New Camera!

My parents got me my first digital camera Christmas 2004 and it served me well these last several years, however now the technology is so improved that my pictures were looking blurry compared to other digital pix. Edward and I were planning on getting a new camera before the arrival of Baby Shuman, but my parents surprised me with an amazing camera for my birthday. Hopefully I'll learn how to use all the features by May. Here are a bunch of crystal clear pictures with my new Sony Cyber-shot.

using the sparkle setting

dinner at Outback


birthday flowers from my wonderful husband


Piper at 5 1/2 months old


this is a quilt I made for Edward back in 2003. we finally got it up on the wall when my parents came to visit


I found these old windows at a barn sale, crackle painted them, and filled each pane with family photos. The window on the left has pictures of my mom's side of the family and the right is my dad's side.
Johannessen side

Papa (mom's dad)

Mormor and Papa on their wedding day

Sisti side


my Mom and Dad (nice tux)

Grandma - isn't she attractive?

Grandpa in Korea

Sarah, Jessie, and Beth

Wonderful Week

Tuesday Edward and I went for our 13 week baby check-up. We got blood work results (all is well), I got a flu shot, and we heard the baby's heartbeat (a rapid 155 beats per minute). Our first appointment was at 9 weeks and I'll post the ultrasound picture from that appointment. We saw our baby in action--hands and feet moving and the heartbeat flickering on the monitor--very cool!

Tried to upload ultrasound pictures but was unsuccessful. I'll have Edward help me with this later.

Wednesday was my 27th birthday and the day was filled with emails, texts, birthday cards, and phone calls. Thank you! I had pottery class in the morning, and although Edward got stuck at work until 8:30pm, it was still a nice day. We did have to cancel our dinner plans but we'll try again tomorrow night.

Sarah, Maddie, and my mom visited on Thursday, and despite the horrible rain and hours of traffic we had a great visit. Maddie didn't have such a wonderful time but hopefully once her new cousin is here it will be more fun to visit.

Piper and I are just hanging out today. I'm trying to catch up on emails and some other stuff. I'm looking forward to a wonderful weekend with my husband!

Big news!

What's this???

Baby Shuman is due May 9, 2009 and we can't wait to meet him or her!


Some other recent pictures...

Halloween parade in Haddonfield, NJ

Maddie the ladybug

Edward, Scout, and Piper

Crypt and Museum

Wow! My third post of the day! While I am sitting here on blogger I thought I'd just throw up some other random pictures. Here are some pictures from the crypt under the Center Church of Christ on the New Haven Green. The church was built over a cemetery from the 1600s and when it was built they kept part of the cemetery intact in the basement. We visited the crypt with my parents and Jessie a few weekends ago.

Do you see the poor planning on this headstone?

a tight squeeze for that "M"

What an unfortunate nose for an angel

What did poor Mary do to deserve a skull on her headstone?


Here are some pictures from the Peabody Museum, which Edward and I visited back in early September.

An enormous room with case after case after case of stuffed birds. Kind of creepy.

I can't decide....does this bird remind me of....
Lilly Munster

or

Amanda Overmeyer (American Idol reject)

I think this was some sort of shrew. It had a long nose and tail and it creeped me out. (this was not stuffed, it was alive and running around)

Opal

Candy memory

I had seen this glass turkey at Joann's about a month ago and it reminded me of a candy I had as a child. My memory was quite fuzzy and I couldn't pinpoint exactly what candy I was thinking of. Well, Jessie saw it and immediately knew the candy. She described it to me and then I remembered what it looked like. Neither of us could remember the name of it, but after much googling Jessie found what we were looking for. Does it remind you of anything?


It turns out we were thinking of the astro-pop (a name neither of us recalled). Here is a picture of it:
These are no longer manufactured and when Jessie and I found this picture we were a little confused because we remembered the pop as being shaped like a closed umbrella (you would suck on the pointy end). After further research we found out that it was originally how we remembered it but they flipped it at some point. I don't think I had this pop more than once or twice, and don't remember particularly even liking it, but for some reason it stuck in the recesses of my mind. Anyway, I guess this is a bizarre post but maybe someone else shares this childhood memory.

Move over, Martha

When Jessie visited a few weeks ago we worked on some Halloween crafts. We made Frankenstein marshmallow pops that I had seen in a Paula Deen magazine. We also made cheesecloth ghosts, a project we did at my tenth birthday party. The ghosts lasted years but were eventually eaten by mice in the attic.

I'm back

It's been visitor-filled few weeks and I'm back with some pictures to share. My parents came for a visit two weekends ago, then Jessie stayed with me a few days, then I went back to NJ for a few days, and then my cousin Becky visited for a few days this week. It was great having so many visitors and wonderful to get home for a few days.

Jessie and I visited the aquarium in Mystic, CT and it was a huge disappointment. The pictures make it look kind of cool, but it really wasn't. It was no Sea World, that's for sure.clown fish (aka Nemo)

an upside down jellyfish

These jellyfish were the highlight of the trip for us.

A sleeping sea lion. Jessie was just in San Francisco a few weeks ago and visited the hundreds of sea lions at Pier 39 so seeing 5 of them at the aquarium was not so impressive.

These poor dolphins! There were 3 or 4 of them in what were essentially two not-so-large above ground pools about 100 feet from the highway.

Lion fish

Jessie risked her hand and life to touch these scary creatures. I did not.

Beluga whale

I have some other pictures I want to put up but I think I'll make a new post with them later. Bye!