Good weekend!

What a nice weekend we had!  Friday night my good friend Alisa was in town with her husband Ryan and son Owen.  We visited them this past February and it was so fun to get to see them again in such a short amount of time!  We hung out at our house and then went out to dinner once Matt got home from work.

We then drove only two hours away to see our friend Dale and Jamee and they are now living closer to us (they used to live four hours away).  We saw their nice new house, sat out on the porch during a lovely cool evening and hung out with their daughter Lilli. We told Lilli I have a baby in my belly and she would stop her playing randomly, point to my stomach and then say softly "baby in there".

Dale and Lilli playing "airplane!" 

It was a great weekend seeing good friends.

I have started prenatal yoga and plan to go as much as I can over the next three weeks!

Well, that was nice...

I was at Target a few days ago with my hair in a pony tail (I don't tempt the humidity or heat with doing my hair on these hot summer days) and workout clothes (shorts and a t-shirt) and I noticed this woman probably in her early fourties walking with her young child near me.  I could feel her staring at me but just walked past her, before I made it too far away she quickly said "You look so cute!"  I kind of let out a surprised laugh and then said "Well, thank you!"  I shared this with my husband and a good girlfriend who had her son a few months ago.. we all decided it was definitely the best thing you can say to a woman who is 7 months pregnant.  It is still very surprising the rude things people tend to say (whether they mean well or not) but when someone goes out of her way just to say something sweet.  Well, that was nice!

I think we need to feel free to say more nice things to one another, especially if you can tell someone is not having a good day, or if you happen to notice they are carrying a child.  I now see pregnant ladies everywhere I go and sometimes will smile at them recognizing that they may smile back acknowledging the club we are now apart of together, or they might just look at me like a crazy lady.  Either way, it's the small things that help make ya feel good on hot, tiring days.

What the what...(some light reading)

So my full time job is kind of in limbo at the moment, our program has it's funding until September and with any luck we will get "renewed" for the next three years however that is not looking great.  One of our sister programs has already been completely cut and ends in July.  22 employees in another program were let go last week   Needless to say I am not feeling that secure at my current position, and more than anything I am focused on how we can best provide for our daughter that will join our lives in September with or without this job I have now.  Yesterday I went to a big event called "Get Motivated", the billboards advertise the many faces that may appear when they tour your city including; Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Laura Bush, John Walsh, Joe Montana, Steve Forbes, and Bill Cosby (a few others but I don't feel like looking up their names as I forgot, but just think rich old white guy and you're set).  The arena was packed full of business people likely seeking a free training opportunity as myself and a few co-workers were.  The original price of these tickets was $235.  For real.  Thankfully they rethought that ridiculous idea and gave a ton of free tickets away, and apparently charged $2 bucks for the rest of them.  I think they realized it was more important to have butts in the seat rather than hold out until some goofball actually paid over two hundred dollars to go to this weird, weird event.

An old white guy started the day sharing stories of his success and different ways he has made money in the business world.  Next confetti covered the stage as Rudy Giuliani greeted us all and strategically dodged the confetti pieces from letting them cover his mouth.  His first comment was how the confetti reminded him of his dark days in New York with the endless amounts of snow and how he was blamed for the snow.  Next Laura Bush posed behind her podium as she updated us all on her family and their whereabouts. Mrs. Bush then went straight to recounting some of her memories from 9/11 and then right to the end of her husband's presidency.  She said she got frustrated by the "cowboy caricature" her husband was made out to be.  And discussed a few of the countries she was happy she had the chance to visit.  A few questions ran through my mind while she was on stage... 1. Why is she speaking at a "Get Motivated" event?  2. Why is 9/11 the only thing she felt was worth mentioning throughout her husband's 8 year run as president?  Truly between Rudy and Laura I haven't heard the words 9/11 so much.  3. Why does she say Uganda like "U-Gan (as in Can)- duh".  And finally, 4. There was no other female presenter they could find for this event?  I mean really.  She was the only woman out of the ten speakers and she wasn't even speaking on her own legacy but her husband's.
About an hour and a half later streamers fall from the sky and they start blasting the song "Livin in America" as Colin Powell takes the stage.  I felt like I was in a very cheesy and kinda creepy convention from the movie Yes Man.  Mr. Powell gave a great speech and seemed like a much more welcoming leader and representative of America compared to the first three presenters. 
After spending $9.25 on two tiny bottles of water and a decent muffin, a very weird guy came up on the stage.  He was over the top preachy and opinionated, so much so that you could tell he loved offending half the crowd.  He was a perfect mixture of Dana Carvey's the Church lady because he said "you know where those temptations come from?  .... SATAN!" (I swear he said that).  And Dane Cook because he would crawl and bounce around the stage like a dang monkey.  He even kicked off one of the mum plants to prove a point of wildness.  Also he said things like "dig this" and "this is really major"  I even heard him address us all as "homes".  Next he was a sleazy car salesman because he real goal was to have us buy a ticket to a three day opportunity to learn how to "find our purpose" and "buy property".  What if we had no desire to buy property you ask?  He didn't care.  In fact, you are an idiot if you don't want to buy property! 

It was kind of interesting seeing all of these people in person, even Mr. Cosby who looked old and fragile but still had his pudding face eye rolling charm as you'd hope.  Colin Powell had much more personality then we have ever seen on t.v. (I guess that makes sense considering his role in the U.S. government).  Did I leave with any new information or extra motivation which I am guessing was the point of the training?  No.  Did I entertain myself by observing and taking in the weirdness of it all.  Clearly.

