Bella is a silly girl

Not that that is new news, but the things she does crack me up every day. Today she announced that she "found Scooby snacks" and wanted to know if she could have them. Oh really, you went to the drawer where your snacks are and "found" them? She was just too excited, I couldn't say no.

It's a Girl!

I can't believe I haven't posted this by now. We found out two weeks ago that we are having another GIRL. We are very excited, even though more than a few of you out there thought we would be having a boy. Hey, I was one of them... after all, this pregnancy has been SO different than Bella's that I thought for sure that meant boy (the Rogerson's have a very poor track record for producing boys, we thought we might be the exception). We got to find out a little earlier than we expected since we "get" to have all these extra scans done this time around. I went in for a high definition ultrasound two weeks ago to get some measurements on this little one and the tech said she could tell the sex and wanted to know if I wanted to know what it was. I couldn't say 'YES!' fast enough. (I told Dusty that I could now justify all the dress-up clothes that I have gotten for Bella.) As far as her health goes, the tech and the doctor said that so far everything looks good, but I "get" to go back next Friday for yet another scan to get some better pictures of her heart. The tech said it was a little early to get a clear picture and heart defects are one of the major health concerns for down syndrome children. I also had some more blood tests done to get a better idea of what the risk of having a down syndrome child may actually be. We won't know anything concrete until she gets here in April, so I'm trying not to stress too much. As a side note, during the scan, this little girl had her hand up on her forehead "whoa, is me" style... it looks like we can expect another drama queen.

All right, Folks...

My Mom asked me when I would be re-starting our blog. Well, I figured now's as good a time as ever. I'm sure many of you have heard by now, but we are expecting a new Rogerson in our house. S/he should be here around the middle of April (looks like we missed the "May Baby" mark by just a few weeks). We are really excited, but at this point are most excited about getting over the "morning" sickness stage. I'm sure many of you out there are tired of hearing me complain about being sick all the time. And it has definitely not been "morning" exclusive. Luckily, Dusty has been great (with only minor complaints) about picking up the slack. I think Bella is really glad to have Daddy doing the nightly bedtime routine with her. I have been feeling fairly good this last week (at least well enough for Bella and I to go to Game 5 of the Giants' NL Championship Series with my Dad and Kellie!), other than the fact that I can't eat hardly anything sweet (my favorite food group!). Now most of my problems come from eating something that the baby doesn't agree with, forgetting to eat, or getting too tired. Most nights I don't feel that great and I, for the most part, go to bed around 9 every night (very unlike me). I think my biggest problem, and most annoying, is trying to find something that sounds appetizing.
Alright, now for baby news. This weekend we officially passed the 15 week mark. We have had one sonogram two weeks ago. It was a scan to look for signs that could be linked to Down Syndrome (measuring the back of the neck at the spine). While doing the scan the tech said that everything looked good and the measurements were in a good range, but the doc came back with some different results. He said that for my age, he would have expected the measurements to be lower. So now we have another scan scheduled that they will do at 17 weeks (two weeks from today) that will be a high-resolution scan to get a better look at the spinal fluid (or whatever it is that they want to see). Hopefully, we will get some good news or at least something that we can understand a little better. At this point we're not stressing out about it too much, since the results are so vague. I'm also hoping that we might get a good enough look at the baby that we will find out what the sex is. If we can't see it then, then we have a sonogram scheduled for November 29th (the Monday after Thanksgiving) where we will hopefully find out.
Some of the things I am most looking forward to are:
Not feeling sick anymore (at ALL!!)
Feeling more pronounced movements. I can feel the baby moving around a bit (mostly at night), but I'm looking forward to when Dusty and Bella can feel it too.
Seeing Bella's reaction to having a baby brother or sister. When we asked her if she thought it was a good idea to have a baby brother or sister, she said, "It seems like a good idea." It will be interesting to see how she deals with having to share Mommy and Daddy's attention.
And of course seeing what this baby looks like.
In other news, we have been getting ready for Halloween. A couple weeks ago we went to a local pumpkin farm and picked out a few pumpkins. Bella had a lot of fun and picked out about 10 pumpkins. She only got to take one big one and three little ones home though. In this picture she is showing us how big this pumpkin is.
I also mentioned that Bella and I went down to Redding by ourselves last week so we could go down to San Fransisco with my Dad and Kellie. We went to Game 5 of the Giants/Phillies Series. This was for the NL Championship. We thought that this might be the last game the Giants needed to win so they could go to the World Series. We had a lot of fun at the game, unfortunately they didn't win and had to go back to Philadelphia for one last game (that they WON!) and they are now going to the World Series. We are very excited that we got to go to one of their home games. However, now all Bella can talk about is going to baseball games. After going to her second Giants game, she is now hooked (I'm sure my Dad is glad that he's made another fan after having hooked all his girls... ;) ).

