Ava is 1...

Ava turned 1 on August 16th. Of course my sister threw an awesome luau bash for the big day.

Noah had the perfect luau outfit complete with Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses.

He spent most of the party being passed from friend to friend but of course his Aunt Ya-ya got him first.

And here's the beautiful birthday girl!!! She had a blast running around the yard with tons of little friends.

The giant tubs of drinks were tempting to little hands that love water. Ava kept playing with the ice. Or maybe she's just trying to decide if she'd like a Diet Dr Pepper or a beer.

It wouldn't have been a first birthday without a little cake just for Ava. She wasn't sure what to do with it at first but eventually decided to pull out little pieces and feed them to anyone who got close to her....which lead to Noah having cake rubbed all over his little face.

I can't believe our little Ava is already 1 year old. The time since she joined our family has flown by. We've fallen more and more in love with her each day. I'm so glad that Noah will grow up with a cousin close to his age. I can only imagine the trouble they will stir up together.

We love you, Ava D!!!

In One Word...

**Left my camera at Chris's over the weekend. I'm back at work so I haven't had time to drive over there and pick it back up....but when I do I'll post cute pictures of Noah and Ava at Ava's 1st birthday party!!

I was tagged by Kelli. (I linked her public blog. She also has a cooking blog and a really cute blog about her daughter but it's private so I won't link it here.) She must know that I'm a total sucker for these types of things....

The Rules: Answer the questions using only one word. Then tag three others.
1. Where is your cell phone? pink
2. Your significant other? perfect
3. Your hair? frizzy (it's been raining too much)
4. Your mother? amazing
5. Your father? daddy
6. Your favorite thing? sleeping
7. Your dream last night? didn't
8 Your favorite drink? dr pepper
9. Your dream/goal?
10. The room you’re in? paint
11. Your hobby? eating
12. Your fear? spiders
13. What do you want to be in 6 years? administrator
14. What you’re not? serious
15. Muffins? no thanks
16. One of your wish list items? kitchen (as in a total remodel of the one we have)
17. Where you grew up? texas
18. The last thing you did? email
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Favorite gadget? phone
21. Your pets? Monty
22. Your computer? necessity
23. Your mood? sleepy
24. Missing someone? yes
25. Your car? gray
26. Something you’re not wearing? jeans
27. Favorite store? Target
28. Like someone? sometimes
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When is the last time you laughed? lunch
31. Last time you cried? Daycare drop off

Hmm....If you actually read this whole thing consider yourself tagged!!!

Going to School Tomorrow...

I've been at work now for the last 3 days. So far I like it. Right now we're going to meetings and orientations which can be boring but I've met lots of nice people and I think I'm really going to enjoy my new job.


My mom took care of Noah on Friday, Monday and Tuesday so tomorrow is Noah's first day of daycare. I really like the little school that we've found but obviously it is going to be difficult to drop my little man off with people who are strangers to me right now.
I'll let you know how it goes...

Chicks Dig Me...

2 months

Noah was 2 months old on August 6th. I can't believe our little man has already been here for 2 months. Time is flying. He's so much bigger and really alert. This month he really started responding to voices, smiling and laughing. He has a great laugh. He also found his hands and will play with them. I found this great monkey for our little Monkey. You can tell from the pictures that Noah obviously has mixed feelings about the monkey.




2 month stats:
Weight: 12 lbs 4 oz -- 50th percentile
Length: 24 inches -- 90th percentile (yeah, right!)
Head: 16 1/2 cm -- 90th percentile (full of brains?)

Noah did really well with all his shots and got 3 cool Snoopy bandaids. Of course the next day he ran a fever which broke my heart because I was at work. Nannie (my mom) took great care of Noah though.

End of summer...

Tonight is the end of summer. I have to go to work tomorrow. It won't be too bad because the training is specifically for my new job and not just the general first of the school year meetings--those start next week. My mom is watching Noah tomorrow too so I know he'll be in good hands.

And hopefully tomorrow or this weekend I'll have time to post his cute 2 month pics and give the details of his 2 month doctor's appointment. Let's just say I think those percentile measurements are a straight up joke.

