My Birthday Eve

Well I haven't let a TON of time pass since the last post, so I guess that mean I'm getting better at keeping up! Since my last post we have made a trip to Cleveland to celebrate Ethan's first birthday! We had a great time and the cake was REALLY delicious. A shout out to Ethan on finally walking, as of yesterday-Go Ethan! Last weekend we went to my parents to hang out and I got to spend Saturday spending some quality time with Allison. It had been way too long. This past weekend we had the last Toledo home game (we won!) and spent Saturday with Dawn, Jim, Nikki, and Jessi for the Ohio State vs. Michigan game. I didn't watch it though, I spent the entire time talking :-) That evening we met up with Ryan's parents, Adam, Louise, and Abbey for dinner at Don Pablo's. It was nice to see them!

Shwew-now we're caught up. Today is Mursday-Monday that is actually like Thursday-and tomorrow is my birthday!!!!!!! I love my birthday and always have! After work tomorrow we will pack up for a long stay at my parent's for birthday celebration and Thanksgiving! I love this time of the year and can't wait to just relax and eat yummy Thanksgiving food.

Baby is doing well. He moves constantly and has started to get up in my ribs sometimes. It doesn't exactly hurt, but it's definitely distracting. He kicks and flips and flails around almost all day. We enjoy setting a remote on my belly and watching him kick. I have tried a number of times to get this on video, but every time I press "record" he stops and then I give up and he starts again. He must be stubborn-like his Daddy ;-). I had an appointment today and he's measuring right on track (not too big, not too small) and has a good heartbeat. He had the hiccups while she was listening to the heartbeat and was squirming all around. He did eventually kick the doppler wand thing-which he did last time.

We are slowly, but surely, working on clearing out the extra bedroom and making room for baby. We ordered a changing table and put that up already and Ryan got the crib up yesterday. I'd post a picture but it's boring-no mattress or bedding. I'll wait until it's all done. I can hardly believe that I'll be 25 weeks on Wednesday and have only 15 left to go! I just think to when I was 15 weeks and thought to myself, "That was fast!" and now that's all I have left before he gets here! EEKS!

Here are some recent pics of my expanding body-which is not something I'm too fond of-

23 Weeks 1 Day

24 Weeks 1 Day

24 Weeks 2 Days-The only purpose of this picture is to prove that my Rocket Fanatic shirt can still fit!

Thanks for reading my ramblings and updates on our little guy! I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and stay posted for a picture of the shirt I made myself to wear on Thanksgiving! :-)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Love: Jill, Ryan, and Baby

It's a... and My Lovely Baby Bump

Yet again I have failed to keep up on this blog. Seems that working full time (and not just half a day like last year) is cutting into my blogging time-imagine that! :-) Well I am making a vow today to post more often, because I know once our little one is here everyone will want updates. Here's to more blogging! (I hope).

We've been busy the past couple of months with football. We did take one weekend to visit Kim, Mark, Ella, Luci, and the new-Max for a weekend in Baltimore. We had a blast and so glad we got to meet the little guy. Wish we lived closer! Most weekends are spent in Toledo cheering on our Rockets and tailgating with friends. As a matter of fact we spent the last tailgate with friends AND family so that we could reveal the gender of little one. I spent an entire morning (between working with kids) at work trying to find a bakery that would make a colored cake in time. Unfortunately our ultrasound was on Thursday after work and we needed the cake by 2pm on Saturday! I didn't think it would be as hard as it was and I was greatly disappointed that my old standby-Wixey-couldn't do it in time. I eventually found Thrush's (in Toledo) and they could do it! It was DELICIOUS and I can't compare to Wixey because their frostings are so different. Here are a few pics from the fun. We had our moms cut the cake and I think they enjoyed it! Of course everyone enjoyed the yummy cake!

What color is it inside?!

The happy Grandma's got to cut the cake...

BOY!!!!!!

