I am a lucky woman in so many ways. But yesterday was really sweet as my friends from Clearwater Community Church threw a baby shower for our little Toone-to-Be. It was so fun, and I appreciate them so much!! We got a big gift bag of stock-up items, like wipes, tylenol, diaper creme, baby wash, etc. We got a few cute outfits and some crib sheets. I was really surprised, though, to open a gift from all the hostesses – a Baby Gymnastics Jumperoo! I registered for it at Babies ‘R Us just as a fun thought for something new that Analise never had, but I never expected to get it. What a treat! I think little Josiah will enjoy it… Analise is dying for us to open it, and I’m sure she’d love to try it out!

Here’s a picture of all the lovely ladies. Obviously, I’m in the center, looking LARGE. I think that’s a bad angle for me… Analise was holding a little camera she’d found at home. She’s so funny – she’ll say, “Miles! Ready? Cheese!” as she’s pretending to take your picture. It’s still hard to catch her smiling, though. She entertained herself with blocks at the party (below). She’s never really enjoyed these large Legos, but Sunday in the nursery, she spent quite a bit of time with them, and she was building tall towers with them during the party.

Lastly, here’s a little glimpse of me and my late-pregnancy craving – Sno-Biz sno cones. I don’t want anything but Georgia Peach flavor, a mix of strawberry and peach. Man – it hits the stop! I’m dying for one right now! You can’t beat it for $1!

Not much to relate from the Toone household this Saturday morning. Brian just left for Samford’s graduation ceremony. He informed me that 9am would be the perfect time for me to call him on the cell phone to let him know I was in labor – so he wouldn’t have to sit through a 3 hour ceremony in his heavy velvet robe and regalia. Haha… I don’t think that’s going to happen. Analise is watching Saturday morning cartoons (Diego, The Animal Rescuer). I’m going to try not to overdo myself today but still get some things accomplished around the house. I’ve got the late-pregnancy “nesting” urge to get baby things set up and organized. Hopefully, Brian will be able to help me this afternoon. If you came to our house today, you’d be hard pressed to find any sign that we’ve got a baby on the way except for my huge belly and a pile of clothes/blankets/burp clothes/etc on the extra bed.

I did want to post a picture of the beautiful baby quilt that my friend, Rena Kirk, made for little Josiah (I mentioned it in this blog). I think it turned out beautifully!

Yesterday was kind of a funny day. I got quite a few things done before leaving for swimming at 8:30. I was REALLY proud to manage a stop at the post office with 3 birthday gifts (Happy belated to Dena!!! Happy birthday to Hal and my Dad next week!!). The rest of the day was quiet since my morning swim and busy-ness had worn me out. Brian didn’t get home until 6:45 because of some school stuff, but I knew he’d be late and I was planning on making a quiche. Now, I NEVER have a problem with making quiche (without a recipe), and put it in the oven so it’d be done right around the time he got home. Well. It wasn’t. It was still runny in the middle, and by the time Brian got home I was frustrated, the quiche was still cooking, and Analise and I were HUNGRY. We ended up leaving the quiche in the turned-off oven and going to Sonic. My sweet husband even stopped at the sno-cone place on the way home to make up for my rough evening. Anyway, at least now we’ve got lunch or dinner for today since the quiche is definitely done! (Oh, and maybe one day I’ll figure out a recipe and post it – my quiche is normally pretty darn good!)

I’ve been wanting to write up this blog since Sunday,
but it has been a super busy week! We had an awesome Mother’s Day weekend
starting out Sunday morning when Analise and I worked on this picture frame
for Kristine during Sunday School at our church. Then after church
we met my parents, my brother, and my grandmother at CiCi’s pizza for
a nice Mother’s Day no-cooking / no-cleanup dinner. We had a nice relaxing
meal and lots of pizza!

Then while Kristine and Analise were napping, I went for a short bike ride
around Hoover inspired to find the steepest hills in our city. Along the
way I stopped by my parents house to say hi again to mom on mother’s day.
I also road on Deodara Drive, named for this Deodara pine tree found next
to Star Lake. Finally, I made it up the steepest hill in Hoover near our
house (which would be just behind the trees on the left on the near ridge).

Later in the evening on Sunday, we went to the snow-cone place in Pelham
to satisfy Kristine’s late pregnancy craving before returning home to watch
the final episode of West Wing. All in all, I think Kristine had a wonderful
Sunday for mother’s day.

Both Friday and Monday were fun too. First, on Monday, my
department at Samford threw us a baby shower and gave us this cake to welcome
our baby boy when he comes. We had a great time eating, chatting, hanging out
and opening presents. Analise loved playing with Steve’s kids so we could relax
and not have to worry about taking care of her. We also had a nice relaxing
Friday evening to kick things off. Analise goes crazy over toes, and we’ve got
video to prove it!

