inside and out pictures.

as promised, a picture of that bony little bum and legs all curled up:

and a little profile, it's hard to see:

and the bump:

(check out how nice my nails look from the vitamins and the hormones!)

part of me wants to say that it is just the huge amount of water i had before the picture that makes the bump so big, but i think i am bigger than last time. i still haven't gained five pounds yet, though. weird.

i have now been pregnant during every day of the year. not for a whole year straight, of course, but i have been pregnant during each month of the year between these two pregnancies. 

(you have to remember that most of this bloggity stuff is shared because a lot of my family and friends have never even seen me pregnant. well, technically i was pregnant when i went to utah in february/march but i didn't know it. no wonder i was so exhausted!)

we find out the gender next month when we check all the tiny parts. it seems like time is speeding by a little, but i'm glad the worst is almost over! wait - second worst. real worst would probably be that part where i push a baby out of my body. yeah.

 (me, thinking about labor. actually, just some pictures of my face before it gets too fat.)

luvs and kisses.

why i haven't posted this week: 

my house looks like the set of a diaper commercial most of the time. 

good news, though! i only feel like the inside of a diaper some of the time.

it's getting better every day. i can pretty much eat and cook again. 

i even cleaned out the fridge and took out the garbage and only gagged once! 

now i just need these danged headaches to quit so my brain can function. 

i'm going to try to scan the pictures of my insides this afternoon while the babies nap and maybe take a picture of the outside of my belly, too. here's hoping.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

eleanor has started singing all the time. it's the cutest thing ever. sometimes she does it really quietly and i have to put my head up by her mouth to hear it.

she loves the abc song. yesterday we were on a hike and daddy started to sing it. she turned and looked at me with surprise and happiness and excitement. her face said, "oh my gosh! daddy knows that song, too!"

sometimes it really sounds like she is saying letters. 

other cute things she does lately: 

"blows her nose" on everything (really she just wrinkles her nose and sniffs and spits). 

smells flowers. 

rubs my belly! 

tries to feed everyone by shoving things in their face while saying "yummmm!"

sometimes gives kisses without being asked! :)

next week = new ultrasound pictures. we're starting to feel better around here ... now if i could just get the motivation to cook again.

girl, you'll be a woman soon.

my beautiful sister turns 18 today! can you believe it? can i believe it?! can you believe that all my sisters are now legally adults? 

it can't be!

i remember when she was born and i made a card that said something like "i love you taydumb" while i secretly wondered why my parents would give a kid a name with the word "dumb" in it. 

tatum, you're not dumb! you're graduating high school and i can't believe all you've accomplished so far. i can't wait to see what comes next for you - because it could truly be anything. 

love you sis. hope your day is great.

(yeah, i'm starting to fall back in love with blogger after it shut me out for a day. i was really hurt.)

war wound.

well, the girliest little war wound you've ever seen.

ellie likes to do this funny swagger sometimes. she gets all bow-legged and kind of, i don't know, saunters. she also does this thing when she's "running away" where she just moves her feet twice as much and twice as loud but doesn't go any faster. it's like a human cartoon. 

anyway, she was doing some sort of silly walk in the hallway and fell and knocked her head on the door hinge. (it's official. doors = her archenemies.)

she didn't want to keep the bandaid on it, but after she wiped her bloody head on the carpet and in the curtains, we forced compliance. we went to the store and daddy let her buy her very own, very special hello kitty bandaids. she carried them up to the register herself, put them on the belt and was very happy when the cashier gave her the box back in its own bag, just for her. 

she spent the next few days sporting the ultimate accessory.

is it possibly the most adorable boo-boo ever? yes, yes it is. 

(stop taking pictures of me, mom!)

little things.

ellie has been watching a lot of sesame street lately. she loves her shows and they are one of the rare things that can get her to sit still. 

i've always loved sesame street.*
things have definitely changed on the show, of course, but every once in a while i'll see a little clip or character that i remember from my childhood. all it takes is one "ala-peanut-butter-sandwiches!" and i'm back there, watching it all over again for the first time. 

the other day we saw the story of bert's blanket.

 i had totally forgotten about it! so catchy.

there are also the new clips that are amazing, like when donald grump (the grouch) needs a new apprentice. 
("i'm the trashiest! i'm the grumpiest!" uh, truer words were never spoken?)

then, the other day, a song came on that i knew by heart but hardly remembered. maybe it's the baby in me (okay, pretty sure it's the baby in me, messing with my hormones) but i really heard the words for the first time and the meaning just went straight to my mushy, overly-emotional soul.

the lyrics:

i believe in little things
that you can hardly see
like honeycomb and spider webs
and starfish in the sea
  i believe in little things
like icy drops of rain
that melt into the morning mist
when winds are warm again
  i believe in little things
like colors in the sky
and noticing the waves roll in
and how the flowers die
knowing they'll be back again
whenever it's july
  i believe in little things
like you and me
and just how big
little things can be

simple and beautiful. i really do believe in little things.
life is made up entirely of sweet, small moments and lovely little things.
i hope you believe in them, too.