This was a blueberry flavored cake that was super yummy

Yes, Ricardo is actually a boy! Ella was right and boy was she happy when we told her! It will be fun for our little guy to have a cousin (Kim gave birth to Maxwell Edward on September 20) so close in age to play with. We had our ultrasound at 20 weeks (I am 22 weeks today) and then I had an appointment last week for the results. I was told everything looked great, EXCEPT a bright spot on his heart-an echogenic focus. I was scheduled for a level 2 ultrasound in Dayton and we had that yesterday. We were of course worried, but the doctor was not that concerned. Of course I did some researching online and found out an echogenic focus is a soft indicator for down syndrome (I started think that maybe I shouldn't have done my own research), but it common in 4-5% of all pregnancies. When accompanied by other indicators found through ultrasound there is cause for concern, but when by itself there is no concern. Turns out the bright spot is a calcification of muscle in the heart. The doctor and tech checked everything out (and we got to see him again!) yesterday and said he's a "beautiful baby" and that the calcification will dissolve before he is born. Needless to say we were very relieved. We even got more pictures of him :-)

He was very stubborn at the 20 week ultrasound, covering everything up with his hands and then we got to see him hit himself in the face while trying to find his thumb. At the second ultrasound, yesterday, we found out his little feet are about 3 centimeters long and he is currently weighing in at 1 pound 2 ounces. Here are some pictures from both ultrasounds. Oh-he is DEFINITELY a boy. We saw his business very clearly 3 times and 3 different people saw it on the ultrasound too. :-)

Our little man sucking his thumb-we got to see him try and find his thumb which was hilarious! I felt like saying "Stop hittin' yourself" :-)

A bird's eye view of his body-his head is the top left and his body is diagonal down to the bottom right corner. You can see his belly button and he is holding up his left arm.

Being stubborn-this is a profile view of his body and head with his arm and hand up in front of his face. He must be camera shy!

His itty bitty foot :-)

My Favorite! A profile of his face-you can actually see his cute little nose because his hands aren't in front of it! I think he has my nose :-) (Ryan agrees)

As for me-I'm feeling pretty good. I haven't been sick for quite a while and the little guy is constantly moving and kicking. So much so that for a couple of weeks now even Ryan is able to feel him move and kick from the outside. He active A LOT during the day and thankfully not so much during the night-although party time seems to be around 10:00pm til around 11:00 pm. Of course you might be wondering if there's any bump. Well-there definitely is a bump now. I will post pics I take of myself in the mirror starting at 17 weeks below. He's definitely a growing boy!

17 Weeks

18 Weeks

19 Weeks-ignore the shirt repeat my supply of shirts that are long enough anymore is limited :-)

20 Weeks-pop! Halfway there!

21 Weeks

22 Weeks-Today-how much bigger will it get?!

I feel like every time I post I must apologize for my blogging laziness, but I am vowing that this is the last time I will have to apologize. I hope everyone is loving the Fall weather and season as much as me. I can't wait for Thanksgiving and then Christmas!!! Thanks for reading and putting up with my lazy blogging and please leave a comment so I know people actually read this! :-)

P.S. We have a name list but have decided to keep it a secret, since we revealed his gender! :-)

P.P.S. A HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Dad (October 26), Matt (November 3), and Ella June (November 6)!! I can't believe she's already 4! :-) Hope you had a great day, Matt and I hope you have a wonderful birthday, Ella!

Here goes nothin'...

So I know I said I would never let this blog go as long as I did before the last post. Alas, I've let it go even longer this time! Do not fret-this blog includes some very exciting things and you will soon see why there will begin to be more frequent posts. Now to begin where I left off (don't worry I'll make it as short as possible)-

The weekend following after my last post I drove to Chicago (in the new car!) to help my cousin, Rachel, wedding dress shop. She lives in the city and I drove in it. Tons of traffic and quite scary, but I didn't die and I parallel parked (all big milestones for me). She lives above a Subway and every morning it smelled like Italian Herbs and Cheese bread. I thought it was good while I was there, but I can see how it can become annoying quickly. On the way home I stopped at my Aunt Jane's in Indiana and got to swim and hang with my Aunts and cousins. Lots of fun!

