Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Youtube videos

So last night James comes running up the stairs yelling "Amanda....Amanda.....Amanda". I totally think something is wrong. Then I realize he is excited so maybe something amazing happened.

No.

He was carrying the ipad and had a video he wanted me to watch. This is the video he wanted me to watch.
Very cute. But then I started watching the videos that are linked below the one you are currently watching. After about 5 minutes I come across one with a soldier coming home. I don't know why it was linked to my baby animals search. But then it just snowballs. And I am sitting in bed 39weeks 5 days pregnant crying hysterically  And I can't stop watching them. 

James comes back in and this is the conversation

J: "how did you come across coming home videos? You were watching baby animals"
A: "I don't know. Youtube has it out for me. I always end up crying"
J: "Well stop and go back to the baby animals now"

So I did. Then I watched videos about English mastiffs. But that made me sad too because I miss Tiny and mom says he isn't doing so well. 

Luckily I have a husband who can always make me laugh because he then decided it would be fun to make baby deer screaming noises.

Moral of the story: Stay off the internet. 




Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Family inside jokes

So every family has them. They usually are so well known that they just become a word. Or maybe it is not even a joke, just a name your family has for something no one else does.

Well the Blakeney Family (my side) has tons of these.

I have noticed over the last few months that my husband not only uses these words or phrases in everyday life but he will also refer to jokes and stories from before we met. I think it is so awesome. So here are a few  of the things he has said in the last few months. (one of these days he is not going to be happy that he is the center of a lot of my blog posts).

Dramatized: this is an actual word but my family does not use it in the proper context. Sometime before I was born a friend of my aunt used this word instead of traumatized. Apparently she did not just say the wrong word she thought that was the word. My family now uses it on a semi-regular basis to express when we are almost but not quite traumatized :) by the way, I do not know who this original person was, I don't know if I have ever met her and I am not quite sure exactly when this event took place.

James uses this often. Especially when telling stories.

The Bumble: My family is very into Christmas. We have lots of traditions (which we will all throw fits if they get messed up), special events, and TONS of decorations. One of our traditions started when we were very young. My dad traveled for work so on Christmas Eve he took all of us kids out all day and Mom stayed home and wrapped presents so that they were not up all night. Of course we have specific things we have to do each year. One of those things was to go out and buy some Christmas ornament. Now this sounds easy. Wrong. Most stores have removed all of their Christmas items by Christmas Eve. But one year we struck gold. I believe I was a Jr or Sr in high school and we found a collectors set of hand blown ornaments from the clay action movie of Rudolph. It was a special that the store was doing that year. And we bought one for each of the characters. It was awesome and we hung them up when we got home. The next morning as my mother was removing a present from under the tree she broke the Bumble. The Bumble is everyone's favorite character. It was devastating and we have never let her live it down. We probably bring it up at least 5 times each Christmas.

About 3 months ago James and I were having a conversation about something completely unrelated to this when out of the blue he says "Well if your mom hadn't broken the Bumble everything would be fine". I do not believe I have heard anyone in my family refer to this event outside of the Christmas season. I just about died. I think I laughed for 5 minutes and then had to call my mom to let her know James totally blamed her :)

The KiKi: My youngest sister had a blanket as a lovie item that she could not be without. As a baby she could not say blankie and so she called it KiKi. Kiki became a name and had a personality and we often wandered the house calling for her when she was lost (older siblings are awesome right). But now all blankets that belong to someone (not just a throw) are called Kiki.

James used this just last night. I was moping on the couch not feeling well because I am hugely pregnant and ready to give birth and he asked if I wanted him to get me the "soft kiki". I am sure he uses this term more than I realize because I am just used to hearing it.
Though I think the most telling time was when he used it on the phone with his mother. She was talking about nicknames for the family that the baby could use and Kiki was one they came up with for Kathleen (James' sister). His immediate response was "why? That is what you call blankets". It was really funny because he was so straightforward about it, like that is what everyone calls them and I am sure she had no idea what he was talking about.




