We miss Eleanor!!

We’ve been really missing our neighbors Aaron, Lucy & Eleanor lately.  It’s especially remarkable to see how much Eleanor has grown since we’ve last seen them in May.  Growth is now measured through conversations on skype instead of in person.  We miss lots of the every day stuff, but thankfully we do catch a few of them through Lucy.  Lucy told me that the other day that Eleanor told her she likes to kiss boys. When Lucy asked her “which boys?” –  she thought for a minute and then said, “Uncle Ben!”.  Love it.

Secrets

Happy Birthday Ben!

Today is Ben’s 29th birthday, and for one whole month we’re the same age & I can make fun of how old he is.  The other eleven months of the year, he seems to enjoy not letting me forget what an old lady I am.  But, I’m not the one getting grey hair!

I feel so blessed to have him in my life.  In so many ways, he helps make me a better person & I am so grateful for him.  Besides the fact that life with him is just fun.  Thank hon, I love you!

We had a few friends over Friday night for a low key evening of pizza & his favorite birthday cake (which I think he’s just about had every year of his life since he can remember).  Not that there’s any pressure or anything.  As a result, I’ve been attempting to make this cake the last seven years, and you’d think it’d be easy as it’s out of a box & then you just make a fancy frosting to decorate it with.  But, I have never seemed to manage very well with the frosting before this year.  I was so excited to see the frosting stayed on the cake…it looked much nicer than years past cakes.  Not that it hasn’t always tasted good in the past…but still.  I always think of the part in Sleeping Beauty where the three fairies make the birthday cake from scratch, instead of magic, and the layers just slide off each other.  I’ve always needed a little bit o’magic.  Anyways, here are a few pictures of our weekend.

His cake, and served on a cutting board. No gold platter this year....

The first birthday cake I tried making him in 2005. Very sad.

This year...

Playing a game of Banana-Grams with friends Angie & Steve, and Charlie & Helen

Bank holiday weekend, and baby J

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend, and I had Monday off which was just bliss.  Autumn is in the air… so of course I made apple cider and a pot roast to usher in the season (although it really was still August).  I already made my first apple crisp weeks ago.  I just couldn’t resist!  Wenatchee is too much in my blood – I just crave apples.  I’ve been eating at least 2 a day lately…when in season, they’re the best!  We met some of our favorite people at our favorite coffee shop in Durham on Monday & it was great.  So nice to be with friends & enjoy a good cup of coffee, and with no work of course!  Before coffee, Ben & I enjoyed a walk along the river in the fresh crisp air.  It’s such a good reminder to me how blessed I am to live in this gorgeous place for a few years.  It will be strange when this is all a memory.  So until then, I plan to enjoy it.

View of Durham on our walk

On another note, I can hardly believe we’re well over halfway to meeting this little boy!  Our last ultrasound was amazing…first off, I was just so relieved to see that heart beating strong, hear that he was healthy, and then finding out he’s a boy was so fun (although I didn’t really care either way…just wanted a healthy baby).  I’m almost 22 weeks, and feeling pretty good.  I have a hard time sleeping at night as my back & hips bother me, although I’ve started using a body pillow & that seems to help a bit.  As requested by a few, here are some pictures of the bump & little J – although we didn’t get as good of pictures this time around.  Some of them creeped me out.  One of the pictures was a view of the face from the front & just showed these eye sockets which were starting out at you – but I’ll not post that one.  Here are a few:

20 weeks, 4 days (taken last weekend)

J at 20+ weeks

J at 20+ weeks