is she bored???

i know.
raaaandom.
back to back posts.
consecutive dates.
she must be sick.

i feel like i had alot to say, and...now i'm drawing a blank.
i certainly have some photos, so i'll let them tell the stories....

FOR STARTERS -- between my three dog visits to the doggie hospital and such, i somehow glazed right over MISS LAHLEE'S 30TH BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! hello. huge ordeal. i nearly DIIIIEEED when her sissy told me the surprise bday party was going to be on THE WEEKEND i had flown to Tamps. sweet timing. gosh, i ALWAYS miss the big deals around here. sheesh.

at any rate, i took her to a fun dinner (mostly out of selfish reasons, i needed to be able to CATCH UP with her!) in georgetown and it was just good ole fun girltime. certainly not comparable to the week she had been given by her LOVING FAMILY, but.....i certainly needed to do something to ring in the BIG 3-0!!! so this is my public announcement:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANIER!!!



then per request....i have some belly pictures!
it's not as cool when you have to take them of yourself, but it gets the job done. good enough. if somebody pointed a camera at me, i'd probably not allow them to capture any images, so doing it myself is best. CONNNNNTROOOLLLL.

so, here ya go! 27 weeks:








sorry, wasn't sure which one did the best job of describing WHY i've already outgrown my first round of maternity pants. yeah. things nobody really tells you. i bought the MOST adorable pair of black capris which were going to be my summer "church uniform"....since they were cool enough to wear all summer and nice enough to pull off at church, being that i default to my comfy sweats 9 out of 10 days. i've worn them ONCE. i pulled them out to wear to the wedding on saturday -- THEY WOULD NOT BUTTON UP. are you JOKING ME!? they are BRAND NEW! i thought maybe if i left a button undone, it would work, but you could SEE the constricted line across my abdomen from the waistband, underneath the shirt i was going to wear and it looked like i was trying to hide a watermelon or something. i knew after 10 hours on my feet, that would just start to get really old. i'm actually still in shock over it.

which would probably explain the newfound STARVATION that is hitting me. i ate a casual dinner with lanier last night, a salad, a sandwich, a bag of chips....at roughly 730pm. by midnight, i couldn't sleep through my stomach growlings. i persisted however, and determined in my heart to NOT EAT at midnight. only that causes ravenous and unsightly binging sprees the following morning. i woke up hungrier than EVER. i've eaten a cheddar and bacon scone (bigger than the size of my hand...), a huge bagel with piles of cream cheese, a banana.....well, actually that's all so far. but its 1pm and i could kill for FOOOOOOOOD!!!!!

i think it's safe to say bebe cheeze is growing.

and since i look more MOM-ISH than ever.....i decided to attend a MOMS GROUP this morning. gasp. i think i used to swear these things off...like...with every fiber of my soul.

actually, if you recall, i think it was this time last year that i jumped ship on the women's bible study that felt a LIIIITTTLE too much like a "mom's group." i couldn't handle it. but there were many reasons for that.

needless to say, when i was invited to one, with today being the opening day, i was hesitant but knew it would be a good thing to do.

and it reminded me of WHY it was so painful to attend last year. it isn't painful at all now, but gosh...why did i subject myself to SO MUCH BABY TALK when i suffered through the season of infertility.

it was just what i expected. it was a room full of swollen bellies or newborns. i went with annmarie, as the leader of the group is a friend of hers. owen "the great" is the oldest baby there, and BY FAR the biggest!!! he's a strapping 5mth old, if i ever saw one!!! but tell me he's not the most precious kid in the world!! i'm more excited to have a boy b/c both julie and ann marie have them...so i feel my "boy posse" is going to help me out tremendously!!!

it was good to hear that my braxton hicks contractions are normal.
it was good to hear that my doctor is insane for capping my weight gain at 22lbs.
it was good to watch how moms respond when their babies scream the entire 2 hours.
it was good to eat an entire canister of cream cheese.
it was good to talk to the girls who have had or are scheduled to have c-sections....very interesting topic.
it was good to just catch up with ann marie, meet my new "babysitting timeshare" girlfriends, and to get to know the local Alexandria mothers-to-be!!!

i'm loving my canon point and shoot, FYI. SO MUCH MORE CONVENIENT to carry around i feel you'll see more pics in the future, now that i am not lugging around a huge camera case!!!

