My new job

Today marks the beginning of a new season of life for us, well for me anyway. I am no longer working!?? I'm really nervous about it and excited too. Our house needs a lot of deep cleaning and I need to start labor, so for the next few weeks I will be cleaning from top to bottom.

Well, what else is going on? Travis is still working on Jackson's room. The walls and ceiling are painted, as well as the trim. We are now waiting on the new carpet! After Travis tore out the gross carpet in our hallway to lay tile, we thought it would be best to have the carpet installed before the baby and our family came to visit. It will be a pain for a few days, since we have to move everything out of the bedrooms, but worth it in the end.

I am 36 weeks now and feeling extremely uncomfortable. Everyday I just can't imagine feeling more uncomfortable than I am and then the next day I wake up and it's worse than the day before. I just keep focusing on the finish line and getting to hold Jackson for the 1st time, oh what sweet relief that will be!!

I will be able to update this more too, since I am now what Travis likes to call me "A lady of leisure."

Have a good long weekend!

Um, could you carry this for a few minutes?

So the big news is yesterday, Monday, August 7, we had another ultrasound done by the Doc and Jackson is weighing in at a healthy 4lbs 5oz. With seven weeks still to go, probably shooting for a good 8lb baby, which is fine by me. I want a big healthy baby, plus I know how to say "E-P-I-D-U-R-A-L Please!!" No wonder my back has been killing me, I would just love for someone to carry my tummy around for just a few minutes, that's all, I'm not looking for all day, I would just love a few minutes here and there for someone else to carry the load and give my poor back and especially my bad hip a break. Thank goodness for swimming pools! Not only do they cool a gal off, but she can feel as light as air in it! I'm sure I look like a bobber floating around that thing in my red swimsuit, but I don't care, it's sweet relief!

OK, so here's kind of a funny story I should share with y'all. Mind you my hormones are raging and my patience level is off the charts, so for this lady to have walked away without a little lip from me is pretty much AMAZING!! So, I know that there are women out there that had horrible pregnancy's. Some who have carried 10 to 13 pound kids well past their due date. I'm sure there's even those that have had worse temperatures and climate to deal with than me. I am not going to down size your experience in any way, especially when some of those women feel as if their childbirth experience was their right of passage, the way they brought life into this world can never be compared to again. I just pray that I learn from this and when I see a pregnant girl in the store or just in passing, I will just smile at her and SHUT MY MOUTH!! Seriously! I had a lady in Albertson's notice my condition, then felt the need to walk all the way across the produce section to where I was, just so she could share her story of giving life to her son in the hottest summer on record for North Texas....summer of 1980!! I listened patiently and then thought to myself..."why do some women find it so necessary to share these horrific stories with pregnant women they see? I can't change it for them, it's not benefiting me in anyway, I didn't ask for their opinion and even if I do have a hard time in delivery it still won't compare because according to you, you had it so much worse!!" Oh and don't ever tell them that this is your first baby....that's when they really pounce! Thank goodness these incidents have been few and far between, there may have been a different outcome to our conversation.

Well I guess my first wave of sleepiness if finally going to hit (right now...11:31 pm) so I should ride it in so I can get my first 3 hours of sleep for the night. I am truly prepared for a new born, I sleep in 2-3 hour intervals and am awake for 1-1 1/2 hours in between.

Thought I'd post one more of Meagan's pictures......she's got great filters on her camera so she can make anyone look good :-)




OK, one more...

Preview of Meagan's awesome work!

OK, Meagan I hope you don't get too mad if you see this, but I just had to cheat and show off a peak of your great work! Meagan, my friend who is this AMAZING photographer, came over to our house on Saturday morning and took some maternity shots as well as some of Travis and I. She is so good....here let me explain just how good she is. You see, Travis always gets this uncomfortable stance when he gets his picture taken and we end up with these pictures where Travis has this weird smirk or a smile with a hair-lip, so after Meagan figured this out, she backed up from us and starting shooting so Travis didn't even know what she was taking photos of and in the process got some amazing expressions on his face that every other photographer has missed. She's even better with kids, can't wait to see her work with Jackson's baby pictures.




This picture was taken in our front yard. She says that she still needs to "edit" them, and that these are the "raw" Meagan...my opinion either you got the talent or you don't, and clearly these are great! Her blog is linked over on the left, if you get a chance you should take a look at it, she does great family pictures with kids too. If you live in Fort Worth you should take advantage of having her here in town. She's good and she's got a great personality!

THANK YOU MEAGAN, this was a great gift!

Just keep growing & growing & growing...

Just how far can your skin stretch? Wow, let me tell ya I am just amazed at how large my stomach has gotten and yet I still have 8 weeks left.




This next picture Travis took while we were looking at some land west of Fort Worth for him to hunt on. Kind of hard to see the country side when you have a larger gal standing in your way. Although he doesn't say much about my ever expanding waistline, his eyes say more than he could ever express. I think he is just amazed as I am that I could be stretched this far!


These next pictures are HILARIOUS! If you are from Wyoming you are familiar with the drive-thru liquor stores we have. These stores usually have a lane that you pull your car up along side the curb and someone will come out a sliding glass door to get your order. Well in the state of Texas drive-thru liquor stores are against the law, consumers are required to actually be inside the establishment to purchase. So to get around that law and still provide the convenience of a drive-thru a lot of places have come up with this idea. They just knock down some walls and create a lane that you can drive thru inside the establishment. Every time I see one it just cracks me up.


