Well, no news really from the baby front. I'm due one week from today. Woo hoo!! I'm hoping she comes early but we'll see? Today all my friends put their babies to my stomach and tried to convince her she needed to come out and play. I think she heard them, but we'll have to wait and see if she gives in to peer pressure.....

Iron Spring Christian Camp

Okay, everyone else is writing a blog about this and since Iron Springs Christian Camp pretty much formed my Christianity when I was younger, I feel I should too. We recently found out that they are selling the church camp I grew up at and we are all so sad. Iron Springs gave me so many memories, I still keep in touch with my very first camp counselor from the 5th grade and have several lifelong friends who I met at Iron Springs for the first time. The picture on the left is Candice (childhood friend growing up) sister Tammie, Rachel (college roommate), Sara (college roommate), Jana Banana (don't keep up with her but that's what we called her and she was ultra cool because we let her hang out with us), and me. Now besides the fact that we are incredibly cool, most of us started our friendship at Iron Springs and as you can tell, it lasted long into our adult lives. I have another college roomate that I started a friendship with at camp who is not pictured because she was always hanging out with her parents in the director's cabin. :) I had such great experiences there and am sad to see it go. But the good news is, there are other awesome church camps out there and I can only hope that Nora is interested in attending one of them. There's nothing like spending a week among friends and learning about God. That picture by the bridge reminds me of .....
"Have you ever been fishin on a hot summer day, have you ever been fishin out swimmin in the bay. With your hands in your pockets and your pockets in your pants, have you ever seen a fishy do the hoochie coochie dance. You never did, you never will. "
Whatever that means, it was fun at the time. Anyway, just wanted to dedicate a full blog to the great camp with nothing really to do except swimming....(same sex, of course) Iron Springs Christian Camp. Woo hoo!!! By the way, I picked the font color to match my sweet bugs bunny swimming suit. Right on.

ningunas noticias son buenas noticias

My Spanish is a bit rusty since few people here speak it. You have to find a hole in the wall Mexican joint to find someone with broken English. In TX you take for granted all the Hispanics and the Mexican food. mmmmmmmmmm Papasitos.

No new baby news unless you count the nurse practitioner that told Angie that her weight was "OK" and that it was "a little on the heavy side". What a MORON. What kind of female nurse says that to a pregnant person in her 9th month with no health issues? I know not to do that. EVER. Little does she know that she ruined my Friday night and pretty much all of Saturday too! Yea, it ruined Angie's too, but I had to deploy "weight damage control" for a solid 24 hours and that was tough. My theory is that nurse Jenny was jealous b/c Angie looks great.

It snowed again this weekend. It quickly turned to ice so it was another indoors weekend. No pictures b/c we were too lazy. We didn't leave the couch for 2 days. Seriously. I have bed sores. Not really but we watched 37 movies and my new favorite sport is Curling. I love that I have no idea what's going on in that sport. This begs the question, is it a sport when brooms are involved?

Our Weekend

Lots to tell about. After my appointment on Friday we realized this may be a February baby instead of March, so we spent all weekend getting last minute things together. When we got out of the doctor it was snowing like crazy. Kevin got to come home and we spent all afternoon sipping hot chocolate and watching the snow fall outside. We were stuck inside all night so Kevin did one of his favorite things, dressing Denver up. No, we're not one of those people that buys our dogs clothes...kevin just puts human clothes on them to be funny. He always ties Daisy's head up in a bonnet or forces them into one of his t-shirts. I find it annoying but it makes Kevin laugh for a good 30 minutes. See picture. We also introduced the dogs to our "fake Nora" doll who we've named Lil' N. This will help them get used to a baby and us giving our attention to other things besides them. Yes, we're geeks but hopefully it will help. Last I posted a picture of my belly in case you care. I'm getting more ready to have this baby everyday!! Kevin also finished painting two pictures for the nursery and they are so cute. I will post a picture of the final nursery soon. I think it's so special that he did that...something she will appreciate one day. Sorry the pictures are all lumped together...I don't have time to do separate posts and make them look pretty.

