Halloween and other things

Wow I cannot believe it has been two whole months since I've blogged.  That makes me kind of sad, but it's not without reason.  There has been a lot going on.  Mostly a lot of sickness...because we are expecting baby #2!  I am currently 19 weeks (we will be doing our anatomy ultrasound next week and hopefully seeing a very healthy baby and if things go well, finding out the gender!) and I have been super sick pretty much the whole time, until about a week or so ago, when things have finally started to ease off.  The baby is due April 10, which seems sooooooo far away right now.  But enough about that - hopefully there will be a post with more good news about that next week.

For now, I at least wanted to post some belated Halloween photos of the cutest little cowgirl around:

We had a pretty low-key Halloween.  Rachel came over after class and we picked up some pizzas and the traditional Brown family Halloween donuts.  Then we passed out candy for a bit and chased Gemma around the yard since she was getting very excited but didn't really know what was going on.  We had decided she was probably still too young for trick-or-treating this year.  Then we turned off the light and followed the Shealy family tradition of going to bed early.  (And that's not a Halloween-specific tradition; it's pretty much every day.)

An update on Gemma: she had her 18 month checkup last week and was doing well.  She still weighed only 17 lbs., 5 oz. (1.66 percentile), her weight was the 18th(ish) percentile, and her head was a whopping 84th percentile, so maybe she will be very thin and also very smart!  Go Gemma! ;)  The pediatrician made the statement that he had never seen a child be in the negative on a growth chart.  I told him to prepare himself to see this for the first time when we brought Gemma back in May for her 2 year checkup.  As far as her food allergies, he said that around age 2 we will start trying milk products and eggs again and that she can try some nut-based things at that point too.  And by that point things will be super crazy because Gemma will be a brand-new big sister!

In other news, Nanowrimo is in full swing.  I started a very well prepared, carefully outlined, and thoughtfully plotted novel on Nov. 1.  By Nov. 2, I was already bored with it (the pitfall of overplanning I guess) and didn't write anything.  I decided that this might finally be the year I didn't finish.  Then on Nov. 3, I dove back in with another, very sketchy plot that I'd just come up with (no planning involved whatsoever), but managed to churn out 5,000 words in one day.  Right now, I'm on target with my word count, but the ideas are coming more slowly, and at about halfway through, I'm fast approaching that point where I plateau and it starts to feel like a chore.  But I've never given up yet (this is my 6th year), so I think I will be able to power through.