8 more weekends to go...

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Ours is never relaxing, and is full of visiting family and heading from one house to the next to visit relatives. We ended up coming back last night instead of today just to get a little relaxing in, and I think that was a very smart decision! (Of course we didn't actually relax this afternoon - I cleaned all afternoon downstairs while Brent worked upstairs all afternoon! But, we were very productive!)

We had nice Thanksgivings with the family. We "revealed" the baby's name to our families via making them guess. We printed out all the letters to her first and middle name and made them figure out. She doesn't have a lot of letters to her name, so it wasn't an easy task! Brent's brother was the big winner at his house, and I think my mom was the winner at mine. There was also much talk of the "baby in Aunt Rachel's tummy". Pretty much every time we came and went my niece wanted to know if we could go to the hospital so I could have my baby. And of course Pippin was always a big hit everywhere. Personally, I found his shining moment to be his impromptu roll in unidentified poop about two minutes before we had the car loaded to come home Saturday night. Ugh. So he got a quick and impromptu bath.

And now tomorrow starts December! It's hard to believe that it's already the holiday season. I can't believe it's already time to start the assembly line of Christmas cards and holiday baking! The next few weeks have a ton of activities for us - between holiday parties & open houses, baby showers, another baby prep class, & doctor's appointments there's hardly a spare day at all! And starting tomorrow when people ask the billion dollar question of "how much longer" the answer will be "next month!" Yikes! And right now Brent's putting together yet another piece of "baby equipment" - our new glider! All exciting stuff.

I still work out most days at the gym, I usually make it about 3-4 days a week with all the other stuff going on. There's LOADS of stares, and like most places I go it's hard to get in and out without the 20 questions people like to play with the pregnant - "when are you due", "what are you having", "what's the name", "how are you feeling", and "what have you been craving". I end up walking about 3 miles a day now, not the 5.5 I used to get, but not so shabby for a 31-week preggo.

Alrighty, that's the update from here. Here's a couple of pics from our holiday:

Niece #2 spent much time staring at my stomach - and then decided to take her baby doll and stuff it up her shirt to be like me. (Although she spent a lot of the weekend explaining that everyone else just had food in their stomach but I had a baby.)













Here's the "new mom" with her lovely baby:













Another of the top questions we're asked these day is "how is Pippin with kids", the answer is not half bad. He's very patient and pretty much lets them do whatever - take his toys, tug on him, etc. He gets the occasional push/jump in on them, but 98% of the time he's actually pretty gentle.








But when he sees us start packing up - there's no way he's going to be left behind!












Happy Holidays!

9 More Weekends to Go!

So, the weekend is practically over, ALREADY! I seriously feel like we didn't even have a weekend with all the birthing classes we had this weekend! We did the weekend "marathon" course, where you go from 9-3 Saturday and 1-5 Sunday. It was a ton of info crammed into a weekend, but well worthwhile. Our class was pretty large, and there were some good questions asked. We learned all about child birth (natural, medicated and c-section), as well as recovery, newborn care, a tour of the hospital and everything we'll need to know when it's our time. We even ended up sitting next to a couple who actually only lives about 3 or 4 blocks away! Of course my fave part of the class was the "relaxation" part where we got nice massages from our "support person".

I think one of the main things I took away from this weekend is how glad I am not to be in horrible shape. There were two seriously obese girls in there - who were basically 100% miserable. I'm talking the type of obese where one of them was constantly breathing through her mouth and was ALWAYS out of breath - walking across the room for water, in the everlong bathroom line, and she couldn't even get in the "push" position or the support thing with her partner. Crazy. And she was first in line for the fried chicken tenders one of our classmates brought in for all of us today (he owns the local chicken place). And I saw a big ole Coke in her bag. Honestly, it just seems like if you're in that bad a shape a)how are you going to survive labor and b) wouldn't you want to make some changes once you found out you were pregnant?

Anyway, it was quite the weekend and we'll be back tomorrow for our next doctor's appointment! We are really becoming hospital regs.

And can I just say it is SO good to see Kiefer back as Jack Bauer on 24!!!!!!