ann marie and her little tank!! 95th percentile!!!


owen wondering WHY we made him wear the hat....


i got him to smile a smidge...


looook at those CHEEEKS!, and i wish you could see his eyelashes ...the envy of every chick.


one of the girls had twins.
and DIDNT FIND OUT UNTIL SHE WAS 20 WEEKS!!!
twins are in the matching car seat...and they're hangin' with with their girlfriend.
it's like they're all waiting for the metro to come pick them up. or at a bus station.


last two of owen.
i'm sorry.
in a weird way, he reminds me of ryan, my brother, when he was little.
his build, his massive black-brown eyes, his chubby cheeks....
owen is honestly the MOST CONSISTENTLY happy baby i've seen in a long time.
non-stop laughs...i dont think i've ever seen him cry.
PRESH.




so that was my first mom's group :)

but until my human child is born...we have a doggie child who needs massive amts of attention.
during mom group today, his trainer called and wants to see rudy for an evaluation at 9am tomorrow morning. TOMORROW!!! i feel like it's college application time all over again!

WHAT IF HE FAILS??
the trainer was very fair in stating he makes no promises on accepting rudy into the program. rudy may be beyond what help they can offer. but he'll spend an hour with him, figure out his life history and why he's been the spawn of satan for the past 2 months and build a plan to help him.
i'm not going to ask you to pray, even though i secretly thought it in my head.
but i'll keep you posted!

oh and the A/C update is not pretty.
seems the 11 year old unit is a piece of SH** that is undersized for the square footage of this house. we need a 4Ton unit and the builder installed a 3Ton unit. so our house is about 500sq ft bigger than what this A/C unit should be serving. i can't utter out loud (much less see it in writing) the quote he gave me for a new furnace and AC unit, but .....THAT is something that we need prayer for, for sure. holy expensive homeowner expenses. PLLLLLEASE let the AC make it through 2008 and we'll deal with it in 2009. that's ALL i ask....

ok.
it's going to be 2pm before long.
exterminator coming.
consultation tonight.
lunch to eat!

it 's been real.....xo, al

PS: on a final note, the Economist had this article regarding the CFA Exam, the one that chad takes every year. it'll give you some insight into how freaking impossible it is....i found it really interesting, and though it could be helpful for those of you who have no real clue what it exactly entails....

***************
Charter school

Jun 5th 2008
From The Economist print edition

How not to unwind after work

ON THE weekend of June 7th and 8th, up to 175,000 people round the world will face one of the most arduous tests of their lives. They will sit one of the three exams required to earn the coveted status of chartered financial analyst (CFA).

One of those candidates will become the millionth person to take the test. That is phenomenal growth for a qualification that, as recently as 1995, was taken by fewer than 20,000 people a year. This expansion partly reflects the lure of earning big money in finance (at least until the credit crisis). But it also shows the growing appeal of the CFA brand outside its American birthplace; more than two-fifths of this year's candidates come from Asia, where job ads in the South China Morning Post now often say “CFA-required”.

Although no profession formally requires employees to become a CFA, it is increasingly seen as essential for those trying to get ahead in financial services. Despite already working in institutional sales at Man Group, a hedge-fund firm, Lucy Johnstone, a classics graduate from Edinburgh University, is putting herself through the agony of the level III exam. It “really helps when you're talking to other finance professionals,” she says.

Unlike the well-known MBA degree, which usually requires a residential course, CFA students mostly study at home. Neo Wee Koon, a Singapore-based engineer who wants to move into fund management, says he was attracted by both the flexibility and affordability of the course; he receives a grant from his local CFA Institute to help him study.

But this structure also means candidates need a lot of self-discipline. Aelita Arampova, a recent CFA charterholder who is now chief executive of a hedge-fund group, says she studied from 8pm till midnight from three to four days a week with a further five to six hours at weekends. She decided to duck out of the programme for a year in 2006, when she faced the equally demanding task of organising her wedding.

After all that effort, there is no guarantee of success. Nitin Mehta of the CFA Institute in London says that only a fifth of the candidates who start complete all three stages; a quarter do not even turn up to the exam. Mind you, faced with questions such as “What are the desirable statistical properties of an estimator?”, they can hardly be blamed for that.

(i firmly believe a quarter of them don't show up b/c their wives have killed them....i'm just saying.)