Negligent blogger...

Well, I've been a really bad blogger lately! I've really not had a whole lot to write about and then I have had a ton to write about. E and I have been busy burning up the roads between visiting the Land Grands in Slapout and Dr C In Anniston and everywhere else in between. We have finally gotten just about everything ready for Mr. Andrew's arrival and we are just in count down mode now! Only 2 weeks and 6 days if he waits until induction! It's so exciting and nerve wrecking all at the same time. I only have E's birth to compare it to and Daniel was there and we were in a military hospital. Completely different dynamics this time around with my mom in the room with me of a civilian hospital.
In other exciting news Eli and I added another addition to the Gay household. We took in a part bird dog/possibly part hound or beagle little girl puppy. She is pretty much one of the cutest things ever other than actual babies. I thought this would be great for 2 reasons. Number 1 is that my parents English bulldog Maddie will scratch and claw at the door if we don't let her in at night. Sorry, but (and my dad agrees, my mom- I'm not so sure) I don't want my babies covered in dog hair. Plus she's a bulldog, and even though I love her ugly little face with that huge underbite, she smells....even when she's clean. Or to me at least. And for the past couple nights Maddie has knocked not once on the door!!! I'm such a genius. My second reason for the puppy was to teach Eli gentleness. Uh, right. The first afternoon he drug he around by her tail. The next day she was used to him and has gotten a little spunky and started gnawing on him. He was not impressed.
I'll be posting some pictures in another post, I'm posting now from email since my mini Netbook POS thing refuses to allow me to post pictures and write a blog in the same post.
Also, I'm leaving you with this, http://www.yourwishcake.com/2011/07/on-quitting-facebook.html. I'm going to be getting on this. Also, if you can see it on the side of my blog, 'Turning Pages' also wrote a really great post on this topic. This link actually is from one of her recent posts if not the most recent.
Hope you all are having a lovely summer... this humidity/heat combo is truly sucking my soul from my body as well as my desire to EVER leave the air conditioned house.

Sent from my iPad

Oh Wow and Dno

Eli's vocabulary is slowly starting to expand. Lately the words that dominate his speech are"Oh wow" and "Dno." The last is "no" but for some reason whenever he says it it sounds like he has a "d" on the front of it. Cute, nonetheless. It's even funnier since he turns his head upward and away when saying it. I'm working on getting it recorded. But the "oh wow" has to be my favorite. Everything is so amazing to little eyes and is perceived with marvel. Even ordinary crumbs in the floorboard of the car or a very plain and un-special looking rock. But some things we discover really are wow worthy.

During Sunday morning church service Eli sat in GG's lap. He was turned around facing her and placed his hand upon her....well, chest. "OH WOOOOW!" I know that it was totally coincidental since he was really looking at her necklace but I lost it. Only she and I had known the entirety of the situation although everyone thought that his loud exclamation was funny too. Just not as funny as we found it.

Ah, the innocence of babies and the innocent things they say and do.

Just our day...

I just need to say, I love America. Just as much, I love the south. I love how nice people are and how willing to help they are. People in England (at least around where we live) are a lot like people in the southern states. They always willing to lend a hand or comment on the adorableness of your child. During our horrible connecting flight back here you could tell we were NOT in the south. Once on the plane, the only people who even offered to help me lift our carry on into the overhead bin were from guess where... Georgia. And the gentleman was prior mil. I think that says enough.

Today, Eli and I got out and ran some errands for GG and spent some normal "momma-Eli" time together. One of those errands included an oil change at the Toyota place in Oxford. Would you believe that we waited over TWO hours for an OIL CHANGE!!! I felt like we were in England. The Brits rush for nothin'. Praise God the waiting area was full of elderly (the sweet kind) people for Eli to entertain, we had picked up E some Zaxby's for lunch, and I went with my gut and packed the iPad to watch some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and a couple of Hot Wheels.

It's about time I get a handle on this "Mom" thing.