It has been a while since I checked in, hasn’t it? Sorry about that! Honestly, there’s not much blog-worthy going on around the Toone house. Just waiting for baby… At my 37 week appointmet today, I’m happy to relate that our little one has flipped himself to the head-down position, ready for delivery. Yeah! Last week we were talking about a c-section on May 30th. I’m relieved to not be looking at surgery. Now, we’re waiting for him to come on his own. Hopefully, he won’t be as stubborn as his big sister, who was 12 days late and DIDN’T come on her own. I was pleased to hear that I’m already 1.5 centimeters dilated, which is more than I was after 12 hours of labor with Analise! Woohoo! Hearing that got Brian realizing that Josiah could come anytime – he’d better be ready! Finals are done, and he’s wrapping up grades. Graduation is Saturday, and then we’re looking forward to life settling down a little, and hopefully getting our house ready for baby.

We were blessed by another baby shower on Monday, with the computer science and math department from Samford. It was so much fun to get together with everyone – they’re a great group of people. We got some cute outfits, a couple stuffed animals, a beautiful hand-crocheted blanket and a framed poem. It was a nice evening.

Cheaha Challenge Century

It’s been an awesome, fun couple weeks of biking that I want to catch
everyone up on. I’ll go in reverse order with today’s
Cheaha Challenge,
billed as the toughest ride in the South. And it was tough. The course is
an out and back course which means that you ride out 50.65 miles and then
turn around and ride back the exact same way for a total of 101.3 miles. It
took just a little over 5 hours for an average speed of 20.1 mph. I topped
out at 52.1 mph coming down one of the hills near rest stop #3 on the map
above. I was able to stay with the lead group all the way until the climb
coming back up Cheaha Mountain on the way back. I got dropped as the lead
three riders just slowly pulled away from me. That would have meant a
lonely 45 miles back to the start, but my dad and Kristine met me at
several points to cheer me on and give me food and water. They are awesome!
Here’s a picture of Kristine waiting at the finish, and here’s one of
Analise looking more tired than daddy!

Sunny King Criterium
(Click on each image to see a larger image)

Saturday afternoon we all loaded into my parents car and drove to Anniston, AL
for the Sunny King Criterium. This was the first criterium my parents had seen
me race since before I left for grad school in California! It was also the largest
criterium I’ve done since 1998. There were 77 people in my race, and I ended
up placing 14th. I was in fairly good position going into the last corner, but
a rider was going very slow in front of me going into the last corner, and I lost
several positions trying to get around him. There was an exciting professional
race after my race. There were 100 professional and Category 1 riders in the race,
and it was exciting. There were four cameras set up around the course, and three
large wide screen TV’s set up in the start/finish area to watch all the action.
The two videos below are of the Pro-1 race. It was fast! I’ll let the pictures
speak for themselves. Click on each one to see a larger image.

(Click here for high-res version – 3.2 MB)

(Click here for high-res version – 3.2 MB)

The ladies watch a small breakaway in an earlier race.	Analise and Grandma “bwaca” try to figure out how to climb the tree.
There were some exciting little kids races with parents frantically running after their children. Analise is for sure doing this next year!	Runners line up for the 1km dash-for-cash.
Analise tries to take a nap in the “bed” she found, which was actually my warm-up rollers!	The pro race was so exciting to watch, especially with the widescreen TV’s and video cameras setup all around the course.

This past weekend was spent chasing Brian around on his bike:) Saturday was a criterium, which involves 1 hour of racing on a very short course. In this case, it was held in downtown Anniston, on a 4 city block square. This is a pretty big race, drawing good cyclists from all over the country. Brian’s parents went with us, and we had a fun time staking out a good spot to watch the action and enjoying a food festival while Brian got ready. He did really well, placing 14th overall, of about 70 racers, and actually winning a little bit of money. It was an exciting race! The race wasn’t until 6:15pm, so we didn’t get home until almost 10.

Sunday was another cycling race, called the Cheaha Challenge. It’s known as the “toughest ride in the South” because it’s 102 miles up and over – and back – Mount Cheaha, the highest point in Alabama. We had to leave at 5am, in the middle of a huge thunder and lightning storm here in Birmingham. Thirty minutes from the start, as we were going to be arriving just minutes before the scheduled start, Brian realizes that he has no bike shorts:), just a pair of tights he’d brought to layer under his bike shorts due to the cool, rainy weather. Hmm… after 102 miles he was going to be awfully sore without the padding in his bike shorts:( After we dropped him off in the pouring rain (with the start delayed 15 minutes), we were driving out to our first spectating point on the course and realized he’d forgotten his glasses. Ag! We were able to hand them to him, though. The weather cleared up, and it even ended up being a warm, nice day by the time he finished 5hours, 2 minutes later. We saw him at several different points. For more than half the race, he was in the lead pack, but he dropped back some in the 2nd half, and ended up finishing 4th (behind 2 professionals). He was pleased with the race, and I was impressed:) I love watching him race!

