Tap Dance Lessons + Morse Code = Ingenious Combination

We spent the weekend in Antlers, Oklahoma at Alan's brother, Patrick's, and our sister-in-law, Sarah's, house for our niece, Mattie May's, first birthday celebration.  It was a lot of fun, and a snapshot of what we have to look forward to once Baby Ward makes his appearance.  I'm usually more of a wordy person, but I figure the old adage about a picture saying a thousand words is quite apt in this instance, so I'll just let these pictures do the talking.

Mattie opening her gifts - Alan and I gave her nothing but clothes.  I just can't resist all of the cute little girl clothes that are out there, and I know it'll come a time pretty soon when we have to buy toys instead of clothes!

Pulling on the ribbon - kids this age enjoy the unwrapping more than the present inside, I think.



"Cool sweater!"  I love the expression on her face in this one.



A turtle that lights up and sings (you can pull it along the floor too) from her cousin Jonah.

A drum from Grandma and Grandpa (Patrick and Sarah say, "Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa.")

Singing the Happy Birthday Song

 

Getting a big handful of her first birthday cupcake

Mostly icing on the first bite

Yum!  Mattie destroyed her birthday cupcake, she ate pretty much the whole thing, icing and all ... I think all that was left was the wrapper.

Alan and Jonah (our nephew, Alan's oldest brother Ricky's son).  Jonah is demonstrating how you say, "Cheese!" in order to take a proper photograph.

Jonah is telling Alan about his favorite movie, Cars (or, he could have been talking about Noah and the Ark or Jonah and the Whale ... he talks a lot, and he told Alan about all of those things at one point or another).

Alan blowing up birthday balloons for the kiddos to play with

The balloons were a big hit - they had a lot of fun chasing them around, throwing them up in the air, etc.

Alan, with balloons in his shirt ... he always likes to add a bit of levity to the occasion (he kept yelling, "Jonah, that's inappropriate!" when Jonah would try to get the balloons out from under his shirt ... it made me think of that episode of Family Guy:  "I need an adult, I need an adult!")

Uncle Alan, Aunt Jill, and Mattie May

When Searching for Important Clues, Anything Labeled "Top Secret" Might be a Good Place to Start

Alan and I did some shopping this last weekend and made some progress toward actually being prepared for the arrival of Baby Ward (at least when it comes to having a place to put him - ha!).  I purchased the majority of the fabric for the bedding (still looking for fabric for the ties on the bumper, but that's it ... and if I decide to actually have a matching comforter or blanket made, I'll need more fabric ... I'm thinking I won't, right now, because I am imagining that I will receive lots of blankets), and we bought a vintage crib and dresser to be painted red from two different antique stores in Greenbriar.  I lllllllooooooovvvvvve painted furniture, especially antiqued/distressed painted furniture - like primitives, you know?  So that's my plan for the furniture (Alan is somewhat distressed over this plan (ha, see what I did there?!  Distressed furniture, distressed furniture?!  Thanks, I'll be here all week!  Seriously though, Alan, like most men, has an issue with painting wood instead of sanding and staining it ... I don't know why this is, but I'd like someone to explain it to me when they figure it out ...), and then I've got a dark brown ladder shelf to bring in and I'm leaning toward a dark brown glider or rocker.  There's a store in Little Rock called Pickles & Ice Cream that had a great selection of gliders and rockers, and they're having a sale in February, so I'm taking Alan there next month to have him help me choose one, and I imagine we'll go with dark brown. 

The dog fabric is going on the outside of the bumper, with the brown minky on the inside, facing the baby (it's ssssoooo soft); the dotted fabric will be the crib skirt, and I want some sort of stripe or plaid or houndstooth pattern of some kind to serve as the bumper ties ... still working on that.

Crib - please excuse my poor quality picture - all of this furniture is just sort of jammed in the garage until we can get around to sanding and painting it, but hopefully this picture gives you the general idea.

