I'm almost to the part where I have a baby.

Hazel knows that a sure fire way to get me to laugh is to impersonate Nacho Libre.  It gets me every time.

Sassafrass.

We love taking walks.  Back when I could still walk farther than the bus stop we did one of our walks around the retention ponds.  We like to watch the dog chase the birds and there are no other people.  We took our new camera along to try it out and hopefully capture what I love about spending time with this family of mine.
Even the disgruntled teenager faces.  She was loving every minute of it.  I can assure you.

Then somewhere in there Haley got to go to her first "formal".  The youth group at church get to attend a very fancified dance every fall - Haley has been watching her friends and cousins get ready for this dance for the last couple of years and this year she got to go.  Even though shopping for a modest dress is enough to make me want to move my entire family into a cave forever more, we found one and gussied her up. 
She looks old.
And beautiful.

Then there was that time that I refused to potty train Jonah, then changed my mind and gave it a whirl thinking, I have nothing but time until the baby comes.  We did this, exactly this, for ONE ENTIRE WEEK.  He did awesome, amazing.  Never missed.  Lots of success.  And then the next week we had to do stuff again and go places and it turns out that I was right all along.  The kid doesn't care one whit about using the potty.  Basically we had success because he got to sit and watch the ipad for an entire week straight - he just happen to be sitting on the potty the whole time.
He may be the only sunbeam at church still in diapers, come January.

Then Hazel dressed up for Halloween and my heart swooned.  I love her new hobby.  She was supposed to do her first show in December but it turns out that her class was on Sunday and we have decided to keep that strictly to our church and family day.  She was really disappointed but I was proud of her for sticking to our family's priority.

One day Mia came into my room at 6:30 in the morning and frantically woke me from my slumber with the cry that there was a snake in the kitchen.  She almost stepped on it.  I was hoping that she had mistaken a worm for a snake but alas, it was a snake.  It was small but a snake is a snake and I called Clark immediately (who happened to just be at the church that morning) and told him to come home NOW.  Poor guy probably thought I was having a baby.  Nope.  Just a hissy fit.  We all sat on the counter in the kitchen with our eyes glued to the snake to make sure it didn't try to escape.  If it had climbed under or in anything, I was prepared to move.

It's not surprise that Halloween is not my favorite holiday.  I love the costumes, adore the kids dressing up.  I despise trick or treating.  So I was quite proud of myself for "dressing up".  I was a fish tank.  We somehow convinced the kids to just go hang out with friends and eat pizza and copious amounts of candy that I would buy them if they didn't make me take them trick or treating. 
It was lovely.

Hazel and her horseback riding lessons.  It's apparently one of my favorite places to take pictures.  I just can't help myself.

This is how Jonah has spent the better part of my pregnancy.  He has watched A LOT of TV.  But he is still smart and loved and I figure there is plenty of time to fix how we have messed him up.  It allowed me to maintain some sanity from the comfort of my bed, or the couch, or wherever else I couldn't get up from for the last 4 months.

My bump didn't bother or deter him one bit.  He was fully passed out at this point and I couldn't bring myself to put him down.  Because he was still my baby, for a few more weeks at this point.

I documented my last Sunday getting dressed.  Getting dresses is really hard when you are nine months pregnant. And yet now I am recalling how much harder it is to get dressed in the months following having that baby.  One day your bump is "cute", then the baby is born and BAM, the next day, not so "cute".

This was taken just a couple of days before baby boy was born.  He was pretty much sitting on my lap at the end.  It was to the point where strangers in public were saying shocking things and I wondered if my very presence was obscenely offensive.  I, in fact, love pregnant bodies.  I think they are wonderful and fascinating and amazing.  So keep on, pregnant people.  Keep on.