February Funness

As promised, here are more pictures. :) Gabby's 6th birthday party was this weekend at at MyGym, a gym for children 8 & under- PERFECT for  little kids in the rain that you can probably see out the windows. They had SO much fun & Randal made a GabbySaurus cake, which of course, everyone loved. Except Tobin, who wouldn't eat a dinosaur cake because he's a vegetarian. There's also a picture of a DinoCake that I made, only it's an uber pancake made from a mold-doodle-thing that my mom got the kids for xmas. It says it works with eggs- which is a complete and utter lie- but I finally mastered it with pancakes and now you all can see its glory. Okay, so it's nothing like Randal's, but nothing ever is, so why try? :)

There are also pictures from the gathering after the kid-festivities at Amber & Gabby's- Aiden made friends with their two french bulldogs, Ziggy & Petal, as well as a little girl named Keiko who is SO cute, as you can see. We found out that she's a model for Pottery Barn Kids, Gap and Children's Place or something else, too. They potty trained Gab's Cabbage Patch Kid- good thing, because otherwise  she would have been NO fun to sleep next to.

Randal is enjoying work very much- it is SUCH a blessing for all of us for him to have a job where his skills are so appreciated, especially since it's only 15-20 minutes away, as opposed to the base, which is  90-120+ minutes away, depending on traffic, weather and idiots on the road, which there are plenty of between here and there. We'll be moving in June to a bigger house with easier access to the freeway, and possibly a town or two South to shorten his commute even more. We trust the right place will come at the right time, although moving with a 2 month old should be interesting. It will be too bad to move from the close walking distance it is to both my mom's & grandma's houses, though. That is something really special. However, Randal's commute is not special at ALL and he commutes a lot more often than we walk, so move we shall. Poo. I have to use this jacuzzi tub while I can!

Oooh, speaking of which- I wish I could have Annika in that wonderful, huge tub, but it costs $3500 to have a midwife come to your house! Criminy. I really just don't love hosptials at all and it seems completely backwards in about a hundred ways to me to make childbirth standardized and medicalized, but at the current asking price, I have to be sensible and try to have a natural, normal birth in a completely unnatural, abnormal place. I'm just going to grab my ipod, some lavender oil, dark chocolate & raspberry leaf tea and hope for the best... but I am NOT wearing one of those butt-flap gowns, I don't care what they say!

Well, speaking of all of that, I have to get to the base with the boys to get a doctor to tell me I'm healthy and can write me a slip so I can see an OB (who actually has a midwife, which is excellent) so I can give birth for free in their stinkin' medical facility. Man. She better not come early! I'll be 37 weeks, which is considered full term, especially if you've had a child (or two) before. I'm not due until March 23rd, which is Amber's birthday, so she is under strict orders not to come out on ANY other day, though, like Aiden, I feel like she'll be a bit earlier. We'll see...

Whew. Okay. I better get going. I hope you all are well- do you like Annika Rose or Annika Jane or Annika something else? Feel free to comment....

oh-, and yes, for the record, I am STILL puking. Oh yes. The saga continues.

quote for the day: "The truth for women living in a modern world is that they must take increasing responsibility for the skills they bring into birth if they want their birth to be natural. Making choices of where and with whom to birth is not the same as bringing knowledge and skills into your birth regardless of where and with whom you birth."<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /> Common Knowledge Trust