So this is Dallas Jay at Halloween. I think he is the blond version of Clark Kent. I know I am totally biased, but what can I say, I'm his mom. Everything around our house is good. We have all of our decorations up. I love decorating for Christmas, it has to be one of my favorite things. I love the Christmas season and all it represents the spiritual, the physical and well I love it all. I pretty much love winter. I wish we had more snow and bad weather all of the time. I think it's fantastic. I am sorry to all of you who don't like it. I still love you ;). Sofia is doing well. Jess and Brooke should have their baby pretty soon and Andrew is doing great in Lima. Ace bought me all of the Chronicles of Narnia and I have started to read them and love them. Truly a fun read. We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Love the Call family.

Ok here it is...

It's a ... GIRL!! Her name will be Sofia B Call. You might wonder as do all who ask what does the B stand for? The B stands for the three amazing women in our lives Lizbeth (my mom), Bea (my grandma), and Betty (Ace's grandma). All amazing women in their own right and hopefully she will live up to their examples. We also chose Sofia for two reasons, first: it means wisdom and second: Ace had lived next door to an awesome family in Argentia. Their youngest daughter spelled her name with an f and so we thought it would be a good way to remember them. So there you have it! We are very excited and Dallas Jay is truly thrilled. The whole time he knew it was going to be a girl and he was right. Funny how they know so much more then we realize.
Speaking of Dallas he has just had his third birthday and is full of vim and vinegar. He is so much fun, but man he has energy to spare. He was riding with my mom and they were listening to the song by Kenny Chesney, "Everybody wants to go to heaven", and asked my mom if "Everybody wants to go to heaven? Everybody?". He listens and remembers so much more then we realize. That is pretty scary.
As usual the calls have been at it with projects again. On Thursday I came home from a continuing ed with dental hygiene (good job girls on your presentations) and Ace had started to paint the kitchen! It was a color that we had already chosen and I had been putting it off, but he decided to do it. I am a lucky girl. That night we went to bed around 1 am. The next night we decided we would paint our room. I wanted to do light blue to lighten it up a little, so we went to the store, got the paint and returned home to start taping and painting around 8. By 1 am we realized that our room was baby blue and looked like a nursery. Needless to stay we decided to go back to the store the next day at 7 am and get a new color. By the end of the day it was back together and beautiful, but what would a call project be without some ups and downs and 1 Am's! Don't forget to vote!

Another Palin Video

It's also a bit off-color, but after the Katie Couric interview, I'm a bit concerned!!!!! Jyl and I are really watching this political charade with open eyes. At first, we liked the idea of Obama, because it appeared that his energy for change was good. However, the further we got into his actual policies, especially his tax policy, well we've looked the other way. It's just great to see democracy in action and that the right to vote is given to every citizen. It's a great nation we live in, and regardless of whether you agree with our views or not, please don't miss your chance to vote in the upcoming election. By the way, did we mention that we find Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (spelling???) absolutely entertaining? Baby Mama was hilarious.

