Remember the little bird guard guy in Robin Hood who was always announcing the time? I loved him. Actually, I have a hard time believing that Russell Crowe can do as good of a job with Robin as the other foxy actor. But that’s another story for another blog.

25 weeks last Friday! So, really, this should be my 25 1/2 weeks post. I can’t believe how quickly the weeks are flying past! I had just worked out when I took this picture yesterday – so please pardon the sweats and the flushed cheeks!

A few changes – I have been feeling our little guy a LOT. He loves to kick his mother after breakfast, lunch and dinner and any time I sit down in between those. Let’s hope this isn’t an activity he’ll continue to do after birth! It’s such an amazing thing to watch my stomach contort around while he’s busy doing who-knows-what in there! Amazing and very weird. You can see where the inspiration for a few alien flicks came from.

It’s getting hard to bend over and pick up things. I now do the squat-then-bend technique. It’s particularly painful when I try to bend over like the pre-pregnancy days and I get a nice swift kick in the gut for my efforts. 🙂 Last night, Jon was giving me a hug around dinnertime and he felt the baby kick him through me. He is a strong little guy! I think we’re having a punter.

Also, thank you all SO much for your prayers when I was sick! The tonsillitis is all cleared up and aside from a few issues with my seasonal allergies (I love spring. NOT. Pardon my 90’s moment), I’ve been feeling MUCH better. I called my doctor last week and he put me on Claritin, so I’m hoping that will make a huge difference! It’s been nice to be able to breathe through my nose again, though I’m not loving the medicine fog. Hopefully I’ll get the dosage worked out so I’m breathing and have a personality.

This weekend is going to be so much fun, because not only is my little brother Caleb getting baptized on Easter, but Jon is off for Good Friday AND our great friends from Colorado Springs are driving down with their adorable son (whom I still haven’t had the chance to meet yet). I cannot wait!! I plan on taking TONS of pictures this weekend, so prepare yourself for a regular onslaught come Monday’s post. 🙂

I’m sitting here right now debating the pros and cons of working out today. On the pros, except for yesterday I haven’t worked out all last week because I was sick. So I’m in fairly desperate need of a workout. The cons? I’m rather comfortable right now, I bought jelly beans this afternoon and I might or might not be snacking on them right now. Actually, the jelly beans point should maybe go in the pros list. And these are the good jelly beans – Jelly Bellys! I’m going to shock you all and declare that my favorite flavor is the Cappucino. What’s yours?

Two days until the official release of Cool Beans! Woo hoo! 🙂

Have a fabulous Tuesday!

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Yay!

Congratulations to Maddy – you just won an autographed copy of Cool Beans! I’ve sent the winner an email, so as soon as you send me your address, I’ll put the book in the mail!

I hope you all had a great weekend! I’m going to hopefully post again later tonight or tomorrow morning with my 25 Week update, but for now, there is a taco dinner to get on the table. And I for one (or is it “I for two” now?) am quite hungry! 🙂

Thanks to all who entered the contest! 🙂

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April 1st is a good day – and not just because it’s April Fool’s Day! It’s the day that this

finally comes out!! 🙂 YAY! Some of you have already gotten your books, which is fabulous! I hope you’ve been enjoying them! And to those of you who ordered an autographed copy from me, look for it in your mailbox next week. Yay!

In honor of Cool Beans’ release, I’m going to be giving away a signed autographed copy! And that’s not an April Fool’s joke! Leave your name and email address in the comments below and I’ll pick a winner on Monday.

Hope you all are having a good Wednesday!

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So, I’m not really sure what season it is anymore. I just know I’m sneezing, coughing my head off and looking outside expecting green grass and tulips for my trouble and all I’ve been seeing is snow, snow run off and rocks.

The rocks are more my fault than the weather’s. I can blame a lot on the weather, but probably the lack of grass and tulips is more because we’ve never planted them. Just a hunch.

My in-laws came in town for a few days last week after we got home from Durango and we had a fabulous time with them. Though, I’m fairly certain they’ll come here expecting to be bored out of their minds now. Between my tonsillitis and Jon’s springbreakitis, we weren’t exactly the picture of excitement. We did a lot of sitting on the couch. But sitting on the couch can lead to talking, so Jon and I had a great time. We got to rest, we got to catch up with the parental units, and I just hope they had a good time as well. We did manage to fit a couple of shopping trips in and found a couple of adorable outfits for our little man. 🙂 Yay! And, my father-in-law treated us to several meals out, which was just fabulous.

