My Little (& Big) Gardener

I took these pics very late one afternoon so they are very dark.

He loves trying to be like his daddy. Let's just hope he has this much fun when he's 12 and chopping out the garden!

We have had enough squash and zucchini to feed a small army. Meemaw taught me how to "put it up" so we should have plenty for the winter. I've also put up peppers, which I cook with a lot. Now we are waiting on the many tomatoes that are starting to come in and I'm excited to can salsa, tom. juice, and diced tomatoes. Now if only the okra would get here-I LOVE BAKED OKRA with a fresh tomato with it! Oh great, think I'm gonna have a craving now!

Went to the Dr. last Friday and they did get the image they needed. Hollynn is 53% for height/weight. I go next Friday for the glucose test. And from here on out I go every 2 weeks. Today starts week 28! My weight is fluctuating up to 7 lbs. some days. I've started swelling quite a bit. She said not to worry about it especially since I work in the heat. But some days I think my fingers and toes are going to pop off they get so swollen. I've had 2 days that my calf muscles (which are not exactly little) and my lower leg seem to blend together, eeewwww! Am I grossing you out? It grosses me out! But good news is that my Dr. said she would induce me the week before my due date (looking at Oct. 12). This is Jason's fall break and I was sooo excited when she said she could do that. That gives Jason almost a week to be with us and not worry about school, homework, tests, etc. Especially since he is taking Greek this semester and it's a M-W-F 8:00 class.

We spent the morning going through toys. You would not believe the amount of tractors Hudson has, it's crazy! But I was able to get out several things that he doesn't play with and some that he's just outgrown that I will put up for Hollynn, so it freed up a little bit of space in his tiny room. But I figure with his 3rd birthday right around the corner, it will be filled right back up. But we are hoping for everyone to chip in on a swingset instead of toys. He's so excited about getting a swingset.

He is no longer wearing a diaper to bed WOOHOO! NO MORE DIAPERS!!!! To get him motivated to stop peeing in his diaper (he would do it when he woke up in the a.m.), I made him a chart and for every morning that he has dry shorts he gets a sticker. When his chart gets full he gets to go to the movies. It's working great! I think he's only had one accident since we started almost week and a half ago. He only has 4 more spots left for stickers. Then we will be off to the free kids movies in Clarksville off of exit 1. They are showing Desperaux (some movie about a mouse) next week. It's Tues.-Thurs. at 9:30 if you are looking for something inexpensive to do. Amanda-the first week of Aug. is Kung Fu Panda, I know you said your kids love that one.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Jelous!

Usually it's Hudson being jelous of Andy or Foxxy when they get on the couch with me and I carry on with them. This night it was the other way around! Jason snapped this with his phone.

Better Late than Never

Since Jason carried a gun around during VBS we have seen this face, hand signal, and head "pow" I don't know how many times!

In his class they all had a line that said "God made..." His was "God made Eve". I told him if he did a good job then I would let him have some gum. The first thing he said to me when I picked him up was, could he have his gum!

Jason played the part of deputy all week. Here he is wearing one of my show shirts, chaps, even my pink spurs, and my dad's wranglers. After this night he moved on to wearing my dad's old shirts. Not sure exactly what I thought about that!

Thanks Lisa for these pics!

I'm a horrible blogger, I know. VBS has been over for about a month and I'm just now getting to posting the pics!

I cannot believe Hudson will be 3 in about a month! He can stand up in the 3 ft. end of the pool and walk by himself! He is also going down the slide head first. Doing okay on swimming without his vest. I haven't been able to get to the pool like I thought. The heat has made me an even bigger sissy and I'm just not a fan of being nauseous all day!

I think one of his favorite things is to go to the garden in the afternoons with Jason and Hoss. He loves it and I have to get some pics because he gets his little hoe out and chops away right beside his Dad, it's too cute! Especially when he gets to grunting and carrying on! Speaking of garden, I am loving ours. So far we've been able to do all organic which is right up my alley and Meemaw has taught me how to put some things up for winter. I'm waiting on the tomatoes so that we can can them and hopefully make some salsa, too. We have a ton of squash and zucchini and by the end of the summer I'm sure I'll have come up with 1,000 ways to cook it!

