ONE MONTH!

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Saturday was Taryn's one-month birthday. I can hardly believe how fast she is growing and changing! She is just starting to smile at us and it is adorable! Today we took her to the doctor for her one month checkup. Her stats:
Length: 22 1/4" ~ 90th percentile
Weight: 11lbs 6oz ~ 95th percentile
Head: 51st percentile

I already don't like dressing up mom!

Likes:

Eating

Her bouncy seat (thanks Stacia & Ploth)

Her dangling froggy mobile thingy

Looking outside & going outside

Getting carried around the house bouncing

Sleeping on her side

Sleeping in the big bed

Sleeping on our chests

Why is there a burp cloth on my head?

Dislikes:
Baths
Loud noises
Her Pack N Play
Gas
Sleeping on her back

Notice my big belly... 95th percentile baby!

Oh What a Week!

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My masters degree program decided to really break us in quick during our first week of classes! We had a 5-day class for one credit hour on top of the 3-hour class that takes 4 weeks to complete, plus they threw in a couple of evening events and homework. Not to mention finding time to buy things that we need for class. Oh, and my 4 week old baby at home... To sum it up. UUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH! I was ultra stressed and sleep deprived. I am so relieved that week is over!

For the next 3 weeks, I only have class Mon/Tues/Wed from 1-3:50pm. Yes, I am going to be loving my 4-day weekends!!

There are 18 people in my program. We vary in age from 22 up to about 50 so I'm not even close to being one of the old ones! We are all science, technology, engineering and math people. So, I am far from the nerdiest one there too. Haha!

Oh, one funny story. On Monday they had a reception to welcome us. There was someone there from the govorner's office and stuff. We walked in and there is Jamie! She was taking pictures for the newspaper that she works at. It was pretty fun to see what she does. And, it gave Lee & I some entertainment in an otherwise DULL reception.

Well, I need to stop blogging and get to my TWO papers that are due tomorrow while Taryn is still asleep!

Dear Daddy,

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Happy Father's Day!

Love, Taryn

Also, happy father's day to my dad! Love you!

Back to School

Tomorrow morning I go back to school.

It is really sinking in now.

I am excited to head back to Purdue and be a Boiler again. But, I have to admit, I'm a little nervous this time! Lee thinks I'm crazy to be nervous. But, things are quite different this time around.

* I haven't been in school for 6.5 years.
* I have a newborn.
* I am going to be taking a lot of education classes (eek!). This means more paper writing and opinions and fewer math problems and definite answers.

The good things about this go around...

* Being an actuary, I haven't had a break from studying in the last 6.5 years.
* I am starting out slow with 7 hours this summer.
* They are keeping us "Woodrow Wilson Fellows" together, which means I'll be in class with other science and math nerds.
* I already know my way around campus.

Tomorrow I start Multicultural Education and a Transition to Teaching seminar. Later in the summer I wrap things up with Advanced Educational Psychology.

I will keep ya'all posted on my transition to teaching over the next 15 months. Wish me luck! And wish my mom & Lee luck as they watch Taryn while I am in class!!

Pacifiers = Poison??

Click here to view this video

Another one???

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Yesterday I was on my way to the dentist. I went by a church in downtown DeMotte. They have a sign outside that always has spiritual messages, congratulations to newly married members of their congregation or new births in their congregation. Today the sign said:

Congratulations ____ & _____ on the birth of their daughter Taryn Alexandria born 6/3/2009.

What the heck? When Lee and I decided on Taryn's name, we wanted a name that wasn't all that common, but wasn't too "out there". In my life, I had only met one Taryn (before my daughter) and Lee had met none. We didn't want Taryn to share her name with 2 people in her class or anything. Well, now it turns out if we were to stay living in DeMotte, she surely would be sharing her name with a girl in her class! And seriously, DeMotte is a town of 5,000 people. What are the chances?? (One. Sorry, math nerd joke.)

I just hope Taryn doesn't pick up in popularity all of the sudden. That is what my mom claims happened with my name. When they named me, they didn't know many Laurens, but once I got into school, it seemed like everyone was named Lauren!
Taryn was not happy to hear about the other Taryn in town.

* Sidenote: today is Taryn is 3 weeks old. It is amazing how these 3 weeks have flown by, but at the same time, I can barely remember life before baby!!

Here's to new friends!

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Michelle, Andy & Sam stopped by DeMotte on their way home from Cincy today. It was Taryn & Sam's first meeting. Here's to many many more!

"Let's both look at the camera..."
"WOOHOO!"

(Lee claims they were cheering for the Cubs here...)

Hitched or Ditched

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I'm kind of glad that most of my shows are on their summer hiatus right now. With Taryn around, it is hard to get through a show and actually pay attention to the whole thing. I can't even IMAGINE trying to watch LOST and tend to a newborn (with no DVR).

The shows I have been watching are pretty mindless ones where it doesn't matter if you have to stop paying attention to change a poopy diaper.