The thing with little family specialized things is that sometimes when someone new comes in they can feel left out and the family usually never notices because they are so common. I think it is amazing that my husband was brought so easily into my family and I am so thankful for that. I also cant wait to create some of our own stories, words and jokes :)
Random pic of us from 2007
At James' med school graduation
Tiny Christmas 2007, he was not mentioned in this blog post but James knows all of his stories and retells them often :)
Melissa, Martina (adopted family member), and Sarah Christmas 2007. You can see our Christmas craziness in the background
At Grammie's Graduation Party

Monday, September 10, 2012

Updates and Baby countdown

So I have not been able to update as often as I wanted to which you will soon learn why. Here is what has been happening the last few days.

HOME IMPROVEMENT

My lovely husband decided he needed to take on huge projects less than 2 weeks before my due date. He has had tons of fun. It has just been stress and more work for me.

On Labor day there was a huge sale on paint so James decided to paint the basement. He has never painted anything before let alone by himself. So he went and bought all of the supplies and paint. A lovely shade of maroon. He was able to get the whole first coat done that day. But during this process we have to keep the dog out of the basement. Can you imagine- I can just see it now, maroon dog prints all over the house and dog hair in the the wet paint on the walls. That means 39 week pregnant me gets to carry laundry up and down stairs and try to make it over baby gates. Day one of this project ended with out major problems so I became optimistic.

Throughout the week James would paint the second coat on part of the room after he got home from work. This sounds great except he tends to forget to clean brushes and rollers and leaves them in paint trays with lots of paint. So after buying several rounds of paint and rollers the second coat was finished by Saturday. Still not too bad, right?

(side note) Right after we moved in James wanted to price out putting new carpet in the basement. We eventually decided we did not need to right now.

Somehow, even with drop cloths and plastic large globs of maroon paint ended up on the carpet. Meaning we need new carpet according to James (I am slightly convinced this happened on purpose). Still not too bad, its a basement we don't need to replace right away.

(side note) this project is why I had very limited internet for the last week.

On Saturday I realize my husband has disappeared. So I make it down stairs to find that he has removed all of the windows. Yes. I have 3 holes in my basement wall and it looked like it was going to rain. James had decided he needed to clean the windows, scrape the window casings, caulk and put in new weather stripping. Well that is all well and good but has he ever done this before? No. And did I mention the rain?

Turns out the rain held off, the windows got put back and everything is fine.

(side note) every time he started painting I reminded him to change into old painting clothes.

Sunday after church James decides he needs to do some touch up and paint around the windows and everything will be done. (Thank goodness). I decided after a full week he did not need to be reminded to change his clothes (he is 27). Wrong. Now I need to figure out how to get maroon paint out of his church clothes. Which I don't think will happen.

According to my dad this is what new fathers do. They nest by doing home improvements. I just wonder why it has to happen so close to my due date.

RE-CERTIFICATION

So, I hold several certifications in the fitness industry. They all are from different organizations which mean they have different lengths of certification and different ways to re-cert. Oh and they all cost lots of money. So my spinning instructor certification expires October 2nd. Yeah, I know I procrastinated. But to be fair I challenged some credits earlier in the summer and it took them 8 weeks to get back to me. Also they gave me less credits than I think they should have. So, I downloaded an online course last night which I am trying to finish before this baby is born. (by the way if you didn't notice I am procrastinating doing that by blogging)

REDSKINS FOOTBALL

So I was not surprised that we did not get the Redskins game on local TV networks. (We will next week because we play the Rams). But I am highly annoyed with ESPN. On Sunday they played 7 hours of coverage from the 2011 Crossfit Challenge Games and no football. Really! on opening weekend. Then I recorded/watched Sports center so I could see the highlights. If you have never watched sports center they have a list of what is coming up on the right side of the screen. All of the other games had both team names listed. But they had "Saints lose opening game" was what the segment about the skins saints game. Come on cant the Skins get credit for winning a game, it does not happen often give the fans a little love.


