Place a bet!

I am currently a ticking time bomb - baby could come at any time during the next few weeks!  I am not going to be induced, we are just going to wait and see when he decides to come.   If you would like to guess the baby's arrival date please do so in the comments of this post.  If you get it right we will send you a special gift.  Who doesn't love a special surprise? One guess per date please. My "due date" is June 26th. 

Read more...

Off We Go!

I have entered my 37th week of pregnancy and I have been released from partial bed rest.  Woo Whoooo!  I have taken this weekend to make up for all the fun that I have been missing.  It is wonderful to be able to get up and walk around. To celebrate we took the pups to the Ocoee Whitewater center to do a little hiking.  I would have loved to have climbed Starr Mountain like I did when I was 8 weeks pregnant but there was no way that I could have hauled my pregnant butt up the mountain (also, it would be extremely dangerous. It is a very isolated trail).  So, we settled for the Old Copper Trail that runs next to the river.  For those of you not familiar with the trail, it is flat and graveled - totally tame.  It was awesome to get out in the fresh air and sunshine.  I feel a hundred times better.  I suppose the next time we have a hiking adventure one of us will have a baby strapped to us.

Ann is shaking off from her swim in the river. 

This is Prissy's idea of adventure. We couldn't get her to even consider getting in the water.

My burly mountain man - complete with beard and walking stick.

At this point, it is completely safe to deliver.  Totally safe.  We just had a bio-scan done on Baby Barks and he scored an 8 out of 8.  He is fully developed.  We even saw him exercise his lungs.  He is ready to meet the world.  Mommy isn't being careless.  Just thought I would go ahead and let everyone know : ).  

Read more...

Sweet Baby Ann

When Ann is not terrorizing house guest, eating books, digging holes, barking at the neighbors and attempting to eat baby birds . . . . . .

She is a really sweet and loving dog.

I would like to note that my belly is hanging out of my shirt. It has gotten to a point that it can no longer be contained. It is huge and it wants to be free from all clothing. When Jason snapped the photo I didn't even realize that the belly had escaped my shirt.

Read more...

Recession Garden

Usually, when there is a long pause in blogging, it is because I haven't had anything interesting going on. This is not the case with this recent lapse. Actually, it is quite the opposite. I have had TOO MUCH going. Between work, parties, family visit, birth classes and rushing around finishing up the last of our pre-baby to-do list, I haven't had time to collect my thoughts. My head is a swirl of excitement and anxiety. Our little boy should make his grand entrance in the next couple of weeks. Instead of attempting to catch you up on everything that we have had going on . . . . I thought I would tell you about our recession garden!

Yes, we have a garden this summer for the first time ever. We decided that having a baby wasn't enough work, so we would throw some veggies in the mix. The truth is, the garden has been a lovely distraction. Almost every day when we get home we run outside to check on our plants. It has been incredible to watch them grow. While both of us have been around gardens, this is the first time that we have grown our own food. I can't wait until we can pick a veggie knowing that we grew it. Also, we have grown them using organic pest control and fertilizer (healthy and not laden with chemicals, Hooray!). We planted our beds using the square foot gardening method. Other than a few snips of our herbs, we haven't harvested anything yet. However, we have a teeny, tiny pepper on one of our pepper plants.

And our squash and zucchini have the biggest most, beautiful flowers. I didn't realize they flowered, so this was a nice surprise - pretty and functional. Did I mention that I haven't gardened before?

PS. When we planted the garden a few months back, I didn't want to post about it because I didn't want to curse it. I didn't want to talk about our garden and then have it all die. So, I waited until I felt comfortable that it would live. As I was writing this post, the dogs dug up our entire crop of carrots and most of our lettuce. It was actually the first time that they have been into the garden. I am going to go ahead and post this and hope that a swarm of killer insects don't come today and devour the rest.

Read more...

I got five on it

This weekend we celebrated our five year wedding anniversary.  It was a very special occasion because in addition to celebrating our anniversary, it was also a day spent reflecting on the close of a chapter in our lives.  For five years, it has just been us. In a couple weeks we are going to have a new person in our family.  Baby Barks (he still doesn't have a name) will foverer change our world.  It was good to take sometime and savor the way we have lived our lives for the past five years.  We are trying to make the most out of the last few weeks left of my pregnancy.   Don't get us wrong, we are thrilled to be having a baby.  We just want to enjoy this time because I have a feeling it will never be the same again. This is the first time that we didn't take on over night trip on our anniversary (for obvious reasons).  We spent the day milling around Chattanooga visiting our old haunts.

Here we are in the courtyard at Rembrants in the Bluff View Art District on a date in 2003.

This is us 6 and 1/2 years later in the same spot with a giant belly in tow.

PS.  I would like to note that when Jason and I got married we told everyone we wanted to wait five years to have a baby.  For all the people that said we wouldn't wait that long (there were lots of you) I would like to nicely say - Suck it Nerds : ).

Read more...