Saleswoman for Sleep Positioners

After today I have decided to become a saleswoman for sleep positioners. Although I love spending every moment with Andrew, I've been desperately wanting him to sleep in his bassinet and have a decent nap. Before today, every nap was taken in my arms or Kevin's arms... and around 3am that gets a little tiring. Today we tried out his sleep positioner in his bassinet and he was out for 2 1/2 almost 3 hours. It was AMAZING! We were able to have two fun visits with friends AND get some dishes/laundry done... and I even got a short nap! We're also trying to be really vigilant with the Baby Whisperer E.A.S.Y. schedule (eat, activity, sleep, time for you) and that seems to be helping as well... although it's tough to make Andrew want to be active after eating...he'd rather fall right asleep. Fortunately, his diaper explosions and changings happen so frequently that we can count those as his activity :-) We are hoping he'll choose to sleep a little bit tonight in his bassinet instead of partying all night thinking it is daytime.

(Andrew sleeping soundly in his bassinet w/his sleep positioner)

Another highlight of the week was our first trip to the doctor with Andrew.

(Kev checking Andrew in at the doctor's office)

He weighs 7 lbs 6 ounces, which means he's gained one ounce since coming home from the hospital (he weighed 7 lbs 5 ounces on Wednesday before we left). Yay! He also did an awesome job testing out his reflexes.

(waiting for the doctor in his birthday suit)

The doctor was worried that his jaundice was getting a little worse (he had some jaundice at the hospital on Wed. and his face was a little yellow), so we had to take him downstairs to the lab for a shot. :-( Poor kid! He was such a good sport. I left the room because I couldn't watch and Kev held his arm to offer some support. He chewed like a mad man on his pacifier and when the shot got put into his little foot, he didn't react at first... and then all of a sudden his eyes got HUGE and he just whimpered a little and then it was all done. We were so proud of him! Later in the afternoon we got a call letting us know that the jaundice wasn't severe so he was OK and just needed some sunlight and no more shots!!

Baby Buskirk Has Arrived!

Andrew Allen Buskirk was born on Monday, February 25th at 5:44pm. He weighed 7 lbs 13 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. Check out some of our pictures from Andrew's first few days.

Andrew's First Month

Hopefully this works.

Andrew is doing great. Survived his first night w/ his mom and dad at home and even let mom and dad each get an hour or two of sleep :-)

Are you ready yet?

People keep asking us if we are ready for Baby Buskirk to come. This picture should answer your question....NOT YET!

(This is what our living room looks like right now)

Fortunately, we at least have a crib and a bassinet all ready to go now. Here's a picture of me posing in the baby's room. Pretty soon there will be a espresso wooden desk where I am standing. This is my belly shot for being almost 40 weeks. We're taking bets on when the baby will come... so feel free to take your best guess. Kevin is pulling for Friday the 29th.

Maternity Leave

I am now "officially" on maternity leave... Kevin says I shouldn't be allowed to check work email anymore, but I haven't been able to stop that yet.

Anyways, I had the most awesome last day of work EVER! We went on a field trip to Coyote Point Museum in San Mateo and spent the day learning about birds of prey. It was so fun and all the little people listened to me and weren't absent (I told them that they weren't allowed to be absent a single day last week because I wanted to spend every second with them!). My favorite part of the day was hanging out with my cute boys as I drove them up to the field trip. They danced to my music and played "I call that" from my back seat. It was hysterical. After the field trip we had Fun Friday Free Choice Time and then we had our final class meeting before I sent the kids home. I gave them each a whole bag of M&Ms and they had to share their favorite "Memorable Moment" from the year. I was thinking they would say things like, "I liked when you gave us candy"... but instead they said things like, "I just liked being with you," or "I liked you teaching us, you are such a nice teacher and always help us," "I liked the crazy projects you did with us" and "I really liked how you helped us read." I started crying after the first comment. What a way to end the year! We took a cute picture with all of our M&Ms and then I said good-bye and sent them home
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I spent the rest of the afternoon saying good-bye to all of my work colleagues and introducing them to my long term sub. I then proceeded to finally clean off my desk. I was at work until 7:30 or 8pm answering my sub's questions and then Kev came over to clean off some of my computer files.We celebrated my last day by going to a fun diner-like restaurant for dinner in Menlo Park- called Jeffreys...
and then I think I fell asleep before 10pm- right when we tried to watch one of our TiVoed shows. It was a great day! I am so lucky to have a job that is so incredible and so tough to leave.

(Here I am finally leaving work)

Santa Barbara Getaway

This weekend we headed down to Santa Barbara for the annual Santa Barbara Shootout at UCSB. BYU's women's lacrosse team was playing in the tournament, so we went down to watch them play against some pretty awesome competition- Michigan, Santa Clara, UCSB, and Cal Poly (the usual National Tournament champions). Our little sister Jessie is playing on the team this year, so we had fun watching her and her teammates.

We met up with Elise and Dan and had fun chillin in the $9.99 camper chairs we bought while we watched a day full of lacrosse. It was the perfect day and the weather was gorgeous... until it started freezing once the sun went down. Elise and I had fun reflecting on all the good times we had playing lacrosse at BYU... and we had a great time cheering the BYU girls on from the sidelines.


