Basketball, Birthday & Baby Bumps

Parker can't quite sit up by herself yet, but she likes to sit up and play. So she spends a lot of time in the walker or in our home made play pen. Hey it works, right?

Gideon's party was a big success. It looked very festive (thanks to Eden's great decorating job.) And all his little friends showed up. So we had lots of food and presents.

Well anyway, the birthday boy seemed quite happy about it.

For being abou 15 weeks pregnant, Jesse looks fantastic. This is how she looks normally. In the picture below she's really pushing her stomach out.

Sunday was my boy's 3rd birthday. I woke up so sick I could barely move. I seriously felt like I'd been run over by a truck. So the munchkin pretty much had the best birthday ever because I was too tired to be a good parent.

Since he had a cough and runny nose, he stayed home from church with me, while daddy and sister stayed as far away from us as possible. So he had birthday cake for breakfast, stayed in his pj's all day and ate cheetos and watched cartoons while I vegged on the couch.

That evening I felt guilty for my poor parenting, so we had a picnic on the living room floor consisting of sandwiches, broccoli salad and orange slices. (Thank goodness for all the leftover party food.)

Other than the birthday and trying to get over the colds we've caught, we've been watching a lot of basketball (of course!) Naturally we're all in the spirit!

Oh yeah she's a Tarheel fan too!

Last night we went swimming at Green Canyon with Grandma & her church. Eden came along so Gideon had a great friend.

I somehow don't have any pictures of Parker in her darling swimsuit. But she had a great time splashing and playing in the water. And that's the update from here for now.

Trying to make sense of the Madness!

Okay its now official. I hate the ncaa selection commitee. Most years filling out a tournament bracket is fun and challenging. This year it's just flat frustrating. I have spent the last three hours pouring over box scores and replaying highlight reels and scouting injury reports. But no matter how I break it down the Southeast region just does not make any sense at all. Seriously it's a huge mess. Pitt as the 1 seed is hardly a clear cut favorite. Sure they were the Big East regular season champions but their tournament resume is fairly weak in the modern era. Florida has no business being a 2 seed they were much more deserving of a 4 or 5. I have them packing in the 2nd round. BYU would have been a great pick to dominate this region but since the controversial suspension of Brandon Davies their play has been somewhat erratic and much too dependent upon Jimmer and his scoring super power. Butler is a sentimental favorite having come so close last year. Although the Bulldogs are good, this is not the 2010 squad. Utah State could prove to be a giant killer. Since December they've lost only one game and are, in my opinion, severely under seeded. The whole region is murky at best and leaves one with more questions than answers. I guess I'll have to just make my best guess and wait to see what happens like everyone else.

On the other side of the bracket the East regional is just an absolute minefield. I get so torn anyway because I'm obviously emmotionally involved where North Carolina and Duke are concerned. With any other team I can objectively review scores and performances and pretty well predict how they might fare in the tournament. But when it comes to UNC and Duke I somehow can't bring myself to be objective. I always want UNC to win and I always want Duke to lose. Actually I'd be okay with the Tarheels only winning it all about every 3rd year as long as Duke never wins again. (See I can be unselfish.) Anyway back to my conundrum the East regional is absolutely stacked with talented teams. I naturally want UNC to win but I can be realistic enough to admit that it will be like running the gauntlet for the Tarheels to get to the Final Four this year. Not that it's impossible and not that Carolina is incapable of doing it. It's not going to be a cake walk. That's all.

As for the other 2 regions: In the west I want to see Duke lose early but realistically I have to give them credit. They have talent and experience and loads of confidence as the reigning national champs. Still I can dream and right now my bracket shows San Diego State sending them packing in the Elite 8. Although the prospect of a Duke and UNC rematch in the Final Four is enticing to all basketball fans, I would rather see Duke make an embarrassing early exit. Over in the Southwest the only question that looms is whether or not Ben Hansbrough can capitalize on being the baby brother of Psycho-T. I think Notre Dame is every bit as good a team as Kansas or Purdue, the only question is which of those 3 teams can string together four wins in a row. All of them are certainly talented enough.

The funny thing is that I sit here stressing myself out every year for what? Just to beat my mom.

Surgery

Saturday it got a lot warmer (like 40s) so we had a lot of snow melt. Gideon couldn't stand it, he had to play outside. He got absolutely filthy and muddy, but that' s okay, he had fun. Then it snowed again that night. Go figure.

I got a call last week that Gideon's surgery was being moved up a month. So this morning we were up much too early and at the surgical center before six. Gideon was in a pretty good mood. He kept saying, "Go to the dentist. Fix my teeth."

He was having fun playing in the bed this morning especially when they gave him a new stuffed dog.

Then they slipped a sedative into some tylenol and he got really relaxed. He just zoned out until they wheeled him back. The Dr. said all went well, but they just had to extract those 4 front teeth. So he'll be toothless until his grown up teeth come in.

I have no pictures from immediately after surgery, because he had some delirium coming out of the anesthesia. Basically he FREAKED. He screamed and kicked and thrashed and cried and clawed for like an hour. Seriously he beat up on both me and the nurse. It made me want to bawl. He wasn't totally cognizant, so nothing I could do would calm him down because he wasn't even truly aware it was me. Even after he knew it was me, he sobbed and screamed and cried for another hour.

It took a good hour after we got home before he stopped having meltdowns. He's still pretty sensitive, both physically and emotionally. But right now, the silliness has taken over. I hope he takes a nap this afternoon. I'd really like to go for a short run. But we'll just have to see.

Our first attempt at solid foods...

...was not at all a success. She continued to make faces, spit out the cereal and eventually cry. Oh well. We'll try again some other time.

In other Princess P news, we've had some exciting developments. She's discovered her feet and learned to blow raspberries. So that's all really fun.

She continues to be the happiest, most content baby ever, so we just thank our lucky stars we were blessed with her!