here she is, the newest love of my life.

we're so excited about our newest addition to the family.





she's absolutely gorgeous.





she's my newest obsession.





i can't stop looking at her.





she's changed my life profoundly.





and oh, man, is she sweet. here she is:

that's right, folks. we traded in my little car for a new X5. family friendly, cute, and still sporty, just like me. ha! don'tcha love it?

it's a hard-knock life.

last week was quite a performance-filled time for the kid. on tuesday, she got to participate in the spring concert, which featured the bands and chorus groups throughout our school district. because she's a rock star, she'd chosen to play the drums. luckily for my sanity (and my checkbook), all this required was a set of sticks and a practice pad - not a full set of drums!

it was quite entertaining to listen to the kids play....especially as the four school bands had never practiced together even once. heh. our friend robert, who is a professional videographer, was set up in the back of the auditorium to capture the event for us and texted me with "awwww, some of these parents are mean. i heard one tell another "i don't want to be here." how sad!"

how sad, indeed. :(

thursday brought an even more nerve-wracking evening for the kid, as she'd been cast as a "dancing orphan" for her class' performance of two scenes from "annie". actually, she was one of the two choreographers, but i'm not one to brag. ;) they'd done a full dress rehearsal the day before, which i'd been able to see, and this was the BIG show in the city's performing arts center. after a rather comical beginning, during which the male "miss hannigan" had some microphone troubles, the girls pulled it off and ended with a triumphant bow:

don'tcha love it?? if you've got 5-ish minutes to watch, the performance is here.

the milestones of infanticipating.

do you remember that episode of "i love lucy", where lucy's pregnancy was written up in the paper, making ricky feel left out of the whole process? "infanticipating". ha!

so we had our second ultrasound this morning, and we saw girl parts! the bean wasn't being too cooperative at first, but after a little poking and shaking, she finally moved just enough to confirm it. it was really cool to see her little hands and her mouth opening and closing, and watch her strong little heart just pumping, pumping away. she's 13 ounces right now and 21 weeks, 2 days along. she's quite the active little squiggle-butt, too - we have a gymnastics performance on a regular basis now. her daddy got to feel the craziness for the first time last thursday :) that was pretty neat.

i also confess to feeling a little alarmed when i stepped on the scale at the doctor's office today and found that since my last appointment a mere TWO weeks ago, i'd managed to pack on seven pounds. now, i realize that's a good thing, and that i'm SUPPOSED to be gaining weight. but the vain girl in me is freaking out. i glanced at the scale and also realized that before the whole thing is over, they'd be moving that other bar over one notch. EEK. i know, i know, shut up. [sigh]

i'm off to buy more bagels, crunch berries, and hopefully pick up some maternity jeans. every time i unbutton and unzip my jeans in the car, the hub looks at me sideways and says "are you going to go and get some maternity pants NOW?"

well, if that means it's okay to go shopping......

bad, BAD blogger!

talk about slacker.... i haven't posted in months!

but i realized today that i better get on it. and i guess it's going to turn into a pregnancy blog! i want to be able to look back later on and remember everything. i think.

so i'm 20 weeks along as of yesterday. it's hard to believe that in another 20 weeks, we'll have a baby. holy crap! let's see....what else? ummm....i need to work on gaining weight. i've only gained one pound and the doc and the hub are both on my ass about it. i don't have any freaky cravings. i can't touch meat (although i seem to be softening towards chicken now and then). shrimp and crab seem to be all i manage to choke down in the way of dinners. and when i do manage to eat, it isn't much. luckily, i'm able to drink milk. and the other day, i ate some WATERMELON. i thought the hub and the kid were going to pass out when they saw it.

today, crunch berries are my friend. and chocolate - i seem to have a burning need for plain hershey's milk chocolate bars. damn. so much for trying to gain the weight in a HEALTHY way.

i better make sure i save this post, for sure. i want to remember the one time in my life that i got in trouble for not weighing enough!