That's All, Folks!

Well, yesterday I turned in my keys to the Band Hall at Pin Oak. After five years, I'm no longer a Middle School Band Director. It's a strange combination of relief, excitement, regret (at what else I could have done while I was there), and nostalgia. It's been such a strange/funny/weird/bizarre experience working with middle school kids that as I walked out of the building I really wanted to hear the end music of Looney Toons with a big "That's All, Folks!" I'm such a nerd...


Things I'm looking forward to this summer:
*Re-organizing furniture & setting up the baby stuff
*Having a garage sale
*Sewing baby room stuff and hopefully living room curtains
*Fruit picking and canning (peaches and blueberries first!)
*Regularly listening to symphonic music (Rimsky-Korsokov today :)
*Attending an entire Adult Sunday School series for the first time in 5 years!
*Eating produce from my little garden (LOTS of tomatoes today!)
*Finishing Kodaly class & certification!
*Visitors!!! Laura/Amy/Beck/Kim/Jess in June, and Laura/Sarah in August :)
*Visiting Mom & George/Jenn & having a double baby shower :)
*Quality time with James: walking, scripture reading, getting ready for baby
*NOT spending 2 weeks in the car for our annual road trip (I'll miss seeing people, but not the time in the car!!!)
*Scrap-booking shower for Shauna
*AIR CONDITIONING

Yesterday I took a bath and while I was sitting there enjoying the warm water, Baby Barnes started moving and I could see my belly move!

Last week a few of James' students gave him baby gifts. One night he got home really late from a school function and I had already gone to bed. He was SO EXCITED about the baby gift (a super cute pair of cargo shorts and ADORABLE little sweater vest) that he came in and woke me up to show me! He was so cute :) And another couple of kids got a 3 month t-shirt that says "My Dad is the World's Greatest Statistics Teacher." Gotta love those gifted and talented high school students :)

I would be remiss to not mention how thankful I am for the all of the service men and women (and their families) for their service to our country, especially this Memorial Day Weekend. Frustration with the political issues at hand put aside, this really is a pretty great place to live. THANK YOU to all of our family members and friends who have served in the armed forces!

It's a Boy!

Technology sure is an amazing thing! This afternoon we not only found out Baby Barnes is a boy, but we got to see all sorts of neat bodily development too!

We watched his heart beating - we could see all four chambers! That was totally unexpected and really cool :)

He had one arm behind his head most of the time - he looked so comfortable just hangin' out! I was a little disappointed in how little movement we saw because he was very active in the car on the way over to the office, but it was pretty awesome nonetheless:) We got to see him opening and closing his mouth and we could see his stomach (which is good because it means his is able to swallow). His spine was very visible, and when the technician zoomed in on his arms we could see both tiny little bones! We also saw fingers, feet, ribs, thighs, and a nice plump belly (it matches mine :P ) and the placenta.

What an amazing thing the human body is! The intricacy is just incredible!!! What an awesome God we serve... creation bears witness to his glory and power and certainly also his lovingkindness!!!

Baby movement

I'll make a bigger post on Monday after we've been to see the midwives for our 20 week appointment... I'm so excited to see the ultrasound!

I just have to say, though, that feeling the baby move has to be one of the coolest, most amazing (and weirdest) feelings ever. Last night James and I watched North by Northwest (which was fantastic, obviously) and an hour-long documentary on Carey Grant's career (which was also really interesting) so we were up about 3 hours later than normal. The baby was moving so much! I wonder whether I've been sleeping through the most active times. Lots of movement as I'm sitting here typing... feels like somersaults, although I have a hard time imagining how that would actually work.

I can't wait to see the baby on the ultrasound on Monday! Emily, a friend from school (who is due 3 days before I am), went on Tuesday for her 20 week ultrasound and she said it was cool to see her baby moving - a lot more movement than she could even feel at this point! She said it was amazing to see family traits already - she has Emily's long fingers and when she went to sleep, she laid her hand across her forehead just like Emily's mom does!

It's so exciting to share this experience with other Christian women - what an amazing God we serve!