I WANT TO BE A MEMPHIS HOUSE WIFE

Brad and I saw The Blind Side last weekend (we are behind the times… or more accurately we are cheap. If you wait a couple weeks after a movie comes out you can see new releases for $5 at our theater). First, I blame the embarrassing amount of crying I did on the pregnancy hormones. Second, I thought I would be rolling my eyes at all the cheesiness (a la, every family sports movie ever made) but they somehow managed to make a decent clean family movie that didn’t make me want to kick someone. Good job hollywood. And third, what does it say about me that I liked some of Sandra Bullock’s outfits in that movie?

Am I crazy or is this snake skin pattern top seriously awesome?

SNOW SNOW SNOW

We had some wicked snow fall this past week... 4 whole inches. I know our friends in colder climates are rolling their eyes but people in St. Louis acted like FEMA should have been on their way. I think I even heard someone say, "Bush hates St. Louis people." In all seriousness it has been a frickin -5 degrees for the past week which IS mighty cold.

Here is proof of both the snow and the growing punkin.

2009 WRAP-UP

Brad and I were able to spend a week and half in Naperville for Christmas. And despite my continued (but much tapered) nausea coupled now with daily headaches I had a great and relaxing time. Lots of card playing, movie watching, and eating. Per the usual Carn family fun. At the highpoint on New Years Eve we had 9 adults, 11 kids, 2 unborn babies, and one melt-your-heart puppy. Did I mention that the puppy was ADORABLE? I didn’t have to sleep in the laundry room next to his crate (like his 8-year old owner did) so he was especially ADORABLE. Brad and I could have taken him home in a second. But we kept telling ourselves – human baby on the way, human baby on the way. Anyway, we had fun spending time with family and even went to dinner with our friends Nick and Christina (who we bored with 2 hours of pregnancy talk! sorry!). It was one of the first times Brad and I felt like we had a good long vacation. I honestly think the shorter vacations are harder to come back from.

With all the chaos around I felt like we didn’t take a lot of pictures but we did catch a few, here are some of the highlights:


We got to see the oldest Carn grandchild, McKenzie, on Christmas Day which was lovely because we haven't seen her in a year.

Here is the traditional Christmas morning picture, youngest to oldest.

Grace and Cassidy playing in the snow.

The snow fort! Ken is the one in the scary mask with Spencer. Bryn is on the right and I believe that is Carson's fanny trying to crawl out of the fort. Ken, Brad, and Spencer plowed and shoveled snow for about an hour to get this sucker big enough to hollow out... it will probably be melting until May.

Me and Chewbacca (they call him Chewy).

Spencer, Samuel, Charlie, and Abby. Charlie was doing his Zoolander face, I'm not sure the kids knew what that meant.

Abby exploring the fort.

Cutting Spencers hair - it was unruly! He didn't want to get his hair cut and kept avoiding the issue until I told him I could cut his hair to look like Brad's, then he was suddenly willing. Isn't that cute?

Brad got sick and slept in the recliner one night. Have I explained the cuteness of Chewy yet?

The one event I'm especially sad we didn't get pictures from was New Year's Eve. The whole Carn gang went to the church building and we played reverse hide and go seek and kickball. We had a blast... Brook put some pictures from the event up on her Christmas post. The one picture missing is from when we hid in the women's bathroom stall - that was the best spot.

THE LITTLE CHICKADEE

So here is the little one relaxing and not giving us the money shot. Doesn't it kind of look like the hand is behind the head and the baby is saying, "Stop bothering me, oh and bring me more grapes." You can kind of see the leg and the other fist, but the arm was moving around so it looks more blurry.



Here are the cute little feet and toes.



And there are the legs curled up and shut, you can see the feet tucked up together... the rascal.

MODEST IS HOTTEST

So our little guy/gal has learned some early modesty and wouldn't uncross the legs to show us the goods. He/she was curled up in a ball just relaxing - no poking or shaking from the technician was going to uncurl him/her. I was also measuring at 17 weeks which is a week earlier than you can normally tell the gender. They are going to have my doctor take a look at all the pictures and then schedule me for another ultrasound in a few weeks. Sorry to get everyone worked up! But I'll open up poll again until we know for sure.

We did get some pictures of arms and legs and head and toes. We asked if the head was measuring particularly large and she said it looked normal sized so far - I'm just worried about delivering the compounded genetic result of mine and Brad's large noggins.

Brad promised to scan the pictures tonight so look for them in a few hours.

Thanks for all the well wishes and congrats - I didn't think anyone checked our blog anymore since I've been seriously negligent.

TOMORROW'S THE DAY

...that we find out the gender of the baby.

So for the next 20ish hours have fun guessing in the poll to the right.