The Finseth Life

San Diego - Off to the beach

2010-06-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

Beach fun in San Diego.

Mady enjoyed the beach but the water was still pretty chilly

That salty water tastes interesting.

Life's a Zoo

2010-04-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

Its been at least 20 years since either Andy or I have been to San Diego. I remember visiting the zoo back then but not any details. It is a very hilly zoo and we did a ton of walking and probably only saw 1/2 of the zoo today. Mady enjoyed the gondola ride and despite only napping for 45 minutes on the way there was relatively happy the whole day. She crashed in the car on the way home though...tired little girl! Enjoy the pictures!

Leaving On a Jet Plane

2010-04-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

We are spending a week in Oceanside (just north of San Diego) on vacation. It is our first flying vacation since Mady was born. We really just wanted to go somewhere warm with beaches and some fun attractions that are kid friendly nearby. So our plans are really to just relax and enjoy some sun. The only places we are planning to visit for sure are the San Diego Zoo and Sea World.

Mady's first airplane ride was fairly uneventful and painless (which is exactly what we were hoping for). She got to go visit the cockpit when we boarded early and got to sit in the co-pilot seat and see all the controls.

We were lucky that the flight wasn't full so we got to have a row of three seats to ourselves. I'm sure this will spoil us and that our flight on the way home will be completely full which will make it much more difficult. As it was, Mady took a nap on me for about an hour of the 2-1/2 hour flight and only really got antsy for the last 20-30 minutes.

Mady did a full survey of the condo's kitchen since it is not kid proofed, much to her pleasure.

We spent our first full day here just wandering around the Oceanside Marina which is next to our condo. We went to the condo pool in the afternoon and then out for a pizza dinner and wandered down to the beach to see the waves.

Magnuson Park - Playgrounds for both Mady & McKinley

2010-04-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

Andy took Mady and McKinley to Magnuson park for a change of pace today.
Both she and McKinley enjoyed it but apparently the water area of the dog
park was closed so McKinley missed out on his favorite dog park activity -
endless tennis ball fetching from Lake Washington.

Play Ball!

2010-04-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Its officially baseball season again; GO MARINER'S. We went to the home opener and Mady wasn't a big fan of the loud and smokey fireworks during the pregame festivities but she had a great time other than that. Unfortunately the M's lost the game to the A's so it was a bit of a let down in that department.

Turning over a new leaf

2010-04-14T11:37:00.001-07:00

For a while now I have been trying to convince myself that I should start posting to my blog again because just taking pictures of our life is not as much as I would like to be recording. So I've updated the blog and as of today am BACK. We shall see how well I do this time around. Here's Mady at Magnuson park on a sun-shiny day in Seattle:

Welcome Mady!

2009-02-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Madelyn "Mady" Ruth Finseth arrived about 4 days ahead of our due date (much to our surprise and joy) on February 16, 2009 at 12:12AM. She weighed in at 6lbs 10.2oz and was 19" long. I was so lucky to have a fairly quick and relatively easy labor. My first contractions were at around 4:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday. We were at a friend's house visiting and I announced to Andy and our friends that my contractions were 20 minutes apart (if anyone cared). Andy and I headed home soon after that thinking that this COULD be it but just the night before we had a false alarm so we didn't really think so. By the time we got home we were pretty well convinced it was probably the real deal because my contractions were ramping up and getting closer already. We wanted to get some food in me before heading to the hospital because they say you should. But my contractions were getting very intense by 6 or 6:30 and we were on the phone with our doctor who said we should be on our way to the hospital by around 8PM based on my contractions. We got to the hospital around 8:30 and although I had planned to hold out longer I was so ready for my epidural as soon as they said I could have one. So by around 9:30 or 10 (after two tries at getting the epidural placed correctly) I was feeling much much more comfortable and could now visit with our friends and family who had made their way to the hospital. At around 11:30 the nurse came to check my progress and was surprised when she found I was 10cm and she announced she could see Mady's hair. So the nurses scrambled and got our doctor there (thankfully she lives close by the hospital) and got my room ready for delivery. I started pushing at around 11:50 and by 12:12 AM Mady made her entrance into the world. It was all a very sureal experience and it went so fast.

My mom made us promise to take a on the way to the hospital picture...I was not a very happy camper by this time so the smile is very forced.

Things went so fast that the first time we got the camera out at the hospital was just after she arrived.

Proud papa with his little peanut on a beautiful sunny Seattle morning.

Getting dressed to leave the hospital...

Week 34 - Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

Well it's officially time to get back to work so here I am posting in my blog :) I really didn't take too much time off over the holidays but with all the snow and the fact that the holiday's fell on Thursdays it felt like a nice break regardless.

The reality that we are 6+ weeks from our due date is finally setting in...good thing because that really isn't that far off. I started on getting a bag packed for the hospital just in case and have most of the essentials in there at this point. We have most of the major items in the nursery put together and I put the finishing touches on our baby registries over the break so I'm feeling somewhat on top of things.

