Slackers...

There have not been many updates lately for the 3 people who read this page, so please accept my apologies. Here are some things that have happened lately:

We survived a major baby shower in the Dallas area on a 107 degree summer day. I nearly plummeted to my doom through a rotted wood balcony when a board suddenly collapsed. We were showered, nay, swamped with presents. All that generosity is going to get us off to a great start.

The baby due date looms ever closer. Less than 8 sleep-filled weeks of carefree living remain. Our friends Clay and Sarah are even closer. Their Little Dread Pirate Collins should make landfall sometime in September. ARRRRR!

Little brother J.J. who is five years old informed me on Friday that, "Zombies are really real, and they don't ever die. Even from that lightning." His big brother Carter has decided that young children should learn about brain-eating undead. Don't worry, it's nothing a little therapy can't straighten out.

Baby Sieber's nursery is taking shape. Gail and Dad visited, and we immediately set them to work painting, lugging furniture, and assembling a crib. The results are pretty cool (pictures to come soon).

This is not a particularly funny entry, so please visit www.theonion.com for some laughs.

Baby Sieber Update

As of today, Baby Sieber is 32 weeks old. He weighs approximately 4 pounds and is kicking me in the ribs at the rate of 20 times/hour. He's measuring about a centimeter bigger than normal which is better than being in the 31 percentile which is what he was at 20 weeks. I'm gaining weight like I'm training to be a sumo wrestler at the 2012 Olympics. Is that even an Olympic Sport? If not, it should be. I would much rather watch that than synchronized diving!

He has a room that was beautifully painted by his Grandma, GiGi, and furniture that was lovingly put together, taken apart (because it was put together wrong), and put back together by Grumpa, dad, and supervised by Bella. His Nana has currently taken home a plethora of fabric to make his bed skirt, curtains and possibly a few pillows. We can't wait to see the finished products! Check out the link under "Photos" to see the rest of the nursery pics!

Christopher and I are doing the arduous task of searching for childcare. We are on one waiting list at one place and have visited a couple of others as well as interviewed one other person in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the neighborhood lady was not such a good deal. Although she lived in a beautiful and large house, she had eight children crammed into a tiny non air conditioned garage with dirty rubber floors to which all of the babies were crawling on. My heart breaks as I write this, and I wonder what parent would feel comfortable leaving their tiny baby in those conditions. Certainly not me! We are off to another interview on Wednesday. I'm optimistic that this is the one, but we might be back to the drawing board.

School will be starting in two days and I'm anxious to see how Baby Sieber handles himself and makes me feel once I go back to a full eight to ten hour day. I'm sure my feet will be the size of watermelons each day as I go home.

Things we have discovered that he responds well to: Traditional Mexican Music, Tupac, and UT Football

Things that make him unhappy: bacon, seafood, when dad burps, and showing his entire face during sonograms.

Baby Shower!

Now what do I do with this thing again?

Lightning strikes

The Golden Baby

This evening we finally went for our 3-D Ultrasound. The Sieber's like to call this, "The Golden Baby" pictures. Baby is very stubborn and doesn't like his picture taken. (I wonder where he gets his stubbornness from?) He kept putting his hand in front of his face, but we did get a few good shots! It did seem like his mannerisms were very much like his dad's, but who knows!? You can check out the rest of the pictures on our "Golden Baby" link under photos.

Saving money

Most of you probably haven't heard about this, but gasoline has become somewhat expensive. I pine for the days of sweet, sweet $2.99 unleaded. Now that the price has risen 25%, our very way of life is being threatened. Some day, I will bore my grandchildren with stories about the halcyon days of $3 gasoline. They probably won't even know what "gasoline" is, and I'll get wheeled back into the license plate factory in the nursing home.

How we are getting by in these tough times:
1. I have changed my coffee drinking habits. For a while, I switched to drip coffee from my Mr. Coffee machine. That was a pretty brutal change that didn't last. We're not exactly in the Great Depression! I have now tightened my belt by switching from the Venti to the Grande size at Starbucks. It's tough.

2. Under Consideration: We've considered changing Bella and Velcro's food from organic and healthy chow that costs more than our meals. We will replace it with the poisonous stuff imported from China. You know, the stuff made from ground up dissidents, sick livestock, and all that algae they cleared out in preparation for the Olympics. That should save at least $20 per month.

3. We are gardening to mitigate rising food costs. We spent approximately $80 on seedling plants (heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, watermelon, and cucumbers). Another $100 went toward supplies such as landscape edging, mulch, and tomato cages. I have contributed many hours of sweat equity. Our total crop this year has been about 20 tomatoes. That's about $10 plus an hour of toil per tomato. Maybe we should have just gone to the grocery store.

4. NETFLIX, BEGONE! I feel such shame every time I see the little white sleeve in its usual spot in the entertainment center. Beneath a layer of dust and cobwebs it taunts me. This movie has sat untouched for almost a year. That's right. We've paid over $100 for Dexter: Season 2, Disc 1. We're cancelling.

5. Homeslice Pizza: Chris Floyd is the two-time reigning pizza-eating champion of Homeslice Pizza in Austin. As champ, he enjoys a free large pizza any time he visits the restaurant. We tag along and get free pizza. A recent one was particularly good: pepperoni, meatball, spinach, mushroom, mozzarella, and fresh basil. They say that "free" is the best sauce, and it was.

By my calculations, all this belt-tightening should fund a few days worth of diapers.