Is there a medal for that?

I really should get a medal after this weekend. Or at least some kind of recognition. This weekend consisted of me, 6 months pregnant, camping, attending an outdoor all day music venue with 40,000 wasted idiots. They may not ALL have been wasted idiots but there was plenty of beer around, just none for me. If you know me, you know I love to sit outside, with a cold beer, listening to live music. No beer and a fuse that gets shorter by the day meant I thought this was going to be pretty rough.

Last week was the Larry Joe Taylor Fest (LJT) in Stephenville. This is our 4th trip to LJT and 2nd in a row. We took off one year when we got married. It's a week long drunk fest with almost every Texas Country / Red Dirt music act you can think of.

Bands start at noon and it's one after the other until midnight. It's in the middle of a HUGE pasture and everyone brings campers, busses, tents and some just bring a sleeping bag in the bed of their truck. At least that's what the young kids do. My idea of "camping" still has to have an A/C and a flushing toilet.

We usually try to get there on Thursday sometime and then stay until Sunday. Kb took the bus (motorhome) and set up on Thursday and since I'm really trying to save my PTO for when Baby 'B' gets here (actually, I knew I could only handle the drunks in limited doses so I was putting it off) I opted to stay and work on Friday and head there Friday afterwork with a few of the girls that also had to work. Somebody's got to work around here.

Good Lord you should have seen the people. The average age is probably 18-25. Clothes are clearly an option and they must have confiscated sunscreen at the gate. Anything can be made a cooler or wagon to haul food and booze and the kids are really getting creative with ways to comsume alcohol. We used to just have keg stands and beer bongs. At the most we may have made jello shots. Now they're walking around with soaked gummy bears, multi funneled beer bongs wtih a trough at the top, squirt guns, bags of wine and whatever homemade hooch they can find on Pinterest.

We parked under an oak tree with all the other old folks and watched the lazy river of drunks stumbling back and forth from the pit to their respective camp sites. Entertainment for hours I'm telling you. I looked around and thought Whew! I sure am glad I don't have to worry about a daughter stumbling around here all slutted up wearing next to nothing, drunk off her underage ass with boys drooling over all her goods on display. Then I thought OMG I have to worry about having one of the wasted idiot boys walking around here in little more than his jock strap with a beer bong and soaked gummy bears trying to get girls drunk so they'll get a peep show. I don't know what's worse!?!?

For the most part I think I handled it pretty well. Saturday there was a chili and bean cook-off, which I entered so that kept me pretty busy.

Out of 64 entries, I didn't win or even place, which tells you people don't know good chili when they taste it. Our crew didn't have a problem with it.

They had a live auction, a silent auction and passed the hat to raise money for West. They raised over $50,000 in an afternoon. It was awesome to see the support.

Saturday afternoon it was back out to the oak tree chasing the shade and listened to the best type of music around. I'm so proud of Kb, he was a perfect gentleman. He made sure I was comfortable, always had water and stayed by my side the whole time. I'm so proud of him.

He even tried to convince me we could bring Baby 'B' next year by pointing out those that had a little one under the shade. Umm, that's a big fat NEGATIVE Ghost Rider, not a chance.

Baby Showers? O My!

Friends and family are starting to schedule showers. This scares the shit out of me for 2 reasons..

1 - Holy CRAP! I'm close enough to the end of this thing to have a shower, like with gifts and stuff for a baby that will be here in a few months. Wait... someone's going to trust me with a BABY in a few months!?!?!?

2 - I get anxiety when I even think about registering. What if I register for things I don't need? What if I don't register for things that I do need. Can't showers just be a time when people bring you things  you can't live without. I feel like there's so much stuff it's easy to get a ton of stuff you won't use. But what if there's something out there that would be a life saver if I had it. There are so many different brands and types of baby things. HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S WHAT?

Kb and I made our first attempt at registering at Tar-jay. We ended up in an aisle with another clueless couple. I could tell the guy was frustrated and the girl looked like she was going to cry. I didn't want that to be us. We picked out a few things then our gun quit working. We took that as a cue to quit for the day and go get something to eat. Story of my pregnant life, when in doubt...eat. I figure I can do some cleanup and register for a lot of stuff online.

