Now that we have been playing in the sandbox everyday the need for bath time is so much greater!! Not that Noby minds, he loves bath time!!

We haven’t been to Noby’s school in a few weeks.  First it was school vacation week and then we were both pretty sick.  Today, as we were walking out the door for school I realized that Noby looked like he was in a “first day of school outfit.”  He was looking pretty sharp!  I tried to get a picture of him as we were heading out but of course he didn’t want to cooperate.  So after school, as we played in the backyard, in the sandbox of course, i snapped a few of him!

Check out Noby teaching Grand-Pepere how to use his iPod!  He had to show him all his favorite games and movies!!  (It was so cute, I love this picture!)

Awesome if your mother comes to help!!!   Ichiro was away again this weekend so Mom offered to come up and hang out.  Well you know Mom, she’s a project girl so she kept looking for things to do.  The idea train started when we decided to make my vegetable garden into a sandbox for Noby.  From then on the ideas just kept flowing!  When we were at Home Depot buying sand we decided to get a few plants for the front garden.  Well if we were going to work on that we should do the side garden too.  Like I said the ideas kept flowing!!  I can’t thank Mom enough for all the work she helped with.  My house looks great and Noby has the best backyard in the neighborhood!!!!

Check it out…

The old vegetable garden, before…

Hard at work…

The new sandbox!

Someone was VERY happy, kept calling it the beach…

The side garden, before…

And after…

My garden gnome house that Aunt Kathryn painted…

The front garden, before…

after…

my little mushrooms…

nice mulch…

Mom and Dad trying out our new Anniversary chairs!

Noby trying out his new chair…

Not really sure about this one…

One very happy camper…

and one very tired and pregnant mommy!

Today while Mom and I were working in the yard (pictures to come), Dad came out to tell us that there was a News Break Emergency on TV.  He asked if we knew about it.  The report said that a pipe had rupture and caused a catastrophic failure, leaving nearly 2 million people in 31 towns around Boston without usable drinking water.  I immediately jumped in the car to run to the store for some bottle water.  Everyone must have had the same idea cause as I was walking into the store people with carts full of water were leaving.  I rushed right to the water aisle and the shelves were almost empty. I quickly grabbed 12 gallons and headed out.  Now that I’m home and realize how much water we use, I wish I have grabbed more.  The news tonight is reports that all stores are 100% out of water.  Small bottles, large bottles, everything, out.  Tomorrow I’ll be heading back out to look for more ice, we are a ice family and I think the 3 bags I did get won’t be enough!

My spoils…

Tonight Noby and I were excited to pick Memere up at the bus station!!  Ichiro had to travel to NY again so we loved the idea of some company.

After dinner I gave Noby and Memere a new treat that I found at the grocery store.   They are mini ice-cream cones.

Noby’s eyes were so wide with excitement when I gave one to him.  And he was so excited when Memere taught him to lick his ice-cream cone.

Ohhhh Ice-cream….

Watching Memere lick her ice-cream…

Lick…

Lick…

Mmmmm so good!

Tonight Noby and I decided to hang out at the hospital! haha It all started around 6:30 when I came into the living room to find Noby chewing on something.  Now lately I’ve found Noby chewing on a piece of a book that he ripped off and one day I found he chewed off the nub part of a puzzle piece.  So I said to him, “What are you chewing?” And he decided to run away.  By the time I got to him I realized it wasn’t paper but some type of chalk like.  Well not really chalky but it was tiny pieces of white.  Just like if you chewed a pill.  I was clearly nervous, so I texted Ichiro. haha Cause that’s what I do when something is wrong.  haha  We decided that I should call the pediatrician, just to see what they would say.  I wanted to know if they could just check his vitals or something.  I wasn’t even sure if he ate a pill.  So they nurse said we needed to bring Noby to the ER.  And off we went.

Noby did great in the waiting room.  We were there for two hours so it was a long wait.  It was nice that the hospital had these little stations for the kids to play at.

Once we finally got into the room and saw the pediatric doctor we were in and out.  They checked his vitals again, looked in his mouth, eyes, pressed on his little stomach and that was about it.  The doctor checked the list of meds we have in the house and said if he had only one of any of those pills he would be fine.  It wasn’t like I found him with the bottle.  I was to watch him to make sure he was throwing up but seeing that it was 3 hours past the time he ate it and he was still acting normal that he thought Noby was fine to go home.

Playing with his iPod as we wait to see the dr….

Me saying “look at me, say cheese…” nothing…

Finally! hahahah

Check it out…. clear as day…. Baby Ashihara is a boy!

Noby is going to have a little brother!!  We are so excited!  Here are a few more pictures of our little guy!

And to top it off my unbelievable husband came home from work with these…

I’m a lucky girl!!

Neti Pot that is!!!  But let me digress.

So I broke down and went to the doctors yesterday.  I knew what she was going to say, "Because you’re pregnant, there’s really isn’t much we can do for you. blah blah blah."  I see my primary care doctor every couple of years and I feel like she never can really do anything for me.  However my throat hurt SOOO bad that I was afraid it was going to be something really bad like strep.  Well I was right, not about the strep but about the doctor saying there was nothing she could really do.  She gave me a list of home remedies she wanted me to try and sent me on the way.  Telling me to call her back if it’s not better in 7 to 10 days.  SEVEN TO TEN DAYS???  I couldn’t live like this for that long!  So last night Dr. Ichiro and I were on a mission.  One of her remedies was to “breathe warm, moist air from a steamy shower, a hot bath, or a sink filled with hot water.”  Well you know we like to do things to the extreme so Ichiro made me a steam “room.”  I didn’t think it was working last night because every time I stopped I seemed to be more stuffy but I have to say I feel so great this morning.  Not 100%, my throat still hurts and I’m a little stuffy but not nearly as bad as yesterday!

Yup, that’s me in there!!

So another item on my doctor’s home remedies list was “use an over-the-counter saline nasal spray to irrigate and drain the nasal cavity.”  She said the nasal decongestant spray that I was using was making everything worse by over drying.   Huh who would have thought!  Anyway of course we didn’t have a saline spray HOWEVER we did have the neti pot Ichiro got when he was sick.  I hadn’t tried it yet, something about pouring saline water into your nose just really turns me off.  But last night I was willing to try ANYTHING!  The neti pot didn’t really work like it was suppose to, I was so blocked that it couldn’t make its way out the other side but I could tell it was still working.  I know it’s a lot of gross info but it was clearly breaking things up and don’t worry I didn’t take a picture of me trying it out!  I plan to try it again tonight! I might be a new fan of the neti pot!!!  (Kerry you MIGHT have been right!)

Sooo I’m not getting better but Noby sure it!!  Today I can tell that he is ON his game and I am not!!

This morning I was trying to clean up some dishes from last night when I noticed that Noby wasn’t pulling at my legs anymore.  I called to him and he didn’t answer, weird.  I went to look in the TV room, nothing… playroom? nothing… bathroom?  nothing!  Had he gone upstairs?  I turned around and saw this…

Please don’t look at the pile of clean laundry on top of the kitchen table!

So I was counting the minutes to nap time.  Today I planned to take a nap at the same time as Noby did.  A mistake I didn’t do yesterday (stupid zombie game kept me awake!)  I read Noby a couple of books and put him in his crib.   I wasn’t napping long when I heard him talking.  I guess he never fell asleep, I checked out the monitor and he had taken all his clothes off.  Not a big deal, he’s done that before and he was still wearing his diaper.  I let him rest a little long and check the monitor again… I quickly got up and ran in there to find this…

A NAKED BABY!!