If you have time on Friday please say a little prayer for me as I'm away from my little man for 8 hours.

Chili's....

Noah made his first trip to Chili's just a few days after we moved. Josh and I are what some people might refer to as Chili's "regulars." It is just quick and easy and pretty cheap if we split the fajitas. Plus throughout my pregnancy I craved their fries so we ate there a lot.

Noah overall was pretty unimpressed but did sleep through most of the meal.

Side note: I think the people in the next booth that I was a little bit of a nut to be taking pictures of our baby at Chili's.

Jogie the Great...

Noah's Jogie the Great came all the way from New Jersey to visit him. "Jogie" is grandfather in Polish and our Jogie is so excited to be a "pra-jogie" which is our Americanized pronouncation of great grandfather.

Noah is 1 month old (almost a month ago)....

I'm so totally behind on blogging. Mainly due to the whole moving thing.

Despite the fact that I had surgery 2 days before I made sure that we took pictures of Noah at 1 month. I wanted to make sure I posted them before he's 2 months old (a week from now) so you can see how much he's changing.

Check out those skinny chicken legs!!

He was so patient and sweet sitting up in the big chair. I wanted to put something near him so we could compare growth from month to month. So, here he is with his Pooh bear.
Eventually he grew tired of his photo shoot but I couldn't resist just one more picture. He's cute even when fussing.

Boxes, boxes, boxes...

The movers came. The stuff was loaded. Then it was unloaded....in the rain. It hasn't rained in weeks in Texas but of course it poured on our moving day. No harm done though.

Now begins the task of unpacking all the boxes. Of course the unpacking has to happen on Noah's schedule....which means that it happens in short bursts between feedings, changings and play time.

My mom is of course super helpful. Thanks to her help our 150+ boxes are now down to about 60 or so left to be unpacked. Next on the to-do list...pick some paint colors and get some paint on these new walls.

Our last night on Wren....

Well, I'm sitting in a house full of boxes. Everything is packed and ready to go except for a few last minute baby items we need to throw in the car and the clothes we'll wear tomorrow. The movers arrive at 8am.


We've been in here for 6+ years and we're definitely tearing out some deep roots to move our lives to a new place. We've had so much fun and we're sad to go. We'll miss Fort Worth and our friends here so much. We love y'all. Thanks for everything.

July 5, 2003

Five years ago I married my best friend.
It was a great day and a wonderful beginning to our life together.

Guess what we did for the 4th?!?!?

Most people watch fireworks and picnic on the 4th. Some people watch baseball games. Josh and I decided to do something a little different this year. But first a little back story....

So, during my pregnancy I would sometimes get intense pains in the middle of my upper back (between my shoulder blades) and/or across the top of my rib cage mainly on the right side. Now when I say intense I mean that it hurt to sit, stand or lay down and it hurt to breathe. The pain would last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours and made it impossible to function. These "episodes" sometimes occurred at work but usually hit later at night once I was home. One episode started while I was driving to my grad school class final. I finished the test in record time (do they keep records like that?) due to the fact that I couldn't focus and it hurt to sit there. Josh and I often debated whether or not I should go to the emergency room during these bouts of pain. Josh represented the "let's go" side and I camped out on the "I can get through this without the emergency room" side of the fence. I was resistant to going to the emergency room because I thought the pain was caused by gas and it is embarrassing to go to the ER because you have gas.

Eventually I described these pains to my doctor and she thought that I might have stones in my gall bladder. She told me that she could run some blood tests and that if I needed to that I could have surgery to remove my gall bladder. She assurred me that gall bladder surgery while pregnant was totally safe. I explained to her that between work, grad school, job and house hunting that I didn't have time to have surgery whether I was pregnant or not.

I'm sure by now you are starting to wonder what this has to do with Independence Day.
Wednesday my mom came over to help me pack some boxes. Wednesday at 3am after I fed Noah I noticed that my back was starting to hurt again. An "episode" was coming on so I took some advil and went back to sleep. The pain persisted when I woke up. And persisted. And persisted. My mom finally convinced me that maybe I should go to the ER around 4pm because I was hurting so badly that I couldn't function which included being totally unable to take care of Noah. I would describe the pain of these episodes as worse then my labor experience. So, I gave in and up to the ER we went.