Trip to Connecticut and Kellie's Graduation

So we've been back from CT for about three weeks, I thought it was only fair that I finally blog about it. We went back there in anticipation of my big sister having her second little girl. We were very nervous about making it back there before she went into labor, but we made it. We ended up leaving Portland on Bella's second birthday. This meant two things: Dusty got to see her on her birthday and we had to pay for her to fly (kids under two fly free). Her having her own seat turned out to be there greatest thing for both of us. She got to sit in her car seat and I got to have a little (a very little) of my own space. It turns out that Bella really loves to fly. Though I think most of the excitement is consumed while waiting for the plane to arrive. She had been talking about "riding the plane" for a few weeks before we left and is still asking when we'll be "riding the plane" again. She really likes take-off when the plane goes really fast and then I don' think she could care less. Every flight that we were on, though, we were seated over the wing, so we couldn't really see out. On the way to CT we had to change planes in Chicago at Midway and we really had to hustle to make it to our next flight. We ended up getting there as soon as the Family Boarding started so that was nice (the plane already had people on it from it's connecting flight so we still had to ask someone to move so we could sit together by a window, a car seat has to be by the window). Once we made it to our second flight I felt much better about the day (I did not want to get stuck in Chicago and the have my sister go into labor).
Once we finally made it to CT, Bella and Lily (Jen's oldest daughter) were so excited to see each other. They were a little shy for about 2 minutes and then Lily shared her dinosaur toys with Bella and they were instant friends. They were laughing and playing ring-around-the-rosies and falling on the floor while we were waiting for our luggage. It was nice that we got there when we did because we had a few days (five of them) to hang out with Jen and Lily before the baby came. I think this was good for Lily so that when Mom and Dad left to go to the hospital she didn't freak out that she as left with some stranger.
While Jen and Scott were gone the girls just played and any time Lily asked where they were I just told her they'd be home in a little bit. Luckily they were only at the hospital for a few hours before Jen called to tell us that Abigail was finally here. Shortly after that Scott came home to get us and we went down to see Jen and Abby. It was fun to see Lily's response to seeing her sister for the first time.

While waiting for Baby Abby to come we went to a play date at the beach. Though it doesn't look like it, the weather was actually nice. This beach is on the Long Island Sound. You can see the barrier islands in the back ground of the pictures, but in real life you can just about see Long Island. We got lunch across the street and took it to the beach. Bella didn't like the fried clams, but she did like the lemon (she loves these things!).

Here's Lily over seeing her sand-toy empire.

Bella doesn't really like the sand (especially when it get's between her toes) so she chose to sit on the edge of the blanket to play with the sand.

We also spent one afternoon (Scott even got to come) walking around the Yale campus and having a picnic lunch on the Green. It was neat to see all those old buildings.
Here's the Bell Tower. While we were there they were playing a song for about 20 minutes.

The library.

Everywhere they had these architectural details that were so much like what we saw in Spain. One major difference: they all showed American History.

For those Gilmore Girls fans out there (I know I'm not the only one), here's Durfey Hall. This is where Rory "lived" while "attending Yale."

Here's the girls with Handsome Dan II. One of the former Yale Mascots (1933-1937). Every time one dog dies they stuff him and get a new one.

A week after Abby was born Bella and I headed off on our own to the Big Apple. We figured that if we were only two hours away we might as well take advantage of it, so we rode the train down for the day.
Here's Bella at Grand Central Station. She was mad that I made her get off the train. Also, because she was asleep when the train pulled in and I had to wake her up.

The first thing we did was take the subway (Bella was excited to get on another train, I was not excited to carry her and all our stuff down the stairs) to the Museum of Natural History (the one from the movie, Night at the Museum). It was fun to see what they had in their collecting. Bella really liked the dinosaurs, something she picked up from her cousin Lily. Here she is trying to scare one of them.

Dumb, Dumb.