The next weekend Ryan's parents took us to Indianapolis to see DCI Semi-finals and Finals. That was very cool and it was fun to walk around Indy and see the ginormous, Lucas Oil Stadium. We ate Hard Rock Cafe and Cheesecake Factory all in one weekend! Yum!

The two weekends following we stayed in Sidney. I played for Into the Woods for a local theater group that was performed at an old theater called "The Sidney" right down the street from our apartment. It was quite an interesting show, with many glitches, but none the less, fun. The theater is quite old and the theater group is in the process of raising money for things like working bathrooms and heat. There is a bat that lives in it and during the second weekend of shows it made it's way into the show quite a few times. Luckily it's set "In the Woods" and so it fit :-) Although every time it came out and started flying all over I got scared. It's a bat! That was crazy.

*Keep reading-I promise there is something very juicy coming up*

Oh! I got a job! While were in Indy I checked my school e-mail on my phone to see a Title I Reading Teacher (full time) position posted for Central (the school I worked at last year). I got so excited, as I was sure my aide job was gone after yet another levy failure on August 4, and put in my interest. I was contacted within 2 days, talked to the principal, and the Thursday before school started was hired! I primarily work with Kindergarten students who only have a half day now (due to levy failure). I pull out students who need extra help. I spent the first week and most of last week testing the students. I began working with select students on their names, as a handful do not know any of the letters of their name. I love being back at the same school and enjoying my job :-) I'm finally a full time teacher!

*That was a good event, but it gets better-keep going!*

We spent the last two weekends in Toledo (as we hadn't been there in about 4-5 weeks). Did some shopping and had a family reunion last weekend. Football starts TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm SO excited for Fall, football, tailgating, and lots of good friends and family :-) We'll be leaving right after work with puppy chow and Rocket Fanatic shirts! WAHOO!!!!!

*Brace yourself-here it comes...*

So part of the reason I haven't posted in so long is because all that was going on seemed to be overshadowed by one HUGE thing happening in our lives. Now-I know you love me and you probably love Ryan too-so get psyched because you now will have the chance to love a little Jill+Ryan. If you didn't catch that-we are having a baby! The current due date is March 10-making me about 3 months along. I've spent many evenings/day on the couch being tired and sick, but it's for a good cause. I'm starting to feel better and I hear that the 2nd trimester (which I just entered) is the best. I sure hope so!

*See it was worth the wait and the long read*

Please don't be offended if I didn't call and tell you or tell you in person. I'm not the biggest on this whole "telling" thing. I am excited, but choose not to scream it to the mountain tops. This is just how I am. Ryan is very excited. Sorry-I have no "belly pics" to show, because I have no belly. I've been reading that it could just "pop" out one day in the next few weeks. That sounds crazy to me, but it's all a part of it. Ella has told us it's a boy and his name is Ricardo, therefore we've taken to calling the baby, Ricardo. :-)

I hope it was worth reading about the other boring parts of my life, to get that last bit of excitement. I WILL be updating the blog more frequently now that it's out on the web-probably soon Facebook as this blog also updates to Facebook. Thanks for reading this RIDICULOUSLY long post (again) and I hope you're having a great week! Have a wonderful weekend and GO ROCKETS!

OH YEAH! If you read this and don't comment-I'll be very disappointed! :-D

LOOOOOOOOONG Overdue Post!

Oh my! I feel so bad that it's taken SO long for another post! We have been uber busy! Our vacation at Lakeside was tons of fun (despite the cold, yicky weather) and quite relaxing. We didn't get to swim in the lake because of the temperature, but we had wonderful family time! Here are a few pics from that week (leading up to the fourth):

sunset on lake erie

Ella wearing my sunglasses :-)

Luci and I seeking shelter from the rain

Ryan, Ella, and their super suckers!

