Taken for a Ride

Since we have no baby news yet, I figure I'd post something for those who might be checking this thing for updates.

Being that we do not know what we are having, (I speculate that it's a girl) a couple months back I thought I'd give Melissa a sneak peak as to how cute a little Faustino girl would be. Here's what Melissa came home to see. What do you think? Will we have a cute baby girl ;)? It may just be another boy though...who knows. I was fine with not knowing up until, umm about 4 days ago when we were due. Now it just ticks me off.

Needless to say Louis was not happy and when he took this picture. Recently when he saw this picture he said "EWWW, SICKKK...". Two of his new favorite words, used especially when getting his diaper changed. This has consequently led us to buy him a potty because he does not like having a mess in his pants.

Anyway its been a long month of anticipation. With the last pregnancy it was a long nine months of anticipation but having little crazy man Louis around this time has made the time go by a lot quicker. I guess I just grew accustomed to all the craziness that the implications of being pregnant and adding another baby into the mix didn't fully register until recently. I am really excited to meet the new little one and I am sure it will shake our lives up a little more.

Its strange to look back over the years and see how we have grown and what we have become accustomed to. The life of a parent, the pace and culture of New England, the ward and Church out here, and not having family around here (sadly) have been things that we've grown accustomed to. Transportation has also been something that we've recognized that has ideologically transformed for the good within us. Be it through driving our own car, using zip car, hitching a ride with a friend, using the T (train), bus, scooter, bike, or getting around on foot we have grown accustomed to the variety and culture of transportation by living in the Boston Area.

I suppose that Louis has also developed a familiarity to riding on various things as he climbs (or tries to climb) on anything he sees or deems he can ride. The list includes the typical things like toys, balls, slides, carousels, etc, and then there's the not so typical things like smaller babies, any four legged animal (dogs, cats, horses, deer, rabbits, turtles), and as you can see the "Make Way for Duckling" statues in the Boston Common. Regardless of shape, size or velocity all of these "rides" are accompanied with yelps of "WEEEEEE" and "COOOOOOL"!


Here's more of Louis' duck and bird pictures. These pictures might give off the impression that he is a bird man fan (real birds not Chris Andersen of the Nuggets), but he just loves animals.

Unsolicited Advice

Today is my official due date for this baby and I'm still sitting here. House is clean, bags are packed, meals are in the freezer and since I've 'made it' the whole nine months, I feel the urge to give some unsolicited, probably really bad advice to the rest of you preggies (and there are a lot of you out there right now).

1) If all of your sisters have always been late having their babies (every single time), don't secretly think you'll be the exception to the rule. Its just disappointing.

2) Do not go shoe shopping. The size of your feet at the end of your pregnancy and beginning of the summer will just be shocking.

3) Do not think bowling is a perfectly acceptable physical activity to engage in the day before you are due. You will quite possibly pull a muscle you never knew existed and end the evening in such extreme pain you can hardly walk.

Here are some good do's:
- Post some pictures of you pregnant two months ago and pretend that is how you look right now. Seven months pregnant is pretty cute actually and no one that lives far away will ever know.....
- Do resist the urge to karate chop anyone who tells you that you look like you are about to explode, pop open, rip at the seams, have a whole litter or waddle that one out.

So there you go, happy pregnancies to the rest of you. Look for some really bad newborn parenting advice in the next week or so. We're a hotbed for that too.

Man Up or Man Down

I figure I better get some newer pictures up before this thing becomes inundated with pictures of the new baby - whenever it decides to get here. The due date is officially this Sunday, but we really hope it comes sooner than that.

Here's a few pics of an excursion we did down to Fall River and Mount Hope Bay. We toured Battle Ship Cove and also found a nice quiet little beach that Louis absolutely loved because he could throw rock after rock without running out or being told to stop. He threw rocks for nearly a half hour after which I am sure his arm was sore. Melissa even got a little nap in without being interrupted by the little bug, which really says something about how he loves to throw/catch things, be it rocks, balls, toys, and of course food.

Aboard one of the many Battleships. They also had destroyers, submarines and other decomissioned Navy assets that we got to run around on.