20 weeks 5 days

I had a check up today; nothing exciting to report.  My belly measured just right at 20cm and little Elsie's heart rate was in the high 140s.  I gained a big 7.5lbs since the last check up, a little more than I would like but I am still right on track with 8.5lbs over all.  Playing caught up I guess, since I gained little to nothing during my first trimester.  Maybe some of that is muscle weight from the all the exercising I have been doing:-)   

I relapsed a little with that head cold I had a few weeks back.  I am feeling a bit congested again and waking up with a sore throat.  I have been very exhausted the last few days and feeling the weariness of pregnancy already.  My belly feels huge already, though 7.5lbs is a lot of weight to gain in 5 weeks; it is not surprising that I am feeling it.  I have a long ways to go yet and I wish I wasn't feeling this negative this early.  I am hoping that the trip to see my parents will help rejuvenate me a bit.   

Busy day here to get ready to leave tomorrow.  The girls and I fly out of Portland bright and early at 7am.  That means we will be waking them up at 5am to get on the road by 5:15.  I am glad to get to So Cal early in the day though.  It should be a pretty relaxing day in Corona before heading up to the Smith casa on Wednesday.  I can't wait to see my nieces!!  We will be gone for 10 days.  I may post from down south but no promises so until next time...

Ross update

Benjamin came home from the hospital today!  Grayson went home last week and Ryan and Shannan are so happy and relieved to have both boys home.  We are excited to go up and meet the twins in about a month or so.  Congratulations to the proud parents!

Faulkner Fun

Hanging out in the van! Craig and Katya in the back.

Me and the girls watching a movie. I found it quite comfortable in the back:-)

Watch out, Reagan's driving!

Craig is figuring out the media center.

Valentines for my girls! They love their balloons:-)

Katya with her gift.

Reagan in the "Aunt Candy" dress looking especially adorable!

Katya in a ponytail, getting ready for OMSI.

Showing off new hair clips and bracelets from Grandma Sharon.

On Sunday we all hung out in the van for about 40 minutes playing around. Pretty funny! We messed with the enertainment system and learned how to operate 2 different DVD's (one in the second row, one in the third) and play music up front for the parents. This will be pretty awesome on road trips. Craig and I will be able to listen to podcasts or audio books again! The wireless headphones for the kids cancel out a ton of noise. Katya did really good with it on; Reagan doesn't want to keep it on right now but should be fine when she is a little older. The media center has a hard drive that we can download music or even pictures to. It also has a jack for MP3 players so we can just plug in our Ipod. We don't have the 6 disc CD changer but with these other things I don't think we will miss it too much.  I am really loving the power sliding doors.  It is so convient when I have my hands full (which is often) to just push a button.  Reagan has more leg room in the rear facing position in the captin's chair and getting the kids in and out is so much easier with the extra space.  I knew that I would love a minivan once we got one, and it's true. 

We are having a fun week here.  On Monday we ran by the library and picked up some children's books relating to ghost stories that I put on hold for Katya.  She is really into ghost stories right now and I can only come up with so much on my own (and trying to keep them age appropriate, i.e. not too scary).  The books are pretty good but of course she likes mommy's stories best.  The main characters in my ghost stories have expanded from 'two sisters' to 'three sisters' and Katya has been insisting that Sterling be in them too:-)  I took the kids to OMSI on Tuesday and we met up with the Godfrey gang at Columbia Pool yesterday.  The girls are getting more and more confident in the water and I am looking forward to starting swimming lessons this summer. 

The girls and I leave for So Cal in less than a week!!  I sure hope the weather is nice for us.  I am super excited that Craig decided to join us for a long weekend.  It makes it feel like a real vacation with all of us together.  And I know he is looking forward to seeing my folks and getting a mountain bike ride in my with dad.  Love to all!  ~ Brenda 

Happy Birthday Grandpa Doug!!!

A big happy birthday wish to Grandpa Doug from all of us! We are thinking of you today and praying for a great interview!! Good luck!

