Friday, November 30, 2007

Worth a post...

A reminder, this Thursday is our appointment to find out for sure whether we are having a boy or a girl. As all good parents we are just hoping the baby continues to be healthy, as with all honest parents we are secretly hoping for one sex or the other.

We've decided we will (of course!) find out whether it is a boy or girl, and share that news with our family and friends (and the whole world), but we've decided to keep the name a secret until the birth. This infuriates my mother, who apparently is all of a sudden very concerned about having gifts monogrammed (I never had anything from when I was a baby monogrammed). But I guess that's a grandma's prerogative. None the less, Baby Girl or Baby Boy Kipp will remain nameless (except for the heinous nicknames we'll come up with to use in the meantime) until she or he is here.

We have decided this for a number of reasons, which follow:
1. People can be completely insensitive and say they dislike a name, but if you introduce a child with the name people are a lot less likely to say something out loud about it.
2. You have to have some sort of building suspense to go along with a birth besides whether or not the baby will have hair or be bald.
3. I have decided that I will probably have two names picked out and then see which one suits the baby better once they are born. (This reasoning has yet to be ran by Adam, but I'm sure he'll agree with his pregnant, irrational wife.)

Speaking of irrational, here's my latest completely irrational pregnancy story-
A side effect of hormones is apparently having completely ridiculous dreams. I've had these pretty much from the get go, but the one I had a few days ago was just out there.
In real life, my boss had purchased some cheese and ate quite a bit for lunch before realizing it was quite moldy and probably not healthy to be eating. So in turn, in my dream, I had a dream that all the cheddar cheese (not the Parmesan or mozzarella) had gone bad and moldy. So the next day (in real life again) I asked Adam to throw away all the cheddar cheese in our fridge because I couldn't eat it any longer. Rational, normal Cara knew that the cheese in our fridge was in no way moldy or even old, but pregnant, irrational Cara could under no circumstances eat the cheddar cheese that was in our fridge at that moment.

The cheese was promptly disposed of.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

My Political Views

Those of you who know me, know I don't enjoy politics, but I do love Chuck Norris, so enjoy.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Our Thanksgiving Wrap Up

We had a great meal if I do say so myself (but I made most of it, so it's a little hard to be impartial). I loved spending the day in the kitchen cooking away. We watched the parade and the dog show that was on afterwards. We are totally dog people, but some dogs are just so sad looking. We had a great time making fun of the ones who looked like they hated themselves for how they looked.

While I was cooking and watching television, we set up our Christmas decorations. This is always a big deal around our house, as the addition of a Christmas tree in the front room throws off the entire balance of the rest of the furniture requiring something (normally a bookcase full of heavy books) to be moved into another room. Previous years have not been too bad, but in the past year we added new furniture to our apartment which took up the additional space in the rest of our rooms. We laughed at ourselves when we realized the pregnant lady and man with the bad back, made a bad pair for having to move heavy bookcases, but we safely arranged everything where it needed to be and have begun the holiday festivities in our home. Nothing but Christmas music will be played henceforth until January.


Our new camera can even take nice pictures in hte dark.

Thanksgiving dinner was great, it was nice to actually spend a holiday with the Kooglers. Since we've known each other, one or the other of us has been disposed during a holiday so it was great to spend one together for once.


Kate's in the Moby behind Darby's head.

On Friday Adam woke me up at 3:15 in the morning to stand outside Best Buy until it opened at 5 in the morning in the freezing cold to get my Nintendo DS. Actually getting a pink Nintendo DS with the paw print on the outside and Nintendogs Best Friends Edition was totally worth freezing my pants off for an hour and a half. But the kicker was that then I had to go to work for 10 hours and try and stay awake and then go out to dinner for my bosses birthday.


These were originally the placecards on our Thanksgiving table, but I made an extra for Tina, my boss. The pattern is from Martha Stewart and can be found here.

The Turkish restaurant, Cafe Istanbul, was great and they even have live entertainment (a belly dancer) on the weekends. It was fun until I realized that my boss was telling me to go home because I was falling asleep at the table. The best part of the night was when a stranger gave a coworker's 2 year old a dollar to put in the belly dancer's waist band. Hilarious!

Eleamar and me at Cafe Istanbul

On Sunday I started an Advent calendar to put up around the house. I wanted to make something that would last longer than just this year, and I wanted it to be made out of felt since that is my favorite medium at the moment.