The small (big) joys in Life

On Saturday we thought we would buy Dallas his Halloween costume because as those parents of toddlers know the sizes and number of available costumes are small and go fast. We asked him what he wanted to be and he said a hero. Ok a hero sure, why not! We bought him a superman outfit with a cape and let us just say he wants to wear it everyday, he sleeps with it, I mean I have to make him take it off just to wash it. I think it is pretty cute as he has never been one to dress up. The kicker is that it is about three inches to short already. So by the time Halloween rolls around it won't fit. Oh well what are you going to do.
Today Dallas and I went to the doctor and were able to hear the baby's heartbeat. What a joy. With Dallas it wasn't as surprising to hear his heartbeat because we could always hear it and I just really expected it. I know that is so silly. I shouldn't have been cavalier, but that's just me I guess. I have always been very healthy and strong and so I just expected it. After this time with the doctor and all that mess and how sick I've been and all the stuff he said to me I am just more worried. We haven't been able to hear the heartbeat the last couple of times, because the Dr. told me that the baby is very active. But I was worried since he kept having me come back every two weeks and I am only on the 14th week, so what can I say, I was worried. I was hoping and praying that this time I could hear the heart beat and know the baby was ok and lucky for us we did hear the heartbeat. Best thing, besides Dallas saying, "I love you mommy too." I have heard all week. The funny thing is that when I was barley 8 weeks pregnant they did the ultrasound where you can see on the tv and Dallas went with me to that appt. too. So when we had the ultrasound this time he kept asking me where the tv was so he could watch the baby go "around and around". He was a little disappointed, but happy to hear the heartbeat anyway. I was impressed he remembered that.
We have discovered that the Wards and Bailey's are abounding in new babies! 6 on the Ward side and 4 on the Bailey side this year. Exciting! This last Saturday we were able to see two brand new babies that our friends had and the peace that surrounds these little ones was overwhelming. Just beautiful little boys. I am so impressed that we get to lead these ones on their life journey. What a blessing, challenge and responsibility. I am incredibly grateful for prayer and good examples. Also Ace. He makes all the tough days totally worth it.

Thank you Portland

Well, we made it through our long weekend up to Portland and back. Kathy and Russel's wedding was awesome. We had a great time. It was nice to get to see everyone, but we wished we had more time with everyone. We haven't seen the pics from Portland yet, we're excited to forward those on when we can. For now, enjoy this SNL clip about Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton. It's so stinking funny. It may be a bit off color, and well, if you don't know me by now, so am I.

Have fun, take care,

-Ace

PS. Sorry if the advertisement is an R rated movie. I tried to change that. Can't. It's still dang funny.

Beware and always listen to heart

Finally Ace got the jeep back! It looks beautiful! After 3000+ dollars worth of work it is brand new, except the engine of course!
After Ace related to everyone how I have been sick and so many of you expressed much appreciated concern. I thought I would let everyone know I am feeling so much better. My story begins in March. I was feeling ok, but had some issues so I went to my GP and saw of course the PA. Well after seeing him twice and still with the same issues, I decided to go and see a specialist. This doctor, who shall remain nameless, pretty much yelled at me the first two appts. and told me I should not get pregnant. He started me taking outrageous doses of medication and I was sick. About the same time that Ace and I decided maybe we should wait, I ended up pregnant. I know it's murphy's law and truly is our life. Although it definitely makes our life more interesting. Anyways, I was afraid to tell him that I was pregnant, but knew based on the medication I was taking that I needed to tell him. By this point I was taking Prenatal's, 2500 mg of Metformin, 1500 mg of Methaldopa and 81 mg of Asprin. He thought I had high blood pressure etc. I felt awful and I was sick from the pregnancy. It literally took all my energy to make it to work everyday. I had nothing left. I knew that I did not have high blood pressure so I started taking my Bp at work and it was sooo loooww. I would take in the readings and he would not even look at them. As a side note, my pregnancy with D was so smooth no problems, not even one. Next he sent me to the specialist who looked at me like why are you here?! At my next appt. with the Dr. he told me I should really consider not having anymore children because of all my health problems. I was so upset. I knew that I am a pretty healthy person. One of those that gets sick maybe once a year, if that. Let's just say sick days always go by the wayside. I also knew that I had never felt worse then I felt on those medications and wasn't functioning. So after my friends at work convinced me to change doctors I finally did. I went to my GP and he just looked at me and was pretty upset by how much medication I was taking and told me no more. I no longer take any of the medications, I do not have high blood pressure problems and I feel great. Yes I am more sick with this baby then I was with D, but I hear that is par for the course. I am grateful for those who helped me and tell all of you that have questions about what your doctor is telling you to get a second opinion. Most important listen to your own body.

