We arrived at our hotel in northern Mississippi, far away from where Hurricane Gustav is expected to hit tomorrow morning! We left our house this morning at 5 a.m. My brother, his wife and little Alex are two doors down from us and we are settling in, just waiting to see how this all plays out. Hopefully, we’ve overcompensated and we’ll get to go home to running water, working phones and electricity, none of which we had when we arrived home after evacuating for Katrina! The kids are excited because we are staying in a hotel and they think this is a vacation. Meanwhile, David & I are holding our breath, hoping it won’t be like last time!! Various members of our family are sprawled out all over the southern U.S. from Alabama to Texas. It’s crazy! Some even stayed behind at home to ride it out. Yikes! Well, at least we’ll know something in the morning when it makes landfall. Not knowing where it’s going to hit exactly makes it nerve-wracking.

Knowing that McCain would announce his VP pick sometime today, I have been watching Fox news all morning long. They are saying, that in about an hour, McCain will announce that he has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. She’ll be the first woman VP candidate in the history of the Republican party. Cool. She’s the mother of 5 and they say she’s very conservative. Cool. Her youngest child, born in April, has Down Syndrome and she’s a member of the NRA. Wow! What I like most about this is that there will be a woman on a presidential ticket and it’s not the Democrats. Who woulda guessed? I’ll be very interested to see this play out! Should be a very exciting next couple months! Go McCain/Palin!

Well, David & I decided to go ahead and make reservations at a hotel in northern Mississippi just in case Hurricane Gustav decides to be a real jerk and hit us directly. The path the weather people are projecting looks like it would bring us lots of bad weather either way and David doesn’t want me stuck at home with no electricity and horrible weather. What a sweetheart! So, if worst comes to worst, we’ll head out Sunday sometime and head north! Hopefully, this storm will turn and head somewhere else, but better to be prepared in case it doesn’t! We called hotels all over mid to central Mississippi & Louisiana and had a hard time finally finding a place with a vacancy!

I go back to the dr. tomorrow and will be interested to see what she says. I have been having lots of Braxton Hicks contractions over the past few weeks and yesterday I spent the day laying down because my stomach muscles just hurt. I wasn’t having contractions, I was just uncomfortable and didn’t feel like doing much of anything. Today, I feel better, but I’m eager to know if I am dilated at all and just what she has to say about when she thinks this baby might come. It’s too early right now, but feeling like I have been lately, I can’t imagine going all the way until October 1st. I guess we’ll see.

David didn’t have to work at all this weekend, so that was wonderful. We actually had 2 full days of nothing to do, which is rare for us. Either David is working a Saturday (or worse, a Sunday) or we have an event planned like a party or a party to go to. But a full weekend, all to ourselves… how wonderful. Of course, it went by too fast. They always do.

Leah has a rather unpleasant day planned for Wednesday. I have to take her to the dentist because she has an infected gum and a tooth that needs to be removed. I am SOOO not looking forward to that. She is on antibiotics now to combat the infection before she goes in to have the tooth taken out. My poor baby. She got bad tooth genes from somewhere. Luckily, my other two don’t seem to have that problem. Hopefully, this little one won’t either!

I am 33 weeks pregnant today! Just 6 weeks left before my induction date, which will be October 1st unless I happen to go into labor on my own before then. It’s never happened in my three previous pregnancies, so I’m not really thinking it will happen this time either, but you never know, I guess. I certainly wouldn’t mind!

Yesterday was Anna’s birthday party and boy, did we have a houseful! She seemed to have a great time with her friends and she got a lot of stuff. We had hot dogs & chili, chips & dip and cake & ice cream, of course. I just can’t believe she’s 6! I still think of her as the baby of the family.

Anna with her birthday cake.

Blowing out the candle!

Opening presents!

What a beautiful little 6 year old!

My dad brought over his birthday present for Anna today and I am amazed!

This past week he has been working on this rocking horse for Anna. She has been saying she wanted a horse for her birthday, and she definitely got one! I just can’t get over how wonderful it came out! Anna loves it and was amazed when she saw it for the first time. She’s been riding it since he brought it over. And right now, she’s trying to braid the tail.

What a long, tiring week this has been. I’m still not used to waking up so much earlier to get the kids up and off to school. Plus, I’ve been staying up so late to watch the Olympics. It just all adds up to one tired mama! I have been so sleepy these past few days.

Today is Anna’s 6th birthday (and my dad’s 55th birthday). She shared a cookie cake with her class today at school and tonight we had both sets of grandparents over for cake and ice cream and a rousing rendition of the Happy Birthday Song. LOL She blew out each of her 6 candles individually. Her actual birthday party will be on Sunday. I’m hoping we’ll have nice weather so all the kids can swim in the pool. I will definitely post pictures after the party.

I’m yawning as I type this and I can’t seem to keep my eyes open! Good night!

I forgot what it’s like to try to clean house with a baby around! Alex is such a cutie, but he likes my attention and just doesn’t understand that I need to load the dishwasher, fold laundry and sweep the kitchen! LOL Anna’s birthday party is this Sunday and I have a lot to do before then, and very little energy to do it! So, combine my lack of energy with Alex’s need to be held and entertained and you’ve got one very unproductive ME! My mom came over for a little while today to hang out with the little guy so I could get some much needed housework done. I’ve still got plenty to do, but I was able to put a dent in it for sure. The kitchen is clean and the living room is straight, plus I washed some of the kids uniforms. Hmmmm… it felt like a lot more work when I was doing it. My large round belly is not conducive to cleaning and now my sciatic nerve is twinging. Ahhh, the joys of pregnancy!

Alex is sleeping now and I will leave to get my kiddos in about an hour. I am looking forward to the weekend!

I am sitting here with Alex watching the Olympics on t.v. Tennis is on right now, so I’m a little bored. Alex is cooing and making funny raspberry noises and I just had a leftover half-a-sandwich from Subway. I go back to the doctor tomorrow, marking the start of my every other week visits. I’ll be 32 weeks on Wednesday and I am counting down the days and weeks until this pregnancy is over!! I am so ready for this baby to get here so I can see her and hold her and be done with being pregnant. I feel like that’s all I say these days…. “I’m ready for the end of this pregnancy!!”

It’s raining here and the sky is really dark. I’ll pick the kids up from school in a little less than an hour. Rainy day pick up always takes a little longer. Great!