due date so far is August 6th. 

We're really excited and it has been so much fun telling everyone. We've gotten the best reactions from people we know who already have kids - they all tell us it's the best thing in the world and we're going to love being parents. I figure if the battle-worn still get excited about kids, it must be a pretty good experience, haha. We will be updating frequently so check back to hear more as my belly grows....

Christmas 2008.

Christmas was pleasant and mellow this year. I was at the tail end of the Black Death Plague, trying not to cough all over everyone, and I sounded like Joan Rivers with a touch of laryngitis, but other than that things were swell.

We had our potluck-style dinner with the family and I brought along a homemade buckwheat noodle casserole from my favorite cookbook, The Flexitarian Table. Although some said they enjoyed it, I was pretty unhappy with the casserole. The noodles had all clumped together when I was making them, and in the cooked casserole they were very lumpy and dense. Buckwheat flour is VERY STICKY and hard to work with: lesson learned. If I ever made this again, I would probably cut the buckwheat in half and use more regular flour instead. Why I choose never-before-tried recipes for important family dinners, I will never know... not the best idea. But I'm crazy. Luckily Mike's family is very gracious and would never tell me my food sucked!

On Friday night we went to some friends' house and watched Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers movie out on DVD. Coen brothers films are kind of hit or miss with me, but there was something about this one I really, really liked. I even liked George Clooney, whom I normally can't abide. The characters were a bit over the top but so well played, it was hard not to love them. And Brad Pitt always plays the slightly crazy bimbo ever so well. There was an attention to detail in this movie that just tickled me. I think our friends were bored by it, though.

On Saturday night we attended a party to welcome back a friend who has been working abroad and is home for a short vacation. The attendees were a mix of friends and business colleagues for both Mike and I so it was fun to schmooze and celebrate the season, and wonderful to see my friend, who's been away for several months.

Today, sadly, it's back to work. I've had plenty of vacation, but I always feel I could take one more day.

We did the unthinkable.

We canceled our cable TV service.

And our landline, so if you need to reach us, call our cell phones. We just couldn't stand paying Cox almost $180 a month every month anymore. I had a bit of a wakeup call recently when Mike's mom was asking us what TV shows we liked to watch, and we had a hard time naming any. We watch TV every day, but we can hardly name a show that we really love? What a waste!

We always thought that if the budget started to get too tight we would cut cable, but "not yet." Now, even though we're doing fine, the time is here. We canceled our phone & cable service - keeping the high speed internet because we haven't completely lost our minds - and signed up for a $17/mo Netflix account. We can still watch the really good shows on Netflix or at Hulu anyway. All told, if you add in the Netflix, we're going to save $120 a month! That's $120 extra to put in savings, to travel, to dine out... any of which will be a lot more worthwhile than the hour of television per day that we were spending it on before. 

Happy Tilapia Day!

I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving. We certainly did... we had a small, simple seafood dinner with Mike's brother and sister-in-law and their kids since most of the family is out of town this year. We had homemade clam chowder and corn pudding prepared by my sister-in-law, which were both delicious, along with roasted veggies and broiled tilapia that I brought along. It was fun to have something a little different for Thanksgiving dinner, and the company was wonderful. At one point during one of those natural lulls in conversation we all heard my nephew call out "I see you pee!" His older brother had played the classic trick of asking him to spell "I cup." We all cracked up as we saw him slowly realize what he'd said. Nothing like some well-timed potty humor! 

After dessert we all went to see the new Disney movie, Bolt, in 3D. It was a really cute movie, genuinely funny, and I almost cried a few times... what can I say, I'm a sucker for a dog story, even if it's only an animated dog. The 3D effect was fun and the animation was pretty impressive - computer drawings have come a long way. Even the fur looked like fur - pretty cool.

Mike is at work this morning, but probably only for a half day. I am avoiding the shopping madness today. Tonight we're invited out for a glass of wine with a colleague of mine and may go stroll around downtown to see the Christmas lights in the Gene Leahy mall.

Aliens

This is my current work project. Mike thinks they look like giant cocoons. To me they're reminiscent of Easter Island heads. In any case they are pretty creepy... there are two of them in the spare room, and they're about five feet tall and three feet wide.