Two funny moments of the weekend. First, Saturday evening at the criterium, Brian wanted to stay to watch the professional race, which was right after he finished. Analise and I were pretty tired, so we retreated to the Toone car to watch a DVD. As the race was wrapping up, a truck pulled into the parking lot, with about 6 or 7 men seated in the bed area. At first glance, they were all wearing boldly black and white striped shirts. Hmm, I thought, wonder what kind of group would pick shirts like that, since they looked a lot like something from a jail. They backed in next to us for a moment, and when one of them stood up, I saw that it wasn’t just a shirt, but a whole black and white jumpsuit. Hmm… guess their “group” actually was a jail! I guess they were there to clean up after the festivities.

The other fun moment came as Brian was recapping his race. The last 25 miles were a bit of a mental battle for him, as he was riding alone, and it was gentle rolling hills that seemed very long after all the up and down climbing of the first 3/4 of the race. Anyway, he rode past a little turtle who was just starting across the road. But he couldn’t go too far without feeling like he needed to go back and rescue the turtle, helping him cross the road. My husband is a hero! (He gets this from me… I’ll ALWAYS stop to help turtles across the road.) I’m so proud of him! Note… he’d probably have broken 5 hours if he hadn’t helped the turtle:)

I’m not sure who reads all the way to the end of my blogs, especially the ones without pictures, but I just have to add this. My husband is amazing:) It’s the craziest time of year for him, as he’s helping students nearly around the clock (it’s 10:44 pm, and he’s at school helping them with a project due tomorrow!), getting tests graded, finals written, trying to wrap up the semester. He’s got so much on his plate at work. Here at home, he’s been so much help, trying to take as much of the burden off me as he can. He’s doing so much of the stuff that I would normally do, and I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate it without tearing up. To top it all off, he’s putting up with emotional me, and being strong when I dissolve into tears almost nightly for any number of reasons. I’m sure he’s overwhelmed and stressed – when he has a moment to think about it – but he’s been amazing, and I’m so thankful to have him! I love you, Brian!!

Finally my beautiful little girl’s hair is long enough for pigtails. Oh my goodness, I just can’t help grinning everytime I look at her – she’s so cute with the little curls bouncing around! I love it! It was hard to snag a picture of her, though. Here’s the two best!

Gardening with Bwaca
I can’t remember if I’ve posted this or not, but Analise has decided on names for Grandma – Bwaca – and Grandpa – Boppa. I tell ya, it doesn’t matter what you decide ahead of time you want them to be called… children are going to put their own names on them!
Anyway, here are a few cute pictures from Analise’s afternoon of gardening with Bwaca earlier this week. She just loves to be in the dirt doing exactly what Grandma does!

Singing!
Back as a baby, we got a set of 3 bible CD’s as a gift for Analise. For some unknown reason, I’ve not opened it until now. I started playing the CD instead of my music, the TV or nothing, and Analise LOVES the music! Every time a song ends, she’ll say, “moh singing!”. I play it in the DVD player, so it plays through the TV. Now if we even turn on the TV, she’ll say, “singing??”. Last night we were in the car, playing one of her CDs on our way home from an evening out (to the sno-cone place, my newest addiction, and Walmart – how’s that for a night out?). She fell asleep while the CD was playing and we were driving home. We pulled into the garage, turned the music and car off, and suddenly we hear this groggy, “moh singing…” from the backseat. It was so funny – sound asleep and she still noticed it was over. If anyone has any unused kids’s music CD’s – even Veggie Tales! – and cares to send them our way, Analise would love it!

Baby Shower Moments
I was recounting to Brian a couple funny moments from the baby shower on Monday and thought I’d share them with you. First, I have to admit, I’ve been going to the women’s mission group for a year or more now, but I’m still terrible with names. It varies from month to month as to who is there and who isn’t, and seeing people only once a month or less doesn’t help me retain their names. So as I was opening gifts, I didn’t know who some… well, most of the gifts were from, and unfortunately, Beverly was not sitting next to me to save me. So I thought I’d ask the lady who was writing down what the gifts were/who they were from. I read the first card out loud – “Best wishes from Joyce Marcus” and I asked her who Joyce Marcus was. “That’s me,” was her reply. Oh, goodness, was I embarrassed. (Beverly did tell me that she’s not been there in several months, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t know her, but I still feel bad!
The other funny moment was when I pulled a towel/washcloth set out of a bag. I was holding it up for everyone, and a frame slide out from the folds of the towel. I showed it off, and said thank you, but noticed that it still had the tag on it, and wondered… After the shower, the lady who’d given me the towel came over sheepishly and said she was so embarrassed to tell me that she hadn’t meant for the frame to be in there. I had guessed that might be the case, and told her it was no big deal. She felt terrible, but her granddaughter had picked it out when they were shopping, and when they got home, they’d looked all over and couldn’t find it. So she really wanted to be able to give it to her.

