Catching Up...

Well, it's been a while, but I'm finally here to catch you up on our lives. Yesterday, my Sugar (Michael to the rest of you) had his 35th birthday. What a gift he is to me! He reflects the Lord to me on a daily basis by protecting, providing for, and being patient with me (excuse the alliteration). The new song on my playlist is his favorite right now. He had a nice birthday, though it was pretty low-key. Alabama had a comfortable win, which was probably his favorite present. He has only been well for a short time because he recently battled the dreaded swine flu. Yes, the swine flu struck our house and we survived! Thankfully, Michael was diagnosed early and began taking tamiflu. My OB prescribed tamiflu for me also, and that may have kept me from getting sick (along with God's mercy to me, of course!). I've been paranoid about how badly this disease has affected pregnant women, so maybe it's good that we already had to deal with it. I don't know why, but Michael and I are both still very tired from the whole ordeal. Luke and Leah never got the flu, but ran fevers that same week, so I kept them home to prevent spreading it. It was a very long week! One day, I was bored and decided to clean out some cabinets. Michael was bored and shaved his head. Here he is being a good sport and having a tea party with Luke and Leah. He didn't appreciate me taking pictures of him drinking out of a dainty, flowered cup. Still, it shows just how sweet he is, and one of the reasons I love him so! (Aside: they are not drinking tea. Leah's drink of choice is always apple juice. Yes, I know what it looks like:)


Our life is so exciting, right? My pregnancy is going well, but I am still battling fatigue and irritability. I just passed my 13 week mark, so I'm hoping that my energetic, feel-good period is right around the corner! Michael's hoping, too! I recently had another check-up and met my new OB, Mary Wells. I really like her! My old doc no longer delivers babies (boo!), so I was cautiously hopeful about his recommendation for me. It already seems that she's my perfect fit! I got to have an unexpected ultrasound and here's a pic of our pumpkin:

Can you tell that the little fella or gal is already sucking its thumb? I think it's so neat that babies this tiny already do something like that! Amazing! It was fun to take a peek and see that everything seems to be alright. Leah looked hard at all of the pictures for a glimpse of the "tinkler". She saw the shadow of a foot in one and exclaimed "It's a boy! See that boy tinkler!" I had to explain that we couldn't see the tinkler yet, but inwardly laughed as I thought, "Boy, that would be some tinkler!" She also glanced through the magazine that I got from the doctor's office and was enlightened more than I realized she would be. There were pics of the whole process, from conception to delivery and then a baby nursing. I answered a lot of hilarious questions and managed to dodge a few too. Oh yeah! I almost forgot some other news, where Leah is concerned. She got her ears pierced! I know, it's so early, but she wore me down with the constant asking. I told her at first that she had to be 10, then 8. We were out estate-sale-hopping as a family one day, when Michael heard her ask again and again. "Why not get them pierced?" he said. "What's the big deal?" I explained my whole rite-of-passage, it-needs-to-be-special, won't-we-seem-like-rednecks argument and it was entirely lost on him. So we headed to Claire's and we got it done. No big deal, and she's mega proud. Here she is baring her lobes for the camera:

Now you're up-to-date! Hope you all are doing well and are swine-free! Now I'm going to read up on all of your happenings and see what you've been doing! P.S. Special thanks to Jenny McNeill for helping me make my pics a bit larger!