When Bad Pictures Happen to Good People

I somehow convinced Steve to take some "belly pictures" this weekend. Since I'm a documented control-freak, I'm impressed and amazed that he didn't laugh in my face and run away. Instead, he smiled, found the tripod, and submitted to wardrobe changes. I'm telling you, people, I married up.

This one goes in our "oops" category because we basically forgot to include Bella in the process at all. No cute outfits; no charming poses. We just forgot. The fact that she has the attention span of a squirrel and we were taking these pictures ourselves may have influenced our subconcious.

I've seen this picture done a bunch by other people. Our problem? It was raining too hard to go outside, and we're zoomed in too far to see my pregnant belly. We will definitely be begging Mel to retake this pose at some point.

Just. Plain. Wrong. This is Bella's impression of Mama's bare belly pose. I can't even look at it for too long without getting a little nauseous.

When you set your camera's timer for 10 seconds, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the toddler for at least 7 of those seconds. Otherwise, this happens...

This shot pretty much sums up our relationship: I have unrealistic expectations of what should be happening, and Bella is gagging! Okay, I'm kidding. She's a really fun kid 70% of the time.

I promise to post some of the "real" (meaning: edited) pictures this week! In the meantime, let this be a mental note for what not to do in your maternity pictures.

Girls Rule; Boys Drool

Once again, God has proven His wonderful timing (and sense of humor). This week, I found out from a friend of mine that she is having a boy. You will remember my lovely, embarrassing, sobbing meltdown in my doctor's office a few months ago when we discovered we were having a girl. At the time, I wanted a boy sooooooooooo badly!

I'm pretty sure Target's line of boy clothes, alone, had me convinced that boys are simply cooler. Not to mention, two of my friends, Whitney and Janna, have multiple boys, and they are some of the awesomest moms I know. They're just very laid back women. I mean actually laid back; not the "I swear I'm low-maintenance" vibe that I try to pull off while a mini-Martha Stewart is screaming in the back of my head.

All that to say, I'm pretty sure every, single pregnant woman I know is having a boy. I'm serious. I can name six right now. I don't know if they drank special water or what, but Evie is not going to have much female competition in our nursery this summer.

Don't get me wrong; I am now firmly on the "team girl" bandwagon. Our nursery is done, our little human #2 has a name that we love, and we already have a ba-jeezees amount of girl clothes. I also know that God chose a little girl for us. Plus, along the whole line of God's sense of humor, I'm pretty sure He owes me a few girls.

I was the over-dramatic teenage girl who wrote in her diary that parents were unfair and stupid, and cried while listening to Brian Adams' songs. I was convinced that braces would keep me from finding a homecoming date, and when I was 14 (14!!!), I told my mom that I was going to marry the 18 year-old boy that I had a crush on. I was dead-serious, and it's to her amazing credit that my mother didn't laugh out loud in front of me. Kudos, mom, kudos.

Pair that with the fact that I grew up with an older sister who thought much more about which boy she could annihilate in basketball rather than which one was the cutest, and you can see why God is chuckling over the fact that I will be raising (at least) two of these wonderful little bundles of joy who will one day become teenage girls themselves.

I'd like to think that my patient, calm, amazing husband has mellowed me significantly; hopefully that will serve me well over the next eighteen year. And while I have no doubt that God will truly see us through whatever those adolescent and teen years dish out to us, I'm also pretty sure that He and my mother are going to be smiling the whole way.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day! It's never been a day of extravagant gifts for us; we like the sweet side of it - having Bella pick out a card for Steve, getting a single rose - that kind of stuff. Last night, I came home from our church's Missions Study to find a vase with pink roses and a card from Steve. He also bought a rose and a butterfly card for Bella. She loved it!

Bella had a party at preschool that I really wanted her to go to, but she has another cold and cough (an unexpected joy of preschool), so we decided not to infect all of the other kids. We surprised Mel at her work and brought her a card and tulips! We also brought chocolate cupcakes to her front office staff. Then we took a field trip downtown and surprised Daddy with a card and a visit from his girls!

Tonight will be a "fancy" dinner at home...Bella will still be awake, but we're eating on our nice china and lighting candles. If toddlers have taught us anything, it's how to adapt.

Rex brought Bella and I valentines from Toy Story this morning, and they came with fake tattoos; Bella's is Rex, the dinosaur, and mine is Woody and Bullseye.

We didn't go to preschool, but we still got to wear Grandma's special Valentine's outfit!

Drawing a Valentine's picture for Mama!

Some of our "loot" from our day: a special card from Bella, my card from Mel, and Bella's card from Daddy.