At the ER they did some blood work and a sonogram of my gall bladder. I not only had gall stones but some of the stones were stuck in the ducts connecting my liver and some other organs. This was causing all sorts of havoc on my system. The ER doc asked if I'd had pains like this in the past. I explained that I had them throughout my pregnancy as well as 3 other "episodes" in the past week. She then admitted me to the hospital for a procedure to remove the stones in the ducts and a surgery to remove my gall bladder. I asked if they could do both at once but I was told that wasn't possible.

So, we spent Wednesday night at the hospital. Thursday was spent in misery because my procedure was at 3:30 and I couldn't have anything to eat or drink after 7am. Due to the fact that the stones were causing blockages my bilirubin count had gone pretty high and I was totally jaundiced. We should've taken a picture to commemorate how yellow I was.... Anyway, I got to have full anestesia and go to sleep while they removed the stones from my ducts. Afterwards I was starving but was on a "clear liquid diet" due to the surgery I was having the next day. At this point it has been about 36 hours since I had eaten anything solid.

Friday morning at 6:30am another anestesiologist woke me up to have me sign consent forms for my surgery. They rolled me down at 7am and I had surgery to remove my gall bladder. Happy Birthday America!! I have four small incisions in my abdomen that they actually put back together with glue instead of stitches. I was ready for a chipotle burrito, pepperoni pizza and a cheeseburger at this point but they insisted I start slowly with more clear liquids and eventually a turkey sandwich. They sent me home Friday night around 7pm. My mom made chicken, rice and salad and I promptly ate everything in sight. We just watched fireworks on TV since I wasn't in much of a mood to get out and about at that point.

It was definitely a 4th of July that I won't forget for quite a while.

I'm a little sore still today. I would describe the pain as kind of like having a stitch in your side after you've been running. I have great pain meds though! :) And of course I now get to play the "I had surgery" card in order to avoid all things move related!!

Hope your 4th was hospital free!!!

Noah loves to sleep. He sleeps so much that I had to call and check with the doctor about waking him up to eat. He is usually wide awake between the hours of 4-6am though...so if you're in the neighborhood and want to hang out please stop by....we're up and ready for fun....well, at least Noah is.

Noah's been busy...

They say that newborns eat, sleep, poop and repeat. Noah is eating well. He sleeps like a champ. And well, let's just say the child has no problems pooping either. But he does tons of other stuff too....

He's been to the doctor for weight checks. Today he weighed in at 8 lbs 2 oz. Like I said the kid eats well. You can probably guess from the expression on his face that laying on the scale is not his favorite thing to do.

He loves hanging out with visitors. He spent Father's Day with Daddy, Poppy and Uncle Mark. Daddy and Uncle Mark were both celebrating their first Father's Day. It was Poppy's 30th Father's Day but his first time to celebrate Father's Day with his grandkids. Here's a picture of the new dads and the Poppy.

Noah has also enjoyed tons of snuggles and kisses from his Nanny and GiGi.

Noah has also been on two outings to Target (he slept the entire trip both times) and over to Plano to look for a preschool.

Of course most days we hang out at the house and feel totally busy just eating and hanging out....after all this is my summer break and it wouldn't be summer without some lazy days of doing nothing.

Another big check...

No, not the kind of check you cash. But another big check off our to-do list. I found a daycare for Noah yesterday!! Woohoo! Actually, it isn't a "daycare" but a "school." Whatever. It is clean, cute and the ladies were so so so nice. It is also in our price range and has an opening in the infant room in August. Double Woohoo!! It is also located nicely between work and home.
I know that come August it will tear me up to leave Noah there but of all the places we looked it
seemed like the place that will tear me up the least....or at least I think so.

Now all I need to do is find some spare time between Noah's meals to pack up some boxes. 20 days until the moving truck comes. Speaking of moving truck I need to find movers!! One more thing to add to the to-do list.

