I can’t believe our baby will be here sometime in the next two weeks! I’m very excited to meet this little one and get to snuggle him. Here are the comparison shots:

38 weeks with Amelie, the 9 pounder.

38 weeks with Calder, the 7.5 pounder.

38 weeks with this one. I'm guessing he'll be Calder-size, but I'm definitely feeling big myself.

Not too much longer now!

As Bryce can tell you, I am in full-on nesting mode. Baby clothes are cleaned and neatly stacked in containers, birth center bags are packed, kids’ room is organized, and pantry is cleared of our collection of pizza boxes that seem to congregate in there. This post is another manifestation of that urge to clear clutter and get everything ready for baby. The following are all pictures that I found in our “Sorting” folder in our pictures directory on our computer. Basically, these are pictures we took with our phones and never organized. Woops. I know most of these are old now, but I just couldn’t resist. This blog is a journal for me and I didn’t want to leave these out.

Amelie on the gorgeous carousel at Hogle Zoo. This was back in (gasp) October.

I just love this because it's such a typical Amelie thing to do--pat her daddy's face. Same day at the zoo, soon after Bryce did that Joseph Smith film and shaved his beard the first time.

Totally a coincidence. Amelie and Hayley at the zoo enjoying the darling shirts that Grandma Brenda gave them.

Okay, the image quality isn't great, but I just love Calder's face in this one. This is what a "Smile!" prompt gets you, I guess. This was back in November.

Amelie dressed up (in Calder's things) for our ward's Cowboy Chili Cook-Off. She won a little prize for her costume.

Calder having a very intent conversation with Santa. I was just amazed that he sat on Santa's knee at all. They were discussing Thomas the Train, I believe.

At Grandma and Grandpa Haymond's house modeling the new Buzz Lightyear costume they added to their dress-up collection.

Reading with Grandpa Haymond at Christmas time. I promise, they were way more into it than this picture suggests.

Amelie adoring her sweet new cousin, Kate, back in January. Amelie can't get enough of Skyler and Kate (born only a couple weeks apart) and I'm hoping she feels the same way about our new little one.

Anyway, thank you for your patience during this interruption of normally scheduled blog posts and for letting this nesting mommy do some more organizing 🙂

So, as most of you know, Bryce grew a mighty fine beard this past year. He originally started growing the beard in anticipation of auditioning for the Church’s New Testament film project. Along the way, he did some extra work for the Church on its film about Joseph Smith back in October. For that film, they shaved most of his beard off, so he started from scratch and continued growing it until last Friday. Sadly enough, Bryce wasn’t chosen for the New Testament film. Apparently, they auditioned thousands of people and only took about 5% of those that auditioned. They said that they had very specific physical needs–they really wanted people to look Middle Eastern. We all agree that they could have saved everyone a lot of trouble by asking for head shots and then only auditioning those people that met their physical requirements. I guess Bryce’s 6 ft. 4 in. Caucasian look just wasn’t what they were looking for. When the day of the shave came, Bryce decided to have some fun with it. So, here for your viewing enjoyment, are the many faces of Bryce and his beard. And, just for the record, this is just a sampling of the faces he made. If you didn’t already know that Bryce is a ham, you do now 😉

I thought he looked perfect for a New Testament film. Doesn't he look very Biblical?

His hair got nice and long (and curly!) in the back, too. I always thought Amelie got her curls from me, but looks like I might have been wrong about that.

The first shave. Does this particular style have a name?

Menacing, no?

Redneck Bryce.

I call this one, "Forget something there, partner?"

Pensive Bryce.

Bryce called this his Tom Cruise look. Nevermind that I think Bryce is like a full foot taller than Tom...

Beardless! But still not back to normal. Although his face does seem to have shrunken back down to a more usual size.

Ta-Da!

Normal Bryce! At last!

I have to admit, I was happier than I thought I would be to see Normal Bryce again. I didn’t mind the beard–you know, you just kind of get used to it–but it was so nice to have my husband back! And looking his age again! Amelie couldn’t get over the change. She just kept saying, “Daddy? Beard?” (She reverts to baby talk in moments of shock.) And Calder just started laughing hysterically when he first saw Bryce minus the beard. And then he said, “Daddy wash away his beard?” Bryce seemed happy to be clean-shaven, although his did complain that his face felt cold.

So, the hair situation is back to normal here in the Haymond household. And our new baby will get to meet a Daddy that doesn’t look like he just emerged from his mountain man lean-to 😉