BABY COUNTDOWN

So my due date is September 14th. Which means I am due 4 days from now. Yes, life sucks at the end of pregnancy and you just want it to be over. But the good part about having her in my tummy still is that I already know how to be a perfect mommy to an unborn child.

Also at this point, I can not call any friends or family because they immediately think I am calling because I am in labor. None of them want to talk to me, just want to know about when the baby is coming. (This might be a slight exaggeration but it sometimes feels like that)

You get no new pics of anything because my camera is packed for the hospital and I dont want to upload and deal with plugging in my iphone. So here are some pics from earlier in the summer that are from facebook.

James and Slider watching the Hokie Game vs. GT

Slider loves playing in boxes, until he eats them

Smelling flowers in the backyard. 


Wednesday, September 5, 2012

My lucky life.


So I missed 2 days because we did not have internet. But I am back!

I realized this week that I am lucky to have met my husband in college. You are probably thinking "well yeah that makes life easier". What I am really trying to say is that we share so much common background because of this. College is where you learn who you really are and grow into the person you are going to be. I feel so privileged to have done that with my husband at my side.

You are probably wondering what lead me to this realization this week. Well I have always thought this but several things happened this week that lead me to think about this.

1. Football always revolves around the Hokies. No house divided here. (except when the Giants play the Redskins, but that is a different story)
2. While I feel huge and disgusting as I reach 39 weeks pregnant I am reminded that my husband remembers me as a college freshman. When I was a size 2 and weighed 110lbs.
3. Conversations like this happen while driving to get me a Milkshake (pregnancy cravings)
    James: Have you ever gotten a Wopper from Burger King and then drove to get fries from Mcdonalds?      Its awesome.
    Me:  Yes, I did this with you in college.
    James: oh, yeah.
    Me: it was when we were both hungover after the Rescue squad banquet party
    James: Oh yeah. Wait, I wasn't hungover.
    Me: I was. We played quarters and I decided to use a screwdriver as my drink.
    James: That was stupid. Why did you do that?
    Me: I was a freshman and my upperclassman boyfriend did not advise me of my mistake beforehand.
    James: Oh, sorry.
4. It is completely normal for us to paint our basement Chicago Maroon.
5. He understands my huge desire to drive through Southwest Va on our way to visit home next time.


See, I am really lucky. But I am mostly lucky because I found my soul mate and would be even if it had took us longer to meet.
Jr. Year Hiking to the Cascades
   
Sophomore year at James Graduation
Sr. Year at Rescue squad banquet

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Silly pregnancy info and Baby Names

So you find out your pregnant and the first thing you think you need is the What to Expect When Expecting book. Well in this day and age you can just sign up for their website which has all the same information as well as forums to discuss different things. They also have an app for your phone and they will send you emails with different information.

So I did this when I found out we were having a little one. I also got a few other free apps and signed up on thebump.com and other pregnancy websites. This means I get about 2-3 emails a day with pregnancy information. Sounds great right? Not really. One the info is VERY redundant. The information you receive is supposed to correspond to the part of pregnancy you are in. About 95% of the emails I received were links to articles about one of the following:
- Its ok to gain weight when you are pregnant
- Your weight gain is normal.
- It is ok to have sex while pregnant
- How to not gain to much weight
- How to reduce morning sickness. (none of these solutions worked for me)

Anyway, you can see how I just stopped reading the emails all together and they immediately were deleted. It has gotten a little better because I am almost done and some of the articles are starting to get interesting. But I am still getting about 3 emails a week about names. The name emails started coming around 24 weeks and at one point I was getting about 2 a day.