One of these shows is Wipeout. This is the perfect mindless show. You can just laugh at people falling down and be entertained by the announcers making fun of people. Some others I've been watching are the Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, and the Alaska Experiment (aka the Discovery Channel lineup).

Recently, I started watching the show Hitched or Ditched. Basically, in this show, someone nominates a couple that has been dating a long time, but not quite pulling the ol' marriage trigger. The show approaches them and they have one week to decide whether to get married or break up. Let's just say, this makes for LOTS of good drama. So far, I have seen two episodes of this show. One couple ended up breaking up, and the other couple got married. The show, of course, throws some curveballs like exes showing up and bachelor parties. If you have a free Tuesday evening CHECK IT OUT!

Resemblance

"EVERYONE SAYS I LOOK LIKE MY DADDY... DO YOU SEE THE RESEMBLANCE???"

I am not Lisa...

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Apparently there is a Lisa Coleman out there... And she is slowly becoming my nemesis. Lisa apparently cannot figure out her own email address and always gives places MY email address. Come on Lisa! LMColeman is MY email address. Not yours. Figure it out. I have been getting "Lisa email" for quite awhile. Usually I just roll my eyes and delete it. Like her recent email about her purchase from Sephora.

Recently, Lisa signed up for Jobs.com. This is really where things have gotten REALLY annoying. I have been getting Jobs.com emails for Lisa constantly.

This makes me wonder a few things:
1. How can you not remember your own email address?
2. Don't you notice that you're not getting emails from the things you sign up for?
3. Seriously, how do you not know your own email address?

Random thoughts...

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So, I really don't have enough to say about anything for a full blown post, so this is another bullet-point post.

* Are bullet point posts like clip shows on tv?
* Both today and yesterday the weather has been saying it is going to storm. Yesterday we were under a severe t-storm warning all day and got nothing. Today, supposedly more storms, but it's sunny out! WTF? These weather people don't know what they're talking about.
* We have a house showing tomorrow. It falls when Lee is at class, so it is going to be interesting getting the house spotless and Taryn & I outta here on my own... Wish me luck. And send good house vibes!!
* Lee is currently working on a 5-10 page paper. He is in Liberal Studies right now and they have had some really tough essay topics. Like "Is art necessary?" and "How do you know something is true?" and "What makes mankind different from all other species?" Ouch. Fortunately, he got to pick his topic for this essay, so he is doing Lynyrd Skynyrd's song "Simple Man" and how it is kind of his life motto.
* I start classes a week from Monday. It is really hard to believe... Exciting for so many reasons, but scary for others. Actually, I think I'm most scared of telling my job! I keep realizing things though, like "Hey, I have to buy books... Weird."
* Little babies create SO much laundry! It is unbelievable. Everyone told us we would need tons of burp rags and receiving blankets. I was suspicious. But, we are definitely using all 30 of our burp rags and I totally need to get the rest of her blankets out of the closet.
* I also just had to post this pic because I think it is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

$520 later...

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This Saturday, Lee and I woke up looking forward to a visit with the Reuters, Plothows & Howards. However, as we laid in bed Lee said "Do you hear how often our water pump is turning on?" Usually, the pump only turned on when water had been running for awhile, like a shower or a load of laundry or the dishwasher. It was definitely turning on about every 2 minutes. Not good.


Lee got up and went down into our crawlspace. There was a LARGE pool of water on the ground, and water was literally shooting out of our water pump like a shower. Lee immediately turned off the water. We've had to turn off the water before when Lee was remodeling the bathroom. I am SO bad at it. Immediately I want to shower, I'm thirsty, etc. And I always accidentally flush the toilets. Usually about 10 times, I'll walk into a room and turn on the faucet and I'm like "WTF?" Oh yeah... No water.


Lee had me come out and help him figure out where the water was spraying from. We were hoping one of the brackets had come loose and it would be something easily replaced at ACE Hardware. He quickly realized it was a large rusted hole in our pressure tank. DOH.


We unfortunately had to cancel our visit with friends, as 8 adults and 4 babies with no water did not seem like a really do-able day... Especially the whole "bathroom factor". Not to mention Lee and I couldn't even shower!


We started researching pumps online and figured out the replacement would be about $200. Not too shabby. I had been having nightmares that it would cost over $1k. Lee was considering trying to do it himself, but after doing some online research, we decided we really needed a plumber.


Being a Saturday, that was a challenge too. We finally found a really nice guy. He had a son in the Navy and his wife was a Navy vet, so he & Lee bonded in the crawl space. He had us go buy the actual pump, so he didn't have to charge us for driving to buy the tank. By 5pm, we had water again. Glorious! The total came to $520, which, obviously isn't what I wanted to spend my money on, but hey, it's better than not having water!! As an added bonus, our water pressure is better now too!

Here is the old tank. Clearly original to the house. And the big rusted hole. Yuck.