Well, no sense in hiding it, as I'm sure you can tell, we're expecting number 2 on March 24, 2009. Dallas Jay is going to be a big brother, and not quite sure how he feels about it. Some days, well, he'd like to have a baby girl living here, and others he's wiser and wants a baby boy. But, at no time are they ever to be considered his brother or sister. If you ask him if he's going to be a big brother, he says "No, I'm Dallas Jay." So, we're working on that. Seems like there's something in the water lately because a ton of our friends are pregnant!!! Beware of the H2O!

We've been busy since our last posting. We took Dallas down to SLC and went to the zoo with Tony and Lindsey. We had a great time. Here's a pic of Dallas Jay and I and some geeky dude and his bald eagle. It was huge!!! On the way back to Idaho, Dallas wanted Jyl to sing songs. Well, once she had gone through her song list, she said it was Daddy's turn. Every time I opened my mouth to sing a primary song, he told me to stop singing because it was bad. So, I'm pretty sure that I'm not supposed to sing around him.

We stayed with Rachel and it was fun, but we missed the boys as they were all off playing in Nauvoo. Dallas liked their toys, but would have had much more fun with Zander and Keagan (sorry on the spelling).

Dallas is doing well with the potty training. He has a few accidents now and then, but mostly when he is having too much fun to stop and take care of business.

Speaking of too much fun, Dallas got to see all his cousins within a month's time. He saw Julian in SLC when she was up, he saw Peyton, Paige and Ellie when they were here and he got to see Landon this last week in Stanley. He's had so much fun with his cousins and he is really good with other kids, of course, I may be biased. He was so sad each time he had to leave his cousins. It's great that there'll be so many new cousins for him to hang out with, as well as one that is somewhat more permanent!

Well, for my last anecdote, we were up for our usual August trip to Stanley when we had another one of the "worst weekends ever!" I'm pretty sure VH1 could do a show on our mishaps alone! We got up there just fine and had a good time, but when we came home, we had realized that something had gotten to the Jeep. We had heard the dogs barking in the middle of the night, and didn't think much of it. Well, come to realize that the dogs were barking at the bob cat that was in our camp, and scared it up over the side of the Jeep on to the roof, where it hung out for a few seconds before sliding down the glass and to the hood. Needless to say, there's some serious damage done. They estimated $3,500!!! The hood, roof, and doors are going to have to be re painted. Luckily for us, it's covered under our comprehensive deductible of $100! So, I'll have a new paint job for a $100 and they gave me a midget-hearse (PT Cruiser) to drive in the mean time.

In this second picture, you can see the size of the paw print. It's as big across as my house key. Of course, Terry is still convinced it was Winnie. But, a guy I work with is sure it's a cat because the claws aren't out all the time and only cats have that ability. Plus, I know Winnie is athletic, but she couldn't ever make it on top of the Jeep.

When we got home from our disastrous encounter with the feline on steroids, we found our glass picnic table was smashed to thousands of pieces. Evidently, the bob cat had traveled back on top of the Jeep and when we got home, bounded over the roof and landed square on the table. Don't you worry, my head won't be cold this winter, I've got me a bob cat fur hat!

Actually, we think the wind picked up the umbrella, and when it slid out of the table, the table came down with such a force that it shattered into a thousand pieces. No fun. No fun, at all.

Well, other than that, I'm taking my tests over again, and about as excited to do such as a cat likes a bath. Bob Cat, that is. By the way, the guys at the firm are now calling the Jeep the Cat Mobile. And, to add insult to injury, when I took it in Monday, the window fell off the track!

Jyl has been quite sick and can't find anything that is appetizing. It's tough to see her so miserable. Everyone is telling me that it is a sign it is a girl. That would mean she would see me be miserable for 25 years!!!!! Just kidding. I'd let up around 24 1/2.

Take care, and thanks again for all your love and support. You all mean so much to us.

-Ace, Jyl, Dallas Jay, Lima Bean (not official), Winnie, Wyatt and Scooby Doo!