The Skates Family Baby Registries

Babies-R-Us

Registry #: 88281317

Amazon.com

USA Baby

Gift Registry ID#: 1591000219

What's that smell?

The past week my wife, Laura, and I have been putting up with our dog’s pungent stench. The disgusting odor is because we have not taken our Westie, Andy, to get groomed in the past few months due to two things, scheduling and budget cuts on the home front. Logan, our regal beagle, stinks just as much as Andy does, however, Andy, being white, causes his dirtyness to stick out like a smelly thumb. I have tried to mask their odor with febreeze pet spray, but to no avail, and under much protest to my wife for spraying the pups, I was stuck with finding another way to get this disgusting odor from our home. Not only does Andy stink, but he looks terrible too. We have weeds down the hill of our backyard and Andy insists on going through them and coming back into the house covered in sticky thorns that are close to impossible to get out of his fur, hair, what do dogs have? I don’t care he is nasty! Picture a cute white puppy with black thorns all stuck in his fur, face, butt, tail, legs, etc… So, last night, at about 6:30pm, Laura and I just started watching our recent Net-flix rental “X-men,” and were talkin' to Baby Skates my nose turned and I knew what it was...

(Please note: Picture was taken after said Bath)

"I'm mean really?" I said, "Could they stink anymore?"

I made the executive decision, we have to give them BOTH a bath.

“Well, you know I can’t,” said Laura with a you-know-what-that-means look.

Laura, being pregnant has caused her to not only be extremely tired, but her immunity is lowered and has contracted a virus. No, not like a horrible stomach bug, just a virus that makes her very congested and stick to her stomach. So, it was up to me and me alone to clean our dogs and free us from the pungent stench that has been plaguing our home for the past couple o’weeks.

“Andy! Lets go buddy, you know what is about to happen don’t you?” I said while leaning over the couch to find him snuggled up comfortably on the bed next to Logan. His face speckled with little briars that had fallen onto the hardwood floor to look like little dead black bugs… gross… I know.

“I will wash their bedding while you give them baths,” said Laura lovingly.

Oh how I would love to trade with her, but when I think about it, washing dogs and washing their bedding, makes me sneeze equal amounts.

“Okay,” I said while I trudged up with stairs with Andy in my arms stretched out so to make sure no stickers ended up on me.

After I had him washed, de-stickered and dried it was Logan’s turn. Logan wasn’t nearly as bad, but she is just a little big larger than Andy, so while bending over the tub and washing her with the personal shower my back started to feel a wrenching pain. A pain that would not end, “how am I gonna finish this,” I thought. “Man, I need to work out more, this is sad.”

The one thing about bathing dogs that I despise is when they decide to shake with water and soap all over them. You smell the wet dog smell and then it is sprayed all over your guest bathroom walls. Logan has officially made herself the queen of, wash me. She will stand and look at your like, “you missed a spot.”

Finally, after all the washing I covered her with a dry towel and held her next just to ensure she wouldn’t shake and spray her “so-called” clean body all over me and the newly cleaned bathroom. I got out Laura’s hair dryer and after about 10 minutes of puppy pampering we had two clean puppies with flea treatment included. Although, after they were cleaned, I had to go and take a shower myself, I think they transferred their stink to me! But, as you know, both Andy and Logan immediately returned outside where the stink originated. They love to roll around in the, sometimes, wet grass and weeds on our hill. (I have since called to have them cut by our yard guy, Jim.) Ugh… Well, atleast they don’t smell as bad as they did before!!! Makes you wonder what all the people on Survivor smell like?

Side note: Is it bad that we bathe the dogs in the same tub where the baby will take a bath????

Hmmmmmmm….

Quick update!

Our gender determination ultrasound is scheduled for November 6th!

'Bout 3 weeks to go to find out if Baby Skates is a boy or girl.

If November 6th doesn't yield results... we have another chance at 22 weeks on November 22nd when we go for our 4D Ultrasound!

Stay tuned...

Chicken & Dumplins

This past weekend was, of course, eventful…

We actually had to bow out of a couple events due to how event-FULL we were! (Notice the play on words…)

October has taken off and honestly not yielded us anytime to just stay home and sleep. Everyone seems to give us the whole “sleep now, while you can!” Warning. Like they are some cheesy, scary pseudo-villian from one of those Verizon commercials. “It’s a dead zone…” hahaha

However, we have not taken their advice because, oh we haven’t had time.

