It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Downtown Gettysburg...
Presents under the tree...

A REAL Christmas tree (for the first time in 3 years!)...

A growing belly...

We hope Christmas is "showing up" in your home too!
-H

Baby on board (happy birthday Dad Polk)

This changes everything...




We had our 21 week checkup today. Everyone is healthy. Reality is beginning to set in.
-P

PS: It seems that our life is already becoming consumed by baby. We used to get annoyed when friends would only talk about the baby. Now we understand that fighting this reality is like fighting gravity. Please be patient, we will do our best to keep things interesting.

Not a snow dog

Last week we got a few inches of snow. Our first real snow of the season! I thought that Moses would for sure love to play in the snow, you know, like dogs do - romp all around and eat the snow and run all around our backyard then come inside nice and tired. So, I decided that over my lunch break I'd let him out and this was the result...









He would get scared when he sniffed it and it moved. I did get him to pee eventually, but it took some coaxing. Looks like we don't have a snow dog after all. He'd rather be standing next to the "hot box!"

-H

He Knows

-P

Growing Legs

People warned me early on that I'd get what's called "pregnancy brain." I confess - I only half believed them. Well, let me tell you - IT'S TRUE AND IT'S CONTAGOUS!!!
Lately Paul and I have noticed that there is more in our house that's growing legs besides the baby inside me. We've noticed that the oddest things have gone MIA - his wedding band and my mouthguard (that I have to wear every night when I sleep or I grind my teeth and get horrible headaches). We searched Sunday night, almost all night for his wedding band and couldn't find it anywhere. We searched last night until 11:45 for my mouthguard - again, no luck.
Do things like that really grow legs or are we just going crazy? I've never been one to loose things. I've misplaced my keys maybe twice in the past 5 years. One of my life's mottos is "everything has its place." Looks like life is going to be changing pretty drastically soon.
-H

A night in the life of Moses

Hangin' out with the fam...
Wrestling with his blanket/bed...
Getting our favorite "ear do"...
sweet dreams sweet puppy!

The heat it ON!

For a few weeks now we have had our heat on. What that means in our house is that we're running our wood stove (aka "the hot box" to Moses).
We have thoroughly enjoyed our "hot box" for almost a year now and wouldn't trade it for any other kind of heat. Sure it is a little more work-intensive and dirty, but MY GOODNESS is the heat amazing!! I'm currently wearing short sleeves and our upstairs is a comfortable 72 degrees, which probably means that it is 76 downstairs and about 80 in the kitchen, where the wood stove is. I informed Paul that no matter when or were we moved that we would be taking the wood stove with us. He just looked at me and said "nah, we'll buy another one, just as efficient, when we move. I promise." If it's up to me, I don't think I'll ever have any other kind of heat.
Moses loves the hot box also. He rotates sides in front and on the sides of it until I think he's going to burn himself, then he eventually settles down on his rug next to it. He'd stay there all night if we'd let him.
-H

Off to the woods in search of fall.

Why is it 75 degrees in late October?

To celebrate our new digital camera (and because I have not been on any wilderness trips since the summer and needed a fix) we decided to go for a hike. We love walking in the woods.
There is something wonderful about being pulled out of your house by an over eager dog. Once he sees his pack being loaded, there is no containing Moses' shoulder popping excitement. We hope you enjoy this picture story of our day outside.
-P

Just loading the car is an adventure. As soon as we turn off of the main road and Moses sees the forest he starts to get excited. The tail wags, the smile forms and he starts to cry out seeming to ask, "are we there yet?"

My LEAST Favorite Things

Some people make a list of their "favorite" things. Well, today I'm making a list of my LEAST favorite "pregnancy things."
1. Clothing - nothing fits right...nothing. I was given pregnancy clothes that I'm already considering wearing (although I'm not showing yet), just because I KNOW the nice wide, elastic waistband in them would be 100 times more comfortable than what I'm wearing now.
2. Hormones - they cause lots of problems like zits and mood swings. My face looks like I'm going through puberty again (I'm 26 for crying out loud!!!) and my mood changes in the blink of an eye...poor Paul. Yes, please pray for him!
3. Water consumption - I'm always drinking water (which is a very good thing), but my bladder's space in my body is being compromised already, so I pee every 15-20 minutes during the day. I cut myself off around 9 or so every night and I still get up at least twice and pee in the middle of the night. The doctors say to "get plenty of rest during your pregnancy" and to "drink plenty of water." Huh?! Which is a priority because in the evenings you've got to pick one or the other.
4. Not showing - cars currently don't stop when I'm standing in a crosswalk. I sometimes have to wait up to 10 minutes sometimes just to get across the street. I'm excited to start showing, those cars will be stopping left and right, I just know it!
5. Did someone speed up the clock? My first trimester is almost over, already! Where did the time go?? Paul asked if I could make this last a year. I told him I'd try.

