Kenton loves the cats. On a good day, the cats tolerate him. Surprisingly Izzy, who has always been "the grumpy one" puts up with him a lot better than Ferd does.

Still no baby girl. My induction has been pushed back to Thursday. I figure by then every other pregnant woman in town should have given birth and cleared out of the hospital, so I should have all of labor & delivery to myself. Or at the very least, there should be an empty bed for me. Edward and I are planning to go to the movies tonight, for the first time in about three years. He told Kenton we were going to go out and leave him here with Papaw tonight. Kenton said, "Go to hospital and get baby sister." We're all ready for her arrival!

Things did not go as planned today. Someone called from Labor & Delivery about 5:30am to let me know they were all full, so I could not come in to be induced. No baby girl yet, but we do have a lovely rail on our front porch now, thanks to Papaw. He's done a lot in the week he's been here, and we may have to see if we can keep him around for a while longer!

If all goes according to plan, Kenton will become a big brother tomorrow! I'm supposed to go to hospital to have labor induced in the morning, as long as all the beds in labor & delivery are not full. Edward is frantically cleaning house and organizing things in preparation, Papaw's working hard to finish up the front porch rail, and Kenton and I are just hanging out. I'm tired--just trying to rest while I can!

Reading bedtime stories with Papaw

Say cheese!

Papaw gave Kenton an early birthday present today--a toy firetruck! The truck loaded gravel in the driveway, went out to eat and for a walk with us, and everywhere else we went all evening. We're pretty sure he likes it.

Kenton is still VERY excited that Papaw's here and wants to be with him every single minute. The two of them spent a rainy afternoon playing blocks and train. Kenton likes knocking the blocks down just as much, if not more, than he likes stacking them.

We think baby girl might be close to arriving. I'm pretty miserable and hoping it's very, very soon. Tonight would be good.

Papaw is visiting this week and Kenton couldn't be more excited. When we'd all been up about 10 minutes this morning, Kenton had already said "Hi Papaw. Whatcha doin?" roughly 1,500 times. Papaw did not get to drink his coffee in peace like he usually does back in Kentucky.

We are hoping that baby girl will make her grand entrance any day now. Papaw is already an expert Kenton sitter and he hopes to get to meet baby girl very soon. And Keesha is very tired of being pregnant.

Ride 'em cowboy! This rocking horse was one of the first things we bought for Kenton. I'd just had an ultrasound and we were pretty sure it was going to be a boy, then we went to a craft fair where we spotted these and decided we had to get one. Now, over two years later, he's finally playing with it. It's been cute as a decoration, but I'm glad he's finally big enough to use it.

Kenton has recently started putting on my sandals or Edward's flip-flops and clomping around the house in them. Usually he manages to get a matched pair, but not tonight.

I came home from work about an hour early today, because I was achy all over and just too exhausted to think. Which, I guess, is how everyone feels when they're 8 1/2 months pregnant. Edward and Kenton were out running errands when I got here, and I laid down to take a nap. Ferd (the cat) was already in the bed, up under the covers, and I laid on top of the covers beside him. When I woke up and Kenton came in the room, Ferd was still snoozing undercover. Edward asked Kenton who he thought was under there, and he thought for a moment and then said, "Baby sister!" We got a big laugh out of that.

Today's special at the EHOP (that's Edward's House of Pancakes, in case you didn't know) was multi-grain pancakes with blueberries and walnuts. YUMMY! Kenton loved the blueberries, like he's loved every fruit he's ever tried, and munched on about 1/3 of a cup of them while the pancakes were cooking. Then he had two big blueberry-filled pancakes, and as he ate them he took great care to smear blueberries all over his face, and even up his nose.

My favorite "cow boys"

Today is Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A restaurants. Anyone who comes in dressed head to toe as a cow gets a free combo meal, and anyone who wears something cow gets a free sandwich or nuggets. Edward and Kenton decided to give it a try today and their outfits got them free sandwiches. I think Edward was a little disappointed that they didn't get the whole combo, but I guess they would have needed a mask or face paint for that. He and Kenton had matching outfits.

Our friend Trish joined us for lunch, too, and she and I wore black shirts and tried to claim that we were Angus, rather than Holstein, cows but we didn't get any credit for that. Trish is going to help watch Kenton when I'm in the hospital having the baby, and I think they'll get along fine. He's always liked her, but she fed him french fries and ice cream today at lunch, so I'm sure that moved her up a little higher on his favorite people list!

Kenton's room is nearly finished. We got him a desk yesterday, and Edward got it (mostly) put together and moved into the room today. You can't see in this picture, but it has shelves across the top where we can put some books and some decorative items, and it will work for a computer if we want to do that down the road. The only thing we have to finish in the room now is the toybox, which you can see in the edge of the picture. It was mine growing up, and it's seen better days, but I think with a few repairs and a good coat of paint it will work just fine.

While cleaning out the nursery and getting it ready for baby girl's arrival, we've come across quite a few of Kenton's old toys. Tonight he found a new use for the linking rings he played with so much as baby. Makes a pretty cool nose ring, don't you think? He put it there all by himself. He's very interested in stuffing things in his ears and nose lately, but for once we found it funny, too. He was yelling "looking good" as he ran around the room like this. How could we not laugh?

Kenton loves Lucy. He especially loves to feed Lucy--his food, her food, our food, treats, and sometimes things that aren't even food. He doesn't care what it is, and she happily eats most of it. Tonight he wanted to give her a "cookie" (treat) and we let him. Here they are enjoying a little quality time together as she eats her cookie.

When we bought decorations for Keton's room, we thought it would be important to have things that he wouldn't hurt if he decided to play with them. Good thing we took that approach since his cowboy hat lantern is seeing a lot of use as a tool carrier. Note the yellow plastic screwdriver in it. He's been carrying his tools around in it for a couple of days now. He found the baby sunglasses this morning when Edward was cleaning out the nursery and decided he needed to wear those, as well as the green bracelet. I thought the whole look was a winner, especially with the race jar pajamas and the big summer reading club sticker on his belly.