I absolutely love the new album by Tenth Avenue North. Every song on this album speaks to me and has meant so much to me. I’ve pretty much listened to nothing else for the last two weeks. It’s awesome.

Twenty-one weeks! We are on the downhill side now. I’m so glad. Abigail is growing and healthy, and is about 10 1/2 inches long now. She moves around and kicks me a lot…mostly in the bladder, as of late. I’m getting quite large, but I’m still resisting succumbing to maternity clothes for the most part. A rubber band extends my regular jeans a little bit so I don’t have to button them, and they work just fine. About half of my shirts are still big enough to cover up my belly. I know it’s a futile struggle, but I am not going to wear maternity clothes until I have to. Plus, I sold or gave away a ton of my maternity clothes after Owen, because I didn’t think I’d be having any more babies. The longer I can go without wearing them, the less of them I have to buy.

School is almost over for me. I have, I think, three more statistics classes and two more Lit classes. My Lit class is on Thursday, so I get out of one class on account of Thanksgiving. I had a big statistics exam last night, which I passed, thank God! Statistics is hard. I don’t like it, and I’m happy as can be to get a B. I have no grand ideas of getting an A in this class. I hope for a B, but I wouldn’t even cry over a C. I’ve never got a C in a class before. I think I’ve only gotten two B’s. Statistics has quickly lowered my academic standards, though.

After this semester is over, I will have a very long break from school for a while. I will take this Spring semester off, because Abby will be born before it’s over. I’ve had a couple of girls in my class tell me that they tried to take classes the semester their babies were born, and it was a big mistake. I just have no desire to deal with homework instead of being able to relax and enjoy my new baby. I won’t take summer classes, because that would just be crazy. Chris is planning on going to Fort Jackson this summer for the second half of CHBOLC, and there’s no way I will be doing a new baby, three other kids, no husband, AND homework. That’s just insane. I’m going to take the Fall semester off, as well, because I will be starting kindergarten with Elijah. It’s a lot more labor intensive than the first grade work Kyra is doing this year. While she works mostly on her own, I’ll have to be teaching Elijah how to read, etc. Lots of work for me. So, I will be foregoing the fall semester as well. As far as the 2010 spring semester, I don’t know. I’ll see when it gets here.

Chris is on the downhill side of his seminary experience. He’s almost through with what the Army requires. He should fulfill those requirements at the end of the upcoming Spring semester. He should also have a much lighter class load next semester, since he took five classes this semester. After that, he will be going ahead with becoming a Chaplain, and just take one class at a time while he finishes his M-Div. The remaining classes will mostly be Greek and Hebrew classes.

All that said, I’m really looking forward to less homework around the Harmon household. One benefit of not going to school this spring is I will have a few months to sort through stuff and get things in better shape around here before Abby Jo makes her arrival. Lots of things have gone neglected while I’ve been preoccupied with school. I have boxes and boxes of clothes the kids have outgrown that need to be dealt with, closets that beg to be sorted through, etc. I’d like to take care of that before I’m so huge just getting off the couch is too much work.

Anyway, this post is incredibly boring, and so I will end it. Maybe my blog will be more fun again in a few weeks. There’s always hope, right?

I’m so very excited. My big ultrasound was yesterday. Chris and Amy accompanied me to my appointment, and I was overjoyed to find out we’re having our second daughter…Abigail Joanna.

Abby looked perfect. A healthy little girl.

Amy took a photo of Chris and I before the u/s started.

Amy Jo and I in the waiting room. We forgot to get a picture of her and I together in the u/s room, because she was videoing the whole experience for me. It was so great to have my best friend with me for such an important day.

The kids were all very excited when we came home and told them it was a girl. Everyone wanted a girl this time around, so there were lots of happy faces. Kyra is very excited to be having a baby sister. Amy videoed their reaction the the news, and I will try to post that sometime soon. I still have to upload it to my computer.

This year, Chris and I took the kids with us to vote. We wore our patriotic red, white, and blue, because we’re cheesy like that.

Here are the kids outside of the house when we were fixing to leave to go vote.

Here we are outside of the voting location.

Owen sat like a good boy in the folding chairs they had set up, while Kyra and Elijah went in the voting booth with me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of that.

So, we did our part, and that’s all we can do. We cast our vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, and our little ones learned a little bit about the electoral process. Owen learned to say “John McCain”, and Kyra understands a basic idea of what a Vice President does.

Now…we wait.

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