This won't be the last time the words 'Land Whale' appear here...

When I was uploading the pictures for this post, I had to go through like 10 pictures Mike took of me and Autumn today and it was seriously depressing, LOL. I feel better than I have felt all pregnancy but between my hair not obeying, my skin pretending it is 14 again, and the fact that I am rapidly approaching land whale proportions, complete with a swelling nose...man. :P I did just look at how many weeks along I am and realized that, according to the books, this is my last week in my second trimester! So, I feel a little better.

I've been having a little bit of a hard time getting good exercise in. My acupuncturist friend Chuck and my chiropractor have done wonders for me but walking and doing aikido, my main sources of exercise, were really doing a number on my lower back and hips. Soooooo, after talking about it and trying to put it off...I joined a water aerobics class since there wasn't really a yoga class that fit in my schedule.
(I'll be the one in the back trying to figure out how to run in the water)


The first one I went to was okay. It was shallow water and the average age was about 500. They were super nice but I decided to give deep water aerobics a try and that was a bit of a better workout...the average age was more like 65 so more vigorous movement was encouraged. :) In both classes they were very, very concerned that I not hurt myself and it was kind of hard to figure out how to reassure the ladies that there is pretty much NOTHING that I'd do in there that could hurt me without sounding like a snob so I mostly smiled and nodded. I mean, considering that I spent about half of aikido Saturday doing techniques on my knees (I call that Japanese bar fighting--it's really called suwari waza) with guys twice my size...I think I'll be okay. Hahaha. But this will be good. Extra workout, no impact, maybe it'll help with some of the swelling.


Anyway, our yard is doing some serious flowering. It's been kind of fun to see what's hiding around here. The azaleas we knew would be amazing and I've enjoyed watching to see which bushes would turn what color. We have two red Japanese maples and one green one. We found some tiny flowers and we don't know what they are called. Today was so pretty and Autumn's new dress was so cute that I wanted to go outside and take some pictures in front of the flowers.


I think Mike and Autumn are so cute together. Today I heard music and giggling and when I went downstairs, they were in his office spinning and dancing to the music.


Autumn's been going through a little bit of a phase where she's learning to express frustration. Poor kid mood swings from suuuper happy kisses to growling and stomping her feet. We have a lot of "ok, tell me why you are angry" conversations these days.


For the most part, though, she's such a great kid and a ton of fun to be around. The first thing she does every morning is say good morning to "her" baby and give him a kiss.


I took some more pictures around the yard. Autumn tried to find her toy camera but couldn't so she got her cell phone and "snapped pictures" alongside me.


She's getting to be such a big girl. She started buckling herself into her carseat last week. It was so funny the first time. I put her in the car and asked her to get in her chair while I talked to someone. When I looked in to buckle her, she was grinning and said, "I already did it!"


Oh, and we got to have Frank and Emily and Olivia over yesterday! That was a lot of fun. I made a chicago style pizza, by Mike's request. I like it when he has favorite meals that he asks for when friends come over. Autumn was really looking forward to seeing Olivia and I was hoping that when they finally arrived, Autumn wouldn't go into shy/antisocial mode where she hides. She actually did really well and after dinner, she wanted to be Belle and asked to dress Olivia up as Cinderella.


Olivia was a good sport but she was definitely more interested in coloring and drawing that indulging Autumn's dress up. :) I think Autumn is going to make her new baby brother a doll, poor guy.


The one thing Olivia wasn't having any of was a hat. She resisted all attempts at hatting. Autumn even gave Frank some bunny ears and Emily got a halo. Mike got a pirate gun which doesn't seem overly fair. Ha.


Wow, that was a long post! I probably need to do more than one a week when I have a lot of stuff going on. Ah, real quick...I have a couple blogs for anyone who might be interested. One is my sister's blog which is looking like a family blog kind of like this one. The other is my friend Michelle's. Michelle is in a unique situation right now with one of her daughters who was born with a meconium cyst and her blog is the story of their life since. Definitely check it out...she's a great writer and I might have to steal some of her super creative collages!