So much for the streak!

This was by far the best picture I found on the internet. Instead of their dang 7th win against Alabama, they got their 7th loss instead. I knew all that "fear the fingers, thumbs, extremity" crap would come back to bite them in the rear! I have been a good wife (John has never been horrible to me over the past 6 years...or at least not until several weeks after). My only striking comment was when John got home and said something about getting blown out...I simply said "more like shut out." Then I knew to stop :) I will enjoy my bragging rights, even if it is only for 364 days!
So my friends, it looks like the red and white strand of lights will start at the TOP of our Christmas tree this year. It's about time. We are hoping to get it up and decorated on Friday so I will be sure to post pictures!

Ready or Not

The Iron Bowl is upon us. This is John and I last year at the freezing cold tailgate...This year is a bit different. I am 33 weeks pregnant and Tuscaloosa is hosting the game. John became surprisingly optimistic as of Tuesday about this game. He is convinced he will come home with "7 in a Row." I am keeping quiet. From the stats this season, it would be a downright shame for Alabama to lose this ballgame. Everyone knows that everything, including stats, goes out the window when this game is played, but for crying out loud we deserve this one. John became increasingly short and snappy as of Wednesday this week. I could not figure it out. I had done nothing to him. Then it dawned on me yesterday morning as we were having brunch with the Vakakes side of the family...its Iron Bowl week and I am an Alabama fan. This is what has had him so ill. Thankfully this morning the house is quiet. Jamie Trussle, one of John's best friends from college drove in last night and spent the night. They left around 7:50 this morning, headed to T-town. His last words to me, without even a hug, "War Eagle Sweetheart." I replied, "Roll Tide Babe" and they were off. This is how our situtation works-for one day each year we don't talk nearly as much as we normally do and someone goes to bed in glory, the other defeated in shame. Tomorrow is a new day. But for today, we will cheer as hard as we can. I will be at my parents house with Bentley, and exposing Caddy to his first Iron Bowl surrounded by Bama fans!

Jesus Came...

Mama went to be with the Lord earlier this evening. Please keep my family, especially my mom and her 4 siblings in your prayers, as this obviously is a very hard time. During this time of Thanksgiving, we can be thankful that Mama is no longer suffering. She is in a far better place than any of us reading this.

Waiting on Jesus

This is what Mama (my mom's mom) is doing. She is literally waiting on Jesus to come. Her health has been going downhill for awhile and she was placed under the care of hospice a few months ago. Today my mom headed to Gadsden because Mama was declining. She has not opened up her eyes since Friday and has only had a few drops of water. Now they are just trying to make her comfortable. I got a text message at school with this news and decided to drive up to Gadsden to be there for my mom. I knew Mama wouldn't know either way if I was there or not, but I can't imagine how hard this is on my mom...I am sure very similar to how hard it was for my Dad to say goodbye to Daddy B.
My mom and her four siblings grew up singing together. They sang all the time with my grandfather and my Mama played the piano. Mama would always talk about how much she loved to hear them sing. Tonight while I was visiting, all five of her children gathered around her and started singing hymns that they had been singing since they were children. Under normal circumstances, I would have found this somewhat cheesy (seeing as how no one in my immediate family, with the exception of my mom can carry a tune...my dad did torture me back in the day with "The End" by the Doors or "John Deere Green..." -just a few that I can remember) but tonight it just seemed right. You could tell that she could hear them. Though her eyes did not open, she swayed her feet to the beat every now and again and she would open and close her mouth. One song they sung went something like this...
"I'm waitin on Jesus to come, any night or any day
Waitin on Jesus to come and take his bride away
And if He don't come tonight, I'll be waitin on him til daylight
I'm waitin on Jesus to come take me away."
Now is certainly a waiting game for Mama. Please keep her and my mom and the rest of my mom's family in your prayers. While she has no quality of life left and we know she will be restored and whole again whenever she does leave this Earth, I'm not sure that makes it any easier to say goodbye. My mom kind of summed it up for me tonight..."How do you say goodbye to the person that gave you life." I'm not really sure any of us know the answer.

Mission Accomplished

The nursery is finally painted!! Sweet John worked yesterday and today painting the room, mostly by himself. Stephanie came over today and helped finish edging the room. I did laundry and took a nap :)
Bentley for sure knows that change is coming. He kept walking into the baby's room and then would proceed to have a sneeze fest. I kept him out of there for the most part-he is only 4.5 pounds, I was afraid he would be unconscious if he stayed in there too long. So the painting is done. I will post pictures of the whole room later this week. The glider is being delivered on Tuesday and the curtain will be done and up by then as well. I just had to post these pictures of Bentley in the crib. He was hysterical! (We painted the room a light blue...it is kind of hard to tell in the pictures)

Will's First Baby Shower!!

