Team Grammatikii

That's right, we leave tomorrow! We are both frantically trying to finish things up at work before we head out for the next 14 days. I just wanted to give a quick update on our appointment last Friday! Everything is looking super duper. I am 24 weeks along, and Gretel is growing and growing. At the next appointment in January I get to do the awesome glucose test. BLECH! That nasty fruit punch goo is already chilling in our fridge. I am not looking forward to chugging it. But the good news is that same day we will be doing the 3D sonogram, so be ready for the first clear pics of the little Grammatikii's face! We can't wait. Looks like we might get some snow in Stuttgart, so hopefully we will have a white Christmas. It is one of my favorite things this time of year. And I am looking forward to experiencing all the traditions of D's family. We went ahead and did our Christmas early so we didn't have to try and pack presents or lug them all over the place.

I really really really love Christmas. Everything about Christmas. Trees, music, lights, Jesus, snow, cold, lattes, fam time, gift giving, and on and on. I love our little house when Christmas explodes in it. I try to maintain so that you can still walk through the place, but it's CHRISTMAS TIME! So that means music is playing all the time, the garland lights are on, so are the two trees. Yes, two trees. The big one in the front room, and a little one in the TV room. When D first bought the house in 2007, and we had the first Christmas tree for some reason we named it Jimmy. All subsequent trees have been Jimmy the second, and so on. This year it's Jimmy the Fifth aka FUNF (funf is five in German). This is Funf. Even though we are only going to be in town for another week, I still wanted to get a tree and get it decorated. It helps with the Christmas sprit! After this last trip to ATL, I came down with a fab cold. I had a little one last week, and after this crazy

It. Was. Glorious. 85, sunshiny, and blue sky for miles. We sat under little huts, drank cold delish juicy things (well, D had beer and CocoLocos), and just enjoyed the nothingness. We had put off a few things we needed to talk about specifically for vacation time, and we both really appreciated the time to chat and stare at the waves while doing so. We got started on the great baby name discussion. We made some progress, started a list, and had fun trying to come up with things. It was even more entertaining since we forgot the baby name book my cousin had let us borrow, and so we were trying to Google all sorts of stuff. I thought I would be disappointed that I couldn't partake in any of the true all-inclusive joys...well, really just the booze. But D managed to cover that for me, and all the juice was so FRESH it was nice to just drink those. Although, the waiters really had a hard time grasping that I didn't want ANY alcohol in my beverages. I kept pointing at my be

I was WAY OFF!!! It's a GIRL!! We were watching the monitor, and the tech was telling us about how everything looked, and that it was going to be a few minutes before we got to the good part. She needed to take measurements, and check stuff out. Then in the middle of it, when we weren't expecting anything, she goes 'Oh, it's a girl!' Um....awkward silence. Well, not really awkward. I was crying, and staring at Daniel's face. And then I started laughing. He just kept asking over and over again if she was sure. I just kept laughing! I couldn't believe it. It did NOT seem real at all. Then the tech kept showing us that the important boy part was missing. :) It was too too funny. D could NOT believe it all. She printed us out pictures (we will post more later). She is waving hi! When we finally saw the doctor, it still hadn't set in. D is concerned for our financial well being and the amount of CRAP he is going to buy this little girl. He was

T minus 3 hours till the Newton makes the big reveal! I slept way more than I thought I would last night. D, of course, was snoring like crazy and mumbling in German. He is excited too. :) Keep your eyes and ears ready! I will post here later, but only after we have had a chance to spread the news to our family first. I am sure some of you will be getting text messages because I hate waiting, especially when I have good news to share! Pray for an active Newton, and a clear picture!

Only 9 more days till we find out if the Newton is a she or a he! I feel like this next week is going to drag by. D is back in ATL, and I am forcing myself into a week of no plans. We have been going, going, going recently, and yesterday it caught up with me. I spent the afternoon on the couch napping, and not feeling so hot. Without fail, when D leaves town, I pack my week full of friend time and things to do and blah blah blah. This week will be different. I have one night where I need to be out and about, but I have been able to move everything to that one night. I am ready to catch up on my book club book, get back to my ten hours of sleep, and try to clean up some of the disaster that is our house. With the windows still in the process of being finished, it's quite the scene. Sheets are still over some furniture, most rooms don't have curtains up, stuff has been moved/piled wherever there is space, and there is a never ending film of sawdust all over the place. I

This month has been rough. Not for me, personally, but I have had to watch some of my dearest friends go through some serious crap. Family issues, lay offs, break ups, mental health problems, buried secrets, and on and on and on. It started a few weeks ago, and then kept snowballing. It kind of all culminated by the end of last week when I got a flat tire during my lunch break, and was stuck downtown until someone could come and get me. At least I had the good sense to get my Dairy Queen blizzard first or else some pregnancy hormones might have gone crazy. Is my flat tire a big deal? Nope. Not at all. Those things happen. But after watching and hearing and feeling for my friends through all of their BS the last couple of weeks, it was really the last thing that I was hoping for. And I think everyone knows sometimes your head space just gets too full of CRAP, and then everything seems like a huge deal. Sometimes they are, but most of the time it's just stuff getting blown out

Just a little one! D's travel scheduled changed, so we were able to move up the BIG appointment! Now it's Wednesday, November 16. I know, I know. It's only two days. But the sooner, the better! AND - we are only 35 days away from 8 days of beachy heaven! What a great fall!