Moving on, this Sunday my wife, Laura, and I had some company over for dinner.

The Peacocks and the Mauldins.

Note: Laura’s sister and cousins all live in the same subdivision as we do, so we get together quite often!

Jenn & Paul, Laura’s older sister and brother-in-law came with their spunky daughter, Annagrace in tow. As well as, Tori & Jeremy, Laura’s cousins, who had their I’m- gonna-run-into-this-and-see-what-happens son, Grant, along as well. They all came over at 6 o’clock sharp for some of Laura’s oh-so-good Chicken & Dumplins. Annagrace is on the peak of age two and Grant just turned one. They both go to the same daycare and are so fun to watch.

“Hey” said Annagrace.

“Hey Annagrace, how are you?” I said while bending down to give her a hug.

“Dad-deeeeee!” she screamed while grasping onto Paul’s leg with quite a death grip.

“Do you wanna go see Logan and Andy?” I quickly interjected.

Annagrace loves our dogs and anything she was thinking about before will totally disappear out of her mind because her one and only goal is to see a puppy.

“Annnndeee” yells Annagrace.

“Okay, well we have to go out back to see them, they are outside.” I said.

“Outside” she says while running for the door.

Right then the doorbell rings and I know it has to be Jeremy, Tori and Grant.

“’xcuse me,” I said. “Paul, can you take her to see the dogs?”

“Sure.” said Paul while reaching down for Annagrace’s hand to lead her out the back door.

I ran over to open the door where I see Tori, Jeremy and little Grant, who seemed almost afraid to come inside.

“Ahhhh” yelled Grant, with an almost inaudible sound, while turning around to face Jeremy, with his arms stretched upwards.

“It’s okay son,” said Jeremy “walk on in.”

“Yah, Grant” I said “It will look more familiar when you get inside.”

Grant has come over to visit probably a total of four times, yet, he does have frequent visits to Jenn and Paul’s house, which, fate would have it, we have the almost exact floor plan as Laura’s older sister’s house, which is down the street.

“Hey! It’s so good to see you.” Said Tori while walking in and holding a basket of biscuits.

“Here I will take those.” I said quickly. “come in!”

“I hope those are okay” said Tori in a sort of a wisper, “they aren’t homemade!”

“That’s really okay,” I said with a smile of approval. “We appreciate you bringing them with you, even if you didn’t slave hours making them.”

Tori laughed and proceeded to walk into the kitchen where Jenn and Laura were working on finishing up dinner. I glanced to see Laura give Annagrace a quick kiss on the cheek. Jenn was holding her while pointing to a big watermelon they were planning on cutting for dinner. I stepped into the den where Jeremy and Paul were sitting mapping out the Halloween scare-fest that is to come in the next few weeks.

“I think we need atleast twenty tombstones” said Paul.

“Do you really think we need that many?” said Jeremy with a rasied eyebrow?

“Yes! We need to have a whole grave yard for the young’ins to walk through.”

“Well, you will be here, Eric will be here and I will be in the garage with a black light” Said Jeremy.

“Do you still have my fog machine?” I interjected.

“We have three fog machines” said Jeremy.

“What about my scary CD I made?” I said.

“Yep! Still got it.” confirmed Jeremy with a pen in hand.

Jeremy, Paul and I are forever bonded due to our love of all things Halloween. Halloween is a month we basically look forward to the entire year. Ever since the first year I dated Laura, in 2005, I have been going to Jeremy’s house on October 31^st for our Haunted Trick-or-Treat night. Jeremy dresses up as Michael Myers, I dress up as a Werewolf and Paul is a zombie Vampire. Each and every year it is a little different and it seems the kids always remember us… it has become a tradition! However, with kids coming into the mix I am not sure how much longer we will be able to continue our trio of fright!

“I think we have plenty of spiders,” continued Jeremy, “but I think I want to get them put on the house somehow!”

As I was sitting in the floor I saw Grant come barreling into the den where we all sat. Little Grant is all boy and seems he isn’t afraid of anything. We have a little bit of a raise in the floor in-between the kitchen and the den and his little foot did not quite make it over, he stumbled and almost fell, but like the little trooper he is, he barreled straight ahead toward his goal, the dogs.

“Aahhhiickkk! Goggg” scream Grant.

“Yah, this is Andy and Logan, Grant.” I said with a huge smile on my face trying not to bust out in laughter due to how cute he was.

“Grant, that’s a dog, say dog.” Said Jeremy.

