SURVIVING another year

Well, we are back in Austin now. It was quite a bit of work to move us from Houston to Austin. For some reason, I am sure Daniel is to blame, we have accumulated quite a bit more stuff. Go figure.

Today is Daniel's and my 3rd anniversary. We didn't do much to celebrate. We got a video camera for my birthday that counted for our anniversary too. It was expensive. So far, the only thing we have done for our anniversaries is move. It will be nice not to do that one year. We figure we will have a big "to do" every 5 years. It was still fun to reminisce about what we did on our wedding day and how things have been this year and how this next year will be. We went out to dinner tonight and while out I asked Daniel what he wanted, what goals he had for the upcoming year of our marriage. He answered, "TO SURVIVE!". I hope he was referring to the busy year in school and a new baby coming this year. At least, he better be.

We played a little cribbage tonight and I really got whooped. I got skunked twice and almost got double skunked the second time. I am sure I will massacre him in the rematch though. I just offered to play a game of speed scrabble, but Daniel must be afraid since he denied me a game. Elise spent game time coloring in her coloring book. She has gotten much better about not eating the crayons but we still have to watch her. She did take a big chunk out of purple to which we let her know that coloring time was over.

We've been working doubly hard on getting a good sleeping routine for Ellie. She sleeps wonderfully at night... THANK GOODNESS... It took long enough. And she also takes a descent nap but lately she has been taking a 30 minute nap in the morning and then nothing the rest of the day. She is just dying to sleep by 5:30, but by that time it is too late and we have to struggle keeping her up. I think we are making progress though, she took her nap at 11:00 this morning. Ideally, we would like her nap to be right after lunch. We'll get there.

I think that Thursday we will be going to a play group while Daniel is doing some school business. I am kind of excited for that because Ellie has missed her friends here.

Most of this week will be spent just doing errands. We have a lot of things that need to be done before Daniel starts school. I have been a little melancholy this week since this is the week we were supposed to go on our cruise, but the doctor told me I would be too pregnant. It was a bummer. However, thinking about it it would have been a nightmare with Ellie at this age. She just wants to run everywhere. Still, it would have been fun.

Owen is doing well. We went to the doctor's office yesterday and he sounded and measured perfectly so all is well. At my ultrasound he was moving so much that they weren't able to get a really good look at the spine so my doctor offered us to get another ultrasound to ease our minds. Seeing as ultrasounds are expensive and that nothing could really be done if they found something wrong, we declined. We will love this babe no matter what. There is another test that they do early on in the pregnancy that tests whether or not the baby is down syndrome. It is kind of a sensitive test and has a lot of false positives in which a lot of women have to go through amniocentesis to check for sure and nothing ends up being wrong and the mom is freaking out the whole time thinking something is wrong with her baby. However, even if something is wrong with the baby, there is nothing that can be done. I think those tests are just to make moms freak out about not having a normal child.

Well, I am already tired (it is 7 o'clock) and I need to spend some time with my groom on our anniversary. Hope everyone is well... we are!