Pictures of Baby Kayla!

If you're not on facebook, you missed our initial annoucement, but our daughter Kayla Marie Bielefeldt was born yesterday at 2:03, 21 inches long and weighing 9 lbs. 13 oz. Pictures here.

October 29th is the Day!

Charla's cervix is not progressing, so we have scheduled a cesarean section for the afternoon of Thursday, October 29th. Apparently the father's amusement is not sufficient reason to get one scheduled for Halloween.

This means our daughter will share a birthday with Winona Ryder, the first computer-to-computer link over the precursor to the internet, and the stock market crash that started the great depression.

The first announcements and pictures after the birth will probably be on facebook, so if you don't have one already, you may want to get an account over there if you wish to get the quickest news.

Despite being a relatively safe and routine procedure, there are risks with any surgery, and Charla is all too well aware of those risks after recently spending weeks in the hospital with our other daughter Heather due to complications from Heather's relatively routine surgery. And after the previous pregnancy in which labor came too easily and too early, this was the furthest complication from Charla's mind. I just ask that you be sensitive to that. Please don't put Charla in a position where she feels obliged to educate or reassure you.

Pictures of my Childhood

New pictures of my childhood here.

Pictures at almost 30 weeks

Our baby girl got some more pictures today. Check them out here.

What I Learned on my Backpacking Trip

• A heavy pack is not that big of a deal when you're healthy.
• You can't always count on staying healthy in the backcountry.  When I got heat exhaustion on the steep climb out of the canyon, I felt every ounce in my pack.  I once considered lightweight gear a luxury.  Now I feel it a necessity to get a lighter sleeping bag, cookware, and jacket for safety reasons in case of injury or illness.
• I was well-prepared for recognizing and treating heat exhaustion, and would have been just fine even if I was traveling alone.
• I was not well-prepared for preventing heat exhaustion.  Now that I know the early warning signs for my own body, with some practice I hope to be able to prevent it in the future.
• I am really glad to be training for my Grand Canyon hike with some easier trips.  I would hate to have learned these lessons at the bottom of a more strenuous canyon.
• It is possible even with my fair skin to be outside almost 3 days straight and not get sunburned.
• I recognized many dual uses for my gear that will help me lighten my load.  My water bottles have measuring marks, so I don't need to bring a measuring cup.  My sleeping bag stuff sack has straps that make it double as an excellent day hiking pack.
• Some things are worth the slight extra weight.  I was really glad for my swim gear and inflatable pillow, and really wished I had brought my wide angle lens.
• Good maps, a GPS unit, and compass are worth their weight in gold.  Just following the (ambiguous) trail signs, we went down the wrong path for a half mile and were able to get back on track with our map.
• A lot of modern freeze-dried food is excellent.  4 ounces of weight carried to eat 16 ounces of suprisingly delicious reconstituted beef stew is awesome.
• Some modern freeze-dried food is still terrible.  I will never get Mountain House garlic herb mashed potatoes again.  However, I'm glad I had a chance to see what I did and didn't like before a longer trip.
• Small vacuum-seal storage bags are excellent for keeping a spare set of clothes dry without taking up much room in your pack.
• While in camp, I can retie my hiking boots below the ankle supports to make them much more comfortable.
• I'm glad I brought a book.
• Trekking poles are awesome on a steep hike.
• A chamois makes a great lightweight camping towel.
• Some of the most beautiful places around can only be reached on foot.

Karl's Independence Day

I didn't have enough vacation time to go to the reunion with Charla and the kids, but still managed to have fun close to home. Here are some pictures.

Disney World, Here We Come!

Yay! We're all packed and ready to head out in the morning on our Disney World vacation! I loved how easy it was with our new cargo box that I had to share a picture. We're looking forward to seeing Karl's brother and Charla's cousin and their families. During our vacation, we're only going to update facebook, but check back here afterward and I'm sure we'll have some fun memories to post.

Keith Urban Concert

We were the first ones in to the Keith Urban concert last night! (We accidentally thought it started at 6 when it started at 7:30).

