ROOOAAARRR!!!

Elliott is still learning to give predators a wide berth.

A prehistoric excavator

So lifelike!

Blanket

Dinosaurs are cold-blooded, so they get pretty chilly sometimes.

And they're off!

A pair of dinosaurs zooms by. Elliott has a nickel on Velosecretariat.

Dinosaur Trail

Elliott visited the Dinosaur Trail at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. The dinos are very lifelike, and as you can see, very big.

We're high-fallutin' museum members so we got a sneak peek before it opened to the general public.

Elephants!

More zoo shots. Here are a pair of African elephants, caked in red Carolina clay.

Elliott dancing at the zoo

The three of us went to the NC Zoo in Asheboro this morning. On our way out, Elliott caught the rhythm and did what anyone else would in his position -- he started dancing with a guy in a giraffe suit.



(I shot the video on my phone, so it's a little grainy).

Outage

Elliott is doing great, as are we. Unfortunately, he has hidden all the cables we use to upload media to the computer. After a month of searching, we finally ordered new ones from E-bay. Look for updates from us...someday.

13 weeks!

I felt like I would never hit my second trimester. With a pervasive all-day sickness that started on Thanksgiving day and exhaustion that never seemed to let up no matter how much I slept, It's been a rough go. 

Being pregnant with your second is a whole different experience. Especially when you are a stay-at-home mom. I never thought I would long for my office and desk, but there are days when Elliott wants to GO GO GO that I just want to collapse!

We got our first-trimester screening results back and we have no chance of trisomy 18 and a 1:6000 chance of Down's Syndrome. Not bad! In other pregnancy news, we have hired a doula and at my next midwife appointment I have to take a diabetes test. Usually you take the diabetes test later, but I have to do it twice because Elliott was so big. (9 lbs!)

A lady on the news just delivered octuplets. Almost every night I have nightmares that something like that will happen to me. I can't imagine actually living it.

12 weeks

We had our first-trimester screening this morning -- they check for Down's syndrome and Trisomy 18. We will receive results back this Friday, but we aren't very worried. Being relatively young, we have few risk factors. I am starting to feel a bit better, but some days are still rotten. My belly is getting bigger (belly pictures soon, Jenna, I promise!) and Elliott is getting better at saying "beebee." Only (hahaha) 6 months to go.

In honor of the inauguration

Monsterhands and Animal sounds

Some cute recent videos of our silly boy doing his thing...

Here's Elliott doing his inexplicable "monster hands" act. (This is very cute to Bill, but I'll understand if it doesn't crack up you of the general populace)

And here's Elliott showing us some animal noises. Since this video was taken he's added two more: Monkey and horse.

Elliott is now 19 months old.

170bpm

We could hear the smallest Ferris's heartbeat on the doppler at the midwife this morning. What a relief! We are 10 weeks today. As many of you know, we had a loss at 9 weeks in October. Today marks our officially crossing the point at which we found out about our last loss. We all heaved a mighty sigh of relief. Thanks for your support, everyone. 

Maybe I'll post a belly picture later on. (It's pretty impressive) 

First Video Post!

Bill got me an awesome video camera for Christmas. Here are two recent videos shot with it:

Elliott tells us how old he is:

Elliott and Daddy practice jumping:

Welcome!

I'm pretty much a curmudgeon when it comes to all this Web 2.0 stuff. I don't have a Myspace, a Facebook, a Twitter or any of the other things designed to give people 24/7 access to your life. However, I do have a few things: a kid, a video camera, a digital camera and a uterus that is currently home to a small but healthy parasite. 

All that is to say I think it's time the Ferris family created a blog. Many of you have followed us on flickr, and I see no reason why you shouldn't continue that. In this space I plan to post our favorite pictures, videos and details about our family life. (But not too many details!) We might even get a guest post from Bill every once in a while. Please join Elliott on his journey through toddler-hood and our family as we creep towards becoming four. (New edition planned Aug. 5, 2009!)