Dresser/changing table - again, pardon the poor picture quality - see the drawers over there on the couch?  I think I'm also going to get new hardware, something in an oiled bronze.  I went with a dresser because I thought we'd probably be able to get more use out of it in the long run, like hopefully it will grow up with Baby Ward ... this is a good quality dresser, too, it's Drexel Heritage, solid wood, very  nice - quite the steal!

We're also going to pick a wall paint color this week; it will be some shade of blue, either blue-gray or blue-green, which I've pulled from the fabric.  Alan and I got a kick out of reading the paint color names at Sherwin Williams.  I think that would probably be a fun job to have, thinking up random names for what is, essentially, the color gray.  We've got "Krypton" (Alan liked the Superman reference, and it matched the fabric pretty well) which is a blue-gray color, and "Quietude" which is a blue-green color.  The guy at Sherwin Williams told us to paint the different colors on posterboard and then move those around the room to see how it looks on different walls with different light and what-not.  I'm planning on doing that tonight, since it'll be sunny the next couple of days and give us a better impression of what the paint would actually look like in the room.  I'm hoping to paint the furniture in the next couple of weeks (but I am not looking forward to sanding - boooooo to sanding.  I would just Kilz it and go on, but Alan wants to do it correctly, and the guy at Sherwin Williams backed him up.) and we've picked the color for that too - Sherwin Williams called it "Cherry Tomato" (so, obvs, it's bright red).  I'm planning on doing a good quality picture session of "before" and "after" of the room and the furniture, so that will be fun when I eventually get everything done (so, you know, probably at the end of April - ha!).

Strange Mechanical Noises Can Only Mean One Thing: A Printing Press is Being Used for Nefarious Purposes

What to Expect When You're Expecting claims that in this month of my pregnancy (I'm 26 weeks, right at the end of 6 months, about to enter the last trimester), I can expect to have a hearty appetite.  I don't know if that's entirely accurate, or if I'm just very careful about what I eat, as I don't want to blow up into a big ol' blimp (not just for vanity reasons, either ... gaining to much weight can lead to lots of serious problems like preeclampsia and you can have a tougher time during delivery, both of which are things I want to avoid).  I just haven't been overly hungry yet.  I haven't really had what I would define as a craving yet, either, but there are some things that I will randomly think, "You know what would be good right now?  That.  That would be awesome."  If it's in my house, I will probably go and eat it ... so far, if it hasn't been easily accessible, I just let the idea pass me by (which, by my definition, means it's not a craving ... or maybe I just have super self-control - ha!).  To that end, though, here are some of the things I've had a yearning for lately:

I'm glad the Easter will be coming sooner rather than later, because that's the only time they stock mini eggs, which are my all time favorite candy.  I love them.  Easter Sunday is exactly one week before my due date, so by then I probably won't care how much I'm eating, just that I'm eating whatever I want, and I have no doubt that these will be purchased in large quantities at the Ward household.

I love Granny Smith apples all of the time, but I'm really eating a lot of them now, trying to get the recommended daily allowance of fruit.  Wintertime is not the best for fresh fruit, but apples are delicious year round.  I like them cold (Alan doesn't like apples fresh from the refrigerator ... I think that's weird :o)) and occasionally, if I'm feeling particularly sassy, I have a little peanut butter to go along with it.

Iced tea.  I've decided that Mondays are to be Caffeine Mondays.  You're supposed to cut down on the amount of caffeine you consume during pregnancy and, honestly, I didn't drink a whole lot of caffeine prior to being pregnant, but Baby Ward apparently loves him a good jolt of caffeination.  So, in order to satisfy him, I've declared that on Monday I can have two caffeinated beverages.  Yesterday it was tea - I had it at lunch and dinner and it made me happy (and alert ... very, very alert).

White chocolate covered oreos - by far the worst thing, health-wise that I've wanted so far.  They are pricey, too (it's like $5.00 for a box of 12), so my innate cheapness has kept me from just having a ton of them around the house, which has probably been for the best from a health perspective.  On Saturday night, Alan went out to get milk and came back with a box of regular Oreos and some white chocolate chips, and we attempted to make our own.  They don't look as good as the ones in the picture, or the ones that you buy at the store, but they tasted good.  I may try to get a recipe for the white chocolate dip (ours was pretty runny, and I don't think that's right) and try it again.  Alan and I did have a pretty big laugh over making our own chocolate covered Oreos - it just seems so ... decadent, and incredibly unhealth - isn't that the definition of unhealthy, obese American?  

