Its a girl

My date nights have helped prepare me and get me excited for the arrival of another sweet little girl. Heather, Anna, and I went to the doctor's today for an ultrasound. We found out that everything seems normal and healthy, a huge blessing, and that they confirmed that Heather is almost 19 weeks pregnant,. The due date by the ultrasound was April 27. Anna was 5 days early, if the new baby girl is also 5 days early Mommy and the her may share a birthday!!

The tough part now is that we had a boy name picked out as a carryover from when Anna was around. We had much more trouble with girl's names the first time. Let's see if we can do better this time.

Date nights with Anna

Anna is now 13 months and Daddy and her have date nights when Mommy has plans. Last night was one of those nights, and we decided just to stay in and play. Anna was really busy last night, spending 5-10 minutes on each task before moving on to the next task. They were important things like playing with special toys, pushing around her shopping cart, or pulling all of the DVDs our of the cabinet and putting them back.

I can't forget Anna's favorite playtoy, Cassie. She loves everything about Cassie. Cassie makes her laugh without even doing anything. Cassie also takes a lot of abuse and doesn't even snap at Anna in return. Cassie goes crazy when we have guests over, but she really is an angel around Anna and we couldn't be happier with how she is with kids.

Our Year of Maintenance

2007 will thus be deemed in the Burckart household, the year of maintenance. Not anything to do with our daughter or the conception of our next child...but the year of maintenance. Coincidental that our house was built 10 years ago in 1997? I think not. Here is what we have had to do in the past year:
1) Change the torsion spring in the garage door.
2) Replace the boots around the plumbing vents on the roof
3) Replace the mailbox
4) Replace the upstairs AC unit and coil
5) Replace the water heater
6) Replace the cabinets, counters, appliances, floors AND subfloors because the dishwasher leaked and caused the subflooring to rot, mold, and buckle underneath the cabinets into the breakfast nook and throughout the kitchen.

And today, the furnace stopped working upstairs. Not to mention that a friend of ours has told us that our downstairs AC unit/gas pack unit is going and will need replaced next year. Incidentally, in July before #4 and #5 happened, I looked up this article from USA Today about when things will go bad and what preventive maintenance needs done. Here are some things that jump out at me:

• Water heater expectancy: 15-18 yrs
• AC units: 15 years
• furnaces: 20-25 years

You'll notice that we are 5-10 years ahead of schedule for things falling apart. That is why this year is the year of maintenance.

**updated because I forgot about the most expensive kitchen expense :-(