Good day

The weather the past few days has been crazy and it is so hard seeing the devastation of towns nearby that were hard hit by tornadoes.  Yesterday the sirens went off in our neighborhood for about an hour and I found myself sitting in the basement keeping the dogs from running back up the stairs to check out what was going on outside. A nearby neighbor's house caught a small fire on the front room of their house and three fire trucks were in our street trying to resolve that issue, we also lost power.  Needless to say my stomach hurt a little bit after that long day of stressful weather but obviously we are very thankful to see the sun today.

The sky is blue and it's 68 degrees out right now.  I was home and just started to make myself some lunch when Matthew called me and invited me to lunch with him.  It was such a pleasant surprise.  Usually Matt is too busy during the day to take much of a lunch and he has invited me in the past right after I already ate.  Today it worked out perfectly.  I put everything back in the fridge to save for later and drove to Matt's work and picked him up.  We went down town to a lovely gourmet pizza joint we had never been to and got to sit outside with their huge restaurant wall up, feeling the cool breeze through out our entire meal.  We got a very flavorful, healthy pizza and then the most delicious tiramisu we had ever ate.  Eatened?  Ate.  Who knows, the point is... this was a good day.

The baby's room...

Look at that handsome daddy-to-be getting the crib all ready to go.  Matt has been on house project mode and I can't thank him enough for all of his hard work and dedication at improving our house as best we can for our little one.

Jax is not thrilled to be kicked out of the only room in the house with carpet.  But don't worry, he has a big fluffy bed to lay on, and I know he is going to be a great friend to our girl.

This is the almost finished product!  I am going to add beautiful big red window shades that will add another pop of color and darkness for those bright afternoon naps, also I can just push them to the side and let the sun shine in.  The 5 animal painted canvas' are courtesy of my mom, the art teacher.

These two are my favorite... our dogs, of course!  They sure are cute!

I LOVE this corner of the room.  Our lovely rocker, that my mom and Steve got for us and the start to our baby's book collection.  We have some books from when we were kids, plus the new books my softball girls gave us.

Also a beautiful knitted hat for our girl to wear during her first winter.  The purple hat (in the box on the right) has white clouds on it and my brother-in-law's mom made it!

Also, I stayed up till midnight on Friday baking peanut butter cookies and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. Woah are they good.  Turns out it's dangerous having that many cookies near a pregnant lady.

I feel a big sigh of relief now that we have our girl's room looking more and more like her room.  The to do list is still around and every week if not every day we have something new to take care of, but I will say through it all (even the days I don't feel so great) we are just. so. excited!  Last night little girl was moving and grooving so much it woke me up.  It is amazing to be able to feel her move so much, I know she will be an active little one for sure.  Thanks for stopping by my blog!

10 things that make me happy today

10. Our dog Jaxon, that guy is ALWAYS up for playing and I think it is very cute.  He could just be waking up, exhausted from a walk, or just chillin and if you go at him like you want to play, he shoots up and immediately finds a toy we can play with.  So cute.

9.  SUNSHINE.  We had a perfectly sunny, big puffy clouds kind of day yesterday and the next week is supposed to be about the same 70 degree weather.

8.  Feeling healthy.  At the end of the day I usually need to ice my neck because it gets sore throughout the day but overall I have felt physically great during this pregnancy and I pray that continues...

7.  Peanut butter toast and barbeque chips.  Still one of my favorite things to eat, and I do every day.

6.  Hugs.  How fluffy does that sound? I don't care.  I love coming home and look forward to the hugs I get from my husband and our dogs.  Yes, I hug our dogs.

5.  The Office.  We have netflix and if nothing is on t.v. (which usually nothing is) then I turn on netflix and go to the trusty old episodes of The Office.

4.  Tina Fey.  I love her, duh.  But she is hosting SNL on May 7th and I just saw the preview where she is behind a wind machine and said she is going to show how "hot pregnant women can be" or something along those lines... as she raises her shirt to show you part of her maternity pants that she has on (because she actually is pregnant).  I find her humor very refreshing and oddly close to what I find most funny.

3.  My nephew Ashton!  Of course I could list all of my family members on this list, but seriously this kid is so full of smiles I just can't get enough of seeing his little chubby ADORABLE face.  Every time you make eye contact with him he smiles!  And his smile will brighten any kind of day.

2.  Working from home.  I usually stay in my pj's or workout clothes until I have a meeting or am forced out on an errand and since becoming pregnant I have appreciated this comfort more than ever. 

1.  The farmer's market.  One near our house just opened up last Saturday and I bought fresh lettuce and basil and although I still need to plant them in a pot, we have already enjoyed using them in a few dinners.  So good!

Girl stuff!

Check out all these girlie clothes!  I've heard that many new moms will buy their child a special outfit (or at least something "girl" or "boy") once they find out the gender.  Last Wednesday we found out we are having a girl!  Wednesday night my mom and sister went to a consignment sale for baby stuff and hit the jackpot of affordable clothes.  I then went home with a bag full of girl clothes (not to mention some pants and two dresses for me). 
Today I went out to lunch with my good friend Ashleigh and we went to two cute baby stores.  I decided it was time I buy something for our girl, and I love the new stuff we have!   I bought those two little new born hats, aren't they adorable?!  I bought the two yellow onesies and two long sleeve striped shirts.  And the other outfits are just an example of the big bag of goodies my mom found at the consignment shop.  And the head band is from my friend Alisa!  Our nursery is not even close to being ready, but I know it will be great to get a new dresser for her, and then to start filling it with all of these cute clothes!