Aeriana's Blanket

So I have to start the story properly by giving credit to my mom. When I was younger I loved to be crafty and sew and who else but my mom got me my first sewing machine. I did a few things but didn't know where else to start so a co-worker of hers ending up giving me lessons. I loved it and I haven't stopped sewing since. So as the years went by I used it all the time, but when I went to college I had to leave it at home. On a return trip a few years later I walked into “The Barn” which is a barn that was on my parent’s property that my dad changed into his art studio/guy hang out for football and poker, so needless to say not the cleanest place in the world. I walked in only to find my beautiful and clean sewing machine covered in who knows what in the middle of their barn commandeered by of all people my father. Now granted my father is an artist and crafty himself, but sewing for him... now this was a first. Being the wonderful daughter I did what any one would do… I taught my father how to sew on a sewing machine without having to keep ripping out the seams a million times. And thus I ended up sewing machine less because what kind of daughter would take her sewing machine away from her daddy. :) So about 6 months later when I was planning on getting married the first thing on my wedding registry was a new sewing machine. Now it was kinda expensive so I didn't expect any one to get it of me, but that doesn't stop a girl from wishing. When the wedding came around (cough) two months later... my wonderful mother surprised me with the sewing machine of my dreams that I didn't even know existed before that point. Now I am sure my mom realized that the sewing machine on my restisery wasn't the best and she knew I would use it for years and years, and she being the amazing person that she is, she got me the best sewing machine she could find, a Husqvarna Viking Scandinavia 300. Now this was an intense sewing machine and nothing like I had ever seen before. I jumped for joy and thanked her profusely and to top everything off my grandmother (Mimi as we call her) got me a cabinet to put it in. I was in craft heaven. So I've been married for a year plus a little bit and I've made my temple dress and a few other things since then but now I have finally started using the embroidery function on the machine and have successfully made my first baby blanket for my little Aeriana. I had to share my sewing machine story with the world and give a shot out to my Mom and say thanks for one of the coolest presents ever (besides Mimi moving in with us, but that’s another story) and for just thinking that your daughter deserved the best. I love you Mom!

posted by Erin at 2:02 PM 3 Comments

The Results Are In!!!

Apologies to those who may have been holding their breaths that this wasn't posted earlier... bit of a crazy day. In all fairness, I did swap in some pre-designed pink-based graphics as a not-so-subtle hint (had some baby blue ones ready too if things had gone the other way), but I didn't have time to actually sit and write something out. The news is out though, we had the 20-week ultrasound today and it's she's a girl!!!

The ultrasound was really cool, seeing all the little anatomical identifications... the heart, brain, hands, feet, arm/leg bones, even down to the stomach and kidneys. It really seemed to push the excitement up a notch. Erin had been guessing it was a girl, and I'd been half-secretly hoping that it was a girl... I'm kind of looking forward to spoiling my own little princess and driving Erin nuts doing it. ;-)

The big question we've of course gotten with each person we've told so far is whether we've thought of any names... and the answer is definitely. We've been thinking of names for quite a while and graduated from one to another. Knowing us we'll probably change our minds several times before the baby's born, but for now the front-runner is:

posted by Brett at 9:55 PM 7 Comments

Erin's Gonna Kill Me For This

I was chatting online with Erin a little bit ago and she told me about a dream she had last night. As with most dreams, the details are hazy (especially second-hand), but the idea is great. In her dream Erin got bit by a snake and developed super-powers, a la Spiderman. She could sneak around, was super strong, and had super-fast reflexes.

Of course, no super-hero is complete without a catchy name and a cool logo... so ladies and gentlemen I am proud to unveil The Crimson Cobra!!!



Now that we've got that important matter out of the way there are a few questions... like what kind of lucrative Hollywood deals can we get out of this, and more importantly are the super-powers passed on genetically? I'm guessing they are, in which case we'll be finding out in about 25 hours whether we'll be introducing in early January The Pink Python or The Blue Boa.


As hard of a time as I'm going to give Erin about this, I do have to be fair and admit that the James Bond theme song has been stuck in my head for several days now... our kids are in serious trouble...