It's a GIRL!!!!

We are very excited and proud to announce that we are having a third girl! Elsie Ryan Faulkner looked healthy and oh so cute! She was very active, with her hands busy and up by her face a lot. Here are some of the pictures they gave us.

3-D image

Sticking out her tounge!

Sweet little feet

Happy Valentines Day!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentines Day!  Stay tuned for baby news later today:-)

Van pics

There she is, the 'baby maker' (reference to the Brook Sheilds commercial promoting the Routan. There will be no more baby making in this house!!!:-)).

Quite a lot of room behind the third row.

Tons of space behind the second row. The bummer about the 7 passenger is that our family of five won't be able to utilize this configuration.

View from the rear seat. There is descent leg room back here.

Our new ride

We are proud owners of a 2010 VW Routan!  I can't believe we have a new vehicle, with 63 miles on the odometer!  The only color they had was white so it looks just like the picture below.  I am not thrilled with the color but it's okay (red, baby blue and gold were absolutely out for us:-)).  It has navigation, rear seat entertainment systems, great storage, 7 passenger capacity, nice 'captin' seats in the 2nd row, power sliding doors and hatch, and 'leatheret' seats (which I like real well, I actually liked the synethic leather in the Routan better than the real leather in the Town & Country).

The process at the dealership went pretty smooth.  We pretty much already knew we wanted the van.  Craig took it for a test drive and we poked around in it.  Then it was all about getting a price we were comfortable with.  The salesman was very nice, as sales people go and was a pleasure to work with.  Craig and I are not very good at haggling.  I feel like maybe if we were better we could have gotten a bit better of a deal.  But we got a fair price for the Jeep and a fair price on the van; 500$ below Kelly Blue Books fair price estimate.  Because it was a 2010 we paid 7,000$ less than MSRP.  We were prepared for the financing/paper work/signing stuff to take a long time.  We had our portable DVD player which helped with the kids, plus activities and snacks.  The waiting still got a bit long but it wasn't too bad.  All in all, we were at the dealership for 4 hours.  At the end of the process we emptied the Jeep of our belongings, loaded up the shinny new van and headed home!  [On the way to the dealership in the morning I made sure to drive, since I knew it might be my last trip in the Jeep.  I get a little sentimental about my vehicles.  I really loved both my Ford Ranger and our Jeep.]  I sure hope our van treats us well and that we get many, many years out of it.  I am very happy about our decision, our purchase and that it is DONE!!!

The van search continues...

I am so surprised were our minivan search is leading.  I test drove a Sienna the other day.  It was okay but not at all what I am excited to spend a large sum of money on.  So it looks like the class leading Odyssey and Sienna are out of the running.  We are concentrating on search now on the VW Routan and the Chrysler Town and Country.  You may remember that the Routan (pronounced, Roo-tahn) is basically a Town and Country with some tweaks to the suspension, nicer seats and VW finishes.  One review I read called it, a "pig with lipstick."  But I say, if your going to buy a pig, what is wrong with a little lipstick?:-)




I like the Routan better after seeing and test driving both, but the differences aren't huge.  It will likely come down to who can give us the best price.  Another very surprising thing is that we are now looking to buy new; well, new 2010 models.  After seeing what we can get for 20K in a Sienna or Odyssey, we decided to bump up our price range in order to get a newer van, and that brought us into the price range for 2010 Routan's and Town & Country's.

It is so hard to spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle your really don't like/want and that steered me away from the Sienna/Odyssey.  They were nice, but felt like such a old person, 'mom' car.  They drove like Camery/Accords, which is not at all what I am use to.  I have always driven trucks or the Jeep and strange as it sounds, I prefer a more 'rough,' sporty feeling vehicle.  I liked the Routan and found myself getting excited about it, I am not at all excited about the Sienna/Odyssey.  Of course I am neverous about buying another Chyrsler product and not the more reliable Toyota or Honda.  We are going out to Beaverton to look at a Routan tomorrow.  If we can get them down to a price we like we will be buying!  I am excited to have the search over.  It has been a lot of work and pretty annoying dealing with car salesmen.  The guy from the bank was not able to find us a great deal as we first though he would, which was a bummer. 