Here are the bare bones, I am still anticipating doing some hand blanket stitching to give it something extra. The bulbs will have velcro on the back so they can be added and rearranged as the days pass.


Dear Santa,
Adam has been such a good boy this year, he tries so hard to help me while I'm crafting. Please bring him a hand saw so he can keep all ten of his fingers. I'm sure he'd like some Legos too. We'll leave out extra cookies for you this year.
XOXOXO
Cara

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Happy Early Thanksgiving

From the land of perpetual summer. Today I'm wearing capri pants and a sleeveless shirt and it's 80 degrees outside. Doesn't really get me in the mood to roast a turkey and spend the day in the kitchen cooking with the hot oven and bring out the mistletoe in preparation for Christmas.
Luckily, a cold front comes through tonight and it will be dropping the temperature all day tomorrow. Here's hoping for a White Thankgiving (yeah right, that would never happen here, we might get down to 50 degrees however).

Monday, November 19, 2007

This weekend...

was a great weekend. We were super busy, but it was great.
Sunday we had the privelege to drive to Gainesville to watch our friend Hans Googer on his first morning leading worship at Gainesville Bible Church. The church's pastor happens to be a dear friend of ours, Colby Torres, so it was double special.

Hans groovin'


Preach the Word Colby


Micah and Auntie Cara love each other

I got to cuddle with Colby and Christy's two year old son Micah who is such a wonderful little boy and see Christy in the full bloom of pregnancy awaiting their next son, Joshua. It was such a wonderful day. It really blessed me to see how God uses the people we know to minister to the people of this world. And I always enjoy hearing Hans play, whether its sitting on my couch or in a formal setting. Great job Hans.

The house (in the background) and the mailbox (in the foreground) are exact replicas. Ha!


The lighthouse on Lake Kiowa


Wait! What's that sticking out of my sweater. Oh my goodness, it's my belly bump.


A baby blanket I finished this week. Nope, it's not for me.


Adam with my bosses dog, Taly.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Typical Day at the Office

We try to entertain ourselves around here at the office, so I was super excited when our new camera came in the mail and I got to bring it to work today to learn how to use it.

So this picture represents that they stole all the trashcans from the immediate area around my desk (there used to be three within trash tossing distance) and so things accumulate until I have to get up to go somewhere like the fax or the bathroom. I think someone has it out for me.
This is Eleamar. I know she looks like she's working, but she's actually using my color pens to update her Christmas list.
The pictures are dark, not because of the new camera, but I decided not to use flash. The flash tends to cause 50 people look my way all at once, scowling because they are having to work and I'm not.

Design Style

Quiz of the day... Finding out what my design style is...
You're eccentric with a touch of: sweet and classy.
Ok like we didn't know I was eccentric....
Take the quiz here.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Ahhhh.

I am finally able to sleep almost a whole night without waking myself up coughing.
I am drinking Starbuck's Caramel Apple Spice (why can't they just call it cider?) in my red cup with blue sleeve.
I'm back on the hook (crocheting that is) so we'll see if I can get myself up to speed to get all my intended holiday hooking done.
Life is feeling a little bit better.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Adam's Birthday Bonanza and Baby Kipp Update

Birthday Bonanza
So while I was on the fictional brink of death this past week, Adam's birthday came and went without much more than a, "Happy Birthday" from his wife. Luckily, Adam's good friend Bill came to the rescue to take him out to breakfast while I was the Princess of Porcelain and Mucus. But today we finally got to celebrate "his" day. We went to Chip's Hamburgers for lunch.
Then we went to Sprinkles, a gourmet cupcake bakery that has the most delicious cupcakes ever. Really. Ever. That's all they make are posh, delicious cupcakes.



The Red Velvet cupcake was so rich that I could only have a bite of it when we got home from the store. But don't worry, I ate a whole Pumpkin one later that night and it was so good I didn't even mind when it all came back up later. (I guess I'm not quite ready for that much sweet stuff yet.)

Baby Kipp Update
We had another doctor's appointment yesterday and got new pictures of the baby! I really love that our doctor does a sonogram every visit. Especially right now when I still can't feel the baby move or even really know it's there. But even though I wasn't eating much the baby looks like it has had more than its fill.

