Hospital Photo

Here is Sara just before we checked out of the hospital on Tuesday. We got to select the hat from off a Christmas tree at the hospital!

Early Bird

Surprise, surprise...our little girl decided to come 4 weeks early!!

My water broke just before 7:00 AM on Friday morning, and off to the hospital we went! After a few complications (like my doctor not being available since it was the day after Christmas, and the resident doctor not checking her position with an ultrasound when we first arrived so we had to wait through 17 hours of contractions and poor progress dilating before the nurse finally realized "that's not a head I'm feeling!" -- THEN an ultrasound was done to confirm she was breech! and a c-section was performed)...

Sara Christine Hinckley was born Saturday, December 27th at 5:11 AM
7 lbs 3 oz., 18.5 inches

Mother and baby are doing well! For being 4 weeks early, she certainly isn't "preemie" sized!

So far we think she looks more like her Daddy. For the first two days of her life, she's enjoyed a lot of eating and sleeping, and that's about it!

Welcome, our little angel!

Bippy Harthday

My birthday was last week and Rob surprised me with this piece of fancy cake. We took some photos to remember the occasion......notice anything particularly strange about this photo? It was not been altered in any way.

Cinnamony Goodness

The results of what can be accomplished while staying up all night to bake Christmas goodies. YUM!!

-- reply to this post today if you want one. :)

the bakery is open late

... I just realized my post title has a double meaning. I've got "a bun in the oven" and am also waiting to put actual buns in the oven! HA!!

I'm up right now at 12:46 on Christmas morning (or Christmas Eve, whichever way you look at it) waiting for the homemade cinnamon roll wreaths Rob and I started making earlier this evening to rise so we can bake them. Rob's asleep in bed, with thoughts of sugar-plumb fairies dancing in his head. I wish that's where I was! But when you start a massive baking project at 8:00 PM, you don't plan on getting to bed too early!

Merry Christmas everyone!

More Belly Photos

My cousin's wife did a photoshoot with us on Saturday. She's getting started with a photography business and wanted some pregnancy photos for her portfolio. We did an urban, outdoor shoot (in the snow!) in downtown Salt Lake. It was fun! To see more, visit her blog by clicking here.

WE GOT AN OFFER!!

After having our condo on the market for just over two months now, we finally got an offer today! YIPPEE-HOORAY! The offer came in at only $1,900 less than what we're asking, and it's a cash buyer! Which means we don't have to worry about their loan falling through or something. The only down sides? Horrible timing! (or perfect timing, depending on which way you look at it). They want to close on January 16th, which is only 6 days before my due date!! BUT they are buying it for their daughter to live in, and she doesn't have to be out of her current place until the first of March, so potentially we could close on the 16th and then rent it back from them for a month or so, if they'd be up for that. So I guess we just have to decide if we want to try to move before the baby comes or wait until after. I'm voting for wait until after! But we have to make sure the buyers are okay with that first. Let's hope so!! Because otherwise it's going to be a rough month trying to pack up all our stuff AND find a new place to move into, AND have the Holidays, AND be 8 months pregnant, AND finish buying all the baby stuff we still need, AND .... did I mention I'm 8 months pregnant?? YIKES! Gonna be a busy month!

p.s. ~ I know we've been trying to sell our place and that this one-bedroom condo is just too small for us once the baby comes, but now that we actually have an offer, I'm a little bit sad! To tell you the truth, I was kinda hoping we wouldn't get any offers until after the baby came and we re-listed in the Spring. Is that weird? I mean, we're excited to be able to move into a bigger place and everything, but this is our first place, and it's gonna be sad to sell it and move out. We've really liked living here. Plus, I'm just not too excited about all the business that comes with moving, plus stacking on top of that having a baby in the middle of it which will basically put our lives on hold for a few weeks! Anyway, just getting a little sentimental, that's all.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Today is the first time it's really felt like the Christmas season to me. Rob and I left this morning to drop Rob off at work, and during the time we were in the car, it started to snow. (off topic -- during the transition from rain to snow, I started singing a made up parody version of "Should I Stay or Should I Go". It goes a little something like this: "Should I rain or should I snow now. If I rain there will be trouble....but if I snow there will be double. So c'mon and let me know! Should I rain or should I snow." -- yes, I am a nerd for those of you who didn't already know.) ANYWAY...by the time I got back home it was snowing pretty heavily, and when I walked into our condo the heater was blowing and the lights on our newly purchased Christmas trees (a grouping of the three little ones of varying heights) were glowing at the back of the room. And in that moment, it felt like Christmas.