Ok, ok, now for a list of my favorite things:
1. Anticipating seeing, holding, and meeting our baby, and knowing that (pending anything else the Lord would surprise us with) that dream will become a reality.
2. A new adventure - I've never done this before in my life. Everything about this process is new and interesting. There is a wealth of stuff to think about, research and investigate during your pregnancy and every day is a new adventure.
3. The support you receive from friends and family. There's no other way to do this and it's amazing to feel so encouraged and loved. Y'all are the most generous and gracious people we know and we're so blessed to have each of you in our lives! This baby has no clue what an amazing community he/she's coming into.

Well, I know my list of "favorites" isn't as big as my list of "least favorites" but the "favorites" are big ones. Alright, that's all for today! Have a good one!
-H

The Dog Days of Summer

Well, summer is officially over and here is our overview...

We LOVE our sweet sweet puppy...even though he is huge!

Paul patched and re-finished (which includes sanding, staining and polyurethane-ing) the hard wood floors on our entire first floor. It was our "summer house project" and one that, according to Paul, we will NEVER do ourselves again. You've got to be crazy once, right?

We enjoyed lots of fresh fruit and veggies from our garden and Paul's parents' garden. YUM!!!

And finally, the biggest news of all...

I AM TWO MONTHS PREGNANT!!! We were planning on doing this in about 2 years, but obviously God has other plans. Being pregnant has given us a very real deadline for almost everything: our house, Paul's grad school plans, etc. etc. etc. For right now, we're trying to simply get used to the idea. We are excited about this, but the excitement came after the initial "WHAT THE HECK" feeling. I'm due in late April/early May. I'm sorry that we weren't able to tell everyone personally and that some people are probably finding out about this just as they read this, but (as you can imagine) life has been pretty crazy recently. Thankfully I've been feeling good, just nauseous and tired. I'm done by about 9:00 every night (I already feel so old!), and I don't sleep at night very well thanks to my shrinking bladder. So, there will be lots more posts now that the "big news" is out.

We hope your "dog days of summer" were wonderful as well!

-H

Whose pile is bigger??

One last picture of our Dolly Sodds trip. The pile on the right is of the "human's" food for the trip, the pile on the left is of the dog's. Whose do you think is bigger? It was hard for us to tell.

-H

Dolly Sods

These pictures are LONG over due, but a lot of life has happened since we got back from "the Sods" (as we refer to it) - more on that later. For now, enjoy these pictures from our family vacation 2007!

Moses was a little excited to be in the backcountry...a little too "distracted" to settle down for a good family self-take. But as you can see, we were all having a great time!

This is one of my favorites from the whole trip. Moses proved to be a "mountain goat" at times, scampering and easily jumping onto rocks 2 feet above his head. It was pretty amazing.

We made yeast bread (yep, even in the backcountry!). We enjoyed delicious pizza one night and cinnamon buns the next morning. Paul is an incredible backcountry chef. It was a real treat!
This is our absolute favorite picture of our trip. Dolly Sods is always soggy. We were SO thankful for our gators (thanks Mom and Dad Miller!). Unfortunately they don't make gators for dogs. Even though all 3 of us slept in one tent, somehow by bedtime Moses was always all cleaned up.

We can't wait to go back to the Sods!
-H

Email forwards

Well, as most of you know, I generally NEVER forward emails. But, this is actually an interesting one, so I thought I'd post it for everyone to enjoy...
Cna yuo raed tihs?
Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcusea e the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

-H

...finally

Well, some people start a blog when they get married, some when they're pregnant, some when they start a new business, some when they move. Why are we starting our blog now? Well, for none of those reasons! I finally got around to asking Paul for the username and password so I could write because I got sick of having a blog and doing nothing with it. This is a new thing for me, but very fun. I've had lot of good examples of blogs, so the hope is that now we've started we'll actually keep up with it. Because I'm at work I don't have any fun pictures of our dog or anything, but here's a short update of our life...

• We both finished a half marathon in early May. It was a blast and we're looking forward to our next one, hopefully in Baltimore, October 13.
• Our dog, Moses, is HUGE but the cutest dog I know.
• Paul is currently working on our garage as well as getting rid of the parasite he caught on a mountaineering training trip in Wyoming.
• Work at the theater is wonderfully slow this summer (at least for me) - hence why I'm blogging now. :)
• We're looking forward to our family camping trip to Dolly Sods (aka "the Sods") at the end of this month (I'm sure there will be lots of pictures to come).
• Moses does not fit into a canoe - we tried. We found something that he's just too big to do. He can't sit down in the canoe, making it almost impossible to balance. There was much laughing in this process. The guy watching us couldn't believe we actually got him into the canoe, but we did. He just couldn't sit.
• Trying to live "green" is fun.

That's about it for now. We're trying to take it as easy as possible, this coming fall is going to be challenging as always, we're sure.

Before I forget, Paul and I have established one "rule" for our blog. You will always know who posted the blog because of this at the end...

-H (for Heather)