It's only been 16 months....

After that two hour stint in waiting hell (I am not patient) I pressed my luck and ran into Target. Then Old Navy. Then TJ MAXX. I wore my little guy out and he napped all the way back to Cragford. We made it the WHOLE entire day without even a minor meltdown. It must have been that we haven't had a whole lot of time to ourselves like we "normally" do.

Oh, and after Wednesday... we have only *7* more weeks until Mr Andrew makes his grand debut. And do you know what one of the only things I can think about? Getting Eli his "big brother" gift together so he can have it when he gets to the hospital. No, I haven't gotten the baby anything... no coming home outfit, really any clothes at all other than some of Eli's hand-me-downs that will be weather appropriate, diapers...nothing! I honestly can't even remember what all I will even need for a newborn? I do know things I don't need... I have SO many things that we thought would be necessary for a baby that were only opened and placed in the drawer of things that I can't make myself throw away for fear that I may need them some day... I guess once we return home in November I can throw/give them away.

On another subject, did someone turn the heat up?

Catch up...

so everyone told me that once we get back to the states time would fly... and they were right. it seems that we just got here yesterday when in fact it has been 3 weeks. we've gotten a lot accomplished with getting uncle luke graduated, spending memorial day weekend at the beach and a week at the Land grandparent's. we got to see baby andrew in 4d and it's obvious he favors his big brother A LOT!

this past wednesday at my appointment i was asking my doctor about internet access/cell phone service in the delivery rooms and thankfully we will have great service and wifi. i also went out on a limb and asked about possible induction so that daniel would know when we were going to the hospital in case it happened naturally and we were unable to get in touch with him. we will go in a week early (on the 3rd) at midnight and get the show on the road! military doctors would never even consider induction unless it were absolutely necessary!

i'm sure some people think it's selfish or not good for the baby (you can tell by the looks on some people's faces or by the tones in their voices) but, this is pretty much the only thing we have going in our favor right now. this is the only date daniel has on his calendar with something that he can actually enjoy while he's over there. and speaking of daniel, being home without him sucks. it's hard to enjoy some things and when you do enjoy them, you feel guilty.

of course daniel would NEVER make us feel guilty for anything but when i think about the conditions that he's living in or the food that he's eating or the boredom he feels on his time off, you feel about this small. ahh, only about 4 1/2 more months until he's home!

this weekend we are just taking it easy and trying to get on a little bit of a schedule since we've been burning up the roads since we've been home!

Tahdaaaahh....

I know that you all have just been on the edge of your seats waiting to hear how well our journey went. Well, it was great. Except for the tiny melt-down that Eli and I had at our connection in Newark. Long story short, we had an hour to get through boarder control, luggage claim, luggage re-check and security. Uh, yah. Along with about a million other people too. In the security check line I realized that there were about (no lie) 300 people in front of us and our plane was already boarding. I had Eli in his stroller with my carry-on suitcase on top of it. I had been crying since baggage re-check and Eli was sensing my frustration. He started crying, I picked him up and the weight distribution on the stroller was uneven and it tipped over and everything went everywhere. I was humiliated and already crying like a naked baby dipped in a cold tub. Thankfully someone complained about the crazy woman and her baby in the line and we were escorted to the front of the line. I'm not going to say that I wasn't hoping that would happen. Thank God for being hormonal and being able to cry when needed. And obviously pregnant. Hell-o belly!

But we made it safely and GG and Boppa (previously Poppa but E calls him Boppa these days) were in ATL smiling and waiting on us as we entered the luggage claim area. It took him all of about 2.3 minutes to warm up to them. Eli went to bed at 11 pm Saturday night and was up at 7 am on Sunday. Talk about adjusting quickly. Sunday was awesome since it was homecoming and there was SO much awesome food and dessert afterwards. Monday we chilled and that night I was feeling rough. Tuesday woke up with a virus and praise God for mommies. She came home and helped with Eli while I tried dying. And in case you don't know me, I do not handle pain or sickness well. It's apparently genetic in the Gay family and it was not lost upon me. It drives my mom crazy, but we all can't be so perfect now can we?

