Twitter & Facebook

I swore I never would....but I broke down.
I'm on Twitter....and Facebook
I really just wanted to follow what friends from college were doing...but now I'm on. Follow me...if you want to.

This is what happens with too much downtime at work.....

Crazy Cravings

I had my first true craving this afternoon. I keep trying to think/do other things to take my mind/tastebuds off of it but at this point I think I could truly drive the two hours that it would take to get to Carroll's Bakery in Spencer and have a bread bowl with homemade chicken and wild rice soup. If this craving continues I might just have to make the drive! Panera Bread in Ames is just 40 minutes away, but it isn't the same. It would do but I never know what day is Chicken and Wild Rice day either. Ugh!

BREAD BOWL HERE I COME!!

V-day or a blizzard day?

I have a sneaking suspicion that my dates are off on this pregnancy. I really didn't keep track of my last cycle because we weren't planning to get pregnant. I told the doctor that I thought maybe it was around the 25th, but woke up at around 2 a.m. last night realizing that it was before we went on vacation to Florida. I called the doctor and they are going to stick with my Aug. 10 appointment and might do an ultrasound then to date the baby. But if my new revelation of dates is correct, I'd be due on Valentine's Day and not on March 1 which is known for being a time of blizzards in Iowa. (I should know. My birthday is the 3rd and there's always a blizzard. I was born in the middle of one!) My other clue is that my clothes don't fit and I'm in maternity wear already. That shouldn't be happening at 8 weeks; 11 weeks yeah I could see that.
So we'll see...I'm just biding my time until Aug. 10th at 9 a.m.

Let the discomfort begin

Round ligament pain came knocking today. According to some web sites, this typically doesn't happen until around 16 weeks and I'm only halfway to that. I told the doctor that I'm not for certain on dates (it was unplanned - why would I keep track!!) so maybe the due date will be earlier. I won't be able to find out until my next appointment on Aug. 10th when we're supposed to hear the heartbeat for the first time at 12 weeks.

The one thing that I have learned though is that I don't have cravings this time around. None at all - which compared to the last two pregnancies is night and day! However I have learned that many of my favorite foods - mostly junk - are not high on the baby's list of yummy foods. No more apple fritters from Caseys. No chocolate bars. Very little soda because carbonation and this one just don't mix. Instead of finding myself going for food cravings, I'm finding my list of foods that I can eat quickly becoming smaller and smaller.

Oh so good!

Emilia had her first strawberry float on Friday at the wedding rehearsal dinner. When Aunt Kristi wasn't looking, Emilia stole quite a bit of the frothy strawberry foam from the top of her drink.

Yum! Yum!

Emilia loved it so much that she had to have her own!

Wedding weekend!

We had a very hectic but fun weekend as Aunt Kristi and now Uncle Ryan got married. There was lots going on but everyone had fun....and we are all happy that it's done and we can rest now!! Here are a handful of pictures from the weekend.

Emilia all dressed up for the wedding. This hair bow stayed in for a total of 2 minutes - long enough to get TWO pictures. Oh well!


This of course was that second picture with the hair bow.

Grace gets her hair all curled up for the wedding.

Emilia and grandpa at the wedding rehearsal. It was so chilly out that the girls wore fleece hoodies and pants over their dresses! Who knew it was July!?!?!

A busy weekend ahead!

We have a VERY busy weekend ahead of us.
Kristi, my youngest sister, is getting married on Saturday. "Hooray for Ti-Ti" as Grace would say!
We have family coming from all over the place - including Great-Grandma and Grandpa Day who haven't even met Emilia or cousin Wyatt yet!
The girls and I are headed up to Spencer tomorrow afternoon so that Great-Grandma and Grandpa can have some time to meet the little ones. Paul is joining us on Friday and then watchout because between decorating and the rehearsal dinner it will be busy! Saturday is the wedding and Sunday is the family breakfast and present opening. (Grace still doesn't understand that the presents being opened won't be for her.)
So I have LOTS of packing to do tonight and hopefully I don't forget anything!

But in the meantime I have a great story for you - courtesy of Miss Grace.
Earlier this week I took the girls up to the gas station to get some Sprite for Paul because he still had the flu. Rodeo practice just down the road had ended and most of the people were leaving the grounds - pickup trucks with horse trailers in tow. Well one of these guys pulled into Caseys right behind us and walked in behind us - cowboy hat and all. We got our Sprite and waited in the long line to pay. The guy with the horse trailer was behind us. Grace kept looking at him funny so he said hi to her. She just looked at him and asked "Are you a cowboy?" The guy smiled and looked at her and said "Yes I am a cowboy. How did you know?" Grace told him "You have a big hat on." After that it was our turn to pay. Grace said bye to the cowboy and we walked outside. But when we got outside there was another "cowboy" that was gassing up his big pickup truck at the gas tanks. The horse in his trailer was being a bit ornry making noise and kicking the trailer. Grace thought this was very interesting! But when the horse whinyed, Grace told him quite loudly "You don't say neehhh, You say YEE HAW!" Needless to say, all the "cowboys" laughed pretty hard at that one!!

What's in a name anyway?

With Grace and Emilia, I wasn't worried about naming them. Paul and I made a list throughout the first 20 weeks and the night prior to our big ultrasound chose a male and female name. When the ultrasound tech told us that we were obviously having girls, we named them then and they were no longer a "baby" - they were Grace or Emilia.

