In through the nose, out through the mouth..

Ok. This is a big step for me.. We don’t have a full-length mirror, so I never see my profile. This means, any time I do see my profile I’m like, “What the…?!?” (No there are no curse words in there.. the phrase actually ends with the word ‘the’ when I say it.. I didn’t want you to worry) My belly doesn’t look quite so big when you just look down on it (my view all the live-long day), but when you see it from the side.. whoa.

So, If you look at this picture and think, “ooooooooooo man.. she is ginormous,” just don’t tell me.. mkay? I just recently became comfortable with the thought of actually needing to wear maternity clothes, so I may need a week or two to come to grips with the cause for that need to wear maternity clothes.

Ok, so here’s belly shot from somewhere between 13 and 14 weeks..


I know.. my outfit is pretty classy.

And here’s where we are now, somewhere between 20 and 21 weeks..


Just imagine I am going “Naaaa Naaaaaaaa!” (like an extended tada with ‘n’s) while you look at it because that is what I was doing. And don’t mind the crazy hair.. need I remind you I live in a very moist climate, leading to very frizzy hair? It’s like living in the rainforest without the hot.. and without the huge species of everything.. except seagulls. We have huge ones of those.

So, if this makes you take pity on me and my large self, just send me clothes that I will look cute in :)

The end.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, BLUE Fish

It has been b-e-a-utiful here lately! We are getting to the time of year where the amount of sunlight is just perfect. Long, warmly lit (notice I never said warm) evenings and bright mornings. We’re not wading through darkness and we’re not shielding our eyes from the sun at 10pm. It’s pretty great.

Except for the seagull poo. Those things have issues.


I’ve been working away, though not as much in the evenings, which has been fabulous. I feel a lot less like a crazy person now too. They aren’t joking when they talk about pregnancy hormones and all the crazy things they do to you. AND, my eye has stopped twitching – close your eyes and say it with me... yesssssssssss!

And (drumroll please…) we had our 20 week scan today! Hooray! Everything looks very healthy and we even got to watch the baby do some acrobatics – quite the performer :) We got a picture, but Baby was pretty squirmy so it’s a little blurred. But it was AMAZING. We saw its little fingers, its little feet, its brain and watched its heart pumping away.. We saw its cute little face, and just LOVED watching it move around in there. Here’s the picture for you..


Can you tell if it’s a boy or girl?? Yeah.. we can’t either. Fortunately, the midwife stares at babies all day long and she said she was as sure as she could be that he is a he! So we’re going with that :) I told Ian I’m going to have to get a lot more mature before he’s born :)

You can see pretty clearly all the parts, and I’ll let you decide who his blurry face looks like most :) It was so cute though because when she took this picture he was totally chillin out in there, arms up by his head, both feet up resting on the opposite wall of the uterus, one of them a little higher than the other. That is a little arm and hand up there by his cheek, but sadly you can’t see the feetsies. We were both just stunned at the clarity of everything we could see.

I haven’t had a lot of time to contemplate this change that is coming, but I know time for that will come, and that the Lord is preparing both of us with each day that passes for this new adventure. We are beyond grateful for this opportunity to shepherd a child (or two or six or eighteen..) for however many years the Lord blesses us with. We certainly have had no shortage of love for our little guy thus far, and I can only imagine what that will be like when he is here on the outside with us. Praise the Lord!

I spy with my twitchy eye…

A man walking in front of me. I notice him because he is wearing bright green corduroy pants and funny shoes. He also has a big poofy brown jacket. I look at his bright green corduroy pants and wonder what it’s like to look at a pair of those in the store and think.. ‘Yeah.. Those are going to look niiiiiiiiiiiiice..’

Suddenly another man walks out of a store right next to the first man and he is wearing brown corduroy pants with a poofy green jacket.

I laugh in amazement (on the inside, of course.. that would just be rude) at the unlikelihood of this event as I watch them walk next to each other for a short while until the second man makes a turn.

And all I could think was, ‘Well. You don’t see that everyday now do you.’



In other news.. my right eye twitches ALL the time. Sometimes my left eye joins the party too, then I really start to go crazy.



In even MORE exciting news, we have a wiggling bambino! Our little baby is just a-dancin’ around in there and it’s moves are so good I can feel them! I think the baby has inherited Ian’s mad dancing skeeeeeelz..



Now. I have a question for you.

Do you want to smile a little? Do you want to maybe even giggle? Because let me tell you.. If you go here and wait for the background music to stop (it will, don’t worry.. or you can pause it if you’re that savvy) and press play, your heart will fill with joy! My nephew has some crazy skeeeeeelz! I love him :)

Sometimes Violent Action Seems Appropriate

Like when you are determined not to go an entire month without posting, so you spend several hours of your precious few free hours on Saturday (even though you really should've been working) writing not one, not two, but THREE blog posts to put up at random points during the week, getting pictures all ready and organizing everything so the rest of the world that is actually interested will know what you've been doing with yourselves for the past month.

So everything is ready, but you think 'Oh, I've wasted so much time I'll do some work and then post these...' and you just can't, I mean can't and no one knows why, bring yourself to save them. There's something in you that just needs more closure before you save them. (and now, looking back on the hesitancy, you begin to wonder about your mental health)

So you temporarily move on with your life, forcing your computer to have every application that you need open while working on a graphic-intensive magazine that it can barely handle, as well as three unsaved blog posts that you forget about.

Then. It happens.

Everything freezes.

Being your optimistic self, you think, 'Oh well, all the programs have automatic recovery.. no freaking out necessary.'

So you dutifully turn off your computer, give it a wee break, and turn it back on and begin opening the two most important programs.

And then one of those programs, Word, quits. So you try again, it quits again. Over and over. So you try a few other things and finally get it to open.. Ahhh there they are, all the blood sweat and tears I put into those three blog posts was totally worth it.

So you immediately start to save them.

And then Word quits.

And they are lost forever.

And you try not to cry.

And you consider chucking your computer out the window to wallow in its worthlessness in a puddle out on the rainy street.

Then you curse Microsoft for making such a soul crushing program as Word that just won't ever do what you want it to do anyway.

And you blow lots of other things out of proportion, lamenting your stressful life and trying to remind yourself of all the real suffering that happens every day in the rest of the world.

Your husband laments with you, but that won't bring them back. But in your unfamiliar, pregnant state.. you are defeated. And can't bring yourself to write them again. So you promise yourself and your husband that you will never, never rewrite those posts, they have taken too much from you already and you will not give them any more! (because it's important to be dramatic at times like these)

To which your husband replies, 'It's ok, I'll write them.'

And you will be overjoyed if that actually happens.

Until then, you (being the readers) will never know what went on in the last month.. Except for last Saturday. I guess you sort of know about that now.

I am 16 weeks pregnant tomorrow. My due date is August 23, but I have this feeling it's going to seriously sneak up on me. We have to move to a new flat less than three weeks before my due date. We don't know where that flat will be. I'm in denial about a lot of things (weight gain.. maternity clothes.. you know, buying, like, pacifiers and onesies and stuff.. the fact that an infant is going to live with us in a few months.. etc.). We are freaking excited and freaking out. I am experiencing lots of crazy things all the time and we are moving into our parenting roles well by worrying and trying not to worry all the time. My next scan is April 8th and it can't come soon enough! I'm ready to slap a gender on this baby and figure out some names! Oh, sometimes I'm in denial that it's even really a baby.. and that it's in me.. Does anyone else think this is just ever so slightly weird?

Ok, I've spent enough time on this post. I better quit while I'm ahead.. you know, before everything freezes and I lose my sanity..