Heather is having a...

GIRL!

It's another girl for us this time around. We had the ultrasound this morning. Just before going in, Bryant said, "actually I think it's a girl." And he was right on!

The ultrasound tech had some corny commentary as he went through the motions - things like "her eyes will be blue" and he'd change the color of the screen. The kid was wiggly and didn't cooperate very well. We may have another Kaylee on our hands. All the stats were normal and body parts were the right size and shape. Here's a couple of pics from the session. The first one shows that we have a guitar hero in the womb (note the vicious skull).


At one point she appeared to do a somersault where we got a nice side view.


In other news, we decided to do some painting this week. Just last night we cleared our living area (TV room) and we painted the walls a light tan color. This all in preparation for the entertainment console that we found (thanks for the tax rebate Pres. Bush) which was delivered this morning. We'll be painting the front room the same color either tonight or tomorrow. There's always something to do...

It's been nice having the major projects done. The garden is still living and I think at this point we'll be in good shape for fresh veggies. The dead spots in the yard (from where we dig in the sprinkler heads) are growing back. Our neighbors are even getting their yards prepped for grass. I'd say by the mid or end of the summer we'll be all set on our street. Can't wait for everyone to see it!

The Payoff... (kinda)

Just a quick post to share some cool news today - I was named an employee of the quarter within our consulting services team for the first quarter of 2008! I was recognized in front of my fellow consultants for the weeks of travel and integration work I've been doing with our new team members in San Diego while still maintaining my regular workload. In addition to the spotlight I'll get a $1000 bonus in my next paycheck - YEAH!

The bonus is not much in comparison to all the extra time and travel I've put in, but money is money. My past experience has shown me that good work gets rewarded. I'm hoping for an advancement/promotion in the not so distant future. This is one of the many reasons I'm happy with Omniture - go green!

Faith is like a little seed

Happy Mother's Day! Heather got a bed of flowers in the front yard. Yay! For mom we've decided to help build a swing set in her back yard. It's not even started yet, but hopefully we'll have it done soon.

We had another busy Saturday. We put in our garden yesterday. We planted a variety of bell peppers and tomatoes, onions, potatoes, green and yellow squash, jalapeños, and most important - cucumbers! we planted a strawberry patch as well, but don't expect much from that this year. the planter beds got cleared and we pulled a little more dirt from our garden pile to raise them up a bit. It's really starting to look like a finished yard. Can't wait for everyone to see it.

Here are some pics from the planting yesterday...



Both of the girls were pretty good about handling the plants. Kaylee would verbalize as she would "pat, pat, pat" the dirt around the plants. Bryant wasn't as kind to the plants he placed - he'd grab them by the leafy parts and hold them pretty tight so they wouldn't fall. We put an end to that one really quick.

We had a few extra plants so we donated the leftovers to mom's garden. It'll be fun to see how much our investment will multiply over the year. We spent $30-$40 in plants and seed. For us that's probably about what we spend for a few weeks of fresh produce. Can't wait to see the fruits of this labor!

And another one down...

Yes, the projects keep churning as long as I'm home, but this week it's off to San Diego again. This travel thing looks like it'll be wrapping up soon. It'll be nice when I can be at home on a regular basis. It's been nice to be at home and get some things done.

Before I go into the accomplishments over the last couple weeks, I thought I'd share some tidbits from the kids...

• Rachel got to go on her first school field trip this last week. They went to Hogle Zoo up in SLC. Unfortunately it was that morning that the weather decided to dump a few inches of May snow. She said she had a fun time, but was kinda cold.
• We can't get Kaylee to stay in the house. She's already the darkest one in the family and if it keeps up, she'll probably rival her uncle Scott Hiatt for summer skin tone. (Scott, do you miss the locating job?)
• Bryant's new favorite is Star Wars (that's my boy). He now runs around the house making the sounds of light sabers using his thumbs as the blade (just picture the kid running and jumping around with "two thumbs up"). He loves to pretend to fight "bad spiders" and he gets help from "good spiders". And we've not had any popcorn incidents to report. :-)
  

Heather has been up and down with this pregnancy. She's scheduled for an ultrasound on the 20th so we should have something fun to report in a couple weeks.

Since my last post I've been busy and finally have two projects off the list. Two weeks ago it was the sprinkler project. I dug up all the funny pipes, attached the sprinkler heads and buried them again. That one took me 5 days - one for hooking up the electrical stuff and getting my materials ready, three evenings to knock out half of it, and an entire Saturday to get the rest in the ground. I got some help from Scott on Saturday afternoon which was very welcome. My hamstrings were so sore that week.

The best part of the sprinkler project (other than being done) was Monday evening when dad was finally able/willing to come down and help. By the end of it we were both cold, soaked, and muddy, but I could run the system - plus I got to soak dad. That's still fun. Here's a tangent... hey family - do you remember when we had water fights in the house in Springfield? Filling cups of water and chasing each other through the house? ... anyway ...

The other project as I mentioned in an earlier post was a set of shelves in our closet under the stairs in our pantry. Sorry Harry Potter - you can't stay under our stairs - that shelf project is done. In a week I was able to cut, assemble, disassemble, sand, prep, stain, seal, and install what turned out to be a very nice looking set of shelves. It's almost a shame that they'll be hidden in a closet. Oh well, it's good practice for the future projects. Heather took some pictures and I'll see if she can post them this week.