I am now 6 1/2 months and the belly is growing! I go back next Friday for a third attempt to get some of her measurements. Hopefully they can get everything. The last two times she has been laying in a position that they can't see everything. We had a little scare last week but everything is okay. Turned out I had some nasty virus (plus a sinus infection) instead of being in pre term labor. But I'm glad they had me come in to check it out, it made me feel a lot better just knowing everything was okay. Jason ended up with the virus about the time I was getting over it. What's up with getting sick while pregnant!? I do not get sick, I've been to the Dr. 2 times in 7 years of marriage for being sick. Since I've been pregnant I've been sick more than I've been well!

For the 4th we went to some friends house and everything was great until the fireworks started! Let's just say Hudson HATES fireworks. Even going inside didn't help. We ended up going home and him crying when he heard them on the way home. Thankfully we were only a few miles from home and I let him sit in my lap because I don't know what he would have done had I put him down. He was shaking and screaming, not a pretty sight. Then once we got home he sat on me for at least 30 minutes and talked NON STOP! Jason and I ended up just laughing because he wouldn't stop. He'd be talking about a tractor and then in mid sentence tell how he did not like fireworks. Once Aunt Casey and Uncle Will showed up he was ready to get in the floor and play and things went back to normal. Let's just say we won't be watching any fireworks anytime soon!

Kicks, kicks, and more kicks...

These two pics were taken by one of his VBS teachers. I have more VBS photos that I will eventually get around to posting, hopefully :)

I hope this post doesn't get too lengthy but I just want to share. A few weeks ago I told you I would tell you what I thought about all of this kicking going on in my stomach. Now you can see if from the outside when she kicks. She is sitting extremely low, so low that the only person who can put their hand where she is is Jason, otherwise I would feel totally violated!

It's pretty obvious that I'm not too crazy about being pregnant. And I'm not one to hide my feelings and I'm sure some people think I'm just horrible. Call it what you want, I'm real and honest maybe a little brutal at times, sorry about that. But I never had a desire to get pregnant, we never even considered any form of fertility treatments, it's just never been a big deal for me. The thought of adoption, however, thrills my soul. Seriously, when I found out I was pregnant I went through a grieving period because we had to stop the adoption we started., I'm talking major tears. I had a very hard time reading about people adopting and I cannot wait to start our next one. Some people think we are nuts for our future plan of only Miss Hollynn as our biological daughter and adopting one or two more children, so nuts we'll be. Don't give me your opinion until you have stared in the face of orphans who have no one to love them, no comfort, no clothes of their own, no one to hold them when they cry, or kiss them. You may be able to sit through the commercials on t.v., but I bet if you saw it in person, you wouldn't even have to close your eyes to remember those sweet, lonely faces.

For the most part of my pregnancy, I just felt like poo! I've never have anything be able to get me down like that. I went through so much physically, emotionally, and I feel like Satan came after me. I've never felt like that. The worse part was feeling so alone and like every day was eternity. I'm doing better now, despite being sick several times over the past few weeks. I've realized that I don't have much of a choice except to go through labor and most days I'm pretty conviced I can do it-I know, I've turned into a sissy! You've never heard me complain about anything after having the baby because I'm looking forward to another child, Jason and I want another child and then another. But something changed when two things happened. The first time I felt her move and knew it was her. And when we found out she was a girl (although I was pretty convinced the entire time). It made it more real, like there really is a little something inside of me, and it gave her more identity, a girl, Hollynn to be specific. That name was picked out long before she arrived in my belly.

After I got over the total weirdness of feeling her move, my first thought went to a lady who is somewhere in Russia. This pregnancy has made me love Hudson birthmom even more than I already did. I don't know her situation, but I know mine. And happy I was not about being pregnant. She may not have been as well. But once I felt her move, I don't know, I just can't even put it into words. I just know that his bm felt the same things and must have thought it amazing as well and yet she still walked out of that hospital without the most precious thing I've ever seen. The only person I know more selfless than that is my Jesus! I think about her all the time but even moreso this past month of feeling my baby girl move. I've said it several times but I'll say it again. I hope that she is in heaven because when I finally let go of Jesus' feet, I'm gonna wrap my arms around her. Please pray with me that she knows my Jesus or will come to know Him.

Don't doubt that I love my baby girl in my stomach. I look forward to seeing her sweet face and I love feeling her moving inside of me. No, I don't like being pregnant but I'm sure I'll love the end result. And she'll have the best big brother :) And one day she'll be a wonderful big sister :) to a little boy or girl, whom God willing, will arrive on an airplane :)

The kids...