Feliz Cumpleanos x 2

Last week was Mike's birthday, and being that it fell on a Wednesday, the festivities extended for a few days. Actually, being that my willpower broke down and I gave him his birthday gift on the Sunday before his birthday, it kind of extended for a week. I had kept the secret for almost an entire month and I finally couldn't take it anymore - I'd managed to snag a Garmin Nuvi 250w at a great discount on ebay in September and kept it hidden in a purse in the back of the closet for weeks.

On the birthday day itself, I got us a pizza from Whole Foods (the best pizza in town hands down! And we've tried a lot of pizza places) and I also snuck out and bought Mike's favorite ice cream (mint chocolate chip) and managed to hide in the freezer until the big reveal, which involved a Batman candle holder and an amazing interpretive dance to the Happy Birthday song.

The following weekend we went out to dinner with Mike's parents and brother and his family. I hope they won't mind me posting this photo of our nephew, who is turning one year old soon. How cute is he??

Dinner was at Julio's Tex Mex restaurant in downtown Omaha, a spot Mike chose for the giant sign out front advertising their margaritas. In order for him to fully partake of the margarita goodness, I volunteered to be the driver for the evening.  The restaurant was probably more aptly described as a bar, at least in terms of ambiance - long and narrow with a large bar and a few tables. The food was your standard Tex Mex fare, with a fair number of vegetarian offerings included. I had a Portabella mushroom burrito, served with rice and refried beans. The flavor of the burrito was good, mostly due to the mushrooms being marinated in something tangy, but the burrito itself was quite small. Normally I don't mind a reasonably-sized restaurant meal, but I was actually still hungry by the time I had finished my meal, and had to 'help' Mike finish his shrimp fajitas. The rice was okay boxed rice, and the refried beans were completely flavorless. Overall, I'd say it was another Omaha dining experience that was fine at the time, but which I won't be eager to repeat.

After Mike's birthday festivities were over, there was this election thingy, not sure if you heard about that. My favorite wrapup of the election came from The Bloggess, who wrote: Also, I don’t keep up with the news but apparently Barack Obama is getting a puppy!  And something about him winning something too.  Some kind of raffle, I think. 

This weekend we had coffee with friends at the Blue Line in their new downtown location - or NoDo (North Downtown), as I've heard it called. This is a happening little part of Omaha that's undergoing a revival with an artsy-collegey kind of feel. They've also opened up an Urban Outfitters and American Apparel on that street, where the all-ages music venue The Slowdown is also located, as well as the non-profit art house movie theater Filmstreams. They're showing Kubrick all month, so we concluded our evening by seeing Dr. Strangelove.

Last night we were invited out to dinner with a coworker of Mike's and some friends he was bringing along. The whole party aside from Mike and myself were Mexican, and they took us to a place in South Omaha that Mike's coworker loves, called Guaca Maya. We had high hopes and things started out well as we all ordered Mexican beers and snacked on some pretty tasty warm tortilla chips and hot salsa. Two different musical groups played songs by request at our table - the company was great, the conversation was fun, the atmosphere festive. Unfortunately the food did not exactly live up to the anticipation, to say the least. Mike and I both ordered shrimp dishes, as our non-meat options were limited to the seafood menu. I had "Tequila Shrimp" and he had the "Shrimp a la Diabla." Each were served with soup or salad (we had salads, which were typical restaurant garden salads), baked potato or french fries, and rice.

My "Tequila Shrimp" was literally, and this is not mere description but actual fact (according to my taste buds), shrimp covered in Campbell's Mushroom Soup. What exactly is "tequila" about this is a mystery I will ponder for the rest of my days. I'm not sure what else to say about it. Mike's dish was shrimp covered in a sauce he later described as "ketchup and chili powder." The rice was orange boxed rice. I had a small baked potato with a dollop of sour cream, he had french fries that looked pretty anemic and I imagine did not taste like much. What pains me the most is that each of these dishes cost about $13 and everything in them obviously came from a box or a can. I'm a pretty adventurous eater, but I also love to cook my own food, and the bare minimum that I ask of a restaurant is that the food is at least partly made from scratch. It should be something at least as good as what I could make at home - hopefully better - but if it's worse than my own cooking, well, disappointing is an understatement.

However... I still want to stress that we had a lot of fun. While we ate and talked, we were at times laughing so hard that we all were crying. And Mike's coworker's friends brought their six month old baby, who was super cute and well behaved. After we were done eating, Radio Lobo, the local Spanish radio station, set up a dance floor and played some of their hits. We all went out and danced to a few songs before we left.

So the search for a Mexican restaurant in Omaha continues, but happy birthdays abound.