Friday's Dose of Brilliance

I was a little late to the Facebook party. I've been on a little over a year I suppose, but still. I hung out with Myspace way past it's prime and then resisted Facebook for all the reasons I hated Myspace. Now I'm obsessed and spend way, way too much time on there during the day.

My friend Marcie posted this site on her facebook today and I love it. The site The Oatmeal has always been funny, but this article is amazing. I think I may sadly fall into one or two of these categories but whatever. Do you fall into any of them? I bet you do!

How to Suck at Facebook

Here are a few of my other fav Oatmeal things: How Twilight Works, 10 Words you need to stop misspelling, and How to Tell if your Cat is Plotting to Kill You.

Enjoy and have a great weekend. :)

Swim lessons

We've had Connor in swim lessons for about 18 months. He loves it and we really love that he's done so well--he's the youngest one in his class and is easily at the same level as the older kiddos. We're considering stopping the lessons just for a time/saving money purposes and we just can't decide whether or not to keep going. I'm so afraid that if we take him out now it will be like starting all over when he gets back into lessons down the road...especially since we don't have a pool so there really isn't any way to keep him swimming once lessons end. If anyone knows of a heated pool somewhere nearby so that we can take him every week or so, I'd love the suggestions!


Here's a video of him practicing his back float while kicking. Clearly, he loves the kicking part. :)

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Arizona was hit by some intense storms this past week. I told Katy that I'd take some pics of flodding and damage and saw this as I entered my neighborhood on Saturday. Some of the rain had already soaked up but if you look way in the back you can see a couple large, mature trees down.

Connor got some really cute PJs from Corliss (aka-Tashi). He loves them. We have to wash them constantly so he can wear them all week.

we're in pull-ups!

horrible pic but i was battling with the flash because you couldn't see all the rain unless I left it off. I love that my kid inheirited my obsession love of weather!

cheeeeeeese

someone made a mess

Week 22 Update

The worst is behind me! The puking and constant nausea is almost completely gone. It's such a difference and so nice to actually be able to enjoy pregnancy for the most part. I went from getting sick between 10-12 times per day to really only getting sick 2 times a day on a bad day. I've had a few days where I didn't puke at all. Progress my friends, progress! Such a horrible thing to say, but i'm worried that now that i'm not constantly puking, i'm going to get Huge.

It's been strange not having to be at the doctor's office as often, so I have that feeling that I've missed an appointment even though I haven't. I find myself checking the calendar multiple times throughout the day--this can also be blamed on pregnancy brain which I swear is a real thing. Unfortunately, as moms know, it doesn't go away after delivery...it just becomes baby brain. super.

Well, since i'm officially 22 weeks along today Noah is the size of a spaghetti squash. I have no idea how big a spaghetti squash is, but I'm told it's about 11" long. His little tooth buds are formed and his eyes are too--the irises won't have color for a bit still but it's crazy to think that this little guy already looks like a very small baby at this point. He's about a pound now and will really start growing more rapidly now.

We've been spending time getting both Connor and Noah's rooms ready to go, although we still have about 4 months until delivery day. I want Connor totally settled into his new room by the time Noah arrives...anything we can do to cut down on the initial jealousy is great as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to get Connor's room a bit farther in the process and get some pics posted. It's literally a playroom with a bed in it. It's a disaster, but we'll make sure it's clean enough for a few quick photos. Noah's room still has some of Connor's toys and clothes in it but otherwise it just needs some organization. My amazing friend Patricia is going to make him some super cute owls for his room so we're going to go and pick out fabric this week for those. I love this, but just can't pay $70 for a stuffed animal that will surely be covered in pee and vommit on a weekly basis.

Connor seems to be really excited about Noah and tells anyone who asks that his little brother's name is going to be Nono. Clearly, we have an annoying nickname forming here already. stellar. He also calls him Baby Madison sometime, as that's his youngest cousin's name so all babies right now are Baby Madisons. He's really great around babies right now which is nice and surprising all at the same time.