One of the things I don't understand about the name info they continually mention is how parents do not want to pick names in the top ten most popular. Tons of the articles are about alternative names if you like one of these. Maybe I don't get it because in 1987 (the year I was born) Amanda was number 3 on the list. James has been in the top ten until 1993. We both grew up with other kids in our class with our names. And while we both did not like being Amanda B. or James B. the main reason was that the other kid got to be only Amanda or James with out a last initial. I would have been totally fine if Amanda Thomas was called Amanda T. but she was just called Amanda (we were in the same class 3 years in a row). Boys are a little different and when they get older they just go by last names. Now that I am older I have run into less Amandas, probably because it was only in the top for a few years.

With the increasing popularity of "unique" names and spellings the names in the top ten have less kids with that actual name than there was 20 years ago. James and I have no problem with the fact that the name we picked (Emily) is #6. Example: Emily was #6 in 2011 with 7,375 babies with this name out of 1,000,000 where when Amanda was #6 in 1978 there was 12,488 babies with that name out of 1,000,000. That means that less than 1% is named Emily even though it is ranked 6th.

Maybe I have a weird opinion but I looked at those alternatives because I was curious. I hated all of them.

Does anyone else have a popular name and found it to be horrible? Not that we plan on changing our name choice I am just curious.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Tornados and Football




So we have had a few storms the last 2 days. Yesterday I heard my first tornado siren. VA did not get many tornados so we did not have sirens. I was hanging out talking to my mother in law on the phone when I heard this siren noise. I did not think much of it at first because we have ambulances passing our house often. When the siren did not go away I decided to investigate. I hung up with my mother in law and checked my phone. Sure enough tornado watch and warning in effect and a touch down. So I decided it was best to go to the basement. The dog did not agree. He thought it was amazingly fun to run away and evade the 38 week pregnant girl. Eventually I caught him and we worked our way downstairs to the laundry room. All was well but I thought it was pretty cool that we have sirens. I had no idea we had those. But they are not very loud so if I had the TV on I probably would not have heard it.


Football starts this weekend! I am so excited. Tech plays on Monday vs. Georgia Tech and the game is on ESPN so we get it out here. So far only about 5 games are scheduled on channels we will get for the season. This could change depending on rankings but I am going to soak up as much Tech football as I can. We started watching a few games that were on today but it is not as fun when you have no care for the outcome or about either of the teams. I am really excited that E has her football game outfit ready already. I posted a pic on facebook a few days ago but I thought I would post about where I got the items. This is the same outfit she is going to come home from the hospital in. We want to keep it and have all our children come home in this outfit. Kind of silly but I think its cute.

VT coming home outfit. She will be ready for some football!
I found the most of it on Etsy. The bodysuit also came with an embroidered hat. I got it from Addie Kakes Kreations she sells tons of cute embroidered items, mostly baby stuff. She also has lots school logos so you can get whatever you want. She works with whatever you want so you can pick long sleeve or short sleeve body suit in several colors and the hat can have anything too. The one I ordered says Future Hokie but is in Maroon.  She was really fast and I can defiantly see ordering from her again in the future. 

Etsy order pic from Addie Kakes Kreations
The hat is probably the cutest thing ever. In the picture above you see an orange hat with a maroon flower clipped on. The order I made at etsy for this came with 2 hats one orange and one maroon, 2 flowers one orange and one maroon (both on clips so they can be moved around), and 3 headbands one orange, one maroon and one white. I ordered them from Stylin N Profilin. This order took a little longer to come but it was a mix up at the post office and the seller was very helpful. This seller makes lots of bows but also makes some really cool wipes cases and just added travel changing pads. She has a Facebook page you can order from too with all of her fabric options and she posts clearance items as well. She has VT fabric and I would love to order a cute wipes case. Maybe something for Christmas. 

Etsy order pic from Stylin N Profliin

I was going to make a tutu that was orange and maroon but did not get around to it. I also don't think she needs it for the coming home so I think I will wait until next football season to make it. I finished off the outfit with a pair of jeans. I got them for $2 at Once Upon a Child. I love that place. All in all I am really excited about the cuteness. Now if she will only get here :)