Little MC

I got to meet little Madeline Claire yesterday! Isn't she beautiful? My baby girl had better be this cute!

A Fond Farewell

In a few short hours, I will be saying a fond farewell to the Skittle. You have served me well, my friend. You've endured lots of road trips and college shennanigans. You've moved around with me these last few years. You drove me to the hospital the day I had Aidan...well technically, I drove me to the hospital in you that day, I suppose. And now, it's time to say good-bye. I will miss you! You were a good first car. *sniff*

Okay, moving on...

I'll tell you what, kids. That Craigslist is amazing. I posted an ad for the car two days ago. I had three responses within hours of posting my listing. I think I got five responses total. Two of them were from local used car lots, and we decided to sell it to one of them. We're supposed to be taking it to them, getting some money, and handing over the title and keys when John gets home from work this evening. It's kind of surreal. I feel like I've had this car FOREVER.

So we get to be a one-car family for a little while. I guess this'll put a fire under our butts to get a new one now. I don't know how long I'll be able to handle getting up to drive John in to work every day!

Scary Realization

...so it hit me today when I got the "You're 33 weeks pregnant" e-mail from Baby Center. I'm 33 weeks pregnant! When Aidan was born, I was only 36 weeks pregnant! Or was it 35? Either way, potential baby-time is SOON! Of course, since we're prepared for Neely to maybe show up early like her big brother, she won't. She'll probably be one of these "I'm not coming out" kids. But still, it's kind of frightening to think about. I mean, as "ready" as we are this time, I don't really know that I'm ready ready. Oh, man. I guess it's too late to take it back, huh?

Haircut Day

My opinion as far as Aidan's hair is concerned, so far, is that when he starts to look like a Q-tip, it's time to get a haircut. And he was definitely looking like a Q-tip, especially with his bedhead some days. I've been trying to wait for a day when John could go with us, since it's slightly difficult for Aidan to sit in my lap right now, but with all that's going on, it just wasn't working out. I finally made the decision to "go it alone" for our monthly trip to see Ms. Teresa. I was so proud of Aidan. He sat in the haircut chair all by himself for the first time today, and he was rewarded with TWO lollipops and a sticker! As you can see, this is very exciting. I just had to take a picture and share.

I'm at my wit's end.

Aidan will not nap today. It's making me crazy. He fell asleep for about 15 minutes, and Hank woke him up barking and whining. He's on the bad list for that. I have been trying all afternoon to get Aidan to go back to sleep. I NEED him to sleep! If John gets home from work late tonight, I'm going to have to take him with me to do some things, and a napless, cranky toddler is the last accessory that I want. Please go to sleep!!!

It's Neely done!

We're almost finished with Neely's room! The major stuff is finally all done, and we just have some little nit-picky things to finish off. We repainted all the furniture, except for the crib. The rocking chair was the worst. It took about a zillion coats to make it white, since it was so dark to begin with. John replaced the light fixture with a ceiling fan. No kidding, when we moved in, the light fixture was the same exact type that was on our front porch in the duplex...inside the house. Weird. The curtains came last week, so we spent a good amount of time hanging curtain rods and ironing panels for hanging. The rugs showed up yesterday (all but the little one to go between the crib and dresser), so I got to put those down. And I decided just to buy ribbons to tie the curtains back with. Hey, it was cheap and easy. All that's really left to do is attach the changing pad to the dresser. It's just resting on there right now. And I'm going to get one of those little cheap round tables to put next to the rocking chair. See that lamp on the floor by it? It'll sit on the table, and that way, I'll also have a place to put bottles or whatever in the middle of the night. I'm really excited. I feel like it's finally come together. Now, we've got to get working on our guest room, so our parents have a decent place to sleep when Neely arrives. At least we already have a mattress in there this time!

Does he get it?

Well, I received the first sign of understanding (with regard to the new baby) from Aidan yesterday. I'm standing in the kitchen, and he walks in patting his belly with both hands. At first, I thought he was just being goofy, until I noticed that he was staring at my belly while he did it. Then he walks over to me, pats my belly, and says, "Baby." Yesss! I was really excited. I mean, we've been trying to explain to him for the last seven months that there's a baby in there, and for the last couple of months that his baby sister is in there, so it's exciting that he's finally gotten some kind of grasp on the concept.

Later on in the evening when we were all together, John asked him about the baby, and Aidan again patted my belly and showed Daddy where she's hanging out. He even gave her a kiss! It was too cute. Something that is funny about it, though, is that he doesn't like my belly to be uncovered. John would lift my shirt up over it, and Aidan would immediately pull it back down, like it freaks him out or something. It freaks me out sometimes too, buddy.

