That’s right, InsideBaby is a girl!

I’ll try to post some ultrasound pictures tomorrow - my scanner is having some issues currently. For those of you not really in to deciphering ultrasound pics, you can just shut your eyes and picture some mostly unrecognizable gray shapes with accents of black and white.

This revelation puts to rest, at least in my case, the debate as to whether HG (hyperemesis gravidarum, i.e. insane morning sickness) is tied to the baby’s sex. Nope. Seems to be tied to being pregnant with anything but my first.

We’re hovering very close to a decision on the name, and we’ll post that as soon as we finish the summit. We had Haddon Hobbs selected for a boy, so skh did throw out something like “Haddonia” as a possibility. At least she’d never have to tack her last initial on the end to distinguish herself from all the other Haddonias.

For those wondering about reactions from the OutsideKids…Calvin made a loving noise and kissed my belly before running back to his putting. Maggie (who got to come to the ultrasound) was, and is, completely thrilled to have the future bunkmate she’s been praying for. When we got home she got busy painting a picture of our new family that I will also try to post tomorrow. I’ll give you a teaser - we are all VERY tall and this baby has shoulder length blonde hair.

don’t touch the owie, originally uploaded by hobbsandbean.

I’ll try to get an updated picture of this tomorrow, since now he is sporting a great eyeshadow-looking bruise along with the nasty scab.

This owie represents one of the things I love about Teresa Weinberg. Most of you probably know at least some of what the Weinberg’s have been through this past week. It’s certainly an understatement to say that it’s been emotionally draining for Teresa as a mother. Anyway, while skh and I were at the annual GBC Elder’s Retreat this week, Cal and Mags (being watched by the kind Vanderbekens - more on that later) got to visit the Weinbergs at the hospital. Teresa, in the midst of this ridiculously difficult week, poured tremendous energy into playing with my kids as they visited, including a wild game of Mrs.-Teresa’s-leg-is-a-horse with Calvin. Apparently her leg is a bucking bronco, because Cal ended up connecting his eye with the floor. Teresa of course felt terribly about this, but I don’t at all. The hospitality of the Weinberg family is legendary, but to see this spiritual gift displayed in the hospital where their son was recovering from being dead only a few short days before…well, it’s pretty amazing. God IS good, and I’m thankful for the scabby reminder above our son’s eye.

Shiny badge supplied by the ever gracious Pecadillo. Authoritative attitude supplied by the ever ambitious Calvin.

Here is my darling brother, LD. Contrary to popular belief, LD does NOT stand for Lunch and Dinner (he hasn’t always been so svelte), Lunge and Destroy (he used to be quite a violent toddler) or Learning Disabled (hmm, no comment). It stands for Little David…which isn’t really accurate either, come to think of it. I guess “Little” just means “younger than the other 56 Davids in our family”.

Anyway, I’m going to move on to the pictures now. He’ll hate that I posted these, but I bet he’ll get over it. And for all interested young ladies, he’s single, but you’ll have to pass family inspection.

So, I got new running shoes a while ago. I ordered them from Amazon, and upon first look was very happy with the new version of my old shoes - see how nice they look?


However, on closer inspection, I was quite surprised to receive such a personalized pair of very bossy shoes…lacking a comma of course, but can you really expect proper punctuation from a pair of shoes?


Why am I posting this?

Because Mo goed. Or went. Actually, Mo is goING. Today marks Day 25 of my exercise streak. I’m very excited about it. I know it’s not much - just 20 minutes of walking or jogging each day (at wildly varying speeds depending on how I’m feeling), but I’m loving it and am glad to see movement in my life towards consistency.

It started as a commitment to 21 days of exercise, thank you Ben Franklin. I joined a group of other cloth diapering moms online (yes, I realize this is weird) who were doing the same thing. It was REALLY hard a few of the days, but I ended up loving it. So much so, that I kept going! I’m now on Day 3 of my second time around, this time with my mom.

Here’s to more MoGo.

Our friends John and Lisa have quite the funny blog, and recently they posted some odd products for children that were pretty humorous.

Anyway, I don’t have plans to adorn my children’s feet with the remains of Chewie, and am only occasionally tempted to use any sort of cage in my parenting. However, I must admit that the first thought that popped into my head when I saw the Bumper Bonnet was, “Hey! Maybe that could keep Cal from looking like an abused child all the time!”

