Pictures! Contest! Lack of Cohesive Paragraphs!

Well, it's only been a week since I posted, so this isn't a horrible blogging break just yet, right? Yet it feels like it's been a hundred years or so. This week has been very busy! Mother's Day was great (but busy) and my secret sneaky gift to my mom a big success, so yay! (Commissioned black and white sketch of an old photo of my sisters and me as little girls in tutus, thank you very much.) Addy's dance recital is tomorrow, so this week has been full of practices and late classes and last minute shopping trips for un-snagged white tights. Also, our sixth anniversary is tomorrow, not that we'll notice it much in between TWO three-hour shows... most of which our poor preschooler has to sit through in a back room with a coloring book and juice box and fourteen other hyper little girls in sequins.

(This was taken at the dress rehearsal yesterday.)



AND. I'll be eighteen weeks along tomorrow, which means only two more weeks until we know if it's a boy or girl. (OMGOMGOMG!!! YAYAYAYYY!) You know, not that I care that much, since I am overall a very zen and patient person, and hey, if they can't tell, it won't bother me one bit. Ahem. (Please please please show off your business for a few minutes, baby. Consider it your late Mother's Day gift to me, and I'll call it even when weighed against the hip pain and heartburn.) Now then, focus on belly ONLY here and disregard thighs, nightgown, and various imperfections in house, mkay?




It occurs to me that I never posted any pictures of the kids in their adorable Easter outfits, so here's this, apropos of nothing:


Our Easter candy buzz has worn off and left us with a stabby hangover.

A slightly less agressive moment (other than Eli):




Devan's lovely gift package, which I won in her Earth Day contest, arrived early this week. (Or was it last week already? Time has become a bit of a blur lately.) Anyways, the theme was recycled, so it was all stuff of hers she had already read/used or didn't want personally and passed on to me. There were three awesome books, one of which was Gods in Alabama, which I have always meant to get around to reading. I was not disappointed, either, though the laundry situation got quite precarious while I devoured the book! Another was a nice hardback book of cake decorating, which the kids have been paging through like it's a storybook. There was also a baby hat, a baby book, an empty baby girl scrapbook starter (so cute) a baby picture frame, and a package of brand new pot holders and oven mitts. Quite a haul! A haul that I of course forgot to photograph and now everything is scattered more or less in its place and it seems too tiring to go photograph it ALL, but here's a shot of the baby scrapbook starter:




It was so fun that I think I'll follow suit. Leave me a comment re: any of these totally random paragraphs in here and you will be entered in a contest for a box of goodies I have either previously used or was given and don't personally care for. But who knows? Maybe you WILL like it! And if not, pass it along.

Now then... what else? Oh I know! Two rants about annoyances, which I think we can all agree this blog has been sadly lacking. Item the first: the prenatal water aerobics class which I took with both other summer pregnancies and loved, isn't starting this year until September. When I'll already be nearly thirty six weeks pregnant and, let's face it, very possibly on bedrest. Humph. Why wouldn't you hold a WATER aerobics class in the SUMMER when it is HOT??? I have remained cross about this for two weeks solid now. My prenatal yoga DVD is just not quite the same inducement to exercise.

Item the second: People need to stop telling me scary stories about pregnant women dying of blood clots. People also need to stop looking at me like I am certifiable when I say that yes, this was a planned pregnancy, and yes, I even think I'd like one more, and yes, I (so far) try to give birth with minimal intervention. Those people should really be careful when they discuss ALL THREE of those topics with me in a fifteen minute span, and end up wandering away from me in disgust. I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, eyebrow-raisers.