We left Lakeside on Friday to head back to Sidney so I could play with the Sidney Civic Band. We played American Overture, which I love! Ryan would probably like me to include this wonderful picture he took, I'm not nearly as fond of it as him :-)

my debut with the Sidney Civic Band

After the concert we repacked and headed to Defiance for our Fourth of July party at Nick and Erin's. It was super fun and we got to meet Ethan Garnes. What a cute, awesome, laid back baby! The sun never really came out that day, but I still got out in the canoe a bit! Ryan spent a lot of time in a kayak, which he loved. I don't have any pics from that day, because we were having too much fun! Ryan, Nick, and some other boys put on a great fireworks show (atleast I think it was great-I got ash in my eye and spent the whole time under the faucet trying to flush it out!). They were very safe, and no one was hurt.

We headed back home on Sunday (the 5th) and I did lots of laundry, repacked, and headed to visit Interlochen on Monday morning. I drove my car to Toledo and switched cars with my mom for what I thought would be a more reliable car (boy did it trick me!). On the way home (on Thursday) the car started to act like it was going to stall whenever I accelerated. I about cried when I got on some back road and all I saw in front of me was hill after hill. I was never so happy to get back to flat land! Eventually the car started stuttering when the cruise on, not accelerating. I babied it all the way to exit 78 on 23 in Michigan. AAA tows for free within 100 miles of the wherever you want it towed. I had gotten 80 miles from home, so I was good! I called AAA, and spent the next hour reading in the car. The driver got there, hooked the car up and rode home with him. He was-interesting-to say the least. He was kind of angry we had to go so far because he was going to miss the Demolition Derby that night. He also told me about his, and I quote, "Bitch-ass ex-wife". Oh boy! On the other hand camp was awesome and I got to see Collage, The Cherry Festival and of course brought back yummy fudge, and Cherry Republic treats! Here are some pics from my trip North:

I was there all of 25 minutes and had to borrow uniform as to sneak into Collage dress rehearsal-it was worth it, but I was not thrilled about it!

view from the HSG Sundecker-oh how I miss this place!

moomers!!!!

ahhhh-lake michigan!

I got home Thursday night and did lots of laundry and cleaning on Friday. Saturday was rainy, so we went shopping in Dayton and saw The Hangover. By the way, The Hangover is a HILARIOUS movie. See it. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and shopped some more. Sunday was our First Year Anniversary and we spent the day grocery shopping for a picnic for my new picnic basket :-) and went for a bike ride on a trail in Troy. We ate the cake (after 1 year in the freezer). The cake part was pretty good, the frosting was bad, per se, just a little stale. All in all a great anniversary weekend. Here is the picnic basket I got from Ryan:

it came with all the utensils, cups, plates, and napkins! the inside, big part is a cooler too!

Last week I CHILLAXED. Well, I guess we did buy a car! CRAZY! We got a 2006 Vibe. We pick it up today so I will post a pic of it in my next post! We are very excited about it! Friday we rented a car and drove to Marshfield, Wisconsin for my cousin, Laurie's, wedding celebration. It was SUPER fun and awesome to see some of that side of the family! My aunt lives on a lot of property and has horses and ponies and chickens! Ryan loved the horses and decided he wants one. HAHAHA I'm not sure we could fit one on our apartment porch. They were neat though! Again-no pics :-( I was too busy having fun! CONGRATS LAURIE and NESTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally-I'm caught up to today! We are picking up our car after Ryan gets off work and then I think we are going to have to take it for a test drive to Dayton to go shopping. I got a call this morning from the principal of one of the elementary schools, here, in Sidney. I have an interview on Friday for a first grade position! The position was posted last week and I sent in my e-mail of interest. I can't believe I was called! First of all, I can't believe they have an opening. Our levy is up again on August 4 and it NEEDS to happen for the schools to keep functioning successfully! Keep your fingers crossed for the interview, and the levy!

