SNL Palin/Couric Skit

Just a side note before we get to the show, I am voting for McCain and Palin. It was brilliant of McCain to pick a woman running mate. However, I do have a sense of humor and the SNL Palin/Couric skit was hilarious! If you missed it, check it out.

Maternity/Newborn Portraits

I really want maternity and newborn portraits. Finding a photographer for the maternity portraits isn't that difficult. Having these portraits taken seems to be pretty popular. However, the newborn portraits are another story. Most photographers say they prefer to take the pictures within two weeks after the birth to capture the "just born" look. They want the baby to still be curled up and tiny. However, my due date is December 18. You do the math. Those two weeks fall into the holiday season. Either the photographer doesn't book sessions at that time or they charge an entire house payment because it's during their off-hours. UGH!! I'm being punished because my baby is due in December instead of April. If you ever decide to have baby and you want cute newborn pics, make sure you don't concieve during the month of March or else induce early.

Click to Donate

Things aren't always easy right now for many people. The economy isn't doing so great and after the whole Wall Street fiasco it's only getting worse. Our country is at war. Many people know someone who's fighting in it and many others think America is fighting a war we can't win. We're coming up on an election that's going to leave approximately a little less than half of our citizens really upset with the results. Jobs are being sent overseas. Mortgage foreclosures have skyrocketed. Health care is a mess. And let's not even talk about oil/gas prices. Yep, times are tough.

However, if you've managed to log on to a computer and you're able to read this blog post, I'd say you're probably doing better than most. I'm not saying you don't have your bad days. We all have bad days. But honestly, my guess is you're wearing clean clothes (or at least they were clean when you put them on this morning), you've had at least one meal already today, you know where you're going to sleep tonight and you're able to pay for the Internet you're using right now. Not to shabby.

My point is, things aren't as bad they seem. In fact, they could be a lot worse. And if things were worse, wouldn't it be nice to have someone lend you a hand?

I truly believe that no matter how bad things are in my life, there is someone else out there who is even worse off than I am. If things were flipped I would hope that they would help me out any way they could, so shouldn't I return the favor now?

There are many many ways you can help people who need a helping hand and it doesn't always include money or even moving away from your computer. There are hundreds of programs on the World Wide Web that simply involve clicking a button and your click means someone else donates money, time, or goods. A click of a button and your karma goes up.

Two great programs to click on are American Express' Member Projects and Saving Puppies.com.

American Express created a program called Members Projects. Hundreds of people submitted their ideas on ways to make the world a better place. American Express picked 25 projects that the public could vote on as the best project. The winner will receive $1.5 million to carry out their project. All of the 25 finalists have amazing ideas. However, the one that caught my attention was Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children. This project would help feed starving children with ready-to-use food which contains vitamins, nutrients, and calories that the children need to survive. For more information click on the link above and vote for this project. That's all you have to do.

If you read People magazine this week you will read an article about the puppy mills located in the farmlands of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, more puppy mills are found in the state of PA than in other states. While this click of a button isn't about helping people, it is about helping man's best friend. Right now the PA House is working on passing bills that would force puppy mill owners to improve their conditions and end the abuse of their dogs, thereby saving the lives and the livelihood of thousands of dogs and puppies every year. Go to Saving Puppies to sign the petition and to contact legislators in the area to support the passing of these bills.

Here are some other great sites that only require you to click:
The Animal Rescue Site
The Hunger Site
The Breast Cancer Site
The Child Health Site
The Literacy Site
The Rainforest Site
Free Rice
Care 2 Make A Difference
Ecology Fund

Go to Google and search "click to donate" to discover millions of more way that you can help change someone else's life and then go enjoy the rest of yours.

The Deployment

I'm not really in the mood to write this post. I tried a couple of times over the weekend, but I wasn't in the mood then either.

Stonewall's deployment has started. There were no tears or long drawn out good byes when he was getting on the bus. I was actually in a chipper mood while I was driving home from the Armory. He called me and we talked and laughed. I went shopping just to ensure that I would stay in a good mood (and it did work) and I went out to eat with my family. It wasn't until I sat down to watch, "Meet Me in St. Louis" and Judy Garland was belting out "The Boy Next Door" that the waterworks came on full blast.