*(i love any television that can help you learn. i remember once, back in sixth grade, somebody said to me "geez, you probably just read the encyclopedia all day!" i actually thought she was the strange one. i thought to myself, "it's just from tv. haven't you ever watched tv?" we did watch a lot of public television though, back when there were shows that weren't just trying to teach kids how to speak spanish. anyway, i think you can get an extensive education, good or bad, from television.)

your suspicions confirmed.

that's right, folks. another. 

so if you've noticed i've been lazy, annoying, tired, lackadaisical, flaky, absent-minded, pale, blah, or just not myself . . . now you know why. 

and if you've been noticing the tummy growth, thanks for not mentioning it.

it's 12 weeks (tomorrow) and i'm still feeling rather yucky (ie increasingly gross). we're surviving, but i really can't tell you how.

ellie's pretty excited about it. 

okay, she has no idea what's going on, but she smiles anyway.
(until i try to take the pee stick away and she starts screaming because it looks like it could be something interesting and electronic.)
(also, the line was pretty faint when i took a picture of it.) 

ultrasound from 10 weeks:

and to all of you who are moms, will be moms someday and especially to those of you who are brand new moms or are waiting patiently to be moms - happy mother's day! 
you are wonderful. 

mountain goat.

we've been rearranging our house lately due to the incredible climbing abilities that ellie has been developing. 

please ignore the mail trash on the couch in this video. i thought i was keeping it away from her up there, but i guess i have to find all new places to put things for a few minutes until i can properly clean them up. it was exactly why she wanted to get on the couch, of course.

because she's in her diaper, you can see her crazy little muscles. she has a round belly, but those muscles are nuts! she lifts her leg so high.

not only that, but we had the couch pushed against the back of kitchen counter. it didn't last long against her skills. she climbed all the way up (with a pacifier in her mouth), she got the apple she wanted, took two "bites" and then she threw it on the ground. 

what am i going to do with her? 

besides moving the couch.

what the may?

how is this year already a third of the way over? maybe it's because easter came so "late."

maybe it's because i've been pretty busy with all of life's little details. 

it also might have something to do with the fact that we didn't have regular church on the first sundays of march, april, and now may (for stake conference, general conference, and the atlanta temple rededication respectively) and that really has been throwing me off. sunday is the day i interact with the most humans and is kind of a break to my every day routine. when we don't have a normal sunday it almost feels like a 14 day week to me. 

i have noticed that it is already getting kinda hot (we do live near hotlanta, remember?) and that it's time to drastically change our wardrobe . . . because it is only going to get (almost unbearably) worse.

and that reminds me, because i've been asked a couple of times: we were very much untouched by this terrible southern disaster. we did spend a few hours that night awake in bed with the radio on, listening to hear which town was next to be hit. it was pretty frightening, knowing there is a tornado to the north or to the south (or both) and wondering what direction it will decide to go next. the tornado siren did go off, but they never came too close to us. the storms weakened a lot. in fact, i don't think it was the worst thunderstorm we've had this year. we do know a few people who have relatives and friends who were in the path, but so far i've heard mostly good news. 

the videos are incredible, if you haven't seen them. tornadoes have to be the scariest natural disaster. they're so unpredictable. with floods you pretty much know where the water is headed. earthquakes have an epicenter and everything is hit. when you have a tornado, you might have one house completely flattened and the house next door is almost untouched.

lately i feel like so much more happens every single year of my life. more things happened when i was a teenager than when i was a child, even more things happen now that i'm an adult. the disasters get bigger and more frequent. the wonderful events, like babies and weddings, seem to happen more often, too. i can't tell if that is just part of getting older - that i'm noticing more. 

is it me or is it the world?

 

p.s. - my new header is from our local park. that's the thing i like best about these storms. everything is super, super green right now. it seems like it can't get greener, then we have a another storm and guess what? green like crazy.

and green is my favorite color.