Update

Well, I'm ...................................rescheduling my appointment for Friday because my doctor's sick. Bummer. To be honest I was kind of relieved because I'm not sure I want to know yet if I'm dilated, etc. I need to get ready but I have to get well first. I'm sick so I really don't want to make labor worse by blowing snot everywhere while I'm trying to push her out.
So that's the update...I'll know more after tomorrow.

Calm before the STORM

Wow. 2 posts in 1 day. My work does not block this blog site anymore. I promise, I'm on break....

Anyway, seems like we are in the calm before the storm. You spend so much time preparing, painting, registering, crying, & complaining (oh wait, that's just Angie) that you kind of lose track of what's going on. Now that everything is ready, it feels strangely odd. I guess this is normal. You just wait for something to happen and then you go with it....for the next 18+ years!

I guess that I've made some cracks about Angie complaining. Yes, it's fun to do. I'm lucky to have a wife with a sense of humor. I'm actually on the phone with her now and she is saying something about her back hurting or something. For the record, I would not change places with her or any woman for that matter. I think I'd complain too. This makes me think of the Bill Cosby Himself stand up video. His wife is telling him what it feels like to have a baby. She said you have to pull your lips over your head and then you'd know. No thanks Mrs. Cosby.

My sister's bugging me to update my blog. Well, let's see...last night I came home from work and went to bed about 8:30. Kevin woke me up at about 10:30 and had gone to get me Sudafed and Benadryl. I chose Sudafed thinking it would harm my baby less than the Benadryl. Took the medicine, woke up for work, still feel like crap.

I woke up in the middle of the night for two reasons. 1. My dog has anal glands (sorry, but can't hide the truth...it stinks too bad) and 2. I had "Hey Julie" by Fountains of Wayne stuck in my head. It's such a catchy song and it caused me not to be able to fall back asleep. So I wake Kevin up, get it stuck in his head hoping it would get out of mine, but I only made him mad and we both laid there awake for too long.

I go to the doctor this afternoon to begin my weekly visits, so we'll see if there's anything newsworthy to report tomorrow. People keep coming into my office and telling me about food in the front office. I guess when you're pregnant they think you eat nonstop. I get tired of being told about food and people practically forcing you to eat it. Just because I look like a cow doesn't mean I eat like one.

Help This Family

If you go to www.russellheil.blogdrive.com they have set up a fund to support Russell and his children. Kari Firestone Heil died recently after losing her battle to depression and left two small children and her husband. They are ACU Alumni. I just wanted to get the word out that this is a tangible way we can help them. If you want to post this on your blog as well it might be helpful for more people to know about it.

In the Valley

When Kevin and I got married, I'll never forget during the ceremony, Bob said there will be times you two are in the mountains and times you're in the valley. We haven't had many valley moments in our almost four years, but this week has been one of those times. It seems like there are so many stressors in our life from babysitter decisions to job stress. I always am comforted by prayer, but I get so frustrated with myself because I know and fully admit that I don't pray enough when I'm in a "mountain" moment. I always go running to God when things are hard. Kevin and I prayed together last night and that brings such a peace to our current situation. I hope one day I pray everyday like I do when I'm in pain.

There are many things that are going right for us. My baby is healthy and only 4 1/2 weeks away from entering the world. We got to have our good friends stay with us for three nights and spent time with their 3 month old baby. It felt like college all over again with roommates. Anyway, if you are reading this and feel like it, we would appreciate your prayers for lots of decisions we are making and things that seem like they won't work out, but I KNOW our God is bigger than any problem that seems so huge to me and I'm confident He will take care of us, He always does. I just hope it's sooner rather than later and that I search for what God is trying to say to me during this time. I always look back on things like this and say, oh...that's what you wanted to teach me. I pray this is one of those "tests" that I pass with flying colors. So far, not so good. Today I'm giving it to Him completely. :)