“Gogg..”

“Good!” I yelled in approval!

“Close enough…” said Jeremy and then he went back to talking to Paul, who was focused on all the costumes in a magazine they had found that said “Halloween Express 2008!”

“Food is ready,” said Jenn.

I was so hungry so I got up and headed to the kitchen where I left the other guys behind. I felt like I had abandoned by brotherhood, but I was starving. Laura and I had been up since 9am and cleaning almost all day. I think all I had to eat that day was a marble loaf from Starbucks. I was getting me some Chicken & Dumplins. Not to mention, Laura had made her sweet potato casserole.

“Annagrace, go tell daddy, it’s time to eat!” I said. “I am sure it will come out something totally different.” I went on under my breathe to Laura, Tori and Jenn.

As she trotted into the den we listened closely to hear the jarble of words that was to come out of her mouth.

“Time for food, daddy.” said Annagrace.

We were stunned! She did it! And in such a cute tone that made even the most hard-core Halloween enthusiast retire from planning to have dinner.

All in all it was a fun night and we also got yet another chance to see what it will be like when a little one is running around the house. One thing I do remember Jeremy saying to me as he walked in the house.

“Well, one thing is for sure, your house certainly won’t look this good with one of these running around!”

Life Moves Pretty Fast...

“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it!” –Ferris Buller

It has been a couple of weeks since we moved all of the furniture out of one of our spare bedrooms, which is now our nursery. The nursery has been empty, for about three weeks, all except for some baby clothes in the closet, a vintage, antique dresser that was my great aunt Lillian’s and about 40 pieces of white computer paper taped together to show where the baby furniture is to be placed. However, this week we have gotten the baby furniture delivered, thanks to the coolest father-in-law a guy could have. Bill, Laura’s dad, picked up our baby furniture and drove it all the way to Canton. We are now proud owners of one convertible baby bed and dressing station. Not to mention, all the new baby accessories we have acquired throughout the last few months. All of Laura’s new wardrobe… and my wonderful mother, who has bought us our high chair! It seems we have all this new stuff and we haven’t even had one shower, yet!

It is amazing, we don’t even have photos from our wedding yet, but we have all this baby stuff!

Our next goal is to gain some storage in our home… one thing is for sure… if we don’t I may go a little crazy!

The other day Laura and I were riding in the car discussing what we were gonna do on our upcoming trip to Disney World.

“We need to make sure we put the deposit down on the ‘citi-mini’ at USA Baby.” I said

The citi-mini is a travel stroller we saw in a store and would love to have it for our upcoming trip to Disney.

“We will, but we have some time…” replied Laura.

“Hey- what would you have said if someone had pulled us aside and told us the next time we would be at Disney we would be parents?” I said in a hushed tone as if it were a secret.

“I would of not been surprised” replied Laura in such a matter-of-fact tone. “It was our plan, wasn’t it?”

“Yes” I said, “but our last trip was this past December! I mean we weren’t even married yet!!! Sometimes I just look around and think, wow, I’m gonna be a dad! It just makes you realize how fast life changes…” I said.

“Yep, but I think it’s for the better, don’t you?” said Laura and she reached over and kissed my cheek. “You are gonna be a wonderful father.”

If you are lost… let me tell you a little bit about what I am talking about! Laura’s family and my family are all going to Disney World this September. You can read more about this at: You know when you’re a fan…

Laura and I have been wanting a ‘citi-mini’ stroller ever since we saw it in the store.

“I love how it just compacts like that,” said Laura very enthusiastically. “It’s perfect, it won’t be that heavy for you, I mean us to carry on the buses.”

Notice how she said, you first? Freudian-slip if I ever heard one.

“Yes, it is nice…” I said in agreement. “I like the red… easier to pick out in a crowd.”

“Definitely!” said Laura.

It is perfect for traveling and it would be almost impossible to take our “travel system” with us on the trip, no-less, the plane! Although, I am sure parents do it every day. However, Laura and I want as little as stress as possible… considering we will be traveling with an infant. And, in my old age… I have begun to hate flying. (Not so much flying, as lift-off!)

Funny how your priorities change, isn’t it? About a year ago we were discussing wedding plans… and I was working on paying for our honeymoon and now the baby. It seems like no matter who you are you are always in a constant flux of change. Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to get so Confucius on you all.

I guess the days of being jet setters are behind us… although, one day, when we are retired… oh, no, nevermind! HAHAHA!

Stress... stress go away...