Still waiting for bebe

Here are pictures of me at 39 weeks and at 41 weeks pregnant. Yes, baby Robinson decided to take their time and Oct 5 came and went with no bebe....

39 weeks

41 weeks, scheduled for induction as this momma is totally done being pregnant....

36 weeks, the final count down

So I have a stack of posts in the queue that are half finished, but I hope to get them done this weekend. Weddings, baby showers, new members of the Mackenzie family, and the crazy antics that baby R has been up to are all coming up so keep your eyes open for more to come.

Until then, here is a requested bump pic. I hit 36 weeks on Thursday, which means baby R will be here in less than a month. Simon and I are both terrified about being parents soon and excited to meet this little one. In fact, Simon is at Daddy Bootcamp right now. Presumably they don't just sit around and drink beers while watching football....otherwise Simon will be majorly out of his element!

We have also had a lot of guessing lately about whether baby R is a boy or a girl. Do you have have a guess?

Bump it

So despite my best efforts to avoid it, I have been talked into posting a bump picture. Its actually been very easy to push off the request because, well, I haven't had a bump for most my pregnancy.  As my Doctor said, because I am tall, apparently I have a lot of surface area to spread the weight over, which might sound nice in theory, but really, it just means people think you are getting fat. I do seem to be good at growing  JLo and Beyonce assets (booty and thighs), but the bump has remained elusive.

So here is my bump at 23 weeks... I will try to post a few more along the way.

(PS, please ignore the awkward shadow around me. We were having some lighting issues and I haven't learned Photoshop yet)

And a gummy bear makes 3

A funny thing happened along the way. Simon and I decided that our life just wasn't busy enough. So we decided to mix things up a bit and add a little more chaos to the mix.

And what did we add you might ask? Only the biggest life changer of them all, A BABY. We found out on January 28th that the Robinson clan was going to get a little bigger. We were both excited and terrified all at once. Was this really happening? Were we ready? Holy crap!!!!

Too late now people, this thing was happening.

The days dragged on as we waited for the first appointment to make sure things were OK. We didn't talk about it for 5 long weeks, afraid we would jinx it or something bad would happen.

We sat with sweaty palms and a nervous silence as the doctor began the first ultrasound. "Please be OK, please be OK"

Then we saw the first picture:

Simon, "What am I looking at?"

Doctor, "There is the head, there is the belly, and those are the little arms and legs. Think of it like a gummy bear. Does it make sense now?"

Simon, "Uh yes, I guess it does....."

Later in the night

"Could you tell what we were looking at?"

"Not really, you?"

"No clue."

"Well, this is a good start for us, we can't even figure out what part we are looking at. Hope this kid is ready for us as parents..."

And so the adventure begins.

Missing you

Oh hello blog, do you remember me? I made some big promises awhile back about posting every week. I had really good intentions, I swear. But some how life got in the way and suddenly its been more than a few weeks since we last met (2 months to be exact).

So I am hear to offer my apologies and get back on track. Lots to update you on.  For all two of you that actually read this, my apologies as well. Clearly this blog thing is harder than I thought. But practice makes perfect I guess.....

Its Patio Time!

When we were buying our house, the inspector found 3 issues that he thought should be addressed: the roof, the deck, and a few fogged windows. We tried to negotiate for all three to be repaired or addressed by the previous owner, but in the end, only the roof was repaired. 

After a local news story came out of a deck collapsing, we decided that replacing the deck should come sooner rather than later so no one gets hurt at future garden parties (can anyone say Pimms o'clock? large hats? lawn croquet?)

We got some quotes, but realized that we would have to save up through the the winter in order to get the deck we wanted, so we put it out of our mind for the time being. Alas, a Thanksgiving miracle arrived in the form of Doug from Square Root Construction. He called us and said he was looking for winter work and would give us a discount if we built it sooner. So we fiercely negotiated the price ("The cost will be XXX? OK, that sounds good.") and gave him the go ahead.

The old deck came down in less than one day. It's amazing how quickly you can destroy things but how long it takes to re-build them. Then we just had to wait for the materials to arrive and the deck would be done in 4 weeks, perfectly on time...right? Oh how naive we were. First, we were hit with a massive snowstorm the first week of construction that left the poor crew having to dig out of 20 inches of snow, than Doug's partner in crime moved onto another job, so Doug had to work alone, then we had the permits to wait for, the electrician to move the plug, and the list went on and on. Eventually, the end of January came and the deck was finally done.

Now that it is done, we absolutely love it! It isn't perfect, but its just right for us. We love sitting out there in the afternoon,  looking at the mountains, soaking up the sun with a frosty beverage or a glass of wine,  and talk about how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place.

Here are some before shots. Sadly, I forgot to take any pictures during the process, so the only ones I have are from our original listing.

The old deck had an open section below it that wasnt really useful

This is the old gate and fence that attached to the deck

And here are a few after:

We still need to paint the closed-in area

The new fence and gate

We've moved.....again

So it seems very appropriate to be writing our first blog post ever with an update on us moving. It seems that moving is something Simon and I do... quite a lot. In fact, since we met, we have moved 9 times, and only 5 of those moves were done together, so we really we have moved 13 times in the last 9 years together. I was told the other day by someone that they were going to stop writing my addresses down as they had run out of room in their address book 4 moves ago.

However, this last move was a little different as we were moving into a place that we actually can call our own. That right people, Simon and I decided we need to drain our bank accounts, put on our DIY hats and climb onto the big, scary first rung of the housing ladder.

Below is the first photo of the Katie & Simon Dream Mansion:

OK, maybe mansion is too much, but Katie & Simon Bi-level just doesn't sound the same.


While it's a little hard to see all her beauty now, we have big plans for this ol' girl and are starting the transformation one project at a time. First project up? Get rid of giant purple wall....