every captive thought

Today Mom, James and I spent the first part of the day shopping for a "coming home from the hospital" outfit for Jude. We found one but we had to order it. I'm excited about it! Let's hope it makes it here before Jude does. This afternoon we had the other side of the courtyard concrete poured. Since I did Jamesies hand prints on the first side, I wanted to do his sweet little foot prints on this side. He was NOT having it. I'm not sure why it upset him so much. As you can see, the first little foot did not turn out so well. I was more prepared for the 2nd one. There are a lot more changes happening around here that I am super excited about. I can't wait to show you the finished product!

Wednesday was my Dad's birthday but we celebrated tonight. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY my sweet Daddy! I love you so much! Mom made a delicious meal and dessert followed by some playtime with Papa. I wanted to get a good picture of Papa and James but this is what happens when you tell a 2 year old to "say cheese" and don't realize he has food in his mouth. After that, the James' relaxed and watched some tv. Nana can always get a big laugh out of James. She knows just how to cheer him up. (She has that charming effect on everyone). I love his laugh! ~~~~~ We are doing some work on our courtyard. It is very exciting. After we had the concrete poured today I stuck Jamesie's hands in it. When we have the other side poured, I will do his feet. While the guys were outside, James was fascinated by all the hard work. He was a little bit disappointed that he couldn't be out there helping. Maybe next time.

Back when I had James I had a bunch of brand new beautiful baby clothes and a major stain phobia. I was a total nazi about whoever was feeding him using a bib and a burp rag and not letting anything get on the new beautiful baby clothes for heavensake. And if anything did get on the sacred clothes, they were immediately removed, spotted, soaked and washed right away if not sooner. Then came the Similac formula that stains like a sonofagun. For reals....it made me crazy. So I usually stripped the poor kid down before feeding him. But as I was unpacking the baby clothes for Jude I saw that a few precious articles of clothing ended up stained with the Similac formula nonetheless. And for me to have just let it go could only mean that I must have been at the end of my mental rope. So a couple of days ago I asked my Mom to get one of the stains out for me because...incontestably...I am inept at stain removal. Being the smart and clever domestic goddess that she is, she googled "...

Today I had an appointment with my ob. I'm 34 weeks and he said that making it 2 more weeks would be good and 4 more weeks would be ideal. James was born at 37 weeks. But I'm huge, swollen, tired, and ready to have a healthy baby. We've pretty much gotten everything ready for Jude. Which has brought on a lot of questions from Jamesie. "It's what?" He has shown a great deal of interest in the baby swing but I didn't think he would do this. I don't know why I was surprised. The child is a monkey. I shouldn't have let him do it but I couldn't resist. I mean, it was his to begin with. He thought it was big fun.

Jamesie was especially thrilled about his new jammies tonight. He was not so especially thrilled about having to do his breathing treatment. But at least he looked good.

Today Brad and I got a lot done on the house. I can even park my car in the garage now! We had a jillion boxes of stuff marked "memorabilia" that needed to be sorted through. In one of my boxes was this baby doll from when I was little. James was a bit perplexed at first...he had never seen a baby doll before. But when I told him what it was he immediately related it to the baby in my belly. James sure liked her. I think he will be a great big brother. However, what we learned from going through all these boxes today is that Brad is surprisingly far more sentimental than I am. He keeps EVERYTHING. But I was glad to get to see some things from his childhood and high school days. Brad also brought in everything that we would need for Jude. James enjoyed the rocking chair. It feels great to get so much done on the house. We are almost done. Mom is coming over tomorrow to help me with Jude's stuff then there is just cleaning and decorating left. Then I can official...

I was reminiscing with my Mom today about how prepared I was for James. I had diapers and wipes stocked up for months. I am just now using the last bottle of baby shampoo I bought...two years later. I had tons of precious outfits all cleaned and ready to go months in advance. I had the car seat professionally installed. I had my hospital bag packed weeks before James was due. I preregistered at the hospital. I had meals made up and put in the freezer. I made sure the cameras were always charged. I made Brad a list of names to call and put it in his wallet. I programmed our doctors number into his cell phone. James' room was painted, decorated and furnished before the end of my 2nd trimester. I wanted everything to be perfect for him and it pretty much was. Here was his sweet little room painstakingly and perfectly painted by his Daddy. And here are James and I the night he was born. Can you believe how tiny??? Me neither. Oh I could just eat him up! Cut to two years la...