That's pretty much it for us right now. Thanks for checking in and I'm going to try to get Nearly Wordless Wednesday posts back up and running so fingers crossed for a post tomorrow!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

As usual, we've been pretty busy over the last couple of weeks. We've really tried (and somewhat succeeded) at limiting the activities we're involved in on weeknights and weekends. My friends rightfully give me a really hard time about how busy our family is and I know it's a bit intense. It's tough when you live in a place where you grew up and so there are always events, activities, birthday parties, showers, etc. with family and friends to attend. I love being busy and going from event to event...Jeffrey, not so much. :) Anyway, we really have slowed a bit over the last few weekends and have been spending more time at home. Here are a few random pics from over the last few weeks. Connor helped us make chili one evening. Unfortunately, he dumped way too many chilis in the pot so he didn't get to eat the chili. We did though, and it was so yummy.

at Grammy and Papa Barnes house. He got a Build a Bear gc for Christmas and shockingly chose to make a baseball bear. The bears name? Bear.

We have been enjoying the gorgeous weather and spending some time outside playing baseball, soccer and whatever else we happen to have in the car. You have to really take advantage of the nice weather since we're mostly trapped indoors from March-September.

i love this classic toddler boy pic

Connor (and Jeffrey) got a wii for Christmas from my mom and we all love bowling. Unfortunately, Connor can't really master the 'hold down the B trigger until you are ready to release the ball' part of bowling so both he and Jeffrey get super frusterated at his efforts. We decided to take an afternoon and go do some actual bowling. Jeffrey drove me crazy looking for a ball that was small enough for me to bowl with, given my doctor enforced limitations. I found a six pounder and told him to back off. If I'm being perfectly honest though, there were a couple times when something in my side pinched so I let Connor have a few extra turns. :) It was a fun day and something we are going to try and do more often. There were some hilarious moments when we let Connor roll the ball himself and the attendant guy had to come and save his ball that stalled about 1/4 of the way down...i'm sure he loved us. Eventually, we started trying to hit his stalled balls with other balls...not sure which is better as far as the staff here are concerned though.

this is Connor's new smile. it creeps me out so badly but occasionally i'm able to get a normal, non-psycho child smile so I will deal with it.

Connor has fallen in love/lust with racecars over the past couple months, so he saw this game and had to play it. His car tends to stick to the wall mostly, but he loves it.

I'm sure Jeffrey would love this shot, but it's too cute to not post. They wear these flippin jerseys every time the Eagles play. Unfortunately, we run errands on Sundays a lot

patiently waiting his turn to bowl

Really tough to see, but if you look really close you can see Connor's green ball about halfway down in the gutter. That's where it stayed for several minutes until Jeff knocked it down the lane with another ball. We decided that next time we'll get that rack for kids that you roll the ball down so that it's more productive.

Here's his good smile :)

Poop and Pee - you've been warned

Connor has been potty training for a bit now--some parts of this post may be a bit graphic and heavy on the poop/pee stories so consider yourself warned. At school, they take them several times a day as a group to the bathroom, plus whenever the kids tell them that they have to go. They've been doing that for months, but Connor seems to be a 'social potty user' and enjoys the fun of going to the bathroom with his friends. is that weird? We haven't really pushed him much at home until this past week. He just didn't show a ton of interest until recently so we've started formally potty training him. It's going very well and he doesn't seem to have any of the fears or issues that I have heard about. I've had friends whose kids hate the sound of the flush. Connor finds it hilarious. I just have to get him to close the lid before he does it for gross sanitary reasons. I've had friends tell me that their kids don't like to poop in the potty. Connor loves it and everytime one falls, he hops off his potty and looks lovingly upon his masterpiece. Then he counts the poops when he's done. The kid cracks me up. We've split up the potty time between asking him pretty regularly if he needs to potty and him just telling us that he needs to go.