You can't really see it, but there's a whale in this picture. It was so big. You can walk around under it and get a feel for how massive a blue whale is. I'm just glad it was no longer alive, it would have been a little frightening.

They had an exhibit on Planet Earth. It was so fun to see all this stuff about the subject I studied for three years. Plus, it was the kind of display that I would love to make someday (I studied Earth Science, Public Interpretation and how to make displays for people to look at). I forgot how much I love this kind of stuff. I felt like such a nerd walking through it.

After the Museum we took the subway down town and went to Ground Zero. They have fences around the block so you can't really see down into the pit, but they have started building the Freedom Tower so you can see that. It was neat to see the progress they've made. This was also when we got to see what the weather was doing. There were tornado warnings in Manhattan while we were there, but the worse we saw was a little rain (it was still too warm to wear our jackets) and some pretty strong winds. Luckily, it was was nothing we couldn't handle. We also got a little lost while we were walking around, but I figured it out fairly soon and we only had to walk two or three blocks extra.

We took the subway back up to Midtown and went to F.A.O. Schwartz. We got there about 5 minutes before they closed so Bella got to pick out a stuffed animal (a black lab that looks like my brother's dog, Kosmo) and then look at the "Harry Potter Store" before we had to leave. We didn't even get to see the Giant Piano that Tom Hanks plays in Big (we did see the smaller ones that they sell). I guess we'll just have to go back again. Across the street from F.A.O. is the Plaza Hotel. It will be very convenient to go back to F.A.O. because the next time we go to New York we are staying here. After all it is "New York's most exciting hotel experience" (Home Alone 2).

Down the street is the south east entrance to Central Park.

Bella really liked to horses. If we would have had more time we would have gone for a ride.

We rode the subway for our very last time and went to Times Square, Bella couldn't really care.

We walked from there up Broadway.

We kept getting glances of the Empire State Building. That was one of the things that I wanted to do, but with storm warning I didn't think the platform would be open, so we didn't go. Another thing we'll have to do the next time we go.

The Wall Street Journal

Radio City Music Hall.

NBC building.

Rockefeller Plaza. Since it was summer the ice skating rink was turned into a cafe so we didn't get to watch the skaters. Bummer.

From there we walked back to Grand Central Terminal to catch our train back to New Haven. Bella was very excited to ride on the train again. She likes to wave in photos now.

After a while she got a little bored, so she decided to watch a movie. At that point, she was quiet, so I didn't really care what she was doing. Plus, she got to figure out Blue's Clues... cause she's really smart...

Back at the house...
Bella was so excited about Baby Abby. She loved getting to hold her.

Jen and I took all the girls to the Yale Peabody Museum. I love how they're holding hands.

Which one is the Dodo?... oh, the bird...

Again, they loved the dinosaurs.

After two and a half weeks we finally had to leave. Bella was very excited to get back on a plane. She was not, however, excited to leave Lily behind. On our way home we had a three hour layover in Denver. I was very excited about going to Colorado, especially Denver since I love the Avalanche (NHL team). This is the train station that goes through the airport. It was crazy. It looked like Mayan Temple or something out of Indian Jones. While we were there we met a family that was flying back to Portland because they live in Corvallis. The little boy was talking and playing with Bella. She was in love with him. It was so cute. The boy's mom wasn't too thrilled that he was talking to us, some random people, but Bella was happy so I didn't care. The boy could not believe that we used to live in Corvallis (we even went to the same school! he goes to the kindergarten on OSU campus). It was pretty funny.

We finally made it home (after too many hours of traveling)! We got home on Saturday evening and went to the Temple with my little sister, Kellie, that night. It was her first time going through and it was really neat to share that experience with her. Then on Monday we went down to Eugene to watch Kellie walk across the stage and receive her diploma. There were two graduations (one for the whole school and one for her department). It made for a long day, but it was fun.

Then on Tuesday we took my parents to the airport in Portland so they could fly out to see my sister and the new baby. Bella was very mad that she didn't get to ride the plane. I told her that it was Grandma and Papa's turn to ride the plane. She repeated that and seemed to understand until we got to the car and she realized that she really wasn't going to get to ride the plane and she kept saying "no Papa's turn." It was sad and a little funny.
Then on Wednesday we went and got our moving truck and loaded it up and got everything prepared for our big move. On Thursday we left Portland for good and moved into our apartment in Medford. Once we get a little more of our stuff put away, I might take some pictures, but for now it's a huge mess. After all we were only there for three days before we had to be in Redding for Dusty to start work at CVS for the summer.

