our sweet milk mouth girl

one of my favorite things about having this new little girl is feeding her and the milk mustache that always follows. i love it. she is such a good girl and for the most part only cries when she needs to be changed or fed. we feel so lucky to have such a good baby.

Astrid Ella VanWagenen

6 lbs 12 oz
20 in

Today was her first check up and she now weighs in at 7.1 lbs

we've got her!

Please don't be jealous of my past fierceomness

I don't think 'fierceomness' is a word, and if it is I certainly didn't spell it right, but the beard deserves its own word and perhaps its own whole language. Jasmine dug these up the other day and I remembered how good things were before I became a lawyer. Also, I think Jasmine might go into labor tonight.

No Country for Old Men

Have you seen this movie? Set in a small Texas border town and the surrounding countryside, the story follows a psychopathic killer's efforts to track down a brief case of $2 million dollars that was lifted by a local trailer park resident who happened upon the scene of a massive drug deal gone wrong. The killer is played to harrowing effect by Javier Bardem (I think that's his name), who forces his victims to flip a coin and call heads or tales on their lives. The film will be remembered for its dark characters, brutal violence, and unorthodox plot. But particularly striking is the way the Coen brothers are able to integrate the landscape and geography of west Texas into the story in a way that makes you feel it is the only setting where a story like this could happen; the only place on earth that could provide a venue for a man like Bardem to blow up cars and trucks by stuffing gasoline-soaked rags into gas tanks after lighting them on fire. The only place where the murder weapon of choice is a air compression tank and hose with enough pressure to blow a quarter through the skull of an unsuspecting cattle rancher or gas station attendent. My wife is from west Texas and tells wonderful stories of her family's cars being stolen on a regular basis there. After their third car was stolen, the family resorted to physically chaining the car to a metal post cemented in the ground. Her father, awoke one night to the roar of a revving engine and a saw working its way through metal. He rushed outside with a loaded handgun which he kept under the bed only to see their van being towed out of the metal post by one man in a truck while his co-conspirator worked away at chopping the metal post with his hack saw. The post broke and the truck tore off down the street leaving a trail of smoking, screeching tires. The family van already had a driver inside when the post broke and the sawman jumped in as Jasmine's dad fired shots in the air and watched helplessly as the van sped away. West Texas is harsh, lawless country where a man is forced to rely on no one but himself to survive. Just hope Javier Bardem is after you with his air canon when you visit.

Why my husband rocks my world

When you get married you just don't really think about what your husband will be like when you're pregnant (at least I didn't). I lucked out and got what I think has been the most stable and reassuring part about my pregnancy--Arthur.
In addition to being absolutely perfect during our pregnancy, Arthur is also 100% game for using cloth diapers. I can hardly think of one guy who really doesn't mind changing diapers, much less cloth ones.
Last week we got our order (above). I can't get over just how cute cloth diapers are!
Like our birth plan, if they don't work, they don't work. But we're really excited to give them a shot.

As for Arthur's last post about "Fun Road Trips to CA", I'd rather not share and relive the nightmare (just the last day), but I'll give a very brief recap.
Arthur and his friends thought it would be really fun to go visit Paul Florence in San Francisco over a weekend. Wives were invited but I was the only one who actually ended up going. We were super excited to see the Florence's new place in Sausalito (gorgeous). We left SL really late on Friday and arrived in SF at about 3am. Paul was great and was our city tour guide all of Saturday. We left somewhat early on Sunday. On the road home all was well discussing the square mileage that would be needed to accommodate all 6 billion people in the world if everyone was standing in a 2ftx2ft box. Before we knew it, I-80 was a campground at Lake Tahoe. (Sidenote: This was the day I started to feel morning sickness). Furious and swearing, I packed up the boys and got in the driver's seat and drove for a good 5 hours. We arrived in SL 14 hours later. Needless to say, it was just too much fun for a sick pregnant lady.