Chocolate pop-tarts - I actually don't eat them for breakfast, they're more of a dessert and sometimes a snack, depending on what I've eaten already that day.  Alan had never experienced a Pop-Tart as a snack or dessert (I guess he only ever ate them as a breakfast food) and was impressed by how good they are in that capacity (we were both just impressed by how much we liked them, period ... apparently we had forgotten how good they are since we haven't eaten them since childhood).

I look at this little synposis of foods I like during pregnancy and I'm really sort of surprised that most of it is comprised of sweet things - I would've told you that I craved savory or salty things above all others, but I guess that's not really accurate, now that I really think about it, or at least it's not accurate as far as this pregnancy is concerned.  Too bad I'm not craving broccoli florets and carrot sticks, right?

When the Lights Suddenly Go Out, Hold Onto Your Diamonds for Dear Life

Author's note:  I got a stocking stuffer entitled "Nancy Drew's Guide to Life" that has lots of "humorous and practical wisdom" from everybody's favorite gal detective, so I thought those little bits of wisdom would be a great way to title my blog posts from now on, when appropriate. 

I promised a book report on my recent readings, so here goes:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot - this book made me wish I knew more about biology.  Here's a brief synopsis (copied from Amazon's website):  "Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories?"  The book has been recognized with several awards and was a New York Times best seller for several weeks, and I believe Oprah has purchased the rights to make it into a movie (which, honestly, makes sense ... doesn't that synopsis sound like an Oprah movie?).  Anyway, the verdict:  I liked it, but a lot of it went over my head (due to the aforementioned lack of biology knowledge - science has never been my strong point).  The author does a good job with making it into a story-telling, very narrative, good prose.  Despite not understanding a lot, I was engaged and interested in the resolution (what resolution there was).  So, I guess, two thumbs up - a good non-fiction book.



The Lady in the Tower:  The Fall of Anne Boleyn, by Alison Weir - nerd alert!  I really like historical fiction and non-fiction.  This book is non-fiction and it took me awhile to get through it.  Some of it is really dry, but I think my problem may have been that I was hoping for more of the story of how Anne Boleyn got to be Queen of England, and not so much about she ended up not being the Queen of England.  Which is not Alison Weir's fault, it's mine for not paying attention to the synopsis.  That said, I got into it in the last 1/3 of the book, where the trial and the sentencing and everything was described - kind of gruesome, but very interesting too.  And Alison Weir is obviously an excellent writer,and I liked her logic and reasoning throughout the book.  Verdict:  not fair to assign a grade to this one, I think, since it wasn't really what I thought it was when I checked it out, and that's not fair to the book.  I think I'll just say that if you are interested in the subject matter, this is a great one.

A Dog's Purpose, by Bruce Cameron - if you liked Marley & Me and The Art of Racing in the Rain, you will love this.  Confession:  I cried while reading it (I also cried while reading Marley & Me and The Art of Racing in the Rain, and countless other books about dogs).  Here's the synopsis (again, "Thanks, Amazon!"):  "Told in a touching, doggy first-person, this unabashedly sentimental tale introduces Toby, who's rescued by a woman without a license for her rescue operation, so, sadly, Toby ends up euthanized. He's reborn in a puppy mill and after almost dying while left in a hot car, he's saved again by a woman, and he becomes Bailey, a beloved golden retriever, who finds happiness and many adventures. His next intense incarnation is as Ellie, a female German shepherd, a heroic search and rescue dog. But the true purpose of this dog's life doesn't become totally clear until his reincarnation as Buddy, a black Lab."  Obviously, as an animal lover and owner of two spoiled labradors, how could I be expected not to cry?  This isn't as crushing as, say, Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Goes ... I mean, I cried, but I wasn't filled with despair at the end.  It will make you love your pets even more, if that's possible.  So:  two thumbs up, highly recommended.