The next day I sat on my couch in my PJs and I didn't do anything except take the dogs out to potty and stuff my face with Keebler's Iced Animal Cookies. Stonewall's mom brought spaghetti and meatballs and ice cream over for me. It wasn't until after she left at like 8:00PM that I realized I probably stank and could use a shower. I sang children's songs in the shower just so the baby would know that I hadn't forgotten about him. That was really the only productive thing I did that day. It wasn't until just before I went to bed that I had another meltdown.

Yesterday, I did pretty good. No crying. I was doing good today also until I was yelled at at work. Actually, I wasn't really being yelled at, so much as scolded and had Stonewall not just left I probably would have been more indignant since I knew the situation was not my fault, but as it were, I started crying. Yuck.

Our FRG was able to sponsor Daddy Dolls (or Whose You Daddy? dolls as we liked to call them) for all the soldiers in the unit. The FRG made the dolls, we didn't buy the official ones. At first, Stonewall recorded a message for the baby, but I was like, "What about me?" so he recorded another message for both of us. That's my teddy bear until he comes home. The baby will have to fight me for it in December.

So anyway...now I'm counting down to when Stonewall comes home on leave which incidently pretty much coincides with the birth of our first baby. Then for the rest of the deployment I'll be cursing Stonewall for knocking me up and not being around to change 2AM dirty diapers :) Just kidding.

Our First Family Photo

My Baby Shower

My baby shower was this past Saturday. It was such a great time! We had it at a tea house, so the food was excellent and the outdoor garden setting was beautiful. Even though it was hot and humid we still had some hot tea. It was Lavender tea though, so even though it was hot it was still refreshing.

My mom and sister did an awesome job getting things ready. The theme was children's storybooks and characters. They made centerpieces by sitting stuffed animals in rocking chairs and gluing mini golden books in their hands. They spent the past couple of months reading every novel they could find with a mother/child theme until they settled on "Things I Want My Daughters to Know" for a favor. They also got book marks engraved with a Dr. Seuss quote and put together a little packet with a tea cup, a bag of tea, and a flavored candy spoon for favors. They also designed an amazing cake (someone else made it though). They also made the invitations.

My sister-in-law and mother-in-law came up with the games. We played a fill-in-the-blank game with questions about storybooks. They pasted baby photos of my and Stonewall's families on a board and everyone had to guess who was who for the "Are You My Mother?" game. Guests had to guess what kinds of baby foods were in 3 different jars. We played Storybook Pictionary. Finally, they put swedish fish in a baby bottle and guests had to guess how many fish were in the bottle. This little poem accompanied the bottle:
"One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish.
Fish in a car,
Fish in a jar.
Can you guess how many fish there are?"

And of course, I opened tons of gifts. I got so many awesome gifts! I received so many onsies that from 0-3 months my baby won't have to wear the same outfit twice! My sister made me a blanket! She cut apart a stuffed monkey and then sewed it onto a blanket I had picked out. I can't describe it right to give it justice as to how awesome it was, so I'll take pic of it and post it. Once the baby is born she's going to have his name and birthdate stitched onto it. My mom made me a mobile. We couldn't find a mobile that was just monkeys, so she bought stuffed monkeys and attached them to a mobile. My SIL and MIL bought me cute camo overalls and sandals. I got so many more wonderful gifts. I'm so excited to get the nursery set up and put everything in it!

The funniest gift though was from my mom. I had asked her to buy me some nipple cream and I forgot to take it home with me. So of course she had to include that in her gifts to me. My cousin, who is more clueless about all this stuff than I am was like, "What's nipple cream?" When my mom explained to her what it was for she was like, "Oh, I thought it was something sexual. Well...is it flavored for the baby?" It was hilarious!! She's getting married in a few weeks, so I'll be giving her some nipple cream for her wedding night :)

It was definately the best baby shower I've ever been to! And everyone else seemed to have a really great time. Here are some pics:


This is the cake. It was a stack of books with my favorite storybook characters on it.


The mouse from, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie."


The Pokey Little Puppy.


The Berenstain Bears


Max from "The Grinch"


The Grinch with a stinky diaper.


Some games and the prize table.


The cake table with extra centerpieces and the baby book I started.



Everything's all set up and ready to go!


Getting ready to open gifts.


My sister, my sister-in-law, me, my mother-in-law, and my mom.

Chincoteague Pics

I promised Chincoteague pics a couple weeks ago and then never delivered. Well, here they are!


This is the house we stayed at. All eleven of us!


My sister is giving her bf a piece of her mind after he disappeared on the scooter for a good half hour.


My sister riding a real Assateague pony.


