Flanagan Clan

Tuesday was Andrew’s birthday, and for his big gift, I was able to plan a night away for just the two of us! Mom took the boys on Friday night so we could go up to Seattle. We stayed at an absolutely beautiful hotel with spectacular Italian Renaissance architecture, The Fairmont Olympic. This is not the first time we’ve stayed at a Fairmont (we stayed at one in Edmonton, Alberta for my friend, Margaret’s, wedding!), and we were not disappointed. I had booked a special package that included free valet parking, as well as a fancy bottle of champagne and fresh chocolate-covered strawberries in our room upon our arrival. The hotel staff treated you like royalty, the room was gorgeous, the bed was soft, and we had a very fun city view of Seattle, including a small glimpse of the sound. The building that the hotel was situated in was also full of fun history- it was the original location of the University of Washington, and housed the college for over 30 years in the 1800’s. The building is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Andrew and I just love beautiful, ornate buildings and we enjoyed sucking everything in!

Our trip away was perhaps quite simple, but it was relaxing. Last night we went to dinner at PF Chang’s and ended up staying there for well past an hour, which is unusual for us since we tend to eat and run these days. We then explored a few different stores around Westgate, including a trip to LUSH, which is perhaps not a typical store that I would like, but which has amazing bath products. We came out with a couple new goodies to try. After our shopping excursion, we headed back to the hotel and popped in a couple movies for the night. I also surprised Andrew with the sound of baby’s heartbeat, using a doppler that I had purchased of eBay, since he’s been missing the prenatal appointments. I am convinced that the baby even kicked the sensor wand while I was doing it and I thought I felt it. This morning we then woke up around 7:30ish, got ready, and walked down to Pike’s Place, where we had Starbucks (coffee for Andrew, tea for me!) and ate breakfast at a small French bakery. We then slowly walked back to our hotel, cleaned up, and checked out. With time to spare, we ended up going to Bellevue to make a run to Whole Foods, where we walked the aisles slowly, discovering fun and new products. We don’t go there very often, and it’s fun what you can find when you have the time and no kids to distract you. Before heading home, we finished our getaway with a trip to Red Robin. Andrew had a free birthday burger, so we had a delicious lunch before coming home this afternoon to our little guys. We had definitely started to miss them by the time we got home :).

So, that was our weekend! Now we’re back, refreshed, and ready for a busy week next week!

Patrick has been very interested in spelling words lately, and we’ve been showing him how to spell different things that he asks me to write for him. Yesterday he wanted me to write “bow and arrow” and “bubble gun” for him so he could know how to spell them. Today I was finishing up a dress for a customer when Patrick came into the room with a marker and piece of paper and asked me to write Sammy’s name for him. I immediately wrote down S-A-M-M-Y. After I had finished, Patrick looked critically at my work and said that Sammy’s name did NOT have two M’s. He then left the room and came back a short time later with the letters, S-A-M-U-E-L written on the same sheet of paper and showed it to me. “This is how you spell Sammy’s name, Mama”. I began to wonder if Andrew had spelled the name out for him, so I asked him, and he said he’d show me how he figured it out. He took me to his room and showed me Sammy’s name train. “See, Mama, only 1 M”.

I can just see the obsessive compulsive and perfectionist behaviors from Andrew and I already having a huge impact on that little guy. What have we done?!!!

I feel much sadness in writing this, but in February I will be closing down most of my online business. With the coming of the new baby, I had intended to wait until May or June and take a long babymoon, but with the CPSIA legislation going into effect on February 10th, the reality is that I cannot afford to be in business. It’s either have all my products tested, or risk fines up to $100,000 and 2 years in prison for failing to follow the new guidelines. If you haven’t heard about the legislation, or don’t realize the gravity of the situation, I’d love for you to see this website as an example of what sort of costs I would incur to have products tested and certified under the new guidelines.

The one thing that I will continue to do on a limited basis will be embroidery customs. As far as I am aware, they aren’t regulated since I’ll only be embellishing items that belong to other people. However, I will not be making and selling new merchandise. Furthermore, I’m having a sale on all exsisting merchandise (embroidery slots not included), so if anyone is interested, you can save 10% with the checkout code, “CPSIA”. It’s good for both my main site and my hyena cart.

In all honesty, though, my energy levels have been at an all time low since December, so in a way I’m finding this to be a relief. I will miss the fun I had creating new products, but right now all I want to do is focus all that energy on preparing for a new arrival. I still have dreams of opening a shop up someday, but right now I have 3 1/2 little ones to take care of, and there’s more than enough to keep me busy here at home!

I finally got around to getting a video of Ethan walking last night. His Pj’s were a little too large and were making him fall, but you can see despite the tripping over his pj feet that he can in fact actually walk now (and sure is awfully cute!).

OK, here we go again… I am hosting another contest to guess the date, weight and gender of our baby on the way.

If you would like to play, leave me a comment with a guess as to the date that our baby will arrive along with his/her birth weight, and what you think the gender of the baby will be. The person who has the closest guess will receive a $15 gift card to your choice of Starbucks or Jamba Juice. We will be finding out the gender of this baby in early March (I don’t have an appointment set yet, but I think it might be the 9th of March), so all guesses must be in the day before my ultrasound.

In the month of February I will also be offering another gender guessing contest on my hyena cart, and you are more than welcome to also enter that contest once I put it up, but if you win both I will offer one of the prizes up to a runner up.

Here are the details:

My due date is July 26th, 2009. All boys have been born at 36 1/2 weeks, although Ethan tried to come earlier at 35 weeks and labor was stalled.  Patrick weighed 5 lbs, 4 oz at birth, Samuel weighed 6 lb, 3 oz at birth, and Ethan was 5 lb, 14 oz. Also, we did not try any gender-swaying methods to increase our odds of having a baby girl. We decided to let God be in charge, and that He would give us what He thought was best.

I think that’s it! Happy guessing!!!