Great-Great Grandma Flora Cora Smith April 25, 1912-June 17, 2010

Last week my mother's grandmother passed away at the age of 98. My sister had a little tribute of sorts on her blog and it was so nice that I thought I'd just share it with all of you. My sister just had a daughter who she named after our great-grandmother, they both share the middle name Cora.

"Abigail and Lily's great-great grandmother passed away on June 17, 2010. She was 98 years old. She was born in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank. She saw Mount Lassen erupt as a young child. She was a major part of my life growing up. Outside of my immediate family, she was probably the most influential person in my childhood. When I was young, she lived (with my great-grandfather) on an 80-acre cattle farm in Cottonwood, CA about 25 minutes from our house. Us kids visited often and spent many weekends there. We spent a lot of time in her huge greenhouse re-potting and watering plants, taking walks to the end of their property to look at Cottonwood Creek and eat figs from the trees, feeding the baby cows with huge bottles or the bigger cows crab apples that had fallen to the ground. She had an organ in her den that I don't remember ever playing and Pac Man on Atari that we did play once or twice. We sat on the floor in her dark, stuffy living room and were so bored watching Jeopardy and other game shows. We sat at our kid-sized table with our tea set at the end of the kitchen counter. We stretched our imaginations playing in an old truck camper shell that was on the ground in the yard. We climbed bales of hay up to the ceiling of the barn. We even briefly had a pony that bucked us off and then soon after found a new home. We had our own room where we slept on a daybed with pictures of sailboats on the walls. We went to early dinners at North's Chuck Wagon where they charged kids by how much they weighed (maybe not so PC these days) and loved getting to choose what we wanted to eat from the buffet (hand carved roast beef!). We did all the things that kids should do with her.

We played games. Grandma Smith loved to play games. I'm pretty sure she gave me my competitive nature. She never threw a game just because you were younger than her, she wanted to win just as much as anyone else, but never in a mean-spirited way. Right up until 98 years old she played games with us. I remember her playing pinochle with her friends weekly when she lived with my parents (in the late 1990s and early 2000s) and being on a bowling league well into her 70s. She loved to play dominoes with us kids and RummyKub and Phase 10. But she was always willing to play any game and was deeply offended if she wasn't invited to play. I'm sure this helped keep her mind sharp until the very end. She was also a big baseball fan. She loved the Braves, but I don't recall her having any ties to Atlanta. We went to many Giants games in San Francisco growing up and she often came along to see the Giants play the Braves. She also liked the Lakers, which never went over well in our house. But she enjoyed watching all sports."

I thought I'd also share some of the other things that I remember about her and our time that we spent with her (other than the things my sister mention, all of which I remember doing). I remember eating tuna fish sandwiches on toasted bread with pickles on our little table at the end of the counter. I remember standing on the two-tiered folding stool helping Grandma put the dishes away. I remember looking at the Christmas decorations that she put up every year. Especially the little fake trees she had; one covered in fake birds, the other was ceramic and had permanent lights fixed to the branches. I remember the "Easter baskets" that we got every year, these were just straw cowboy hats turned upside down and filled with treats. I remember looking over the fence on their ranch and saying hi to the horses next door. I remember exploring in the garage and trying to avoid the spiders. I remember chasing the cat around the house and watching him just sitting on the porch all day long. I remember playing in the sprinkler in the front yard. I remember drinking milk that came from her cows. I remember the first time we went down to her house and all the cows were gone (this was after Grandpa Cow passed away) and I couldn't figure out where they had all gone (my mom told me that the butcher took them and that our freezer was very full and I didn't really get it). I remember playing Yahtzee on the table in the living room that looked out the window into the backyard. I remember the blue tile in the bathroom and the soft cushioned toilet seat that I thought all old people had.