I know it is totally disappointing that there are no pictures of Noah in this post. I'll try to take care of that tomorrow during one of Noah's naps....uploading pictures sounds way more fun then packing!!

Obviously Noah was the coolest kid in the nursery. Sic Em Bears!

Labor Day...

Thursday, June 5th was my last day of work. I finished up at Kerr and came home around 3:30pm. I felt sick to my stomach so I laid down and took a 3 hour nap. I woke up around around 8pm and Josh and I were just hanging out watching the Celtics.
Around 10:30pm I went to the bathroom and my water broke. We gathered our stuff together and called Josh's parents in Houston so they could start driving. We also called my parents and our siblings.
Then we headed to the hospital....knowing that our lives were about to totally change.


We arrived at the hospital around 11:30pm and had to hang out in the L&D hallway for about 20 minutes because there weren't any laboring rooms available. We finally got settled in a room and my sister arrived. My parents, Jason and Hailey quickly followed.
And I was in labor.....
Long story short, my in laws arrived around 4am. I got my epidural around 5am. I felt instant pain relief and never felt uncomfortable again.
I started pushing around 10:30am. Noah's heartrate kept dipping down and we were close to having an emergency c-section but all that was avoided and Noah came into the world at 11:55am!!
It was one of the greatest moments to hear him cry and hear the doctor announce that our IVF miracle baby was a boy!! They put him on my chest and Josh cut the cord. We spent some time together as a family and then Josh went to announce Noah's arrival to our waiting family!!




Noah has a head full of thick dark hair and looks just like Josh.
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. 2 Corinthians 9:15

The baby's here....

...and it's a boy!!!

We're proud to annouce the arrival of

NOAH GREGORY

June 6 at 11:55am

Weight: 7 lbs 7 1/2 ounces

Length: 20 inches

He's perfect and we're so in love with him!!

I'll post pics later.

Big week...

It's a big week for us. Here's part of our to-do list:

1) Sign a contract on the house we're planning on buying.
2) Finish up work at KMS. I've been there 6 years and I can't believe that I'll be done on Thursday.
3) Have a baby.

We'll keep you posted on how it goes.

No house for us....

We made an offer on a house. It was low. You're suppose to start low, right?
The seller's counter offer was pretty much "the list price is the price of our house." So we went back with a slightly higher offer and again their response was "the list price is the price of our house."
So obviously they aren't interested in selling their house to us....although we're not sure they are all that interested in selling it to anyone.

Back to the search process....

Time to seek shelter....

So, Josh and I are looking for a house. We have a contract on our current one and are scheduled to move out July 14th. The only hitch in our plan is that we currently have no where to move. We've been looking. We've searched a bunch online and been out twice with our realtor and seen about two dozen houses in person.
The main problem I'm running into is that I currently live in a house that I adore. And I haven't adored most (translate to all but 2) of the stuff we've seen.
So last night we went to look at our top two houses back to back to really compare them and see if one of them was the house for us. We met up with our realtor who let us know that house #2 was under contract so we would only be looking at house #1. We were okay with this since house #1 was the front runner anyway.
We looked....
We made an offer....
We're waiting to see what they come back with....

It would certainly be one more major decision checked off the list.

By the way, Baby Weems' arrival date is looming in the near future. We're looking forward to tricking you into visiting us so that you can see our baby and then asking you to help us pack. :)
But don't worry....we're hiring movers so you won't have to help us move because we like you and we want to be still be friends.

And the winner is....

Sorry to keep you waiting in suspense about the job offers. I accepted a job on Monday but there were people I had to tell in real life before I could blog about it. There are just certain things that certain people shouldn't find out via the blog world. Blogs are a wonderful way to keep up with folks but they kind of create a barrier in a way too. That is an entirely different post though.