They left early, early, early yesterday morning. Jon and I had already decided that it wasn’t worth seeing the nasty looks on people’s faces at church when they heard my coughing and throat-clearing and just general yuckiness even though I’ve been faithfully taking my antibiotics and I’m no longer considered contagious, so we stayed home from church. Jon drove his parents to the airport and then came home and joined me in sleeping in. Greg and Connie may or may not have gotten back to California (plus a layover in LA) before Jon and I woke up.

I’ll never tell.

Plus, I was sick. Sick and pregnant. So, I’m thinking that if there was ever a reasonable excuse to sleep in past what most of the population would consider a decent time for lunch, I’ve got it.

We spent yesterday afternoon watching a movie and then headed to my parent’s house for dinner and depression since we were keeping an eye on the government’s fantastic idea to pass something that 73% of the country despises. Seriously, folks. I’m not good at math, but I do know that 73% of anything is usually the majority.

So, between last night’s vote and having to get back to our non-spring-break routine today, I think both Jon and I will be sort of grouchy tonight. Which is why I might propose Air Force One for after dinner. I don’t know what being grouchy and Air Force One have to do with each other, but it just sounds like a good movie tonight. Actually, confession time – Harrison Ford was my first movie star crush at the ripe old age of eleven, so maybe I still have a soft spot for him. Despite his fairly weird personal life.

We are at a week and a half until Cool Beans releases! Yay! 🙂

What did you guys do this week?

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Well. There’s no hiding it anymore:

I am most definitely pregnant. 🙂 And today, according to What To Expect (but not necessarily my rudimentary math skills), I’m officially starting my sixth month of pregnancy.

Craziness!

We just got back from a FABULOUS anniversary trip to Durango! We went there for our honeymoon and we were so excited to go back! Only this time we weren’t able to do any snowboarding, snowmobiling or anything else that involved snow, pretty much. 🙂

There was a big snowstorm that hit on Sunday – when we were scheduled to drive up – but my parents gave us an anniversary present of another night in Durango, so we drove up Saturday. Thanks Mom and Dad! 🙂

We had such a wonderful time! We walked around downtown Durango, we did a little bit of shopping, we drove around and saw all the beautiful scenery and mostly, we just relaxed and enjoyed hanging out with each other. It will most likely be the last big vacation we get to take while it’s just the two of us.

I think we were both depressed to come back home. 🙂 I LOVE this picture!

Please be praying for me, if you think of it. I am dealing with yet ANOTHER bought of tonsillitis and the doctor put me on an antibiotic. It’s hard to not worry about how this sickness is affecting our baby. Thank you so much!

I hope you are having a wonderful week!

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Here’s the thing about my mother-in-law:

She is a fabulous hair stylist. And not just with women, but she is a fabulous hair stylist for men too (although, I’ve heard rumors that men prefer the person who takes care of their hair cutting needs to be referred to as a barber. Not sure if this is true or not). She worked for many years as a hair stylist and all of her boys – including my father-in-law – were most definitely spoiled because of this.

Here’s the thing about me:

I am not a fabulous hair stylist. Actually, I imagine that whatever the exact opposite adjective of “fabulous” is what I am. The most talent I have with a pair of hair-cutting scissors is trimming up my own bangs. I can’t do anyone else’s. Just mine.

All this to say that Jon grew up in Wonderful Hair World with my mother-in-law, Connie, and then, in what could probably only be called a horrific mistake by the dead protein strand community, he married me.

So, the fact that I cut Jon’s hair this week and it doesn’t look like he had a bad accident involving a switchblade-baring man driving a John Deere is something of a small miracle.

Actually, it looks quite good. If I say so myself.

Granted, I would run the clippers over Jon’s head, squint at his hair, peer into the mirror, declare him done and gorgeous and then he would go back over his head with the clippers himself, just to “make sure you got everything.”

Mm-hmm.

Connie and Greg (my father-in-law) are actually coming out here to visit at the end of next week, so there is a very good question of why we didn’t just wait until she came to try and tame the beast, but the answer is very simple and lies in two words:

Our Anniversary.

Which happens to be at the beginning of next week. And I imagine we will take a few pictures. So, I decided to try to master the Wahl for Jon’s sake.

And since this became a much longer story than it probably is, I’ll leave it at the fact that he has a nice short buzz cut again and once again looks like a fine, upstanding teacher instead of a hapless snowboarder who managed to find some nice shirts and jeans that actually fit in the rear.

