Hi and latest news!

We often find ourselves so busy that we are beside ourselves. Finding mutually convenient times to catch up over the phone has become increasingly difficult for us, and we find that we are out of touch more than we would like. Since keeping in touch is important to both of us, we hope this blog will be a starting point for more communication. We'll send you e-mail when there are major updates, but feel free to log on anytime to see the little stuff, too. To easily e-mail us, click the "View My Profile" link on the right-hand side of the page. This will bring you to a page that has a link to our e-mail address. Also, I've posted some pictures from the past year and of the wedding, so please peruse earlier entries as well.

So here's our update:

David has been busy getting the house ready for the baby. We are going to convert our current bedroom into the baby's room. In turn, we will be moving up to our third floor. The attic used to be an obnoxious shade of teal from floor to ceiling, but after priming and priming and priming, David did away with it. He's just finishing putting the final touches on the new paint, which you can see below. His next step will be to refinish the floors. Once that is done, we'll move ourselves upstairs and begin efforts on the baby's room, painting and refinishing floors being the main priority. Eventually we intend to add built-in storage to our bedroom and after that a small full bathroom. But those endeavors lay a ways down the road.

Breyten recently lost his first tooth, and he has another one that is loose to boot. Here is his first gap-toothed portrait.

Work has been intense for both of us, often demanding time over the weekends. But this weekend we were able to escape the demands of publishing to enjoy a visit from our friends Alicia, Ryan, Nate, and Leanne who were down from Poland for the weekend. Alicia and I took the kids to COSI (the science museum) and then swimming at their hotel. Ryan and David joined us at dinnertime for take-out from our favorite Thai restaurant, Thai Orchid. We capped off the evening with brownie sundaes to celebrate David's 34th.

Finally, here is a shot of the possum that was raiding our compost pile. Just a little bit of backyard nature.

We'll have more news soon, as our next ultrasound is on February 13th and are hoping to find out if we will have a little boy or a little girl joining us in May.