Happy Birthday to ME!

Meet Will 2.0. He's faster, smarter, funnier, and better dressed. This year he was completely aware that it was his birthday. He would sing, "Happy birthday to ME!" to anyone who asked. He can also tell you how old he is, but can't tell you his name anymore. If you ask his name he'll tell you, "I'm two!"
This year we stretched out his birthday into two days. We opened presents on his actual birthday and then had a party with cake and ice cream the next day. It was hilarious to see the different reaction to opening the toy presents vs. the clothes presents.



Grandma and Tia were in attendance at Will and Alex's party along with a family from church that we're all friends with.


We decided that Alex and Will might share a birthday, but they don't have to share a cake this year. We made sport-themed cupcakes for Alex representing each sport he plays. His favorite is now tennis! Surprisingly the tennis cupcakes were the only ones eaten. I guess people were afraid of the black frosting.

For Will we designed a Lightening McQueen cake! It was really fun to make, but not the best quality cake I've even made. It included a chocolate cake mix from a box, three Twinkies, two blue M&M's, waxy chocolate-covered donuts, and a whole lot of frosting. But it sure was cute and eaten very quickly. Will was a little sad to see it disappear so fast.

Impersonations

Watch what you say... It will be repeated by this boy and he gives you full credit!

Ultrasound Day!

Today was the day... I actually have little information to share with you. We got some cute profile pictures of the baby, and the ultrasound technician let us guess at the gender. It looked very much like a boy! She wouldn't give her opinion until we gave ours, and then she very much agreed. So maybe the last ultrasound was too early to check gender or the nurse didn't really know what was going on...but it is indeed a BOY!
Besides that I have to wait to find out about the health of the baby. Some radiologist has to talk to my doctor and then my doctor will tell me how my baby is doing. I don't know why, but this time around I'm much more nervous about the baby's health. Maybe just because I was sick a while back and was more exhausted than I've ever felt before in my life. Britton was watching her take all the pictures of the body parts and he said everything looked good.
So we're excited for a boy! We have all the stuff! We just need a name now. We've all had girl baby on the brain and haven't given much thought to boy names yet. So if you have any suggestions, let me know!
Here's a picture of me and the belly so you know what he looks like from the outside these days.

Greetings from the Northwest!

Sommercorn family reunion 2010 took place once again over the 4th of July weekend. I loved our campout last year in the California redwoods, but all the effort put into camping kind of took away from the time interacting with family. This year we took a low-key approach and stuck to the Sommercorn homestead.

You have to be prepared for cold rainy weather any time of year in the Seattle area, and unfortunately most of the weekend was cold and wet. The night of the Fourth of July was especially disappointing, but we shot tons of fireworks in the air despite the constant drizzle. I had more than enough time to talk with all kinds of siblings, parents, and cousins. I also had more than enough calories. For all the food we made there are suprisingly few leftovers.

Here's some highlights in pictures from the weekend.

First we explored the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. It was exhausting looking and playing with so many things! This was Britton's favorite exhibit. It was simulating the atmosphere on an orbiting planet like Venus. It was right up his fluid dynamic alley.

Britton spent a lot of time in the garage drooling over my dad's machinery. Here he is making fins for a water bottle rocket. Turns out giving the 2 liter bottle a more rocket-like shape, adding a little weight to the nose, and optimizing the nozzle and water pressure can really make a water bottle rocket SOAR! We had to be careful where we aimed it so as not to hit the neighbors' houses and cars.
Date night! Nothing like having family around for some free babysitting. Yummy Thai Ginger...mmmm... They now sell mango sticky rice. mmmmm
We went down to the beach at Seahurst Park on the only sunny afternoon:)

This time the beach was full of jellyfish! I was a little worried about being stung, but was totally proven wrong after everyone started picking them up and making them talk. After some careful searching we also found a ton of little crabs. Most of them were returned to the sea severely traumatized.
Here's Loren and Matt the champion crab finders. Matt and Nick, who are both eight, were both baptized this day too! I completely missed getting pictures of the whole family together...hint, hint siblings. Send me a picture of the family please!