Updates

Hey everyone! Everything's good here, still preggo and as big as a house. Or at least big enough that I get stared at at the gym and gawked at and questioned pretty much everywhere I go. And yup, I'm still hitting the gym. I go about 3 days a week and walk 2 miles, plus the mile I walk each afternoon with a coworker. I figure 3 miles a day of exercise pretty good for someone just 10 weeks away from her due date!

I feel pretty good, I can't complain. My only "issue" is an achy back by the end of the day, but Brent's always willing to rub it and if that's my only complaint I don't consider it much of one compared to what a lot of people have! We've gotten a lot done on the nursery (pics on private blog) and the whole house is really starting to come along, majorly due to Brent working around the clock on it!

Honestly, I don't have a lot to say here, most of what I have going on belongs on my more "private place" so that's where I hang out these days for the most part, and over on some other sites where most of us are friends anyway!

But, I did have to share a pic of one thing we got babygirl last weekend:
Baby's first Cowboy Boot(ies)! Every Nashville baby needs a pair! =)

Happy almost weekend!

Chili Time!

Hey everyone! I can't believe the weekend is already escaping us! It's been an insanely fast and busy one around here, and we've hardly gotten anything knocked off our to-do list.

We had a ton of errands to run Friday night, one of them being getting me some winter maternity clothes (aka sweaters). I'd been hoping for loads of global warming (temporary, of course) but with just under 12 weeks to go, there's no way I could escape without buying a few sweaters. I've been lucky getting a lot of markdowns on summer stuff, and we did go to the Motherhood outlet so I was able to get a couple of things on discount. I think you should get a clothing shower when you tell people you're pregnant! We also had to hit up the Gymboree outlet while we were there, too! We got a great deal on a little winter coat for BabyGirl, so that was a huge win-win.

Saturday we needed to get some replenishment prints for the art show Brent's currently in (he sold nine things last weekend!!), and long story short we were there a long time because the files crashed the computer. I got some shopping done at Target and other NashvilleWest places, but by the time we got the prints, had some lunch, went to the gallery to change up his wall, etc it was about 3 before we got home to get started on our weekend housework! Brent got some drywall and other stuff done before we went across the street for our elementary school's annual fundraiser. This year they had a chili supper. And it was GREAT! Last year was spaghetti, and it was also the weekend we built our awesome new backyard fence! We wolfed down our chili, got dressed back up and headed over to the gallery for the Artrageous event.

I've never seen Artrageous before, and it was quite the spectacle. It's a fundraiser for a charity, and for some $$$ people get to take buses and get liquored up all over town while looking at art. Every year has a theme, and this year was the '30s, so people were dressed in mobster attire, flapper dresses, etc. There were tons of limos (I guess for larger donors), party buses, and other buses outside transporting people in and out all night. I'm not sure what Brent's sales were, but it really wasn't a big art buying crowd - they were really more there to drink and drink and drink, and no one wanted to buy anything they'd have to take around with them. But he did talk to several people who liked his stuff, hand out cards, etc. And Nicole and Tom came to the show, so it was nice to see them, too!

We had really wanted to go and take some fall pictures of us this weekend, the leaves are just at their peak and I love fall pics. The plan had been to go to the park yesterday, but the gallery stuff took forever and there just wasn't time, so we decided we'd go today. By next weekend it might be too late, or if there's a ton of rain the trees could be bare. So yeah, it's REALLY cold today. A cold front came through Friday, but the cold air really didn't hit until today. Yesterday's high was prob upper 50's/low 60's, while today's high - in the mid 40's! And really overcast. I DID find the decaf coffee pot at church this am, so that was a huge win! Our class just has regular, but there's this whole massive coffee area with about 6 different types of regular and flavored coffees, as well as juice and milk for the kiddos! Huge score! That's the type of thing I love to find when we end up sitting somewhere different and take a new path to the bathroom where I have to wait in line forever for a stall, just me and the old ladies! (One thing though - most places I go if there's a bathroom line people usher me ahead of them - the old church ladies ooh and aahhh about me but NEVER off to let me skip! =) ).

Anyways, we decided to go ahead and do some pics, just in case next weekend turned out to be too late. They turned out great! It's really hard since our photographer is Brent, so we never know if we're both smiling the same way, etc. I'm going to put them together in a slideshow, but the program I have on the lappy to shrink my files to upload size isn't working, so here's one or two for now. (UPDATED: My files were too big, so I'll have to have Brent help me with the resize program, sorry!)