The Final Update Post

On May 1st Heather had the broviac tube removed that we were using to give her antibiotics. Here is a video of her after her surgery.




Here are a few pictures of the stretchy rabbits Nona and Grandad gave us for Easter. We flung them at the wall and they stuck. There is also a small video of Michael's reaction.







Now we are up to date. Hopefully I will be able to keep everyone up to date.

May 6, 2007

I was in an accident today. I hit a car that hit a truck. Everyone is ok. I got checked by my obgyn and the babies heartbeat sounds good. Just wanted to let everyone know.

Here is more

This is a video of Zachary rocking and rolling.




This is a video of Heather after her surgery to remove her baclofen pump on 3/7/09. She is playing with her very first Barbie doll that she calls Darby. Hope you enjoy.




Here are some photos of that day also.






Here is a video of the kids playing at the tire shop. It was a rainy day a week after Heather's surgery. My tire blew, I changed the tire all by myself for the first time and it was raining and I later found out that I was pregnant when this happened also. Go me!!! I was just so proud of myself for being able to change the tire all by myself with 2 kids in the car.




Here is a picture of Heather in a dress that Felicia made for her.




Here is a couple of pictures of Heather in her new outfit Nona and Grandad got her while they were in Malaysia. There is also a little video.






The final updated post is coming soon

More coming

Stay tuned there will be more postings from me over the next couple of days.

More as promised

Here is a video of Michael opening a Christmas present.




Here is a video of Zachary opening a present.

Sorry I'm so far behind on posting

Here are some videos and pictures that I have taken and am finally posting.

I will start from Oldest to Newest.

Here is a video of the kids being funny at Subway on 12/22/08.



Here is a video of Heather opening her 1st Christmas present of 2008.





This is part of my post. More will come later.

Kentucky Grilled Chicken

Most of you know that I've lost 64 pounds since October. What you may not have realized is that I still eat fast food almost every day. However, KFC had fallen out of the rotation, because the benefits didn't outweigh the costs. Well, they are back in with their new grilled chicken. It's as tasty as the original and low enough in weight watchers points to be filling. Fried chicken breast: 8 points. Grilled chicken breast: 4 points. I usually budget 12-16 points for dinner, so that puts a normal 2 piece meal with sides in easy reach. It's nice to see a restaurant moving in the right direction for once, and I give them credit where credit is due.

When Cardinals Attack

No, not the ones from the Vatican. We had a cardinal bird trying to get into our house through the sliding glass window all morning. Interesting photos on facebook (hit next to see all the pictures and be sure to read the captions. Story starts with the 4th picture.).

Heather at the Talent Show

We had a talent show at church tonight, and it was a lot of fun. I played the piano for Charla to play the flute for the song, "Let Me In." But the highlight of the party was the fun time Heather had chasing the other kids around. One child even said he wanted to be like her. Careful what you wish for.

Birthday and Birds

Here's Michael's birthday cake. He likes cars in general, not just the movie specifically.

He kept inhaling with his mouth wide open like this. Momma had to help.

The first visitor I saw to my new bird feeder in the back yard. It's an american goldfinch.

Half Skinny

I recently passed the halfway point in my weight loss goal, so I celebrated by getting new clothes. My facebook profile picture on the right is in my new suit. I also got some casual clothes and a bird feeder for the backyard.

Conference

I enjoyed watching General Conference this last weekend even though I missed out on my naps. As usual, our friends Rob and Ranee came over with their kids. Our kids are starting to get old enough for Conference to be a fun teaching opportunity. I learned to be on the lookout for more service opportunities during the recession. Heather learned to identify the prophet by sight. Michael practiced the 5th commandment, by learning when he doesn't want to sit on my lap anymore, to say "down please" instead of elbowing his dad in the sensitive parts.

Zero Point Cereal

I picked up some Fiber One cereal a couple days ago. Before breakfast this morning, I calculated the Weight Watchers points and it came out to zero points for one serving! I usually allocate 2-4 points for cereal, not including milk, so this was a nice surprise and I'll get an extra snack today. Not the tastiest cereal out there, but not the worst either, and well worth it for an extra snack.

