1 outfit...2 days. what?

dont be fooled into thinking that we had one very busy day. no, no the following pictures come from 2 distinct days; nothing was the same about them except for the clothes i wore. at 8 months gestation i have refused to buy more clothes to cover my largesse. incidentally, i now have about 4 total outfits i can wear. i change every day for work because i see the same people every day, but on weekends i see completely different sets of people day to day so i am free to wear the same things on multiple days while no one is the wiser. so with this post i am blowing my own cover. feel free to mock me, but be warned, i will probably eat you.

on friday 4/17 (33 weeks 4 days), we went to a goodbye party for Mae and Buck Bryan who are moving to Thailand this saturday to do campus ministry. that sentence pretty much speaks volumes about them in itself: yes, they are amazing people who love god and people a LOT. we love them too and will miss them like crazy.

with the soon-to-be expatriates. i cant explain my creeper-lean in this picture. either i thought marisa was zooming in way more than she was and that i wouldnt fit (not that i dont fit in certain spaces these days or anything, ahem), or perhaps i was just trying to get extra close to mae because i will miss her so much and wanted to spend some quality time in her personal space before they left!?

group shot

at the food table, duh

digesting on the couch

i kept begging marisa to take more individual pictures of me. i just love it so much.

i am in love with this picture. this is marisa's husband justin having some fun in the foreground while we are oblivious. it looks like his belly is about to jump me from behind and try to battle it out with mine. it would be a close match from this angle, but i think judah could kick justin's lasagna's butt. bonus points for the happy trail though. i cant compete there.

moving on to day two for ol' purplie and the jeans. notice jesse's clothes HAVE changed, he is so weird like that. we had a fun lazy day in atlanta on saturday running bavarious errands and having bavarious adventures (not pictured) and decided to go check out best buy for some potential camcorders since we are about to have someone in the family who is worthy of live-action footage rather than just stills.

tough choices

and then we made my little heart just skip a beat when we pulled up to the Wall Street Journal's pick for the home of #1 burger in america: ann's snack bar on memorial drive, home of the ghetto burger. this place is amazing. ann is this sassy 90 year old little black woman who makes everything to order by hand on a tiny grill. there are only 8 stools in the place, and if you try to come in before a stool-vacancy (hahaha, that works on a few levels) she will totally scream at you soup-nazi style. luckily i had read up on the rules and we didnt get yelled at once, shwew! we did get to sit on our stools and look on in barely-suppressed glee and shake our heads in knowing pity as other poor, less-informed souls dared intrude before their appointed time and felt the toothless wrath of the burger queen.

shout it proud

the widowmaker herself: the ghetto burger. two huge patties, covered in cheese, bacon and fresh onions as well as chili. lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard and special seasonings. it doesnt make sense that these ingredients should taste so good. dont worry, we did splitsies on one burger and were both completely full. that is ann in the background and her equally-stern apprentice.

somewhere in duluth, my mother is overdosing on "appalled"

and a "side" of fries

on the commute home from ATL we stopped and played with the harpers. you will be happy to know that my pepper skills are still 100% intact as i repeatedly schooled garrett in a round of barefoot-pregnant volleyball played with a soccer ball. too bad we didnt take any pictures of that. but i wanted you to know.

and just then lady fortune cast her loving gaze upon us as i got a call from long-lost teammate and superfriend jayme gergen, who normally lives in blacksburg, VA coaching vball for virginia tech. she was in peachtree city recruiting and knew we lived nearby. i got this message as we were passing her going in the opposite direction. one quick U-turn later and we had our joyous reunion in the parking lot of CVS.

love her!

and in the grand tradition started by me and marisa, i give you another entry in the "pregnant-belly-as-volleyball" photo series. classic gergen serving posture: achieved!

take one: we were both trying pretty hard not to laugh (which is definitely NOT a part of the gerg-serve) AND i have what appears to be a divine aurora of gas coming from my butt

take two. the blessed emission has floated up into the troposphere now to cast its golden rays upon our photo-op

i am looking forward to running in to lauren sauer or alex preiss in the next month. i am betting the pose we choose for them will be a natural method of labor-induction given their attacking-prowess at tech.

Judah's Song

If you've been reading along with us for a little while, you know that one of things that I started doing this year was trying my hand at songwriting and I've been posting some of the results on another blog that I made. However, I just knew that at some point these two worlds would collide since songwriting (at least when its any good I guess) is the outpouring of your thoughts and feelings and emotions into music and words. So anyway, this is that day.

