Me and Miss Bee

When I was at college at Huntingdon, there were three of us - Bethel and Patti and me. Well, the three of us are still as close as we were on those first days of sorority rush back in 1994, and while Patti beat us to having babies first, Bethel and I have been going through this pregnancy together. Our due dates were originally 3 weeks apart, but now that her baby is coming a little late and my baby will come a little early, our little girls will be exactly one week apart. We are thrilled to have our babies so close to each other, so we staged a little photo shoot together to preserve how we looked at 9 months pregnant. Although neither of us is too keen on having our picture taken right now, we know that we'll be glad we did it later on.
She will be admitted to the hospital tomorrow night to be induced, and we hope her Sophie will be born sometime on Tuesday. Best of luck, Bee!! We can't wait to meet Miss Sophie Grace!
And for good measure, I'm also including a picture of Patti and me with our babies from a couple of years ago. We will need to do an updated shot of this very soon! Our kids are getting so much bigger - Jacks was maybe about 7 months old here, Piper was about 16 months, and little Charlie was barely a month old! The next picture like this will be very different, to say the least.

Jacks and Mommy

Cousins

My sister and her family came for a fun visit this weekend. She and her husband had to run over to Birmingham on Saturday to make arrangements for his upcoming show (John Westmark at Litehouse Gallery, Pepperplace Showroom 2825 Second Ave. South, for the month of July - for all you Birminghamians!!), so they turned the work related trip into a family visit. We could not have been more thrilled to see everyone.
Jean Louise and Laura stayed with us all day on Saturday while Carrie and John went to Birmingham, and we all had a great day. Jacks worships and adores his cousins, so he was in heaven all weekend long. I could give you a play by play of what happened all weekend, but it's so much nicer to just enjoy the pictures.
We miss the Westmarks, and any of our family, anytime they drive away, but we always look forward to the next visit. And, thanks to Florida schools having a later spring break (in 2 weeks), it looks like I might get to see my sister sooner than later thanks to Nealy's arrival! Carrie will have the chance to zip up here to see the new little bundle while she's spring breaking with her bunch in Pensacola. Nealy has the best timing. :)



The kids enjoyed an afternoon of painting on the deck.

John and I compared our belly bulges - I think I win.
We were worried we would have to pull Jacks out of the van kicking and screaming when it came time for the fam to drive away, but he handled it surprisingly well. He must have waved and said, "bye bye," a hundred times as the van pulled out.
Me and my sissy.

Nealy's Room

I'm not the photographer in the family. Joe's camera is clearly too fancy for me, so these pictures aren't that great. But, here is a taste of what Nealy's room is looking like right now. There are still a few odds and ends that need doing, and some baby gear needs to be gathered from friends, but things are mostly all put together. Enjoy.....

this is an old oak desk that has been painted several times - Joe gave it a fresh coat and a new drawer pull, and now it's a changing table! Don't worry, that pad is secure.


Here are those burp cloths that Ashley made for Nealy. I love them so much - I can't stop admiring them!!

Here is another piece that we painted and gave new hardware (pulls found at the Heartstrings going out of business sale!). That lamp is from a cute little thrift store in Gainesville called Loop-de-loop. New shade with some ric-rac, again what's old is new again!

Here is her lovely crib with her sleep sheep in place - ready to soothe her to sleep with sounds of the ocean, rain, or something like that.
Here is a close up of her bedding. I adore the print. I found this entire set at Target for a price that could not be beat.
I couldn't get a good shot of the far wall. The bird art pieces are on either side of the window. Those curtain rods, you ask, oh - we made them!! I had been coveting some at Pottery Barn Kids, but do you know what they want for the smallest size rod? It was ridiculous! These are dowels from Lowe's, painted and trimmed with some of those Heartstrings pulls.


The box under the changing table was a box that my Grandmother used for dress patterns. Joe painted it, added the little shelf on the bottom, screwed on some casters and a new glass pull, now we will keep diapers inside. This was one of my favorite transformations in the room - so small, but so useful!

I know you're insanely jealous of my plastic canvas tissue box creations. What can I say? It's a gift. (please note sarcasm - it is sewing yarn onto a plastic grid - not hard) And isn't the ombre, hobnail glass piece a beauty? I need to put fresh flowers in there....you can tell I have no idea how to "stage" a photo shoot of a room.

The rocking chair will go where the yellow chair is now. I will post that when I get it back - there's a story there, too.


As I was taking pictures, I caught a side view of myself in the mirror. Nice, right?

It is out of focus, but the pink card on the mirror is the Queen of Hearts. Joe thought that would be a fitting addition to our little girl's room.


I will be sure to post better pictures when I get someone else to take them. Love to all - K

It's snowing in my living room

So, with all this humidity with the rain and such, I'm having difficulty with climate control in my house. And the fact that I'm constantly hot doesn't help anything. So, I just pulled the cord on the living room fan to turn it up to high speed. All of a sudden, I'm noticing fine bits of dust gently floating down and landing on everything like delicate snowflakes, only much, much grosser. Why is this my life?

She's Crafty!

I made some art work for Nealy's room today. I basically painted some stripes on to a prepared canvas, then glued some felt branches, leaves, and birds on the canvas. I got the idea from someone's Etsy page. I'm really hoping that I've managed to make this piece my own, because I think the other piece was copyrighted.......oh well, I used felt, and theirs was all paint. Let me know what you think. I was so worried it was going to turn out miserable!!! I'm actually pretty pleased with the finished product. I still need to decide if I'm going to go back and add some eyes for the birds. Not sure, yet.

And for those of you wondering what I look like these days, here's a glimpse. I have a few sideways shots, but they always come with a double chin......I need to work on that.

April 7th, 2009

Did I mention that we scheduled Nealy's birth already? Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that. We will have a baby on Tuesday, April 7th. For those of you who look at me, then enjoy saying something like, "Oh, honey, you're not going to make it that long." Well, you can take your lovely comments somewhere else, because I WILL make it that far, dammit! This baby is coming on April 7th, via C-section with lots of lovely painkillers. No arguments, no questions asked, no speculation.
Wouldn't it be funny if my water broke as I was writing this??
No, no it wouldn't.
We will be situating the nursery this week (please come over and join us if you'd like!). I have lots of plans for my little girl's room. I can't wait to see it all put together. I'll be sure to post pictures when it's all done. There's lots of painting and organizing to be done. I can't wait to get going on that. To those of you thinking, why doesn't she get going on that like....now? Well, things get so much easier around here when a certain little fella goes to school all day long while Mama and Daddy stay at home. I can't wait for Monday morning!
We're also going to attempt to set up Jacks's big boy bed again. For those long term readers out there, you might not be aware that the first attempt at the big boy bed was a failure. This time, we're hoping it will work! Here's hoping.