Showered with Love

 

While we are visiting Cleveland, Jer’s mom (Dana) and sister, or “Seestor” as I call her, (Holly) hosted a shower for Baby Remington. It was a wonderful party and we felt so blessed that so many of our family and friends came to celebrate our new little bundle. As an extra special treat for me, my Aunt Dianne and my  Gramma drove all the way from Erie for the party!

This was Jer’s first baby shower (well, first one where he was the ONLY guy). Luckily, Aunt Karen’s wine punch helped take the edge off.

 

We both had so much fun and feel deeply grateful for the love and support of our family and friends here. We can’t wait to introduce everyone to Baby Remington. He’ll certainly be a well dressed little man!

We had a wonderful time and can’t thank everyone enough! (But we'll sure try! :)

Celebrating Christmas With The Ones We Love

Wow! I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since our last post. The Remington Family has been busy.

Here's a recap:

I got sick...but I am MUCH better now! (Thanks for all your well wishes!)

We had our 24 Week Baby appointment...he's growing right on schedule. :-)

We went to Jer's work Christmas party and had a great time.

We had a long-overdue visit with Kellie, Dave and Ethan.

We traveled up to Fort Worth and had several nice days celebrating an early Christmas with the Allaires.

Next, we flew to Cleveland to see Jer's family for the holiday. On Christmas Eve day, I introduced our nephews to the Allaire Family tradition of “Chocolate Covered Christmas.”

We had a wonderful Christmas with Jer’s parents and the Kubaney Family. It snowed all day and was a wonderfully snowy White Christmas!

Jer's family hosted a baby shower for us. (Stay tuned for a future blog post on that!)

We’ll be in Cleveland for another few days before heading home to Texas. We hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends and fun!!

How Big Is He?!

You've been there when Baby Remington weighed as much as an olive can. You were with us when I discovered the irony of the EXACT size of a wine glass -- height and weight!

Now, just how big is Baby Remington at 25 weeks? Well, according to my favorite preggo book he is about 13 inches and 1.5 pounds. Nothing in our kitchen matched that exactly, so I checked under the Christmas tree....


Baby Remington weighs as much as this present for my Dad. :)

Merry Christmas to Grampa and Baby Remington!!

Highs and Lows

Several years ago our very good friends Jeremy & Jessica introduced us to "Highs and Lows." We were having dinner at their house with them and their two children, and everyone around the table gave their "high" of the day and their "low" of the day. It's a group activity...no one can pass...its a great way to share something fun, or even sad, and most of all, it is absolutely democratic -- everyone has a voice.

I love it.

A few weeks later we were visiting our family in Cleveland and we introduced the concept to the "Baby Boys" (our nephews that are now not so little, as you can see from this picture taken this July). At the time, our nephew Jack's "L's" sounded like "W's." And when it came his turn, his high was, "that Aunt Jenny and Uncle Jer are finally here..." and he thought for a while about his low. When I pressed to find out the low from his very busy day, he said, "I don't got no woe, Aunt Jenny."

Is that the best thing you've ever heard, or what?!?

So today, on a cold day in December, I thought I'd introduce "highs and lows" to the uninitiated. Remember, this is a group participation, so please use the comment section to share yours.

My high is that this morning Jer MADE ME MY FAVORITE BREAKFAST -- French Toast. Mmmm. And because of that, I don't got no woe.

Jer said his high is "eating breakfast with my wife" (and I'll add for him: "and then she did the dishes.") He said his low will be raking leaves this afternoon.

Now, it is your turn!! :-)

Boy, Oh Boy!

We are going to have a baby boy!!

We had our 20 week sonogram today and learned that Baby Remington is a HE! :)

He was so wiggly that the technician got frustrated that he wouldn't be still! This doesn't surprise me because this morning I watched my belly move for the first time from baby kicks - WOW! (I've heard that 20 weeks is early for that so I'm probably in for a "bumpy ride!")

Jer is already planning baby's first dirt bike and how we'll take the baby along backpacking.

We couldn't be happier!

Cheers!

I'm halfway through my 19th week so I thought I'd check in to see how big our little olive can is these days. While every different source gives different sizes, according to my favorite book, the baby weighs between 7 and 8 ounces and is 8 to 9 inches long. (Seems crazy to me, but what do I know?!)

And this is what I found in our kitchen that is that size:

Does this seem ironic to anyone else? Hmm...

Cheers to Baby Remington!

Three years ago today…

Jenny and I were enjoying our first day as a married couple. We were surrounded by family and friends in one of our favorite places in the world, Key West. We had an amazing wedding day, which was preceded by an amazing vacation with family and friends the week prior in Islamorada. We are truly blessed to have such an amazing group of family and friends around us.

From Wedding Pro Portraits, November 2005

It’s been an amazing journey, and really it has only just begun…

First Flutters

Baby Remington introduced him/herself to me last week with our first "little flutters." It was amazing! At first I didn't know that it was happening until it stoped and then happened again. :)

After my yoga class on Sunday, Baby Remington was tumbling a lot. Baby must enjoy yoga as much as I do!

Ghosts of Halloweens Past

As we wait for the trick or treaters to show up tonight, we were just talking about how three years ago, we spent Halloween in the Florida Keys with some wonderful friends and family. It was just after Hurricane Wilma, so the weather was a little cool, and we basically had the place to ourselves. (Which is good when you are a group of nearly 30 people!)

Here's how we spent the day:

We hung out at the pool...

...and played on the beach...

We dressed up...

...to go out to dinner..."Table for 30, please." (Remember the lights kept going out because of the power after the hurricane?!)...

The "kids" went trick or treating around the hotel...

We played games on our patio...and drank a lot...Again...

