more pictures

my in-laws are here and i feel guilty blogging when i could be spending quality time with them, so here are a few more pictures for now. i really do want to write more and have tons to write about, so expect better entries soon.

and since i'm on a black and white kick, i just might make his birth announcement sans color (minus baby blue text on the front)

love yall!!

birth announcement in the works

james and i set up a little home photo shoot tonight to make birth announcement postcards soon (i would do magnets but postcards are so much cheaper). even though this spoils the fun for those of you getting postcards, i am so excited and can't help but post a preview. tomorrow i will add text and upload it to overnightprints.com. love you parks!!

you're here!!!

dearest parker,

i love you! you're here! you're a boy!!!!!! (i can't believe we had a boy!) you've brought so much happiness and joy into our lives these past 4 days. we're all on cloud 9 and i love every moment of every day. you've made me slow down and enjoy the small things in life. i love looking at you, love breastfeeding, love singing to you, love reading to you, love touching your soft skin, and i think daddy even loves changing your diaper (although you've peed on him 3 times!).

i will write about labor and your delivery later, but we have friends coming over soon. you are loved by so many, parks. on your first facebook album you got over 100 comments! haha, but seriously, not only do mommy and daddy love you to death, but our families and friends are crazy about you. grandma kehrli cries every time we call her on the phone because she is so sad that she hasn't got to hold you yet. luckily she's coming in 3 days. grandma betty and aunt abbey spent all weekend holding you. our friends love you, too, and have sweetly arranged to bring dinner every day for the next 3 weeks! life could not get any better.

a few pictures until next time...

i love your face in this picture, parker! you are so cute. love aunt abbey, too.

your first bath! daddy loves you!!

your first basketball game! our friends love you!!

until next time, muah muah muah muah muah!!

looking up

it's almost surreal that in less than a week we WILL have a baby. i am finished with fruitless efforts to induce labor and feel like a frustrated woman struggling with infertility. however, having a baby at this point is completely inevitable (and both james and i were delivered 2 weeks late so it's really not that crazy that i am overdue). it still blows my mind that we will have a child in our hands so soon.

the other day while reading, "pregnancy," i warned james that the first couple weeks after baby kehrli is born are going to be extremely difficult. i apologized to him in advance for likely being overly emotionally and bitchy as we try to adjust to having a baby. i told him about everything in the magazine articles and in stories from friends describing how hard the first few weeks can be. expecting a thank you for the heads up, james looked at me and said, "it doesn't HAVE to be like that. i know it will be difficult, but if we go into it with a pessimistic attitude that it's going to be hell there is no doubt that it will be."

and he was so right. while i don't want the pressure of being super mom who doesn't cry or get moody, i need to go into labor and the first few weeks of our child's life with a positive attitude that this is one of the most incredible times of our life. i need to focus on all of the blessings in this event including having an incredibly supportive husband who has volunteered to change every dirty diaper as long as he's home and i'm breastfeeding.

speaking of breastfeeding, many moms have warned that this is the hardest part of being a new parent. although i do not want to be naively optimistic about how easy breastfeeding will be, i can't go into it expecting to suffer through it. breastfeeding, much like pregnancy and labor, is a natural thing (or so i hope). i must be positive about it.

there are many difficult things in life: death, divorce, unfaithfulness, unemployment, etc. however, there are many things in life i've been told are going to be difficult that have turned out much easier than expected. in high school the teachers tried to scare us into believing that college was so, so hard--not true. senior year of college, friends warned me that graduate school was a monstrously hard step up from college--not true again. even marriage (from my limited 11 month experience) has been much easier than anticipated.

as part of our premarital counseling, james and i took separate 2 hours tests to see how well we were prepared to be together. our counselor told us that our marital expectation answers matched so closely that he was afraid that we were not honest on the survey. but we were. sure we have times when we fight and have problems, but marriage is not nearly as difficult as friends and our marital counselor scared us into thinking it would be. really it is quite simple.

i'm hoping that taking care of a baby will be the same way. my husband reminded me this week that attitude is imperative to success. we must focus on the joy of new life instead of the struggles of parenthood. sure there are going to be times when we can't get the baby to stop crying and we feel helpless and exhausted, but we must remain positive. millions of people have raised children without any of the blessings we enjoy, so we have no reason to complain. abraham lincoln once said, "you are as happy as you make yourself up to be," and this is our motto diving into unknown territory of the next few weeks.

love :).

turn my head to the east...

yes, baby, mom has been listening to some rap music as of late. don't worry--we dance every night to the clean version of "on a boat," so i'm not infiltrating your mind with horrible things :). j/k, well kind of, but your baby einstein classical lullabies cd is packed in our hospital bag and ready for use right after you are born.

looks like you're not coming today. grandma betty made me deal that if you stay in there until next thursday and they have to induce, she will buy me a special present of my choice so i will have something to look forward to. thanks grandma! :)

tomorrow is daddy's birthday! i think i am more excited than he is, even though we don't have anything big planned. coldstone is making 6 customized icecream cupcakes with his favorite flavors (which i secretly am pretty anxious to try) and we're going out to lunch since dad has class at night. i'm throwing in a gift certificate to boi de ouro so dad, grandpa kehrli and uncle paul (ahhh those titles sound so old) can have a boys night of unlimited brazilian meat over easter weekend when they visit. it's a little weird buying dad a present with his own money, but hopefully he will appreciate the thought.

your dad is an incredible person. i love him with all of my heart and can't imagine life without him. i've never met anyone who doesn't like him (well except on the basketball court, which could be a lot of people these days since dad plays monday in a rogers rec league, tuesday at village on the creeks a.c. w/ deloitte touche if he gets out of class early, wednesday with the boys and girls club directors, thursday in a church league again pending class, and saturday morning at village on the creeks with small group friends). i wish everyone had a chance to be friends with daddy because he is without a doubt my fav. person in the world.

it's kinda funny that i wasn't even friends with james until my last semester at jbu. sometimes we say we knew each other for 3 years before we started dating (which is technically true), but we really didn't say much more than hi before january of 2006. i'd like to think we had secret crushes on each other up until that point, but i don't think the thought of dating had ever crossed either of our minds. it's probably better that our paths didn't meet earlier or else i don't think we would've ever given anything a chance (my dear husband had earrings, eek!)

learning about my husband's life at jbu is fascinating to me, mainly because we were there at the same time and knew all of the same people without ever knowing each other. heck, he even went on dates with some of my friends and i had no idea. like most nice guys at jbu, james got asked out by a lot of girls, but i was never jealous because i never knew or paid attention (he was never jealous of my relationships, either, probably because he didn't keep up with my love life or lack thereof). my husband's personality is so playful, friendly and welcoming that he attracted a wide variety of girls. his stories never cease to make me laugh, with the comfort of knowing that i was the only girl at jbu he ever kissed.

i am so thankful that i finally got to know james. i love when we spend time with my girlfriends who didn't know james very well at school and they tell me how they never knew that james was so funny, entertaining, happy, servant-hearted, etc. he is truly the best.

oh and my husband got a couple new compliments a few weeks ago when he was interviewing with a local fire chief. "articulate and well-dressed." really, my husband? that's right. jewels, i thought you'd like that one :).

okay enough bragging on my husband--i'll save the rest for his birthday card. but here is his handsome picture from last month's modern bride...

baby, come soon!! i am going crazy waiting. love.