Bella's Posse

Bella's group of close friends and associates has grown considerably over the last few weeks. Between Christmas, Valentine's Day, and a visit to the Disney store, Bella is well-stocked with play and nighttime buddies. I not-so-secretly love that she is equally attached to her dolls, animals, and Buzz. I figure we'll have plenty of years filled with doll-mania!

Her new posse: stuffed giraffe from Christmas, Princess Tiana, Mater and McQueen from Grandma Wires' Valentine's box, plastic safari animals, a Peruvian Barbie from Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Ben that we named "Maria" (I know, not very original of us), and, of course, a Buzz Lightyear!

How cute is Baby Tiana??? Whitney and all of the wonderful Sappling children gave Bella a Disney Store gift card for her birthday last year, and I finally got a chance to visit the store without Bella! I could have bought her one of everything in that store! The Disney princesses, especially, were all so cute!

"Don't mess with my peeps!"

Imagine all of these in bed with her! It was so funny to check on her last night and see her half-buried under her loot. I've always heard stories about kids who sleep with a ton of animals, I just wish hers were all soft and stuffed!

Our First Fire Of Winter

It has been unbelievably warm here for winter, especially for February, but today we actually had temperatures in the 30's and a lot wind! We decided it was a good afternoon for a fire, so Steve started setting everything up. Of course, with anything new and forbidden, Bella was fascinated! She definitely wanted to "help" the entire time that Steve was cleaning out the fireplace, setting up the logs, and opening the flue. It was good fun to watch him work and be extremely patient at the same time. We now have a cozy fire for the first time all winter!

Watching Daddy clean out the fireplace and asking, "Bella help? Bella do it?"

Making sure Daddy did it right.

Bella was so proud to help Daddy carry in logs from the garage!

She was trying to get as low as possible while Steve was lighting the fire logs. We had to have a very serious talk about no toys or fingers in the fire.

Papa And Mimi's Visit

Last weekend, and the week before, we had my mom and dad and Rachel here for a whole week! Mel and Steve still had their normal work schedules, so we all spent a lot of time doing "normal" things: they got a ton of playtime with Bella, dad did some odd jobs around the house, and we ate a bunch of food! I've been getting better with planning menus and making real food instead of rotating grilled cheese and hot dogs. It was fun to use them as guinea pigs for recipes.

Reading with Papa

Playing with Mimi, and getting to snack on french fries. The bribing works both ways - we get kisses from Bella and she gets junk food.

Sneaking kisses while sharing marshmallows!

Pregnant Women Are Smug

There's a YouTube video that I've seen a few times called "Pregnant Women are Smug." Minus a swear word, it's actually really funny! I'm sure I've had moments of being a smug pregnant woman, but I firmly believe I have a defense. Here's why...

Five Reasons I Occasionally Seem To Be A Smug Pregnant Woman:

1. The smug appearance is really just a permanent daze from being woken up by an almost-three-year old at 12:30 AM, cheerfully exclaiming, "All done naps!" And again at 2:00 AM, 4:15 AM, and 6:30 AM. After that, you just give up and let her play Angry Birds on your iPhone.

2. I'm in denial that it will be years before I even care to wear stilettos and pencil skirts. I love my high heels. I mourn the pencil skirts stuffed in the back of my closet. But knowing you'll have to chase a toddler around the church parking lot to make sure she doesn't get hit by a car or cause any variety of disasters tends to make one lean towards jeans and ballet flats.

3. It's really hard not to think you're the woman when you are able to carry a toddler in your arms, hold another one by the hand, find your coupons/money/store card for the checkout girl, and push the cart out the door - all while balancing an extra 30 pounds around your waist. I mean c'mon, give a girl some credit!

4. If I don't occasionally think I am super-woman/super-mom, I may have to think about all of the OTHER things I'm not doing "right": feeding my daughter a cornbread muffin and chocolate cupcake for dinner and not thinking it's a big deal, forgetting to exercise no matter how important my midwife keeps telling me it is, losing my temper when I should calmly be reading my daughter a Bible verse and then placing her in time-out, not drinking enough water, forgetting to make more homemade laundry detergent yet, and well, you get the picture...

5. In all fairness, I did push a live human being out of my body after keeping it alive for ten months with nothing but my bodily fluids. I think that should earn me some bonus points.

So, to all you single girls out there: you get stilettos, margaritas, total freedom, and the ability to sleep past 6:00 AM on Saturday mornings. Please excuse my occasional smugness; I'm just amazed I'm still awake and remembered to put on underwear before going out in public.