Merry Christmas!

so I have a story about Christmas Eve that I'll tell you soon.  It involves beer pong, pellet guns, and stripping.  No, it is way more kosher than it sounds.  It all happened at the family Christmas party.

Merry Christmas everyone!
love, Liesl, Jeff & Luna

afraid of the stove

I'm getting to be afraid of the stove, kind of.  Never before this week have I worried (or had to worry) about setting my stomach on fire, but lately my stomach has grown immensely and the bottom of it sits perfectly on the stove level.  I was using one of the front burners today and wondering why my stomach felt so warm.  Yeah, that's because my stomach was like a half inch away from the burner.  Yikes!  But seriously, how ridiculous is my situation?

...and yet more baking.

It seems like all I've done this week is bake and clean the kitchen.  Finally it's almost done, but now I'm off to bake my very first (chocolate) cheesecake.  Yum!  Wish me luck!

our presents WERE pretty...

Luna would be very happy if we left her all day to eat the ribbons on our gifts.  She will literally sit under our tree on top of other packages and chew on ribbons.

no, I'm not a cutter... but I do own a cat.

to her credit though, she's really not evil.  I was holding her near a window and her arch nemesis kitty walked along our back fence.  Luna freaked and jumped out of my arms to get a closer look and growl at the window.

sometimes I actually love people

Most of the time I really don't love people.  They are stupid/ annoying or just plain rude.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I opened my mailbox today and found a typed note from one of our neighbors.  They thanked us for putting up christmas lights and adding holiday cheer to the neighborhood.  It's always the little things in life that put a smile on your face.  I love when they creep up on you unexpected like that.  So here's to people!

lesson of the day

When making taffy, never let your scatterbrained pregnant wife pour the hot liquid taffy into a pan that she quickly lined with wax paper instead of parchment paper.  Yeah, not thinking on that one.  I just grabbed the first thing I saw (unfortunately wax paper) because my first thought was "Oh no, this is going to harden very quickly and I have to scrape it all into the lined pan as soon as possible!"  Oops.  Guess we have to try that one again.  hehe... At least it smelled good.  And Jeff said it tasted good when he licked the hardened candy (not the wax paper side).

suspenders

I need for suspenders to come back in style because my pants (no matter what kind- normal jeans, maternity pants, pjs, leggings) keep falling down and sagging pants is just not a good look for anyone.  Yeah, cute little skinny black suspenders would look awesome.  Not the thick rainbow or yardstick wannabe ones.  Those are just awful.  And this wouldn't be so much of a problem but I have to wear pants for most of my work shifts.  And besides, dresses on a pregnant lady always look like tents or muumuus.  No way I want to be seen ever like that.  Even at a walmart.

frightening thoughts

So... I'm slighty (ok, maybe more than slightly) afraid that my kid is going to be born a crazy sugar-craving monster because the only things that don't make me feel sick to eat are sugary things like cookies, or super bad for you things like McDonald's fries.  Yum... On the rare occasion that I crave veggies, I eat them like crazy to try to balance out the bad food that I told myself I would never eat while pregnant.  Yeah, well I also told myself I was going to do prenatal yoga every day.  Ha!  I got through 8 minutes of a prenatal yoga video once before I felt like hurling.  And that was it.  But it's ok.  If ever I feel like I'm the worst (soon-to-be) parent ever, I can just go to Walmart and feel sooo much better about myself.  Come on people, you all think it too.  I mean, have you ever been to peopleofwalmart.com?  It's the funniest site ever!!!

weirdest feeling ever

It is sooo weird to look at my incredibly expanding stomach and then poke at it.  It looks like it should be all soft and jiggly, but it's all firm (almost like I was in shape.  Woohoo!).  It's just so weird.  I'm still not used to this whole belly growing thing.  Can you tell?  I mean, yes I'm used to having a poochy stomach, but not one that keeps getting bigger, and firmer.  So weird.

tech support "fun"

So I've decided that AT&T is full of stupid people.  I just got asked if my land line had a dial tone, I said no.  The follow up question was (no joke) "Are you calling from this line now?"