Up next:  I've got another historical non-fiction checked out right now, also by Alison Weir, about Eleanor of Aquitane.  If I can get through that, I'm going to chill out and read a couple of Nora Roberts paperbacks, I think, just to give the brain a rest.  I've already talked about the need for literary candy, and I feel like the last few weeks I've been on a diet of literary spinach and brussels sprouts, so it's time for a change.  It's the only way I can appreciate everything I read:  got to have some variety.  I know I already listed a top ten list, but here are some more books I recommend, if you're looking for something to read (I love lists, and books, so maybe I'll make this a recurring post?) (also, note:  these are not, like, my favorite books of all time, they were just good books that I've read in the recent past that I think others might enjoy, so I'm passing along my information to you)

• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
• Saving CeeCee Honeycutt:  A Novel, by Beth Hoffman
• Bloodroot, by Amy Greene
• Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
• Just Kids, by Patti Smith

As always, happy reading!

What to Expect in the 25th Week

Okay, it's the moment you've all been waiting for:  a pregnancy pic to go along with the update!  Somedays I look more pregnant, somedays I look just chubby.  A lot depends on what I'm wearing, and a friend of mine told me that maternity clothes will probably make me look more like a pregnant lady, so maybe it's time to look into those.  Anyway, Alan took this picture this morning:

Pregnancy Update

How far along? 25 weeks, 3 days

Total weight gain:  Unknown; we have a doctor's appointment next week and I may ask ... I don't want to know but then I do kind of want to know ... we'll see ... and then I may or may not put that information out into the world :o).

Maternity clothes? No, but I'm placing an order tonight or tomorrow ... it's time.  Plus, I'm hoping that all of my friends are correct when they say that the maternity clothes made them look more pregnant.  I've had people tell me (meaning it as a compliment, I know), that you can't tell that I'm pregnant and I always think to myself, "Well, so does that mean you just think I'm getting fatter?".  So, you know, anything to clarify that I'm gestating and not just letting myself go.  And Baby Ward will probably appreciate it - I'm sure maternity pants are more comfortable.

Sleep:  Nothing interesting to report.  Doing pretty well sleeping on my side, but I do wake up at least once during the night and I never used to do that.

Best moment this week: Technically hasn't happened yet this week, but I'm going shopping for baby room stuff the next couple of days and Saturday Alan and I are going to register, so that's exciting.  It's really happening!

Movement: Getting stronger - you can see my stomach move if he kicks hard enough.  Baby Ward is a night owl and is always energized when I eat.

Gender:  It's a boy!  We are probably going to be those people who don't have a name until the day he's born ... we just cannot agree on a name.

Labor Signs: None, thankfully.

Belly Button in or out? In. 

Cravings: Not really, but I've been wanting more sweet stuff than normal (chocolate pop-tarts are a favorite).

Symptoms:  Snoring, my hands/fingers are swelling (I refer to them as my "sausage fingers") and I have self-diagnosed myself with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (which, in all fairness, What to Expect When You're Expecting lists as a legitimate symptom of pregnancy).

What I miss: Guilt-free eating or drinking; now, if I have a fun-size candy bar or a Coke, I always feel kind of guilty.  If you believe all of the stuff you read on the Internet and all of those baby books, all pregnant people are supposed to be eating nothing but organic produce and free-range protein and drinking nothing but water, while working out 6 days a week. 

Weekly Wisdom:    Don't read sad stories about other people's pregnancy problems.  Nothing good can come of it at this time in your life.  Case in point:  http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201101/billy-donovans-secret-sorrow

Milestones: First pregnancy pic is up for all to see!

Chicken (Noodle) Soup for the Soul

I really enjoy cooking, as long as it is not overly complicated.  I think I have made mention before of the fact that I love making soups, stews, and chili during the winter - they seem like very winter-appropriate meals, right?  So, on Sunday night, I put on my chef's hat to make chicken noodle soup.  Alan requests this any time he is sick ... actually, he requests it any time he thinks he can get it, because he says that it is his most favorite recipe of mine, his favorite thing to eat that I cook.  It really is not that difficult, just requires a little prep time and some patience, but not any special skills or weird ingredients and, if I do say so myself, it is awesome.  We had it for dinner on Sunday night, and again last night. 

