Sneezing Panda

I had to share this with all of you!

Baby Names

Since everyone's been talking about baby names we thought we'd share ours and see what you think. We're pretty certain that if it's a girl that it will be named Addison, however, we're not sure about the middle name, possibly Renae. Addison was decided long before the baby and it still appears to be both our choice to keep. We're not as certain about the boy name... I really like Keaton Van but he's not sold on Keaton so much. We have talked about Brayden but every time I think we have a name he comes up with a new one so this is everchanging. All I know is that Van will be the middle name. Anyhow let us know what you think.

Boy or Girl?

Well, I know many of you were anxiously waiting to see whether we were having a boy or a girl. I went in to my appointment yesterday so excited only to find out that the ultrasound couldn't be done that day because they lady was at a funeral and that I would need to wait til my next visit. I was not too happy about this so they told me I could just schedule the ultrasound anytime. I think they probably think I'm grouchy but I was very frustrated. Anyway, I'm just waiting to see when Scottie can get another half day so we can get back to Lincoln. Sorry no news yet.

Not much happening...

Sorry I haven't posted in some time now. Not too much has happened. We're just in wait until we found out whether we're having a boy or girl to start on the nursery. I'm not exactly certain how I want to do the room yet but my weekends have been spent organizing and getting the rooms ready to switch. We'll be making our room the nursery and we'll move to the guest bedroom. We thought this was the best option. Well we should have more news next week! Finally. It seems like forever.

Youth As Resources

So, many of you know I run a Juvenile Diversion program working with first-time youth offenders but I also coordinate youth service projects within the county and wanted to share my latest project. I believe it's had a huge impact and could be awesome anywhere so I thought I'd share...

We worked with Century 21 Bremer Agency and AnySoldier.com collecting donations to be sent to troops serving in Iraq from the area. Anyone can do this. It's so great. You just go on the anysoldier.com website and search for a troop and it tells you everything. I had a father with two sons in Iraq come talk to the youth and let us know what supplies we needed to send, baby wipes and ramen noodles being priority items along with feminine products of course.

If you're wondering why baby wipes, this is their shower. The kids couldn't believe it.

So many things we take for granted and so many things they're sacrificing for us.

The kids were able to collect over $600.00 in items and cash to put in care packages for the soldiers and we wrote a grant for $500.00 to help send out the supplies to the troops.

If you look up SPC Stephanie M. Nelson on www.anysoldier.com you can read what one soldier wrote back to us. (you can search by last name) I believe if you click the Where to Send tab that page will bring up a list of soldiers on the left side and you can search from there.

Anyway I just thought I'd share that with all of you. I'm really proud of what these kids did and it's meant so much to the soldiers.

More House Pics

Another picture of our house after we did a lot of work, taking down wallpaper in EVERY room and major painting. You don't get to see much of the deck but it wraps around the east and south side of the house. There's still a lot of work to be done throughout the house. We did more this year to the outside though in landscaping, etc.

Someday we'll get the basement finished.

And here's our crazy dog, Meiko!

Welcome everyone! I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing but I wanted to get some practice at this before I have to do a lot of posting when the baby comes. Several people have asked if we will have a blog and I thought since I had some extra time I'd take a shot at it.