Let the Renovations Begin!

Today I got to start renovating the room that Baby Girl Rhoads will soon inhabit. Neither one of us care for themes, a lot of people do, they just are not for us. So, there will be no themes.

The room has served as Andrea's scrapbooking room/office since we moved in, and she painted it herself one weekend while I was off at the racetrack. She did a good job, but her pink circles on the wall needed to go...here it was when I started today.


I put up crown molding, and a chair rail. It might have been easy, but I think the guys that built our house in 1979 couldn't see straight, didn't own a square or a level. The walls are not square, and not true top to bottom...wonderful. It led to the use of a lot of that geometry I was supposed to learn in High School, and thought, "I will never use that...forget it, I am taking a nap". I got it all put up, nail holes filler, corners smoothed out, and sanded. I even started to knock down the edges of the pink circles on the wall, so they won't telescope through the new paint job. I am quite tired now, too many trips up and down the stairs, too many trips up and down the ladder, and too many smashed fingers. Here it is after the end of Day 1.


Tomorrow, I will re-prime over the nail holes, and prime the walls, at least two coats. It will slowly take shape. I am really enjoying this little project.

Its getting real...

It is really starting to become a reality now for us. Last weekend we went and did the customary baby gear registration process at Babies R Us. Let me tell you, that place is crazy, a bunch of hormonal pregnant women, all trying to look at the same stuff at the same time...and if you are a guy, you are just a speed bump on their way to checking out the 52 types of baby bottles. I found out first hand. But, 4+ hours later we were done, we had filled the little bar code gun with about as much as it would hold, our feet hurt, and we were ready to sit down. It was all a little overwhelming, I never knew just how many kinds of EVERYTHING there are...bottles are not bottles, you have to choose, gas/burp free, BPA free, more "life like"...yep, there are more bottles in there than I would have thought.

But we made it through. In one piece, which was amazing all things considered.

Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice

That's right, that is what little girls are made of...and a little girl we will have.





This morning a small group met at the doctors office to be with us for the Ultrasound that would tell us the gender of the baby. You might have thought we were selling tickets to it, the nurse called Andrea, and there was a train going in behind her.






We soon got to see the baby, in a recognizable way. I was blown away by how clear the ultrasound picture was, the features were distinct, and easily understandable. Remember, the last time we had this kind of ultrasound, the baby was tiny, and looked like a little jalepeno. Now it looked like a baby. Andrea had tears in here eyes almost immediately, as did the two other moms in the room.

The baby as we first saw her.


The white arc is her spine...I thought this image was soooo cool.


After all of the measurements were done, and pictures taken, we were told that we have a very healthy little baby girl, with a good heartbeat, and all of those measurements put her at 19 weeks and 1 day...convenient, since yesterday ended week 19 and week 20 started today.

We are very excited, and look forward tot hew adventure ahead of us. Now we just have to come up with a name...