SHWEW! That was long, sorry! I will not let it go that far again, I promise. I hope you're having a wonderful week and thanks for reading the short version of my past few weeks!

Hello Kitty!!!! :-)

So it's been a couple of weeks since I've posted. We got iPhones, went to a graduation party, a surprise party, and celebrated Father's day last weekend! I'll post pics from that later. This post is dedicated to my latest cakepop venture. I cannot take credit for this idea I must site Bakerella for this. If you haven't checked out her blog (www.bakerella.com) please do so! There is a link on the left side of this page also. She had a post with these and since I was planning on making some pops for Ryan's family for our vacation I decided to give Hello Kitty a whirl. I think it turned out great! Here are the step by step photos!

Aside from a cake mix and a can of frosting (I used chocolate cake for these) here are the decorating ingredients. I ended up not using the mini m&m's, but used the heart sprinkles and round sprinkles from the variety of sprinkles in the container in the picture. Note the food coloring markers in the back!

I ground up the cake in a food processor and mixed in about a half of can of frosting (this is only half of a cake-if you use a whole cake you need about a whole can of frosting). Then instead of rolling them just into balls, squish the balls to make flattish ovals. Freeze these for about 10-15 minutes.

I chopped up some of the White Bark Coating and melted it in the microwave. I start with 1 minute, stir it (because it won't lose it's form when melted until stirred), and use 30 second intervals if it needs more. If it's too thick you can add shortening or vegetable oil-don't add water!

All melted! I took the faces out of the freezer and dipped the sticks into this and then into the cake part. I stuck them in a styrofoam block to set them. This way they won't fall off the stick when they are dipped.

Now since Hello Kitty has ears, I used white chocolate chips for the ears. I melted some of the chips in a ziploc baggie in the microwave (45 seconds) cut of the tip and used it to squeeze onto the chocolate chips-like glue. These went back to the freezer for 10-15 more minutes to harden them up for the big dip!

I melted some more white bark coating to fill up the bowl and dunked the kitties one by one. I had no trouble with the ears falling off at all! You can tap your wrist while holding one to get off excess coating.

Now comes the part that requires much patience! I used a paintbrush (that I only use for cakepops) to "paint" on some melted coating.

I placed two heart sprinkles, points toward each other, on the melted coating I painted on the head.

I placed another dab of coating on the hearts and attached a round sprinkle. Bakerella used mini m&m's and red hearts for the classic red bow. I didn't have any red bows, or any any bows that matched the m&m's, so I improvised with what I did have on hand. Then I used food coloring markers to paint on the face. Tip: keep the markers pointed down the whole time, otherwise you don't get dark lines.

Ta-Da! Too stinkin' cute :-)

This venture took a few hours from start to complete (well the cake was baked yesterday). It takes patience, but I love how they make people smile! Not to mention they're D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Please visit Bakerellas blog to check out her instructions and ideas about cakepops, but you can ask me if you have any questions too! :-) Happy Cakepopping!

Rainy Riversongs

Today marks my first official day of Summer vacation (or so I have dubbed it). I figure last week I still worked and this is the first week I'm not working-hence my vacation has begun. This means there might be an influx of posts and lots of reading for me.

We had a great weekend! Ryan had Friday off (from working 4-10's) so we went for a run, lazed around, went to Fulton Farms in Troy, OH and got the MOST DELICIOUS strawberries. They seriously tasted like candy and there wasn't even any added sugar on them! We bought two quarts. I made a strawberry pie (trying to recreate the one from the Strawberry Festival) with one quart and we ate the other quart :-). On Friday evening we went to the Sidney Civic Band concert downtown. We took our chairs and strawberries and walked there. It was a good time and the conductor recognized me (from my palm sunday gig I played) and I had to go up and draw a winner for a contest. Ryan forgot to take pics of this part though. At the end of the concert the horns recognized me (I played with 2 of them for the palm sunday thing) and got my name and number so I can sub in the band. THEN-one of these horns (who plays in the Troy Civic Band also) asks me if I would play in the Troy band on Sunday. Turns out one of the horns I didn't know is the conductor of the Troy band. So I said sure and bought a red shirt and played in the concert...more on that in a bit.