Anyway, I've decided to become the Campus Intervention Specialist at Boyd Elementary in Allen. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I'm just nervous in general about starting a new job with new people, a new boss, etc etc. Plus, I've never worked at an elementary school before and I know it will be different then middle school---the children are so small!! Hopefully we can get some good internventions in place with the little ones and teach them to read before they get to middle school. :) Of course, any job is going to be a huge adjustment due to the fact that I've been at my current school for the past 6 years.
Hopefully this job will also give me some insight into what it might be like to be an elementary school assistant principal someday since I'll be finishing my master's next summer (hopefully) and then I'll have to decide what exactly I'm going to do with that.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement so many of y'all have given me as I went through this whole job search, interview, decision process.

Our next big decision---where should we live?? Where should Peanut go to day care??

Job offers....

Well, I had three interviews last week. It would've been exhausting but I took those days off of work....so three days off was pretty nice. Two of those interviews have turned into job offers. I was really hoping for just one job offer.....because then things would be easy. Now I need to decide. The offers are with different districts but the schools are about 15 minutes apart. Salary is about the same in both districts as well. The main difference is the jobs I've been offered.

Job #1--Campus Intervention Specialist. This is pretty much what I do right now except it would be at an elementary school instead of a middle school. I would be in charge of working with teachers and other staff members to develop interventions for struggling students. I would meet with parents to discuss the intervention plans. I would also be the campus testing coordinator...which is kind of a drag but I've done it before so at least I know what to expect. It is definitely more of an administrator job than a teaching job since it will involve a lot more work with adults than with kids. All the people I've met at this school are really nice.

Job #2--Teaching. I know, crazy, right? I've been offered a teaching job....oh wait, I have an education degree and I'm a teacher. The principal said in the interview that they were interested in hiring me and that he is looking for math and science teachers. Cool. It would be a middle school job at an exemplary middle school. For those of you outside the education bubble, exemplary means that all their kids pass TAKS....and I do mean all....99-100%. It is a great school--excellent reputation, brand new building, very nice principal and assistant principal. I'm not sure about going back in the classroom but this might be a great professional opportunity since it is with one of the top school districts in Texas. Also, my friend Melissa who student taught in the classroom next to me 6 years ago is a 7th grade teacher at this school.

So, now I have decisions to make. What do I want to do next year???
I'm suppose to let the principal from Job #1 know by tomorrow afternoon.....Josh and I have talked circles around this situation all weekend. Where is a flashing neon sign when you need one??? :)

36 weeks....

Oh my goodness. I've made it to 36 weeks. Honestly this pregnancy has flown by. It seems like just a few weeks ago we got a call from the doctor's office that we were indeed finally pregnant. And last week at the doctor's office I set up all my appointments for the rest of this pregnancy...the crazy part was there were only 4 and one of them is after my due date. I made a joke about not wanting to make it to the June 11th appointment and Josh says, "Heck we might not even make it to the May 29th one." I immediately told him not to say that again.

Grad school is over for the semester! Woohoo!! I'm taking the summer off and planning on taking online classes in the fall so I won't be actually in class again until next January. It will be weird not driving out to Arlington once a week (or more) for a while but I won't miss it too much.

The job search is still in progress. I have three interviews this week so hopefully one of them will work out. The house is still on the market although we've gotten lots of good feedback and there are potential buyers on the horizon. Josh and I have gotten really good at keeping the house picked up at all times in case someone wants to show it. I wonder if that will continue after the baby arrives..... :) I'm leaning toward probably not.

It is crazy to me that I have about 15 work days left at KMS. I've been there for 6 years. I told someone tonight that the end of my time in Burleson seems kind of anticlimatic....but then I realized that really giving birth will be the end of my time in Burleson so probably not so anticlimatic after all....just a little scary. But I can't wait to meet this little one!!!

Hometown shower....

On May 3rd we had my "Hometown Shower" at my sister's house. The hostesses with the mostestes....Chris, Jaimie, Jessica, Sharee, Marcy, Carole and Hailey....threw a great party. It was so fun to have so many friends in one place.

I love this pic with my mom, sister and Ava. It looks like Ava is patting my belly. I can't wait for Baby Weems to be big enough to chase after Ava. They are going to have so much fun together.

Granny, GiGi (Josh's mom), Great Aunt Kim and Josh's cousins, Charlie and Katherine all came into town for the shower. Charlie and Katerine are such cute and sweet girls. They touched my belly too....but very very lightly and I could tell they were totally uncertain about the whole situation. It was pretty hilarious.