Look at that belly! The head is there on the right and the little legs are sticking straight up in the air. You might also be able to see the little back arm up by the face.
The doctor does a video on VHS for us when we go and she forgot to put the tape in so we got a double long sono and while the tape was in Baby decided to show off, sucking its thumb and then getting the hiccups. It's super cute, if I do say so myself.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

The Holidays

I LOVE the fall and winter. I love holidays- decorating, cooking, baking, going to parties, traveling, the airport, shopping, traffic. The whole shebang. I'll admit it, I'm a little bit crazy about the holidays. I plan out menus, and keep a Christmas notebook with addresses that get updated (sometimes!) throughout the year, gift lists with ideas and budgeting (that always gets blown out of the water), cut outs from magazines with crafts and recipes and ideas (that never all get tried out and accomplished).
Adam has set very clear boundaries for me during the holiday season. The decorations do not go up until the day after Thanksgiving, that is also when the holiday movies and music are allowed to begin their 24 hour vigil in our house. They are put away sometime before the end of New Year's Day. The only contraband that is allowed out before Thanksgiving is the Christmas cards (that were purchased the year before on sale, I can't justify the 100+ Christmas cards we send out unless they are on sale), because they have to be prepared and ready to mail the day after Thanksgiving. (Note: This year they will be a little later. I know! Horror! But I promise the wait will be well worth it, so keep your pants on!)
We have the same (but less stringent) boundaries for the fall. The fall decorations come out after it is officially Autumn and not before. And really I can't justify that one any earlier here in Texas since it is usually still 90 degrees outside when this occurs and I'm allowed one mini pumpkin spending spree- Can't have big pumpkins in a tiny apartment.

But what I love most about the holidays are traditions. I love knowing that I will do the same thing every year without having to really think or plan well for mishaps or problems. But I think what I appreciate most this year is how the traditions have morphed over the past few years. I know that for Thanksgiving there will be Kristi Campbell's Stuffing, Grandma Kipp's Corn Casserole, Laura's Cranberry Cobbler from her grandmother, we will all go around the table (whether it's a table seating 2 or 20) and say what we are thankful for (from my Step-grandparents, Bugs and Judy).
For Christmas, we will hide the Baby Jesus from the rest of the nativity until Christmas Eve, then the wise men will get increasing closer to the nativity as the days go on after Christmas, and we will open at least one good present on Christmas Eve so I can sleep (thanks Mom!). This year may be a little different because we will be at Disney World for Christmas, but usually I would have Black Forest Pie and Monkey Bread for Christmas Breakfast and Adam and I would fight over whether we should have ham or turkey for dinner (we usually end up having both). We would watch the full 24hours of The Christmas Story on TV, even though we have it on DVD and I hate that movie.

What are your favorite holiday traditions?

Monday, November 5, 2007

Oh the joys,

of pregnancy. It basically means that your body is not going to make any sense for 10 months at the very least. I believed myself totally prepared for this: getting up in the middle of the night to go to the restroom, morning sickness, all day sickness, many other things not appropriate to really share on the blog. I've been through the whole nausea, morning/all day sickness thing and was pretty much over it by the 10th week of pregnancy. I was totally praising God everytime my meal stayed where it should and I could go about my normal business.
But really a cold/undiagnosed sinus infection is something I lived with about 5 times a year in Ohio, but for the pregnant Cara, it's a totally different story. Apparently, my body has decided that while it is sick, all foreign things that come into my body are deemed bad and must be immediately expelled from the nearest exit (mostly out of my mouth again, the same way it came in). This would include water, juice, vitamins, tylenol, benadryl, any form of food that is not bread and by bread I mean basic white bread, no buscuits, wheat bread, or rolls allowed. I've lived off of ginger ale (no Sprite or 7-up allowed either) and white toast for a week now, I've tried to eat other things thinking I was a little bit better to be sorely disappointed by the resulting cleaning that then needs to take place.
Adam jokingly asked me yesterday if I was trying to vomit in every room in our apartment. So far I have just about every room down. At least I have goals in life.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Every single time...

I go back to Ohio, I get sick. Sad part about the last two times I've gotten sick is that, since I'm preggers I can't take anything that really kicks it in the hind end. Tylenol, Robitussin, and Benadryl have never really done it for me (I'm a NyQuil girl), but now they are pretty much the only things I can take. So I've been miserably at home living off of a loaf of white bread (because it's the only thing I can eat), ginger ale, and a box (actually two) of tissues.
I don't have this problem when I go to Florida. I'll just have to go visit Baby Ella from now on instead of the rest of the family. Hope you don't mind Ryan and Laura!