my pink life, mi vida rosada

When I was younger, in middle school, my cousin came to live with us. She had just graduated from college, had found a job, and needed to save up some money for a while to get her life off to a good start. My family lived in town; her family lived an hour or so farther away. Cousin was everything anyone would want for a role model -- pretty, kind, involved in her church, motivated, funny, and on and on. She lived with us for about half of a school year, when she decided that she had saved up enough money and was ready to find a place of her own. This is the cousin I've always felt closest to, simply because she shared the experience, albeit briefly, of living in the same house I did, with my parents worrying about her comings and goings (no matter that she had lived on her own in college!), watching tv with us at night, grading papers, taking us with her to fun events at her church. She waited and waited and waited to meet the right man for her -- an excellent example of ...

watching the boats go by, under the still grey sky, from the comfort of the old flowered couch in my favorite house on the planet feeling Peanut's little kicks inside my belly and hoping everything is going the right way in there uncertain about what the next school year will bring, between a possible grade level change and starting the year either about to pop pregnant or with a long term sub and with a new math curriculum and higher expectations to implement RISC glad that my partner teacher is 100% committed to being my partner teacher again next year, so that at least that part I can count on bewildered by the fact that Peanut has been growing in my belly for 24 weeks, and other than the school drama, it has been just about the happiest 24 weeks of my life that I can ever remember planning to spend almost all day in my pjs, on this couch, with sweet hubby nearby, and maybe do a little housework somewhere in between the lounging (there is so much pollen on the porch of...

First things first: It has been forever since I posted any pictures on here. I've basically stopped playing with the camera, and my little computer has slowed down a whole lot in the 3.5 years that it has been my primary source of internet access, and only recently has sweet hubby consented to truly share his (nicer, newer) laptop with me. So I'll finally start with a couple of pictures! 16 weeks 20 weeks These two pictures don't show a whole lot of difference in the size of Peanut's bump, but I can assure you that the bump is, indeed, getting bigger! It has only been a couple of weeks that people have been telling me they can really tell a difference -- before, I was just kind of getting bigger, and now Peanut is more of a bump than general size increase. Second things second: We did find out Peanut's gender! And in time for an Easter reveal! Here is our (not so lovely from the outside, after all, since the lemon icing kept running and running and r...