The Telling of the News

Brian and I had told no one that we were entertaining the idea of starting a family. Anytime people would ask us, "So, when's your turn..." We would respond with some answer consisting of work, school, house remodel, etc. and say maybe sometime in the next few years. So, it was quite the surprise to most people when we came out with the news, and we had SO much fun telling people. It would have been fun to get photos of everyone's reactions like our friends the Garaways did, but we were only able to snap a few here and there.

The first people we told were Brian's parents, who were in Kauai at the time. We tricked them into getting on skype because we told Brendon that Brian had broken a pipe while working on the house and we needed him to look at it for us. Brian told me to bring the pipe over, but instead I showed up with a positive pregnancy test....I think they were a bit shocked and excited, and Brendon was relieved that there was no broken pipe :-) This is their first grand baby, and I am so excited for the amazing grandparents I know they are going to be...they couldn't be happier about the news!

My parents had invited the two of us over for dinner, so the timing was perfect. We wanted to get a photo of their reaction, so Brian took the camera and asked to get a photo of the three of us.... "1, 2, 3, Emily's pregnant..." *click*

Ummm, why am I the only one who looks surprised in this photo? They didn't believe us; they just thought Brian was trying to get them to smile....so he tried it again...."I don't think you guys got it, let's try this again....1, 2, 3, Emily's pregnant!" *click*

Nope, they still didn't get it. I guess this is what you get when you try to surprise people. "Let's take one more....are you ready for your 8th grandchild?" *click*

And finally we have a winner....the look of shock and surprise!

Though my brother may look shocked and horrified he really was excited...I think he was just processing whether the news was real or not, haha :-)

Lauren and I had a morning outing to our favorite donut stop, Stans (seriously, unlike any donut you've ever tasted...their maple bars are out of this world). I'm taking a wild guess here, but I think she's been wanting me to have a baby for quite a while now, so she was quite thrilled to hear the news!

This is Stan's maple bar....A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

We had a lot of fun telling the McLelans. Their baby boy, Magnus, is due in just a few weeks. When we told them we thought it would be fun to pretend that we were giving Magnus a present. Brian and I made a can telephone, you know, the ones with two cans attached by a string in the middle....and wrapped it up. They looked a bit confused when they opened it, so we told them that it was so they could talk to Magnus in the womb. We had Luke try it out and then I took over....AnnHelen held one of the cans to her belly and I talked to Magnus through the other can....I said, "hey Magnus, want to talk to your newest friend?" and then I held the can on my belly. I SO wish we had photos of their reactions...it was priceless! Here we are giving the little ones some time to talk to each other....

We decided to use the same trick on the Wysuph's, so we wrapped the present back up and headed to their house to give Benjamin his gift. He just so happened to be asleep, so we had Dan and Sara open it.

We told them they could use it for Benjamin and Magnus to get to know one another before Magnus was born, then Ann Helen and I showed them how it was done....

I used the same line, "hey Magnus, want to talk to your newest friend..."

We wish we could have gotten photos of everyone else we told, but that didn't work out....we're glad we got the few we did!

The Bump

It's a strange thing having your body change in ways it never has before, but it's exciting knowing that there is a little life in there who is making all of the changes worth it. For some reason I didn't start taking belly photos until week 11, and even since then we missed weeks 14 and 16. But hey, at least we have documentation of the progress.

Week 11: don't mind me, this was during my sick period...the last thing I wanted to do was take a photo. At this stage baby is the size of a fig (just over 1 1/2 in. long).

Week 12: again, still sick...at this point baby is the size of a lime (just over 2 in. long).

Week 13: you guessed it, still sick....here, baby is the size of a medium shrimp, totally random, what happened to the fruit and veggie theme here (almost 3 in. long)?

Week 14: no photo, but baby is the size of a lemon (just over 3 1/2 in. long).

Week 15: At the end of this week I started feeling better...YAY!!!!! Hooray for no more nausea! Baby is about the size of an apple (4 in. long).

Week 16: no photo, but baby is about the size of an avocado (4 1/2 in. long).