Comments

So I finally changed my blog so that non-registered people (Kristin) can comment, and you also no longer have to enter in a "word" that is really just a jumble of random letters.  I would have done all this earlier, but I didn't really pay attention to the part where I knew I could.  If that makes any sense at all...  Anyway, nothing really to report today except the fact that I have a cat sprawled on my lap.  She's been here a while, so she's getting heavy, and rather hot.  And all I want to do is sleep, but my mind is totally evil and won't let me.  Grr.

Pregnancy: the best diet ever

Yeah, I know you're supposed to gain weight when you're pregnant, but so far I've lost 16 pounds.  But my doctor gave me magic pills today that are supposed to let me want to eat food again.  She also told me I should eat more french fries because I need the extra calories.  As soon as she told me it was just me that needed more calories, and that the baby is totally fine, I got really excited.  Yay!  I can eat whatever the hell I want with my doctor's go ahead.  Mhaa-haha (happy evil laugh).

Cravings

I'm kinda hoping my mad craving for french fries goes away soon.  Otherwise I'm going to become massively obese.  On the other hand, THEY'RE SOOOOO GOOD!

names

I'm starting to get why everyone says to hold off as long as possible before telling everyone your future child's name.  We decided to name our kid Liam.  Luckily, everyone we've told says they really like the name, and think it's cute.  On the other hand though, the majority of people we tell ask if it's a family name.  That just confuses me.  It's a fairly popular and cute kid's name.  Why would people automatically assume it's a family name?  Do they think that Jeff and I are just that uncreative with names?  Also, anyone over the age of 65 that hears the name Liam gets confused.  Apparently the name became well known right after that age group all stopped having kids.  My grandma especially gets confused by the name.
Grandma: "lee-UM?  Is that like Ian?"
Me:  "Uh, no.  It's like Liam."

yay! crib!

So our crib came in today.  Yeah, I know.  It's still really early.  I hit mid pregnancy (week 20) tomorrow.  But what can I say?  I like to be prepared.  Anyway, my parents dropped our crib off at our house.  BTW, it's so nice knowing people with huge cars.  I mean, both our parents and Jeremy have huge cars and Jeff and I both have compacts.  So back to the main story... Less than an hour after it was dropped off, Jeff and I had it out of the box in Liam's future room and had it fully assembled.  Yay!  It looks so nice.  Well, I mean, it will look better when we get a mattress and mom gives us the bedding, but I'm still sooo excited.  It's our first piece of baby furniture.  So once again, yay!

Pictures to come once the mattress and bedding come.

actual conversation

Jeff and I were discussing possible clothing sizes of this tiny girl.

Me: What size does that girl wear?!
Jeff: I don't know.  Mattel?

And this is why I love him.

suspicious

 

How could any kitty be suspicious of any puppy as cute as Finley?  But then here she is, hiding behind the tree glaring at him because he's on her couch.  Too bad he's clueless and doesn't even notice her.

cheapest way to heated towels

Luna has spent pretty much the entire day sleeping in the linen closet.  She loves it in there because it's a sliding door with no bottom track so she can swing the door a bit and get in and out by herself.  Plus, it's dark and warm, perfect for naps.  Although she has been in there more than usual since the puppy's been here...  So likes to sleep on the bath towels the most, so they are always nice and warm now.  Good things cats are clean.

new strategy

Finely finally figured out that since I cover myself with blankets to protect myself from practically-middle-of-the-night wake up calls, he needed a new way to get me up.  This morning I was laying on my side, and he decided to use his head as a battering ram against my back to shove me over the side of the bed.  That was a super fun way to wake up.  Puppy skull in my spine.  Yay... Maybe tomorrow Luna will get pissed at him and save me.

no no no...