Favorite Healthy Foods---Pizza?

In our new quest for healthy eating, we have found we don't have to abandon our old favorites altogether. Pizza Hut has fit n' delicious options, which are all around 160 calories per slice. Even with a satisfying 4 slices, it is still a relatively healthy dinner.

Ultrasound Pictures!

Yay! The first pictures of the new baby! The first appointment went well. We heard the heartbeat. The due date is calculated to be November 7^th. Charla will be receiving progesterone injections to reduce the risk of preterm birth. This picture is right side up. You can just make out the beginnings of an ear and eye sockets.



And approximately life size:

Eureka!

I've spent the better part of 3 days trying to get that russa-frussin' flim-flammin' yellow light next to "pattern" to come on, so I had to share when it finally worked. Yes, my job is filled with outwardly boring, inwardly exciting triumphs.

Pollen!

This is my third Spring in Huntsville, and it still blows me away how much pollen there is. This is a pond at my work (Arizonans would call it a lake). The yellow stuff is pollen. It's thick enough on our cars to write in. That stuff is everywhere!

Food Review

Well, the great thing about Weight Watchers is that it's more of a metadiet than a diet. You can adapt it to fit any situation. Need lower sodium and cholesterol, like me? You can make it work. Need to watch your carb intake for blood sugar reasons? You can make it work. Need to make sure you eat healthy while taking in enough calories and nutrients to gain just the right amount of weight for a pregnancy? It works for that too.

So Charla suddenly finds herself with 21 extra Weight Watchers points per day, and sends me to the grocery store for a very specific selection of fruit to help fill the gap: bananas, strawberries, cherries, grapes, and watermelon. While I'm in line at checkout, I see these new Little Debbie 100 calorie snack cakes, and grab a box of each on a whim.

Well, they are every bit as tasty as the high calorie versions. That's because they are the high calorie versions, in super-miniature portions. The picture on the box is about twice the actual size. Not to say I don't still enjoy it after a filling meal, but there are other options that feel more substantial. These won't help your weight if you are unable to hold yourself to just one.

Announcement

We are pleased to announce that Charla is expecting a baby, due approximately November 11^th! It was a very unexpected surprise, but it is most definitely a welcome surprise. We have been the parents of 5 children, but still have not had a normal delivery, so we will probably be the most experienced amateurs at childbirth classes.

I know we'll get questions about this, so I may as well bring it out into the open. Because Charla has had one premature birth, the odds of a second one are above average. However, the prematurity was due to a one-time placenta infection which is not likely to happen again. Also, this pregnancy being all-natural rather than a result of fertility treatments further reduces the risk somewhat, as does the fact that we know what to expect and can mitigate many of the risks. Even if we do have another premature baby, we are extremely experienced in caring for one who has turned out pretty well so far, and we know the good things will far outweigh the bad no matter what.

Backpacking!

Karl, his friend Rob, his brother Kris, and his brother-in-law Kit went backpacking in Georgia for the last night of Spring Break. Here are some photos.

Update on Heather

We found out Heather has MRSA, the resistant kind of staph, but it is contained. They've been treating for it already, but can now focus their efforts instead of treating for everything. Heather got her drain (a suction pump thing that sucks blood and other gooey stuff out of the surgical wound) removed this morning, and should be able to go home Monday morning. She will still have a nurse come by to administer antibiotics intravenously, and will be out of school for a while. Heather is happy for the most part, but a little stir crazy because they won't even let her out of her room to stroll around in a wheelchair for a few minutes. She is also highly suspicious of nurses, but forgives them quickly after the mean stuff is over.

In 30 years of doing this kind of surgery, Heather's surgeon has only seen infections like this twice. Lucky Heather, but that means there is little risk of it happening again when they replace the pump, but they will wait until the summer to make sure every last vestige of infection is gone.

Another Yummy Healthy Treat

We recently discovered another yummy healthy treat: reduced fat triscuits and hummus. One of those snacks that tastes much better than it looks and sounds. Total of 4 Weight Watchers points (around 200 calories) for a very satisfying treat.

