Cheese

I can't really ask for more than eye contact and a big cheesy grin in a photo of Brick these days. I'll consider myself lucky that he stayed still long enough to remain in the frame (kind of).

Maternity Photos

Talk about timing. Lyndsay Stradtner is a totally amazing family photographer, who I "met" through an online community. A few weeks ago she and her family moved to the Austin area. I had the awesome experience of having maternity pictures taken by her. While I didn't shy away from the camera during my first pregnancy, I didn't intentionally get any shots of my big, baby belly and I'm a little disappointed that I didn't, so I jumped at the opportunity to have some pictures taken this time around.

The pictures she's took are nothing short of amazing. She's pulled them together to be shared in a slideshow here: http://www.gigglesngrinsphoto.com/slideshows/annemarie/

Please respect Lyndsay's passion and talent and do not attempt to copy or reproduce these photos without prior consent.

3D

My doctor suggested another ultrasound just to check on the baby's growth. Everything is progressing fine. With three weeks to go, I'm officially 1cm dilated, but as I learned in first pregnancy, I could stay this way for weeks.

During the ultrasound, the technician switched on the 3D technology so we could get a look at our little girl's face. If you ask me, she already looks an awful lot like her big brother.

Swollen

Brick apparently contracted some kind of ugly infection. We noticed his eye was a little swollen last night, but I convinced Bryan to wait until the morning to see how it progressed. My mistake. He woke up this morning with his eye swollen shut. As soon as I could, I took Brick to the doctor. She couldn't find any evidence of a bug bite, and as far as we know, he didn't have any severe accidents that could have caused bruising, so she prescribed antibiotics. He's doing fine, but his poor little eye looks like it's on a lot of pain.

Crash Revisited

Those of you who are regular blog readers will probably recall that a few months ago, Bryan did some pretty hefty damage to my Jeep by crashing it into a post at our neighborhood Wal-Mart store. As we signed away Wal-Mart's responsibility in the accident, we joked about taking it to court seeing as a company as big as Wal-Mart was likely to settle. It seemed at the time to be have been a truly avoidable accident, but Bryan insisted it was a very poorly placed pole. Turns out, he was right.

This is what the very same pole looks like now, just a short 9 months later:



In those 9 months, the pole has been scratched, uprooted, lost its sign and finally lost the majority of the pole itself. It's hard to say how many times it's been hit. We guess it's at least 5-10 in addition to Bryan's collision. Every time we see it, I mention that I'd like to have a picture to update the blog, but I never seemed to remember to bring my camera. I snapped this photo with Bryan's phone because I assume it's only just a matter of time before the pole's removed completely.

A Christmas Affair

This past week was the Junior League of Austin's A Christmas Affair event. We participated in the festivities by taking Brick to a Santa Breakfast. I've been trying to prepare him for his encounter with the Big Guy by showing him pictures of Santa and teaching him what Santa says - Brick's learned to gleefully respond, "Ho ho ho." Apparently, it all helped. Unlike last year, Brick loved Santa.



The event had lots of fun crafts and activities for the kids. One of which was building a bookmark out of foam stickers.



Brick really just preferred putting the stickers all over his face.



We were also treated to a concert by The Biscuit Brothers. Brick really enjoys hanging out and dancing around with the big kids. It's pretty cute to watch him mimic what everyone else is doing.





And just for fun, here's one last picture with Santa. Look, Mommy's belly is BIGGER than Santa's!

Through Another Eyes

We're so excited that a photographer friend of mine has just moved to the Austin area. Austin's so lucky to have her! She's such a fantastic family photographer. She came by the other day to take some maternity photos for me, and has already posted a great shot of Brick to her blog.