Chillin'

A thumbs up from Cash... and Cole's already throwing gang signs...

Things are good here at the Compton house.

Halloween and birth story posts are coming sometime!

Introducing Cole William Compton

As most of you know... I've been a bit busy the past 2 weeks with an unexpected arrival!

Baby Cole decided he wanted OUT on Sunday, October 11th at 4:52pm. A full 2 weeks and one day early!

Here are a few photos to tide you over 'til I write up the whole birth story... which will hopefully be sometime this week. Maybe even tomorrow!

And I promise to post pictures of him with his eyes OPEN in my next post. They are bright and beautiful.

Something to Look At

Jourdan posted her adorable mobile yesterday... so now it's my turn.

Mine was always meant to be more of a wall hanging than a mobile. Even though it was inspired by this cute mobile tutorial I found online. And for the life of me, I can't find my fishing line that I was going to use to hang it... so for now... some twine and thumbtacks are doing the job of keeping it out of Cash's grubby mits.

So, it's not quite hanging how I envisioned... but close enough. Paul found the branch for me while he was out walking. You can't really tell from the pictures but it's a great branch because it really sticks off the wall and out over the crib... so it definitely serves the same purpose as a mobile, it just doesn't move around. And too bad our camera is awful... because the pictures don't really do it justice. Plus... it's much more cute in person.

I love the way all these little birds turned out... and they were sooo simple to make. Maybe 5 minutes a pop. I can't wait to make more birds! Anyone need Christmas ornaments? I think I'm going to make many many more of these birds.

And I like how a few are posed all snuggly on the tree. They're all just hot glued into place.

In the meantime, the countdown continues... about 25 days until we have a lil' babe to put in this crib!

Week 36 - Month 9 - The Final STTRRREEEETCH

Alright kids, here I am. 9 months pregnant... with the belly to prove it.

(and yes, I got a haircut.)

Phew! I am feeling very big right now. Not so much when I look down, as when I try to move around. Getting up and down from the bed (several times every night) is a major pain. I keep hitting myself in the stomach with doors. Getting in and out of the car... not fun. And there is no room left for my lungs or ribs. It is not fun to eat... or breath. Luckily, I read tonight that the baby does not grow much more from here on out... because I have NO MORE ROOM!

I actually shouldn't complain too much. I've had a very uneventful pregnancy. I feel like I've been surrounded by women (at work, and church) who've either had to go on bed rest or had pre-mature babies... so I DO feel lucky that things have progressed well so far.

Oh yeah, here I am with Cash around the same time... in a much tighter shirt.

And here's a quick video I took the other night of some of the movement I've been observing in my belly. This is taken from my point of view... looking down. Can you make out the waves moving across my stomach?

(Sorry that quality is awful. I think our camera is slowly dying.)

That baby wants to get out!

Should I post weekly photos from here on out? We'll see.

Music in Multiples

When I was 10, or 11, or 12... or maybe even 14, or 15, or 16 (I don't remember exactly) I would sit in my bedroom with my tape recorder... and record myself singing songs. I'm trying to remember which songs I'd sing. At any rate... I would then play it back on a seperate player (my alarm clock tape deck) and harmonize with myself... and record the harmony part on the first player. It was great fun. I liked singing with myself. And I liked hearing my voice sing both the alto and soprano parts of the song. I liked the harmony of my two voices together. I think the song I remember doing this the most with was "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls. And I think when I was in my early 20's, and I learned to play the guitar, I recorded myself playing and singing both parts. Geek.

The past couple of weeks I've been finding a lot of people doing the more "hi-tech" version of what I did with my tape recorder. Harmonizing with themselves... but in bigger and better ways.
Here's one dude... doing a cover of Fleet Foxes "White Winter Hymnal". It's pretty cool.



And here's a kid named Sam Tsui who does a pretty amazing cover... with himself (5 times over!) of "Don't Stop Believin'" (for all you GLEE fans). (You might want to watch these on the larger player over at youtube... so you can see all 5 of him.)



And here's an even more amazing Michael Jackson medley (with Sam doing 6 of the parts! I don't think the beat box dude on the far left is him.)



(I'm pretty sure I better give props to Kurt Schneider who produced those 2 last ones. Wow.)

All this makes me want to bust out my old tape players! Hm. Too bad I don't have them any more.

In other music news... I've been streaming the new Avett Brothers CD "I and Love and You" over at NPR this week. Its official release date is next Tuesday. Take a listen. I think you'll like 'em.