We ran lots of errands on the holiday this Monday and he had zero accidents in his diaper for about 10 hours straight, which is pretty long considering we're just getting started. He went to the bathroom about 6 times during that window and each time his diaper was clean and dry. On one stop at Target, Connor loudly announced that he had to poopoo and Jeffrey took him to the bathroom. When they emerged Jeff said that he had infact pooped and then Connor got a look on his face like he needed to get back in the bathroom. He quickly recovered and screamed, literally screamed, I TOOTED. amazing. Often, people who don't talk to toddlers all day can't tell what they are saying but fortunately for all the Target goers that day, this came out loud and clear. I'm not easily embarrassed and actually found this to be hilarious. It really is a proud moment when your little baby hits these milestones. Don't get me wrong, we still have a looooong way to go in this arena. He doesn't like to let us know that he needs to go potty if he's doing something that he doesn't want to walk away from--snacking, watching mickey, playing baseball, etc. We've got a sticker chart that we're starting this weekend so hopefully that will help. He oddly seems to do best when we're out running around, but that means gross public bathrooms where he insists on touching everything.

I think that my ultimate goal would be to not have two sizes of diapers in the house at the same time. It's common for an older child to revert to accidents when a baby comes along, so I'd love for Connor to be consistent enough in his potty training that we can avoid that. We'll see. I'm really not too worried about it. He'll do it when he's ready, it's just really amazing watching him become a little boy. :)

Week 21 Update

It feels funny not having a doctor's appointment this week. Not like i have one every week, but it sure felt like it there for a while, between normal OB appts being scheduled every 2-3 weeks, and ultrasounds being set up in between. Right now we have the second Level 2 coming up on Feb 5th and the next OB appointment on Feb 8th so I have a couple weeks to enjoy not being at the doctor's office. Looking forward to it!

Twenty one weeks means that I'm more than halfway there. Since I'm delivering at 39 weeks, I guess I only have 18 weeks to go. When you think of it like that it seems really soon, but it's really not. I saw online yesterday that I have something like 127 days left or something silly like that. Should countdowns really start that early on? No. I don't think that they should. It's like starting the Christmas countdown in August. No bueno.

yes, that's Miley Cirus dressed as a carrot.

My 21 week update said that Noah is currently the size of a carrot. He's roughly 10.5 inches long and about 3/4 of a pound now. At this point, he's due to start gaining weight pretty rapidly. I'm really only feeling him move around, but that will soon turn to full on kicks as he gets biggger and stronger. I'm looking forward to that. It never really got painful with Connor. I just liked feeling him moving around. No matter how hard the kick to the ribs, it's a constant reassurance that he's in there and doing ok. This week his eye lids and brows are present which is quasi-creepy.

This may be very egocentric, very possible, but I feel like everyone is pregnant right now. Connor was born during a huge baby boom and I'm feeling like it's happening again. Seriously. There are two girls from my sorority pledge class who are due the same week as I am, as well as several girls from high school, work, etc. Facebook has really made it obvious that about 5 months ago several of us were doing the same thing. Thanks facebook, that's not creepy at all.

Oh, i'm thinking about getting one of those creepy floating baby countdowns on here-not just a plain ticker thing. I saw one on someone's blog that had funny developmental notes...any thoughts or recommendations?

That's really it for now, thanks :)

UPDATE: I found a couple baby tickers that weren't boring. The creepy floating baby is on the right menu and the blue ticker with funny developmental stuff is right below it. which does everyone like more??

Week 20 Update

One thing about pregnancy that is a bit tough to deal with is the teeny tiny list of medications that are ok to take. As far as headaches and muscle pain goes, I'm an Aleve girl. Unfortunately...even one dose of anything stronger than Tylenol can be dangerous to a pregnancy so I am stuck with Tylenol. Such a bummer, but whatever. Somewhere in the last couple of days, I managed to pick up a cold or sinusy something or other. Dealing with this without aleve cold and sinus is no bueno.