Moving to the Coast!

Ok, no we're not, but after spending two days there over the Thanksgiving holiday, we sure want to! The weather was PERFECT and was a nice change from chili Utah (even though this year we actually got a Fall--it's been pretty nice weather in Salt Lake). But at the beach, the sun was shining and it was actually warm. It was great. We went with my parents (just the 4 of us -- nobody else wanted to come!) and stayed at a nice beach-front hotel with great views of the ocean. We had our own room with a king-sized bed, fireplace, and mini kitchen! It was way nice (thanks for paying Dad!).

The tide was exceptionally low on Friday afternoon, so there was more wet sand than usual. In this photo I was pushing down on the sand with my foot to see the change in color as the sand pushed up and the water drained. I'm easily amused I guess! Also, it's a pretty good shot of my huge belly!

Mi Madre. Isn't this a great photo of her?

Daddy-Dear after returning from the surf. He was the only one brave enough to get in the water! (and the only one with a wet suit, hence his bravery.)

Out to the ocean.

We also ate at this fun restaurant that had polaroid photos plastered all over the walls of the entry (apparently it's a popular place for birthday dinners, and they take a polaroid of anybody celebrating such an occasion and add it to the wall). The servers also did some entertainment by pouring the water starting with the pitcher 3 feet above your glass! They also did another impressive trick which we got some video of. They pour water into a glass on somebody's head while blindfolded! It was pretty fun to watch.

We also got to spend time with my niece and nephew. Eli (the nephew) is 2 and it took some warming up to us before he would let us play with him, but then once you did something he liked you had to do it over and over and over!! Kaya (the niece) is 3 months and is all smiles! It's too bad we don't live closer so we can see them more often. We also played games with my siblings. A little Clue action, some Sorry (did you know there is a "grown-up" version of how to play? Much more strategy involved. You hold 5 cards at a time and decide which one to use instead of just drawing the top card and playing it immediately. Much more fun that way!) and of course, the Wii. It was nice to get away for a few days. We didn't want to leave! My mom and sister are coming up this weekend for a baby shower, so that will be fun to see them again so soon. We actually didn't see my sister for Thanksgiving. She spent it with her new in-laws. Anyway, it was a good trip. Yay for Turkey Day!

Bird Man

I saw a guy today who was walking home from the grocery store. He looked like a normal fellow at first, until I noticed the bird sitting on his shoulder. It was a parrot or a cockatoo or something, and it was just perched there, happy as can be! I wonder why it didn't fly away.... Wings clipped? Tied to the man somehow? Just really well trained? Anyway, it was a weird sight to see some dude walking around with his pet bird on his shoulder. Maybe he's a pirate....

Baby Talk

So I don't mean to make this a pregnancy blog, but I was writing an email to a friend and felt like sharing part of it with all y'all (that one's for you Ericksens!). It's more pregnancy talk, so for those of you who aren't interested in such things, tune in for the next post (whatever that may be!). For those of you who are interested (or are just bored and will read it anyway) here goes:

This belly of mine sure is getting bigger! I sometimes forget and bump into the table when scooting in my chair, or try to sneak sideways through a tight space but then realize that's not so much of an option anymore. I even walked past a mirror the other day and was seriously surprised when I saw my protruding belly. It was like, "Whoa! How long has that been there!?" -- you'd think I'd be used to it by now. It's still so fun to feel her kick. Sometimes I don't feel much, and then other times it's like she's a little acrobat in there! I felt hiccups for the first time a few days ago. That was pretty funny.