If you're a blog reader who went to Baylor then you know it is nearly impossible to find Baylor stuff (not to mention cute Baylor stuff) outside of the Waco bubble...but my mom found this cute cute Baylor quilt. I know we will use it a bunch....and I'm sure Baby Weems will be snuggled up in it at the Homecoming Parade. (Saturday, Nov 1st vs. Missouri....mark your calendars...we'll be in front of the sub as usual.)

Here are some of my sweet Baylor friends...Jaimie, Emily, Hailey, Kristi and Jessica.

My hostesses did a great job. They even added little touches to make the day special....like little petit fors for Baby Weems (or as I like to call them "baby cakes") and M&M favors. These baby food jars were filled with pink and blue M&Ms that said things like "It's a surprise!" and "Find out in June."

Overall it was just a perfect day.

I'm spoiled....

My friend from work, Jennifer, threw my first shower. At KMS we always do a little cake and punch in the teacher's lounge for weddings and babies but she wanted to host a little special get together at her house. I felt so spoiled by my school house girls. They are so excited about Baby Weems....they keep saying they are going to be at the hospital with us....but I think I'm drawing the line about who gets to see the actual birth....

Mom and me at the shower. I was really glad she came out to meet my work friends. I can't believe I won't hang out with these girls everyday next year. They've been such good friends through our entire journey to parenthood.


Hostess Jennifer with crazy Heather.

Jennifer's mom knitted this precious yellow blanket for Baby Weems. It is unbelievably soft and just perfect!!


This cute little outfit is totally girly. All of the work girls insist that Baby Weems is a girl. In fact, they gave me girl's clothing with gift receipts because they refuse to buy anything neutral.

The belly grows....

Both of these pictures were taken during my 32nd week. I thought the patterned shirt just made me look big all over so I made Josh take another picture the next day when I was wearing black. I know it is a big shocker to see me in a black tshirt since I only own about a billion of them. Anyway, this black tshirt is special because it says "Due in June" on it. It is always amazing to me how many people talk to me when I'm out and about wearing it....sales people, random little girls, all sorts of people. Of course their 1st question is "Is it a boy or a girl?" And then they look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them I don't know.

Where have I been???

Well, shortly after I wrote that last post about updating my computer died. And I mean it died. The official word from the tech department was "Critical Hard Drive Malfunction" although the tech actually said, "Girl, your computer is MESSED up."
So it has taken me a little longer to update than anticipated....but here's what we've been doing....

40 days....

The ticker officially says only 40 days to go!! I really can't believe that....although sometimes I can't believe it is getting so close and other times I can't believe that I still have that many days as things are starting to get a bit uncomfortable.

We of course still have tons of things left to do--finding a new job is probably the top thing on the list. I am finishing up the semester in grad school this week which is a huge relief....and hopefully once I wrap that up I'll have some time to update the blog with pictures of my baby belly and the wonderful shower my work friends threw for me. Aren't you on the edge of your seat now??

Interuppting Regularly Scheduled Programming...

I was tagged by Rebecca....so here is my list of 4's....

4 Jobs I have had in my life:
1. Counter Girl at Sweet Temptations
2. Attorney's assistant at a title company (I didn't even know what a title company did the first three months I worked there)
3. 6th grade teacher
4. Student Advocate

4 Movies I’ve Watched More Than Once:
1. Waiting for Guffman
2. Drop Dead Gorgeous
3. Madagascar (thanks Amanda)
4. Casino Royale--it's been on cable lately so it is always on

4 Places I’ve Lived:
1. Georgia
2. Garland, TX
3. Waco, TX
4. Fort Worth, TX

4 TV Show I Watch/Watched: Only 4????
1. The Office
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. Desperate Housewives
4. Current network reality show--the Bachelor or survior or big brother, etc

4 Places I have Been:
1. St Lucia
2. Belize
3. Turkey
4. London

4People who email me regularly
1. Josh
2. Jennifer P.
3. My mom--she recently sends me weekly updates about job openings in Garland
4. Tie between Pottery Barn and J. Crew