This is a side note, but did any of you notice how many of the snowboarders had their snow pants sagging in the Olympics? Really? And in all the documentaries they did on those guys? I didn’t even know girl pants could sag in the rear.

Anyways.

We are on Day Three of clouds, rain, cold, snow, slight depression and major sleepiness. As I discussed in detail with the checkout lady at Wal-Mart today (wow. I do go there almost every day), it’s just sad when you are having to deal with spring time allergies when it still looks like winter outside. If I’m going to be sneezing, I would at least like to see flowers or grass or something so I know why I’m sneezing. The lady agreed and said, “Yeah, or at least bugs.” Which is when I kind of smiled in my “okay, that’s weird” sort of smile, nodded, took my bag of dog food and left and it was only after I was putting the dog food in my car when I realized she probably said buds NOT bugs.

Sometimes I think it’s best for me to not go out amidst the general public.

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Okay, I thought it went like this:

If April showers bring May flowers,
what do May flowers bring?

I see nothing in there about March showers and so I’m really not sure what March showers bring to the table. It can’t be to water the grass – and since Jon and I plucked all of the healthy, thriving weeds from the backyard, there is again nothing green out there.

Maybe it is in preparation for the April showers. Regardless, I’m missing the sunshine we have been having. Today is rainy, hailing, windy, cloudy and dark.

Which is why I’m sitting here drinking a hot chocolate as I write this post. Maybe March showers bring Swiss Miss.

Today was a relatively slow day. I made a trip to Wal-Mart (and yes, it seems like I go there everyday. I know the people there think so) because Jon was out of shampoo. And has been out of shampoo for the last week. So, he’s been using my shampoo.

But, he doesn’t use my conditioner too, so now they are uneven. And I’ll have that problem in a few weeks of having miles of conditioner left and zero shampoo. Please tell me that I’m not the only person out there who hates this predicament.

Anyway, I went to get his shampoo and found out that Wal-Mart stopped carrying the new brand he likes. I walked up and down the shampoo aisle for about ten minutes reading every single container there until I finally faced the fact that it was gone. So, he got the old brand he used to use. And while I’m not sure that Jon will even notice the switch, I do and it just irritates me that the moment I get accustomed to one brand, they discontinue carrying it.

Actually, I heard a long time ago that you are supposed to switch up the brand of shampoo you buy every few months so your hair doesn’t get used to it. I’ve tried this. Aside from finding out that Herbal Essences does not do my hair good (sorry HE) and that I have a relatively small portion of the shelf to pick from considering I am that person who grumbles under their breath to see a price sticker for $19.63 under a 8-ounce bottle of designer shampoo, I didn’t think this switching thing worked for me. I’m a Pantene girl. I have been a Pantene girl and I will continue to be a Pantene girl. It’s relatively cheap, it works and Stacy London is their current spokeswoman.

Now that I’ve bored you to tears with my soapbox (um. no pun intended), how many of you watched the Oscars last night? I did and this was my first time watching it beginning to end and not just catching the highlights online. I felt actually rather happy that the Best Picture was something of a surprise and I was quite excited that Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for The Blind Side, which I think was one of the best movies this year. And I had no idea how many awards were given out for things like Best Makeup and Best Sound Mixing and Best Caterer.

How about you? What did you do this weekend?

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We officially have LESS than a month before this comes out!! 🙂

I’m a teensy bit excited. 🙂 YAY!

Today is one of those days where I’m not really sure what to post about. I have had a fairly boring last couple of hours. I went to Wal-Mart and the grocery store and I’ve been putting off starting the laundry for about, oh, I’d say around five or so hours now.

I’ve been trying to get a bunch of writing done, but honestly, it is just so hard right now! The sky is bright blue, it’s finally warmer weather and there is none of our usual spring blow-me-over-in-the-parking-lot breezes. It’s gorgeous outside! It makes me want to plant flowers.

But, we all know what happened last year when I attempted that. And I’m pretty sure Jon is against the idea of flowers because of that fateful summer. I might have to invest in some real-looking fake ones. No green thumb needed.

It really is kind of a bummer to sit inside on a gorgeous day and stare at an artificially-lit computer screen. Comfy chair or not.

So, after much sighing and gnashing of teeth over my indoor profession, I finally moved outside. That’s what laptops were created for, right?

Right.

