We're having a....

BABY!! NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH!!! We are still not finding out the sex of the baby. We made it through our mid-pregnancy ultrasound without any spoiler incidents. Sweet Pea looks perfect, other than his/her HEAD is measuring 1.5 weeks ahead!! Thanks for that, Daddy. DH's head was so big he got stuck and my MIL ended up having a C-section, which I REALLY REALLY would like to avoid. But truly, it's in God's hands.

Here is our little Sweet Pea. Yes, we are having an alien. (I like the Olan Mills/Napoleon Dynamite pose Sweet Pea is striking with the little hand up to the chin, head tilt!!)

Sweet Pea's sweet little smile, see it?

Here is a nice forearm block and a couple of knees. Daddy says Sweet Pea will be a black belt!

Sweet Pea was over the portrait session, so s/he put both hands and arms in front of his/her face. :)

For Sweet Pea

Today I started to think about the things I hope for you, our little Sweet Pea.

I hope that you are healthy and happy.

I hope you grow to be a loving, caring and concerned adult (and if it's not too much to ask, a Democrat).

I hope you like to sleep as much as your dad and I do! We are not morning people, and our fear is that you will wake up at 5am every day of the week for your entire childhood.

I hope you enjoy baths as a baby and as you grow. I love and am so relaxed by showers, I hope you are calmed and comforted by it as well.

I hope the breastfeeding and cloth diapering goes well. I want to give you the very best of everything, starting with what you eat and wear.

I hope you grow up loving books and school. Your dad already reads to you in my belly before bed at night.

I hope that you love food of all kinds, like your dad and I do. We try to eat healthy whenever we can. It may cause lots of bumps in life if all you eat is chicken fingers and mac-n-cheese, but we will love you and work through it no matter what!

But most of all, I hope you learn to love God and rely on Him for every good thing in life. No matter what happens in life, HE is the one that will be with you through it all.

Solid Ground

Most of you probably take for granted that you are on solid ground. You aren't physically sinking in quicksand (or at least I hope not). You may feel like you are financially or emotionally sinking, but at least physically you aren't. We sang a great version of Amazing Grace with the chorus (and to the tune) of Peaceful Easy Feeling by the Eagles at church yesterday.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now I'm found,

Was blind, but now I see.

I've got a peaceful, easy feeling,

And I know you won't let me down.

'Cause I'm already standing

on solid ground.

After church, Matt and I were talking and I about lost it. I don't feel like we are on solid ground at all. Our relationship is wonderful, the pregnancy is going great, our jobs are stressful, but not a big deal. Really what is getting me is our house, the new one we moved into last year, not the old one we can't sell. We have renters now, so that one is out of our minds for now.

A few months ago, we started noticing that our doors weren't shutting properly. And as I came up the street about a month ago, I looked at our house and about had a heart attack. From the road in my car I could see a huge crack in our foundation. When I say huge, it's about 2" wide. You can stand in our basement and see daylight between the floor of the sunroom and the foundation wall. That one corner of our house is literally sliding out from under us, and the only thing holding the sunroom on the house right now are the floor boards. Luckily, as I write this, my dear husband and our pastor/friend are in the basement putting a support beam and jacks in place.

We have gotten OBSCENE estimates on fixing our home. We are slashing and burning our budget like never before, including drastic measures we thought we'd never take. We are also looking at some creative budgeting and finance options so that we can get our house repaired and build a fence* before Sweet Pea arrives.

*Some of you may wonder with a foundation that is sliding out from under us, why a fence is still a priority as well. This is why:

His name is Einstein and his howl is painful to the human ear and at a volume that is unimaginable. But look at that face. That face may not live through a colicky infant, just put to sleep, me with no sleep and a mail man driving by... let your imagination finish the rest.

So unfortunately, although it was a lovely song, I am far from feeling as if I'm on solid ground. Actually, I feel like our house is sliding out from under us, because it IS. It is hard to feel at rest about anything or even enjoy this blessing of a pregnancy, when your house is falling down around you. It may sound over-dramatic, but have you ever had to worry about your house falling down? OK then, don't judge me. Just pray for us if you are so inclined.

Blue Screen of Death

That was the diagnosis when I took my computer to the IT department at UTC. It booted fine on Tuesday, I closed it to put it to sleep, and the next time I opened it I got some error message on a black screen. The guys in IT are great. They assured me that they will most likely be able to recover the documents on my hard drive. They helped me finally get my work email coming in on my phone, which I've needed. I felt ok, until today.

I got an email from our administrative assistant that, "The hard drive crashed and there is no way to recover any of [my] files. But the good news is it's under warranty and [they've] ordered [me] a new one." Are you kidding me? I don't give a crap if it's under warranty, MY FILES ARE GONE!!! It doesn't come out of my pocket if they have to buy a new hard drive!

I feel like such an idiot. There is an external hard drive sitting on my desk that I haven't backed up to in 2 months or more. We are never in the office, and when we are, I'm not thinking about backing up my computer. I usually have other things to do. Yes, I did lose work files, but hopefully that won't affect me too much.

There is one thing that I've lost that I absolutely cannot replace. I started keeping a pregnancy journal when I found out I was pregnant. I was recording my journey, with dates and weeks of pregnancy, and writing letters to our baby. I was planning to make a bound book with pictures of my belly growing inserted into the journal, something that the baby could keep forever and read exactly what I was feeling while pregnant with him (or her). It's gone, all of it. I haven't backed up my files since before I got pregnant. I can try and recreate the "bones" of it, writing about milestones and such, but the sentiment can never be recreated. I will never get those words back and I'm so sad. I've looked forward to being pregnant my whole adult life and my diary to remember it by is gone. I don't even know if I want to try and start over now. If I do, from now on may be wonderful, but I'm afraid the beginning will sound textbook and cold.

Well, lesson learned. I will probably obsessively back up my hard drive for the rest of my life. But for now, it's too late and I choose to wallow in self-pity.