He's Back!

We missed him so much! Will gave him a big running hug at the airport. I gave him a quick hug and then ran off to the bathroom. I missed the little things. Someone to listen to every detail of my day, someone else to change diapers, and someone to watch Will so I don't have to take him into gross public bathrooms.
After picking him up in San Francisco we spent the weekend in Palo Alto with our friends the Conti-Browns. While we were in town I finally had a doctor's appointment! The nurse did a quick ultrasound and said as far as she could tell...it looked like a GIRL!! That's what we've been hoping for. We'll have the real ultrasound in about a month and find out a more definite due date and more evidence that there is a tiny baby girl growing in my belly.

On the way back to Brentwood we stopped by a wedding reception for one of Britton's lab cronies and some fantastic Swedish meatballs. We caught up with Britton's old friends and Will danced in the gazebo. See picture below.

Now we are together until another conference will tear us apart. Britton is leaving us for Chattanooga, TN in a week. Boo.

Little Rockstar

There's so many fun things to play with at this house!

Old and New

We moved to Brentwood, for the summer, almost two weeks ago. We unpacked our stuff about one week ago. We finally set up our computer a few days ago, and I just uploaded this picture today. My life moves more slowly here in Brentwood. This picture represents what I'm missing about our old place: the backyard playground, the community, and the friends. Our last couple days at Stanford were warm enough to get out the pool that's been sitting on our patio all winter. I warmed up the hose water with water from inside, and all the kids piled in like it was a hot tub!
Here is what you're most likely missing out on.
Rainier cherries from the local farmer's market. Yumm! They're so sweet and tangy. I bought a big container of them. There's also some free apricots calling my name. I know you can often buy produce cheaper in the store, but there's something wonderful about picking some fruit that's still warm from the sun and eating it right on the spot... drool... I can't wait for peach season.
Britton is also missing out on these cherries right now because he's attending his annual conference in Washington D.C. I missed him as soon as he left because I was suddenly an exhausted pregnant woman with a growing belly. I swear this baby plans on doubling its weight while its daddy is gone. But luckily I am in Brentwood and have plenty of help while he's gone. Will is often bathed and put to bed by his Nana, fed by his Papa, entertained by his Uncle Alex, and babysat by KK.

My Hero!

You may think me a monster, but I have to admit that I think baby ducks are cuter than baby humans. Well, at least brand newborn babies. And of course I think my own children are cuter than baby ducks, but you get what I mean right? Baby duckies are INCREDIBLY cute!
So this weekend I spent a lot of time cleaning and needed to get out of the house to do something fun. I was out of ideas so I let Britton chauffeur us away to a place of his choice. He picked the perfect destination. The Palo Alto Baylands Park has a walking trail, a nearby airport, and a duck pond! We watched planes landing, and took a walk along a trail which I cut short in my eagerness to see if there were any baby ducks at the pond.
At first I was a little disappointed I only saw one duck family and they only had like three babies! As we got closer to the duck family all of a sudden they only had one baby... Moving closer to the water, I saw in horror this skimmer/filter thing filled with about seven trapped baby ducks! The grate over it kept the larger ducks out, but the baby ducks were just small enough to fall in and not be able to get back out because the water was continuously pouring in to a lower level inside.
Britton quickly went to their rescue while I made sure our own son didn't get too close to the nasty water and need rescuing himself. Britton scooped up the little squirming ducks one-by-one and they sped off as fast as they could to their parents. At this point I was very close to tears. (I blame raging pregnancy hormones.) Will really wanted to hold the baby duckies. This was probably one of his few chances. Unless this happens often at the duck pond and in that case we should go save them again tomorrow.

Here's the happily reunited ducky family in the distance.