what we've been up to:

lots and lots of this.


I love having a boy.

exactly one week later...

I look like this.

I had a lot of braxton hicks contractions on the trip down to Georgia to pick Rob up (which is not so fun when you're just sitting in a car for hours on end), with the result that I exploded! I'm probably twice the size I was in that previous picture.

Oh, and this baby is crazy. I started feeling him (we think) on the car ride down (again, it's hard to miss when you're doing nothing but sitting still for hours), and last night when I laid down for bed he started going crazy in there. And I mean crazy, I'm only 16 weeks and I could feel him kicking my hand (granted, it was only twice that I felt him with my hand, but the theatrics went on inside for awhile). This kind of scares me as Max was the most chill, calm baby ever.

Oh, and do you like my new top? I got it on post at the PX. Tax-free baby! If you pay any attention to what I wear, you may notice a trend: I really like henley tops and stripes. So naturally I bought this without even trying it on.

Oh, and on another note... the Goodwill pile is bigger. Someday it'll actually make it to the needy.

my belly

Here I am at 15 weeks. Yes, I know there is barely anything there to you. But had I taken this picture before I was pregnant, it would be a straight line from the bottom of my ribs to my legs.


And fyi, that is not a pile of dirty clothes behind the door. It is the pile of stuff for Goodwill (in my defense, it was all in a big bag before Max used it as a stepping stool/playground)

hello again.

Did you miss me?

I'm (hopefully) back after a way-too-long absence. I'm hoping that I'll keep up with things on here from now on, though, as we have some big changes coming up...

The first is, Rob leaves TOMORROW for OCS (Officer Candidate School)! It has been a looong wait and we are so ready to finally get this show on the road! I will admit, I am going to miss him a lot, but we're lucky and he'll only be gone for a couple weeks or so before coming home for Christmas. But after Christmas we'll be sending him off for 12 weeks, so I imagine that goodbye will be a little harder. And then in March we'll find out what he'll be doing and where we'll be going.

That means, we'll be moving! We're not sure at what point I'll be joining him: it all depends on what sort of training is involved with his job. But come March, I'll be packing up the house and getting things here in order to be left (we're keeping our houses). As I've never had to move an entire household before (just me and my bedroom) I'm a little nervous about getting it done, and done well (I'm OCD about organization, and if I can't find stuff I go crazy), but I figure I'll get plenty of practice in the next 20 years.

And I get to start adjusting to life as a military wife. That too, I am a little nervous about as I still feel clueless (I think it's the kind of thing you learn through experience, not reading the little pamphlets they give you). But I'm going to do my best to keep upbeat and send Rob all my love and support while he's rolling through mud and running with 50 pounds on his back while getting his head crammed with tons of information that makes no sense to me.

But really, I am VERY excited this is all finally happening!! (especially when we start getting the paycheck!) And I think that is because I am excited for another reason...

We're having a BABY!!! I'm due June 3rd, and I've been sick as a dog. I'll be 14 weeks Thursday, so I'm hoping this pregnancy sickness crud will go away in the next couple of weeks (especially as I will no longer have Rob here to do stuff for me). It has been getting better, so I don't think I'm completely crazy hoping that. I have, of course, been terrified of another miscarriage 'cause I REALLY want this baby, but so far everything's been good. I'm starting to show (I'll have to put up a belly picture soon to see if I'm the only one who can see it), and I can't button my pants anymore, and I'm very excited to get big and fat. And feel the baby move. Oh, and we're pretty sure it's a boy (Nicola).

So yeah, that's our life for right now. And that's why I've been absent: being upright would make me puke so I've been in bed for the past two months. But I am determined to update regularly as I can now be upright and move around, and so Rob knows what we're up to while he's tracking drug dealers in the wilderness and fording rivers in all his gear (ok, so that might be a little bit of an exaggeration).

And as I'm sure you would rather not see a picture of me puking (that's about all I have to show for all this time), here is a picture of Max at his Nana's (I think it's kind of obvious that Nana's house is the fun house).

And maybe I'll get around to posting all about the fun stuff we did the past few months, before I got pregnant...

update from the business...

Ok, so I've been a big blog slacker lately, and I have no excuse.

But I did just want to pop in and let you know that I am having some fall specials in the next couple of weeks, so if you're interested, here are all the details.

If you're interested, just email me at jax@jaxharmon.com or the email you've got.

Hopefully I'll see some of you through my camera soon!


And because it just seems wrong to have a photography-related post without a photo, here is a funny little (well, it was kind of large to be honest) mushroom (that resembles a certain part of human anatomy) that was growing in our yard.

oops.

So, meet:
I took Othello to get neutered last week, and the vet told me that "no news is good news." I then got a phone call that afternoon and as I was picking it up I was thinking "uh oh, something's gone wrong." But no, Othello was doing great, but just happens to be a girl, not a boy, so she got spayed instead.

I felt like an idiot.

But when I picked her up, they told me that they have sex changes all the time, especially with kittens. That made me feel a little better.

After that, I wasn't sure if I could trust our judgment on the sex of all the kittens. Did we just get Othello wrong, or are they all different than what we thought?

Today I found out that we weren't wrong at all, at least at first. My sister's friend who took the other black kitten took hers to get spayed this week. But got neutered instead.

So I just accidentally took the wrong kitten home. Oh well. Ophelia is definitely ours now.


note: i had to take alfonzo back because 3 cats were too much for our 900 square foot home and there were some territorial issues going on. But he is still up for adoption if anyone is interested! He is SO SWEET and it absolutely BROKE my heart (still does) that he couldn't stay. He also has a sister awaiting a home too: she's a gray kitten and really sweet too.

this day 3 years ago...

I was lying in a hospital bed, languishing in IMMENSE pain.

Lucky for me, I was received an end to my misery when,
in the wee hours of the next morning,
I was blessed with this dark-haired little cone-headed alien.

Named Maximillian.







(and no, today is not his birthday. Tomorrow is. [Didn't you get the wee hours of the NEXT morning bit?])