According to my weekly emails, now that I'm 20 weeks along little Noah is the size of a banana. There is something twisted about me but whatever food they tell me the baby is sized like, is the food that sounds extremely tasty to me. I'm gross. At this point, he's swallowing more and making meconium, that disgusting tar junk that will be his first BM.

I had another doctors appointment yesterday which was full of nearly all good news. My doctor confirmed yesterday that the perinatal office was pleased with my ultrasound and said that my placenta had moved to a good position and that we were pretty much out of the danger zone in regards to the previa and accreta. Great news, really great news! They did however say that they want me back in 2-4 weeks for another Level 2 ultrasound to look at Noah's heart. Before you flip out like I did, don't. At my first Level 2 appointment a couple weeks ago, Noah wasn't being very cooperative when they tried to see the heart. They could get a strong heart beat and see that there were all parts accounted for, but he just wasn't wanting to position himself in a way that they could get enough shots of the heart so they want us back in a couple weeks to try again. They've already assured us that nothing is wrong with the heart, so I'm just looking forward to getting to see him again. I love ultrasounds!

The doctor also told me that I'm measuring a bit big which is incredible news to us. I asked if it was because I was gaining too much weight. My doctor laughed and told me no, that in fact I was down another pound from my last appointment a few weeks ago. He said that the uterus has measured a teeny bit big all along which was news to us. I'm positive Connor measured small all along. Maybe this baby will make it to 7lbs. Doesn't matter to me, I'm a section so the baby could come out huge for all I care. Not really. I like my small babes. Back to the weight gain issue, I am apparently down 10lbs overall through the pregnancy which is ok since Noah is still thriving and growing perfectly. I've gained weight but not enough to even out after all the puking, so I'll probably come close to breaking even at the end I'd guess.

My blood pressure concerns seem to be gone and Noah's heartbeat was strong at 144 this week. Once again, they had difficulty finding it due in part to the placement of my placenta...but mostly due to the fact that the nurse told me that the baby was ornery and really, really fast. I told her we liked our kids ornery and that we'll keep him! Connor came with us to the appointment again and was again, pretty freaked out seeing me on the table. I think this may be the last time we take him. I want him there to see/experience all of this, but there are just too damn many buttons and expensive machines for him to mess with in there. I'd like for him to be there for an ultrasound, but the level two is pretty long and i just don't think he'll last. i'm not sure if i'll have another ultrasound after that one so we may be out of luck. The level twos come on a dvd with the entire video of the scan so maybe we'll just watch that together at home.

The other great news that we got at the doctor yesterday is that we don't need to come back for a regular OB appointment for 4 weeks! That may seem like the normal amount of spacing between appointments, which it is! But during this pregnancy, we've had to come back every 2-3 weeks because of all the issues so this seems to be a landmark for us! Our doctor told us that he thinks we've passed all the complications and that we should be free and clear at this point. I hope he's right obviously.

Thanks for checking in on us...I'm off to find a banana smoothie! :)

Week 19 Update

New Years Eve 2010--19 weeks and the belly is in full force--and i'm drinking apple cider

I can't believe that I'm halfway there. This has taken effen forever this time around. Seriously.

The biggest, most exciting news right now is that Noah has a birthday. It's an odd, surreal, almost wrong feeling thing to choose your child's birthday. It was also awesome. So friends and family, he'll arrive on May 27th!! Very exciting. It was a very practical approach we took to choosing the date. Connor's school ends their spring semester on May 27th and summer camp starts up the next monday. we pay for summer seperately and were kinda stressing about having to pay for that at $750/month when i was off for 8 weeks with zero pay :( boo. it works out so great that he'll just be off with me and we won't have to put out that money for a couple months. So, right now we're waiting to hear from the hospital with the exact time of my delivery. We're hoping for a morning appointment so we can just drop connor off at school on the way to the hospital. "Bye Connor, have a great day...we're off to have a baby. Don't forget to tell the teacher when you have to poop." Strange.

