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Saturday, September 18, 2010

The Bump

This is the moment you've all been waiting for...well, some of you anyway. I've gotten more than one email and threatening phone call saying that you want to see just how much of a heifer I've become during the last 8 months. I'll admit, I was one of you, begging for pregnancy profile shots, until I became the bulbous profile; now I'm all about hiding out in my over-sized maternity clothes and willing myself to go into labor.
Long about week 18 of pregnancy, James and I got the great idea that we should take a mug shot every week in the same shirt to track my hugeness. By 18 weeks I was already pretty huge. That's one of the perks of having a torso so short that my ribs and hips are normally about an inch apart. I had outgrown my pants by 6 weeks and, even though I didn't really keep a meal down for the first few months, I've done a masterful job of packing on the pounds (and inches). My doctor is so proud of my weight gaining skills.
And so, here we are at 34 weeks. I haven't seen my feet in quite some time and I'm quite sure that I now weigh more than James. The baby now weighs about 5 lbs. Explain the other 30!

***WARNING***
Most of these pictures were taken in an un-airconditioned apartment in the middle of summer. No make-up. Definitely no hair stying. Just look at the belly and ignore the head s'il vous plait.

It's a boy!
We were in Italy this week. No sticky notes for week 22. Also the last time my feet were small enough to fit into anything but flip flops.
This is the week we started moving. No pictures on the wall, yes piles on the floor.
New apartment!
And here is my condition as of last Monday. Man, that thing protrudes! No wonder I'm always burning it on the stove and getting stuck between the shopping cart and the check-out counter.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Mentos and Diet Coke

Ever since he saw a video about making rockets out of Mentos and Diet Coke, James has pretty much been obsessed. We found some Coke on sale, he borrowed some Mentos from work, and we even made a special trip to Home Depot for PVC pipes in preparation for the big day.
The next step was finding partners in crime. We chose our friends Jarom and Stephanie Brown because a) we like them. b) they're not afraid to get sticky. And c) every time we see them a new invention seems to hatch (i.e. giant hamster ball that propels itself across the water).

Jarom and James got busy making a PVC pipe launcher.
Trying to speed the hot glue cooling process in the freezer...
...and with a fan
We had to drink 2 liters of root beer during dinner to get another bottle top of the right size...just to make sure the aerodynamics were just right. Stephanie made some nice cardboard fins to help this puppy fly.
We drove around for quite a while trying to find a place to make our mess where we wouldn't get arrested. We settled on a field by a high school. There were sprinklers going all around us, so we hoped that the coke smell would be gone by morning. The first attempt proved to be the most successful, flying up about 15 feet.
The boys were completely soaked in artificially sweetened stickiness.


We tried smaller bottles to see if they'd fly higher. No luck. Our parking lot got its share of sticky puddles though.

So Coke and Mentos rockets = big mess and not a lot of flying. I'm sure this is only our maiden voyage though. Watch out Utah!