Momma's Birthday getting to meet Grubette!

Momma didn't give Daddy much of a chance to sneak around to prepare for
her Birthday the few days before it (Momma would stay close to Daddy
when he wasn't at work, not giving him much privacy to surprise her), so
Daddy ended up staying awake until 4:30 AM the night before doing things
like making Momma's birthday card. In the morning when Logan woke up,
Daddy had gotten the day off from work and so he took care of Logan
while Momma slept in. While doing so, Daddy and Logan quietly made Mom
some waffles (Logan helped with the hand mixer for the fluffy egg
whites. We made both regular waffles and penguin shaped ones, which we
all enjoyed as soon as Momma woke up. One of Momma's birthday gifts was
assembled together by Daddy in the morning (taking a lot longer than
planned). It was a bike children's seat that goes above the rear wheel
of a bike. Finally at 11:30 AM we all took a very nice half-hour bike
ride around the neighborhood. For lunch, Momma made soup and grilled
cheese sandwiches while Daddy and Logan snuck off (had to come up with
an excuse) to pick up Momma's pre-ordered birthday cake and dozen
American-style doughnuts (pre-ordered the previous week). Upon Daddy
and Logan's return, Momma was very happy to see the extremely decadent
and rich multi-layered chocolate cake with her name on it. Then Dad
showed Momma the doughnuts and was upset when he saw they had been made
chocolate covered with sprinkles, not glazed as he had ordered. It is
hard to get American style doughnuts in town here and somehow they never
come out as requested. That is why many Americans bring Krispy Kreme
doughnuts with them when they fly into town after making a special stop
at the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in Sydney airport. Eating lunch
Logan did not behave very well. No, he hadn't gotten a sugar overdose
of cake or doughnuts. In fact, he didn't eat anything. Instead, he
tested Daddy by repeatedly yanking off his bib and swinging it around
all over the food. This continued when Daddy had to put Logan down for
a nap, but he finally did succumb. Luckily he went down somewhat
quickly as our baby-sitter arrived so that we could rush out for our
20-week ultrasound at the hospital and hopefully find out the health and
gender of our little one in Momma's belly. We only had the babysitter
for about 2 hours and she needed to get to a doctor's appointment
herself directly at 3:00 PM. At the hospital, we waited for a bit over
half-an-hour. This was difficult for Liesl since she had to drink a lot
as required for the ultrasound and so had to stop herself from peeing
for longer than she preferred. When we did get admitted, we had someone
relatively inexperienced perform the scan. She was very friendly and
seemed to know her stuff, but it was taking quite a while to go through
everything in the exam (not that we minded her being thorough in the
slightest). We still hadn't seen the experienced technician come in to
verify everything and time was running out for our babysitter, so Daddy
had to rush out and get home to relieve her (baby sitter being Logan's
favorite, Emily). At home, Daddy was able to wake Logan up and get him
back in the car for a trip back to the hospital. Once there, Daddy was
surprised Liesl was still in her Ultrasound. Logan at first shrieked
and tried to run away when seeing we were about to enter a dark room,
but relented when seeing Momma on the hospital bed. The experienced
technicial had now also arrived and she essentially was going through a
duplicate exam for us (Dad wondered how Mom was handling herself with
her bladder being so full). The reason for the duplicate exam was
because the baby was moving around a lot inside, but it kept managing to
keep at least one hand in front of its face, and so while waiting for
the hand to move the technician just kept checking other things out.
Both technicians initially weren't sure of the sex what with the legs
being held together, but after a while they were 99% sure we had what we
had been calling a Grub, now was definitely a Grubette! A little girl!
Of course all throughout the exam we were more concerned about the
actual health of the baby, like the head size, heart beat, etc..., but
also finding out the gender was such an exciting thing for us. Our
little Grubette sure was a mover. We could easily see the feet, the
hands, the spine, the legs, each toe and finger, the head and face. It
was all so wonderful and exciting for us! Logan even poked the belly a
time or two. Finally at 3:45 PM our ultrasound ended and Momma could go
to the bathroom. We also got several printout photos to take home with
us.
Going home, we stopped off at a furniture store to see if there were any
umbrella strollers available, but there were none to be found. In their
electronics section, Logan loved watching the big screen TVs of the
movie "Finding Nemo" as he enjoyed watching the fish swimming around and
talking. However, he wasn't so good at listening to Daddy and kept
trying to pull things down and wouldn't come with Daddy when he called,
which caused him to have to be in time-out 3-4 times before leaving the
store.
Back at home, we cleaned up and Daddy had Logan present Momma with more
birthday presents. Daddy would hand the birthday gift to Logan in the
front office room, Logan would then walk it down to Momma in the living
room. This was fun for Logan, but a bit difficult since some of the
gifts were a bit heavy and bulky. Momma got a queen size blow up
indoor/outdoor bed, a universal hand pump for filling up the bed, a
funny 'stubby cooler' to hold drinks, and a new MP3 CD player for
listening to the CD audio books she recently received from Auntie Wendy.
Dinner time and we fed Logan (again, didn't really eat much). Soon
thereafter our friends Melissa and Jesse came over with their kids,
Logan's best pal Bradon and baby Seth. They were here to babysit Logan
so that Mom and Dad could go out to a restaurant to eat. Yay! Mommy
and Daddy ended up eating at Keller's Swiss and Indian Restaurant, with
Dad eating a Moroccan dish, and Mom eating mostly Swiss food (it was
yummy). At home, Melissa had almost gotten Logan down to sleep but the
commotion outside caused Logan's reawakening. Daddy stepped in and got
him down about 20 minutes later. Then everyone outside, to include
Melissa, Jesse, Bradon, Seth, Momma, and Daddy, all had birthday cake!
Melissa and Bradon had made wonderful 'Happy Birthday Liesl' signs and
Melissa also made a very detailed, beautiful, and touching hand-made
birthday card for Liesl (coming from her scrapbook making hobby).
Mom was extremely touched by everything and seemed to have a very
enjoyable Birthday!