On a lighter note, we had a good weekend. Kb, me and Baby B went to our first Texas Ranger game of the season. Which they won BTDubs...

Toward the end of the game it got pretty exciting so I was jumping up and down and Baby 'B' started moving around. He's got to be a sport fan to put up with us.

And I'm pretty sure we caught the Lake Waco Record Black Crappie (Pronounced croppy for those out of the know) I'll have to be sure and tell him about it when he's older.

Confession Time

Confession #1: I've been a bad blogger. I thought with this pregnancy I'd have so much to say but in the words of my OB I'm fortunately "having a 'boring' pregnancy". I haven't been sick, I haven't had any crazy cravings, I don't have any weird pains to speak of, hair isn't popping up in strange places, the ultrasound showed a healthy baby boy who is right on track.

Confession #2: I'm OBSESSED with other pregnant women. When I was in Babies R Us the other day I was fascinated with all the pregnant women in there in all their various stages. I started comparing myself to them. Do I look like that? Will I look like THAT? I can't get enough of pregnant bloggers and pregnant celebrities. It's crazy that no matter where you are in life or what you do if you're going to have a baby, you have to be pregnant, unless you adopt or surrogate of course, but someone has to be pregnant for 9 months. actually it's 10 but who's counting. I find myself wondering about their cravings and what their pregnancy is like.

Confession #3: I'm scared to death to be a parent and I'm afraid I have no idea what I'm doing. When I'm looking around obsessing about other pregnant women I find myself looking at moms of LOs. Some of them I think, wow, if they can do it I can too. I mean, women, a lot younger than me with a lot less education and life experience have had their children and they've been fine. So I can do it too right? My friends have repeatedly told me, Jenn don't worry so much. It's actually pretty crazy how your instinct kicks in. I promise you'll be fine. I told a friend about my anxiety about being around a newborn and how I haven't had that much practice with one. She said something that really hit home "My son's going to be 13 this year, I don't have any practice with a teenager. I'm STILL learning as I go" I think I'm just putting too much pressure on myself to be "perfect" when I really need to just remember to do the best I can and trust my instincts. Things are going to go wrong and there are going to be times where I don't know what to do but I just have to learn from everything.

Confession #4: I've been really slacking on my workouts. It's not that I go home and park my ass on the couch, we're just really busy. Right now it's so pretty outside we've been going fishing almost every night. I love that time with my husband and know this time next year we'll have a little one and maybe we can't go and do like we do now so I'm savoring every moment. For our anniversary this week, we made sandwiches and had a sunset picnic on the boat. It was peaceful and lovely.

Confession #5: I'm up 5lbs in the past month.  I'm pretty sure I put on 5 pounds last week when we were in Galveston for a work conference. We entertained clients everynight. Momma ate really well. My favorite was Gaido's one night which was AMAZING. (Thanks for the suggestions Crissy!) I told my Dr this when he told me to "pull it back" a little. He said he appreciated my honesty since most women just tell him "Shut up doc, Momma hon-gray" Also confession #4 doesn't help.

Confession #6: I'm putting off the nursery. I guess I think no nursery, no baby. Like he's just going to wait for his room to be finished before he makes his appearance. For some reason I'm having a hard time getting it together. I've picked out the bedding which is super cute I think, but that's as far as I've gone. Friends and family are putting showers together so I guess we need to get registered somewhere. I don't have a clue what all I need. While I've finally embraced my pregancy now I'm having trouble accepting it and getting my shit togehter. It'll happen I guess.

Confession #7: I can't stop reading about pregnancy. I'm one of those people that like to be informed. I want to know if whatever I'm experiencing is normal. I'm NOT one of those people who won't go outside because the sun causes skin cancer. I'm not a hypochondriac I just like to be "in the know". I've talked to my Dr about being honest with me. I'm a tough broad and I know I can handle the truth. If somehing's going to suck, let me know it's going to suck and what we can do to make it suck less. Now that I'm over the 1/2-way point I'm reading about labor and deliveries. I'll admit I'm afraid of the unknown but most of what I've read is people saying it's not as bad as they thought. Sure there are those horror stories out there and I understand that ANYTHING can happen so I'm just taking everything in and hoping for the best. One of my favorite things I've read is when a couple were recounting their son's birth story and the wife said "I can't believe we remember the same day so differently. I don't remember it being that bad but he says he doesn't know if he can go through it again" I think it's funny how God gives moms mom-nesia about the pain and suffering of childbirth but not dads. Eve may be getting "punished" for eating that apple but joke's on you Adam. HA! Anywhoo..