Cut to some recent photographic evidence…

First, he was accidentally “nudged” into a cabinet during dinner rush one night. That is how you end up with such perfectly straight bruising. Nice, huh?


Not more than 12 hours later, Cal was a pillow fight victim (if you can be a victim in something you instigated) that ended with his eye meeting the edge of our coffee table. This resulted not just in bruising, but bleeding as well.



I don’t have pictures of the MOST recent injury, which was another (I think this is the twelfth?) split lip. There was more blood than I have ever seen come out of one of my children. I’m trying to act like it never happened. I hope that Cal is remembering that it’s not a great idea to stand on the arm of the couch when you have a 104.5 degree fever.

Anyway, after thinking about this lovely, ultra-cool Bumper Bonnet, I realized that maybe I will appreciate these head injuries as an explanation for things that Cal does. Or wears. Perhaps things like this?

Bet your sister-in-law can’t make things like this.

Seriously. Did you see the earring?

It’s too funny.

Okay, anyone who comes here just for Maggie and Calvin stuff, leave now. This is a completely self-centered post, with no cute pictures of the kids. No cute stories either. Just a sad story and disturbing images.

As you probably remember, I recently posted a picture of my feet and Calvin’s feet in our lovely, one-of-a-kind (two-of-a-kind?) hand-knit Annie Grook socks. Those socks are literally my favorite socks in the entire universe. They might even be my favorite article of clothing. When I am sad, I put these socks on to help me feel happier…that’s how good they are. Other than myself, Annie Grook is probably most aware of my love for them as I went through a period where I constantly bothered her, trying to score more hand-knit socks for myself. I finally came to the realization that these were going to be the only socks I got for awhile, and resigned myself to wearing another pair of sub-standard socks while these were in the wash. Anyway, the point is, I REALLY like these socks.

So, imagine my dismay when I saw this…



MY PRECIOUS SOCK HAS A HOLE IN THE HEEL!!!!!!

This is not okay. I was having a bad evening, and went to put these on for comfort, and this hole is what I saw. I actually started to cry a couple of times because it was so sad. My sister-in-law spent a LOT of time making these, and now they are very sad.

I debated whether or not to blog about this, because Annie Grook has her plate full…overflowingly full…with knitting projects, and I don’t want to pressure her too much. However, it really is just too sad to not post. :( Poor socks. Poor feet. Okay, I feel a little better now that I have shared my sorrow. Thanks for mourning with me.

The title kind of sums it up, but Mags worked very diligently to help Boppa with a project recently and earned some cash. Little Miss Ramsey gave some to God and some to a gift and then took what was left, along with allowance (for feeding Newman) that she’d been saving up, and went to Wal-mart on a mission. She was looking for the most dolly that $5 could buy, and here’s what she got…with 18 cents change too!


Just in case you were wondering, the bigger baby is Mollie and the little baby is Mary. Somehow, despite the size difference, these babies are twins.

Apparently, pretending to be Dada makes it way more fun when he’s gone for Preview Weekend. Here are the kids “running” on the treadmill. For any interested parties, Cal calls the treadmill “DA DA!!!”, which I think is hilarious.



Looks like pretend training is way more fun than the real thing.

Okay, we’ve already established that I am not the greatest sister-in-law. I am about to prove this further…

My sweet daughter is 5 years, 1 month and 5 days old today. That is a nice, creative way to say that I am 35 days late in posting these pictures. If it makes you feel any better, Annie Grook, I am some 200+ days late in posting Disneyland pictures, not to mention zillions of other pics, quotes and stories that I want to share. I really do have good intentions…and then, well, the road to an empty blog is paved with good intentions.

So on to the pictures…first up, Maggie’s face of knowing delight as she showed off her birthday sweater. As she opened it, she nodded and said, “Annie Grook let ME pick the yarn this year. Oh yeah, AND the sweater!”.



Here she is , getting comfy, telling us about something or other…



All settled in , and very happy with her new pink sweater!


Thank you, Annie Grook! She loves the sweater, and it’s perfect. She’ll wear it all the time, I’m sure. She is really happy that it looks nice with her Valentines socks from this year…oh, wait, that’s another picture I’m late in posting. Dang it! Hey, Calvin has them on in the picture I posted right before this…does that count?