4 of my favorite foods
1. Sushi
2. All Mexican food
3. Profiterol--sounds like medication but I promise it is awesome
4. a great steak

4 Places I Would Like to Visit
1. Greece
2. New Zealand
3. Bora Bora
4. I'd love to go to NYC with Josh

4 Things I am Looking Forward to in the Coming Year
1. Meeting Baby Weems :)
2. Setting up a nursery for Baby Weems in our new house
3. Drinking margaritas after the arrival of Baby Weems
4. Seeing my feet again :)

4 Friends who I’m Tagging
1. Sharee
2. Jessica
3. Diana--because you haven't updated in FOREVER
4. Kelli K

Sabotage update...

Well, I contacted our real estate agent to let him know about the terrible showing....and he emailed the showing agent to apologize.
It turns out that the potential buyer doesn't like dogs and that they could hear Monty barking so they never even opened the door to the laundry room!! They didn't know about the sabotage attempt and they'd like some more info about our house!!!

WOOHOO!!

SABOTAGE!!!

We think that Monty doesn't want to move. He loves his house with the big back yard. He's probably worried that if we move the squirrels and birdies will start to think they own the place. So, he's trying to sabotage real estate showings....

Take today for example. I received a call at 5pm that said they'd like to show the house from 5:30-6:30. I was still at work but we've gotten really good about leaving the house "ready to show" so I said sure. When I left work I stopped by Old Navy to look through their very picked over maternity section for a few minutes just in case the people were at our house.

I came home and noticed that there were some random lights on which is pretty typical when someone looks at the house. I opened the door to the laundry room where we keep Monty's kennel and the smell hit me!! Monty had pooped in his kennel. And I won't go into detail except to say that Monty and the kennel both immediately went to the back yard for a good hose down....after I fashioned my own gas mask from a dish cloth.
We haven't heard any feedback from the potential buyers....I'm sure their real estate agent is trying to figure out how to word "This house smells like dog poop" in a nice way. I want to call the agent and tell him it isn't always like that and to bring his people back or at least bring other people by.....

We have another showing tomorrow. Hopefully Monty will stick to just growling and barking when they are in the house and will keep the intestinal fireworks to a minimum.

Most Smartest....

Well, it's official. We've finished all our baby classes. We went to parenting, childbirth and breastfeeding. It made for two VERY long weekends but we learned a lot. I'm not sure if we feel more prepared for the baby to arrive or if only now we are able to realize how unprepared we truly are.

We took parenting first. The best part was that we got to learn infant CPR which we will hopefully never use. We also learned a lot about infant car seats. The worst part was some really awkward videos we watched about the importance of skin to skin contact. After all, we didn't really need a video explanation of what "skin to skin" meant.

Then this weekend we took childbirth on Friday night and Saturday. The first video we saw was about laboring. The instructor forgot to warn us that it would show a live birth at the end.....let's just say that it wasn't like on "A Baby Story" and nothing was blurred out. The second video was even more frightening. I looked at Josh several times and said, "I don't think I can do this." One of the videos said something about massage and how even household items could be used as massagers....it showed a rolling pin and I told Josh he could hit me over the head with that if things got too tough. Our childbirth class was very small and there were some fun people....so we got to make lots of jokes and comments such as when the instructor asked about the stages of labor being able to say loudly "Transition: that's when the yelling REALLY begins."

And then today we took our breastfeeding class. The lady was really positive and informative. She wasn't near the "la leche nazi" that I envisioned or had been warned about. I'm still not 100% sure how all that is going to work out but I feel better about it then I did before we went to the class. And strangely enough the videos in the breastfeeding class weren't nearly as awkward as the ones from parenting....go figure!

So, now I'm officially 32 weeks and despite the fact that we've finished our classes we're not really any closer to being "ready" for the baby to get here....I still have a TON of things on the to-do list such as 1) Finish grad school projects 2) Find job 3) Buy carseat....although I'm not sure those three things are the top three things....except maybe for the grad school project because it is due on Tuesday night and I'm blogging instead of working on it. Since it is already late Sunday night, I'd better get my "most smartest" self back to work on the project.