Ok, we’re off to have a quiet day here, picking up a little around the house to get ready for home church, and maybe venturing out for a birthday gift that I need to pick up. Hope you’ve enjoyed my random chit-chat and photos!

Today was my 35-week appointment with my regular OB, Dr. Lyle. Two weeks ago, I’d seen another doctor in the practice, who wasn’t sure that our little boy was in the right head-down position. He’s a lively little one, though, so I wondered if he’d flip-flopped himself since then. Dr. Lyle wasn’t sure by his poking and prodding, so we had an ultrasound that Brian managed to join me for. Sure enough, lour little one is breech, with his butt down, and head comfortably under my rib cage, where he regularly head-butts me. He’s measuring at about 5lbs, and my due has slid around so many times, I’m not sure where they’ll put it offically on my chart. But today’s measurements estimated a due date of June 10th. I’ve got another appointment next week, and probably another ultrasound in 2 weeks or so. In any case, we can cross our fingers that he’ll somersault, otherwise we’ll be talking about scheduling a c-section 5-10 days early. Turn, baby, turn! It was fun to see his little profile on the ultrasound, though. Can’t wait to meet him! Oh, and in case you were wondering… it’s still VERY MUCH a little boy:)

I also wanted to add this little link that tells/shows what babies are like at various weeks of fetal development. It’s at 34/35 weeks, which is right about where I am.

First off, Corrie asked in the last post what kinds of things I got as gifts at the baby shower. We got some nice onesie’s and sleepers, all in varying sizes, which is SO useful, to have bigger stuff in the closet ready for when we’re running out of room in the newborn size:) We got 3 handmade receiving blankets (2 flannel, 1 cotton) that are SO soft. A friend had called me last week to meet her at Hancock Fabrics so I could pick out fabric for a quilt she wanted to make for the baby. So yesterday, though the quilt isn’t quite done, she had the finished quilt top, which is BEAUTIFUL. I can’t wait to post a picture of it! The main fabric is a rainbow paint splatter, and then the coordinating fabrics are red, yellow, green, blue and orange prints. I can’t wait to see the finished product! We got some wipes, towels and washcloths, and a few books. We also got a cute little Precious Moment’s little baby boy doll that prays, and Analise has taken quite a liking to him. She really likes the fact that he prays. She can’t always squeeze him to make it work, so she’ll say, “more amen!” to get me to do it:)

Today I managed to get to my swim class. Ahhh… what a relief. We came home to find that Brian’s parents had been here working on our yard – mowing, raking the flower beds, trimming, etc. Beverly came back this afternoon and spent several hours planting flowers in the beds, and Analise had quite a fun time digging with her. I’ll post some pictures later tonight:) It’s so frustrating, though, because I wish I could be more help. I’d love to be down there helping out weeding, raking, etc, but honestly… it’s all I can m anage to sweep off the front porch before my back is hurting too bad. So I spent most of the afternoon on the porch trying to keep Analise from moving too much good potting soil from the flower bed to the grass. *sigh* I’m ready to get a normal non-pregnant body back.

Now that the whining’s done, I’m so very thankful for the help and our beautiful yard!! My in-laws are great!!

I’m a part of the a women’s mission group at Brian’s parents church, Lakeside. I also help present the monthly program occassionally. This month’s program was planned ahead of time, and I had determined that I probably was going to NOT go, because it conflicts with my swim class, which I’m desperate for these days. Last week, though, the director called and asked if I’d be willing to run the meeting, since her mother is in the hospital and being transferred to a nursing home. Of course, I said yes. It’s not like it was going to be much work… I just had to do the welcome, prayer, announcements, etc. I just was not thrilled to “have” to go, when I really wanted to be at my swim class.

Well, today dawned, and I managed to get Analise and I over there. The meeting went smoothly, ‘cept that there were no refreshments set out, which seemed a little odd. I just figured they’d been forgotten. At the end of the meeting, though, someone piped up and said there were refreshments waiting for us in the next room. I was ready to dash off and pick up Analise from the child care, but Brian’s mom nudged me in to get something to eat. Surprise… a baby shower was waiting for me! It was so sweet. We got some really nice things, plenty of blue to balance out all the pink we have leftover from Analise. I think this is starting to make it feel real that we have a little one arriving in the next month or so!

It was a fun surprise:) I feel bad that I hadn’t wanted to go, but boy, what a sweet bunch of ladies!