Honestly, I really don’t like cold weather…and cold weather starts at about 65 degrees for me. But today I remembered one of my coping strategies…wool socks! They make all the difference. And when they are custom made for your feets by Annie Grook…well, if you haven’t experienced it, you can’t really understand it, but it’s a very good thing.

By the way, in case you wondered, yes, it’s very hard to get Calvin to stand still squished in between your knees for a picture like this. There is much whining, writhing and screaming involved.

calvin’s five steps to being a (future) man at work when it comes to wet fuzzi bunz…

Step one - open the pail. Well, open the pail lid. Pay no attention to whether or not the pail is actually attached to the lid. That is just an unnecessary detail.



Step two - place the wet fuzzi bunz into the pail, or the place that the pail usually is.



Step three - shut the lid.



Step four - REALLY shut the lid. At this point you may be tempted to wonder if this would be easier if the pail was actually there, but just dismiss that thought and push harder…use your entire body if necessary.



Step five - run through the house looking for more work that needs some IRS…listen to my dad’s sermon if you don’t know what IRS is. Oh, and pants remain optional until your mom catches you.

This is the fruit of Maggie’s first solo note writing endeavor. I think it is excellent and darling. For those who don’t get to hear Mags chit-chatting, this is actually a perfect application of phonics - there is no “r” in “from”. She was working on it very busily during Ian Lugg’s sermon that night and was quite proud of her accomplishment when she gave it to me. She said she had missed me that day (she had spent part of it with some friends) and wanted to write me a letter. I will be treasuring this indefinitely.

(Gold star to anyone - other than skh or Kimmy - who knows what the post title is from.)

I have been informed quite a few times that my blog is a little lopsided -more pictures of Calvin, less of Maggie and more stories about Maggie, less of Calvin. I have thought about this quite a bit, and this is my conclusion…it is true, and I don’t know why. Maybe I’m trying to stop the unstoppable truth that the first child has more pictures than the subsequent children. (By the way, I’m not even close with Calvin - I think I photographed each hour of Maggie’s first year and a half.) Maybe I am just currently enthralled by Calvin’s white halo of hair…it’s the only angelic thing about him. I don’t really know, but here’s another story about Maggie to push the blog even further out of balance.

We’ve been experiencing some very nice weather here for the past few days, which resulted in some sprinkler play time in our yard.

Here Calvin is avoiding the squishy grass - he got over this aversion quickly, though. Maggie thought the whole thing was great. (Yes, they both own swimsuits, but this was spur of the moment, people!)



Here, apparently, we are experimenting with the sprinkler as a drinking fountain and a hair washing station.



And, of course, anything that Calvin gets involved in has to incorporate a beloved “dodo”.

One of my favorites from the cell phone genre - this is from our California trip in February, but I still wanted to post it.

that my Dad was 18 months old when he first met Tom Pennington…


(Ok, I admit that this post is a little bit obscure for most of you. However, if you know Tom Pennington, it should be pretty funny. Or weird.)

Spend the entire 30 minutes picking lint from between your toes…

We have a very nice teller working in the drive-through portion of our bank. Her name is Susan, and she always asks how many little ones I have in the back of the van and sends the appropriate amount of lollipops with my receipt. Last week was the first time I actually let Calvin have his designated lollipop. I haven’t in the past because I wasn’t sure I could trust him to not rub the wet candy all over his face, hands, shirt and car seat. I also wasn’t sure I could trust him to just lick it instead of bite off pieces that he could possibly choke on. Apparently, I was right not to trust him (don’t worry, he didn’t choke), but he did enjoy the process of eating his first lollipop.

Cal was so excited about this motorcycle, we thought he was going to have a seizure. The owner saw Calvin admiring the bike and suggested that he hop on to check it out. Cal loved it.



On another note, here is Sean checking out a different kind of bike. Maggie had proclaimed, “Dada can’t ride my bike - he’s too big!” Apparently, she was wrong. He actually rode it around the gym for quite a while.

Tony, since you brought it up, I wanted everyone to see how nice you look in yours as well…


(Yes, I know it’s bad photoshopping. I’m no Pyro or Tohu…oh well.)