Uninspired

So, I am about 6 weeks away from meeting my little girl… Yay! I can’t wait to see her Daddy holding her. We are in the process of packing a bag for the hospital, figuring out how that car seat straps into the back seat, and finalizing our birth plan. I’m now visiting the doc every week. So far, so good!

One dilemma I’m up against tonight (and often, lately) is lack of inspiration to cook. Planning, gathering, and creating meals is just not flowing out of me lately!! Just going to the grocery store is exhausting. My old secret weapon, allrecipes.com, is even failing to light my flame of culinary creativity. (Sigh)

Sweet Benjamin has been very understanding and appreciative of the spotty instances of a well-thought-out meal… I eat lots of fruit, yogurt, cheese and such. (Smoothies… mmm) We enjoy eating out, but it’s too expensive to become habit, and so we are often left to add small things up and call it “dinner.”

I hope this cooking rut disappears when I have a little munchkin in the Moby Wrap to “help” me!

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Poor Penny

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Our poor Penny ripped her left pinky toe nail right off the quick two weeks ago by stepping just on the edge of where our tile is raised an inch from the wood laminate flooring. Sweet thing made an awful yelp, and we took her to Dr. Campbell at The Parmer Lane Pet Hospital to take care of her.

They were very kind and love Penny, (how can you not?) ; ) and after cutting her dead nail off and bandaging her paw, we were sent home again with pain pills and antibiotics. She was very depressed, but we thought she was healing well, until today… This afternoon she ripped the nail remains up, tripping during a car ride, and we’ll be bringing her back in for another painful nail trim tomorrow. : (

She pouts in her crate for hours at a time now, and checks her toe every three steps she takes outside. I sure hope she will be more comfortable after her vet visit tomorrow. It’s hard to watch her hurting. Makes me so thankful that she is otherwise very heathy.

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Baby Shower for Hannah!

Sunday afternoon was such a blessing to me as a brand new mommy!! Some of my friends put lots of love and effort into gathering others to celebrate our new baby girl alongside me. :  ) Thank you so much to each of you who contributed time, resources, love, creativity, prayers, advice, and your company!!

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Check out these awesome cakes!! The one on the left was made by the lovely and talented Tiffany P, who patterned the icing decor after one of the quilt blocks I am putting together for Hannah’s quilt! Carrot cake… mmmm!

The one on the right was made by the lovely and talented Kathy W, who used diapers, blankets, hair bows, and baby socks to create a sweet diaper cake for Hannah to use for the months to come! What a creative and practical idea!

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Here I am with Gramma Shelley and Gramma Deonne, proud and excited to be the grand-mommies!

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Hannahgirl, even though we haven’t met you yet, you sure have lots of folks who love you already!!

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8 Months Pregnant!

I can’t believe I’ve been growing this little girl for 8 whole months! We didn’t get to the belly pic today, but I promise to post one in the next few days.

Penny and Hannah were cracking me up tonight as they “fought” over the top of my belly! Penny decided she had found a good pillow, and Hannah kept kicking her! These girls are going to have to learn to SHARE…

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Kristi Time!

You could say it all started at Chick Fil A…. Kristi and I met at Texas A&M and wound up in the same pointless Human Geography class. Igor (as we nick-named our professor) rarely covered anything during class time needed for successful test-taking. (I think attendance must have counted for something, otherwise I don’t think anyone would’ve been coming!)

Anyway, Kristi and I took turns influencing the other to spend our Human Geography class time out on a grassy knoll on campus, enjoying Chick Fil A and laughing together. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship! : )

Well, we’re big girls now… Kristi was one of my bridesmaids a few years ago and she is full time staff with Campus Crusade for Christ in another country. She went for 2 years and has decided that God is asking her to live her life for now overseas. Kristi left this morning from Houston at 6:30 am for the other side of the world, with everything she owns in 3 large bags and 2 “carry-on’s.”

I went to visit my sweet friend before she left this week, and we packed in as many giggles as we could as we packed 70lb duffle bags and ran errands together. One super fun thing we found while we were out were my hospital pajamas for giving birth and a “going home” outfit for Hannah that match! A part of Kristi will be there after all, even though she’s far away!

Here we are at our roots:

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Kristi discovered the fake belly pillows at a maternity shop that you can strap around your waist to try things on in the dressing room: I think she’s pretty cute preggy! : )

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She had to take one with Hannah… ONLY Hannah : ) (Hannah and Kristi have a special connection: My baby girl did all her tricks just for Kristi to feel – hiccups, the “kick and scrape across mom’s belly” trick, and just general squirming)

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Thank you Lord for leading my friend so clearly, and for the time we had together this week!

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So, I turned 26 on August 5th and my sweet friends and family made me feel so special! Benjamin cooperated with a surprise party conspiracy for me at PF Chang… Here is my face of shock when I saw 6 of my girlfriends waiting for us around a big table:

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Jenn and Cadence, Rachael, Kara, Aryn, Katherine, and Noell came to share my “Great Wall of Chocolate Cake!”

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The name of this cake seems appropriate… I was so glad to share!

26rachRach, Hannah and me just after the sun went down.

26noellNoell and I marveling at how much fun we had!

A few days later, my parents came back into town and took me out for Maudie’s queso and amazing Key Lime Pie from California Pizza Kitchen!! What a tasty birthday!!!

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Okay, so my sweet friend Jenn passed on her Snoogle pregnancy pillow to me. She said she bought it during her pregnancy, hoping it would change her life. Jenn was blessed with restful sleep with only bladder wake up calls… But this weird looking pillow made a huge difference for me over night!

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Now you know I’m not selling anything, but friends – the Snoogle pillow changed my preggy uncomfortable-in-any-position-at-night life!! Thank you Lord for inspiring someone to invent this : )

Now if I can just convince Hannah to do her keep-mommy-awake aerobics any time between 8am and 9pm only…

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7 Months!

Today I am officially 7 months pregnant! I’m not sure how much longer I’ll want to put these pictures on the blog… This little girl is making my white belly so big  : )

I can’t wait to kiss my Hannah in October!

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So I was at a friend’s birthday party in Houston when a fellow Blogger-Mom told me about Blurb.com

This way-cool website is a way to turn your blog posts into a photography book! You just download the free App called BookSmart they have on their site, and then upload your applicable blog posts directly into a template or custom book format!

They have lots of options on page sizes and a hard cover vs. soft cover choice so you spend only as much money as you want to when you order it. How neat! When Laura showed me her beautiful hard cover baby book, I thought it must have been something like $100 to have made, but she only paid $30!

For all you photographers, your photos don’t have to be in a blog already. I’d like to see a few of my talented friends and family publish a book of your snapshots… cha ching! : )

I am so excited to have this fun motivation to blog regularly about Baby Hannah! I’ve had a terrible time finding a baby book that I’m happy with, and now I can make my own : ) How cool!

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