As we prepare for our son's arrival I'm just constantly struck by just how much I love this little guy who I haven't even met yet. AND how its my personal goal to lavish love and grace and safety and security on him because I'm convinced that being able to rest, swim, bask, and find our identity in love is the secret to being able to live like the kind of people that Jesus created us to be.

.
So anyway, this song is just about that. And we want this to be the song that his heart sings his entire life. Sure its a little sappy, but when dealing with the heart of a child I am not sure you can go overboard with letting him know just how much you're head over heels for him.
Some notes...

Boles is the road that Keight's parents live on. (Sorry mom and dad Dukes, Tillman had too many syllables and doesn't really rhyme well)

Both Merriam AND Webster say that tameless actually is a word.

The lion I love is Judah if you didn't get that somehow. He's like the lion... of Judah.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Judah's Song



shake the tree and the apple falls
not far at all
just far enough to know his life’s his own
so put down those roots and grow
cause right here you’re home
and nothing can change that

there’s a lion I love with all my heart,
it’s not what you do, just who you are
sleep in peace my child the only war
is over if there’s any room to love you more

A curly mane and a tale that grows
as we slip down these roads
that lead us everywhere from Narnia to Boles
through autumn leaves and the summer sun
we’ll laugh and play till evening comes
Then we’ll lay back down and sing that

There’s a lion I love with all my heart,
it’s not what you do, just who you are
sleep in peace my child the only war
is over if there’s any room to love you more

You’re teaching me about love so strong
that’s its power alone
can make a heart of flesh
from one that’s wrapped in stone
so lets sing about the one
who made this love that keeps us breathing
our tameless one who’s singing

there’s a lion who loves with all His heart,
it’s not what you do, just who you are.
sleep in peace now child may fear be gone
because He loves you and His love will guard your heart

The Business of Being Born

Tuesday nights are normally when Keight and I head over to Griffin to attend our Bradley birthing classes at the First Assembly of God, or something like that...I just remember it has a singing lake. Anyway, that's where we normally are. Last night however we had some stuff come up and decided to stay home and to "make up" for it we watched a documentary that several people had suggested to Keight called "The Business of Being Born" that was produced by Ricky Lake.

I wasn't really expecting much, since I used to watch Ricky Lake when I'd get sick and have to lay out of school as a kid, and I couldn't imagine what could have improved since then. Much to my surprise though it was excellent. If you've ever wondered why America has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the world among developed nations and why now 1 out of 3 births are done by Cesarean Section, you can find out.

The premise of the movie is that something has changed in the way we give birth in America. Much of the change is the result of technological advances and scientific research and is good, but just because we have technology available to us, doesn't mean that we must use it or that it is even helpful to use. So throughout the movie they seek to answer the question, "Are hospitals and doctors acting in the best interest of mothers and their babies during the birthing process."

I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't go into exactly how it plays out, but I will say that they are pretty even handed throughout the whole movie. They show several home births assisted by midwives, but its really cool because during the filming one of the producers was actually pregnant and was planning on doing a home birth. However at the end of the movie, you go through her birth and her son is breech and they take her to a local hospital and she has a C-section.

So it shows beautifully why we have OBs that are trained and qualified and skilled surgeons for dangerous situations that arise in the birthing process. But there is clearly a problem if 1 out of every 3 births end in an emergency surgery. Clearly God did not design the birth process so that 1/3 of all births need emergency intervention and in any other age would have endangered the life of the mother or baby, so maybe this is a situation we have created...

Anyway, check it out if you get a chance, it was illuminating to say the least. I highly recommend it to anyone who is currently pregnant or plans to be at some point.

-Jesse

thirtysomethings

i thought time would start flying by once we hit the 30 week mark. i mean, 30 weeks! thats a really big number, or so i thought from the other side. Here we are in week 33 and time has come to a screeching halt it seems. here's some of what we've been doing to pass the time.

another standard picture from the doctor's office. now that we are there every 2 weeks these are becoming routine and hard to distinguish. my belly looks tiny because we do morning appointments and i dont eat anything beforehand. the difference is ENORMOUS. i will have to do a same-day before and after-meal belly pic comaparison for proof. i was having a seriously poor day facially here, hence the bandit-sweater. everything is still good on the judah-health front. good and boring and always the same (unless you care about my new dose of thyroid hormone...right)

that is a book report on Ruth Bader Ginsburg behind me. typical OB office decor (31 weeks 2 days)

i had an AMAZING shower on april 4th thrown by my cousins, aunt wanda and margie. this one was for vincent-side family and lots of ladies at woodward north where i went to elementary school and my mom, dad, and most of the hostesses all work. this was the afternoon after i had dropped jesse off at the airport for a week in mexico, so it was a WONDERFUL distraction from missing him. i had SO SO SO much fun with tons of family, friends and former teachers.

