Thanksgiving Weekend Pictures

Grandpa G always does a great job of capturing Hailey and all of her "looks." Click here to see his collection of Thanksgiving pictures.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. We enjoyed a delicious turkey, corn pudding, mashed potatoes, corn bread stuffing, etc, etc. It was quite a feast. I made the whole thing myself and learned some valuable lessons, like don't put too much heavy whipping cream in your mashed potatoes lest they try to become whipped cream and end up with a consistency resembling Elmer's Glue! Other than that, everything turned out very well including the turkey which was both moist and flavorful.

Hailey learned how to play her first board game, Candy Land, while wearing her Tinkerbell costume. I think she's got a way to go before she actually understands the rules. At this point, the gingerbread characters seem to move around the board with reckless abandon. It is good for practicing her colors though.

Today, we enjoyed a fun visit to the Georgia Aquarium. Now, I need a nap!

Impressive Gain

Just returned from the doctor's office. I gained 15 lbs in 8 weeks. That's pretty impressive for anyone! My midwife was not at all concerned about how quickly I gained. My appetite just really exploded for a few weeks, which is perfectly normal due to a growth spurt around 20 weeks. I think we're back to normal now, so I'm not expecting any other huge gains in the future. It was pretty funny though when I got on the scale and the nurse just kept pushing the little weight to the right. She was floored when she realized that I had gained 15 lbs, but she was thinking that was over only 4 weeks. Come on...I may have been a hungry hungry hippo, but that would be almost impossible

Another School Dilemma

It seems like just yesterday that I was whining about changing Hailey's school and how difficult it was. Well, here we go again. Our current school gave us about a month and a half notice that they are moving to a location that is completely inconvenient to our house or our work. Luckily another parent and I sniffed it out about 4 weeks ago, which means that I was able to get a jump start in looking for a new location. That's pretty important here where wait lists can range from six months to over a year. I spent an entire week's worth of lunch hours wandering around the city looking at daycare centers that ranged from having bars on the walls to being entirely green. Today, I went to a Montessori School. I always thought that I wanted to sent Hailey to Montessori, but this particular school only runs from 9-12. So, we would have to change our entire lives to accommodate it.

Ultimately, it came down to 2 schools that were near our offices. One is 90% white, is more expensive than we're paying now, and has a 6 month waiting list. The other is 90% African American, has one space available now and is $160 less than we are paying now. The curriculums are very similar and incorporate a lot of Montessori type aspects to them. Both have similar class sizes, beautiful locations, great playgrounds, etc. They are fairly equivalent in all ways but racial composition. So, it's a no brainer. We took the cheaper one with space. I think it's just a shame that in a city as diverse as ours, we still have relatively segregated day cares.

Hungry Hungry Hippo

Does anyone else remember that game? You would drop marbles onto the board and then control a little hippo head to try to eat up all of the marbles. If you tipped the board at all towards your hippo, all of the marbles would go sliding right towards its head. Well, that’s kind of how I feel at every meal these days. It’s almost like the table is tipped to my side and all of the food is sliding off into my mouth.

For the first 3-4 months of pregnancy, I really ate almost exactly like I did before I was pregnant. Then, all of a sudden in the past 3 weeks my appetite has come alive. I will get to the point in a meal where I’ll look down at my plate and think, based on past experience, that I should stop, but in reality that’s when I’m about half way finished. I pack lunches that used to fill me up and find that an hour later I need a snack. It’s ridiculous. I’m like a walking eating machine. I’m so afraid to weigh myself at home that I just pretend we have no scales. I’m going to go to the doctor next week and find that I’ve gained 25 lbs in a month!

I guess I should have accompanied this blog with a picture of my ever-expanding belly. Maybe I'll post one later for your entertainment.

Voting Saga

First some background... Lines to vote early in ga have been running 4-6 hours. That's not the oversensationalized news reports. That's actual people we know who voted. So, in my boy-scout like way, I decided that we were going to be prepared this election day. Polls opened at 7am. I planned to get there, Hailey and Luke in tow, by 6am with all of the equipment necessary to stand outside for the long haul. So, we go running up to the polling station with a stroller, camping chairs, blankets, breakfast, a bag of stuff for hailey and of course our IDs at 6:15am. A line has already formed but no worries... We are prepared. They pass out numbers at about 6:20 and we are numbers 97 & 98. About ten minutes later, they take 100 of us down to the game room of the rec center where they turn on Ratatouille (the movie) for us to watch. Of course, this is a wonderful surprise, but now Luke and I are the only goofballs carrying all of the aforementioned crap all over the rec center. The whole thing was so funny and such a clear indictment of my Type A personality. We ended up voting at about 7:30am. No problems. I let Hailey push the button which is illegal, but it didn't actually work when she pushed it so I did it myself...legally. Anyway, that's our voting story. We had a good time at an election party last night, and feel refreshed at the outcome.

Sweet Taters

I finally decided to pull up the sweet potatoes this morning. I've never grown them before so I had no idea what I was doing, but Hailey had a good time eating the last of the tomatoes. Here's a shot of the harvest and of Hailey digging away.

Halloween 2008

Hailey and Nana Trick or Treating

Kid's Party at the Square

Hailey and Kellen Prepping

Hailey Needs a Break

Hailey with Her Favorite Teacher

Hailey was Tinkerbell for Halloween. She could have been Belle or Ariel or Sleeping Beauty. It's really all the same fascination, but we went with Tinkerbell. The costume was a bit fluorescent, but she was adorable anyway, as you can see. I was dressed as a big oven and had my belly painted as a cinnamon bun, and Luke was a baker. It was pretty funny, and we received many compliments, but did not win the costume contest. Of course, we have zero pictures of that.