Brand New Car Seat!

So this last weekend, I spent every second of my free time making this:

This is Cash's old car seat, and I wish I would've taken a before picture, because the difference is pretty amazing.

That old car seat cover was GROSS... plus I think it had been chewed apart by mice or something. But the frame from the car seat was perfectly fine. So after Paul scrubbed it down... I went to work remaking the cover.

I pretty much took the old one apart to see how it was put together. And then I made this brand new one from scratch... using some super thick quilt batting... and some great Joel Dewberry fabric. (Did you know he's a BYU grad? Yup.) This is from his "Deer Valley" line since he now lives in Park City. And while it's pretty bold, I quite like it. Our baby will definitely stand out in the crowd!

I also learned a lot during this project... and was glad to finally figure out the right tension on my machine for sewing with batting. I still need to find the little insert that makes the seat smaller for newborns... and remake that too.

This weekend's project... repainting a chest of drawers!

Weekend in Vancouver

I thought about breaking this post up into three different ones. One for each day of the week we were gone. And then I knew if I didn't do it all in one go... I might never finish it. So, brace yourself... for A LOT of photos.

I knew that Labor Day was going to be my last day off of work before my maternity leave, so we decided to make the most of it. I've been to Vancouver before, but Paul had not. We left Saturday morning. Since it's only 5 hours away, it's a great weekend destination. If you can handle the drive with a 3 year old.

Most of our drive was filled with non-stop chatter from Cash. A lot of ear piercing chatter... as you can hear. And then there was the entire half-hour discussion about Seattle. You see... we told him we were going to Seattle first. And then he wanted to know all about "Attle". Where she lived... would we go in her house... does she live in a big building? And each time we tried to explain that we weren't going to see Attle... we were going to SEATTLE. We even tried to slur the word together to explain it. "Seattle, it's the name of the city," we would say. And a few minutes later, Cash would ask where "Attle" lived. "No, we're going to *see* Seattle. *SEE* SEATTLE!". "At her house?" This went on for A LONG TIME. ON both the way there... and the way back. He still doesn't get it.

Finally, we reached the border.

It took us about a half hour to get through.

Once we got settled in the hotel... it was already evening... so we went to explore Chinatown. It's second only to San Francisco's Chinatown.

We ate dinner at the Chinatown Night Market.

Paul got these noodles, but was only able to eat a couple of them. Too noodly.

But Cash and I quite enjoyed the stir fry noodles.

Then we took an evening drive through Vancouver's famous Stanley Park...

...with a stop at the totem poles.

On Sunday, we got up and went to Granville Island. We took a little tour that took us past some fresh seafood...

at "The Lobster Man."

We ate breakfast at a great little cafe and that's when it started to rain. So we decided to take a covered boat ride up and down "False Creek" to see the city from the river. This was THE HIGHLIGHT of Cash's day.

See that boat... in the background. We were on one of those.

Then it was time to explore Granville Island's famous Public Market! Wow! VERY COOL! Check out all the food!

And there were some great buskers.

Paul gave this guy a "Loonie" because he was playing Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

And this next guy just cracked me up, with his excessive thanks to the non-existent audience:

For lunch we headed over to historic Gastown.

Then we explored the Yaletown area of Vancouver... with a stop at the playground.

Then a walk along the seawall.

For dinner we ordered out some great greek food (Souvlaki, Dolmathes, french fries, and greek salad) and ate it back at the hotel.

On Monday morning we headed over to the great shopping area Robson Street. But Cash was not having the walking. It's AMAZING how his legs stop working when we're walking... when he's perfectly capable of running non-stop for hours at a time.

We checked out of our crappy hotel (which was at least centrally located)...

Here's the countdown clock to the Olympics that take place in February.

But we were bound for Stanley Park again... to ride the miniature train.

This was a great little train ride...

...through tunnels...

...over trestles...

...and past all kinds of fun sights...

Then we spent a little while at their Adventure Park before it was time to get in the car and make the trek back home.

Paul and Cash decided to walk from Canada... back to the U.S.

See them there?

All in all, we had a great time and will definitely return someday when we have more time and can take a sidetrip to the lovely Victoria!

Conversations with Cash

On the walk home from preschool... Cash asks Paul: "Where's Mama"?

Paul responds: "She went to work."

Cash dramatically throwing his arms at his sides and says: "Again??!!"