Saturday, March 08, 2008

Baby names

Not sure what our latest baby name news was, and I don't feel like searching the blog to find it, so here is the lastest as of now:

Amelia June Mastilak, or Benjamin Reagan Mastilak

Oh yeah, I asked Ellie for a word that started with "rrrr," and she said "Reagan." But we had only mentioned the prospective boy's middle name once, like a week earlier. So she seems to like the name. (Whooo-hooo!)

Maybe the next kid's name will have "Thatcher" somewhere.

A bunch o' blogs

Hi y'all,

Here's a buncha bloggy goodness to feast on. I've just been busy lately and haven't had much time to blog things.

Here's the story: First, as always, God's been good to us. He's taken care of us and provided many blessings -- including a great church home, a very good job, and a fantastic place to live.

Ellie's just amazing. She's conversational as ever, bright and smiling (most of the time), picking up on letters, words, numbers, lots of stuff. She's a one-timer -- mostly, you can tell her something one time and she locks it away in that little brain of hers. Then she'll bring it out again, days later, and apply it perfectly in whatever conversation is going on. I'm amazed by her every day. And she's funny. Really really funny.

Tina's not having a great time of the pregnancy. She's not too nauseous -- Zofran takes care of that -- but she has been completely reliant on Prilosec for acid relief. Also, she's had some difficulty being mobile. Pretty miserable all around, really. Ellie's been really good about it -- she knows Mommy doesn't always feel good and is patient, and helps Mommy walk sometimes. Also, Ellie has "bad days" when she can't walk either. As I say below, somewhere, she says she wants a brother.

Tina and I would both sorta prefer a boy -- Tina for balance, me for something other than pink in the house. But it's a very very mild preference in both cases. Happy and healthy is all we really care about.

Since Tina's been unable to do much, I've been doing double duty as both bacon-bringer-homer (mmmmm...bacon) and bacon-cooker 'n' bacon-cleaner-upper-afterer. So I've been sorta whupped and just plain swamped with stuff to do. So I haven't been bloggy. I'm really sorry -- I feel bad, and I know Ellie's devoted fans want as much of her as they can get. (Well who wouldn't?)

I also got Tina a mega-fast computer -- it's a PC, which stinks, but Tina wanted to go back to Windows. And my Mac was bought on a budget and is sort of RAM-deficient and it wasn't really up to the task of handling all the pictures I threw at it. The new machine should make bloggificating much faster & easier. (No, dad, it's not because it's a PC rather than a Mac; it's because it's fast rather than a slow, bottom-of-the-product-line machine.)

Work's been good -- my students seem to generally like me and learn stuff, the second being more important than the first, but both being nice. I haven't gotten any research published yet, but that'll come.

My Civic's still sweet. I'm happy I got the Si rather than the more pedestrian EX. The Si has traction control and Vehicle Stability Assist, which the EX didn't have, and that's helped a few times in the apparently non-globally-warming-ized world in which I'm actually living. This is especially true given that Cincy isn't really winter-weather-enabled, so even little bits of snow muck up the works, not to mention foot-deep blizzardy stuff like we got this weekend.

Anyway, we're getting through and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new one. God willing, the c-section will be April 25th at 1 PM at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati.

Funny face

 
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Really grabs the heart, don't she?

 
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This is just too cute.

 
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I wouldn't want to be those feet in the next few seconds...

 
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I love the way she knots her eyebrows

Why Ellie shouldn't wear Papa's earmuffs

 
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Snow boulders!

 
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Princess got her face all snowy...

 
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Just a cute smile in the snow...

Look at the background



Pretty decent-sized snow piles, eh? Not that nobody else on earth got socked this weekend, but still it's pretty wild for these parts.

It only looks like Snickers is tackling Ellie from behind...

 
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Boy, turn your back on a kid for a minute...

 
...and she's falling on her face in the snow.
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March 8, 2008, in Cincinnati



A blizzard in March dumping a foot of snow on Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. I'm used to that, having grown up in lake-effect-land, but here in the Ohio Valley it's uncommon to say the least.

Good thing we left Michigan, huh?

Ellie 'n' Papa, chillin', makin' shortbread cookies

 
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Ellie 'n' Papa, chillin', readin'

 
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Nice static head...

 
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Pleeeeeease have a merry Christmas!

 
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Merry Christmas (late)

 
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Merry Christmas (late)

 
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Photos of Christmas trees are always underwhelming, aren't they?

 
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Helping Papa put up the tree

 
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At the Festival of Lights at the Cincy Zoo

Telling Santa about the blue elephant

 
See a post below to see what the title is about.
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Now, wait, are you Donner or Blitzen?

 
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Corey...

 
...or, at least, we think it's Corey...
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We're not sure what happened to the frog...

 
...but the Legos all around him point to foul play.
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Cousin Emily

 
This is scary all around.
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Great grandma, looking mighty serious

 
Ellie took this one too.
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