Well, that's it for now. No name yet, we've got a solid maybe but we're still test driving it to see if it sticks.

What's in a name??

It happened... my first mini-meltdown. I say first because I know there has to be a lot more where this one came from. What was it over?? Picking a name for Baby 'B'. Here's how it went down...

Kb showed me a website he was looking at that had EVERY.POSSIBLE.NAME.IMAGINABLE. I'm talking from Swahili to Hawaiian to Old English and everything in between. It had origin and meaning behind the names. I thought hmmm, let me take a look-see. What did I find?? NOTHING, NADA, ZIP that stood out to me. I put it down and we started watching Duck Dynasty. The guys were on there talking about "my daughter, Sadie" "my son John Luke" then the convo turned into something like this..

me: HOW DID THEY KNOW?

Kb: Know what?

me: *cue tears* What they were going to name their kids?/I can't pick out colors for his room much less a name?/Most people probably have a name picked out before they even get pregnant! Not me! I don't have one/Maybe I'm not ready?/I'm a bad mom already!/WHAAAHAAA!

Kb: Babe, this is supposed to be fun. We don't have to decide on a name today...

me:*cue ugly cry* But if I had to I couldn't!/I want him to have a cool name but not too cool that it's too trendy/What if we tell people his name and someone says that's a fat kids name or I had a dog named .../This is too hard!!

Kb: You're getting upset for no reason, we have plenty of time

me: *now I'm mad 'cause he doesn't "get" it* Ya' know, you're being really ungrateful. This is the first time I've really had a meltdown I could have been doing this the whole time. Let me have my MOMENT!

...and scene

Soon after that we went to bed. I apologized the next day for acting like an ass and calmed down a bit. I know we have time but I really am taking this seriously. I had a few girl names picked out that I really liked but no boy names. Actually, the only boy name I've ever thought about was my Mom's maiden name... Owen. I love it. But sadly I gave it up when I married a Boen. Owen Boen? you just can't do that to a kid. He'd hate me for sure.

Baby 'B' is a....

BOY! We're so excited! There was no denying it when we went for the ultrasound. Kb said YES! and the look on his face was priceless. When we saw it I said Is that a... the tech said, "yes that's his penis and testicles" I said yeah, it looks like a sack. Well, son, you mom is a math/computer nerd, not an anatomy major.

The tech was great at telling us what she was doing the whole time. Whether it was taking measurements of his head and abdomen, to looking for fluid where it was supposed to be and making sure it wasn't where it wasn't supposed to be. She got a great shot of all 4 chambers of his little heart beating away. We counted all his fingers and toes. She said his brain looks great too.

Then she turned on the WOW factor, we got to see him in 3D/4D. She warned us he'd look a little alien-ish but assured us that's why we do the normal ultrasound first to make sure everything's there. All I can say is WOW, it was pretty amazing to see him moving around. When we first looked at him he was holding his feet in his hands in a pike style diving position. A flexible little dude. He opened up his hands and we could see all his fingers fan out. When the Dr came in the door made a loud noise and he picked his head up to react to it. IN-CREDIBLE! I could have watched it all day.

When we left we were so excited talking about our son but then we paused a minute and said but... that means it isn't a girl?? and felt a twinge of disappointment. We decided we would have felt the same either way. If it was a girl, we'd be disappointed it wasn't a boy. We told everyone we didn't care what Baby 'B' was but now I think we really know in our hearts that was the case.

After the Dr appointment we had a little while to come up with a cool way to tell our parents. Here's what we did.

Cute huh? (yes that's a pitcher of beer in the background) As a plus we had all the pink, yellow and white Whopper Robin's Eggs left over for us to eat!