Sunday was Will's first baby shower in Auburn. Sweet Shealy not only hosted John and I for the weekend but also had it at her house! Yesterday was such a great day! It was so great to see lots of co-workers and friends. I can't believe we are just 8.5 weeks out from meeting our little boy. It seems like time is flying by. Yesterday made it that much more real when we got home with a carload FULL of presents for him!! We were so blessed with what sweet friends we have. Thank you so much to Holly P, Holly M, Shealy, Christen, and Allyson who made the day so special for me. Everything was perfect!

Graduation

Tonight was our last childbirth class. We met at the hospital this time for a tour of the Labor/Delivery/Recover rooms. They told us last week to bring our camera because they had a surprise for us. In the back of my mind I thought they might make the girls get in the stirrups or something crazy like that. I brought my camera along but I was going to lie and say I had forgotten it if that was the surprise. Luckily, the surprise had nothing to do with me! They had all the dads put on the empathy belly. How funny is that!! John of course was hilarious! During the tour, John whispered in my ear, "I just saw these pee pee pads all over that bed-the kind we used to buy for Bentley." So funny!

My New Toy

I am super excited about this one!!! John gave me a digital camera 2 Christmases ago that we picked out and have enjoyed and used to death. But once I found out I was pregnant and we were adding on to this little family of ours, I knew I wanted a quality, digital camera so that I could make sure to document all the fun times ahead. I didn't even do that much research to tell you the truth...I just asked Holly M. who does enough research for everyone. She got this camera about a year ago and has loved it. I knew she read way too much information before she picked one out, so I trusted that if it worked for her, I would love it too. We picked it up on Saturday. This is my Christmas gift and probably birthday too. But I am totally okay with that! I have only played with it a little because we didn't get a memory card for it. That is on my list of things to do tomorrow (working for the state has its perks-no school tomorrow!). I was so excited that John agreed to go ahead and let me get it so I will have it for my showers and learn how to use it before the little man gets here!

Trash

I couldn't help but share this story. Since moving into our house back at the end of May, John and I have yet to contact the garbage company to deliver us a trash can and get service started. At first, there were only a few houses occupied and we never saw the garbage truck anywhere in our neighborhood. We were busy and never remembered to call. Then we started to see neighbors with trash cans put out in the morning and we figured that someone had gotten around to calling to let them know people lived in the neighborhood now. With all the construction going on, there were several dumpsters placed around our street. One used to be right beside our house which was very convenient, then they moved it to the end of the circle, which was still pretty convenient. It moved past the issue of laziness on our part of not calling to get a trashcan to pretty much the fact that we are just cheap and figured we would save ourself from having another monthly bill for as long as possible. Plus, after living in the apartment, we were used to loading up the trash on the top of our car and driving it to the dumpster. Now that our street is completely finished, the closest dumpster is down the hill and on the street behind our house. We are pretty sure our neighbors probably think we are ridiculous for taking our trash to the dumpster instead of having our own can. We have started putting it in the back of my car so it isn't as obvious what we are doing. Well this morning, John and I were headed to church and we had several bags that needed to be taken out. We loaded them in the back of the 4Runner and then headed to church. We completely forgot about them back there. We didn't remember until we got off the interstate and made a sharp turn and heard all this plastic. John was like "What is back there?!?..." and then we remembered. So a couple of blocks from church we had to stop in downtown Birmingham at this dumpster we saw on the side of the road. I was cracking up. John was afraid someone would see us and ask us at church why in the world we were throwing away our trash in a random dumpster downtown :)
On another note, sort of related to trash, I think the nesting has begun. When we got home from church today John and I spent a good 3.5 hours cleaning (well John lasted about 1.5 hours). John took on the bathrooms and I dusted and vacuumed. I also cleaned out several boxes that had random junk in them. My parents cleaned out their basement and dropped off around 5 boxes of my "stuff" that they didn't know what to do with. I told John it made me realize that we don't need to keep everything under the sun for Will because when he is our age, he will not want it and will just have to spend hours like I did sorting through and keeping a very small pile, while throwing the rest away. So now, I am tired, but feel much better about the state of the house. I think it was a very successful day-we just got back from the dumpster taking 3 large boxes full of trash!