Addyson playing fetch

Being that our "furry babies" came first, it is only fair that we devote some of the blog to them. As many of you know, Addyson is not very cat-like. She won't eat tuna, doesn't like milk, catnip does nothing for her, her balance isn't very good, and she is quite needy and sociable. Another example of her strange behavior is that she likes to play fetch. Whenever she wants to play, she will grab her purple ball from her basket of toys and drop it near my feet. Then, she waits patiently until I throw it down the hall. She usually gets bored of fetching the ball after 10-15 throws. She will let me know that she wants to stop playing by dropping the ball farther and farther away from me. When I took the video below, she had already been playing for a while so her enthusiasm was pretty low--notice how slowly she brings the ball back. However, it should give you a good idea of the game she likes to play.

More on Wisconsin

As Vanessa said in her last post (see "Weekend in Wisconsin" below), Uncle Bob and Aunt Nancy took us on a tour of Madison. During our drive, we were treated to a beautiful sunset over Lake Mendota.


We were quite impressed with Madison and can't wait to get back there. I hear that traveling (and basically everything else) gets so much easier with the arrival of a newborn. Maybe not, but we will certainly need to take Jonah on a Wisconsin tour so we can show him off.

Weekend in Wisconsin

This past weekend we made the trek up to good ol' Wisconsin to visit the Bartlett side of the family. Betty and Aunt Louise come to spend a week with Grandma Bartlett a couple of times a year and we try to get to Beloit whenever they are there. We consider it knocking out a bunch of birds with one stone. This time we added a jaunt to Madison to our tour of Wisconsin to spend some time with Uncle Bob and Aunt Nancy. We have been meaning to get up to see them for the last 3 years, but it took a baby on the way and a timer ticking for us to follow through! We are so glad that we did.


We arrived in Madison on Friday night and Bob and Nancy took us on a driving tour of the city followed by a fabulous dinner at one of the restaurants that they frequent. We had a lovely time sitting and chatting with them; a luxury since our visits are few and far between. The next morning Andrew and I had breakfast at another great restaurant (there is always a lot of eating on our vacation itineraries) and then headed to see the Capitol. The city holds its farmers markets around the Capitol building so there were tons of people around.


That afternoon we headed to Beloit and caught up with Betty, Louise, and Gma. We had a leisurely dinner at Gma's and then headed back to the "Ritzy Carlton" for late night snacks and visiting. Morning brought brunch with everyone (including Cousin Todd) and more visiting. We just soaked it up since it was our last chance to visit with all of them before our new addition!! On the way back to Iowa we stopped at Ikea and got a dresser for Jonah's room. One more step to the nursery's completion.

Good Practice

Anyone who would scoff at us when we say that having the cats that we do provides good practice for having a child, just hasn't lived with our girls. On Tuesday, Addyson kept us up the majority of the night. See if any of this could be attributed to a human baby instead of a furry one.

We were asleep in bed when I was awoken by the sound that we have affectionately named "Pukey Doo". (We are used to the sound because Addyson gets sick often enough to be able to identify it and give it a little nickname.) Andrew had assumed that she would get sick earlier in the night because of the way she was wolfing down her food, but she kindly waited til we went to sleep. I woke up Andrew to tell him what she was doing (Babe! Pukey Doo! Pukey Doo!). Disoriented, he got out of bed and in the dark immediately stepped in her first offering as she is made her second. He cleaned it up and headed back to bed. Because she had just been sick though, she was restless and would not calm down. We tried to make her comfortable but then realized that she may actually be hungry, seeing as how her stomach was then on empty. I got up with her and sat as she ate because she often does not like to eat by herself. After a snack we headed back to bed.

Hours later, we were awoken again by little one licking the pack and play that we have set up in our room. (We have it set up already so that the girls will get used to it before Jonah comes.) We have no idea why she has taken to licking it. A texture thing maybe? After being reprimanded she moved on to trying to chew on our window blinds. This is her cue for us to get up. Andrew did get up, but took her into her time out room. The only problem now is that her time out room is in the process of becoming the nursery. So, Andrew got up again and put her in the bathroom. After 20 minutes of her whining (crying) and meowing incessantly I got up and brought her in our room to try to get her calm down again. Around 8:30 in the morning she finally did calm down and proceeded to sleep the entire day away. Unfortunately, we didn't get to sleep in and had to go to work.

Inside and Out

This week marks week 30 on our journey to parenthood. That being said we thought we would post a few photos of how things are taking shape so far (or in my case, losing shape). This is obviously me, or as I am referring to it for the sake of this blog "Jonah from the Outside". I am pretty much on track for weight gain and have still evaded the dreaded "fat face". Here's hoping that continues!


This is obviously "Jonah from the inside".


Because the doctor suspected that I had a hernia (which I do) we wanted to make sure that it wasn't affecting the pregnancy (which it's not). The bonus was that we got to have an extra, unexpected look at Jonah! Though my condition is a bit atypical, it is not making a bit of difference to our guy. He is moving right along with a strong heartbeat, and plenty of movement. He is even ahead of the game, coming in at an estimated 3 lb 14 oz so far and measuring closer to 31 1/2 weeks than 30. Yikes!

First Attempt at Blogging

I have never "blogged" before, but with the coming addition to our family I have committed to trying it. Being as how the majority of people that we care about and care about us are a mere 2,ooo miles away (!!) it should prove to be a good thing as our family and its members grow. (Side note: though I, Vanessa, will probably be the main author of the blog, Andrew has generously elected himself to be the editor. He has already fixed grammatical errors in the past 2 sentences.) (Excuse me, 3 errors) If further errors ensue I may be terminated from my post as senior author. The pressure is really on! Speaking of authorship, there may also be contributions from the rest of our publishing team. Addyson and Chloe are both fairly headstrong and opinionated and I would not be surprised if they chose to toss in their 2 cents from time to time. Though Jonah has not yet introduced himself, it would probably be safe to assume that he may get in on the action as well in the future. (Not too distant future we hope. 10 weeks, maximum!!) Announcement...slight change in staff. Andrew has been eliminated from his standing as editor and has been demoted to geek squad. All for the safety of our marriage I assure you. Until the little guy comes, we will use the blog to keep everyone abreast on the rest of the goings-on in our family including pregnancy updates, preparation for Jonah, and any mischief that the girls might get into. We hope that this helps everyone to feel involved in our family and makes the miles seem a little fewer in between. Love to all..