Happy Birthday Belly

I woke up this morning to quite a surprise! Once again my birthday snuck up on me - evidently, after doing the math, I turned 44 this year and honestly it feels just like 43.

Thanks to Maggie, Lola (yes she masterminded the whole belly message thing), Brett, Sue, Alissa, Mama, Meaghan, Doug, and everyone who wished me a happy birthday, it was really appreciated.

We had a nice quiet day, Lola told us she wanted the french toast deluxe for dinner so we indulged her at our favorite diner.

Week 22 progress pic

It's week 22 already, according to the fitpregnancy.com updates, the baby is the size of a small grapefruit. We've been remiss in taking weekly progress pictures, we missed the "banana", "carrot", and "heirloom tomato" shots! When Maggie's mom heard during week 20 the baby is the size of a banana, she was sure the sonogram would show its a boy!

Maggie's appetite has returned with a vengeance, it seems Lola is craving decaf iced coffee, napoleans, and seafood salad this week. She's been moving around quite a bit and hopefully soon i'll be able to feel a wee kick or karate chop from the outside.

Doesn't she look beautiful!

Her name is Lola....

We've been anticipating this day for quite a while - the 20 week sonogram! Maggie is halfway there and today we learned the sex of the baby. We've been holding off on buying baby clothes until we knew and we were more then ready to find out.

During the sonogram the baby was moving a lot, Maggie says it feels like a fish swimming around in her belly. The technician was taking shots of whatever presented itself, hands, feet, head, heart, everything it seemed except between the legs. After several minutes of scanning the baby from head to toe the baby moved so its legs were facing up, the technician got a good closeup and told us the news....

She's a baby girl!!

We picked both boy and girl names out many months ago, her name is Lola Teresa Campbell, in honor of both of Maggie's grandmothers. We couldn't be happier!

Spring has sprung

The signs are unmistakeable, the snow storms of winter have passed, the trees are all in bud, the feeders are full of colorful birds, and the chicken coop is full of fresh eggs! We put fresh chicken feed in the coop this morning and the little bird wouldn't come down from her roost, once she was shifted there was a pile of eggs as big as her. As you might imagine, the little light brown eggs are the work of the smaller hen and the bluish ones come from Henrietta, the bigger Araucana hen. Henrietta, by the way, is over 10 years old!


Also heralding the new season, Maggie's prized Camellia is in full bloom with beautiful white flowers.

Here's hoping you're all enjoying better weather and looking forward to the new season.

What is this alien technology?

As one of the first steps in getting the "baby room" in order we have to relocate the current tenants, our cats Mr Nay and Papi. Their toiletries and dining accoutrements are located in said premises therefore we need to turf them out on their feline butts. This leads to the question where can be move the cat boxes and food bowls? After much cogitating we decided to banish them to the basement.

Well despite our best efforts the cats couldn't master the intricacies of the doorknob so we moved to plan two, a cat door. This involves cutting a big hole in an otherwise good door, what could go wrong?

Well when you have a big hole in the door there's no going back! So away we go!

Despite all of our misgivings about destroying da door, it worked out okay. Now if we can only get the cats to understand how to use it. Mr Nay sits behind it staring blankly saying to himself, what is this alien technology?

cultchah

We recently saw a Natalie MacMaster concert at the Tilles center, she put on a great show, she's a Cape Breton fiddler from Nova Scotia. Natalie is a great performer bringing more than a taste of her beloved home town to her performances, she plays a mean fiddle and is accompanied by a fine group of musicians including a fifteen year old cellist, a great piano player who wowed us with his stepdancing, and a man of multitalents playing bagpipes, traditional pipes, and drums. We had a great time and i'd advise anyone to go see her show if it heads out your way!


The other night we ate out at the Red Cat restaurant in New York City. We met my brother Brunt, his wife Sue, and her brother Frankie and his wife Mary for a night out. It was a great place, with lots of ambiance and tasty foods for our bellies! The place had an understated neighborhood feel and a lively (noisy) clientele. It was great having a night out with great company.

15 week belly pic!

Finally Maggie's belly is starting to grow and we have something to take pictures of for posterity. Here's the first in what we hope will be a regular series of shots so we can see Maggie's belly grow like the big-aluminum-foil-turban-shaped lookin Jiffy Pop popcorn thingamajiggy.