Other highlights from the SB trip included lunch at Fatburger, some shopping/strolling around the Paseo Nuevo (outdoor mall in downtown SB), a short trip to the beach, movie date night to see 27 Dresses, and dinner at Ruby's Cafe- a cute restaurant in downtown SB where Kevin enjoyed the bottomless chips and salsa. We ended up coming home sooner than planned... so when we head to SB next time, here are a few of the things we're going to do that we missed out on this time:

1) Drive home along the PCH (Highway 1)... I was a little nervous to do it this time since I get car sick AND it's a little further from any hospitals (should Baby B have decided to come early)


2) Stop at Hearst Castle for a tour since Kev has never been


3) Ride tandem bikes along the beach in downtown Santa Barbara

4) Go kayaking

5) Stay at this pretty Marriott hotel


Overall, our trip was awesome and we can't wait to go back to Santa Barbara again. Here are a few pictures of us at the beach before we headed home. The first one is of my 39 week belly shot :-)

Valentine's Day Surprise!

Today was a CRAZY day at work since it was Valentine's Day and all the little people were extra juiced up on energy and lots of candy... so by the time lunch came today I was EXHAUSTED!!!! I have spent every moment/break for the past two days training my long term sub and evaluating my student teacher who is still with me... so I was incredibly excited when Kevin arrived in my classroom halfway through lunch with my favorite vegetarian dishes from the Olive Garden (Capellini Pomodoro and the Five Cheese Ziti al Forno) and bread and salad and Smoked Mozzarella Fonduta. What a treat! It was so special to get to take a break, sit down, and enjoy some chat time with him. The little people and other teachers kept peeking in to check out what was going on. I feel so fortunate to have the most thoughtful husband ever (of course I'm not biased at all ;-))!!

I also have the most beautiful bouquet of flowers sitting in my front hall! I feel very blessed to have married such an incredible guy who is always doing such nice things for me! Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!

Pregnancy Treats!

Another reason I love my job... pregnancy treats :-) My boss/principal Gary stops by at least once a week to bring me my chocolate fix and make sure that Baby Buskirk is growing strong. I am going to miss this once I leave!!

Found!!

Many of you have asked if a Long Term Sub has been found for my class yet... and now I can FINALLY say "yes!" I don't really know anything about her other than that she has a Special Education Credential and plays rugby, but at this point since NO ONE else wants my job and I have 8 days of work left, she's going to have to do. Hopefully the little people treat her well... and hopefully she can use some of her rugby skills to manage the crazy behaviors my kids have. :-)

Super Tuesday!

I am typically not the most political person... and usually it all comes down to pure laziness. I am very bad about turning in forms or registering for things... so this year my darling husband made the whole voter registration process easy for me. He printed out my registration forms, handed them to me to sign, and then mailed them for me. I was so excited when my voter registration arrived and I could actually vote... or at least I was excited until I realized that I would have to go vote at 7am ...otherwise the polls would close before I got home from work. I woke up extra early on Tuesday (around 5:30am) to get ready for the day and then I headed out the door around 6:45. I was determined to be one of the first people to vote so that I could hurry and get to work and miss traffic.

Fortunately, the place we vote is just in the rec room at an apartment complex on our street, so I didn't have to go far. I arrived at exactly 6:52am. The little old man running the show made sure to let me know that we still had 7 minutes left until the polls would open. I waited and waited and entertained myself by watching the little old man and his wife get things prepared for the big voting day. They gave out assignments to their younger helpers. As it got closer to 7am, the man started counting down a bit and said, "1 minute and a half until the polls open." At this point one other girl had joined me in line. We watched the clock and 7am came and went. Finally the old man realized he was behind scheduled and announced, "the polls are officially open." He then invited me into the voting room and I got to be the witness to check out all the ballot boxes and swear that they were empty when voting started. I felt very important. :-) Then I went through the exciting process of signing in. It was hysterical because all of their pens were brand new... which meant none of them worked or were warmed up yet. After several tries to write my signature, I got my ballot and headed to the voting booth. I squinted as I tried to read all the information on each measure before I voted. The little man came over and was so confused by the new fangled lights on the voting booth... after several minutes he realized he'd forgotten to plug the lights in! No wonder I couldn't see :-) I had a good laugh as I finished up voting and turned in my ballot using the "privacy sleeve" I was given. I was so proud of myself for getting out and voting and not being my usual lazy self!

The other highlight of Super Tuesday was a trip to Cheesecake Factory with my old roommate SP. I love almost all of my old roommates and SP and I always have so much fun chatting together. I have discovered a new favorite dish at Cheesecake Factory... or at least a new variation on an old favorite- mashed potatoes with cheese! They are delicious! My favorite thing to get is a side of mashed potatoes with cheese and a side of broccoli. The waiter was going on and on about how healthy of a meal I was eating and SP and I just laughed b/c the mashed potatoes were DROWNING in cheese (definitely not healthy!). The real reason I go to Cheesecake Factory though is the free bread. I could eat both loaves (brown and sourdough) without even blinking... so it's fortunate that I usually go with at least one other person and I have to share. :-) What a great way to end Super Tuesday! I even got a Linda's Fudge Cake to take out. I've learned that if I split it up and eat it over 3 days, then the calorie amount isn't as insanely high. I'm already excited to have my next helping tomorrow :-) Good thing I bought some new running shoes today!