Spring has sprung!

Well, kind of. It's been really warm here so I'm assuming it's been even warmer south of us. Today Chad had the day off so he got out in the yard and was able to start working on the garden again. You know it's spring/summer when our blog consists of lots of garden pictures. This year Chad is extending the garden (the area in the picture where you can see the "looser" dirt was grass until today) and raising the bed. I will keep you posted on the progress.

This is a picture from just a couple weeks ago on our street...

And here is Chad, working outside on just your typical February day in the 80s. And just for my sister-in-law Emma, here is another picture of my growing belly. Today marks 19 weeks, and one week from Monday we will know what "it" is. I also started feeling the baby move ever-so-slightly yesterday, which was great and really weird all at the same time. I will try to take pictures on the exact week mark from now on. Not that any of you care, but I just like for things to be "even" (OCD much?). I know the last picture I posted was taken just 4 days ago, but it seems like even today it is significantly rounder than on Sunday. Maybe it's just the dress.

Don't you just love the squintiness and the pastiness of this picture? It's almost like you can tell it's still winter.

So, I realize it's been like 5 weeks since I posted a picture of myself...so here's another one, at 18 1/2 weeks. Two weeks from tomorrow we find out if the baby is a boy or a girl, so we are really looking forward to that.

We had a good weekend...cleaned the house, had a little mini-birthday party for my friend Amanda who turned 26 today (I wish I had taken pictures of that, but forgot), finally finished the taxes and got them ready to mail off, etc. We lead quite the exciting life.

Not much else going on. 3 weeks until Spring Break!

Today is a good day

Happy Valentines Day! Chad has to work, so you get the pleasure of reading another blog entry by yours truly!

Today is a good day. I ate a delicious breakfast of blueberry waffles, strawberries, and mixed berry yogurt (shout-out to all the "Office" fans out there!). I'll spend the rest of my day doing taxes which hopefully won't take that long, grading a few papers, shopping for Chad's Valentine's gift, and making the house look presentable. I don't think it will be as bad as it sounds. "Doing taxes" just means filling out a few blanks and sending it to the accountant, who actually files the taxes. Totally worth the money.

It was a good week at school. I have another yearbook deadline coming up, which will be number four, and Thursday was the day that my kids had to have everything on their pages finished. So we're having a party on Monday to celebrate completing deadline 4 and Jan/Feb birthdays, and I threatened them that if they didn't have everything on their pages done, they would get no food. They would just have to sit in the lab and work while everyone else was having a grand old time at the party. So guess what? They all (well most of them) finished! Yay! Only one more deadline to go after this.

Yesterday I found out from our UIL coordinator that there is no more money to travel. So we might be missing the last two practice meets before district, and who knows what we are going to do about traveling to district. This is a positive thing from the "I don't want to travel for UIL anymore on the weekends" standpoint, but a negative thing in that the kids need practice to do well at the actual district and regional meets. I have kids that could go to state this year if they practice enough.

I got my Valentine's day present from Chad early. I got exactly what I wanted!

It is a supersoft robe from Gap Body. It is soooooo soft. It's really lightweight and comfortable and I will use it every day of the year. I have learned (and Chad has learned), over the years, that for the most part, I like to know ahead of time what my gifts are going to be. So Chad always asks now what I would like. This year, I knew exactly what I wanted. I already have the pants in this material, and I'm telling you, there is nothing more comfortable. After I got the robe I told Chad that pretty much anything from Gap Body made out of this material is the perfect gift.

So you're probably wondering what I am getting for Chad. Well, I am still on the hunt. I know what I am going to get him, which is a blender, which totally reminds me of "Father of the Bride" when the fiance gets the girl the blender and she freaks out. I know it's not the most romantic Valentine's gift in the world, but Chad makes smoothies. A lot. And he makes them out of frozen fruit, which is really hard to blend if you don't have a good blender. So half the time he's making smoothies, he's yelling at the blender for being sub-par. So that's what I am getting him. There is a certain blender that I'm looking for, but I have yet to find it in town (after going to two whole stores), so I might just have to order it from Amazon and stick the print-out in his card. Lame, I know. Anyway, I'm betting money on the fact that he won't be reading this blog at work today, so he will still be surprised.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Well hello there!

Not much going on, I'm just still up at school trying to kill some time (I have students working on projects for photojournalism...I'm not just here for fun at a quarter til six.). I could be grading a stack of papers I have, but why do that when I can just blog about the things that have been going on this week? Things are good here. School seems to be flying by, and every day my students comment about my belly, so I must be getting bigger. I will be 17 weeks on Thursday. We go for our 20 week appointment and find out the baby's sex on March 9. I had another doctor's appointment yesterday which ended in me discovering that I will probably have to change doctors due to changing insurance and the insurance I'm changing to simultaneously dropping my doctor's practice from coverage. We think it is because my doc and the other one in her office that deliver babies aren't sending enough business UMC's way. Anyway, we are praying that when the insurance board reconvenes next week about this, they will change their mind. I really like my doctor for a lot of reasons, and will be really sad if I have to change doctors. Oh well, people have to change doctors all the time, right? Doesn't make it fun, especially if it's a doctor you see multiple times within a year and that you are entrusting with delivering your child.

In other news, we sold our car, just two days after posting it for sale...didn't even have to put a for sale sign in the window! This was just another confirmation that one should always buy Hondas and Toyotas...even if they are 13 year old cars, they tend to hold their value and sell quickly. Or better yet, you get to keep your car for 13 years and it still runs great. It's a win-win situation.

The UIL meet went well. I am down to 2 more deadlines for the yearbook. The newspaper is coming out tomorrow, which means I don't have another newspaper deadline until after spring break...yay!

Hmmm...what else...trying to stall until I think of something else to write...(won't you be glad when I have a baby and post more pictures on this thing? Hang in there). I guess that's it for now.

The latest news

Chad has been working on a regular basis and got his first full-time paycheck this week! He is enjoying his job, too. Yay!

I am now 16 weeks along and have a Dr. appointment on Monday. Unfortunately this is not the one with a sonogram where we get to find out what the baby's sex is. Have to wait until March for that! You guys wanna start making guesses and voting on names?

I have a UIL tournament tomorrow at my school. This totally stressed me out last year, but this year I cannot afford to stress out about UIL.

We are selling our green Civic. It makes me kind of sad. I drove that car for two years in high school, all through college, and for our first 5 years of marriage. I am sure I'm not the only one who gets sentimental about getting rid of old cars, right? But the good news is we got a new car, a 2008 Camry from mom, that will fit all the baby stuff a lot better than our little Civics! I am hoping we sell it this weekend. We posted it yesterday and have already gotten 4 bites. We'll see.

Have a great weekend everyone!