"It's not a tumor!" --Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger

Kiana is now about 4 weeks away from giving birth. So we decided to take some pictures of the belly and post them for friends, family, and the random sicko to look at.

The baby appears to be doing well and is kicking a lot.

Earlier this week finalized a contract on a house. We've been looking for the past 5 months and have looked at approximately 135 houses. We finally found one that we like and felt at home in (and wasn't subject to bank approval). We expect to close on it around July 9th (the baby is due July 22nd).

Dimples

We dressed Spencer up in his Easter outfit the other day and decided to take some pictures. He first gave his Smug smile:

Patrick then bet him $20 that he couldn't make his dimples any bigger...

Needless to say Patrick had to pay up.

Something Serious.

Have you noticed that it seems like everybody has a blog? And have you ever asked yourself : Do all these people really have something interesting to say?
I'd like to take a minute to talk about something that is affecting millions of people accross the globe. It's an ailment that affects most people who start a blog for the sole purpose of telling people which is the best Harry Potter book. After a while they realize one of two things: 1. They're not as funny as they think they are; and 2. If Stephanie Meyer is ever going to ask them to help write a book they had better make their blog more entertaining. This realization leads people to try things for the sole purpose of having something to put on their blog.
This condition is something that is called "Bloggers Itch". Next time you go fishing or sledding, run a marathon or watch a bike race. I want you to ask yourself "How many of these people are doing this just so they have something to write on their blog?" Now blogs, in and of themselves, are great; it is a great way to keep in touch with people around the world. We love looking at other people's blogs to see what their up to; but there's nothing worse than looking up a friend and finding the headline "I joined a bowling team!".
But if you have ever thought about eating cow stomach, taking a picture and putting it on your blog then it may be time to hang it up.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the group of people that, after I had sat in line for 25 minutes at Aaron Taylor's wedding, thought it would be OK to cut in line in front of me (they didn't even have a gift); I think it's totally great that they can live their life and not worry about other people's feelings (Way to be!!).

March Madness

The greatest two days of the year are now upon us. That's right, it's the first round of the NCAA tournament. We're excited (Or in tribute to Jimmy B. "We're jacked up"), we have our brackets in, and we're just hoping for some good games. In a related note, studies have shown that the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament are the least productive for employers across America. Which prompted ESPN to perform this enlightening sociological experiment/poll:

Here's to you Mississippi! While the rest of the world watches the games from their cubicles and conference rooms. You boldly state "Nobody can slap a saddle on this wild stallion!". While the world screams, "What about lost production?". You respond "Production's for Suckers!". While the rest of the world spends the first round dodging bosses and progress reports, you tirelessly plow through your third bag of Doritos. Mississippi we salute you, because you make the lower 48 just a little bit lower.

Boy or Girl???

We had an ultrasound today in which we found out the gender of the baby. But first we should say that everything is going well and the baby is healthy. Before we went Kiana wanted to reiterate the fact that she predicted it would be a boy, she said she just had a feeling. Patrick was hoping for a girl because that way he could say, "Ha! you really had no idea.".
It turns out we're having a boy, and apparently one that has a thing for ultrasound machines. He was wiggling a little bit and putting himself in difficult-to-photograph-positions. But other than that he looks good and is right on schedule to join our family in July. We're both really happy about a boy coming and can just see the wheels turning in Spencer's head at all the trouble he can get into with another set of arms.

Life Is Flashing By

These past few weeks have been flying by for a couple of reasons:
1. Spencer has started to walk. The night of Spencer's birthday a month ago he took his first steps. Since that time it has evolved to a pseudo-run, mixed with various claw/attack moves, and something he calls the "run-jump-land-on-my-butt-with-a-messy-diaper-so-that-poop-flys-up-my-back".

2. House shopping. Kiana has been out quite a few times a week with Uncle Ken looking for a new house. She still hasn't found anything yet that she likes that is still in our price range. She has been surprised, though, at the number of houses out there that are both bank owned and look like they came out of a "Larry the Cable Guy" movie. We're still looking and hope to find something before Obama's stimulus works, and house prices shoot up again...that was a joke...I think we all have a pretty good idea what a $13/week tax credit is going to do to house prices (unless of course you live in Detroit).

