"My (insert friend/family member here) just had a baby!"

We went to Three Dogs (a bar) in Denver after Austin's finals were over. It was the first time people from his class (except Paul & Jason) had seen me since they found out I'm prego. I slowly began to notice a pattern amoungst-(a word I do not know how to spell) all the "how exciting"'s & the "congratulations"! That what would follow was always the same...."Oh how fun! my brother's wife just had a baby!", "Are you so excited? My cousins sister's cousin just had a baby!". It wasn't annoying, just funny & I realized that I have pretty much always done that to people. Anyways I just thought I would share my realization.

Country Christmas Greetings!

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/DZP7LKLml50YA1eE

Sorry D, we had to do one too. Too funny!

"Who Says it's Just Seattle People That Can't Drive in the Snow?" Take 2

Yesterday I got in my car to go to work, just like any other day in Denver there's a sheet of ice right outside our apartment & I am sitting on it waiting to turn right on to busy Colorado Boulevard. All of a sudden a feel a jerking motion. The lady behind me rear-ended me. She was really nice just didn't know how to drive on ice apparently. Oh wait, she's from Colorado? What? I'm from Washington? What? True story. Anyways, I was so scared something had happened to the baby so I had to rush to the doctor where I was helped by the "on-call" doctor. She was not the nicest person, she was like "you know your baby is still very little & protected, you had nothing to worry about." Oh sorry lady, I missed that when I was taking my med-school class on Obstetrics. Whatever. The little peanut is doing great so there are no worries & no damage to the car so all-in-all it was ok, but getting hit still scared me & again I will say that just because you are from a "snowy" area doesn't make you a better driver than us "Seattlites".

Starbucks.

Ok, so I have been to Starbucks once since they got their Christmas cups, only once (& you have to understand that drinking a holiday drink from a Starbucks Christmas cup makes me VERY happy!). I am not your Starbucks "regular" like my dad (Grande Coffee Frappuccino x3 please). No joke by the way he really does drink 2 or 3 of those every day & pretty much is like BFF's with all the employees. Anyways, I really wanted a hot chocolate, badly! Since milk tends to give me a tummy ache I usually get a tall soy hot chocolate with whip (of course). I realize a soy hot chocolate sounds awful, I can't tell you how incredibly good it really is. So I wait in line & I give them my order; I was so excited, I even left early to get there so I wouldn't be late to work. After I give my order the barista is like "I'm sorry, we are out of soy milk." Are you kidding!!! Do you think they would ever run out of regular milk? NO! So why is it you think you can just blow it off when someone is lactose. I have told about 3 people this story so far & no one seems to think it's that weird or even a big deal, but I REALLY wanted that hot chocolate & you can't deprive a pregnant lady of her hot chocolate! Anyways, they should have given me one of those cards for a free drink that they give you when they mess up your order, I have gotten several of these in Seattle but it turns out that they don't do that if there is no fear of someone knowing Howard Schultz. I mean in Seattle you can't be too careful right? You wouldn't want to run out of soy milk when one of Schultz's buddies orders a drink. Well anyways, I am boycotting Denver Starbucks, I will however be going every day when I am in Seattle & I can't wait!

Editorial by Anne S. Brucker: "Bellevue Tales"

So Anyways, I have enlisted a guest writer because this was just the funniest email & since I am in Denver & am missing out on fun times with the BFF's I have to blog about their lives...here it is.

Typical Sunday night… we go to Bellevue to go shopping and we get to the parking garage and the stroller has a mental break down. AKA wont clip in. We attempt to jam it in there for like 15 minutes trying and trying to get it, we can't. I suggest we take Kingston and go get a new stroller, but danielle is determined to get the bastard in there. I on the other hand, am over this stroller. So finally we decided that we should just put him in the seat without the car seat. I mean 6 month olds can cruise around like that right? Well I'm convinced they can because the Russian Lady at my apartment does it and clearly Egyptian babies are more with it than Russians. So we try for another 10 minutes to adjust the straps so that he won't fall out. We finally figure out that we must be missing a piece or something weird cause there is no way any child could fit in there without falling out. I mean I am about to go look on Babies R us website for recalls because this stroller clearly has issues. So we try the car seat one more time. (I'm still convinced we just need to ditch the stroller in the parking lot, and head to baby style) but I think Danielle was scared about the pie chart George would make on excel saying she spent too much on strollers in 2008. Anyways, so it clips in and were like ok this is the great thing let's get moving. So we head to paper source and there are these two stairs to go up and we didn't see the ramp on the other side. So we decide that we should just shimmy the stroller and carry it up the two little stairs. No problem right? Wrongo! ( I see people doing moves like this all the time without any difficulty) Now let me remind you that we are on the busiest corner in all of Bellevue. Cars were everywhere and people likewise. So I take the front wheels and Danielle takes the back and we start to lift it and the car seat comes undone and flies forward into Danielle's body! Danielle out of instinct flings it back as fast as she can, Thank God. We are screaming OMG's at the top of our lungs and then there is Kingston who didn’t make one peep. I'm telling you, I thought he would scream his first OMG at this moment, but no he is just loving life. But seriously we almost killed Kingston. We had a Brittany Spears moment with a child. You should have seen the look on Danielle's face. I have never seen anything like it. She was traumatized slash mortified that someone from child protective services was cruising down Bellevue way.