We are nearing the end of all our "get ready to have baby classes" but the next couple weeks are pretty packed with the rest of them. This week we had classes Tuesday and Wednesday nights and then we have two back to back classes this Sunday followed by more classes next Tuesday and Thursday evenings. You would think from all the classes that we'll be super prepared...we shall see I guess! We are feeling somewhat prepared but I think when the time comes we'll still be overwhelmed (aren't all first time parents?).

Mady has been very active lately; I feel her little kicks in my upper belly throughout most of the day. Its always fun when they are so pronounced that I can see them on the outside of my belly! At night she generally doesn't wake me up kicking but my shear size is starting to make sleep a little tougher to come by. Ah the joys of pregnancy! Overall I would say I have had a very easy one with the exception of my back pain which seems to be getting a bit better with the help of physical therapy every week or so.

We are getting very excited to meet our little bundle of joy!!

Week 31 - A White Christmas...maybe?

2008-12-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

As usual there has been too much time between posts... but the news is that things are going very well. We have started our childbirth prep classes which are interesting so far. This week's was cancelled due to the weather in the Seattle area. We have been for the most part enjoying the snow and have been getting around pretty well. Again no new shots of Mady but here is one of our house with all the pretty snow.

Now that the kitchen remodel is officially done we have moved all the displaced items back to where they belong so we have the room to start working on the nursery. We have a crib and changing table all assembled and found a nice little rug that we like. We are working on getting the rocking chair pads recovered so they aren't a hideous orange/red plaid anymore. We are still searching for possibly another dresser or storage unit of some kind that we like and will match the rest of the furniture but the big pieces are there at least.

We are having a fun holiday season with parties and get-togethers with friends and family. I hope you are all enjoying yours as well. I'll try to post again soon with some pictures of the nursery. In the meantime Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Week 25 - She's definitely on the move

2008-11-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

Mady has become fairly active over the last few weeks and I feel her moving around quite a bit now. This of course makes sleep a little harder to come by but it hasn't been too bad yet. I don't think I was quite prepared for how different it feels to have this belly getting bigger and bigger every day. I'm pretty well out of most of my pre-pregnancy pants and anything that was fitted at the waist at this point but have been lucky enough to recieve tons of maternity wear from friends and family. I think I may have more maternity clothes in my closet than I had regular clothes! It is kind of fun to have a whole new wardrobe all at once.

We have also started getting offers from friends and family for baby gear type needs and are starting a nice collection down in the basement along with all the contents of our kitchen.

We are in the middle of a total renovation of our kitchen that we have been dreaming about for years. It is the last major renovation to be done on our 1928 house we've been in just over 5 years now and we decided we better to take it on now rather than wait til after Mady gets here when life will no doubt be more complicated and busy. When its just the two of us having no kitchen other than a microwave, toaster and a fridge in the dining room is much less complicated and inconvenient than it would be with a little one in the house...not to mention the mess and the dust that goes along with remodelling. I know this blog isn't about our home renovations but since I don't have any new pics of Mady here are a few of the renovation in progress.

Week 21 - It's a Girl; meet Madelyn Ruth

2008-10-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, time sure flies (sort of)! Sorry for not posting for so long; there was a period of time there where we really didn't get to "see" anyting new while we waited for our 20 week ultrasound to get here so I didn't feel like I had much to tell anyone other than "when will week 20 get here so we get some new exciting news?" Well that was now over a week ago and I'm finally getting around to posting...I'm not that good at this blogging thing I guess.

Anyway, the ultrasound was great and everything is looking wonderful and measuring well. The biggest news to come out of it was that we are having a little girl. She was pretty shy for most of the procedure and I was fretting that we weren't going to find out all the way up until the end when she finally decided to give the tech the view that she needed to say we have a wonderful little girl growing in there. We were both very excited to hear the news; more than anything to know one way or the other.

Here are some images from the week 20 ultrasound (two profiles and a shot of her feet):
I hope to be better about updating the blog from here on out but if past performance is any indicator...we'll see.

Other fun news is that I can feel her moving on a fairly regular basis now and have even been able to help Andy feel her move too if I lay still and hold his hand to help find her.

Now that we know she is a little girl we have finalized her name: meet Madelyn Ruth which has been at the top of our girl name discussions for a while now. It feels great to finally have a name and some direction to start planning the nursery.

In the meantime Andy has been focussing on finishing the kitchen remodel that we decided to take on before Mady will be joining us in February. We (the "Royal We", meaning Andy does the work and I watch and supervise) have the kitchen half demo'd and have a make-shift kitchen set up in he dining room for now. We will have our new cabinets in town in the next week or two and are choosing all our flooring and other finishes now. We are hoping to have the work completed by the end of November so we have a brand new kitchen for the holidays.

Week 11 - Finally, the cat is out of the bag!

2008-08-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

Well news travels fast round these parts so most everyone knows that we are expecting now. There are a few friends that we're still trying to connect with to let them know but for the most part we have shared with almost everyone we see on a regular basis. All our friends and family were so excited to hear the great news and I am just so happy to have more people I can talk to about all this now. I am still waiting a few more weeks to break the news at work but that will be soon as well.

