Jemar: Man! Those are some hard kicks. How on earth can you sleep through that?
Janee': I taught elementary school. I'm good at ignoring.

Is it wrong to mock the unborn?

During our scan back in March, I actually jumped when this image came on the screen. Back then it looked like the Bride of Chucky. Today I see an alien.

Jemar says I'm mean. But really, kinda creepy, huh?

Look closely and you can see eyes boring into your soul...

Pretty Baby

Four weeks later, we finally have the images taken at our 20 week ultrasound. Isn't Monkey sweet! Jemar swears the baby has his lips, but I can't tell. That little hand is what I find the most adorable. I'm so excited to hold it in person.

On the gender front we're still undecided. Last week Jemar had a dream that the baby was a girl and has been convinced ever since. However, after seeing this picture again, he thinks its a boy. As for me, when I see this picture I think girl. However, I'm still convinced we're having a boy.

What about you? Boy or girl? Or do you just see a pretty baby? :)

Surprising Mail

My baby shower invitation came in the mail earlier this week. Now I knew it was coming and I know my baby shower is only two weeks away, but when I saw it, my first thought was - "Holy crap, I'm having a baby". It makes me wonder how many more times I'll have this thought in the next four months.....

Anywho, I love the simplicity of the invite. It's neutral and appropriate, without being too "babyish". My mom, sister and Puppy chow (aka Laura) did a great job!

Color Splash!

Almost a year and a half ago, Jemar and I were having a conversation with his sister (Alena) and brother-in-law (Byron). We hadn't found a house yet, but for some reason we were talking about the design of our future house. In at least one of the rooms, I wanted to do dark walls with light colored trim. Alena and Byron both agreed that it would look modern and elegant. Jemar HATED it. "The walls will be too dark. It will look too somber. I wouldn't even like one wall in a dark color".

Fast forward to 2010. We knew we wanted the "nursery" to have shades of green and brown but we weren't sure about the wall colors. We didn't want to use green walls because that's the color of our master bedroom, so we held off painting for a while and instead focused on choosing a crib set.

A while ago, I asked you to vote on your favorite bedding sets? Remember? Well I failed to mention that I have this terrible habit of asking people their opinions and then choosing something completely different. I never plan to do this...........but it frequently happens. My apologies :(

Anywho, I was about to order the sage and brown bedding set that so many of you loved and it just wasn't clicking. So I looked some more and randomly found this bedding set that cost 50% less and was completely different than what we thought we wanted. I saw it, showed it to Jemar and in less than 10 minutes, I had ordered it. YIKES!

(I just realized this is one LONG post. Hang with me. There are pretty pictures at the end....)

When it arrived, I opened it with some trepidation. But I should have had more faith in our combined style, it was absolutely perfect and it looked just like us. With the perfect bedding set in our possession, we had to decide on a paint color.

Jemar wanted tan or cream (so typical) and I wanted chocolate brown. I finally wore him down and we decided on a brown accent wall with the rest of the room bright white. The Saturday before Easter we went to Sherwin Williams and prepared for painting bliss.

We started with the brown accent wall and the more I painted, the more I fell in love. When I finished, I knew I wanted all four walls brown, there was only one thing in my way - Jemar. And so friends, I took advice from My Big Fat Greek Wedding - "The man may be the head of the house but the woman is the neck and the neck can make the head turn any direction she wants". After planting a few seeds and giving him some time to realize he loved the color too, I went back to the store for another gallon of brown paint to complete my vision. 1.5 years later, I feel completely vindicated. The room is fabulous! It says, "Hi, I have style. Oh, and a baby sleeps here too". As for Jemar, last night he told me, "I still love that room. It looks great."

Monkey has a sophisticated place to lay his head, now on to the finishing touches! Let me know what you think.


This is the before picture, back when it was our second guest room.












The bedding! The houndstooth pattern is so fierce in person.












An aerial view of the crib and changing table. That brown just pops against the white trim and carpet.











Finally, the reason the room doesn't look dark even with the brown walls. This (almost) wall of windows brings in so much light.

PS - Don't you love the stuffed monkey my parents bought?

Dumb Dog

Perhaps I'm naive, but I always thought when an animal got hit on the highway, the animal was the biggest casualty. I have since been educated.

On a recent trip to Southaven, a stupid, white dog was in the middle of the highway. I was in the fast lane with a row of cars on my right and a concrete barrier on my left. Which meant I had nowhere to go. I slammed on my brakes and tried to miss the dog (which stupidly stood there and looked at me). Needless to say I most definitely hit it.

I continued driving, feeling a little sad for the dog and never once considering the impact it could have had on my car. I rushed into my meeting, and ran a few errands and never saw my passenger side. Until I was ready to head back down to the Delta and I saw exactly what that stupid dog caused.

Since then, I swear I see at least one dog every time I drive. It's like they're taunting me. And since I don't want anymore damage on "Journey", they win every time.

Dumb dogs.

Favorite Person of the Day?

Please, indulge my vanity for just a little bit.

So, when your body seems to change each day and the body you've know for decades suddenly resembles a stranger's, you get a little self-conscious about your size.

However, at our check-up today, my doctor said the following (and I mean word, for word):

"Well, your weight is just perfect. I mean it's perfect. It's exactly where we want it to be. It's just perfect"

If he had said perfect one more time, I think I would have sang to him.........."Did you ever know that you're my hero? You're everything I would like to be!"