(left to right lindsey, melissa, me, margie, krista, aunt wanda)

here's one with all the lady-fam of the vincent side. thats my tiny-organic mom in blue next to me. all the weight she loses goes right to me and my butt

just the cousins. minus tripp. (31 weeks 5 days)

compare the above pic to this one, taken almost 9 years ago at lindsey's wedding shower. wow! we just happen to be lined up in the exact same order. ha! they are all as hot as ever, and you can just shut up about me in the before pic, because i was 17 and hadnt learned about using makeup or avoiding pastels when untanned. i call myself "lisa vanilla plainface" here.

blast from the past (0 weeks, 0 days)

the next day my mom took me to chateau elan for a spa day. another perfect distraction from missing jesse. we had massages, manicures, pedicures and a delish lunch. didnt feel like taking any pics of me and mom in our robes and no makeup, but trust me that it was delightful and i felt so spoiled!

we ate lunch in the room above those arches of the little turret-looking area

our 2 couple-BF's the fortunatos, dan and lukas (right), and future-hunts, lena and elliot (left-wedding on 8.22.09: save the date). they took me to longhorn for a triple date. i was escorted my my fetal-son since jesse was still in mexico. love them! lena and dan are proof that smart friendvesting pays off. (i had a REALLY awesomely lame pun about wall street and the economy and investments like these, but lukas and elliot shamed me out of inserting it). i am officially too big for my own non-maternity shirts and have resorted to wearing jesse's...seen here in kelly green

elliot, lena, keight/judah, danielle, lukas (32 weeks 4 days)

on the way to pick up jesse from the airport on saturday night. this is me with 40% of jesse and my 3rd family, the harpers, at our favorite and most frequented mexican restaurant. this is garrett, the oldest son (a freshie at GT), and beth, the beautiful harper-mom. there are 2 more younger harperino boys not pictured, and of course rick-the dad, our campus minister and former/future boss from georgia tech CCF. we LOVE this family and have adopted ourselves into the clan. we go to the beach every summer with them (this will be the 5th year!) and hang out in fayettville with them approximately 3 times a week (average). the boys will be awesome big brothers for judah.

me/ judah, garrett, beth (32 weeks, 5 days)

and then jesse came home and all was right in the world (including jesse's raging tan) it was a hard 8 days without him (180 hours is you were counting them one by one like i was!) but i was kept busy by all the wonderful things above plus a few not pictured like dinner with my uncle blaine and aunt jo, a lunch date with jesse's mom, and a spend the night party at my house + attending birth class with my mom.

Easter at church. 32 weeks 6 days

time to shower!

we had our first "shower" last weekend. technically, it was not a shower per se, it was a "baby party" this was to lure unsuspecting males to an event that they are naturally afraid of. there were no baby games and the food was hearty and wonderful. there was not a pastel blue decoration in sight. it was a nice change of pace from the traditional baby shower (which i also love) because it gave the husbands/dads/boyfriends/fiances a chance to hang out with each other and pretend to watch basketball while actually thinking how cute the baby clothes were. we had SO MUCH FUN!!!

i get bigger, he get's cuter. it not fair. but i'll take it! (30 weeks 5 days)

my best friends amanda goodman and marisa jackson threw it for us at amanda's house which pretty much looks like a set for HGTV it is so expertly decorated (completely by amanda). we had so much fun hanging out with some of our favorite friends in the world. everything was perfect. love love love these girls!

marisa, me, amanda

i played volleyball at tech with BOTH hostesses..but marisa and i were both defensive specialists, so we thought it appropriate to show what a true textbook "baby bump" looks like. i guess you could say marisa really digs judah. HELLO PUN!

baby bumping

looking like partners in more than pepper

we LOVE him! really hoping he has brown curly hair just like this little guy, maybe a little more

me and my sweet prego-fatface (sick) catching up with a long lost friend...but not in the way i would most enjoy. soon though.

doing some labor practice on top of the beer cooler, naturally (just like they will hopefully have ready for us at the hospital). here's hoping judah's head is just a few inches smaller and jesse is just a little less terrified. please note my sweet arm tan line. i dont know how i am going to fix that. one unexpected mid-march sunburn and i am doomed!