You may fall asleep reading this...

Today is Fat Tuesday, so of course I am eating all the things, which you would think a norm for a 5 month pregnant lady, but I swear I'm trying to be better this time around so I won't gain ::cough cough:: 50 pounds this time. But, what can you do... right?

Among all of the other things Charlie is forcing me I'm giving up for lent, being slack about blogging is one of them. I can't say how often I'll post, but I will be more often than the record of never-times-a-week that I've been holding.

We are a leeeetle over 5 months pregnant and we're going to find out the gender of le' baby McCants next Wednesday. Honestly, I'm thinking bouy (mark that because it means FOR SURE we're having another girl) for a few different reasons, but mostly because my normally dry face has become a bonafide pizza face for the last 3 weeks.

Hmm what else have we been doing over the last 3 months since I posted last?

Honduras

Welp, I went to Honduras and made it home safely. Charlie and MM were able to survive without me for the week, with LOTS (I repeat) LOTS of help from very kind souls who I must have found a place in their big hearts to drive, drop off, watch, feed, etc them while I was gone.

As a group we were able to see 1,700 Hondurans in 5 days of clinic, and the people there were SO appreciative and came to see us with some very interesting stories many of them involving walking hours to get to us, and unfortunately some of those same walkers, not having eaten or drunken anything in hours/days.

Here is a photo montage of our trip

The "cattle truck" that most non-pregnant (I was the only one) ride for 45 minutes  both ways up a non-paved VERY rocky road. This took them (us) to clinic for everyday. The bandanas are to help prevent the mercury dust from being inhaled on the ride.

Our view on the ride up to clinic. It was rocky and horrible, but at least the view was nice.

The little cathedral that was in the town of El Corpus. One day (Wednesday?) there was a beautiful choir practice that ran for close to 2 hours with the same song.

"Es Spike", whose real name is I believe is "Spot" per Mama Tula, our wonderful host who is a firm believer than everyone should eat tortillas with every meal, washed down by a "juice" drink.

A blurry picture of everyone staying at Mama Tula's house. My main girl Callie is in the black shirt and Mama Tula is the one barely clutching the huge 6 month old baby. I believe this was the only time she held the baby because babe was (and is, I assume) a HOSS. Good for you baby, enjoy that chub.

A glimpse of the crowd of people waiting in line to see the practitioners (which I was not one of). There were 5 practitioners most days and there were SO many cute little babies. I would pick one baby out each day at STALK the family until they held still long enough for me to mumble some spanglish at them and clutch the baby for as long as the mother was courteous. Normal, right?

This isn't the whole group that came, I wanna say it was everyone but the people from Atlanta and Alabama. Or Maybe all of the people that do or used to live in North Carolina (?).

Either way, the person I hold responsible for me going on this adventure is the lady in the blue scrub top and green bottoms with brown hair. Also of note, she is my boss... so honestly, once I got started I  couldn't back out. She is also really sweet and it was fun to see her in a different environment, one where we both kinda feel horrible, but are getting a lot of of the trip.

In Comayagua, this is the oldest cathedral in the Latin America, but if you ask someone like Charlie, he would spout off that it is easily the oldest cathedral in the southern hemisphere. That thing to the left is a bell tower which would be considered a safety hazard by any American standard.

I'm sure I wasn't supposed to take pictures in here, but... you know.

These little cherubs had different faces and went around in a circle, I wanted to get a better picture but I didn't want to cross any lines and get in trouble.

I kept a journal during this trip and it was the longest I've every held one exclusively. When I got home Charlie was so interested in all of the cool and touching stories I had, but mostly I told him about every meal I ate and all of the inside jokes that Callie and I had. I'm sure he knew it was a week well spent.

Well this post turned more into a Honduras run down than intended but that lets me stall for a little while before I have to make up something else to write about.


Also, I REALLLLLY wish I'd had some pancakes today for National Pancake day.

A list of reasons I haven't been blogging (Excuses)

I know, I know... It's been a while... but in my defense there has been A LOT going on in this house..

(This is going to be a rant of me making excuses, let me just go ahead and lay that out right now.)

We had many a Thanksgiving festivity with two families that are luckily only about 1.5 hours apart.

I was FINALLY finishing up my Masters I have been working on for... wait for it... 4.5 years (note it is intended to be a 2 year degree).

I wish I could tell you it was super fulfilling to finish with all of the other students and to walk across the stage, but honestly we just went out to lunch for a semi-fancy lunch with both sides of the family and MM who had to make friends with everyone in the restaurant. Since I did the whole thing online, I didn't really know anyone I was in school with and never actually met any of the teachers in person. And the thought of bringing a toddler to a ceremony where she would need sit still for 2 hours. Nope Nope Nope. That sounded like a terrible idea.

We were spending some quality time getting these pictures made by our dear dear friend Meredith. I am kinda in love with the last picture of MM. It is SO telling of her personality. If you have met her just once, you will see that Meredith did a great job of capturing her (and us too, I guess, but I mean look at her)

Also, more than anything, when you get out of the habit (ahum, like writing blogs) things just find their way to take their place.

I mean, I would like to say that I spent all the time that I wasn't blogging being really festive and decorated the house to a T, Not the case, we went so far as to buy a 3 ft tabletop tree and put One (count it, one) string of white lights and zero ornaments on it, aaaaaaand called it a day. We made an attempt to put some water under it so it doesn't die immediately.

I am getting little sleep as in less than two weeks I am going to Honduras for 10 days on a medical mission. I'm leaving my sweet and beautiful child with Charlie for 10 days. Any and all help or company to Charlie is MORE than welcome.

There may be another reason for all of the lack of enthusiasm, and it MAY have something that's coming LATE July (let's just go ahead and assume early August per my track record). We are beyond excited and more than anything, I'm excited to get past this first trimester as it brings out The WORST in me and the most of my lack of creativity and homemaking.