Labels: baby, Erin, super-heroes

posted by Brett at 10:14 AM 2 Comments

Battling the Headless Horseman

Today Erin and I drove up just across the New York border and had fun visiting a historic site. The early American author Washington Irving wrote a story that many are familiar with, though for me it was relatively recently that I actually read the original, unabridged version (worth a quick read, if you're interested). The first exposure I remember to the story "The Legend of Sleep Hollow" was a Disney cartoon from who knows how long ago. There is also frequent mention of the infamous headless horseman from the story around Halloween.

What I didn't know about the story until a few years ago is that though it's of course a fictional story, it's based in a very real town, and actually includes some characters named after some real people from that town.

Taking the Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River some ten miles north of New York City will put you almost directly into a small town called Tarrytown, two miles north is an even smaller town, originally called North Tarrytown, but due to the small amount of tourism the book brought to the town, they officially changed the name to Sleep Hollow, NY.

There honestly isn't a whole lot to see there; visiting the official tourism website of the area lists four potential sites to visit. One is just the old mansion that some of the Rockefellers once lived in, not really our cup of (herbal) tea. The next three places on the list we thought warranted a quick stop on our trip.

Our first stop was an old mill that has been restored to it's colonial glory; there are people dressed in period clothing, a working grist mill, and a seriously overpriced tour ($23 per person to walk through an old building, I think not)... so we just swung by for some quick pictures outside.



(Thanks goes to our sweet Photoshop skills in getting us both into pictures together... when it's just the two of us, it's a little hard to get these shots without fudging them a little.)

Our next stop was a lighthouse. Pretty cool idea and only $5 per car to get into the park... It even had this fun welcome sign to get us excited for the lighthouse...



And then we got into the park... and couldn't find the lighthouse. Kinda easy to find a lighthouse, normally. I'm not sure, but it might have been a pile of dirt that was hiding it from our view, but finally we were able to find the smallest lighthouse either of us had ever seen... it was so small and cute, Erin couldn't help but squish it...



Our last stop was the most exciting, the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, resting place of Washington Irving himself as well as a couple of the characters from the story; also a large part of the story itself. The path that the headless horseman chases Ichabod Crane down runs alongside the graveyard.



The love interest of the story is a girl named Katrina VanTassell, a character based on a girl that actually lived in North Tarrytown. On my first visit a few years ago, I was able to find the headstone but unfortunately no such luck this time... in my defense some headstones date back to the 1600s, there are Revolutionary War soldiers and Civil War soldiers buried there and many more, so there's a lot to look through. Luckily Washington Irving's site is clearly marked on the paths and on the map, so we got to stop there.



We also stopped briefly to see the famous bridge that the headless horseman crossed in the story. It was a very cool trip.



Then after we were done in Sleepy Hollow, we headed back towards Jersey but we couldn't have come all this way without stopping at the Palisades Mall... 4 floors of shopping goodness. Of course, we currently have a one two track mind and ended up only eating food and picking up a half-ton of fabric with which Erin will be making the bedding and curtains for the baby's room. We'll post pictures of it all when she's done, but it's gonna be pretty dang cute. :-)

Labels: baby, Erin, pictures, trips

posted by Brett at 7:31 PM 3 Comments

Mini-me or Mini-Jet-Li?

Erin went in for a checkup yesterday and we got this ultrasound picture back...



Okay, just kidding... we actually didn't get an ultrasound yesterday, we'll be getting one in about two weeks when we find out the gender. But what did happen yesterday is that Erin mentioned to the doctor how much she'd been feeling the baby move and when the doctor checked the heartbeat (150 bpm) HE felt the baby move as well... He was really surprised considering people other than the mother don't usually feel the baby until around 28 weeks (this was about 10 weeks early).

So when I got home from work Erin and I couldn't resist the opportunity to see if I could feel the baby too. I had my hand on her stomach for about 4 seconds before I felt the little nudge... very faint, but definitely there. In my immeasurable excitement I did the same thing two more times last night, the second time I couldn't feel anything, but the third try it was there again.

This is the second time a doctor has said, in a very astonished tone, how active our baby is (the first time was at the second ultra-sound). Is say rock on... be active little baby, get it all out of your system so that when you join the outside world you're as calm as can be.

Yeah right. ;-)

Labels: baby, Erin

posted by Brett at 8:01 AM 3 Comments