Just a quick update! We had our 16 week appointment today. The Little Newton is just cruising right along. I was a little concerned when our doc was looking for his (I still maintain it's a HIM) heartbeat. The last time she did, she didn't have to look at all! This time he was hiding in the back corner, and didn't want to be bothered. She searched him out though, and there it was. WHOMPWHOMPWHOMP. Everything is looking super duper. We did choose to go ahead and do the non-invasive Down's Syndrome screening. It's just some blood work that does some basic testing. We should find out those results next week. I do have to put in a good word for Nurse Blood Drawer. Typically, I HATE getting my blood drawn. I have chubby arms and deep veins. I always ask them to please just skip trying my arms and go straight to my hands. It's just easier (and less painful) that way. They don't really listen, and end up sticking each arm a couple of times. Eventual

So, Daniel and I are normally big travelers. We visit his fam in Germany once or twice a year. We try to add on an extra stop in Europe each time we go. We do lots of weekend trips to see our friends and family that are spread across the country. Some people like sports tickets, some like seeing concerts, some like TVs or whatever. We like to travel. And this little Newton is getting his wings early! In the next few months, we are going to be crazy people. Two weekends ago we kicked off the insanity by visiting one of my FAV places, Denver. Fortunately, this fav place has one of my BFFs of 10 years, a handful of more close friends, my favorite foodie places, and shopping zones. We went specifically for the Great American Beer Festival . If you haven't heard of it, check it out. A crap load of brewers, tens of thousands of people, and we volunteered to pour for the brewers. So we got in free, drank free (well, not me), and got to people watch for HOURS. I highly recomme

For those of you who haven't heard, I will soon be getting more roundish. Baby Grammatikos will be making his/her appearance on or around April 2, 2012. (That makes me about 14 weeks along.) One of my good friends calls me Figs. (There is a reason, but it's either ridiculous or I can't recall. Or both.) And she started calling it Fig Newton. Now we just call it Newton. So, from here on out, the he/she shall be Newton. Daniel and I could not be more excited. We have both always wanted a kid (or kids but we will see how this one goes), and God worked out this timing pretty much exactly how we wanted it. It happened a lot faster that we were expecting. So...good for us? I don't know. I didn't believe it for a long time. I took three tests, and waited the agonizing four weeks to go to the doctor to get a real test. And then, sure enough, we saw it. There is a little bean in there. Well, now it's a lemon. But you know, it's actually in there. I had a

Some of you may know, but most probably don't that I have something called Synaesthesia. It's super super interesting. It involves synapses in the brain that fire....weirdly. Not really incorrectly, but on different paths than normal. There are numerous forms of this...tasting shapes, feeling colors...etc. My form is grapheme or color synesthesia. Wiki has a great page on the whole thing. It's a much more condensed version of Cytowic's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia Anywho...grapheme. I read letters and numbers in color. I have for as long as I can remember. I figured out about third grade that other people didn't, so I never talked about it. Until doing some Young Life training, and one of the leaders and I got into a convo about it, and she showed me a magazine article. I am part of synesthete.org and participated in a small study they did. it involved being shown 150 different letters and having to choose the color they were, in two different scena

6 days. 147 hours. 8867 minutes. 5320549...48...47 seconds until VACATION. (No, I didn't do the multiplication on my own. I have an app for that.) Next week, we will head to Germany again. This time we will be joining with a large group of the family to celebrate my mother-in-law's 70th birthday. As some of you know, this was supposed to be a big surprise. Alas, it was not to be. I had blocked all my German relations on Facebook save for one. The one I COMPLETELY forgot about. Daniel's GOSSIPING cousin. And after successfully keeping the secret for four months it got blown to smithereens in seconds. The good news is that my MIL was already VERY suspicious, and now she has cause to be excited and sanitize every inch of her home until we arrive. This will be my fifth trip over the Atlantic. That's weird to think about. Five times? Have we even been together that long? Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around what my life has become. I randomly me

So, last week I celebrated my third anniversary with AGENDA: Kansas City. I took this job to get away from the pit of crap that was my banking career. (Read as - going nowhere fast.) I was ready for a break from the routine that I had known for seven years. I stumbled across this company while searching for jobs in event management. An office management position was EXACTLY what I was looking for, and praise the Lord I got it. This job has been changing every day since I have been here. It's a running joke in the office that there is not enough paper in the world on which to print my job description. IT person, accountant, therapist, babysitter, iPod tutor, web designer, and the list goes on and on. For the first year, it was just office management. And it was exactly what I needed. Now it's project management, and I really enjoy it. And I am fortunate to get paid well for the random assignments I have. My boss is nuts, the hospitality industry is a gossiping mess, an

So I keep trying this blog thing, and I keep failing. BUT NOT THIS TIME! I am going to make this happen. I love keeping up with my friends, and I would love to share what is going on in my life! So here we go!