Bittersweet?

I am very grateful, yet I complain. Is this a side effect of pregnancy? My family is blessed with so much and instead of finding the "dopeness" I sometimes look at the "whackness" (5 points for anybody who can tell me what movie that is from!).

So from now on you are allowed to pinch me if you hear me complain about frivolous nonsense. Is it too late for a New Year's resolution?

And you wonder where I am going with all of this . . .

It is the middle of the winter and we have experienced some dang cold weather lately. I don't like being cold, I hate taking the time to bundle up myself and Mimi, and I was beginning to feel there would NEVER be an end to all this . . . until last weekend . . .

So maybe I do live in Memphis, where everyone feels crime is rampant, but we do have the most fabulous zoo in America! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Memphis zoo -- and so do Clint and Mimi. Jordan, Luke, and their beautiful new addition Georgia Grace (Mimi calls her Gigi, of course) spent the night with us Saturday night (and no, I didn't take pics), so we had an excuse to sleep in a little on Sunday morning and skip church. The weather was fan-tastic, so we headed to the zoo for the morning. Mimi hasn't been in a while, so this was like a whole new experience for her. She helped us name a few of the animals and tell us what sounds they make, and she was definitely not able to do that last summer. The zoo added Teton Trek, which includes a really cool lodge, grizzly bears, and wolves, and is a fabulous place for Mimi to take off and run!! This is her trying to jump out of my arms to run to the water fall.
Although she loves to run, run, run, she found a nice spot to rest with Daddy.

So I stick my finger in his belly button for good luck?

And back to the obsessive coloring. Although we are so happy Mimi loves to color, I freaked out a few days ago to find that our entire kitchen and some of other random white furniture in the house had been decorated. I yanked the crayons out of her hand and told her that was a BIG no no! She was really upset and didn't understand why the whole world couldn't be her coloring book. After taking a second to calm down, I realized that this is one of the greatest things she has ever done -- she has become a creative little toddler. I am so happy that she is big enough to do things like this, and so what? Crayon washes off, and it's not like we have anything fancy she can ruin. I still have an ugly white dishwasher for goodness' sake.

(Please don't look at the goober face I'm making)

I finally felt I needed to post a belly pic so people will believe I'm really pregnant. Now I am almost 14 weeks -- this was taken around 12 1/2. I am quickly growing out of my clothes (much faster than last time!). The past six weeks have been pretty excruciating at times with all the nausea and exhaustion, but there is a silver lining. As of about a week ago, the terrible symptoms are lifting a little . . . and so is my mood (thank goodness! I'm tired of being Negative Nancy). Some days I felt so bad that I would forget why I was even going through all this. I would remember that my body was doing something different, but I would forget that it was actually making a baby.

Now I totally realize that there will be a sweet, little bundle at the end of all this. And I really do love being pregnant (I think I can already feel the baby moving a little -- is that crazy?). I had a great pregnancy overall with Mimi and I don't anticipate this being any different. As I go through my day I try to think about how my routine will be different -- I will be getting 2 ready in the morning, we will be giving baths to 2 at night, and we will get to snuggle with 2 before bedtime. Awwww . . . I'm so excited!!

Our Obsessions

It all started when Miss Jackie gave Mimi If You Give a Mouse a Cookie in her Valentine goodie bag at school. She and I were reading it a few days ago, and when we got to the page where the mouse has giant crayons and paper she freaked out.
"Color! Color! COLOR!!"
"That's right, Mimi. The mouse is coloring."
And then she started trying to scratch the crayons off the paper with her little fingers.
"COOLLEERR!!" she sobbed. "COOLLEERR!!!!!"
Oh my goodness. I had to think quick. Where had I hidden her crayons? I pulled them out a couple of weeks ago and learned she had quite the appetite for them, so I yanked them out of her mouth and put them away. Ah, the junk drawer. Of course.
"CO-OO--OO--LERS!!! Wah ah aha ah wah!!"
Crayons and construction paper were promptly placed in front of Miss Drama Queen, and the house grew eerily quiet. I stood ready to pull purple chunks of crayon out of her mouth if necessary, but after a few minutes I realized I wouldn't have that problem. She put blue in her right hand, red in her left, and ever so carefully began her masterpiece of random lines. Then on to the purple and brown. Wait, maybe the blue again. Oh, just to see the artist come out.
So this is Mimi's new obsession. If she hears Nate Berkus on Oprah talking about "COLOR," I have to be ready to have the Big Bird coloring book and 8 pack of fat Crayolas ready. It is fabulous to have something to actually keep her busy in restaurants now!
So Mimi's obsession is coloring, and mine is, well, her. Or her new hairstyle rather. Yesterday she woke up with some serious bedhead after naptime, and I thought why not pigtails? Oh. My. Goodness. She is such a big girl now. I took about 15 pictures of her on my phone, and I have looked at them at least 75 times today. I showed them to all of my nurses, ". . . and here she is with pigtails coloring, and here she is watching Sesame Street, and here she is with pigtails standing on her head."
Have I lost it yet?

SNOW DAY!!

We woke up to a fluffy, white wonderland on Monday morning -- what a nice surprise! As soon as we had breakfast, we bundled up Mimi like Ralphie's little brother and headed outdoors to teach her how to throw snowballs. Some of our neighbors had their adorable black puppies out for a walk, and they were so fun in the snow.
We attempted to make a snowman, and Mimi tried her best to help. The fact is that I'm from Mississippi, and building snowmen is not what we're known for . . . so his head fell off by the end of the day.Clint thinks it's so funny to let Miss Mimi run around completely naked after her bath every night. I was standing in the kitchen last night and saw a flash of a little pink thing fly by the door. Once we wrestled her into a diaper (and Clint put on her pink house shoes!), she decided she wanted to dance in the kitchen. She kept making the music play on her Fridge Farm and had some silly dances to go with it. Even Ruthie got in on the action! Clint has been teaching her how to twirl!!