Heather's Surgery

Heather got a wound near the area where her baclofen pump was implanted several weeks ago, and it got infected, so she had to get it surgically removed this morning. Heather is obviously uncomfortable, and will have to be on strong antibiotics for a while, but is doing well. Just don't try to take those keys away from her.

Wade Mountain

Today I went on a hike to Wade Mountain, a privately-owned preserve a couple miles from my home. I was excited to see two landmarks on the trail: a spring and a rock wall. I got to what looked like a spring, but it was dry. I was so disappointed that I had to double-check my position on my GPS. Oh well, the rock wall should be interesting. Well, it turns out the rock wall was not a tall cliff face, but the following wall built out of small stones in the middle of nowhere.


Out comes my GPS again. Sure enough, I had the right place. Oh well, the last half of the trail was much more interesting, but my camera broke on me and my other cell phone pictures didn't turn out.

I did find out I was in better shape than I thought. Between being overweight and my pack, I was carrying 100 pounds more than some skinny people with small day packs I was outpacing on the trails.

And by the way, if you hike with your dogs, please keep them on a leash. I came very close to having to whack two of them with my pole who ran ahead of their owners and accosted me. If I had been a snake or another wild animal, they could have been seriously injured, and I have seen rattlesnakes sunning themselves across trails.

Heather and School

This morning, Charla asked Heather if she was ready to get dressed for school. Heather thought for a moment, then said, "Um...no thank you." It's funny because she really likes school once she gets there.

Farewell Zachary

Our foster son Zachary left yesterday afternoon to stay with a relative in another state who will hopefully adopt him. This was very hard on us, especially Charla, because when we first got him there was a very good chance we would get to adopt him, so we got very attached. We are going to take a break from fostering at least until the summer, and probably until one of Heather or Michael is potty trained.

Zachary's new mom is a first-time parent, and it made me feel a little guilty that I enjoyed the thought of her very first parenting experience to be bringing an 8 month-old on a cross-country airplane trip, so she was a little miserable while we were miserable.

Heather's Surgery

Heather went in for surgery this morning and is doing very well. It was a scheduled, voluntary surgery to implant a hockey puck-sized pump into her abdomen that will deliver baclofen medicine directly into her spinal fluid. At the trial, the medicine helped tremendously with her spasticity (muscle stiffness), and having this pump should help her muscles relax enough to learn to walk. After undergoing anesthesia, the hospitals in Phoenix always kept her overnight as a matter of course, and we expect Huntsville Hospital to do the same. However, they took some special precautions because they know she reacts poorly to anesthesia, so she is doing much better than she normally does after surgery, and is happy and talkative. Of course, it not being the usual emergency surgery due to brain swelling also aided her recovery.

Books You Have Read

I found this on my cousin Beth's blog and thought it was interesting.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) Mark in a different color the books you LOVE.

4) Reprint this list on your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.

1 - Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, only got through a couple chapters
2 - The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 - Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 - Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 - To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6- The Bible most of it anyway...
7 - Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 - Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 - His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 - Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 - Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 - Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 - Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 - Complete Works of Shakespeare ok, so I haven't read the complete works, but more than half so I'm counting it!
15 - Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 - The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 - Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 - Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 - The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 - Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 - Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 - The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 - Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 - War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 - The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 - Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 - Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 - Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 - Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 - The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 - Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 - David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 - Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 - Emma - Jane Austen
35 - Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis, part of 33
37 - The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 - Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 - Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 - Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 - Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 - The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 - One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 - A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 - The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 - Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 - Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 - The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 - Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 - Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 - Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 - Dune - Frank Herbert
53 - Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 - Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 - A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 - The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 - A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 - Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 - Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 - Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 - Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 - The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 - The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 - Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 - On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 - Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 - Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 - Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 - Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 - Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 - Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 - The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 - Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 - Ulysses - James Joyce
76 - The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 - Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 - Germinal - Emile Zola
79 - Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 - Possession - AS Byatt
81 - A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 - Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 - The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 - The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 - Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 - A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 - Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 - The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 - Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 - The Faraway Tree Collection
91 - Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 - The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 - The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 - Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 - A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 - A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 - The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 - Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 - Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Best Hard Drive Crash Ever

My hard drive crashed Wednesday night, but I'm so excited because everything automatically gets copied into two identical hard drives on our computer, and the other one is perfectly fine. I set that up after the last crash, and the extra cost of a backup hard drive really paid off.