Then again we could be running out of time because Kiana is pregnant and tiring faster and Patrick is, well...Patrick, and he's not going to do anything extra to help out. We find out the gender on Wednesday, we're pretty excited. Kiana thinks it's a boy, Patrick is not calling his shot, and Spencer is pretty sure that it is either a punching bag or a tackling-dummy.

What the...?!?

Well I got on the blog this morning and noticed that Kiana had been decorating. So in order to reinforce the fact that the family is made up of 2 men and 1 woman, I've decided to put on the following video. This is the University of Utah's Carlon Brown throwing it down on TCU, I love watching this guy play.

Drumroll Please!!

Once upon a time Patrick was asleep in bed on a November Friday morning. He was looking forward to the weekend and the fact that he only had to work til noon that day. At about 5:00 a.m. Spencer woke up screaming, no doubt still upset by McCain's loss. Patrick, being the man, shouted at Kiana "Woman! I'm the man and you will get up and make that child stop screaming!". Kiana, though, did not move a muscle; so Patrick repeated the edict. At this point Patrick realized his vocal chords had been paralyzed with fear and that he really hadn't said anything. So after a game of "opossum" Kiana realized that Patrick had probably suffered a stroke and so she got up with Spencer. Patrick, still celebrating his latest victory, slowly drifted back to sleep.
PATRICK!?! What? WHERE ARE YOU!?! I'm on tour with George Strait, no wait I'm still in bed.
Kiana then burst into the room and exclaimed "I think I'm pregnant!". And that's the story of how Patrick ruined a perfectly good mattress.

Sorry that was so long but when you make an announcement like that you want to build up some suspense. Kiana is about 12.5 weeks along and is due July 22nd. At first we both thought it was going to be a girl but now Patrick has started to have a feeling that it might be a boy, which has led him to decide to watch "Rudy" and "Hoosiers" tomorrow.

Today is Spencer's 1st birthday. One year ago all 4lbs 8oz. of him came into the world and he hasn't stopped wiggling since. We sure love him and are sure he'll make a great older brother.

Let's not loose sight...

I just read a great article that I wanted to share: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3815656.

Nobody has ever presented a good argument why Utah doesn't deserve it.

Happy New Year!

It has been an eventful couple of weeks. My grades were finally posted and it turns out they gave me a master's degree. I didn't want to mention it before because grading in the master's program is so subjective that there was always the chance that I would get a string of professors having a bad day and I would have to repeat the semester. But now that they've been posted and only one professor appears to have been randomly handing out grades I can say that I've graduated. When a professor starts out the semester by saying that we have 3 assignments worth 15%, a final worth 10%, and the remaining 75% is class participation. You just know that it's going to come down to throwing papers down the stairs and giving grades based on how far they fly.

Well anyway, Christmas was fun. We had a couple of family parties on the 22nd and the 23rd, but we were lucky enough to have some minor sicknesses that relieved us of those responsibilities. I say lucky enough because it was a lot of fun to spend some time at home just the three of us. Spencer figured out how to open presents so hopefully that skill will benefit him in the future.

New Year's was uneventful. We didn't do much in the way of partying. We looked at it and realized that Spencer was going to wake up at 6:30 a.m. no matter what time we went to bed so we spent time as a family and relaxed.

The highlight of the week, though, was the Sugar Bowl. It was probably the biggest game in Utah history. #4 ranked Alabama is known for being big, fast, and athletic; and most people believed that the Utes couldn't hang with them. In the first quarter Utah jumped out on them and scored 21 points in the first quarter, this was remarkable since Alabama's opponents had only scored 27 points in the first quarter all season. Utah continued to pour it on and wound up winning 31-17. The biggest scam is that Utah is the only undefeated team in the country and just trounced the #4 team and they don't get a shot at the national title.