This was the first crab we caught. And I don't know who that is on the right, certainly not my husband :)


This is the view from our porch. My mom, Deb (MIL), and Jenna (niece) are crabbing.


We rented a boat for the day. This is the Assateague Island lighthouse and some wild ponies.


Here we are fishing. Deb caught a flounder, but it was only about 12" so we had to throw it back.


We were crabbing in the boat when this boat drove by. On the other side of the boat is...well, basically what looked like a dock attached to the boat. I guess they were tired of not being able to find a place to park their boat, so they just take their dock with them now.


We didn't catch many crabs, so we went and bought some instead.




Eating our crabs! My mom cooked them up the way my pap used to. She cleaned them out first and then steamed them so the Old Bay got inside on all the meat. Yum!


Stonewall, Jenna, and Erick (BIL) having a water gun fight.


We took a walk on Assateague Island. Unfortunately, we didn't see any ponies, but we saw some deer. Way out in the distance there are deer.


A crane (I think).


A pretty white flower.


There were two fawns inthe brush right along the road/path. They were about 3 feet from us.


They finally decided we were boring and left.


My mom and Jenna feeding left over toast to the seagulls.

Pain Relief During Labor

I have approximately 3 months to go before I get to experience the miracle of childbirth first hand. And while I'm sure it is a beautiful experience, I've heard it's one that hurts like a mo' fo' and so, quite frankly, I'm not looking forward to that part.

Now, supposedly, there are tons of drugs out there that can help take the edge off. However, the only one I can find adequate information about is the epidural and I don't want an epidural. Epidurals scare me. Why anyone would want to stick something into their spine so they can be completely numb and immobile from the waist down is beyond me. Nerves can be tricky little devils and I don't like to mess with them, especially the major ones in my spine.

This isn't some baseless fear, either. When I was 16 I had surgery that included cutting and moving bone that had nerve endings going straight through the bone. Immediately after the surgery numbness was expected because the nerves received a shock from being moved, however the odds of permanent numbness were very slim. The odds were against me and I am permanently numb from that surgery. Keep the epidurals away from me!

So I want to know what my other options are. Magazine articles will briefly mention there are pain reducing medicines and options, but then they move straight on to epidurals. I am taking a series of classes in November, but I want to know now what other types of drug-induced pain relief there are. Any advice?

In A Slump

I've been such a bad blogger as of late. I haven't been updating my blog and I haven't been a very good reader/commenter on the blogs that I love to read.

Even this post is going to be pretty short. I'm in a slump right now. Stonewall leaves for deployment in 2 weeks and he's spending these final 2 weeks in school in another state...without me. I should be used to it. Since April he's never been home for more than 2 weeks at a time before he has to leave for more schooling. Kind of a crappy way to spend the months leading up to deployment. *Sigh*

The good things are he's been able to come with me to all my doctor's appointments (except one) and he's been there for all the ultrasounds. During vacation he felt the baby kick for the first time and since then he's felt it move a bunch more times. He also read to him every night before bed. Last night when we spoke on the phone he said that even though the baby isn't even born yet he misses him and he misses reading to him. He said he told his class during intros that one of his hobbies is reading and singing to his son. Yeah, I melted :)

Stonewall will be home this weekend, but after that I'll see him on the day they leave for deployment, but that's it. So, yeah, I'm in a slump.

3D/4D Ultrasound

Last night we had a 3D/4D ultrasound. It was really cool! It made the baby seem that much more real because we weren't seeing it as a flat fuzzy black and white image. We invited both Grandmas along and they were ecstatic. Neither of them had an ultrasound when they were pregnant, so this was their first time seeing more than just the pics. They were like two giddy school girls.

Before we get to last night's pics though, I'll put up the pics from our gender ultrasound on August 22.











Inside the circle you can see what looks like a little hamburger. That means it's a girl!

These are the pics from last night.













Now, I said in a previous post that the Doc was 95% sure it was a girl. It would appear we fall in that other 5%. That's right. We do not have a hamburger, we have a hot dog. Our little girl is in fact our little boy!



To say we were all stunned by this revelation would be an understatement. Stonewall is tickled blue and in seventh heaven that he's getting his son about 5 years earlier than anticipated. I'm still a little shocked, but absolutely thrilled! Right from the double pink lines, I didn't care if it was a boy or a girl. I'll admit, I'm a little sad to be saying goodbye to all the pink and lace, but I'm not the least bit disappointed or upset that we're having a boy.