Happy memories! Happy Halloween!

Voted Yet?

We did our duty over the weekend and got the snazzy "I voted" stickers to prove it!

Texas still has early voting for one more day (through Oct. 31) so go do your part, Texans! We looked up a sample ballot on our county web site -- this helped us make sure we were ready to vote for each office and proposition. :)

Now go do it!

Backpacking: Big Bend, November 1999

I moved to Texas at the end of the summer of 1999. While I was enjoying my first wonderfully mild fall, I definitely found myself missing the amount of time that I was used to spending outdoors backpacking and camping back home. It wasn’t so much that you can’t do those things in Texas, as much as it was that I still hadn’t yet learned of all the opportunities available.

Knowing that I wasn’t going to make the trip up North for the Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to figure out a way to spend it in the great outdoors. A trip to my local REI turned up a copy of Laurence Parent’s “Hiking Big Bend National Park”. My then-roommate at the time, Susan (another transplant from the frozen north), who was always pretty much up for anything, agreed to join me.

Little did I know that this would be the first of many trips to the park and to the region, which has turned out to be a Texas-based surrogate for my beloved Allegheny National Forest, which is where I first truly fell in love with the outdoors.

Photo Album: Backpacking Big Bend, November 1999

Finding Inspiration

Yesterday, the networking group I'm involved in at work hosted an "Inspirational Women" panel made up of women who have done phenomenal things in their personal lives. I was asked to be the moderator, and humbly (with a tad bit of protest ;) agreed.

Each of the three speakers were such great story tellers, were so open and honest, and each felt a passion to doing. Here's a little taste . . .

The first woman decided as a single person to adopt a child, and navigated the process of adoption in the State of Texas from the foster system to find her child. After months of waiting she became a mom to a beautiful little girl we met at the event. After she adopted a second child, more and more people were seeking out her advice and counsel on how they could become parents. She decided to channel her boundless energy and specific knowledge into a adoption forum that she hosted at our company. One year later, there are six families with pending adoptions. She'll host her second adoption forum next month. Her goal remains: one child adopted into a loving family.

Anyone else inspired?!

The second woman is an elite athlete who had already done a few (FEW?!) marathons, triathlons, IronMans...and decided to [dramatic pause] SWIM THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. (Rachael - don't get any ideas, Girl!) She trained her body and mind to prepare for the grueling swim and surrounded herself with a support network of people for her training and swim who could make decisions for her in case she couldn't. Her swim was successful and she had the fastest time of that year! At the end of her story, she asked the audience, "what is your 'English Channel?'"

Umm...?

The final woman was originally a part of our planning committee and showed real passion for what people's motivation. And you know me, I asked her a few question and learned that her story is just as inspirational as the other women we were featuring! So we asked her to join the panel as our third speaker. Her story is that after losing her mom to "lifestyle-related cancer" (she was severely overweight) when she was 25, and watching her brother also die from the same cancer when she was 40, she 'could see her own fate when she looked in the mirror.' A few years later -- and after trying every diet under the sun -- she finally began the path that would help her lose more than 100 pounds over 16 months. She now she lives a happier, healthier -- and likely longer! -- life.

Wow.

I am truly inspired by these women, and I was honored to help share their stories.

Tonight I'm thinking about a good friend’s mom. She's just begun her battle with Breast Cancer, and we are all positive that she'll win this fight. She's a really special lady and our friend is back home with her this week. Best wishes! :-)

Olives

One funny thing about pregnancy books is that they always seem to compare the baby's growth progress to food. While I admit that this appeals to me as someone who has threatened to eat up my sweet little nieces and nephews...it's kind of weird.

This week, Baby Remington is about 5½ ounces. But really, how big – or small! – is that?

After using my food scale to weigh everything in my spice cabinet and fruit bowl, I decided to move to the canned foods. And I think Jeremy really appreciated the play-by-play as I worked through the kitchen: "Argh! An orange is 7½ ounces! Applesauce is 4¼ ounces! . . ." You get the idea – it was getting serious and I was getting frenzied.

And then, I found it. A little can that was a left over ingredient from a pot-luck dinner. A can of chopped olives. Baby Remington weighs about as much as a can of chopped olives. :-)

Stay tuned for updates on our pantry and Baby Remington's progress.

A Funny New Year’s Resolution

For New Year's this year, we rented a house in Port Aransas with a big group of friends. We had a fun time with our great friends and enjoyed the fantastic weather!

Here are a few of my favorite memories:

• Playing games around the big island in the kitchen

• Long walks and playing on the beach each day with Sadie and Brandy

• Homemade chili (by Sarah & Rodney) and my homemade mac & cheese (YUM!)
• Cornhole and flying kites on the beach

• Celebrating THREE birthdays: Michele's (Dec. 24), Jenny's (Jan. 1) and Carmen's (Jan. 5)
• Decorating cupcakes…and then learning that I didn't buy frosting, but gel food coloring (Oops! :-)

• And of course, our New Year's resolutions! While I don't remember swearing off Tracy Chapman in '08 (Carmen and Shannon swear I did!), no one could forget Chris' resolution: "Procreate in '08!" We all laughed, but THREE couples (and counting ;-) are now expecting! Congratulations to Amanda & Lance (baby boy due in December), Paula & Chris (TWINS due in early 2009) and we are expecting in March of 2009.

What a fun memory….what I remember of it. :-)

Greetings from Austin, Texas!

We would like to welcome you to the brand-spanking new Remington Family blog. Jenny and I figured that this would be a good way to start providing more frequent updates to all of our friends and family, where ever they may be in the good ole’ USA or elsewhere in the world.

We plan to use this blog to share various details about our (growing) family, so we hope you tune in and enjoy.