Baby Name Release 3

Baby Name Release 2

Baby's Name Release 1

The baby's name includes the letter "A", but we will not yet reveal where this letter is located in the name. I can't imagine that you have too many guesses yet, but if you do, please post them.

All is well in the Starnes' world. The baby (as I will temporarily refer to him to transition from Cletus to the real name) is kicking up a storm these days. It even hurts a bit at times. I have to remind myself that it's a GOOD thing he's moving around so much and not get too frustrated with the discomfort. He was kicking a lot last night while Chris was out on an errand, and I started talking to him telling him to calm down a bit. Frankie was so confused by me talking to seemingly no one in the room...he kept getting up and looking around for Chris. Poor dog, he has no idea what's coming. My brother Austin has lectured us on how we better not forget about poor Frankie when the baby comes, and that we shouldn't put the baby before Frankie. When I explained that people come before animals, he said, "well, they should at least be the same." Haha...We know who to have over to keep Frankie company if he gets too lonely.

More letters to come...

Birthday, Conference, Cousin, Baby Name

My sweet husband turned 28 yesterday. We actually celebrated (just the two of us; well, four if you count Frankie and Cletus, which we do) on Saturday night--it had been a very full day and we were both pretty tired, but we enjoyed his meal request of sweet and sour chicken and carrot cupcakes. Sunday night we hosted small group at our house, and we enjoyed sharing cupcakes with our friends in continued celebration. One of the gifts I got for Chris was a dude-worthy diaper bag. It really looks nothing like a diaper bag (which is the point, i guess) but has all the nice compartments and a changing pad for practicality. It's backpack style and made by Columbia.

Mom and Austin came in Friday afternoon for a visit. Mom and I attended the Beth Moore Living Proof Live conference Friday evening and Saturday morning. We went with my friends Sarah and Carie, and it was an amazing experience. The time of worship through singing is always amazing at these conferences--just imagine 13,000 women's voices lifted in praise to God! Beth taught on Exodus 34 where God proclaims His character to Moses. We so often fall into saying things like, "I wish God would just show me what He's like...", yet right there in scripture, He has proclaimed it for us so clearly. I wish I had pictures to show you from the conference, but I failed to take the camera with me.

While we were at the conference on Saturday, Chris took Austin (11yo) to the zoo. They went along with our friend Chris (Carie's husband) and his 2 year-old, Sutton. Austin has been looking forward to this zoo trip for months. He even took a notebook along with him prepared to write down the names of all the animals he saw; Chris says Austin shed the notebook in the first 30 minutes realizing it was more trouble to carry than anything, but I thought it was pretty cute he was taking this so seriously. As expected, Austin was most interested in the reptile house. Chris says Austin got into a discussion about some of the snakes with one of the zookeepers and that Austin really knew his stuff. I'm always telling Austin he needs to be a vet or zoologist some day. Below is a picture of Austin with the daddy gorilla, and the gorilla doing an impersonation of Chris in the morning:

Mom and I enjoyed a nice Mexican lunch and maternity clothes shopping Saturday afternoon. I think that was actually the first time anyone has been with me while shopping for maternity clothes, and it was fun to try things on and get her opinion. Several friends (Carie, Emily, and Trish) have been gracious enough to let me borrow maternity clothes over the past few months, so thankfully my need hasn't been too great. With the items purchased Saturday, I should be pretty well set now. Thanks Mom!

I just found out today that Jordan (my bro) and Meagan are having a boy! We were all so prepared for their baby to be a girl, especially after Meagan did one of those new tests that measure something in urine to determine the gender that said it was a girl. I guess "Annabelle" will no longer work, huh? Well, the good news is that the pressure is now off to supply heirs for the Starnes' AND the Littrell's. I think it will be so much fun for the babies to have a cousin that close in age (~6 weeks apart) that's the same gender.

The baby's due date is three months from today! In celebration of reaching that landmark, we're going to reveal the baby's name one letter at a time (in mixed order) on the blog over the next few days. We thought it would be fun if you try to guess the name as we reveal more and more letters. Stay tuned...

26 Weeks

Time slips away from me so quickly, and I now find myself at 26 weeks gestation. Cletus is quite active at times, and he really does seem to know the moment I lay down to sleep at night because he chooses then to practice karate. I've been having some Braxton-Hicks contractions for the past couple of weeks, but thankfully they don't come too often. My protruding belly is getting more and more in the way of things, and my least favorite activity is bending down :) Below is my 26 week belly shot:

The past few weeks have been fairly eventful, so I'll try to update you on some of the happenings in our life. On September 27th, my brother Jordan walked his bride, Meagan, down the aisle. Though only two years younger than me, it's still hard to believe he's old enough to be a husband--I can't help but think of him as the 16 year-old I left in Waverly when I went off to college. Jordan and Meagan are moving to Mobile, Alabama for Jordan's job with JK Harris, so the Littrell family continues to spread out. They are expecting in early March, so Cletus will have a cousin and playmate soon after his arrival. Below are a couple of pictures from the wedding.