Last night was bath time for the spoiled labradors.  I intended to take pictures, but it takes both Alan and me working together simultaneously to bathe the spoiled labradors, so picture taking was out.  Being labradors, you would think they would actually enjoy being in the water.  You would be wrong.  They do well once they're in the tub - they stand still and let you do what you've got to do with only a small amount of pitiful puppy dog eyes and a look of martyrdom, but they aren't enjoying it.  Layla is especially adverse to water of any kind.  When she was a baby, I took her over to my parents' house one afternoon and let her outside with Augie and my parents' dog Susie.  At some point, apparently, Layla fell into the pool.  I don't know how, but she managed to get herself out and, ever since then, she does not like swimming of any kind - pool, lake, stream, bathtub:  not happening.  Augie, on the other hand, does enjoy swimming, as long as it's not in the bathtub ... he prefers good, dirty water, preferably with a layer of slime or guck ... his most favorite swimming holes are the water hazards on golf courses, which almost always have a healthy layer of guck just for him.  Anyway, the bathing was finished without incident and fairly routinely, and we put on dry clothes and enjoyed some of the soup.

Here's the recipe, courtesy of the Food Network website (don't be intimidated - I swear it's easy and not too terribly time consuming) (also, you'll notice it's by Paula Deen so in case you were wondering about its healthiness ... well, it's Paula Deen ... just enjoy how delicious it is):

The Lady's Chicken Noodle Soup
recipe courtesy of Paula Deen

Ingredients

Stock:

• 1 (2 1/2 to 3 pound) fryer chicken, cut up
• 3 1/2 quarts of water
• 1 onion, peeled and diced
• 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 bay leaves
• 3 chicken bouillon cubes
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Soup:

• 2 cups sliced carrots
• 2 cups sliced celery, with leafy green tops
• 2 1/2 cups uncooked egg noodles
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
• 1/3 cup cooking sherry
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 1 cup grated Parmesan (optional)
• 3/4 cup heavy cream (optional)
• seasoning salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Directions

For the stock:  add all ingredients to soup pot.  Cook until chicken is tender, about 35 to 45 minutes.  Remove chicken from pot and set aside to cool.  Remove and discard bay leaves and onion.  You should have approximately 3 quarts of stock.  When chicken is cool enough to touch, pick bones clean, discarding bones, skin, and cartilage.  Set chicken aside.

For the soup:  bring stock back to a boil, add carrots, and cook for 3 minutes.  Add celery and continue to cook for 5 to 10 minutes.  Add egg noodles and cook according to directions on package.  When noodles are done, add chicken, mushrooms, parsley, sherry, and rosemary.  Add Parmesan and cream, if using.  Cook for another 2 minutes.  Adjust seasoning, if needed, by adding seasoning salt and pepper.  Enjoy!

Mid-January Slump

I feel bad for not posting for awhile but, honestly, I haven't really had anything interesting to talk about.  Yesterday, I resolved to make a concentrated effort this week to post multiple times, though, and try to come up with interesting things to say.  After making this resolution to myself, I then realized that I had never really posted too much of anything about Christmas so, since we're in that kind of "blah" part of the year where the holidays are over and everyone's kind of over the winter weather since there isn't really anything fun happening (at least, holiday-wise), and you're starting to wish you were somewhere beachy and fun and vacation-y, I thought maybe a catch-up Christmas post might brighten everyone's spirit a little?

