The Inevitable Has Happened..... The Police Were Called to the Hess Residence....

...... were they called to respond to domestic abuse..... Did 6 months of trying to cope with Jaci's relentless pregnancy hormones finally push me over the edge and into a moment of temporary insanity, in which I struck out at Jaci.... Or was it the other way around..... Did 6 months of trying to understand how a husband can be so clueless about the needs of a pregnant woman finally drive Jaci insane enough to lash out at me (significant enough to require the police to intervene, since physical violence from Jaci, especially pinching, occurs quite often)....... No.......

Jaci stormed off to cool her hot head and decided to take the dog for a walk...... During which, she decided to explore the "new" area of the neighborhood were the streets are in, but no homes have been constructed. On her walk, Jaci came across the item shown below, a 380 semi-automatic handgun! The gun was not loaded, but it was located just a few feet away from the curb and could have easily been found by a kid passing by.....

Against our Alabamian Instincts, we did not keep the gun, but called the police. They filed a missing property report and Jaci will be contacted by a detective in the near future (I told Jaci to ask if we get the gun back if nobody claims it?).

Moral of the story is, sometimes its really good to go ape shit on your significant other and storm off, because you just might end up saving a kids life by doing so!!!!

And So It Has Begun...... The 1st Nursery Purchases Have Occurred.....

Jaci, taking after her amazing husband at finding deals, was able to find a baby crib set (on super clearance) that was perfect for the vision that Jaci had for the nursery. Based on the crib set, the crib and changing table will likely be white and the walls painted to coordinate. The current plan is to add a hefty chair rail to the wall, which would be painted a dark pink, while the wall below the rail would be a light pink and the wall above the chair rail a light turquoise blue.

Before you ask, let me point out that the picture below is from an advertisement, we haven't actually done the nursery yet.......

Alabama Palm Trees

For those of you who are not intimately familar with the Huntsville, Alabama area, I am here to enlighten you on one of the tropical treasures of the area. Jaci and I are fortunate to feel like we are back in Hawaii, working on baby Ahnika, everytime we are out for a walk or in our backyard and look up at our Alabama Palm Tree:

21st Century Yardwork

Here are the basic steps to raking leaves in the 21st century:

1) Let your yard get covered with leaves and your landscaped areas overflowing with leaves to the point where it appears that you've purposely covered everything to use the leaves as organic fertilizer.

2) Invite family/friends over on a nice day and allow them to see the overrun yard by leaves.

3) Get out the rakes and conveniently disappear for a couple of hours.

4) Once the hard work has been done and the leaves raked into nice piles in the yard and out from the landscaping surrounding the house, ride through the piles pulling your lawn sweeper behind your riding lawn mower (this step is actually harder than it looks).

5) Dump the leaves on your front curb for yard waste pickup.

ThanksBamaGiving '08

With the table all set beautifully by the various women of the house (Jaci, Mother-in-Law & Jaci's Sister), everyone was ready to eat.....

To have the BEST turkey possible, we needed to deep fry in peanut oil and luckily, we had two experts in turkey frying onhand.

Two quick side notes from the peanut gallery. 1) It was flat out hot for Thanksgiving Day in Huntsville, a steamy 63 degrees. 2) Either I need to lose some weight, or my Father-in-Law needs to gain some weight or somewhere in the middle for both of us.....

After 4 minutes a pound, it was time to pull that sucker out of the oil and slap him on a plate to be eaten.

With the turkey cooked, it was time for carving (done by Mother-in-Law Beeeecky - spelled as it is pronouced).

And of course once the moment arrived to finally dig in, Baby Mama and Baby Ahnika (or maybe Onica) got to have first dibs on the buffet line (would you expect anything less) (one has to wonder though, how does the belly get so big with so little on the plate? oh wait, that's the main course plate, not the dessert plate).

Jaci's Belly Buldge after 20 Weeks - Nov. 25th & Baby Ultrasound (Sex Determination)

Before we unveil the baby's sex and latest ultrasound pictures, lets take a look at how big Jaci's belly has gotten (currently the baby is the size of a canteloupe and Jaci has gained 12 pounds overall - perfectly on track to gain 20 to 30 pounds, which is a healthy amount).

Jaci has officially transitioned from "I want to look pregnant" to "I feel like a cow" as her belly had grown noticably in just the past couple of weeks. She had a kindergartener this week ask her is she was pregnant and that brought a smile to her face. Jaci loves when people ask her is she's pregant.

Okay, the 20 week mark is the milestone where they do an ultrasound and search for a hangy-downy-thinging to determine the baby's sex and also to check to make sure that the main organs are developing appropriately.

So was there a 3rd arm?........

Most importantly, all of the main organs appear to be functioning correctly, there appears to be 2 eyes, 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 torso and approximately 20 fingers and toes.

So again, was there a 3rd arm?........ Look in the picture below to see for yourself.....

World meet Ahnika Hess (middle name undecided, but we're leaning towards Kenley). Name is pronounced just like Monica, without the M (spelled differently to hopefully make it easier to Alabamians to get it right - they are not the sharpest tools in the shed).

To quote the technician, the four horizontal streaks on the left side of the picture below the word "girl" is her "hamburger". The technician said she was 100% certain that we are having a girl.

In all honesty, Jaci and I were slightly disapointed that it wasn't a boy, because I was convined it would be. After all, science says conception in the summer time makes it significantly more likely to be a boy, along with eating a steady deit consisting of a big breakfast high in potassium, which Jaci was doing and we were doing other "adult" related things to increase the liklihood. So based on all that, we figured science was on our side and it would be a boy. However, after telling everyone that we are having a girl, I've come to find out that the overwhelming majority of parents say raising a girl is easier overall. That being said, we'll take her!

We fully expect to have a short, beautiful blue eyed, blonde hair girl (the hair color is good because she will probably be hairy), however she may be a bit stubborn (if she takes after her mother).

Okay, lets show some more pictures. In the two pictures below, Ahnika's feet and hands can be seen.

The three pictures below are of Ahnika's face; in the first picture, she is "lying" on her back looking straight at you with her head on the right and her body on the left (you can also see her arms); in the second and third pictures you can see a profile of her face, oriented as if your looking directly at her left cheek and she is staring towards the sky.

In the picture below, Ahnika can be seen stretching out her left leg. This was an interesting picture to have taken because Ahnika became very active during these pictures. Ahnika was being a good girl and keeping her legs closed, so the technician had to shake Jaci's stomach a couple of times to get Ahnika to start moving around, during which she opened up her legs (pictures shown above). Afterwards, she started to stretch out her arms and legs. As we watched with the ultrasound probe fairly stationary, Ahnika stretched out her leg downard, then proceeded to bring it up to her face and almost grabbed her foot with her hand. The picture below shows her leg streched out in front of her face:

Pro's of Owning 3/4's of an Acre

... if you happened by chance to marry a resonable woman, she will let you get a riding lawnmower to make mowing the lawn a bit easier (and a lot more fun).....