In other news, my belly has officially popped. I went from looking like I had a big meal to having an obvious baby belly in about a week. it really is true that you show sooner on the second baby I guess. This time I powered through the nausea and puking and forced myself to eat so I'm sure that helped too!

Everything with Noah and pregnancy is great at this point. Knowing it's a boy and having decided on a name really helps me to deal with the nausea and everything. My weekly update I got on Tuesday said that baby is about 6 inches long from head to butt, so probably around 8 inches total at this point. He's the size of an heirloom tomoto...where do people find these mutant large tomatoes?? I like tomatoes. The update also said that at this point, it's believed that the baby can hear what's going on around him so reading, music, talking, etc are all fun ideas. Still really tired, starting to waddle and have to stand up slowly or I get all dizzy so that's all normal at this point. I'm really feeling him more this week which is still so amazing the second time around.

Jeffrey told me yesterday that he thinks it would be fun to take a picture of Noah every day of his first year. I know we unintentionally came close to doing that with Connor so it shouldn't be too difficult, but I think we'll go for it. I want to try and get out of the second child rut and do things that are new and special for Noah. We are obsessed with Connor, so we took millions of photos of him--as demonstrated by this blog obviously. I also saw many of my friends take a cute pic of their kids on their 'monthly birthday' holding a little sign that says 8 months, 9 months, etc. I think that's cute and I def want to do that.

For second time, or third time parents out there...Did you do anything special with your second child to avoid the whole issue of doing everything in the world for your first and then barely getting pics of your second?? :) If so, comment and tell me. I'd love to hear the ideas.

Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas together this year. It's still amazing to me to think that this is Connor's last Christmas as an only child. The thought is surreal and I just can't imagine what next year will be like.

Well, like everyone's holiday, ours is jam-packed with house hopping and gifts, food and chaos. We start out the holiday with Christmas Eve with the Barnes side of the family. We went to Mass at 4pm and Connor did amazing. We never took him for fear that he'd be "that kid" running around and screaming, but it's certainly possible that was a big, fat excuse. Apparently, it's an excuse that we just can't really use anymore because the kid loved it. We went to St. Andrews and it was a family mass, so there were tons of other kids there for him to stare at. Not gonna lie, he did way, way better than any of those other kids. At one point, they were projecting biblical images onto the walls around the alter and connor saw a cow. He shouted out Moo pretty loud, but it was pretty funny-to me. Otherwise, he grabbed the hymn books and pretended to read them. When he'd successfully finished one, he'd grab another one.

After church, it was time to head over to Jeff's parents house for dinner. We're really not a fan of their traditional dinner of cream of wheat, sour krout, sausage and mushrooms so Jeffrey and I started our own tradition a few years ago of cruising through the In & Out drive thru on our way to the house. That way we can pick at our "traditional meal" with the family and still be well-fed. After dinner, we opened up gifts. This year was a bit different that all years in the past though. Jeffrey has a large family. There are typically between 15-20 people there for Christmas and so the adults draw names and you give that one person gifts. We all always buy for the kiddos, but this way it's not out of control expensive for everyone. This year, there were a few adults who needed to opt out of the drawing so we just scratched it all-together. So, all the gift giving and opening was for the kids. I know that sentence should be followed by "and that's really the way it's supposed to be" but all I want to do is follow it up with "and it made it really boring for me". OMG. I'm such a horrible person, but i'm an honest horrible person. My name is Lindsay Barnes and I like presents. Is that so terrible? Here are some photos from the Christmas Eve celebration...

Our little niece Madison Marie, Megan and Ryan's youngest. She's just a couple months old and I had to get a pic of her in her little santa dress. This poor little girl is going to be so incredibly overprotected...just in case anyone is keeping score it's 6 boys (including Noah) and ONE girl at this generation. Poor thing!

Connor in his Christmas sweater

wrestling with his cousin Kaden

staring adoringly at baby Madison

My SIL Sarah holding Madison - Sarah hates getting her photo taken. I told her that she wasn't in this one-because I'm a liar.

