Babymoon-Day 2

Day two of our babymoon found us sleeping in. Our hotel was lovely, but the atrium echoed EVERYthing up to our room. They make the a/c fans nice and quiet...which is great if you're a heavy sleeper, but we planned on that being our "noisemaker" to drown out everything else. Plus, having the drunk guys staying next door stagger in shouting and cursing at 3am didn't help matters. And that "spring ahead" time change...let's just say "ugh!"

So we lounged around in bed for awhile before heading over to Coal Vines for a delicious brunch. Again, had the camera but forgot to take pics before we dove in. Our Benedict pizza was yummy, the gourmet salads even yummier. We enjoyed our leisurely stay on the patio before heading over to the farmer's market to spend a couple hours wandering around to see what the farmers were peddling. Of course, there were little food stands and we had to try the elote' (roasted corn with mayo, sour cream, hot sauce, salt/pepper, lime, and parmesan cheese) followed by a snow cone to wash it down. Mmm...

We found a Japanese maple tree on sale for an amazing $50--perfect buy for our babymoon! We'd already discussed planting a tree in honor of Baby Boy, and we love Japanese maples, so this was perfect. We had them hold it until today, then wrangled it into the car for the trip home (short stop at Discount Tires when Jason discovered a large nail in the tire this morning!)

Belly shot of me before we went to dinner...I really think I had a growth spurt this weekend! (Could it be all the delicious food?!)


Both of us in front of the hotel during the LONG wait for our car from the valet (note to self...valets do not tend to have steady hands for picture taking). We ate at Taverna, a great little Italian place. Again, I was soooo excited about the food that we dove right in w/o remembering to take a pic :( Our focaccia with onion, toasted pine nuts, baby arugula, drizzled with olive oil and freshly ground pepper was FABulous! I enjoyed the lobster risotto and Jason had the tuna steak with balsamic glaze, and of course, the pregnant lady needed another creme brulee. Good thing I don't know how to make those or we'd have it every night!!

The "green building" of the Dallas skyline (don't know why, but I've always loved seeing that building)...

Babymoon-Day 1

With Spring Break here (finally!!), Jason and I decided we'd take a "babymoon" (like a honeymoon, but before the baby arrives) as all the books I'm reading and every new parent I know has advised. My parents had generously offered to let us use a week of their timeshare, but I guess everyone trades theirs in for this particular week (assumably must be lots of families also taking full advantage of Spring Break). We tried for anything near the hill country, outskirts of Dallas, or around Hot Springs, Arkansas...but to no avail. So we opted instead for a "staycation" rather than a full-blown vacation for several reasons...price, proximity to hospitals (just in case), and let's face it...I can't go long w/o a pee break these days!

Jason booked the Hyatt downtown for a few days, which was a great location--close to lots we could do. We started off at the Dallas Arboretum on Saturday afternoon. The weather was absolutely gorgeous...chilly with the wind off of the lake, but nice and warm in the sunshine. Many things were already in full bloom (which wasn't good for the allergies...why does that always happen at the prettiest times of the year?) and we enjoyed each moment.

After the arboretum, we had a little time to kill and drove around to see some of the madness of the St. Patty's Day parade over in the Lower Greenville area (funny!). We checked into our hotel amidst the hubub of all the runners of a big 1/2 marathon going on Sunday morning. After enjoying a leisurely nap, snack, and shower, we dressed and attempted to find The Grape, our venue for that evening's dinner. I say attempted b/c it was mass chaos--Greenville was still closed down from the St. Patty's Day festivities...I'd have to say it was the most beer bottles, trash, and general nastiness I've seen this side of New Orleans. We had to find a back way to the restaurant but made it just in time for our reservations. I'm soooo mad I didn't take pictures of the food (what kind of foodie AM I??) because its presentation was just as delightful as it was delicious. We shared flammekeuchen, an Alsacian pizza-type dish we haven't had since our trip to Germany. Each of us had a delicious salad, then I enjoyed the grilled salmon atop a parmesan risotto with spicy baked pita wedges while Jason opted for a barbeque type pork butt with spicy jalapeno slaw. To top it all off, we ordered the creme brulee, of course! Everything was absolutely delicious!! Here we are, outside The Grape restaurant/wine bar:

Feet?

I noticed for the first time, as I looked down in the shower the other day, that I can no longer see my feet! It's kind of funny...I know they're there, but I have to move in order to see 'em now. Which does make me realize I really need to be holding onto rails when going up/down the stairs (Jason is always very sweet to remind me of this) and I need to be aware of where our "special" cat (this is truly said with love--he is truly...um...unique?) Samson is at all times because he tends to be a sucker for punishment and is always underfoot. Since I have to wear the oh-so-lovely compresion stockings everyday, it's gotten to be quite interesting attempting to put those on. And I realized today that I have NO close-toed shoes (that don't have 3" heels) to wear with them. Is it bad to cut out the toes on one pair so I can wear flip flops every day like I normally do from spring to fall??

Jason lovingly refers to Baby Boy as "our little tub of ice cream." Most of you know that my sweet tooth all but disappeared after coming back from Germany years ago with some kind of stomach parasite (which you think you'd get from a 3rd world country, not there!). That summer, I lost like 10 lbs and couldn't stand sweets any longer. During my first trimester, I tended to want dill pickles every single day (plus the only other things that sounded non-pukey were any kind of potatoes and most carbs). This trimester, I'd have to say ice cream tops the list (but cupcakes, cookies, chocolate, and other sweet goodies can be equally as tempting!). We have a variety in the freezer (gotta buy it when it's on sale, right?) b/c you never know what might sound the best. but my number one choice is Blue Bell homemade vanilla, but my other latest fave (aside from homemade vanilla on top of an ooey-gooey piece of brownie or chocolate cake, which we had to have twice last week!) is the Kroger brand ice cream, cherry burgundy flavor. Mmmm...on that note, I'm off to the kitchen ;)

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.