I've said to Rob many times how weird pregnancy is, and how crazy it is that I'm carrying an actual person inside of me. A real, live, fully-formed (yet very tiny) person! Rob doesn't think it's that weird, and says, "Wouldn't it be weirder if the stork dropped it off on our doorstep?" To which I replied, "NO! I think that would be perfectly normal!" -- more recently he said, "Wouldn't it be weirder if we were marsupials and gave birth to tiny babies but then carried them in a pouch until they were mature enough?" Ok, you've got me there. That would be weird. But I still think carrying them inside of me is pretty dang strange. Anybody with me on this?

On a similar note, some friends of ours (who are also pregnant) recently shared an ultrasound photo that they had done at 12 weeks, and the baby was small enough at that point that they were able to get the entire body in view. We had an early ultrasound to determine the due-date, but we were only 6 weeks at that point so all we could see was a little peanut-shaped blob. Then by 20 weeks when they looked for gender we could only see sections at a time. So it was cool to see my friend's ultrasound with the whole baby all at once! But what's weird is, their baby at 12 weeks is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime according to babycenter.com) and weighs only half an ounce. That's SO TINY! But even at 2 inches long, the ultrasound shows arms and legs and a fully-formed (yet still in need of much development) body! It's just so crazy. You'd think I'd be over the craziness of it by now seeing as I've got a 15 inch, 2 1/2 pound butternut squash inside of me, but no, it still baffles my mind every time I think about it.

It's just so weird! :)

The Office

So I know this was on like three days ago, but we just watched it last night and all I can say is, much like other sitcoms before it that went downhill, The Office is getting much too plot driven and losing it's funniness and quirky appeal. Oh, and Ryan is SO pathetic!

That's all

30 weeks down...

On the baby front, I've officially hit the 30 week mark, which means only 10 more weeks to go! For some reason 10 weeks sounds a lot shorter to me than 2 1/2 months. Not sure why. But I'm 3/4 of the way through this pregnancy! Craziness. Still feeling good, or "still kicking" (literally) as somebody at church asked me today. Other than the increasing uncomfortableness when trying to sit down/stand up or lay down/roll over (I just made myself sound like a dog!), things are going great!

Yes, wearing black and orange and putting bats on your head DOES constitute a Halloween costume!

Here's how I looked at work today. Sadly I was the only person to even do anything remotely festive! Nobody else was wearing black or orange or anything!



Tonight we had a casual evening with some friends, ate dinner, played Clue and watch a horribly acted murder mystery movie. We're going to a costume party tomorrow night -- the night AFTER Halloween, yes.

Hope everybody had a fun night!

Thank goodness for Live News and YouTube.

Halloween!

We had a get-together with some friends a few weeks ago, and since it was October (the first week mind you), costumes were required! Here's a photo of all the gals at the party. Notice anything in common?? We're ALL pregnant! And standing in order of due date from left to right. The girl to the left actually just had her baby last week! And the rest of us are all due just a few weeks apart in January. Can you tell who I'm supposed to be?

If you couldn't tell, I am Wendy from Wendy's Hamburgers. Rob and I went for a "fast food" theme this year, which will help you when trying to decide what his costume is....

Can you tell what he's thinking?

And here are this year's pumpkins. We carved them with some friends on Monday night. They're no Colonel Sanders (I think it'll be pretty hard to top that one!) but I think they turned out pretty good. can you tell who's is who's? I think it's pretty obvious!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

6 months of Belly

Here they are, they belly photos you've all been waiting for (or at least some of you have). I'm not into the whole "bare belly" shots, so I'm fully clothed. (You're welcome!) And I still don't think they're all that great, but I'm just gonna put them on here anyway. We tried a few different days to get some good photos, and here's a few of the best ones.