Empty Bowls

Tonight, we had an HSM Girls night and did a service project. The girls all painted bowls to for the Food Bank of Northwest Louisiana's Empty Bowls charity event. The event is held annually, and the bowls will be sold to help raise money for the food bank. The evening started out as expected, with all the girls serenely sitting around tables painting bowls.

But once they ran out of bowls to paint, and the sugar level began to run high, the girls began to paint one another...

It may not have been clean fun, but it was definitely good fun. And we were having fun for a good cause, right?

Pregnancy Dreams

I have had the strangest pregnancy dreams this time around. Last night, I dreamed that I gave birth to a pig. Not an actual pig, but a baby-sized, muppet-type pig...and for some reason, I was in Panama City...and I was swimming with my pig-baby in the ocean...and I had no clothes on, so I couldn't get out of the water. When I woke up, I just lie there for a while going, "Huh?"

To the doctor!

I had another OB appointment today, and I swear to you, I now have a conditioned response to the doctor's office. I'm perfectly content on the drive over, and as soon as I get out of the car and start walking toward the building, BAM! I have to pee. I'm not joking. It's like Pavlov's dogs. I'm so used to peeing in a cup every time I go that I just see the building and nature calls. I was amused.

Also, I got to bring home 4-D pictures of little Neely Caroline today! (Her name is fun when sung to the tune of "Sweet Caroline." Neely Caroline, dun dun dun...sorry, side trip.) You can see her tiny face so well. I think she was rubbing her head in the pictures, though. And she was either making a kissy face, or the girl has got some lips on her...or I'm just not very good at looking at these crazy pictures. They tell me she weighs three pounds and four ounces today, and everything looks to be good and normal and right on schedule.




I go back for another visit in three weeks. It was supposed to be two, but my doc will be out of town. I guess this is the start of the period of time where I feel like I live at the OB's office. I remember the first Tuesday after Aidan was born, I felt like I was forgetting to do something. Eventually it dawned on me, "Oh! I didn't go to the doctor today!" Ah, well. It's all a part of the fun, I suppose.




The nursery is starting to come together a little bit more. John finished getting the ceiling fan up today, and the curtains and crib sheets that I ordered arrived this afternoon. Hopefully by the end of the week, I can have those curtains hung and finish repainting the bookcase. I feel like once the curtains are up, it'll really be starting to look like something. Right now, it's just a lot of white. The walls are white, the floor is white, the furniture is white. White, white, white. Once that purple is going on, it'll feel more like a baby's room. I'll have to post the before and after pictures once it's all done.

Summer Vacation

We're home from our summer vacation, so I suppose it's now time to give the full report. This year, we spent a week at the Portofino Island Resort in Pensacola, Florida. We were in a three bedroom condo with Mom, Dad, Joe and Margaret. I have to say, though I didn't manage to get any pictures of the inside, this was one of the nicest places I've ever stayed. The condos are all decorated differently, at the discretion of the owners, and the one we were in was SWANK. We are talking marble floors, oversized furniture, antique reproductions, and art galore. It was unlike any beach rental I've ever seen.

We had a really great time, though we didn't spend a whole lot of time in the ocean. It seems that we showed up during a particularly bad jellyfish season, and I was paranoid about Aidan being stung. I didn't want him to be traumatized and afraid of the ocean for life! We spent a little bit of our time digging in the sand, collecting seashells, and flying kites, but the majority of our days were spent by the swimming pool, where our biggest worry was getting a sunburn. Aidan didn't mind one bit, though. He loves the swimming pool.

We did a little bit of exploring Pensacola, but not too much. We mostly stayed on the Santa Rosa Island and checked out all the fabulous places to eat! We were pretty lazy, so I don't have a whole lot to write about. However, I do have plenty of photos to share.

Doing our beach thing.

The sunset.

Flying kites...

Exploring downtown Pensacola.

And there are lots of family shots!

Aidan catches the flying bug at the Naval Air Museum. His favorite thing was climbing into the cockpits and pushing buttons. Great.

Oh, yes! And I forgot about a couple of other exciting events that happened on the trip. Aidan had his first kiss...

And Joe and Margaret got engaged! Hooray!

I think that about sums everything up. We had a great summer vacation, and now it's time to crack down and finish putting Neely's room together and cleaning out the guest room so we're actually prepared for her arrival. We don't want a repeat of all the drama surrounding Aidan's arrival! We were so not ready. We're going to try harder to be ready this time.