We had Emilia's name picked out for quite some time as it is a female take on the name Emil - Paul's great-grandfather who came to Iowa from Sweden - and it is the correct Swedish spelling of Amelia. With Grace we had originally picked "Grace" to be a middle name - Ava Grace - but decided that too many people were naming their kids Ava so we ditched that. Grace and Margaret were both family names and the big ephiphany moment was when we were watching the tv show Lost and our favorite character was named Maggie Grace. I think Maggie sounds like a dog's name so that was out but switch them around and you get Grace Margaret.

Easy enough....right?

Well of all things, I'm kind of starting to stress out about naming this one. It was such a surprise that we honestly haven't been adding to the "name sheet" for more than two years. I know so many people who have had or are having babies soon that I'm worried about dueling names. What if we have a boy and name him the same thing they do - what will we do at a play date? Or what is the rule if I like a certain name, but another family member - like my cousin - is named the same thing? If we use a family member's name as the baby's middle name does this mean I'm going to offend the other side of the family or another family member?

Naming Grace and Emilia was so simple - this time I'm stressing out a bit.

I bought a "name" book at Target today and made a new list of about 20 names. Thankfully I have a bigger list of boys names than just the one that I've loved for years - and I'm paranoid that someone else I know is going to use.

But being that we already have two girls I'm preparing myself for another girl and have tried to find good, old fashioned feminine names. I have one standby that we are saving for about another 5-8 years as Paul and I are looking into adopting from China sometime in the future. I have a decent list, but I'm sure my paranoia is just going to reak havoc on it in time.

At least I have another 13 weeks to add and delete from the list before Paul and I sit down the night before the ultrasound to pick the two perfect names for Baby Bloomquist the 3rd.

A week of pictures

Here are just a bunch of different pictures from the last week or so.

Emilia's first pigtails!
Grace rides the Big Wheel at Grandma & Grandpa's house

Emilia tries out the caterpillar for the first time. She loved it! Mommy and Aunt Kate and Kristi used to ride the caterpillar at Great-Grandma and Grandpa Day's house.

Grace tries corn-on-the-cob for the first time at Grandma & Grandpa's house over the 4th of July.

Juice box girls!

The "Super Slide"

The flu hit our house hard this week. We started the week with both Grace and Emilia being down and definitely out with it. Just when we thought we were in the clear, I got the flu Friday evening and Paul had it by midnight Saturday morning.
Thank goodness Grace is at the age of being mostly self-sufficient. She can get her own juice boxes and fruit snacks without any trouble.
But while Paul and I laid on the living room floor all weekend, Grace decided to entertain herself and Emilia. She took a big fold-out chair (you can unfold it into a bed) and propped half of it up on the couch and the other on the floor making her "Super Slide" as she calls it.
Once she convinced me to put my leg on the couch end to secure the Super Slide she decided to learn to somersault and also taught Emilia how to roll from the top to the bottom.
This was the only time in two days that Paul and I actually laughed - even though our stomachs hurt so bad!
The Super Slide has continued to be a lot of fun today as well!!
(Please excuse the mess on the floor. With two sick parents, the girls decided to get out every single toy in the house! And why not!?!?)

SURPRISE!

Well as you can see from the widget on the right side of the screen, we have some baby news!

God decided that he has a bigger and better plan than what Paul and I had in mind and we will be expecting Baby Bloomquist the Third on March 1st according to the doctor.

This was quite the surprise for us, but we are very excited!

So far so good though. No morning sickness this time around which is unlike Emilia. But my biggest clues prior to finding out from our doctor were my constant need for salsa and chips and my newfound aversion to the best food group - chocolate.

We are obviously hoping for a boy, but will be happy with a happy, healthy baby Bloomquist.

Back at Home

Paul made it home last night around midnight. There was some concern earlier in the day that he might miss one of his flights because of a delay on his first flight out of Medford, Oregon, but everything went smoothly.

Unfortunately he had only been home for about 10 minutes before Emilia decided to start vomiting again. She has done this off and on the last couple of days. We're getting her into the doctor yet this morning to see what's going on.

EDIT: We took both girls to the doctor today. They said that Emilia just has a lot of drainage from her sinuses and has to ride it out. Grace on the other hand - her cough is pretty loose and she has bronchitus - near pneumonia. So here we come Target pharmacy!!

But at least Paul is home and now he can help me with sick kids!!

On TV

For those of you that didn't know, I work at the Homeland Security Training Center on the Iowa Central Community College campus. I'm the Coordinator for the training center which means all scheduling, logistics, media info, etc. goes through me.
Well we are being featured this month on Congressman Tom Latham's television show. If you have MediaCom in Iowa, it's on channel 22 each Wednesday. But for those of you that don't, you can see it on YouTube.
Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYjrIQYm-74

Animals stay away!

I need to make a deer horn for myself evidently! I seem to be the mecca for animals wanting to get hit by a car lately. On Sunday while driving back from Fort Dodge with the girls and Ann, I hit a deer...and when I say hit I mean - nailed it! I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye and then it smashed into the driver's side headlight, rolled to the center of the van hood and then flew upside down onto the passenger side of the windshield and then flew up and over the luggage rack and down onto the ground. We are all ok and thank goodness when it hit the windshield it didn't go through it!! The deputy let me drive it home but because of possible radiator damage told me not to drive it even to the body shop after I shut it off. So hopefully Skoglund's in Dayton can get it fixed pretty quickly. Thank goodness for good insurance!

But to add to that, in the last three days I have also hit two bullfrogs, three birds, a squirrel and had another doe run into the road in front of me by the Dayton Golf Course.

I'm sure that all the animals are out now because it's finally cooling down after more than a week of 110+ heat indexes. But still....I'm tired of making friends with our Allied claims adjustor!!