Sallie Belle, this one's for you!

     Tonight at Cooking Club, my friend said she was hoping my company would hurry up and leave so I could get back to my blog! Ha! So Sallie Belle...I came home tonight, after leaving you fine ladies, put that fussing baby in her chic nursery and sat down at the kitchen table {not that we have another table, just thought I'd clarify, it's not the patio one}to let my brain flow.
     It's been a fast, long, emotional week. We stayed home for the majority of the week. The weather has been perfect, so we've been outside. We opened all the windows and have let the breeze come through. By Wednesday, Taylor's eyes were so puffy and mucus filled that I called nurse Grace over to confirm that it was in fact allergies and that he didn't have lice or a brain tumor because he won't stop scratching his head. You know, as one observer pointed out at playgroup this week, his itching head could be coming from all the hair. I haven't been able to take him to get his hair cut for the last 2 months. Can't imagine why, but none the less, 3 weeks ago I did have to cut off a 1 inch rat tail that he had grown. I'm afraid had I waited any longer it might have looked like we were trying to bring the mullet back in style. At one time I had convinced Jim that the $10 I spent on the electric clippers at Walmart were going to pay for themselves with just one child's haircut, but after butchering the kid's poor head one too many times, he's sure hair cuttery is not for me! I'm sorry, I just don't understand sideburns and I seem to mess them up every time.
     ANYWAY....I'm rambling. Back to my point. This week was Jim's last full week working with the American Family Association as their National Affairs Correspondent for OneNewsNow.com. He has worked with them for 10 years and this past year Jim was approached about getting into finance stuff. If I've learned one thing in marriage, it's that guys need a challenge and wives should support this need. He is now a Financial Advisor for Modern Woodmen of America. {Woodmen...apparently I don't speak very well and some of my friends have been wondering why Jim is all of sudden working for Modern Woman!} It's a complete career change. I'm just glad he didn't switch from a real super expensive degree, like medicine or biochemical engineering! Our decision to leave the AFA and AFR came with much prayer. There's no one thing that made him just want to leave and find another job, in fact, he has been working for MWA since October of last year and had every intention of just doing it on the side to supplement our income and my Hobby Lobby addiction. But after being away from the office for an entire week when Carrie Ann was born, he realized he didn't miss his job. He hadn't turned the news on once, and it felt good to not know what was going on in the world of politics.  Sitting in a cubicle all day, submerged in the culture war can be draining. Then come home to 3 small kids knowing that the world isn't getting any better. We love the AFA and AFR. He's not saying he's retiring his notepad and headset forever, just for now. The door's still open, but for now, he needs a change and a challenge and this is where God has led him, and thus, providing for his family. 
     For me, right now, it's relief. One reason my posts have been sparse is because he has been gone a lot, working during the day and having evening appointments, by 8 p.m., when the house is quiet, {or should be}I'm too tired to think, let alone deal with Blogger's picture posting problems. So I've had to choose, blog or sleep or spend time with Jim. You'd be surprised to know that I have only gone to Hobby Lobby twice in the last 2 months! Yep! I'm too tired to deal with the drama and it's not like I can do anything with anything right now anyway...any smart functioning brain cells I had left are being used to feed Carrie Ann, who has taken a hiatus from a bottle. So I'm tired. And forgetful. I found the unopened power bill yesterday. Asked when March 30th was. Called the power company to explain why it was late and wondering if by chance I had paid it unknowingly. The lady at Tombigbee Electric told me not to blame it on the baby. Guess they have heard that line a few times!
     Two really great things happening right now is that, one, my hair hasn't fallen out this time. Upon examining family photos of myself from previous periods after births, I've noticed a very noticeable missing patch of hair on my head. Don't go scouring my blog for those pics, they aren't on here. They are on Facebook. So I've been dreading that awful hormonal effect all pregnancy. My bangs aren't intentional people, just a result of that curly headed Andrew! And the second really great thing, is that when my memory starts getting bad, I know it's because I'm distracted and flustered. I can't focus on Bible Study or crafts or even blogging. When that happens, my time with the Lord gets better. I am forced to remove distractions. I have to focus on focusing. When I feel like I am hanging on by the seat of my pants, I know that all I have is God. I grab hold of him and His Word. When I can't wrap my mind around the requests I need to bring to the Lord, Scripture fills in the gaps. When I wake up in the morning and my thoughts go immediately to time, tasks, dust, food, planning.... I remember Scripture...it's not much, but it's enough. Each rare moment that I have alone, in quiet, when I can think of something other than myself and the kids and Jim, I force myself to zone in. Because, let's face it people, if you aren't in fellowship with God, then you are going to fall apart completely, and you will begin to make irrational decisions and then it's all downhill from there, it's inevitable.
     So tonight I took Carrie Ann to Cooking Club and Jim took the boys to the Hot Air Balloon Festival. I think he went grudgingly and it wasn't his first choice of things to do tonight, but I kind of thrust it on him. I had purchased the tickets earlier thinking how much fun it would be!!! Forgetting that I had plans already. I love festivals, but Jim would rather play in the yard, so it was more of my thing than his, but I really didn't want to miss CC. Tomorrow morning I will sleep in while Jim goes to run a 5K. Then I'll take the boys over to the airstrip to watch the hot air balloon race take off. Then, then, then!!! I'm so excited...I'm going to go to my first Zumba class. Going to look like an idiot, but I've got to shake these last few pregnancy inches and Dancing with the Stars has me all interested! I'm sure you will be able to read about it here!
     Salllie  Belle, I hope this has quenched your appetite for a Lemonade post! Love you girl! I keep wondering, trying to remember, what in the world did I do with all my free time when I only had one child!

