It's Beginning to Look a Little Like...

Hope you're prepared for a wild calamity of self-portraits.  It seems that while no one told me it was so hard to take a decent "belly shot", the fact that I stayed so far from them for the past 25+ weeks would indicate that perhaps this is just one of those "motherly instincts" (insert laughter here... oh, and when exactly do those motherly instincts kick in?). 

Not only will these be the absolute worst pictures (from an aesthetic and technical standpoint - double whammy!) that I'll be forced into sharing, they will also serve as the content for the post with the most pictures of myself included. And very quickly you will discover why I'd much rather take pictures of faces like these, than my kinda-sorta (?) expanding mid-section... and equally fast, you will be thanking me.

Here we start with the horribly off-centered picture... the picture with Kara making a weird face (that's my "how in the heck do people take these pictures?" face)... let's try it with the hand down... or is the key to pull a 180!?!  

Maybe it's having the hand on hip... and black and white?

At last, something semi-reasonable... after I called for reinforcement... 

Yup, that's all I've got to show for 25+ weeks of growing our little one.  And with that, I will stumble back into the kitchen to take pictures of inanimate objects... or maybe just drown myself in the massive amount of dust I must clean before family arrives.

PS - it's true, shame on us... we haven't done a darn thing with that guest room I begged for suggestions on eons ago

PPS - if you expect to receive a Christmas present from us, please don't study the items on the bed too carefully as that was our staging ground for gifts... which are all beautifully wrapped and waiting under our tree now (or they were in my vivid pregnancy dream last night)

A New Tradition

If you've been around here longer than a day or two, you are probably expecting to hear all about another one of our family's recent weekends in Philly... watching Navy pummel (sorry to any Army fans... but it's the truth) Army for the 9th year in a row.

For the first time in ages... and I won't even attempt a quick count... no members of my family were in attendance.  No Jim's cheesesteaks (provolone, mushrooms and onions for mom and me... Cheez-Whiz and onions for Chris and dad) Friday night... no inhumanely freezing cold game Saturday... and sigh, no La Viola (weep... Carolyn, I know you feel our pain) post-game heavy Italian delicious-ness.  Aside from all the food that we (clearly) very sorely missed, I must admit within the first 5 minutes of the televised broadcast, I had commented no less than twice that perhaps this game was better watched from the comfort (read: warmth) of our own home.  The video intros were well thought-out, touching and patriotic, I could multi-task - in and out of the kitchen pulling Christmas cookies out of the oven, and did I mention, it was so warm.

Warm at gametime, I should clarify.  Where we found ourselves very early Saturday morning, however, was decidedly not warm.  I'll blame my wishy-washiness on pregnancy and hormones but in the moment, I may have even said "I'd rather be in Philly," though we all know how that would have worked out in the end.  Cold or warm, there aren't many places I would have rather been than with the other thousands of volunteers at Arlington National Cemetery, laying wreaths on around 24,000 graves of our veterans and their family members.  

Chris had read about this wonderful volunteer opportunity through our alumni group, CAN, and we jumped at the chance once we realized that for the first time in ages, we'd actually be in town on the big weekend.

Never say never, of course, but I'm tempted to declare that we've found a new tradition, even possibly in the face of missing our beloved Army-Navy... the idea of bringing our kid(s) with us, having them lay their own wreaths and explaining the sacrifice and courage that these men and women put forth for the freedoms that we enjoy each and everyday, is all but decided upon (though the jury is still out on how we will best be able to participate next year... wear the 8-month old or push him/her in the stroller?). 

**I'm not in anyway affiliated with Wreaths Across America, but just in case you are interested (there are tons of non-DC wreath laying ceremonies and donation opportunities), in helping out, click here.

So You're Saying There's a Chance...

Someone assure me that my brother didn't get all the cute baby-making genes in this family. There's gotta be some smidgen of a percentage that our baby might look like this. Right... right??

Or at least this... I mean, there's no denying that one of the (main) reasons I'm carrying around this (shockingly only 1 lb.) bebe is for a chance at cheeks like these...

 
**You think this one is cute? There's more where she comes from...