Refinancing!

We are refinancing our home mortgage to 4.75% on Monday! That puts our monthly payments below $600, which is less than the rent we paid for our little apartment in Phoenix 10 years ago. I encourage everyone to refinance into a fixed rate or buy now if you can afford it, before the Democrats "help" save people from foreclosure with the almost certain side effect of skyrocketing interest rates for everyone else.

Facebook

I'm now on Facebook. Don't know much about it, but one of my missionary companions said there were some people from our mission on there, so I signed up. I think I “befriended” most everyone I know who is already on there, but let me know if I missed you.

Healthy Stuff

I get a lot of compliments on the fruit bowl on my desk, so I thought I would share a picture of it with you. The wooden bowl was around $10 at Target, and contains what I eat when I get the munchies at work. Sometimes I have apples, bananas, or oranges, depending on what's in season. Right now clementines are popular, which are small, sweet, seedless, and yummy citrus if you haven't tried them. Not to be confused with tangerines, which I also like but many people find too tart.


I also thought I'd share a recipe I really like. We were craving one of Arby's™ pecan chicken salad sandwiches. However, it is a whopping 18 Weight Watchers points out of my current daily 37. That's 769 calories and 39 grams of fat. This alternative is 6 points, and I think it tastes just as good. That begs the question of why doesn't Arby's™ make it the healthier way in the first place? A medium roast beef sandwich and small curly fries together is better than this sandwich alone. We eat out quite a bit, and it annoys me to no end that I can't order something with the words “chicken” and “salad” in it and expect it to be one of their healthier options (the highly refined bread and full-fat mayo is the problem).

Makes 4 sandwiches
1/4 cup fat-free mayonnaise
1 foil packet of chicken
1/4 cup diced pecans
1/2 cup sliced grapes
1 diced dill pickle
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup sliced celery (optional)
1/4 cup diced apples (optional)

---

1 leaf of lettuce
2 slices high fiber multigrain bread

You know how to make a sandwich. Mix all the ingredients together and put it on the bread.

I'm curious about your healthy alternative recipes for fast food favorites. Share your best one in the comments.

Good News for my Personal Economy

Even though my job is interesting to me, there are not many aspects of my job that a layman can understand, but this is one of them, so I thought I'd share.

My company has mostly sold to customers in the United States. I am among the first to make a product for the international market. Here's a picture of it. A colleague of mine designed the hardware and I'm responsible for the software. You plug cables into the front to provide internet service through a certain kind of phone line to special modems for up to 32 business customers. Up to 22 of these cards plug into a rack designed for them, so that's up to 704 customers per rack, although you usually group more than one together per customer so they can have a faster connection. That's enough total bandwidth per rack to carry 22,528 simultaneous phone calls or dial-up modem connections.


So anyway, I've been working on this since September, even though we didn't have a customer for it. That has been a little nerve-wracking because of the economy and things like one of our big competitors filing for bankruptcy yesterday. I'm still one of the newer employees in the company, so I would likely be included in any layoff. However, I found out this morning that marketing sold some of my cards to a telecommunications provider in Australia!

What's In Your Newspaper?

I was watching Babylon 5 the other day, a science fiction show set in the future, which was produced before mainstream commercial use of the internet. A couple of the characters went to a kiosk, told the computer their preferences, and it printed out a completely customized newspaper for them.

That was interesting to me, because I read a completely customized "newspaper" every day over the internet using email and google reader. What I like is that many of the "articles" in my "newspaper" are released directly by the source, instead of being filtered through a journalist. A futuristic idea from a TV show is now a reality.

I have a regular news "section," but I also have comics, technology, politics, history, education, linux, programming, business, roleplaying, ham radio, aquarium keeping, parenting, government, columnists, and my favorite, the family section where I read all your blogs.

I'm interested to hear what is in your "newspapers." Let me know in the comments.

Heather Meets a Puppy

Michael was too scared to touch them.