Alan and I made homemade gifts for everyone this year - rag wreaths (I got the idea from my law school classmate Ali on her blog - check it out, it's always got cute stuff and cute ideas).  Here is a picture of the before (this is 1 yard of 6 different fabrics cut into 6 inch-ish strips ... it's A LOT of fabric ... if I ever make any more of these, I would recommend only 3/4 a yard of each fabric):

Then you get a wreath form (like $3.00 at Hobby Lobby) and you tie, tie, tie until you can tie no more.  Alan helped me do all of this.  First we tore the fabric and then cut it into strips, and then he would hand me the strips in the pre-determined order and I would tie them on (it was much easier with his help ... it would've killed my back to keep reaching over to get a strip of fabric every 45 seconds).  It was fun doing a project like this together - we watched several Christmas movies and had some good bonding time.  Here's Alan with the finished product (this was the wreath we gave my parents - it's Razorback themed):

My parents got the Razorback wreath, my aunt got a jungle/animal themed wreath (she works at the Little Rock Zoo, so it seemed appropriate), Alan's parents got a patriotic wreath (Alan's dad is a career military man), and my grandparents got a western themed wreath.  They turned out really neat, if I do say so myself, and everyone seemed pleased with their homemade present (made with love, don't you know).

What about the spoiled labradors and the bad cat, you ask?  How was their Christmas?  Check out what Santa brought them:

Augie with his favorite gift from Santa, Ferdinand the Bull (Ferdinand has, tragically, already lost his tail, but that doesn't make him any less loved by spoiled labrador # 1)



Layla and Ellie Phant ... this is the first toy she grabs for when I let the spoiled labradors in when I get home in the evening, unless she grabs for a tennis ball (both spoiled labradors stockings had tennis balls in them, and those are a big deal at our house).

 

The Bad Cat got switches!  I laughed for what seemed like forever when I saw these in his stocking (courtesy of my mother)!  I don't know if I've explained why he is a bad cat, but it's because he has an issue with marking his territory in our dining room.  It's disgusting, and my mother thought that he should get something that showed him that his actions are unacceptable and that Santa really does see you all of the time.  The Bad Cat, however, thinks they are toys (as you can see in this picture - he chases them if you run them along the floor, and he chews on them if he catches them).

The spoiled labradors also received 10 tennis balls (5 for each) in their stockings.  They llllooovvveeee the tennis balls, and they have taken to getting all 10 of them out and bringing them over one at a time to show to me and Alan.  Which is all well and good, but they don't put them back in the toy chest, so there are little booby traps/land mines all over the living room just waiting to break somebody's ankle.  And, of course, when I pick up all of the toys and tennis balls and put them in the proper receptable, it's only about 90 seconds before they are immediately over there again, nosing through the toy chest and bringing everything out ... mostly, I think, just because they can ... because they are spoiled labradors.

What to Expect in the 23rd Week

Pregnancy update time!  Again, no batteries in the camera so I can't upload any pics (I'm finally brave enough to post a pic of the pregnant tummy but, alas, it's not possible today ... Alan and I are, apparently, really lazy when it comes to going to the store to buy  necessities ... I'll try to do it soon, though, I promise).  Went to the doctor yesterday and got a good report so, without further adieu:

Pregnancy Update

How far along? 23 weeks, 4 days

Total weight gain:  Unknown, but I really think I'm doing pretty well with the weight gain thing ... Alan even commented that he was proud of me for not using the pregnancy as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and he said he felt like I've actually been more conscientious and healthy since I've been pregnant.

 

Maternity clothes? No ... just the Bella Band with pants, and since I wear a lot of dresses, I'm not even wearing that a whole lot.  It's coming though ... the Bella Band is starting to irritate me because I'm constantly having to rearrange it, and most of my friends have told me that this is about the time that they also caved in and went to maternity pants, so that makes me feel better about it.

 

Sleep: Not as peacefully as I would like ... still adjusting to sleeping on my side, and I'm about to try some of those Breathe Right strips, for Alan's sake (although he snores as well, so maybe we should both be trying them).

 

Best moment this week: Wore my first maternity shirt (although maternity shirts are not a necessity yet, so it was really just for the fun of wearing this particular shirt) for the Sugar Bowl game:  it says "Future Razorback on the Way!"

 

Movement: He lets me know he's there!  Trying to figure out his schedule ... so far, I've determined that our child takes after both of his parents - he's not a morning person AT ALL, and eating makes him happy.

