Your Help is Needed!

alright, the mister and i have decided (last minute) to have one "last" great date this weekend, knowing that a)this baby will probably show up early and b)we won't get a date for quite some time once she's here

here's the trouble...my brain has completely stopped working! i can't come up with much more than the cliche dinner and a movie...but i feel like this date should be so much more than that, given what it represents!

so, let me see your creative brains at work! help me out! i'll owe you one!

in fact, if you come up with the winning idea, you'll get a picture of the new little bundle before anyone else (family excluded) and can option it out to celebrity gossip mags and websites and make MILLIONS. that should be sufficient incentive!

the most beautiful part of pregnancy

"Guess how much I love you," he said.
"Oh, I don't think I could guess that," said Big Nutbrown Hare.
"This much," said Little Nutbrown Hare, stretching out his arms as wide as they could go.
Big Nutbrown Hare had even longer arms. "But I love YOU this much," he said.
Hmm, that is a lot, thought Little Nutbrown Hare.
"I love you as high as I can reach." said Little Nutbrown Hare.
"I love you as high as I can reach," said Big Nutbrown Hare.
That is quite high, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. I wish I had arms like that.
Then Little Nutbrown Hare had a good idea. He tumbled upside down and reached up the tree trunk with his feet.
"I love you all the way up to my toes!" he said.
"And I love you all the way up to your toes," said Big Nutbrown Hare, swinging him up over his head.
"I love you as high as I can HOP!" laughed Little Nutbrown Hare, bouncing up and down.
"But I love you as high as I can hop," smiled Big Nutbrown Hare - and he hopped so high that his ears touched the branches above.
That's good hopping, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. I wish I could hop like that.
"I love you all the way down the lane as far as the river," cried Little Nutbrown Hare.
"I love you across the river and over the hills," said Big Nutbrown Hare.
That's very far, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. He was almost too sleepy to think any more. Then he looked beyond the thorn bushes, out into the big dark night. Nothing could be further than the sky.
"I love you right up to the MOON," he said, and closed his eyes.
"Oh, that's far," said Big Nutbrown Hare. "That is very, very far."
Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves. He leaned over and kissed him good night.
Then he lay down close by and whispered with a smile, "I love you right up to the moon - AND BACK."

i'll admit it

i've started missing my blogmunity and all the interactions. so i'm posting a renewed commitment to get back to regularly reading all my friends' blogs, and regularly posting on mine. if there were a blog alter call (blalter call?) i'd come forward and cry a little. take it for what it's worth.

also, i'm stoked to announce that the mister and i recently celebrated our 3rd anniversary. i'm even stokeder to announce that, after three years, i'm seriously head over heels for this guy, and i've got a hunch he'd say the same thing (in his own, less dramatic kind of way). life is goooooood. nah. God is gooooooood. here's a few pics of us, just to prove that he exists (sometimes i think people assume i'm making him up.)





speaking of celebrations, we went to a wedding yesterday. it was GORGEOUS and wonderful, so please don't think that the following is directly related. during the wedding, one of my favorite friends (that's you rlew!) and i started sharing stories about the WORST music we've heard used at weddings. and i said to rebecca, "that would make a great blog! let's ask everyone to tell us the worst music they've heard at a wedding!"

so here i am, asking YOU, dear friend. what horrifying/cheesy/cliche music have you heard at a wedding? some of our favorites from our conversation yesterday:

Wind beneath my wings
you raise me up
anything by twila paris

ready? set? surprise us!

i'm completely useless

after months of ignoring my blog, i'm feeling compelled towards a gushing "dear diary" experience. i didn't know where else to turn.

the last 24 hours have convinced me that i am completely useless. seriously.

let's start with my trip to the grocery store where i hit an 80 year old nun with my cart. you read that right...i hit an old nun with my shopping cart. ran right into the poor dear. thankfully i burst into tears and she noticed my ever ballooning pregnant belly, and had mercy on me. when you hit a nun, is that instant damnation? who hits a nun?

then, i decided to brave the unknown...the crock pot. see, we just spent a few days with the mister's family in washington. you may or may not remember how they're basically perfect in every way, including being as humble as you can imagine. not to mention the added bonus that the sister in law is also pregnant, due 3 weeks after i am. and while i'm handling pregnancy well enough and don't yet look like a complete oily elephant, she is FLAWLESSLY pregnant...she is the pregnant women dream of, she is what men actually mean when they secretly want a wife to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. next to her i not only LOOK horrid, but i seem like a total mess. she's up at the crack of dawn baking and cleaning and planning meals for the whole family. she could not be more fabulous. which of course makes me feel like a sloppy disaster.

oh, here's the point of all of that. while we were visiting, she made "the easiest meal ever" that everyone went gaga over. it was a crockpot meal...which i keep hearing are a working woman's best friend...people have been trying to tell me since i got married that the crockpot would be my favorite thing. but i've never bothered trying it out. well, after such a delicious meal that she swore took "maybe 6 minutes" i figured it was time to give it a go.

i thought today would be a great day to try...a good holiday meal with no work involved or added oven heat...seems perfect. and i'm telling you, i followed the directions to a tee...and it's not like, oops, i forgot to plug it in or turn it on or something. i did everything exactly as indicated. i can honestly find no mistakes on my part.

8 hours later, all excited and having made a big huge deal of it to the mister, we sit down for a hearty meal to celebrate our freedom...and it's dreadful. i mean, really and horribly dreadful. how potatoes can be CRUNCHY after 8 hours in a crockpot is beyond me. if there was an award for worst 4th of july meal, i'd have it on my shelf as we speak.

again, i immediately burst into tears. apparently it's my new favorite thing. so much so that i now carry mini kleenex in my purse. at first i tried to convince myself it was just raging pregnancy hormones. but after awhile, you just can't keep turning to that excuse every time you smash into a lady of the cloth. i mean, clutzy is one thing...this is something else altogether.

my biggest fear? lots of moms keep telling me how "it just gets worse" after you have the baby. apparently, you can never be smart or organized or clean or a good cook. (unless you're rebeccamarie. somehow she beat the system)

it just feels like life itself is set against my success and hapiness these days. the cruel thing is that my DESIRE to cook has basically tripled. so maybe that's it? my cooking abilities were only sufficient for the amount of desire i previously had to actually cook...now that same amount of ability is forced to be spread out among three times as much desire?

aren't i supposed to be glowing and giddy and feeling miraculous by now?

pregnancy is "sacred"

i think it's not any small coincidence that "sacred" and "scared" are basically the same word, like one little typo...

i'm 5 months pregnant now. it's so strange that it still feels really brand new...i'm not at all used to it yet. perhaps that's because it's NEVER the same. nothing has been predictable for me. here's what my week has been like:

those are the only pics i could get that didn't include any amount of girlie parts...you get the idea. my entire chest/stomach have been covered in those electrode probe thingies...each connected to it's own colorful wire. i felt like science.

apparently, my heart is not doing such a great job of adjusting to creating life. my heart's been racing and skipping beats like mad...very alarming. so i was in and out of the hospital this week. once my heart finally calmed down, i got slammed with a ridiculous cold/flu/misery type thing. here's something you never thought you'd hear me say...i'm sick of cable television. i'm dying for some human contact. like, real reality...not just my beloved reality tv.

on the upside: we find out monday if the baby has a penis or a vagina. that's right. and i'm definately excited.

there's the update. seems like blogland has been quiet for awhile, and that's fine. if nothing else, i know my mom still reads my blog!