Moral of the story buy a bugaboo stroller!

**Don't worry, Austin & I plan to get the bugaboo...

Adventures in Babysitting, aka: the Babysitters Club

Just call me "Kristy"...ok I actually always wanted to be Stacey but whatever, you can call Austin "Logan". If you didn't read the babysitters club then don't worry if you are confused! So last night Austin & I agreed to go over to our friends, Bentley & Catherine's house, to babysit their 4 month old daughter Bryn so they could go to her work party. I thought this would be some great practice! It was so much fun! Bryn has a little seperation anxiety right now but she got over it pretty quick. It was so sweet watching Austin take care of her & cuddle her. She's still so tiny, she was in the 6lb. range when she was born & she's still so petite for her age you just want to snuggle her! We took turns feeding her & holding her but around 9 I fell asleep on the couch (I cannot stay awake later than that) while Austin cuddled Bryn to sleep in his arms. He kept her asleep until around 11 when Catherine & Bentley got home, it was adorable! I am so proud of him, he did such a good job with her, & even though she cried a good bit, he is still excited for our baby! I can't wait to babysit again!

PS: Anne, which character are you?

Who Says it's Just Seattle People Who Can't drive in the Snow?

Ok...Let me just start by saying OMG! Are you kidding me, I wake up this morning, plug in my phone & turn on the Today Show (this is my morning ritual). I open the blinds & AHHHHH!! It's like it's been snowing for weeks! So I am watching the Today Show & you know how they "break" to go to your local news & weather...well they did & sure enough Becky Ditchfield-the local meteorologist comes on decides to tell us the current temperature is 10 degrees. Yes, 10 degrees & the high might reach 20 degrees! WOOHOO!! Ok, seriously are you kidding me so I am from Seattle so of course I don't have practice driving in the snow, yeah, yeah, I lived in Montana & here, but somehow I avoid it pretty well. Ok well everyone says that people in Seattle are horrible drivers when it snows: true story; but HELLO people here can't drive in it either! Thank goodness really because everyone was going like 5 miles per hour which was awesome because if they weren't, I sure would have been & I am pretty sure they would have seen my Washington plates & been pretty annoyed with me...either way everyone was going slow. Why though is there always that one person that thinks that they are hot stuff & driving fast in the snow & cutting people off is cool? It's not. Ok, there were actually two of these people today...I am pretty sure at some point one of them caused an accident. I am driving on my 2 mile commute to work & this little sporty car bolts out from in front of me & cuts of the car in the lane next to me which means everyone has to stop pretty quick...let's recap it's freaking ICY out so this is a problem. Luckily I made it to work & didn't see any accidents but like I said I commute 2 miles & it's a flat straight road so I am lucky in that sense. Anyways I have a doctor's appointment today & I have to drive up a hill which scares me really bad especially because the snow is supposed to continue all day...guess we'll just have to see what happens next!

End of November

Hey, it's Ashley this time. So I am writing this blog mostly because Danielle decided that since I am pregnant I should start a blog & I figured, why not? Anyways, for those of you who follow the Mekhail family blog you might be disappointed by mine; for two reasons: 1)I don't have a kid yet, & I live in Denver (meaning, that not much happens to me here) & 2) I am not NEARLY as funny as Danielle. Ok, so now that you all know that I will continue. Today was the best I have felt in a while so we got up & went to church, oh how I miss Eastlake! Then when we got back I was finally able to clean the kitchen & living room!! If you know me you would think "what's the big deal? Don't you do that every day?" well, normally, YES! But lately since I have been so sick & tired I have just done the most pathetic cleaning jobs ever. This was different, it's finally REALLY clean! (And don't worry, the baby didn't breath in the toxins, I used Seventh Generation Non Toxic Cleaner, so it's all good). Not that anyone cares but it's so nice to have a clean house! This is also the third day of snow this season & it's been snowing most of the day, typically this would bother me except that it's been cloudy ALL day & I love it so I finished cleaning & baking & now I am sitting here blogging and watching "What I like About You" reruns, it's cheezy but I love it! Anyways, If you just finished reading all that & are like, "Why did I just waste my time reading that, how boring is she!?" Then too bad, I warned you my life is pretty boring these days...See the above 'warning'. Ok, well, I won't bore you all anymore but I promise some much more interesting blogs after December 20th because I will be back in Seattle which means entertaining times with Austin, Anne, Danielle (George & Kingston), Elise, Kel etc. There will be much more to write about. Happy Last Day of NOVEMBER!

11 WEEKS!

This is Austin. This is my first blog ever so here we go. We just had our 11 week ultrasound last Wednesday. Ashley and I asked the ultrasound tech how early they could tell the sex of the baby. She said she did her daughters ultrasound and saw that hers was a girl at 10 weeks. I think she got the sense that we wanted to know the sex of the baby ASAP! She said she was going to figure it out for us and spent some time looking at a bunch of these 4d images. To make a long story short she said "I'm not really supposed to say anything, but if this was my daughter I would be going out and buying blue tomorrow!" Ashley and I saw that it looked like a boy too. It is still early so we haven't rushed out to buy blue stuff yet, but there seems to be a good chance our baby will be wearing blue! I am extremely excited either way! Here is a picture of Baby Woods (yes we will refrain from using our name until we find out for sure) either flexing it's guns or rubbing it's eyes; you decide.