The Baby Blues

     Ugh... The baby blues. I put them right up there with the awfulness of labor itself. And they get worse with each subsequent baby. They, along with the thought of another miserable pregnancy and labor, tempt me to ask God to be done with me in the baby making department. Surely there's another use for me! I mean surely!
     I think 90% of my emotional drama is none other than- you guessed it- Jim! The thoughts of not having him here with me to keep things focused and on task just drive me batty! The doubts of not being able to actually do anything outside my house, in civilization makes up the rest. I don't think I'd be able to breath without my BFF right by my side! My emotions have been so rampant this week, the night before he was to return to work, I gave him permission to snore! {not that he needs my permission, he freely does it every other night!} but I wanted him to know that I'd rather have his snoring skinny-legged self than not have him at all... Yah he was just going back to work 10 minutes from our house, not the moon, but seriously, at that point, to me, he was already strapped to the rocket and headed to the moon- forever! Yes, I know, I'm nuts, but this is what having babies does to you!
     I know, I know, this too shall pass, I have survived it twice before, I'm not gonna die over it. However, I might die from dehydration from all the tears. But as long as I stay in the Word, curling up in my Father's lap for His peace and not shutting myself off from my friends and life beyond these four walls- I'll live!

     And yes, Jim did snore that night! I thanked God for keeping him breathing, then kicked him in his skinny leg to shush him up. Ooh, that sounds mean when I read it. Really it was more of a nudge.

Girlified!

     I'm all about re-using whatever baby boy items I have accumulated over the last 3 and a half years. So ever since learning that our third little sports star was going to be a girl, I've been hard at work re-inventing! Not sure where or when I got this little hat, but it's quite tiny and since both my boys were born in the dead of summer, there hasn't been much of a need for it.

I know, I was thinking the same thing...It's perfect for Carrie Ann...being that she will be born between today and February 10th!

It was missing something though, when she is tiny enough to wear this hat, she will still look like a scrunched up alien and hard to differentiate from a male scrunched up alien, so I found this piece of pink satin ribbon in my craft closet tonight and got a little crafty!!!

I weaved the ribbon in and out of the crocheted cuff of the hat. I taped the end of the ribbon to help guide it through, making sure to keep the ribbon from twisting along the way.

I tied off the end of the ribbon in a square knot and cut the ravelled ends at an angle.

When I actually do pack that hospital bag, this darling little hat will definitely make it's way in!

she WILL wear this!

     Isn't this the cutest thing ever!!!!!! My gorgeous and sweet friend Jennifer made, yes made this for my little Carrie Ann. {I'll have to get the tutorial for this and pass it along to you} I absolutely love, love, love it. It's too pretty to hang in the closet, gotta find a place for it to hang in her oh so chic nursery! {Tour still to come when it is complete} Even as I sit here writing this, visions and plans for this tutu are soaring all around my head!!! Amanda of Reflections by Amanda Smith will be taking Carrie Ann's baby pictures and I just know she will have some super adorable uses for it!

BUT.....

     There's always a but! Bless him, Jim thinks it's awful! Yah, says his little girl is not wearing this. He didn't even know what it was, I had to explain! He has 4 sisters and 2 nieces, I don't understand how he missed the tutu bandwagon. As I sat on the living room floor showing him all the adorable and cutesy pink things that the gals in my Sunday School class gave for Carrie Ann at my shower last evening, I was crushed, was he serious? People, pray for me...well, for him. I don't think he has grasped the idea or even the thought that we are having a girl just yet!  I see now that my fear of pink is not my own fear, but one that has culminated over the last  3 and a half to 4 years of doing ALL blue and ALL sports. I am once again blaming him! {Just kidding} Somehow he will need to be transformed into thinking just a little pink and just a little girly!

