Building a library

We have been blessed to have the support of so many different groups in our lives, and we have been showered with so many wonderful gifts. But the one category of baby gear in which we have so far been deficient is books. Well, not after tonight! Jon's work threw us a fabulous shower. The Fabers passed on a veritable library of books that were Vivian's favorites when she was younger. The collection took all of us on a trip down memory lane. And yes, it is worth it to have three copies of Goodnight Moon in board book form so that when Calvin chews his way through them, we have backups.

The plans included a slew of relatively innocuous games. Guess how many squares of toilet paper it takes to encircle Cortney's belly (Jon was kind enough to severely underestimate, while Rick nailed it exactly)! Who can blow up the biggest balloon (rumors of popping balloons causing pregnant women to go into labor surfaced here)? How many words can you make out of the name Calvin Curtis Ophoff (Cortney blew away the competition with 38, but since you got bonus points for baby-themed words, some people had some very inventive, er, stretches. Phallus? Coitus? Poo? And these were coming from Jon's bosses and co-workers!)

The Fabers served a wonderful meal (grilled chicken, potato salad with bacon, tomatoes with bleu cheese, and more), prefaced by baby food hors d'oeuvres, and the pregnant women's standby, pickles. While Cortney had to miss out on the wine, there was also excellent home-brewed iced tea.

A pregnant moment

While Jon was home for lunch today we finished the last of the ice cream in the house, each eating directly from the carton - orange creamsicle for Jon, cookie dough for Cortney.  We'd share a picture of this event, but you'd be surprised how sticky hands, even whole arms, get that way.

Okay! We're ready!

Raspberry can arrive any day now.  How do we know?  He's considered full term and healthy...and we installed the car seat bases.  Yep.  Any day now.

To Australia in under a minute flat.

Binder Park may have the seven minute train to Africa, and Toledo the two minute train to Africa (who would buy seven minute abs when there's six minutes abs...), but Detroit now has their own distance defying foreign trek - Australia in less than a minute!  Newly opened this year is their Walkabout, a lovely trip to Australia in the time it takes you to walk through two sets of doors.  What will you see in Australia?  While traversing the dirt path through the rock formations and the camp setups left by previous hikers one can peruse a plethera of signs describing the animals, cultures, and peoples of that lovely country.  There are also free ranging peacocks (hey, this is our own version of Australia, not Australia's), and free ranging...you guessed it!  Kangaroos.  Of course said kangaroos were definitely free, but clearly not ranging while we were there today in the ninety degree heat.  What they were doing more closely resembled lounging, but we enjoyed our Australian outback adventure anyhow.  Besides, Detroit has another piece of news this year - a brand new joey!  This new joey came as a surprise not only to visitors to the Perth area, but also to keepers as well, seeing as that all the male kangaroos has previously undergone vasectomies, but this new little miracle occured all on its own (?) and is there for all to enjoy.  They believe him (or her) to be about five months old and he is curiously poking his bald little face out of his mother's pouch constantly and will soon be venturing out entirely.  He is pictured here with his mother - both of his arms and his chin show here, as well as the black dot which his eye being shielded by that top arm.  See if you can make him out...

Keeping Cookie out.

We were prepared for this.  Within minutes of bringing the bassinet up out of the basement and, smartly, covering it with said romantic safari tulle, Cookie is already at her mischievous best looking for a way to get onto or into this new piece of furniture.  Hah!  Foiled!