Week 17: baby is about 5 inches long from head to bottom and weighs as much as a turnip.

Week 18: today marks week 18, so I don't have a photo yet. It's crazy to think that we're almost half way there! Today, baby is the size of a bell pepper (5 1/2 in. long).

In just two week from today we get to find out if baby Baer is a boy or a girl! Most people suspect a girl, and we kinda do too, but who knows. It will be nice to call it something other then the strange nicknames we've been calling it...everything from Herbert the Sesame Seed to Carl with a "C."

First Look at Baby B

And the news is out, we're joining a new club...the parenting club! We're looking forward to Fall when we get to meet our little one some time around October 21st. Though we are looking forward to it we are in no hurry; i've actually been very thankful that pregnancy is 9/10 months...I think that time is crucial to prepare yourself in so many ways (though I don't think it is something that you can ever fully prepare yourself for).

We are both so excited about this next step in our lives and are so thankful for the love and support of our amazing family and friends. This baby is joining the world during a major baby boom here in Santa Cruz and the surrounding area, so there will be no lack of friends for our little tyke, and there are plenty of people for me to talk pregnancy details with...we feel so blessed!

This ultrasound video was taken at 10 weeks, 6 days (i'm now 13 1/2 weeks). Seriously, it was one of the craziest things I have experienced. We have a mover and a shaker on our hands...i'm just wondering if that will continue into newborn phase...only time will tell.

Video disclaimer: please don't mind my annoying voice saying, "I danced for 9 years...." A sweet friend kindly reminded me that how dare I take all the credit for our dancing baby, when Brian used to be the one (pre-knee surgery days) who would bust out with the splits at weddings...and she couldn't be more correct.

Untitled from brian baer on Vimeo.

Mr. Giggles

Last Friday night I watched Little B...Brian wasn't able to make it, so I figured it would be good for Beniam and I to have some quality auntie/nephew time. Little girl was there at the beginning, but ended up going out with her parents. Aren't those some pretty blue eyes?

I think her dad makes her laugh...

We bought B a random shaker instrument (he loves music) while we were in Ecuador and I finally gave it to him...here he is giving it a shake.

His favorite game for the night was...let's-hang-this-instrument-on-Auntie's-ear-and-have-her-shake-her-head-around-while-I-laugh-at-her...he had a blast, and I had a blast laughing at him. Here is Mr. Giggles in action laughing at the instrument hanging on my ear...isn't kid laughter the best?

Ecuador: Banos

We weren't planning on going to Banos, but we had quite a few people mention what a cool spot it was, and we're glad they did. The town is nestled right below Volcano Tungurahua, which is one of the 8 active volcanoes in Ecuador. There has been quite a bit of activity since 1999, and on occasion the entire town has had to evacuate. While we were there the volcano just so happened to be letting off a bit of steam, yes, it made me nervous.

Take a closer look....it may look like clouds, but it's not...it was billowing steam from a volcano, crazy!

And here is part of Banos...

This man was awesome! I tried my best to get a photo without him noticing; hence the reason it's blurry. We wanted to be friends with him, but he looked like he was on a mission.

Puppet anyone? I guess they're technically not puppets, but that's what everyone there called them. Right after Christmas these "puppets" appear everywhere to begin getting ready for the new year celebration. Some people buy puppets and some people make their own puppets. We saw some older kids making a huge puppet that looked like it should have been on a float, it was massive!

I'm sure you're now wondering what everyone does with these puppets. Well, right after the stroke of twelve midnight on December 31st, everyone kicks their puppet into a pile and lights it on fire. There are huge piles of burning puppets everywhere!!! Such an interesting new year's tradition.

And some people wear these masks to help them ring in the new year

One of the major draws in Banos is the hot spings...hence the name of the town is Banos (baths). I had been to hot springs before in New Zealand and in Hungary, but it was Brian's first time experiencing the amazing-ness of natural hot springs. He fell in love immediately!

The next day we fueled ourselves with a big breakfast and headed out for our 6 hour hike to get an up close look at the volcano.