THE BELLY: 26 weeks (aka 6 months)

Here's Rob trying to do an "artistic" shot.

Another day, another outfit.

Me trying to pose for a pregnancy catalog or something.

That's it! I already feel pretty big at 6 months, but then I realized the other day it's just going to get bigger and bigger.....YIKES!

Gonna be a FEISTY one

I had my 6th month doctor's appointment this morning. Every month he checks the baby's heart beat with the hand-held doppler thing. For the past few months it's been very easy for him to find the heartbeat. Just smear the gel on the belly, put the microphone on the gel, and there it is, loud and clear. But this time there was a lot of static and he had a little trouble finding a clear heartbeat. He could find it for a few seconds, but then she would move around and he'd have to move the tool to follow her. The best part was, whenever he would press on my belly, she would kick back! I could actually feel her kicking against the exact spot he was pressing on! Then he moved the microphone to another spot and she kicked it again! Then to add to the difficulty of finding a steady, clear heartbeat, I started laughing because she kept kicking! It was pretty funny. So we were able to hear the heartbeat just fine, just not as clearly as we have been able to in the past. But if this incident is any indication of how she'll be when she's born, we're gonna have some trouble on our hands!

Where'd you go?

Sorry I've been MIA recently. I've been a bad little blogger.

I am trying to get a cute photo of "the belly" for all to see, but I'm not happy with any we've taken so far. :) I just hit the 6-month mark, so I thought now would be a good time for some official belly photos. I'll try to post some soon.

As for the rest of life, it's been pretty regular. We went to an early Halloween party a few weekends ago that I need to post photos of. My family (Mom, Dad and two younger bros) came to town last weekend for a cousin's wedding. It was fun to see them.

In other news, we're trying to sell our condo! So if you know anybody looking to purchase a 1-bedroom condo in downtown Salt Lake City, let us know! We'd like to sell it and be into a bigger place by the beginning of December if possible, but with the way the market and economy are right now, we're not so certain that will happen. We've had a few showings, but no feedback or offers yet.

Something else worthy of note: Rob is currently transitioning from doing his own freelance design business into working full-time for one of his clients, Rockwell Timekeepers. It's been going pretty well so far, but deciding who gets our only car every day is an issue, especially since taking the TRAX takes so dang long. We're hoping to purchase our next place of residence a little closer to this new job to make the commute a little easier.

That be all for now. Photos (and hopefully more frequent posting) coming soon!

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

While riding the Trax today, I overheard a conversation between a middle-aged woman and another woman in her mid-20's. First the middle aged woman asked for directions someplace. Then the conversation continued as follows:

"I just moved here a few months ago. I'm not sure."
"Oh, where are you from?"
"I'm from New Jersey."
"Oh, New Jersey huh? So what do you speak, German?"

-- she was totally serious.

Pandora

For those of you who haven't already discovered the best online streaming music station, you are missing out. Everybody needs to visit http://www.pandora.com/. Not only is it FREE, it's completely awesome. You can add personalized radio stations based on an artist or specific song, and then that 'station' plays that artist and other songs and artists similar to them. Plus, there's no commercials. I've used other online music stations that have annoying commercials every 5 songs. Not Pandora. Also, for those of you who haven't already heard and fallen in love with Sara Bareilles, you absolutely must create a Sara Bareilles station on Pandora. She's the best female artist I've heard in a long time. Granted, I've been out of touch with the music world lately, so maybe she's old news, but she's my new fave. Plus, when you create a station of her music, Pandora also plays a bunch of other similarly amazing artists who you will also fall in love with. Or at least I have. Anyway, that's all. Pandora and Sara Bareilles. My two new loves.

One I Missed

I found this photo of me and my niece Kaya that I forgot to post with the other wedding photos. She got a little bit of a sunburn on her nose, poor thing. But she's still a cutie!

That's all. :)

Two Become One

My sister got married on Saturday.

It was a day full of laughter and joy.

Everybody was happy.

Nobody got bored

or confused...

or annoyed.