Have a great week!

What's up???

Hey everyone! Is anyone else having a tough time with this time change?? Goodness, I can't stand it being so dark when I leave work! I had my 7 month doc appt Monday, so I left work early. Tuesday I stayed late to work on some of the many things I'm totally slammed on, and I couldn't believe it was pitch black at 5! (I'm not anywhere near a window.) I think it really affects my moods, I basically won't see the sun except for the weekends!

Anyway, Brent and I went and did our civic duty yesterday morning. We got to our precinct at 6:30 and stood outside in the chilly air until they opened at 7. We were about the 15th people in line, so we were outta there by 7:15. Of course my alphabet lady yelled at me for signing my middle name on the line - even though she told me to SIGN THE LINE. Apparently some of my ID methods have my middle name and some don't, and it was a huge issue for her. Whatevs. We didn't even get to take any advantage of all the election day food freebies! I had hoped for a chance to walk down to Starbucks, but I was slammed all day, and then Brent's car battery died on him at work. So, he ended up getting home even later after getting jumped by a coworker, then we had to jump him again after dinner so he could go buy a new battery. I was hoping we could go to Ben & Jerry's for evening free ice cream, but that was no dice too thanks to the battery! BUT, once it was all resolved Brent did stop at Ugly Mugs on his way home and get some lovely decaf. Actually, it was such a slow and sleepy night in the 'hood with everyone watching the elections they didn't even have any decaf made so they did a decaf Cafe Americana for us at the same price. Sweet! (I SO missed my Ugly Mugs fix while we were in California! I've become some sort of coffee purist to their Drews Brews brand that everything we had in Cali was like brown water.)

Hmm.....did I even have a point in posting today? It's been such a busy week at work and with other things going on. Tomorrow I get to spend most of the day out "shopping" with coworkers, checking out our competition and getting some ideas to help our business be more efficient, so that should be fun! It's always nice to spend a day outside the office and we've had a lot of good, fresh new ideas lately. If this crap economy will just turn around I think we'll be in great financial shape as a company. I know we won't get bonuses this year, but hopefully we can blow some budgets out next year.

Brent did great at his art show last weekend. We know he sold at least 5 pieces, and he's the only one who sold anything from the show. So, yay! I've got to go and check what he still has there before this weekend - it's another big Sat night in the art world here with a lot of traffic coming through the gallery. Hopefully we can also take some pics at the park this weekend while the leaves are at their peak. And maybe finish up the work in the nursery so we can start putting together the crib and arranging the room. Only 12 1/2 more weeks to go!

OH, and does anyone have any experience with ClearWire? I'd like a cheaper alternative to Comcast. I'm sick to death of paying $114 a month for internet + basic cable (seriously, we don't have any movie channels or even the digital package. Just BASIC cable). I'm all about eliminating the waste from our budget, and considering we watch maybe 1 hour of TV a day, if that, our cable bill is probably first in line. The review I've read online of ClearWire make them sound horrible, so they don't sound like a good option, but if anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear them!

Have a great night!

Bored?

Bored tonight? Come out to the SNAP's annual pushpin show! It's photography! It's cheap! It's cash and carry! Take home some of Brent's great stuff! We'll be there around 8:ish. Press release below:

Group presents annual Pushpin/Clothespin Show

The Society of Nashville Artistic Photographers (SNAP) presents the fourth annual Pushpin/Clothespin Show at the Plowhaus Gallery, located on the second floor of the Tennessee Art League building at 808 Broadway.

This gallery show will feature the work of 21 SNAP members who range from commercial and exhibition photographers to high-end amateurs.

The show will exhibit unframed pieces that are available for purchase. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1. The exhibit will be open the following two Saturdays, Nov. 8 and 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Exhibitors include Eric Denton, Stefan Engstrom, Denny Adcock, Emily Naff, Nick Dantona, Shelly Santana, Kay Ramming, Jerry Atnip, Rebekah Pope, Barry Noland, Zak Willis, Wendy Whittemore, John Brassil, Jim Bruner, Jerry Park, Laura Carpenter, Brent Spears, Martha Smith, Erika Johnson, Pierre Vreyen and Al Levenson. Images range from traditional photo prints to archival inkjet prints to platinum/palladium prints.