Have you ever been on a hike in Ecuador? Well, if you have then you will know that it is very easy to get lost! At some crossroads there will be signs and at others there won't be. Even if there is a sign you can't always tell which direction the arrow is pointing. By the time we got to this first lookout point we had already taken a 45 minute to 1 hour detour. We were sweaty and exhausted with hours more to go...so we continued.

A few hours into the hike we were even more exhausted...

Oh good, just in case the volcano decides to start spewing lava we know which direction to run!

We passed through a lot of farmland on our hike.

We were almost to the volcano...

when we came across these men...they told us since the cloud cover had already come in for the day that it would be impossible for us to see the volcano...noooooooooooooooooo!

With that said, we headed back to Banos.

And came across some red ants.

Almost there, almost there!

These stairs were gnarly! Poor Brian and his bad knees...

We got back to town about 6 hours later completely exhausted! We were going to head straight to the hot springs to relax and shower before our 10 p.m. night bus to Guayaquil when we ran into some friends we had made earlier in the trip. We were told we had to rent a dune buggy and go explore the waterfalls on the road to Puyo....so we did. The sun was on its way down so we were only able to rent the buggy for an hour and a half, and we had a blast! We would have loved to have had more time to actually go explore the waterfalls instead of pulling off the road, taking a photo, and moving on to the next one.

Here we are in our dune buggy about to get going. Don't be fooled, you don't just drive these things through town....you drive them on a highway! No joke. It would be the same if someone came to visit Santa Cruz and we put them on Highway 17 in a dune buggy and told them to enjoy the views...you would never even think to do that, right? Well in Ecuador they do :-)

Maybe you need some videos to get the full effect...

Oh ya, and there were dark tunnels...

And if you'll notice we only had one side mirror...

Our time was running out fast and it was almost dark at this point, so we decided it was time to book it back to town. Brian was driving at the time and we had just come around a corner when out of no where our buggy stopped shifting! It wouldn't do anything. Mind you this is on a highway with semi-trucks and huge buses that are constantly passing each other. Thank God no one was behind us! Brian jumped out of the buggy, yelled to me to get in the driver seat and crank the wheel to the left, and he pushed the buggy to the other side of the freeway. I'm glad I'm married to a quick thinker because he got us out of there just in time. There was no turnout anywhere near us, so we had the buggy up against the railing and it was still partially in the road.

I stood there waving cars and trucks around him so that he could try to fix the problem, but it still wasn't working. By the way, it was pitch black by this time. The only time we could see anything was when a car drove by. Luckily, Brian had his cell phone on him and remembered that the guy we rented it from had given him a business card. He called and he got through, which was a miracle in itself because we had tried making calls earlier in the trip and they never worked. In his best Spanish he told the man what happened and supposedly someone was coming to get us. Half hour later two guys showed up. We figured out that it wasn't a problem with the gears, but that the chain had broken and fallen off and we ended up finding it in the middle of the street where the buggy stopped.

The whole thing was a bit terrifying, but it was also quite the adventure. We ended up making it back to town with time to relax in the hot springs one more time!

And look who we ran into on our way to the bus station later that night....our friends Sue and Thompson who we met and hung out with in Cotopaxi. Hi guys!!!

Nutella. Cupcakes. Cream Cheese. Frosting...Yes Please!

I have a few food blogs that I follow, and am constantly coming across more and more amazing ones. There are so many talented and creative people out there! I'm not sure how I came across it, but I found Tartlette a few months ago and have been smitten with her sinful looking sweets and equally amazing photography skills. You really need to go check out her blog; it's gorgeous!

The thing that sets Tartlette aside is that all of her recipes are gluten-free. I seriously had no idea that you could take absolutely every delicious sweet ever invented and make it gluten free. I don't feel so bad for all of those gluten-intolerant people now. But, for those of us who can eat gluten, she makes sure to include how to make the recipe with regular flour. Thank you!

I have yet to try one of her recipes, but when I do, I think this one will be the maiden voyage...

Click here for the recipe: Nutella Cupcakes with Nutella and Cream Cheese Frosting

(All photos taken by Tartlette)