This picture was taken two months ago for our church directory. I remember this day very clearly, I was soooo not feeling good and wanted some potato salad so we very quickly took the pic and headed to a nearby bar b que place!



It has been so hot! I've never been so affected by the heat, I'm blaming it on being preggo. I was sick 3 times last week when I got too hot. I've handled it a little better this week. It doesn't slow Hudson down a bit, though. We walk everyday, about a mile, and he runs most of it. We make the same loop and he LOVES it because we go to my Uncle Charles' and he gets to see tractors, all kinds of equipment, bobcats, etc. Sometimes I have to jog to catch up to him!




At church he was telling everyone that his sister's name is Olive! However, it is not! Her name is Hollynn. We have always like Holland as a name but we don't pronounce it with the d so I started playing with the spelling of it one day and we both like it spelled with the combination of Holly and Lynn.



Swimming lessons...well, we've worked on it one time and he did well. He kicks much better and blows bubbles. He has also went under all the way several times and he seems to like it. Next week is world show week and we are only showing there one day so the other 5 days I am going to take him to a friend of ours awesome pool and work really hard on it. I want him to be swimming on his own some before we take our vacation to Florida later this summer. I can't wait for next week. It's gonna be all Hudson and Mommy time! Yes, I spend everyday with him since he gets to go to the barn with me while I work but I just want to take next week and do lots of fun stuff. Swimming, Monkey Joe's, park, creek, and maybe even a spur of the moment trip to Chatt. town to visit my sista! I love spending time with my little man. He is so much fun, and when he's not, it's usually better after nap time :)

It's a...

Drumroll please...

Dad cutting the cake...

oh yeah lots of pink!!

I was so worried that we weren't going to find out if we were having a boy or girl. She had her knees bent and her feet pulled up in the way for about the first 30 min. of the ultrasound and finally she stretched them out a little bit but we still couldn't be sure. So I had to roll over on my side where they could get a different angle and THANKFULLY we could see right in between her legs. The lady typed Girl up on the screen and like the jocks we are, me and Jason high fived (we are so not cool)! Of course, I said I knew it all along! She was in a position that they couldn't get a few of her measurements so I have to have another ultrasound so that they can get everything. But right now everything looks great. She weighs 12oz.!

My mom and Granny are in Florida so they were the first to know with a big bouquet of flowers and a card that read: Dear Meme, I'll see ya in October! Love, Your Grandaughter Then Casey got her flowers in Chattanooga with a similar card. We had 2 cakes made as you can see from above. One went to Jason's parents and one went to my Dad. Everyone was excited. My mom was crying so much that she couldn't talk and had to hand the phone to Granny who was also crying. I saw a tear in Meemaw's eyes, too. When we cut the cake at Dad's, Meemaw, Melissa, and Jordan were there and Tracy, Brandon, and two of their kids came over. Although Hudson wanted a little brother he was happy when we told him he was getting a little sister.

I'm excited about going shopping for a little girl! Never thought the words "I'm excited to go shopping" would come from my mouth! But pink is my favorite color!

The cake is AWESOME! If you live around here and want one of the best cakes you've ever eaten, e-mail me for the number of the lady who made these. Very tasty and great price!

Mr. Smiley

I like both of these pics of him playing with "my commuta"!

This shirt wasn't so white after church and lunch! He was showing me his sword. He loves the veggie tales, Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, and walks around with his pointer finger up wanting to sword fight!

I grabbed the camera the other night as he emerged from his room after some drilling and work with his skill saw. He was so cute with his safety goggles pushed up on his head.

We had a nice Memorial Day weekend. We celebrated Lauren's graduation on Saturday and Hudson loved swimming in their pool. Then went swimming with U. Will and A. Casey on Monday afternoon. Jason and I both worked on Memorial Day but not our usual long day of work so we enjoyed some down time that afternoon. Hudson LOVES to swim. He is not afraid to go off the slide and on Monday we started working on kicking more correctly and blowing bubbles. I was going to get him swimming lessons but I think I'm going to try to teach him how to swim instead. We shall see how this goes, it could get interesting!

