Prima Ballerina

This Saturday families were invited to sit in on the Saturday morning ballet class. We headed over to Patapsco High School in Dundalk at 9am, like we've been doing every Saturday morning for the past few months.

Mackinzie really enjoys her class. She joined with her friend Sophia from church and she has also made a few new friends through the class.
Lots of parents and grandparents came to watch the rehearsal.
Kinzie loves her pink camo skirt... its also daddy's favorite!

The girls did so well! We were all really impressed!
It was really cool to find out that the performance will be to "Here Comes The Sun" by the Beatles.
I uploaded this short YouTube clip of their practice.

... you can tell how much she loves her skirt!
Laura and I braved the cold weather and enjoyed a big Ravens victory at M&T Bank stadium yesterday. It was an especially sweet win, considering that my Aunt and Uncle (big Eagles fans) sat right next to us! Tack on a big Camo Pirates win in the Beltway Fantasy Football league and you've got a great start to the week!
We have our fourth (out of five) Fifth-related sonogram on Wednesday. Please keep Maeby and us in your prayers. Everything has been so far so good and hopefully that prognosis will continue in these final few weeks.
-Bert

Cutie and the Hobo

Laura and I made a short visit to Babies 'R' Us last Friday just after finding out that we were gonna have another little girl. We didn't buy anything for Maeby yet, but I did pick up this sweet shirt for Mackinzie. In the little girls department, on the sale rack, and in daddy's favorite color!
(.... yes, camo counts as a color!)

We had our own little lunchtime photo-shoot before naptime today.

I wore my sweet camo snow cap so that we would match.

Now its off to nap time for Kinzie and back to work for me.
-Bert

Definitely Maeby

On Friday, Laura and I went to GBMC for our third sonogram (out of five) to keep an eye on the baby for Hydrops and other Fifth disease-related problems. Great news! Everything is still looking good! The baby is still healthy and developing normally. The next sonogram is scheduled for a week from tomorrow (the Wednesday before Thanksgiving).

Here is how the baby looked on Friday. Its not the most detailed picture we've gotten, but she looks beautiful!
.... that's right, I said "SHE". We're having another girl! It is great news! Laura and I are very excited! We have decided already that she will be named "Delaney Mae Rode". I'm planning on calling her "Maeby" and hoping the nickname catches on with everyone else. Kinzie is so excited to have a little sister!
Please continue to keep me, Laura, Mackinzie, and now Maeby in your prayers. We still have two more sonogram checkups before the whole Fifth's fiasco is over.

In other news, the Camo Pirates losing streak is finally over! We beat Jared Pfeifer's team, the "Glenoak Block Party" 85-54. My fantasy team now has a 6-5 record and we're tied for first place in our conference with Mike Maiste's "Estonian Rebels".
-Bert

Big Sonogram Today

Will it be a boy? Will it be a girl? We will find out today! As long as the baby cooperates and positions himself/herself in a way that allows the sonogram technician to see it's business.
This will be the first Rode baby since my cousin Ryan over 21 years ago! On the Sroka side, Laura's parents John and Bonnie will either be getting their first grandson, or their fourth granddaughter!
Be sure to check out the blog later tonight or tomorrow for an update! Laura and I are very excited!
(... on a side note, this is still just our third sonogram - out of five - to test for Hydrops and other Fifth disease symptoms. We have been blessed to have nothing but positive results so far and we pray that that continues.)
-Bert

Halloween & Other Things...

Halloween has come and gone, but I finally got our camera out of Laura's purse to post some of our recent pictures.
On Halloween night, we went to our friend Mike Maiste's neighborhood because they do Halloween right! Almost all the neighbors decorate their homes and stand outside to give out candy. Mike invited a lot of our friends over for what has become somewhat of a tradition of giving out candy and then watching a scary movie together. This year Mackinzie was joined by Ian, the baby dragon, and Addy, (Barney) the dinosaur. Ian belongs to our good friends, Dustin & Stacey and Addy is Dave & Cindy's niece. Kinzie dressed in her Yoda costume again and I got to dress as Han Solo... again!

