25 Weeks

Well, we've made it to 25 weeks (and 3 days)! I thought about my sister all week long...and about how our little Reid is about the size of her first when he was born. She had an emergency c-section to deliver Ben at 24 1/2 weeks. He was a 1 lb, 9.5 oz little fighter. He was in the NICU down at Texas Children's Hospital for nearly 5 months if I remember correctly, but amazingly (undoubtedly thanks to all the prayers the little guy had!!) he never had a surgery. It was such a surreal experience--can't imagine how it must've felt from her end... Happily, he's a normal nearly-4-year-old :)

Here is a belly shot from my 24th week. Not that different from the last one, but my stomach is a different "shape."

I have noticed subtle changes in my body in just the past few weeks. My bras no longer fit (mainly the band part, unfortunately haha), my fingers swell a lot after salty meals (last night's Kung Pao probably didn't help!), I have odd darkened areas that I either never noticed or haven't been there, my hair seems to be getting curlier and more grey...sure I'll notice some more odd things soon! But by far the best things are feeling him kick around in my tummy! I had a nightmare the other night (no doubt from thinking about all Laura went through at this week in her first pregnancy) and the little guy kicked me HARD, which promptly woke me up. Thanks, Reid!

Here is a shot of Jason and me from our Valetine's dinner at Randy's Steakhouse. The meal ended up being sub par, but the company was great ;)

Hiccups?

Just in case you're wondering why on earth I'm blogging at this time in the morning, for the fourth time in his little life, I think Baby Boy Reid has the hiccups. Even though it's keeping me awake, it is just sooooo cute! :) The first time he had them, we were in church a week and a half ago. He's always very active on Sunday mornings (not sure if it's because he loves Chuck Swindoll's voice or if it's because I don't normally ever get to sit for more than a few minutes in a row during weekdays, so he's awake), but this time was a little bit different--he was really jumping. A few times even made me jump a bit! Finally, I determined he must have the hiccups because it was a rhythmic jump that hit me in the same areas nearly every time.

School today was like a page out of Stacey and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. C'mon...you remember that childhood book (albeit the real name in the book was Alexander...which I think is so funny since the character in the book says he thinks he wants to move to Australia...and my nephew Alex actually lives there!) where Alexander just has one bad thing happen after another, right? So my team has been teaching out of various rooms in our school building ever since last week's sewage backup--it's been rough, loud, and crazy. I'm sure the library will be more than happy to have their quiet space back tomorrow!! We had to pack/move ALL of our stuff last Thursday in a mad rush so they could rip out the carpet (mind you, ours in kinder had absolutely no damage, but thanks to the media it got all blown out of proportion so they made the decision to rip out the entire hallway "just in case") and buff the glue off of the floors over the weekend. Yesterday at 4pm--after an entire day of teaching, our things began getting delivered back to our classrooms. Being pregnant and unable to lift/move virtually anything, I called Jason to come home early and be my personal mover. Satisfied enough with the way things were (and ready to drop dead of exhaustion), we left at 6pm and called it a day. I figured today would be chaotic, but had no clue it would be sooooo bad... We found out that our closets had not even been touched--the flooring people decided to save that for the summer (translation: the majority of our stress and first move was pointless!). I went into my closet, kicked a few things, and had a nice cry so I wouldn't strangle someone!! We ended up with subs for a total of about two hours, but had no idea when they would come and then the communication lines got crossed about duties, etc. I'm very, very thankful we had help, but I guess we'd kind of erroneously assumed we'd have about four hours like we did last week. So every spare moment was spent madly throwing things back into their places (or begging someone to do it for me on the things I was afraid to do)...and then on top of that we had a Specials schedule change due to an assembly at the end of the day. NOT the best day!!! Hopefully tomorrow will be better...can't believe it will only be Wednesday, sigh... This week has already lasted an eternity!

The Week from Hell

Yes, if you've been watching any Dallas news lately, that is indeed my school--Bennett Elementary--who had the sewage leak on Monday. Thanks to a clog on the City of McKinney's part, our toilets backed up on Monday at about 10:15am. The hallway leading down to the kindergarten pod had some seeping under walls, but first grade and STC got hit the hardest. Kinder was lucky (or so we thought...until today's drama) b/c it only came up a tiny bit in our bathroom drains...and it was completely contained to the tile in our bathrooms.

We were forced to pack up the kids and relocate to the cafeteria so we wouldn't be exposed to the fumes (or risk stepping in it while in the hallway). Monday was already crazy thanks to my first attempt at istation in the computer lab that morning...translated, "How quickly can you log on 17 kindergarteners TWO TIMES in the matter of an hour?" and then our modified Specials schedule thanks to the rescheduled Valentine's parties due to Friday being a snow day. Little did we know the drama was just beginning! On Tuesday morning, we got to school and had to cart everything we'd need for the day up to the library, where all five classes would somehow be squished in among the bookshelves. Every time I thought I was done, there'd be five more things I needed for teaching that day's lessons. Then we found out we'd be there Wednesday....and Thursday...

Fast forward to this morning... Faculty meeting at 8am. Surprise...ALL carpet from the entire hallway leading to kinder AND the kinder pod are having the carpets ripped out. So...we have to have our classrooms packed up and moved by 5pm. Needless to say, the other Stacey on my team burst into tears (the rest of us were not far behind!!) and my blood pressure shot through the roof. (Good thing I put on extra deodorant this morning!!) Our wonderful Specials teachers arranged for us to have the kids in their classes first thing, our fantastic administration got us subs from 12 on, and many fabulous teachers (who weren't even technically involved) came down to help during their planning times and/or sent their husband/boyfriend to help. I was especially grateful since I'm not allowed to lift virtually anything I needed moved.

So one move down...many more to go. Basically, we had to pack up everything that didn't fit in cabinets or on top of counters, but keep access to anything needed in the next five weeks or so. On Monday evening, we'll have to unpack and move from our temporary library home back into our rooms (minus the carpet) until Spring break. Then we'll have to repack anything that doesn't fit in cabinets or on counters AGAIN while they carpet over the break, and we'll come back in that weekend to set up our classrooms in an attempt at normalsy for the remainder of the school year. Let's just say I am so incredibly exhausted that I'm about to go shower and crawl into bed!!! I can't believe it's not Friday yet...

Snow!!

Well, the DFW area officially got between 8"-12" inches of record-breaking snow yesterday and into last night! Needless to say, today is a snow day from school. Personally, I was hoping for a late start because our Valentine's Parties will be rescheduled for Monday afternoon and we'll be making the day up on Good Friday, which feels kind of sacrilegious to me... (Plus, our first field trip is the day before that...translated tired, cranky kids and teacher the next day) But I'll take a day off anytime ;)

Jason and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before he headed to work, and I've caught up on lots of things around the house, so my next big job is ordering our crib bedding...tough decision, but I'm going with http://www.modpeapod.com/ because the lady does and amazing job with custom sets. Now if I can just choose the designs and fabric...

Here are some snow pictures I took yesterday. They don't quite do it justice--everything is absolutely beautifully blanketed in sparkling, pristine white snow...something you never find in this part of Texas! Here is a picture from about 7am...we'd had about 2 inches at that point...

Our backyard, with the beautifully snow coated trees:

Front view of the house at 5:30pm, when we'd had about six inches or so (and notice the snow is still coming down pretty hard!):

We big kids had to play in the snow a bit ourselves! Jason made a snow Dixie and I couldn't resist the urge to toss the cats into the snow (we have hilarious video on the camcorder, but I'm not quite sure how to transfer it yet). Samson liked it, but was confused...big surprise...Dixie wasn't so fond of the cold, wet stuff.