Thanks for the memories....

My friend Alecia just now sent me some pictures from my bowling birthday party back in January. Look how skinny I was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grocery Store

I was walking through the parking lot to the grocery store today and an elderly gentleman asked me if I wanted to ride on his motorized scooter. hahahahaaaaaaa..................

Talent

I've received such cute things for the baby from friends and family. I continue to be amazed at how talented everyone is at hand making outfits, blankets, etc. Here are some pictures of just a few of the special things I have received.

My friend Melissa knitted the blanket in this picture below. Good thing I taught Melissa how to knit two years ago! Now she is a pro.


My friend Denise made the cute Hawaiian quilt pictured below. She says it was her first attempt at making a blanket. Love it!

My mom knitted the yellow and white sweater below along with countless other knitted and crocheted blankets. Our baby won't lack for warmth, that's for sure!

My mother-in-law made all the items shown below as well as many other things. No, she did not make the pewter cup and rattle, but I wouldn't doubt that she could if she wanted!

My cousin Carol Smith made a beautiful dress. The detail is shown below. Gorgeous!

3rd Trimester Observations

1. Parking can be a hazard, especially in Honolulu. I went to the mall yesterday just to run in and get some stuff from Aveda. Thanks to my friend Sarah, I know that parking outside of Neiman Marcus gets you closest to the Aveda store. Unfortunately, the parking spots outside of NM must have all been made for compact cars. To make matters worse, the people who park there must be blind! It takes forever to find a good parking place because people are parked over the lines, etc. I wonder if this is because if they are shopping at NM, then they must be really rich, which means they don't really care how they park. (By the way, they have valet parking at NM and I saw a big Rolls Royce in the driveway.) Anyway, I actually found a decent spot with no other car parked on the drivers side. Thank goodness! However, 10 minutes later when I came back out, a crazy person had parked way too close to my car. This is where the panic sunk in. Am I going to have to ask a random skinny person to back my car out for me because I cannot get in it???? I was already scanning the parking lot looking for a nice person to ask. Fortunately, it was unnecessary because I could just barely squeeze in the car. Whew! This is a worry in every parking lot in town.

2. I have never washed more dishes in my life. Because I can only eat small meals, I tend to eat all the time. This creates piles of dishes in a single day. Piles of dishes every day then requires leaning over the sink to wash them. I can't get as close to the sink as I used to, which causes a back ache. I guess since Al Gore, I mean Paul, is gone I could switch to paper plates and plastic utensils. Or I could wash each plate or bowl immediately after using it. hmmmm.....

3. Trade winds are not so kind to the baby doll dress. As you may know, many maternity dresses these days are made in the baby doll style. Very cute and comfortable. However, things get a little tricky in windy Hawaii. I flashed the whole neighborhood yesterday when I got out of the car to get the mail.

4. People stare. I have found that now that I look pregnant, random people everywhere stare at me. Maybe I used to do this to pregnant women as well???

Baby's Room

Here is what the baby's room looks like so far. I'm realizing that a few of the walls look pretty bare. Oh well....I did not want to paint because we'd have to paint it back to white when we move. I am fascinated with the jungle mobile we got, so I put in a video! :)

36 Weeks

Do I look pregnant now??? :)

Alex and the Cat

This was the scene at 5:30 a.m. this morning. Alex quietly stalking the kitty cat snoozing on our back patio. As you can see from the video, Alex didn't move a muscle! Normally at this time Alex would be in front of his food bowl waiting for his breakfast or running around like crazy trying to make sure we were not going to "forget" to feed him. But, today he was distracted. After about 20 minutes the cat finally noticed his stalker and ran off.

Throwing things in trees

Alex and I have a new pastime. Kid watching. Fortunately, there is a playground right across the street from our house. Kids are out there in the evenings all the time without their parents, of course. For some reason we rarely see parents outside playing with their kids. Anyway, tonight was particularly interesting.

A big bully girl, got a little girl's slipper (flip flop) stuck in a plumeria tree. First, one brave little girl tries to climb the tree and shake the limbs to get the shoe to fall. All the kids are shouting, "Shake, shake, shake" in unison. It doesn't work and I'm very glad when she gets down. I didn't want to have to call 911 tonight. Then, they get the clever idea to throw other things up in the tree in order to dislodge the slipper. Nothing is working. In comes skater dude to save the day with this helmet. He throws it up several times to try to get the slipper out of the tree. Skater dude isn't so smooth with his throwing, however, as the helmet gets stuck in a neighboring tree.

Our neighbor kid then gets the brilliant idea that we have a ladder and the whole herd of kids start running over here to ask if they can borrow our ladder. Before they even get to our walkway I say, "Y'all aren't using this ladder without your parents. Go get your mom or dad and you can use the ladder." They were mad and of course no one went to ask a parent for help.

Once skater dude's helmet got stuck, most of the kids headed home. Only a faithful few were still left. Skater Dude left and I thought for sure he was going to get his dad to help him. Nope! He returned with some sort of ping pong paddle for throwing into the tree.

Kid #1 - "What goes up must come down!"
Skater Dude - "You know why?? GRAVITY!"
Smart kids.

After several throws Skater Dude managed to dislodge his helmet. yippee!

That dang slipper was still causing them trouble though.

Kid #1 - "We need a teenager to climb the tree!"
Skater dude - "I'm a preteen!"

hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....unfortunately it was getting dark and the bugs were biting so we did not see the end of the saga. Good thing slippers are so cheap here because I think someone is going to need a new pair!