Wednesday I got to meet my new Ob and I'm really happy with him. He's a huge Alabama fan judging by the decor in his office and I guess that makes him qualified enough to deliver my precious little bundle of joy.

Thursday night my "little" brother graduated from high school and Eli was such an angel during the ceremony.... Oh wait, that was all the other babies in the audience. Eli was actually so bad that my dad missed pretty much everything up until Luke actually got his diploma ONLY because Eli loved clapping with everyone else.

Friday we headed to the beach for the long weekend and got in late last night. For the first time in I don't know how long, I didn't get burned. I wore my SPF 50 the whole weekend, and maybe just 30 a couple of times. I wish I had known that you could still tan with sun screen. Eli had an absolute blast until he came down with the virus I had only 5 days earlier. After several bouts of nasty stuff he was finally better and back to his old self the next morning. Thankfully he didn't get sick while we were on the road.

Today we went and had to 3D scan and got to see sweet little Andrew. He definitely favors Eli but I'm sure he will have his own little unique features. We noticed that his head was really bumpy in the pictures so that means LOTS of hair! Even though they aren't girls, I love that my babies have lots of hair. They surely don't get it from their daddy though :) Tomorrow we are headed to the Land's for a week or so, so MAYBE things will just be nice and calm and just hanging out.

And now that I've caught you up on the events in our life you may rest. It's taken me a while to post this... Who knows when you'll see me again!?

tomorrow, tomorrow!

eli and i are busting out of this joint in the a.m.!

i have packed and packed and packed some more... as daniel and i were skyping today i was telling him about how i knew i was missing something and he reminded me... as long as we have enough snacks, diapers and our passports it doesn't matter. we'll be in the states where everything is cheaper and can easily replace whatever! i like to think that i may forget all of my shoes...

this morning i had my 28 week appointment and got my recent lab results back...no diabetes...

i wasn't worried though. my sugar wasn't an issue with eli and at my 20 week scan he was only measuring in the 34th percentile... so far i've gained 15 lbs and it's gone straight to my face (and butt.) at my first appointment my doctor told me that i could gain up to 40 lbs but i set a personal goal of 25... but if i do gain 40, i wont feel so bad... it will still be 20 less that i gained with e!

anyway, can i just say... i really miss the husband. skyping sucks. next time you hear from me, we'll be in the good ole usa!!! go america!

I can be your hero....

I couldn't think of a better title with "hero" in it than that... Sorry if it's stuck in your head for all eternity as it will be in mine... ugh...

Once we found out that Andrew was a boy, we started talking about names as most people do. We really, really loved the name Max/Maximus but there was one little problem... I had a great-great uncle named Max who may or may not have killed someone... He spent a lot of time in prison so we'll go with the former. I debated on whether or not to tell Daniel of the history since I loved the name so much. But he just didn't understand why so many of my family members turned their noses at the name. My dad's parents literally would not even acknowledge that we were even considering the name. But it wasn't like we were naming the baby AFTER him.

I was naming him after Maximus Decimus Meridius. And I know that the "Gladiator" wasn't really a hero but I just thought it was awesome. And Daniel did too. But, what about Eli? Wouldn't he be a little miffed if he grew up and his little brother had some type of hero's name and he was just a normal kid... Then we talked about adding a second middle to Eli's. When he was born, my dad gave him the nickname "The Hammer" (pronounced "THA HAMMAAAA" in a very manly tone). You can just guess why he was given that name.

So, if we were to add another name to Eli's how about Thor? He carried around a large hammer too. All I would have to do is get a power of attorney from Daniel saying that I could legally have Eli's name altered and when the baby was born he would get a hero's name too. Apparently I was the only one serious about this and Daniel laughed in my face and told me only redneck's do stuff like that.

Whatever.