I took the second part of my US Medical Licensing Exam on Sept 28th. After nine hours of testing, I was thrilled and relieved to be finished. I won't know the results for a few weeks, but it's nice to have the pressure off for a bit. I don't take the third part of the USMLE for another year or so, so there aren't any other major exams standing between me and graduation.

My brother Jared was deployed late last week on his way to Iraq. If it's hard to believe that Jordan is married, it's extremely difficult to accept that Jared is serving in the military overseas. I so admire is willingness to serve our country, and though it's hard to see him go, I respect his commitment. Please be in prayer for Jared and his company during their deployment.

Since finishing my board exam, I've really jumped in to preparing the nursery. I cleaned out my desk, and our friend Jacob helped Chris move it to the garage and move the nursery furniture in place. The bedding is on the crib, and I finished making curtains for the room. I decoupaged letters to spell out the baby's name on the wall, but I obviously can't show those to you just yet since we're keeping the name a secret. I'm still working on making a mobile, baby blanket, and some art projects. I found a sweet wooden highchair at our church's rummage sale that I'm planning to paint soon as well. Below are some pictures of my projects:

To cap off an exciting few weeks, we found out that Cletus is going to have even more playmates in the near future. To add to the six we knew about (Qiping and Jimmy's twins born recently; Jacob and Trish's baby due any day now; Josh/Amy, Jordan/Meagan, and Leann/Garry all due in March) we learned that our new pastor and his sweet wife (Travis and Jenna) are expecting in June (due on my birthday, in fact), and our friends Chris and Carie are 11 weeks along with their second. What a baby boom! Most of this group go to our church in Memphis, so the nursery is going to be a happening place in the coming months. We couldn't be more excited!

23+ Weeks

Today is 23 weeks and 3 days gestation. I go back for a check-up next Wednesday--hard to believe it's almost that time again. I had an exam today, which is part of why I've been procrastinating in blogging. I'll try to retrace the past couple of weeks a bit...

For Labor Day weekend, we went to visit my mom in Waverly. My brother Jordan and his fiancee (Meagan) came in as well, so we had a nice visit. My mother sweetly obliged my wishes to look through our old baby clothes and stuffed toys to pick some things out for Cletus--this required her to dig through a mass of stored items in an outdoor shed. I picked out several toys that had special meaning to me (that weren't too girly), and I found a lot of precious outfits my brothers wore as infants. On Sunday, we drove down to Pulaski for an annual get-together of Mom's family (the Mize's). Below is a picture of my brother Austin and Frankie in the backseat on the way:

We enjoyed catching up with family, and everyone was sweet about our little guy on the way. With all the traveling we did that weekend, I was able to crochet a couple of hats for Cletus. They are modeled below on one of the toys I brought back home. I'm also working on a blanket that matches the brown and blue hat.

Since getting our big furniture items for the nursery, I've been doing a lot of dreaming and web-browsing for accessories to finish things off. Last weekend and today I took advantage of downtime to go shopping. I bought fabric for curtains, an elephant print for the wall, supplies to make a mobile, and a few other odds and ends. I look forward to having time to work on all these projects--I have a board exam on Sept 28th, so I'm hoping that I can focus more on nursery items after that.

Tomorrow should be a full day. The Cooper-Young Festival is scheduled for tomorrow (though may be canceled due to rain), and I've been part of a crochet group at church preparing items all year to sale at the festival. Around 80,000 people are expected to attend the festival, and the proceeds from our booth will go to support mission work. Tomorrow afternoon is the UT-Florida game, and though I dread what the outcome may be, I wouldn't miss watching it for anything. GO VOLS!!

Zoo Bedding

After finding out Cletus is a boy, I had a hard time imagining what I wanted the nursery to look like. Most everything in my mind was geared toward a girl. After spending some time (probably way too much time) surfing the web for ideas, I found this DwellStudio set on Target.com that I really liked. It had been discontinued and thus was 1/2 off--major bonus! I showed Chris to get his opinion. Typically when I ask for Chris' opinion on something like this, he returns my question with another one, "what do you think about it?" I was sort of expecting the same, but when he saw the rug that goes with the set, he unequivocally said he really liked it. It's so unusual for Chris to have a strong opinion on clothes/colors/design that when he does, it brings me great joy to concede to it. The set was delivered today, and we're very pleased with it. It's not too baby-ish, so Cletus can use it for a few years easily. Below is a picture of the bedding set as well as the matching rug (side profile of blue bear).