**Bonus points for you if you can name the movie that the quote "most smartest" comes from!! I'll give you a hint: "Amber is the best tapper, the most smartest"

Reality again...this time on TV

Okay, I admit it. I watch reality TV. Some people (like my husband) might even say I watch a lot of reality TV. Currently I'm into four reality shows--Big Brother 9, the Bachelor: London Calling, Survivor and Dancing with the Stars. I'm not really sure if Dancing with the Stars counts as reality TV though. Is it just a game show? Oh well.

I usually only watch shows that I've DVR'd. Ever since Jason bought us TIVO a couple Christmases ago it has become impossible to watch actual live television. So, tonight I finally watched this week's episode of The Bachelor. Now, if you've never seen the Bachelor you might think that it is about a guy dating a ton of women and trying to find the one. This is what ABC wants you to believe the show is about. The show is actually just about the drama of a bunch of girls living together and dating the same guy....it isn't about love and it doesn't matter who he picks in the end since it never works out anyway. I mainly watch to make sure that the drama queen I like makes it through to the next week to create more drama. Most of these girls are so detached from real reality that sometimes I'm not sure if the Bachelor qualifies as reality TV either.

Anyway, this week's episode of course contained the "Most dramatic rose ceremony yet" just like every other week. And the Rose Ceremony was indeed the best part....although not because of the girls. Here's what happens:

Our Bachelor, Matt, (pictured above) has 5 women to choose from but only 3 roses. He hands out rose #1 and rose #2. The host, Chris Harrison, steps in to say his famous line, "Ladies, Matt, this is the final rose this evening." As Chris is saying this we notice that Matt looks down at his hand. He's studying the palm of his hand. He looks at it for several seconds. And I wonder "Does he have the names written on his hand?" I rewind the DVR. I play it again. I call Josh into the room. "Does it look like he's reading his palm?" Josh agrees!!

And that ladies is true love right there. He's picking 3 out of 5 women to continue in a contest to maybe be his wife and he can't even remember the names of the three chicks he wants to pick!! Awesome. Truly awesome. I love reality TV.

Reality sets in....

Today I officially resigned from my job in Burleson.
Tomorrow the for sale sign is going in our front yard.
Saturday I'm going to a job fair to look for a new job.

This whole moving thing is starting to become VERY VERY real.

Need to do? Nesting? or Just Procrastination?

I feel this crazy need to do stuff around our house all the time. I'm talking about cleaning stuff out, rearranging, getting organized type stuff. Things that have been in a certain place since we moved in suddenly need to be moved. Closets that I never open suddenly need to be purged of whatever is in there anyway.

Now honestly, most of the stuff needs to get done so that we can put our house on the market next week. But some of it is kind of irrational....for example, we got our baby furniture last week. We didn't buy bedding yet because 1) we don't know the baby's gender and 2) now that we're moving I'm not going to create a cute neutral nursery for just a few weeks. So, Josh and I decided that it would be best to just not create a nursery until we get to the new placce. The baby has an awesome bassinet that it will sleep in for the first few months. But, I really want to go get something to put in that crib!! Part of my brain says that a crib with a mattress, sheet and dust ruffle will look nicer to potential buyers but the other part of my brain questions why I would spend money on something that is just for show at this point?? I'm not sure if this is motivated by the need to have the house look nice or if it is the fact that I'm almost 30 weeks pregnant so I could be starting into that whole nesting phase.

I also have a 20 minute presentation about compensatory education looming and need to work on another presentation and paper about effective staff development as well. Plus, I need to go to the bookstore and get the book I'm suppose to read for class next Wednesday. So, it could totally be procrastination. In the past I've been so good about putting stuff off until the last minute but I'm not sure how many minutes I'm going to have free with working my current job and trying to find a new job in the midst of all these grad school projects.

Well, whether it is moving pressure, nesting or procrastination I'd better stop blogging and get a move on since that book store closes at 2pm and it's in Arlington.