A Baby in Salem: Playing Catch Up/ Maternity Portraits

I realize that it has been a long time since the blog was updated, and judging from the angry mob bearing pitchforks and torches that showed up in my e-mail inbox, clearly you've noticed as well. I promise I didn't fall into a wormhole or suddenly forget that I was having a baby, but I have been really sick for the last couple weeks. I'm not normally one to medicate, but after a week, David convinced me to get some pregnancy-approved medication to make life with me bearable. I'm feeling a lot better but I'm still sleeping a lot and don't have a great deal of energy. Sounds like I'm nine months pregnant, huh? Oh, I should mention, I hit nine months last weekend. This coming weekend, I hit term (37-42 weeks). When I haven't been groggy in bed or on the sofa, I have been in the middle of a wicked crazy nesting storm that has included mopping the kitchen several times a day and trying to avoid raking our dirt basement.

Other news: Haunted Happenings, the month-long Halloween festival in Salem kicked off on October 2 with its annual opening locals-only parade. David and I and our friend Bridget, equipped with hot cider and fried dough, enjoyed watching all of the local elementary schools parade in costume according to this year's theme "Never-Neverland." We also hosted our last gathering before our duo becomes a trio: a potluck game night. We do have some unfortunate news; our precious kitties were unable to perform in the Official Cat of Salem Contest. Due to being sick, I was lagging on getting their costumes completed, and we thought it would be too stressful to be in public for Mabel considering she has a surgery coming up this week (the reason she needed the earlier echocardiogram and EKGs). There's always next year...

A big thing that happened in the last two weeks was that we had maternity photos taken. Our friend Brett Alison is a local photographer who primarily does weddings, but she also took some wonderful family portraits for us this spring before my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. Here are some highlights of that session:

Brett recently decided that she would like to branch into maternity portraits and asked if we would mind if she took some of us to use for her portfolio. She really had to twist our arms for that. Below is a slideshow of some of our unedited favorites.