the better to eat you with

ah, my dearest afton.

my beautiful baby girl.

those big green eyes, such soft and squishy cheeks, a cute button nose, wispy blonde hair, and...so sharp teeth.

yes, what lovely little razor-sharp teeth.

teeth, as i discovered this morning, that she has been using to chew through the entire length of the front railing of summer's brand new, one-week-old loft bed.

bite marks and paint chips everywhere.

lucky for afton, she was born to just about the perfectest mother that there is (ha!), and the beginning of our day was subsequently full of singing and smiles (ha HA!) and lots of calm and rational discussion (ha ha HA!) about how biting things in general -- and furniture in particular -- and for heaven's sake, especially the new furniture -- was not appropriate.

also lucky for afton, i let her keep those lovely little teeth.

she just wouldn't be the same without them.

spring day

in keeping with our new-ish family tradition, the easter bunny managed to find our new home, muddle through the mess, and visit summer and afton this past saturday (the first weekend of spring):

chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, barbie dolls, and blocks.

the ladies were delighted.

ps- here's a tricky tip: i raided our candy stash to fill the girls' baskets with treats we already had on hand. genius!

pps - i remain very glad of our decision to relocate his hoppitiness away from Easter. it all just makes much more sense to me this way. not that, like, a bunny (of unknown size?) delivering baskets of plastic candy-filled eggs and chocolate to children ever made a whole lot of sense anyway...it's still a good bit of fun :)

mud room

so many pink coats; so little time.

give me sassy

ah, my favorite part of pregnancy:

that blessed part when i can no longer leave the house without someone, somewhere commenting on my lovely lady lump.

not since middle school, when the boys would chant "roses are red, violets are black, why is your chest as flat as your back?" down the hallway after me, has my personal physique been such the fodder for public discussion.

just a few days ago, in the checkout at the grocery store, the cashier said to me, "wowzers! when were you due?"

and i wanna be like, "look, lady, where do you want this conversation to go? either i am past due, and probably feel like crying my eyes out about it, or i'm not past due, and now that you've so subtly compared me to an overextended  balloon, feel like crying my eyes out about it. so roll the dice: which would you rather it be?"

instead, i just smile and say, "soon."

nesting

yeah, right.

the phrase "ready or not, here i come," has taken on new meaning for me lately.

and i'm going to have to go with definitely NOT ready.

i haven't packed a hospital bag. i haven't washed (or bought) anything for little miss/ter wheeler. most of my house is booby trapped by boxes, miscellaneous tools/weapons, and various choking hazards. i need to find the infant car seat and put it in the car so that when the time comes, the nice ladies at the hospital will let me take my bebe home. which reminds me, i should probably also find the cradle and/or kick afton out of the crib. and if my breast milk didn't come in on auto pilot, i'm sure i would be behind on that, too.

i'm, like, the only pregnant woman out there praying for forty-two weeks.

forty-one at least ...

baby name game three: the end

hooray for everyone who chimed in on our third installment of the baby name game!

it was, as always, so fun to read people's submissions, and bryan and i are pleased to report that we do indeed have a winner.

good guesses, all!

and now it won't be too much longer until we all find out together who this little twenty-five pound basketball is.

perhaps a baby girl to further my work of complete wheeler family gender domination? or maybe a baby boy to give things a good shake up around here?

either way, we do know that he or she still has a strong penchant for chocolate, has recently taken a liking to young the giant and katy perry music, and loves (or hates?) to be poked by summer and afton.

gonna fit right in.

happy st. pat's

courtesy of magic rainbow ribbon wands.

match day

congratulations to uncle owen, a soon-to-be 

surgery resident at virginia mason in seattle!

(owen stock photo taken september 2011, backpacking with bryan.)

phase two of the young family relocation plan is complete.
(ken and matt: rainier is coming for you next).

baby name game three: the play

alrighty then, was the anticipation just killing you? are you ready for the lists?

for a review of the rules, go here.

please select only one boy name and only one girl name and submit your selections by comment to this blog post (either on the blog or on facebook). if you choose to make an anonymous blogger comment, please make sure to put your name in the comment as well.

also, we'll be "closing" the game in about two days or so.

good luck!