Sidney Civic Band Concert-we were definitely the youngest couple in the audience

yummy, fresh strawberries-tastes like candy!

Saturday we travelled down to Cincinnati to visit with Adam, Louise, and Abigail. We had a great time just hanging out at their house and playing with Abbey. It's so fun to see her personality evolve and she is now interacting so much! We played with water balloons and her little car. She just the balloons carries them around, but every time Ryan would throw one and break it she would very deliberately, in perfect gibberish, say something to him. It was so cute and hilarious-it seemed as though she was scolding him for breaking the balloon. She did it every time! See the video below!

Abigail and me!

Ryan and Abigail :-)

we were sitting on the step and she climbed up to sit with us-so cute!

She can also swing on a big kid swing (very low and slow) and drink out of a cup with out a lid! While she was swinging Ryan told her to smile so he could take a picture and she kept shutting her eyes really tight while she smiled. Here is a video of that also!

We had a great time and look forward to another visit with them! Thanks for having us Louise and Adam!

Now for Sunday! Shwew! We went for a walk, grocery shopped, and then headed to Troy for me to sight read a concert. We got there at 5:30 (we had to rehearse with the Ohio Valley British Brass Band, as we had a few pieces to play together) and the weather was beautiful! We ran through the couple of combined pieces and then at 7 we started the concert. Halfway through American Riversongs it started to rain pretty hard. We finished the piece and ran off the stage for a rain delay. It stopped after about 15 minutes and we carried on! OH! I was SO psyched to see "Brant Karrick" at the top right corner of one of the pieces we were playing. It was "Songs from Old Kentucky". I thought this was so funny and was excited to play it, although it would have been better playing it with him! :-) Here are some pics (don't mind the frumpy shirt) from the event! (I even got paid!)

watching the british brass band-disregard the awful shirt and bad hair (from rain!)

We had a pretty busy weekend and did some things we've never done around here before! Hopefully playing yesterday will bring some more horn subbing jobs for the civic bands in the area. Ryan and I will be proud new owners of iPhones come Friday evening and are spending the week looking forward to this. Hope you have a wonderful week! :-) Enjoy the Summer!

comments=mad love :-)

iPhone Countdown: 9 Days

So it's official...we are getting iPhones next Friday! WAHOO!!! I'm psyched! I think I'll be able to blog from the phone and upload pics AND VIDEOS I take with it! Get excited...hopefully my blogging will become more frequent with the iPhone.

This past weekend we headed to Norwalk to celebrate Ryan's birthday with our parents. My mom and dad came to Norwalk for the occassion. Ryan grilled some brats and we had a nice picnic. We went swimming and then headed back to the Hanke's for some delicious cheesecake. I really think I like the the cheesecake as good-if not better-than (dare I say it) Cheesecake Factory. Now I just need to experiment with adding things to make the fancy ones. Anyways-we had a great time and Ryan got a really cool grill utensil set and money towards iPhones/service. Here are a couple of pictures from the day-

not excited that i'm taking pictures

my dad and i :-)

surprised by the grill untensils

a recreation of the vintage pic from my last blog

This week has been quite uneventful. I am still teaching summer school in the mornings-although tomorrow is the last day until August. Still no news about my job. That won't come up until after the levy vote in early August. We plan to visit Adam, Louise, and Abigail on Saturday in Cincinnati. That should be lots of fun! :-) Hope you're having a great week and I'll leave you with this quote from a book I'm reading, A Devil to Play, by Jasper Rees. He is a middle aged man who decides to pick up playing horn after 22 years of not playing.

"The horn is, incomparably, the horn. In the right hands, it is the most beautiful instrument in the orchestra. In the wrong hands, it's still better than the trumpet."

comments=smiles :-)