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood? In your neighborhood? In your neighborhood? Say, who are the people in your neighborhood? The people that you meet each day. Do you remember this from Sesame Street? I loved this one....and the one where they showed us how crayons were made...oh...and the one where you had to figure out "which one of these isn't like the other...? I wonder if those are still in the mix. James is strictly Baby Einstein so I don't know how they roll on SS these days. Anyways...the people in my neighborhood are awesome! I think we might live on the best street in America. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. I just love it. But most exciting and interesting is how eager everyone is to tell us about the neighbor we've replaced. Very interesting. He was not the sort of guy that should be living on such a lovely street with such lovely neighbors. Besides meeting neighbors today, James had to go to the doctor. The poor little guy still...

So what happened to day 2, 3, and 4? A lot. Here is the stack of boxes before Brad moved them Thursday night. James had a lot of fun playing in the new house while it was still empty. He especially loved playing in the packing paper. You gotta love a kid who can make a game out of anything. Friday, we had part of the kitchen cabinet taken out and cut down to make it fit the new stove. So here's the deal...I hate moving and I hate construction but I love my new house and my new stove, so I'm not complaining. Brad got all of the boxes and not-massive-furniture moved to the new house. He also moved all the stuff from storage except for 3 big things. Saturday morning Brad had to work. Mom and I worked at the new house and James helped (i.e. got in the way). Brad had asked Chris and Miah to help him after he got off work on Saturday and they actually showed up early and had most of the big furniture loaded up before Brad even got home. Those are some good friends to move you...

So today began the big move. First thing this morning the carpet at the new house got good and sparkly cleaned! Love that! Then I had a visit with my ob and good news. The contractions that I've been having have not caused any changes to things that ought not be changed this soon. (I'm sparing my Daddy the details he really doesn't want to know about....you're welcome). After that Mom and I cleaned the new house, Dad watched James, and Brad started moving stuff from the storage. So now we are resting up for another big day tomorrow. Hopefully we will be all snuggled down in our new house by Monday! I can't wait! Here are Nana, James, and Puppy headed towards the new house.

We have a busy busy day ahead but I thought I would show you how my Mom's day started. Yep...another opossum! Brad is outraged at the amount of opossums taking over our side of town and declared that "we need to take a stand!"...against what I don't know. Anyhow, when the animal control worker came to collect the little darling, she found this.... A baby. Oh. My. Gag. And she said there should be 5 more. I can't even begin to describe to you the amount of chill bumps covering my entire body...so creeped out I am. Generally I love all things baby...I've found the exception. And how awesome is this woman? You go girl for being all brave and not scared of the gigantic rodent you are holding. Even if I were wearing a full suit of armor I would not hold that thing...much less with just a measly ol glove. She said that she was going to take it to the southeast side of town and set it free. Ummmm...this is totally NOT what I would do, but unfortunately she di...

So the big move starts tomorrow and will hopefully be done by Monday. But with how hectic everything gets in preparing for a move and packing, I've resorted to child labor. Mommy needs a little help these days due to my limited mobility. Thankfully he loves to clean. Windows are his real specialty but he's glad to help wherever needed.

Tonight was date night with Bean and Lindsay. We ate at Fire Slice ...yum...and then had dessert at OHMS ...yum. However, the real highlight of the night was how head-over-heals-in-love James was with Lindsay. You better watch out Bean...James is moving in on your woman. But for reals, I've never seen James act like this before. He was absolutely smitten. And who could blame him? Lindsay is fabulous. James has good taste. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. And here is my ginormous self at 31 weeks pregnant. Big. Huge. And the reason these belly updates are so few and far between is because I RARELY wear make-up. I mean like, once a week for church. It's bad enough that I expose Brad to such horrors, but I won't...I just can't...expose you to the unpainted barn that I am on a regular basis.

So here is one of my new obsessions...Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure. My Mom told me about it and I rushed right out and got some and I love it. The great thing about it is the brush. It is flat and skinny and the brush part is shaped like a finger nail so you don't get it all over the sides. Now if they only made one with a 3 foot brush on it so that I could reach my toes that would be great.