Comfort was key

but so was beauty.

Hair was done curly

Matching outfits were worn

and Military garb was adorned.

It was a great day!

Reminiscing

While at my sister's wedding this weekend, Rob and I decided to take a few photos while we were all fancied up in our wedding attire. We were married at this same spot just over 5 years ago! This time there's no white dress, but there are a few belly photos. Enjoy!

Pet Peeve

Stickers that don't come off easily and leave a sticky residue on the item it was stuck to. -- I just got some new shoes, and there was a clearance sticker on the INSIDE of the shoe, and now it's all sticky because the sticker didn't come off clean. UUHG!

It's a...

GIRL!

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and found out that our baby most definitely indeed has "girly parts", as the ultrasound tech so tactfully put it. :) My prediction was wrong....As you may remember, I thought it might be a boy (so much for a mother's intuition!), but we are thrilled with a little girl! I had already purchased a cute little girl outfit that I couldn't resist before we found out the gender, so I guess it was meant to be. She'll have girl cousins on both sides of the family very close in age (Rob's sister's little girl was born yesterday!) so that will be fun.

In the ultrasound photo above, you are looking at the baby from the side, with the head to the left and the spine curving in the middle there. You can kind of see the face profile. If you look carefully, just above the belly is a little open hand. The cutest part about this was she was actually waving to us! Her hand was moving back and forth, it was so cute! So the ultrasound tech wrote, "Hi Mom and Dad!" on the screen. :)

Here's another cute shot of her two little feet. Classic.

Did I miss the memo?

I can hear fireworks outside right now, but I can't figure out why. September 6th....is that some sort of Holiday I wasn't informed about?

Also, I just burned my 'snack pack' size popcorn. I'm pretty bummed about that.

Fantastic Contraption

This game is so fun and mind boggling!

LIE DOWN!

Well I just know you're all dying in suspense to find out whether or not we made it to the sheepdog trials on Saturday. Well wait no longer, the answer is, "You bet we did!" And a "classic" it was indeed. The rain started to let up a little by the time we left Salt Lake, and when we made it around to the other side of the mountain to Midway, the rain really had gone away! I guess my little song from the last post title worked after all.

So for those of you who have never been to a sheepdog competition (which I'm guessing is pretty much everyone, including ourselves before this) it's what Rob called 'a gentleman's sport' with a country twist. (I added that last part). It's a gentleman's sport because you just watch from the sidelines and clap occasionally when the dog gets the sheep to go through the right fence or whatever. It's kind of like Golf in that you're just watching, and the action is pretty slow. But there were a few bits of memorable fun.

How it works is the trainer or sheepherder person stands at this pole and uses a whistle to tell the dog which way to run. The dog runs up the hill to gather the first group of sheep, gets them to go through a set of fences, and then brings them all the way back down to the trainer. Then the dog goes out to get another group of sheep from a different spot on the hill and does the same thing. Then all 16 sheep have to go around the trainer's pole,


then back through some more gates, and then the really tricky part is when the trainer has to separate the sheep so only 5 with a red collar are left. Then those 5 have to go into a small little gate-pen.

Not as easy as it sounds! Only a few trainers and dogs were able to accomplish all this in the 24 minute time limit.

So most of the trainer people just use their whistle to make signals to the dog while they're running up the hill to gather the sheep, but that all changed once this lady came on the scene.

She was constantly giving whistle commands, and kept repeatedly yelling to her dog in a very angry tone, "LIE DOWN!" The first few times she yelled, nobody thought anything of it. But after about 6 or 7 times (and on to at least 3 more every minute), the whole crowd started to giggle a little. It was kind of weird. Plus, she was a pretty big lady, and she kept leaning all of her weight against the pole, and it seriously looked like it might fall over. I'm not trying to be rude, but it was pretty funny. Just see for yourself!

That last event of the day was the "Olympic Style" award ceremony with bagpipes and all!.

It was a pretty shnazzy day.