As promised last week, we tried to take video of the ultrasound and it turned out OK; not great but OK. Its a little blurry so my apologies but it will give you an idea of how much better it is to see live than the pictures they give you afterwards. As you can see little baby Dandi is waving and kicking up a storm in there. Although I know the baby is only an inch and a half long its just seems crazy that there is that much movement that I can't even feel!

We are coming up quickly on our 12 week mark which will get us out of the first trimester; hopefully that will signal some more energy for my body which has been a bit run down the last few weeks. Supposedly you have more energy in the second trimester; I say bring it on :)

Week 10 - we can't wait any longer to tell

2008-07-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

Well we are into week 10 and all is still pretty normal. I am experiencing some nausea from time to time but have been very lucky and have not been very sick. We are getting very antsy to tell friends and family our good news so we have started telling family and will be breaking the news to a group of friends this week. We are excited to let people in on our great news!

We had another ultrasound last week and all was looking great. You could see alot more stuff and there was actually a little form that looked somewhat human so that was cool.

We get to do one more early ultrasound next week at 11 weeks and then we probably won't have another one until around 20 weeks. My mom suggested that we have Andy take a video of the ultrasound machine while we are there because I keep telling her they are much more exciting live because you actually get to see the baby moving and you can see its little heartbeat. These pictures are great but they aren't quite the same. We will try that and then hopefully I can post the video on here.

Ok, well we are just very excited to start telling our friends and family our good news. It will feel great to get that off our chests; it has been very hard to hold it in this long and it has really only been a month!

Week 8 - Time sure flies when you're on vacation

2008-07-14T16:34:00.000-07:00

We are into week 8 and all is well. I have had a few bouts of nausea but nothing as bad as I have heard from other friends so I am still counting myself lucky. I am finding that I am very tired (especially at work). I know this is to be expected but it is sometimes tough just to keep my eyes open :) I find that I really want to sleep in the middle of the day; which makes being productive at work a difficult task.

We just returned from a 9 day vacation in northeastern Washington and had a great time relaxing, water skiing, fishing and generally doing nothing or whatever we wanted in mostly great weather. There was a day we decided to float the river and it ended up being the day of a huge windstorm that crept up on us on the river so that was a bit of an adventure but other than that the weather was great and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves hanging out with friends and soaking up the sun. It was a little challenging to hide the fact that we are expecting when most days were spent sitting in the sun with drink (secretly non-alcoholic for me) in hand. But we must have done OK since no one seemed the wiser. We are still really itching to tell our friends and family but want to wait a bit longer to make sure things are progressing.

We have another ultrasound appointment tomorrow to check progress. After that we will reassess where we are and when we want to start telling folks.

Week 6 - So far so good...

2008-06-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

These last two weeks have been slow going in the wait for our first ultrasound. The ultrasound was on June 26th and it was an amazing sight! The baby is so small you can't even see it without the tech pointing it out on the screen. What you could see was the flutter of a tiny heartbeat which was the great news we were hoping for. The baby is measuring just right and they updated our due date to February 18th based on the measurements.

In this picture I have pointed out the baby but there really isnt' much to see. It was cooler to see it live on the ultrasound screen because you could see the fluttering heartbeat.

It is finally setting in that we are going to be parents and it really isn't that far off to February. Andy and I are so excited for all the changes coming between now and then.

So far I have been pretty lucky in that I have not been too sick or nauseous. We are praying I will be one of the lucky ones who don't experience horrible morning sickness that lasts all day. So far so good...

Week 5 - Still in a state of shock

2008-06-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to start a blog for some time now and this seems like a perfect excuse to start. We are exstatic to be expecting our first baby in February of 2009! According to the online calculators our expected due date is February 16, 2009 to be exact. I am still in a bit of a state of shock as I had just gotten used to seeing negative test results each month when last week to my surprise and joy the test was positive.

It was just a few days before Father's Day so I briefly toyed with the idea of keeping the news from Andy until Sunday to make for a great Father's Day surprise but that was a fleeting thought as I realized there was no way I could keep this a secret between me and McKinley for 3 whole days. I would have burst at some point so I figured I might as well get confirmation from the doctor and put a little thought into a "fun" way to tell Andy instead. So I got a blood test later that morning and confirmation from the doctor later that afternoon and then stopped on the way home and got a small baby photo album which I wrapped up with a printed card that read "Coming Soon - February 2009" along with the positive pregnancy test and gave to him that evening when I came home from work. He was, of course, so excited and happy to hear the news.

We are scheduled for our first ultrasound on June 26th to hear the heartbeat and hopefully see the little bean for the first time. I haven't really felt much going on but from time to time I feel little flutters and pangs. I have started drinking water much more than I used to so I don't know if the constant peeing is really a result of being prego or just more fluids than my body is used to handling (likely a combination of the two).

We are really struggling with not telling our closest friends and family the great news. We don't know yet when we will break the news but have resolved to at least wait until after the ultrasound to make sure things are all A-OK. When the time comes to tell folks I will share this blog to check in on progress so I wanted to start documenting things so they don't miss all this early stuff just because we were being so cautiously optimistic.