back from the suburbs

Those of you who live in the city know just how draining it can be sometimes. All that cement and noise and all of those people have a tendency to get oppressive to the point where you just might lose it if you don't get away and out to nature soon. Luckily, a branch of my family lives relatively close to us in the New Jersey suburbs and we are able to escape to see them whenever necessary. This last weekend was one of those times. We made the proper arrangements with Uncle Joel and Aunt Colleen, and Garrett and I began our short exodus on Thursday (Blake joined us Friday after work).

We enjoyed a lovely weekend. It was so relaxing, in fact, that I didn't snap a single photo while we were there. My apologies for those of you who were hoping for Garden State visuals. That said, however, a few photos were taken, if not by me, then by the paid professionals at Kiddie Kandids. On Friday morning, Colleen helped Garrett and I get to the portrait studio for his first official sitting. Well, I suppose I should say his first official successful sitting. You may recall that we attempted a photo session a few weeks ago with his cousin Henry which ended up being nothing more than a complete disaster because Garrett was so sick. This time my boy had a few smiles up his sleeves, and I'm pleased with the results, scanned here for your enjoyment.

Handsome, boy, don't you think? He seems suddenly much older to me in these pictures, like he's losing his baby look in favor of more chiseled big boy features. It suits him, though.

[Note to Garrett's grandmothers: Your copies will be in the mail this week.]

A few other things we did this weekend:

• I watched Twilight. And I enjoyed it. No one is more surprised by this than me, I assure you.
• Under Colleen's experienced guidance, I worked a little more on my baby quilt.
  
• Blake helped around the house with a few weekend chores, the highlight of which was the planting of some deer-resistant shrubbery along the front of the house.
• Garrett continued to develop his ability to scream really loud when he's upset and/or wants attention, especially when traveling. I'm currently welcoming any ideas, aside from just ignoring him, which works fairly well at home, but not so much when in public, on how to rid him of this nasty habit.
• We all watched the Northeast Region's stake conference, broadcast via satellite, which means that the Sunday meetings in both Brooklyn and New Jersey were exactly the same . . .unless, of course, the folks in Brooklyn didn't have the same technical difficulty we did and therefore got to actually hear the first 7 minutes or so of Pres. Eyring's talk.

In other news, I am pregnant. Oh wait, you knew that. But what you might not know, since I'm not especially prone to posting pictures of myself, is that, according to Joel in his edition of the family newsletter (dateline: yesterday), I'm "looking great with child." Now, I'm not sure if he meant that I look great pregnant or that I'm just looking big. Maybe both? I personally think that, while, yes, I'm daily getting bigger, I don't look all that big, but rather, apparent with child. I do waddle occasionally, so perhaps that's an indication of something. At any rate, for your pleasure only, I attempted a Stand On The Dictionary So I Was Tall Enough To Take A Bathroom Mirror Self Portrait. You can decide for yourself just how big or small I am.

With Number Two at 24 weeks
For your reference, here is what I looked like at 24 weeks with Garrett.