Mary carrying Mary... Perfect way to start 2014.

Who wants more mouse?

I just got done shooting Mary Margaret's sweet little mouth up with some Cherry flavored Tylenol as she has a teeny 101.7 temp tonight as we were putting her to bed.

I'm going to go all hypochondriac here and say she has Hand Foot and Mouth as everyone and their sister and dog and mailman and weird co-worker's family down the street has had it this week.

She really has just been tired and had the fever along with a bit of a persistent cough.

She went down at 7:30 tonight and you can still hear here talking or quickly crying and it's 11:00 now. Really makes me want to get her our of bed and cuddle her for a while, but the other side knows that will only make things worse (it would make them worse right????)

I brought my sweet non-fevered babe into work yesterday for a Halloween party and Charlie took her in to work today with him for All Saints day. That being said you would never guess that she would come out of all that with something.

Obviously I am very crafty, just crafty enough to pick this jewel up at Costco in July.

And with this she won us (me) a bottle of wine and lots of baby-worshiping. Wild guess at who was more excited. it was me.

So aside from the potential sickness and the mousiness (my hair color included), things are going along swimmingly. If her highness is sick, one guess who would LOVE to stay home and be at her beaconed whine/want to be held/ then put down/ then whine (repeat, repeat, repeat) allllll weekend.

Also, I thought I should share this gem that Charlie sent me while I was in Chi-town last week.

Yes, that smile is mine

and also yes, we have those curly hair genes in our family

we win.

It Happened

Well. It looks like it's happening. My baby is turning into a toddler.

The jump has been gradual (at least the toddling part) but the reel kicker came when she turned

ONE this past Wednesday.

One. I have a One Year Old.

Disregard Family Feud in the background. Obviously I only watch quality television with my children.
I  also have to admit I really think Steve Harvey is hilarious

This video is from a few weeks ago, she is now walking fast holding two hands and slowly with one. She also FLIES down the hallway with the Croc Walker now.

Honestly, this year has gone fast... but not that fast. It doesn't feel like it's been 365 (well like 370 now) days. But a lot has happened.

She came from looking like this

to looking like this

So. yes, it's been a long year. But a pretty freaking amazingly awesome one.

Things like this

and like this

but there were many nights of rock rock rocking that I also kinda still loved. Even though it was frustrating and induced crying for us both.

She has really made me look good by being a pretty amazingly mild-mannered little one. She is impressing everyone still by parroting words all the time. People ask how I get her to do things and I respond "uhhhhhhhh.... I have no idea".

OK, so I'm going to be a braggasaurus here and list the words she can say. Just because I can, so there.

Mama
Daddy
Doggie
Buckley
Hi
Hey
Thank You

I'm sure there a few others. Now, she doesn't really know what they mean ("Daddy" over here nursing you sure loves to hear you saying that). But it is darned cute.

On a adult note, I went to Chicago for work last Monday and didn't get back until MM was in bed already, so that was kinda sad and I only cried once.

Also I played this game with some real lushes (myself included... If you can't beat'm...) on Friday night.

I have to say that the American version of this game is pretty good, but really really work to get the Canadian version. It's freaking amazing and the developers must have been dropping acid when they made it.  But if you haven't been jaded by the outstanding version, the American version is a very close second.

What else, I believe I've caught you up on the big things.

Ohh, MM has starting making a Godzilla noise whenever we stack block which could be confused for being fuss (but what good and knowledgeable mother would not know the difference??? You guess.)

She leave them in rubble

Also, after I came home from Chi-town I took a very needed day off with my girl that included napping, walking, and going to see daddy at school

Ohh please, be blurrier, I dare you.

And finally, Mary Margaret must have known I was going to need some extra cuddles from her, because last Sunday morning I ran a chilly 5 miler in Durham and she was cold and tired by the end, you'd think she was the one doing the work. She needed some snuggles in my shirt to avoid the wind and ended up falling asleep and looking like a weird and super cute alien.

Precious?

What Real Motherhood Looks Like Part Deux

I'm linking up with fellow St. Thomas More Academy wife and Mary Margaret wrangler Mandi at Messy Wife Blessed Life to weigh in on "What Real Motherhood Looks Like" a little peak into the non-pinterested, certainly not scrubbed and contently happy real life of many moms.

Remember this is just one child and one dog (along with two adults)

Here is what we're looking at here

1) cleaning spray that is used once a week to clean off MM's spot at the table

2) Charlie's clothes on the chair that have been there for at least 3 days

3) Vaccume cleaner from Sunday night

4) Sleeping-rocker thing that MM hasn't used in 6 months

4) Not Seen on table: CDs and books from 2 months ago

1) Dishes in the sink are not that old (thanks to Charlie who does 90% of all dish cleaning)

2) There is a good bet those hand towel have crusty bit and piece on them

1) Cabinet doors from a project I started at least a month ago

2) Hardware for said project

3) Stroller in the middle of the floor for a week

4) Random dog bowl

5) Beginnings of an always essential home bar

1) Yes, that is a cloth diaper and dress shirt covered baby bouncer thingy on top of a unused dog crate, why do you ask?

2) Boppy that hasn't been used in 4 months

3) Ohh "Hi" TV antenna attached to the window. Lookin' Good over there

1) Ahh, silver gift bag of who knows what

2) Clothes that have been "drying" for at least a month

3) Empty boxes for things we have around the house

4) Clothes that have been washed, should be washed, or were washed and could probably use another washing

1) All of the shoes and books and diapers

2) Purse among other random odds and ends

3) Apparently we stopped painting walls yellow at the stairs

4) Baby toys MM rarely plays with now, because she's too busy scaling stairs every time we look away.

Wordless Wednesday