Besides, now I can look around and really get my thinking cap on. Nothing like nature and fresh air to inspire you and give you lots of thought fodder! For example, instead of bemoaning my view outside from the kitchen table, I am now thinking how weird it is that I seem to be able to grow the lushest, healthiest, sturdiest looking weeds and yet my flowers look like this at the peak of summer:

This, sadly, is a pot of gorgeous flowers that I planted last year and set up on our patio. I’m not even sure what killed it. I watered it, I had it in the partial sun spot like it supposedly liked. Maybe I overloved it. Are you supposed to treat gardens with some measure of disdain? I just remember that when I was growing up, we had a vegetable garden that we had to weed and water on a daily basis and me and my siblings hated that garden – mostly due to the weeding and watering. And those veggies grew like Contrary Mary’s garden – abundantly. It’s a thought! (Actually, I think that it was mostly due to my parents’ care of it. Maybe they can come take care of my flowers this year.)

Anyway. Time to get back to the writing. I hope you are having a more productive day than I am! What are you up to?

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Friday marked more than halfway through! So crazy… I’ve been looking back at the pictures of me a few weeks ago and while I thought then that I was absolutely huge and couldn’t get bigger, I was wrong:

And I imagine, I’ll look back on this picture at 39 weeks and laugh again that I felt so big! 🙂 I seriously do double-takes every time I pass a mirror – it’s such a weird feeling! I keep worrying that I’m gaining too much weight too quickly, but my doctor seems to think everything is okay. No stretch marks yet! Hope that fact doesn’t change! 🙂

Friday morning was also the first time I saw my stomach move when our little man kicked – so weird, cool, freaky and amazing at the same time! I just saw there with this huge, stupid grin on my face and was like, “Whoa! What just happened?” I’m thinking he was reacting to the Raisin Bran Crunch I had for breakfast. I’m not a fan of raisins at all, but I love Raisin Bran Crunch. So, I just try to pick through and eat everything except the raisins. But for some reason, Kellogg’s is continuing to put that huge scoop of raisins into every box and that morning’s cereal had much more dried-up grapes than normal. I think the little guy noticed it and was complaining as well with a nice hard kick. And I’ve been feeling him more and more every day since!

Ever wish you could complain with a nice, hard kick? One of those hidden “fees” shows up on a bill and you’re just like, “Fine!” and you do one of those ker-chaw! kicks right at the hiding-mean-old-fees-people?

Seriously, I’ve been thinking about this. Babies get away with everything. You want dinner? You scream and cry for it until someone finally gives it to you. No making it, no washing dishes. You just sit there and eat and let everyone else take care of everything for you. You’re mad? You don’t have to fake happiness, you again just scream and cry so that the whole world knows it.

I’d say I want to be like this, but I prefer to not become Lindsay Lohan.

I’ve been very overwhelmed with the whole thought of having a baby around here lately. Especially when Jon and I forgot to feed Kody one night until after 10:30PM. I pretty much broke down that day because I just knew we were going to be the worst parents in the whole history of the world.

Thankfully, God has seen fit to put a bunch of excellent moms in my path (including my mom and mother-in-law!) who have made me feel a little bit better about this huge thing called parenting. Apparently, babies cry when it’s time for them to eat. Kody is one of those weird dogs who isn’t that into food, so some nights I think he even forgets it’s time to eat. Pretty much, as long as he gets his 19+ hour nap, a couple of rawhide bones to toss with Jon and a good massage a day, I think he could care less about everything else.

I’ve been noticing how much I worry over things that haven’t happened: What if I do something wrong and this baby is messed up for life? What if I don’t know what to do to make him happy? What if something happens to me and Jon? What if gaucho pants are back in style this summer? And on and on and on…

I was so completely stressed out and then the other day I just realized, wait a second. God is SO much bigger than me. And He is SO good at handling His plan for my life without any help from me. So, why do I feel the need to shoulder all of these ridiculous fears? Especially when He has proved time and time again that He is taking care of me?

I’ve been taking lots of deep breaths and praying more that God would just give me a reassured heart instead of my little worrying one.

And for those of you who would like news that is a little more fun than me losing my mind, I’m excited to inform you that today is the day that March is finally here with all it’s spring fabulousness. Don’t get me wrong – I love winter and I love snow, but there does come a point where it is time to pull out the flip flops. And on cloudy, cold, snowless days like today, I’m ready for the warm weather and the flip flops.

Have a great Monday!

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