Getting Ready for Vacation

I spent all day in a Strategic Payroll Practices class and I'll be there again tomorrow. Fun times I tell you. Wednesday through Thursday will be spent prepping my payroll so that when I get back on the 28th, I can transmit on schedule.

My nights are equally busy. Right now I'm getting the house clean so that our puppy sitter isn't frightened of the toilet bowl monsters. I should seriously go on vacation more often...our house hasn't been this clean since April! Wednesday night I'll do all the final laundry and Thursday I'll start packing. Traveling with children is such a production. You have to be prepared for everything...at least I try to be. I probably prepare for the 2 hour flight more than anything. The DVD player needs to be charged, movies/books/toys packed and plenty of snacks on hand. 2 hours may not seem long to the average person, but when you're confined on an airplane with 2 little boys anything can happen. And let's not even go into the unpredictable upwoods weather in Wisconsin. Along with short and T-shirts, we have to pack jeans, longs leaves and a sweatshirt. My to-be-packed list is about a mile long!

Poor Jason has 4 Chick-fil-A panels that have to be shipped out on Friday so he's working some serious overtime this week. He'll definitely be ready for vacation come Saturday! I know he feels terrible that I'm stuck with all the preparations, but it's actually easier to do it on my own.

And because no blog post is complete if we don't make mention of the sweet little bundle of joy growing in my tummy, let's talk about what's going on this week.

Week #17: Don't be too shocked but... your baby is EVEN bigger than it was last week, not to mention getting cuter, and smarter every day! As you’ve come to expect, there’s no shortage of growth and development this week: your fantastic little bean stalk has added yet another half inch to their overall height-- making them nearly half a foot long! Their little limbs have reached (or are within one week of) their relative proportions, and will continue to grow evenly with the rest of the body after this week. Reactive listening has begun for your baby, even though their ears are not yet structurally complete or fully functional. Meanwhile, different parts of their astonishingly complex brain are developing to process your little one’s hearing and other senses, (you know, sight, smell, taste and touch). Mind boggling factoid of the week: if you’re having going to have a little girl, her ovaries have already produced millions of primordial egg cells, which, within a few weeks, will develop into actual eggs! Phew… just wait till she’s a teenager eh?

And it's not engraved in stone just yet, but don't be surprised if this little girl's name happens to be Ava Marie Payne. I was hoping to come up with a list of 5 names that we could agree on for a blog poll, but Jason doesn't like any other name. Besides we both love Ava and unless something else spectacular comes around, I'm pretty sure we'll stick with it.