We had some fun with other kids dressed as Storm Troopers and Boba Fetts. Another part of this Halloween tradition is giving out odd foods to kids who might be just a little too old to be trick-or-treating. This year some of those kids got slices of cheese, thawed hot dogs, and unfrozen freezy-pops. We ended the night with a viewing of "The Strangers".

A couple days later, the weather turned unusually warm, so we had an afternoon of wiffle ball in the front yard.

My softball season(s) have long since ended, so it was nice to get a little mid-autumn practice in.

She can even hit with her eyes closed!

Here is a little YouTube clip I uploaded of our fun that day.
On this past Saturday, Mackinzie had her weekly ballet class. It was a dreary, rainy morning, so it was looking like our photo appointment with Aunt Mandy might be cancelled, but the clouds opened up and the sun came out and we made our way to Canton.
These are just two samples of Mandy's work. A few more can be seen at Mandy Sroka Photography. Click on the "blog" section of her site.

Mandy does such a great job! These pictures were taken for Mackinzie's third birthday.

We highly recommend her for your photography needs!
Here is one of Mackinzie's 2 year old pictures that Mandy did for us last year.

One more picture...
Kinzie's outfit for church yesterday demanded a photo be taken. She was a little grumpy, but the face kind of fit her "Next Top Model" look for the day.

We have our third Fifth-related sonogram this Friday (3rd out of 5). Please keep us in your prayers! If we're lucky, we'll get to find out if we're having a boy or girl on that day!
We also have a big family-related day coming up a week from today (next Monday). I will likely be able to post some details on that next week, but in the meantime some prayer for our family would be greatly appreciated.
-Bert

Paper Dolls

It's no secret that our family is a little bit on the nerdy-side when it comes to Star Wars. (... at least Mackinzie and I are...) I recently got my hands on an old paper dolls book from "Star Wars: Episode I 'The Phantom Menace'" . It included little paper copies of all of Queen Amidala's outrageous outfits.Since Laura STILL has our camera with her at school, (*hint, hint*cough, cough* bring it home *cough*), so we used Mackinze's pink VTech Kidzoom camera to capture some of the fun.

First I punched out each of the pieces from the book. (since Kinzie was the photographer here, I had to use my sweet Microsoft Paint skillz to piece that picture together.)

And then Mackinzie would dress the paper doll. (... while she herself was dressed as "Belle")

There were seven different outfits in the set, including one that dressed the Queen as her alter-ego, Padme.

The jacket of the book even opened up to become a backdrop set to use with the dolls.

I can't remember the last time I've had this much fun playing with paper dolls.....
-Bert

Quickie Post

My grandmother has been bugging me for a new blog post lately. I've been crazy busy, but I'm gonna try to squeeze this one in real quick before I leave to teach guitar lessons this evening.

This one's for you Nannie... enjoy!

We had our second Fifth-disease-related sonogram (third sonogram overall) last Friday, on Halloween. It was a very short visit and we were thrilled to get good news that the baby looked totally fine. We still have 3 more sonogram appointments to go before we're completely in the clear, but we are very optimistic! Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Baby Rode has grown three centimeters since our last sonogram (two weeks prior) and he/she is up to just over 9 cm. Our next sonogram appointment is set for a week from this Friday (Nov. 14). We're hoping that if the baby is positioned just right, we'll be able to determine the sex that day!

In other news, Mackinzie had her very first school pictures taken a few weeks ago. Unfortunately picture came smack-dab in the middle of the whole Fifth-fiasco! She looks adorable in these shots, but we probably won't be purchasing any of them, due to the slap-face, rosey cheeks... the most common symptom of Fifth disease in small children.
These photos are technically the property of Lifetouch Portraits... so no printing them out or anything!
I shrunk these photos down, so the pink cheeks aren't all-that noticable, but it is pretty bad in the larger prints.
Laura and I were so happy that Kinzie's teachers were able to get her to smile so well for these pictures....

... she's not quite as smiley in her class photo...

I haven't given a Camo Pirates fantasy football update lately, but that's mostly because we haven't won a game in three weeks! Hopefully that trend will change this week when I go up against Justin Smith's Fleetwood Macks team.

Now I gotta run...
-Bert