Our parents were excited but Kb's mom thought it was a girl and I think my mom was secretly hoping for a girl since my brother has a boy. I tried to warn mom though and told her the Boen's make a lot of boys.

It was a great day and Kb and I are still on Cloud 9 and can't wait for the little bugger to be here. Which according to my app will be in....20 WEEKS!!

Camo's Neutral Right?

 Sorry I haven't updated in a while, there's just not a whole lot going on...

We're starting to get into some pretty exciting territory though.. we find out next week if Baby B is a boy or girl!We're so excited.

Personally I think it's a boy, at least that's the way I've been referring to it. Call it him and he and all that. Kb thinks it's a girl. Actually, I think he's just telling himself that so he's ok if it actually is a girl when he's secretly hoping for a boy.

I think he's afraid of a girl. Righly so. I'm a Daddy's girl, and a Grandaddy's girl and PawPaw's girl, the men in my life didn't stand a chance. I could get away with anything when I was with them. Kb would be a softie with a little girl too. You know what they say, the bigger they are the harder they fall. All it's going to take is a sweet little girl to look him in the eyes and ask Dad-deee for something then bam! he's toast.

We really don't care either way. We're both outsoors-y and are always on the move, either one would fit in perfectly. I think I'm a pretty good mix of girly-girl and tom-boy. I wasn't when I was little, I was put up on a pink pedestal never to get dirty. When I grew up I found out I like getting dirty just as much as I like cleaning up and getting all dressed up with pretty makeup and beautiful shoes. I mean, can you imagine us at the deer lease with a little girl in this..

http://www.funnybabyteeshirts.com/

A boy would be so much fun too. I hear all kinds of great stories about Kb when he was a kid hanging out with his Dad and Grandaddy, fishing and hunting. Kb would make a great baseball coach. Hopefully our kid gets his coordination and sporty-ness. If they get mine he/she might end up a bench warmer, but they'll be great at math and musically talented.

Either way, we're really excited and will find out Monday afternoon. I really wanted to do a great gender reveal party but Kb can't keep a secret so that ain't gonna happen.





Bassmaster 2013

Last weekend we went to the "Superbowl of Bass Fishing" aka Bassmasters. 

Are you jealous yet?

We loaded up the in-laws bus and headed to Tulsa. There were 10 of us and the plan was to take the bus and 2 trucks. We ended up with 10 people the bus and 1 truck. A friend had planned on taking his truck for the past year we've had this planned but decided we didn't need it at the last minute. Do the math there.. we have a 40 foot bus that really can't maneuver too well in the downtown area and 1 truck to shuttle all 10 of us around. Brilliant.

3 hours in and everyone's making drinks and playing loud music, we're a rolling party! I'm of course miserable and everyone is on my nerves. I was a bear last week and anxiety was at an all time high so being locked up with drunk idiots really wasn't on my top 10 list. At that point it wasn't on my top 100 list.

Anywhoo.. we get to Tulsa and it's cold. And the heater in the 1 truck we have doesn't work. Nice. This trip is just getting better. The guys get up to go to the launch, yes at 17deg people lineup along the banks of a lake 2 hours away to watch professional anglers take off. Did I go? you ask.. Umm Hell no. The 5 guys loaded up in the truck with no heat and had to use hand warmers to remove the ice that was forming inside the truck from condensation.

After that we went to the expo. They have all the latest and greatest fishing stuff that my husband and the other guys just had to have. They were like kids in a toy store. I can't imagine the guys walking around with us at a bridal or baby expo.

We did see the Lombardi trophy of bass fishing...

And the World Record Bass

Then we went to the weigh in. Which is an event. Music, lights, a ton of people and they kept the rednecks satisfied with these..

I was disappointed with the winner though, he wasn't as excited as I'd hoped. He looked like he had somewhere else to be. Can you imaging a pitcher winning the world series and just walking off the mound. That's about what it looked like. Oh well..

I survived and didn't kill anyone.  It was a long trip and Kb asked what we were going to do next year "I guess we'll just bring the kid" In my best mom voice that everyone knows means "no" I said We'll see babe, we'll see.