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!!