On the baby front, I felt it kick for the first time last Friday. WEIRD FEELING! I had no doubt that it was not gas or my stomach growling. It felt like popcorn popping in my lower stomach. I'm more used to it now and no longer look at my stomach with my head turned sideways in that puppy sort of way. It's pretty neat and I try to sit still sometimes just to see if I feel it. I'm so excited to find out if it's a boy or a girl! I'm feeling so much better that I started exercising and riding again. Wow am I out of shape after 3 1/2 months of sickness and laying in the fetal position! But it's good to be back in the saddle and on the elliptical. I'm not overdoing it, though, I just don't want to be out of shape and turn into some fat blob!

When I have a little more time I'll share with you more of my thoughts on feeling the baby move!

I've been a horrible mom and have only been taking pics with my phone. So here are two recent ones. Above: I was bribing him to stop playing in the creek for a second and smile at me, which got me the "Here's my fake, hurry up lady" smile. Below: My belly at 17 weeks. I'm now 19 weeks and it's definitely taken a growth spurt over these last 2 weeks!

Sorry I've been a horrible blogger. But things have been looking up a little more here lately. I have been off of nausea medicine for 2 weeks now and I've only had 1 migraine in the past week! I've had to start wearing maternity pants, and I must admit, they are very comfortable. I have been enjoying looking up the foods I've been eating and what they do for you. Those 3 months when I was so sick I ate bread and potatoes, two things I hardly ate before. But they seemed to calm my stomach. Now I'm able to eat fruits again, which made me the sickest in the first trimester, but was all I ate before being preggo. But the weirdest thing I can't live without is lemons. Something I NEVER put in my water before. Now I put LOTS of them in my water. Seems to help with digestion and acid reflux, which I've had a big problem with, so I'm glad my body is wanting lemons! I also went through a week of wanting gatorade, it was the same week that I had the worst migraines and ended up at the neurologist and then was completely out of it for 3 days, guess I needed some electrolytes. I would wake up and want gatorade! Anyways, moving on, because I know you all wanted to hear about my food and drink preferences!

We will find out soon if we are having a boy or girl. I can't wait to know, and don't worry, after we share it with our family I will post it on the blog :)

Hudson is still growing like a weed and his personality cracks me up multiple times each day. Here lately he asks me the same question every night when I put him to bed. "Mom, the cows cannot come in the house?" And every night we talk about how the cows are too big and could never come in the house. He is learning his left from his right and gets it right 90% of the time. He also knows his birthday is in August but can't seem to remember the 7th part. We are working on sounding out simple words like Mom, Dad, Dog, Cat, Log, and a few others. He does well for a 2 year old! And he loves it. He asks me every day to work on his alphabet and numbers.

Jason turns the big 26 this Sunday. We are getting old. On the down hill to 30! I'm thinking we'll spend most of the day relaxing and going to church. After working as hard as he has been since school let out, I'm sure that's what he'll want to do.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Randomness...

Cute story..

On Monday I was paying bills online and Hudson came up and said, "Mom, whatcha' doin'?" I said, "Paying bills." He said, "You're not Bill, you're my mom!" Isn't it funny the things that come from their mouths!

Aunt Casey is home and last night Hudson spent the night with her. I was so sure he would never make it since one time he said he was staying down there, I didn't even get the door shut and he was bawling. I figured it would get bed time and he would want his Mom to rub his back since that's what he wants every night, but not last night. They came bee bopping in the house at 7:45 this morning. He normally gets up at 9:00 so I'm hoping for a long nap time :) Never knew I could miss someone so much from just one night. Jason and I didn't know what to do with ourselves last night so we sat on the couch and talked then watched some Andy Griffith. We're so old!

Pregnancy update...I am only feeling sick at night now and I've managed to not take my nausea med. for several days now. When I start to feel bad I'm trying to go to bed because I don't like the side effect from the med. But the nausea going away is AWESOME! Hopefully the migraines will be under control soon, I have been on a preventative for a few days now. We have one month and we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl, I'm really looking forward to that. I'm pretty convinced it's a girl, Jason thinks so too. Hudson is convinced he wants a brother. Either way, we'll be happy!

Jason took one exam today and has 2 more on Tuesday and this semester is over. He hasn't made his mind up about summer school yet, I think it will all depend on his business.

NAP TIME!

Permasmile

I was trying to be sneaky and snap a few pics of these two thoroughly enjoying themselves yesterday afternoon.

But I was caught! And the smile never left his face. He smiled ear to ear the entire time they were mowing the yard except for...

when he was so focused on steering. I think we have our next employee. I'll remind him when he's 14 and he's getting ready for work how much he used to enjoy riding the mower :)