A Haircut for Colin

I finally broke down and cut my baby's hair this week. It's been getting out of control lately, so one afternoon out came the scissors, water bottle, and comb. I'm definitely not a professional and I wasn't overly ambitious (I still wanted to keep some length) so we went with a monk/Beatles bowl cut. At least I think its kind of cute LOL. Colin, being male, could care less.

Doctor's Appointment

On Tuesday was another doctor's appointment and ultrasound - we hit the 6 months mark this week! All of the sudden the "honeymoon" phase of pregnancy is over - I'm feeling very uncomfortable, tight, and unable to breathe. So, although I'm definitely not ready to meet this little babe yet, May seems SO far away. Indeed the baby is still emphatically a girl (whew!) and she was very stubborn during the ultrasound so it took a while to get the necessary pictures of her cord, abdomen, and heart, but everything looks good. My next appointment is scheduled for February 13th. I've included a very poorly lit picture of me, but it's the only one I have, so at least you can see my new haircut. I also have, more importantly, an u/s pic of Cecily. You can see her forehead, nose, and lips, with yet again a hand above her face.

So Cute

Okay, I know I'm going way overboard, but I can't help it. Look at the swing we bought for the baby this past weekend. Isn't it the most adorable thing? We probably could've gotten by with our old swing, but every little girl needs a princessy-looking swing, right? Hopefully she'll use it a lot, is all I can say LOL. We have an ultrasound to see Cecily again tomorrow, which I'm very much looking forward to. Oh, and tomorrow's the Inauguration, of course, which should be quite exciting. And this is a bit off-topic, but I wanted to share: the message in church on Sunday seemed very timely. It was out of 1st Thessalonians and Pastor Dave spoke about cultivating an attitude of gratitude despite circumstances. I felt that spot-on for these tough times. 1st Thessalonians 5:14-21: We exhort you, brothers, admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all. See that no one returns evil for evil to anyone, but always follow after that which is good, for one another, and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you. Don't quench the Spirit. Don't despise prophecies. Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good.

The Funnest Toy Ever!

I think if you could sum up this picture that would be the conclusion. Colin just wouldn't leave his brother in peace (Ian was trying so hard to play his Leapster) so I opened his very last Christmas present, a motorized racetrack from Grandpa and Grandma. It immediately caught both boys' attention and I snapped this great picture. Even Hero and Allegra thought it was pretty cool and played with it this morning. Well today is Thursday, which means that James will be home from Washington tomorrow evening, hooray! I've made it through another James-less week and it's just about over.

Allegra's Birthday Party

After way too many birthday parties with one or two guests, we finally wised up and decided to hold Allegra's birthday party the first weekend after school restarted. That must have been the magic trick, because we ended up trying to corral 13 kids for a birthday party at Idaho Ice World. It was a tough time, since James had sole responsibility for the kids on the ice (yes, he skated - he's not too bad either) and I had sole responsibility for the boys (Ian skated for about 15 minutes). It might sound as if I got the better end of the deal here, but when you consider that one of those boys is named C-O-L-I-N and he is a holy terror (love you buddy) I'm not so sure. We put on happy faces for Allegra though, and she seemed to have a great time. She was certainly excited to be the birthday girl for a "second" time in less than a month LOL.

Through-the-Bible in a Year

James, Hero, and I committed to reading through the entire bible this year along with other members of Meridian First Baptist church. Hero does it on her own, and she's even more on top of it then the adults are (although she did have to come downstairs one night in the middle of her reading to ask what circumcision meant - oy!). James and I take turns reading out loud, and things got a little punchy when we're behind and trying to catch up on multiple days' reading (luckily James got stuck with Genesis 14 and the all the tongue-twisting king names LOL). We've never done any reading together, so this has been an interesting experience thus far. We're supposed to be reading the Old Testament and New Testament simultaneously but we haven't even started the NT yet, oops. It's good for us to spend more time together and engaged in (mostly) serious study. Pastor Randy has a blog with daily comments on the assigned readings at http://thelordspoke.blogspot.com/

Over Halfway There

I can't believe that this pregnancy is over half done! Here's my most recent picture from Christmas Day - I was 19 weeks exactly. I'm 21 weeks today and I've really grown - I'll have to take a new picture (not to mention the fact that I have a new haircut and color). The baby moves quite frequently now and is starting to show her little personality. We've decided for sure on her first name, which will be Cecily (Ian thought we said Sesame LOL). I have a front-runner for the middle name, but I still have to work on James. ;-) She's moving around a lot, and we get to see her on ultrasound again the week after next, which I always look forward to. I've been buying a few things here and there but we made our first bigger registry purchase today. We had a 15% off coupon to Babies 'R Us, so I told James he could get anything that was on our registry and this is what he brought home tonight. Isn't it just the cutest? Okay, I will admit, I'm going crazy for the baby girl stuff - you'd never think I already had two daughters LOL.