 

Gender:  It's a boy!  I'm going to have to alter my poll (over at the top right of the blog) because our name preferences have changed (I knew they would ... we just cannot agree).

Labor Signs: None, thankfully.

Belly Button in or out? In. 

 

Cravings: No cravings yet (again, I define "craving" as a desire for something that cannot be squelched or contained, and would have me or Alan running to the store or wherever to get it because I won't be satisfied otherwise, and that hasn't happened yet), and I would actually say that I am less interested in food than I've ever been before - weird, right?!

 

Symptoms:  Snoring, swelling of hands and feet (not bad, though, and really only when I get up in the morning, but enough to scare me off of wearing my wedding band for fear it won't come off).

 

What I miss: It would have been nice to have been able to drink a beer during the Sugar Bowl ... Lord knows I needed one after the way it ended.

Weekly Wisdom:    The great thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

 

Milestones: We can finally say, "We're having a baby this year!"

The One Where I Talk About Books I've Read Recently

Negligent blogger again!  As always, though, I have an excuse:  the camera is down because my husband and I are too lazy to buy batteries, so I can't share anything from that.  However, I will say that we had a very nice Christmas and New Year's, and that nothing of interest really happened over the holidays, other than we enjoyed hanging out together, and we've really enjoyed watching all of the bowl games for the past few days (SEC!) and are particularly looking forward to the Sugar Bowl tonight, obviously.  So, other than hanging with Alan and the spoiled labradors and the bad cat, nothing really interesting to write about as far as what's happening in the Ward world, so I thought I'd talk about some of the books I've read recently.

I finally finished the Millenium Trilogy, by Stieg Larsson.  Good story - the first and last were the best, and I found the middle to drag a bit, honestly thought it was a bit boring and slow, til the end (which really sets up the third one, which is the best, in my opinion).  Very dark books, full of violence against women and violence in general, but still a compelling read.  Larsson died suddenly in 2004, and the aftermath of his death makes for an interesting read (or maybe that's just because I'm an attorney, and there's lots of estate/probate law issues), not the least because of the possibility of the existence more novels in the series.

Got a Kindle over Christmas and I will say that it's pretty awesome.  I mean, I'm still going to frequent the library, because I love libraries, and I love books (like, actual physical books), so I don't think it'll take the place of the real deal ever, but it is neat to have (also, I'm pretty frugal about books ... I really have to want to read something to actually buy it instead of just waiting for it from the library ... case in point:  I waited for several weeks to read the final book in the above-mentioned Millenium Trilogy instead of just buying it at Hasting's or something). 

The first book I purchased and read on the Kindle was The Hangman's Daughter.  Bought it at 8:00 on Sunday night and stayed up reading it til 2:00 a.m. Monday morning, so I guess you would say it also gets the thumbs up.  Very good mystery, simply written (which I mean as a compliment, as in:  it's not overwrought), likeable characters.

I will also admit to loving some good "chick lit".  I like Sophie Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret?, Plum Sykes' Bergdorf Blondes and The Debutante Divorcee, and I like Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed and Something Blue ... also, I am not above reading Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts (don't judge ... everybody needs some literary candy in their life ... you can't read War and Peace all of the time). 

Up next is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (on the Kindle) and A Dog's Purpose and Unbroken:  A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.  I'll try and report back after reading. 

If anyone's looking for something to read, I'll give you a list of books that I've liked or that I always recommend when people ask me if I've read anything good recently (most of these would qualify as "light" reading, I guess ... whatever:  still enjoyable).

1.  The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
2.  The Outlander series, by Diana Gabaldon
3.  The Stephanie Plum series, by Janet Evanovich
4.  The Sookie Stackhouse series, by Charlaine Harris (an Arkansas lady!)
5.  anything by James Herriot
6.  Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
7.  Freakonomics:  A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
8.  The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
9.  The Other Boleyn Girl, by Phillipa Gregory
10.  Go Fug Yourself Presents:  The Fug Awards, by Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks

Happy Reading!