Preschool

I started looking into preschools for Katya for next fall; a daunting and stressful task. The community center that I have heard good things about doesn't enroll til May and is very competitive. The problem there is if we don't get in, pretty much all the other ones are already full. I went on a tour at Holy Redeemer Catholic school last week, which is on the other side of the freeway, near the Tillman's old house. [Our parish, Holy Cross is just K-8].  Holy Redeemer is twice the cost of the community centers but what I am finding the more research I do, is that they are quite reasonable for a private preschool (they are actually pre-K, 4 year olds).  We were hoping to save money now, since Katya will likely be attending Holy Cross for Kindergarten, but I did like Holy Redeemer and now that I realize they really aren't that expensive we may just go for that.  I will probably still look into Peninsula community center but I will be applying to Holy Redeemer in hopes of getting in and securing a spot.  The community center is about $100/mo for part time, Holy Redeemer is about $200/mo for part time.  I have seen $350/mo private preschools and Montessori schools from $400/mo to $700/mo, no thanks!  Moira goes to a co-op preschool that Angie really loves.  They are just $90/mo but require 1-2days a month of help in the classroom plus fund raising.  I am not  comfortable with fund raising and I would worry about arranging child care for Reagan and new baby those days I am at the preschool.

It was fun touring Holy Redeemer (HR) School and thinking about Katya in preschool!  She is so excited and I think it will be great for her.  It is strange to think about not having her home 3 mornings a week.  HR's part time option is M, W & F from 8am-11:30.  I like that it is at an actual school as oppose to a community center or daycare facility.  It has such a school feel and of course the other kids are around.  We are going to have to start getting up earlier come fall to get Katya to school by 8!

We are getting really excited for our ultrasound next Monday!  Praying for a healthy looking baby and we can't wait to see if it is a Atticus Ryan or Elise Ryan:-)   

Sick house

This picture cracks me up!!! Reagan had a great time painting, as you can see and the way she managed to paint her hair/forehead made it look like she had a pretty major head injury:-) And to capture this moment, with her hands up and eyes rolled back, is just priceless!

The kids and I all have nasty head colds so it has been a exhausting week. It started last weekend with Katya waking up coughing to the point of vomiting blueberries all over the place. Amazingly Reagan slept through the commotion of Katya crying and barfing and Craig and I cleaning up and changing her bed. Katya has fared pretty well since but Reagan got miserably sick a few days later and has been sleeping really bad. Last night was the first night all week that she did not wake up at all. I contracted their illness and was pretty sick by Thursday. My nose is doing a bit better today so hopefully it won't last too much longer.

We have been doing tons of art this week, so much fun!

Here is Katya with another masterpiece!

We finally went out and test drove a few minivans today. Since we are now actively looking for vehicles that fit our wish list, I have been anxious to get out and look at them in person. We looked at a 09 VW Routan, a 07 Odyssey and a 08 Odyssey. Much to my surprise, I liked the VW best!! The Odyssey drove smoother and easier, like a big sedan but for some reason I liked the feel of the VW. For the price of the Odyssey's, I wanted to really love it more and I didn't. The leather in both Odyssey's were worn and not very nice feeling. The cabin did feel roomier but the van also felt and looked a lot bigger. The 09 Routan actually sold while we were looking at the Odyssey so I test drove a new one. But that used van didn't have leather so we would be looking at other Routan's anyways. Of course our biggest reservation with the Routan is that it is a Chrysler build and this still is a concern. But we are going to keep it in mind. I think next weekend we need to go test drive the Sienna (Toyota) for comparison.  It is funny how much seeing them in person and test driving can make a difference! 

Have a great Superbowl Sunday everyone!