BOYS:

1. Jared
2. Beckham
3. Rhys
4. Emmett
5. Elijah
6. Benjamin
7. Caleb
8. Gavin
9. Grey
10. Ryder
11. Jude
12. Henry
13. Carsten
14. Christian
15. Sawyer
16. Brendan
17. Nolan
18. Aaron
19. Joseph
20. Brett
21. Danger
22. Isaac
23. Ian
24. Xavier
25. Zachary

GIRLS:

1. Hazel
2. Quinn
3. Courtney
4. Julianne
5. Ivy
6. April
7. Faye
8. Lily
9. Emery
10. Chloe
11. Brooke
12. Charlotte
13. Ava
14. Eve
15. Eden
16. Clara
17. Rebecca
18. Grace
19. Liston
20. Savannah
21. Anne
22. Bethany
23. Aubrey
24. Danielle
25. Ellie

let them eat pi

happy 3.14 everyone.

baby name game three: the rules

so yes, i know we're totally late in posting this. bryan has been taking his sweet, sweet time in agreeing with me on a boy's name. turns out, with a bit of practice under our belts, we are much better and more in sync when it comes to naming girls. anyway, though it was looking pretty bleak there for awhile, we have finally managed to come to a consensus on both a name for baby boy wheeler and a name for baby girl wheeler.

and now, for the game!

this is really one of my favorite parts of being pregnant. i love hearing the names my family and friends come up with, and i have always loved a wee bit of competition. as a review for our new as well as seasoned players, here are baby name games one (winner: christina s.) and two (winner: nancy p.).

because we opted not to discover the gender of our unborn child until, well, he or she is born, we've decided to set up baby name game three a little bit differently. it'll come in two parts, so bear with me.  the first part (here), we'll discuss the rules of play.  the second part (posted tomorrow), will be the actual game.

so, first things first: the rules.

• tomorrow, march 15, at 10:00am PT, we will post a list of 25 girl's names and 25 boy's names. about two-thirds of these names will be ones we actually considered, while the rest will just be thrown in for kicks and giggles and decoys, and of course, one of the names (for each gender) will be the one we finally settled on. your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to correctly sift through the myriad choices and correctly guess baby wheeler's name.
  
  
• each player will submit by comment either on the blog or on our facebook accounts their moniker guesses: one for a boy and one for a girl. 

          here is an example submission:
         1) john
         2) julie

• the reason we decided to post the rules of engagement before the actual play is because this will be a time sensitive game. we will count as the winner-winner-chicken-dinner only the first person to correctly guess the name for the gender that the baby actually turns out to be (lest you fret: all other persons who correctly guess said name will be runners up, and depending on how generous we're feeling, may not leave the ring empty-handed and will certainly earn bragging rights). however, if you happen to guess correctly the right name for the wrong gender, i'm sorry, we've got nothin' for ya, and you'll probably never even know.
  
  
• i haven't decided yet what our readers will be playing for, but it'll likely be some kind of gift certificate, and i promise it'll be worth the fifteen seconds it takes to play the game.
  
  
• and, as always, because i consider this more of a personal blog than anything else, we have to actually know folks in order for their guesses to count.

whew.

is this complicated enough yet?

okay! let's get started then! see you tomorrow, march 15, at 10:00am PT!!

and may the odds be ever in your favor...

measuring up

life is pretty chaotic for the wheelers right now.

i hate moving. hate, hate, hate it. as a person of very strict order, organization, and routine, moving really messes with my delicate internal balance. not to mention my beauty regimen. i can't even remember the last time i did my hair or got dressed in real clothes. (note to all the duvallians out there: that very pregnant fourteen year old boy you see running around town? that would be me.)

anyhoo, we are all quite anxious to push past the chaos and settle in to our new digs.

as a first order of business, we found the perfect wall in our home to serve as the wheeler family growth chart and got to work measuring up.

no surprises here:  daddy is tallest, emily is still 5 feet, three and three quarters inches (could never quite reach that fourth inch!), and summer and afton bring up the rear.

looking forward to watching our little kiddilies grow!

moving day

ps - not really sure what's caught bryan's attention in this photo. but the expression on his face captures so much that is true about moving day, that i just had to post.  (plus, look at that cutie afton flying through the air. man, to be a kid again, just tagging along on my parents' moves -- what i wouldn't give...)