In later years I was able to get to know her better when she came to live with us. She was always doing something funny. We could often hear sports blaring from her room (baseball and bowling on full blast during all hours of the day). She had her friends over for cards very often so we got to know them too. Each time they came over Grandma was in charge of cooking dinner and once she cooked some pizza with the wrapper still on. They still ate it and didn't seem to mind one bit. She also had problems with her medicines and once was prescribed 10 times the amount she should have been taking and was hallucinating. She came out of her room and told us that the boy in her closet was hungry and wanted to know if we could make him a sandwich. She also wanted to know if the train in our backyard made regular stops. It was a little scary at the time, but later it turned into just another funny thing that happened while she was here. Another funny thing she did was drive straight by Jennifer and me while we were sitting on the side of the road after just having been in an accident. We were just a few houses down from our house and my dad's truck was sitting on the side of the road with the front end smashed and there was a motor home sicking out into the street with the back end all smashed up and she just smiled and waved and drove on by. Later she said that she did notice what was happening, but that she was late for cards and she didn't have time to stop.

Her last few years were spent at an assisted living home and was known for harassing the girls that work there. It was pretty funny to see how feisty she was and that even though she was getting old she was still sharp and wanted to make sure that she wasn't getting the short end of any stick. She also wanted to make sure that no one thought any less of her than what she actually was. When some one accused her of doing something she would argue until you saw things the way she did ("I did not fall asleep." "I did not fall off the bed." and so on). It was good to see this side of her and I could imagine what she must have been like when she was younger. She also loved showing Bella all the toys that she kept in her room. She loved turning on all of her animated stuffed animals and watching Bella react to them. She always wanted Bella to play with her as much as possible.

I am grateful that we had her in our lives and I'm so glad that we got to know her as well as we did. I'm so grateful that Bella got to know her great-great grandmother and I know that we'll make sure that she remembers her and how special it is that she had that opportunity.

Pictures, pictures, pictures...

Okay, we went 4 or so months without a laptop and only a fairly slow desktop without any storage so I couldn't upload any photos which also meant I couldn't post any pictures (at least not easily). So now that we have a laptop and a way to post some pics I thought I'd give you all a little treat and show you some of the funny things Bella has been doing these last few months. Most likely these are not going to be in any order, but give me some credit, at least I'm doing this much.

I'll start of with a shot from yesterday. Kellie came up this weekend and since she won't see Bella between now and her birthday, she made Bella a little cake. So we sang her "Happy Birthday" and let her blow out her candles and then let her go at her cake. There's a video of this at the end of this post.

She was being quite in the kitchen, which is usually not a good thing, but this is what I walked in to find. Yes, that is an upside down stool.

"Oh my!" She loves wearing Mommy's shoes.

I love the way she is standing.

She did not want to take pictures in the dress Grandma Sue sent her for Valentine's Day.

Until we let her put on the sunglasses and 'talk' on the phone.

So cool.
Loves the tubby.
This is the outfit she chose for herself so she could push around her doggy and kitty. Tiara, high heels, purse, stroller... perfect.
Playing dress up as Tinkerbell.
Playing dress up with Maddy.
Playing with the computer Grandma and Papa got her for Christmas.
Taking a swig of a cold one... a cold ROOTbeer, duh.
Maybe she thought we were having water problems in the living room? Either way Mommy's wellies are so much fun to wear.
Still one of her favorite games to play...
Lights on, lights off...
Look closely at Bella's face, she is copying the dog.
Playing hide and seek with herself.
Story time with Maddy.
"Sitting" in her chair Grandma and Papi Rogerson got her last year for her birthday.
She didn't want to look through the glass, only through the crack between the wall and the glass.
Pushing her doggy around the zoo.
We went down to Medford get another look at apartments in the area and got to spend a little time with my cousin and her family.
Another good use for Bella's baby doll stroller. Jacob 'pushing' Claire.
Jacob checking out the bug on his arm.

Bella finding Easter eggs at the park by our apartment.

Playing another piggy game with Daddy.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Bella one week early.

Bella was the director of this video. I just found this on my camera. She took it a while ago, but I never saw it. Look at that crazy hair!

Me and two of my friends are taking a photography class. Last week during class we went out and took some action shots of a lacrosse game.

Then we went over to our teacher's son's baseball game. I love the puff of dust coming off the catcher's glove.
It was a stressful game. It reminded me a lot of going to my little brother's games.But it all worked out and they won.
Jen and I were feeling a little adventurous and decided that we should go out and take advantage of some early morning light. We got up before the sun and headed out to the Portland International Rose Test Gardens. Not too many roses at this point, but it was still pretty.
The Amphitheater at the Rose Test Gardens.
One of the only roses we saw.
This flower was crazy. That one purple bud was growing right along the other pink ones.