any day now right?

i think its safe to say that this little dude of ours could really come any day now... people keep asking me if im ready for him to come.... im ready to be done being pregnant and to have my body back, but im not ready to keep him and take care of him (does that make me sound like such a bad mom?) he is so much easier to take care of in my tummy. im starting to really stress out and get nervous about this whole thing. im scared outta my mind for labor and delivery, and i have no idea what to do with him once he is here.... i know hundreds of million of women have gone through it and survived, so i think ill survive too. i think im just ready for the anticipation to be over

36 weeks!

every year since i can remember my mom always got us these advent calendars... you know the ones with the chocolate behind each door.... jared and i decided that instead of counting down to christmas, we are going to count down to our little dude. so we will start eating our chocolates on december 2. then if he decides by some miracle to come early, we can just eat the rest of the chocolates!
24 chocolate days till Parker.... yup we are going to name our little dude Parker.... before we were even pregnant i had told jared i liked the name parker for a boy... well i changed my mind and decided i didnt like parker anymore, but jared my sister and her husband called our little dude parker before we even knew it was a boy! so for the last 8 months we (they) have referred to him as parker.... i finally just gave up and gave in and i cant imagine calling him anything else. his full name will be Parker Daniel Rucks. daniel is jared's middle name. so the three of us will be the PB&J family.... parker, brielle & jared :)

with parker on his way, jared and i finally decided it was time to part with our BMW... we figured with a new baby we should probably have a new reliable car that actually had a working heater for the cold winter, and a working air conditioner for the hot summer... so we said good bye to our beamer and hello to this beauty:2010 hyundai sonata. cute. small. comfy. i love it.

student teaching has officially ended and it's one of the best feelings to be done! i went back to visit my class one last time. they were such good kids... i didnt realize how much of an impact they had on my life. as much as some of them drove me crazy, im really going to miss them! i hope i did something helpful for them!
they had all made me cards. i thought this one was too funny:
in case you cant read it it says: "Dear Mrs. Rucks, thank you for teaching. that is really nice of you! you are cute that is why Mr. Rucks marid (married) you. HAHAHA some of the things these kids would say cracked me up... they definitely were the reason why i kept going.

so now we are playing the waiting game... i hate not knowing when he's going to come. is it going to be next week? or will he wait till his due date? after his due date? tomorrow? i have a doctors appointment on saturday and ill be just one day shy of 37 weeks... the doctor told me they wouldnt start checking me for dilation till probably 38 weeks, which kind of bummed me out, but didnt at the same time. all i know is im nervous to have him, anxious to meet him, and scared to keep him.

as for jared, he has 3 weeks left of school. parker is probably going to decide to come during one of jared's finals. I think jared is excited for the semester to end and for parker to come. im glad i have jared right by my side to do this whole thing with me. i hope our little dude looks just like him!

(wow, this ended up being a novel!)