My mom invited a combination of various relatives for Christmas dinner who all drive me crazy (although I do love most of them individually).  Normally putting up with them is not an issue because my dad makes kick-ass Cosmos, but I can't have one this year!  I have no choice but to loose my mind that day, or show up late/ leave early.  Large amounts of my relatives together are the only times that I ever rely on alcohol.  Maybe large amounts of chocolate on Christmas will work as well as a Cosmo.  This sounds like a good reason to eat too much chocolate to me!

genius

Create a huge wall of blanket all around you.  Then no annoyingly hyper puppy can reach you at 5am to wake you up by licking you.  Success!

Props

Let me just say that I'm am mad impressed with Jeff's ability to be good at everything.  With the exception of his utter lack of confidence.  Anyway, this was brought on because yesterday he changed two of my car's front headlights.  Jeff has no training with cars, and my manual was helpful enough to say  "How to change the headlights: take the vehicle to a VW dealership and let them change the lights".  No joke.  Crazy helpful, right?  But Jeff is resourceful and used You Tube's help.  And even with all the instructions in the world, anyone successfully doing anything under the hood of my car is impressive.  I mean, I drive a Beetle.  The hood is teeny tiny, and all the parts are crammed together several layers deep.  So I have learned, don't ever own a Beetle if you plan on doing ANY of your own auto work.  And yay Jeff!

lazy Luna

Isn't it plainly obvious that this poor cat is so neglected and unloved?  Yeah, right.

canine alarm clock

So once again we're babysitting my baby puppy brother Finley, while my parents go off to Disneyland without us.  Somehow Finely got it into his head that I need to get out of bed at the same time Jeff does.  Jeff gets up to go to work at 5am, and I like to sleep in, so this really is not ok.  But the past 4 days in a row, Finley will jump onto the bed the second Jeff gets up, and start licking my face to death and smacking the rest of me with his tail cause he's all excited and wants me to get up.  Ugh.  Oh course, the second I finally do get up, Finley looses interest and wants to take an insanely long nap on the couch.  Wish I could fall back asleep as easily.  The stinker.

cousins

I LOVE the fact that there are so many boy cousins in the family.  Because they are all darn cute, and I just got a humongous (no exaggeration needed) of barely if ever worn hand-me-downs.  And they are all super cute!  So yeah, my kid is totally set on clothes for the next year.

pregnant and sick

Yet again!  Ugh.  I just had a cold last month.  I know it's not really so bad, but I'm normally a one very small small cold a year type of person, and now I'm on the second one in as many months.  And I can't really take drugs for it.  :sigh:  However, I will say this,

Jeff + a pot of tea in one sitting + a year's supply of kleenex with aloe and vitamin E + sleeping with a humidifier on high next to your side of the bed + tons of Vick's vaporub = a Liesl that can kind of breathe through her nose a little.  Yay!

role reversal

We're puppy sitting Finley for a week while my parents go to Disneyland without us.  How unfair is that?  And to make it worse, they are going with three other couples, and those couples are all leaving their kids behind too.  This is so not cool people!

yum

I think the baby likes Powered Sugar mini donuts.  Yum!

sad that I'm excited by this...

Today was the first time a stranger asked me how far along I was while I was actually pregnant!  Why is it always guys that ask?

customer support rant

OMG!  I've been on the phone with AT&T trying to change our service, and I got a nube.  I'm really hoping that it's this girl's first day on the job, because she is clueless.  She had to put me on hold several times in the very beginning, before I ever gave her any information, because she was confused.  Then, after reading her our account number three times, she told me it didn't exist.  Really?  And I know my diction isn't perfect, but I try to speak as clearly as possible on the phone.  I had to repeat EVERYTHING for her at least three times.  Then she got confused again about what I wanted, read me my options from a script with many many pauses in between, and kept forgetting to differentiate between home phone and cell phone options.  Plus, I could hear another person in the background feeding her info.  Um, couldn't I just talk to the person who knows what they are talking about instead?  Then, the girl started offering packages that don't exist, then changing (she did that several times, in between the many long pauses), then she gave me a support number with a digit missing, and got confused when I asked her to repeat the number.  She did a bunch of other screwy things too, and once again I hope that today was her first day...as a trainee.