Of course it is hilarious to Texans that Wyoming allows drive-thru's but enforces a drinking and driving law. I never really looked at it that way, and now that I see it through different eyes, it does seem pretty funny. Sometimes we just got to look at things through someone else's eyes, even the idea of a drive-thru liquor store.


Have a good day!

HAPPY BIG 3-0, SCOTT!!

I forgot to mention earlier...today is my brother's big 30th birthday! Happy birthday! Man your old!! :-)


Scott & Arliss at their wedding last September

My Kinda Party!!

Wow, how time flies!! Just last Thursday I was getting ready for a full day at work and then a baby shower with very little energy to run on. Well now that I have a few extra moments this morning I thought I would share some pics of the fun night! We had so much fun and my friends Julia, Sabrina & Lindsay really are southern in the way they host a party, hospitality all around! Thank you so much for the great shower, it was exactly what I wanted!

And I am so grateful and humbled by how many people came out all the way to the Stockyards on a Thursday night to go boot scootin at baby shower. I am sure most of them were more curious than anything about just what a shower at Billy Bob's would be like...well I'll tell ya....FUN, FUN, and more FUN! Thank you everyone that came and especially for all the great gifts. Travis and I are so blessed by all of your love and support for our 1st baby and thanks for the offers of help too, obviously y'all know I am going to need it!!

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking....


Julia, Sabrina & Lindsay-the lovely ladies who threw the shin dig!



What a great cake!! Julia had to embarrass me in some sort of fashion, literally. I was forced to wear that huge cowbell that said "It's a boy!" on it. I think it only lasted the first 30 mins we were there.



4 Loving ladies I work with (Judy Moore, Pam, Kathy & Judy Matthews)


The most honest and funniest person I know in Texas, Bekah. She's due August 4th with a little boy too and I am so jealous, she's almost done with the heat and swelling.


Boot Scootin! Of course not everyone in this pic was there for a baby shower, but the two in the middle of the pic are Bekah & Jacy (Jacy has the white tank top on). Jacy is due 2 weeks after Bekah. Yep, there was FIVE of us there that were pregnant, all due within a few weeks to a month of each other till November. Love is in the air in Fort Worth!!


Linsday's great gift displayed across her. She painted the letters of Jackson's name in all different designs, she knows my tastes really well. She's so crafty and I loved them!


Me snooping through some gifts!


Miss Karen who made Jackson this awesome quilt with some vintage patterns she found over in Dallas. This is Jackson's "texas grandma"

Insomnia stinks big time!!

Let's see as I type this it is now 6:01 am in Ft Worth. I have been up since 2:30 am and only fell asleep a short 4 hours before that. I don't know if it is just God's little way of preparing you for little to no sleep with a newborn, but I have had my fill of preparation. I WANT TO SLEEP!! Granted this does not happen every night. Actually is every other night. My new sleep pattern is sleep 4-5 hours the 1st night then the next night sleep 7-8 hours of good sleep, that is mostly induced by pure exhaustion. You know what I'm talking about...good sleep is when you wake up the next morning going...Did I not wake up once all night long? Not even to go to the bathroom? Yes I must have a huge bladder because at 7 months of pregnancy, when I am exhausted I can sleep 7-8 hours with out even waking up once to use the bathroom...I guess I will count that as my blessing.

Back to losing sleep. I wouldn't even mind it so much if I could rest during the day but since I am still working full time that's not an option. Of course if I mention to other mothers my sleep deprivation they automatically go into the "well what do you think is going to happen when the baby gets here?" mode. I hate that! Duh, I'm going to be tending to a fussy baby in the middle of the night, who may not go back to sleep right away. I may have not had a child of my own yet, but I'm not a complete moron to the fact that I will be up a lot with the baby. But while I'm still pregnant I just want to get at least 6 hrs of sleep every night so that I can function all day. Plus you throw in my ever expanding waist line (I'm up officially 17 pounds now), some 90 temps with 90% humidity to the insomnia and see how patient you are with the comments. Lesson learned--I will not make comments to 1st time expecting mom's. OK that's my grrr for this morning, I'm done complaining now.

What's new with us? Hmm, not much I guess. Travis was in Midland part of last week for Well Bore reviews? I hope that's right. Anyways, he got to bump around the west Texas country side for a few days. I personally have never been to the Midland/Odessa region, but Travis says that it looks like the area heading to Shoshoni from Casper. YUCK!! Doesn't sound too impressive to me, think I'll stick to the central and eastern parts of the state.

Tonight is a BIG night for Crissy. My good friend Julia is throwing a baby shower for me!! Most people you know me well, know that I am completely bored with the ideas of showers. I won't go into detail, just know that I am not particularly excited about going to them, even my own. I would rather just send a gift card. I love giving gifts just not suffering through the "shower." So that in mind she came up with a fun idea for a shower. Ready for this.....we are going line dancing at the world's largest honky tonk, which is located right here in Ft Worth and you all may have heard of it...WE'RE GOING TO BILLY BOB'S TEXAS!!! Whoo Hoo! Can you think of a more entertaining shower than watching some unbalanced prego out there trying to learn a complicated line dance? Just picture it for a second, then you'll get what I'm saying. I am so excited. We are going tonight, Thursday, because it is "Family night" which means no cigarette smoke big crowd or drunks stumbling around. Granted if you want a drink they still will serve you, but it's just more low key with kids running around, dancing and having fun. Plus they have the professional dance instructor up on the stage leading all those interested in learning a new line dance. I am so pumped about this. Not only do I get to go dancing but I also get to have fun and be home and in bed by 10:00 pm. Perfect evening!

Well I better start pumping the coffee in my veins, it's going to be a loooong day!!