     Don't worry ya'll, she's gonna be in this Tutu one way or the other. You will see it again!!! I will have the last word on this one!!! {I love you hun!}

As if a pregnant Girl wasn't stressed enough, Part 1

     This will be the first of two posts regarding a magazine I picked up for FREE at the reception desk of my OBGYN last week. If you don't like soap boxes or get offended easily, the little X is located at the top right corner!
     My computer died today, literally died, so during naptime I overflowed the ol' jacuzzi tub with bubbles and took the plunge with a stack of baby and pregnancy magazines that my OB had stacked up at the cashier's desk last week. I don't get magazine subscriptions, but I'll gladly take a free one! I only got through one magazine because I was so shocked at the audacity of Fit Pregnancy Magazine to think anything they were offering in their publication was FIT...
     As if a pregnant girl wasn't stressed enough, they throw magazines like Fit Pregnancy presents Mom & Baby right at you. We stress enough already as non-pregnant ladies about our looks, size and the daunting number on the scale, we don't need magazines that scream GET YOUR POST BABY BODY BACK on every page while we are growing to be the size of buffaloes! They act like you are supposed to be on the yoga mat and back to your wedding day weight the day you sign your discharge papers from the delivery room. UGH! It just un-nerves me that the media, i.e. Hollywood, can so easily make us believe that we are overweight or unfit if, first of all we eat fast food, eat anything non-organic or don't do pilates or yoga at least 3 times a week....come on...reality people!
    I know what some of you might be thinking...that's easy for her to say, she's skinny and petite, she doesn't have weight issues....Well my dear, my mascara clumps just everyone else's. Size is relative. What is small/skinny to you, isn't what I view as small or skinny. You might think you look fat, but I think you look healthy, happy and beautiful. I stress about my weight and size just as much as the next girl. I currently have pants that range in 4 sizes in my closet and all have been worn in the last year, not including my maternity clothes! Jim and I are very healthy people, he more than me, we exercise regularly, well he does...okay, Jim is a very healthy person. I am forced to watch what I eat. Have you seen my family lately? Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol...this includes all my blood sisters, my biological mother, her mother, her father...all of them...gotta love my gene pool! With this in mind, I eat modestly and stay away from a lot of fried foods. It's very easy for me to gain weight. We don't eat organic, I tend to choose the healthier, least amount of sugar, of the two cereals. We eat ground turkey, mostly because it's way less expensive and if we didn't, we'd eat extra lean ground beef. I stay active, I don't live a sedentary lifestyle, that's impossible with my two little boys.
     My point being, I just don't understand why there needs to be a magazine specifically for staying fit during pregnancy....exercise and eat healthy...isn't that all that is needed? Instead of the constant reminder on every page that we are ballooning as we read each article title, can't it just tell us how beautiful we are, no matter how big our 'cankles' are and regardless of the amount of weight we have gained? How hard would that be?
     In this particular issue, the Fall 2009/Winter 2010 one, I came across one article that I thought might actually be interesting and useful...Milk Mates: Nursing Bras You'll Love to Wear-Really! I browse through them, ah ha, there's one I have, what do they say about it...{Room to Grow-Medela Comfort Maternity Nrusing Bra-Your breasts can swell to pornstar proportions when your milk comes in...} OH MY WORD...My jaw dropped. I read this to Jim this evening and he said, what kind of trash are you reading? Exactly!!! What mother in their right mind wants their breasts, nursing ones at that, to look like a pornstar's...UGH! I mean, as if! Right....am I the only person who finds this appalling...Don't you dare compare my chest, what God uses to meet the nutritional needs of my newborn child to a pornstar. Seriously, people think this stuff?
     I don't know, maybe it's my conservatism or just my faith in knowing I have a God who loves me no matter how fit or fat I am, but I find the public obsession with a woman's weight and size absurd. Even at my heaviest weight and plumpest size, I found assurance in Scripture that I am beautifully and wonderfully made. That's when I have felt the best, the skinniest and the most beautiful!

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:14

 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7

FUNdy Undies!!!

I guess it began when I was in college and I had to pay to do laundry. I thought that buying enough underwear to last me 2-3 weeks would decrease the amount of times I had to do laundry...and save money! So, when Vicky has her Pinks on sale 7 for $25, I go for it. You might think that's pricey, but you must obviously not own a pair. I have been a Vicky addict for more than 10 years and I stand behind them half for their extraordinary quality, and the other half for their awesome cuteness! I have gotten cheap from time to time and gotten the 5 packs of No Boundary prints from Walmart, but they all have scraggly elastic hanging out and can sometimes cause the unwanted...saggy bottom :( AND there are a few of those bargain buys from Walmart that have received very bad reviews from my man too, and with all the distractions in this world today, I need every edge I can get to keep his eyes on ME!

So, armed with a coupon for a free pair of Pinks and $19 left on a gift card, I got 8 pair of undies for $8!!!! I am one of those who stand there and lay them out, decide what I like, what I want, what is most practical, what my man would LOVE! Maybe they are a little pricey when you crunch the numbers, but they are FUN, will last me 10 times longer than a cheaper brand and are a guarantee against a saggy bottom!