Our nephew Jacob loves his Bumblebee that we got him.

Connor attacking Uncle Chuck with someone else's light sabre thingy

this was another favorite present this year, though i see it doesn't really look like it from teh photo. It's a Mickey truck that Aunt Annie (Stephanie) got him from Disneyland. The truck holds the little cars that he loves. He broke it the first night, but we managed to get it fixed.

Uncle Ryan and and Aunt Bobbie (Megan)

omg. this was a highlight for me. Kaden is really into Star Wars. I am not. He got an Annikan costume and apparently all jedi's have hair like this. I just had to get a pic of his rat tail that came with the costume. (it's possible i got some of the star wars references wrong in this caption--i really just don't care enough to google it. sorry.)

Connor was way too wound up to stay still for a photo, so we took one just the two of us. :)

this is our nephew Jalen--an 8th grader showing off his new size 14 shoes. SIZE FREAKIN 14. He's about 6'1" I think and he's not near done growing.

After we got home, we finished building Connor's big gift for the year. Last year, he got his playroom and the big gift was the room and the table and chairs that he wanted. This year, he got a big boy bed...and the playroom became his bedroom.

Christmas morning we wake up, get dressed and the longest day in all days begins. My parents come over around 9am and we have a quick breakfast with lots and lots of coffee. Then the presents begin and go on for quite some time. After all the gifts and stockings are opened, we sit down to the traditional Christmas dinner, most importantly...the yummy ham!

cruel mama made him pose for a pic next to the pretty tree before the ravaging of presents began.

we wrapped up his pillow in the box and let him open that. then we walked him into his new room and showed him his new bed with the lightning mcqueen bedding he'd picked out previously. he was really surprised! we still have some arranging and decorating to do in his new room, but he's really enjoying it. The transition went pretty well. He's waking up a bit more at night but he goes back to bed and doesn't get out of bed during the night.

my mom got connor a wii for christmas. he's obsessed. baseball, golf, boxing, all of it. he loves it. jeffrey and i were pretty stoked as well. we've both woken up sore from the wii. who needs wii fit when baseball makes my entire body stiff and sore (that's what she said).


oh Papa. My dad thinks it's hilarious to buy really noisy gifts for Connor. Hilarious. Connor is really into cars right now-the movie and the little matchbox cars. This thing is a racetrack for cars that makes a horrible noise when they take off. We have a fool-proof fix for this--put clear packing tape over the speaker and then poke one or two holes in the tape so that the noise can still be heard...just not from three rooms away.


Thanks Papa for braving Toys R Us on Black Friday to get Connor his beloved Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Papa (my dad) got Connor a ring toss game and he loves it. It's made of foam and he brings it out to the great room all the time to play. You can see the ring in mid-air in this shot which is pretty funny.


My mom got an iPod and doesn't give herself enough credit on being able to figure it out. So I got her an iPod for Dummies book in her stocking. :)


...of course there were baseballs


Connor with Papa and Grammy Van Hook

Our growing family...this is me at 18 weeks. i know you can't totally tell here but my belly has officially popped. I went from nothing to being all baby in the belly in about a week.

After presents and the meal at our place, Jeffrey, Connor and I head over to visit our family friends Carroll & Danny. Carroll and Danny host an open house every Christmas and it's a 'don't miss' for us. They breed, raise and train shelties so Connor loves that there are always so many dogs around. I honestly think they have about 11 at the house now, but because of all the people they weren't out and about this day. Connor had to settle for chasing around just one doggy that afternoon.

Carroll and Danny gave Connor one of his favorite gifts of the holidays...a fun tent that he went in and out of all day. It's in his room now and he loves it. He takes books in there and sits and reads.

After Carroll and Danny's open house we head back to our house and my dad and Corliss come over for yet another Christmas celebration. It's always a nice, low key end to a crazy, hectic day. :)

We hope that you had a wonderful Christmas as well - thanks for checking in on us!!