Yesterday

Woke up at 2am-- threw up twice. Paced the house, drinking 7up & eating saltines to calm my tummy down.

Fell asleep on the couch. Woke up late with a pounding stress headache.

Sobbed in the shower because I was so overwhelmed with everything that I needed to get done that day.

Got to school-- still planning the day when the bell rang. As a result, nothing ran very smoothly at all.

School's out- tried to write sub plans in 1 hour. Didn't make it-- I took 1 1/2 hours- and the plans weren't very good.

Cried as I drove to my Reading class (I was 1/2 hour late).

Fought back tears as I tried to focus on class & not think about the hours of unfinished homework due in my ESL class the next day.

After Reading Endorsement class, ran to primary presidency meeting (I'm the new 2nd counselor!).

Got home . . . and suddenly everything was better: Our baby bedding had arrived in the mail! Brian had all the boxes set up with a loaf of pumpkin bread (one of my favorite treats). I smiled for the first time that day as we set up the bedding in our crib, admired it for about 2 minutes, ate a slice of pumpkin bread . . . then sat down to work on our homework before going to bed.
I'm doing much better today. =)

Silly Brian

Yes, that is a giant pile of sunflower seed shells.

My husband loves sunflower seeds--- specifically, Zotes Salt & Pepper-flavored sunflower seeds. He orders them by the case from the manufacturer on a monthly basis. (On a sad note, they just went out of business-- but that's another story).

Anyway, about 4 months ago, Brian came up with this brilliant idea-- instead of throwing away all those shells that he goes through, he should save them!! Yes, he should save them in gallon-sized ziploc bags! And then, when he's saved all he can, we will go to the drive-in movies and dump them out by our car. The best part of this plan was the knowledge that some guy will come the next day to clean up and say, "What the heck?!"

Of course, being the super-supportive wife that I am, we saved and saved. At first, he kept the bags in our pantry and I became a little less supportive. Then the bags were moved to a storage closet. By the end, he had 8 gallons of sunflower seed shells. It was time.

We went to the drive-in movie on Friday. It was a double-feature, but we only stayed for one. Before we left, Brian dumped his collection out by our car. We took pictures and jumped in the car to go home. I was feeling sad that Brian could only imagine people's reactions to his 4-month project. BUT we were blessed. As we were pulling away with our windows rolled down, a teenage girl walked by staring at the pile open-mouthed and exclaimed, "What the heck?!" There it was. Totally worth it!

It's a . . .

BOY!!!

We are so excited! Immediately after our ultrasound, we went shopping-- nothing huge, but we were just so excited that we could finally start buying gender-specific items!! Here are the beginnings of our new baby boy's wardrobe:

Moving Down

Tomorrow is my first "official" day back at school. I am now a 1st grade teacher! For the last 4 years, I've been teaching 2nd grade and loving it. But due to some changes being made at my school, I was given the choice of moving to 1st grade or doing a 1st/2nd split. The decision was pretty obvious to me!I spent the last month packing up my old room and moving to my new one. I'm a very slow cleaner & organizer-- but luckily Brian came with me today and gave me time limits to finish cleaning. Anything I didn't file or put away in it's place before my time was up, he actually threw away! That was pretty motivating! I'll have to have him come in regularly to keep me from piling things up!

Our back-to-school theme is from the book, "If you give a mouse a cookie." I had so much fun making my bulletin board-- the decorating is one of my favorite parts of teaching. At back to school night, I'm going to have a treat table with milk & cookies. So much fun!!

The Suite Life

Yesterday, I went shopping with my mother-in-law, Bev, and my niece, Kaylee.

Bev told me that as they were driving up to my condo to pick me up, Kaylee said in amazement, "Brian and Dana still live in this hotel?" I can't decide if she was thinking we were too pathetic to buy a house or too cool to move out of our hotel suite!

(this was the only pic i could find to show off our 3-story condo/hotel)

I tagged along as Bev took Kaylee to Build-A-Bear to celebrate her upcoming birthday. This was my very first time seeing this store. It was amazing! Being pregnant, I couldn't help comparing the Build-A-Bear shop to my own Build-A-Baby experience. The biggest difference I could see is that the kids are happy and energetic as they build their bears. I, on the other hand, get to feel nausea, fatigue, sore muscles, dehydration, emotional breakdowns, and weight-gain as my baby is being "built." Oh, and of course there's that small difference where a baby is way better than a bear! =)After Build-A-Bear we got some lunch and did a little shopping. I got a couple new maternity outfits to start the school year off. Who says you're ever too old to shop for new school clothes?! Kaylee and I were both spoiled-- thank you Bev!

Beautiful New Niece!

We're headed out of town for the weekend. But before we do, I want to introduce my newest niece (and the only one on my side of the family): Olivia Clara Smith!!

Picture stolen from my sister's blog.

I haven't gotten to see her at all yet (Texas is a pretty far drive), but I'm already smitten! She's one week old and because she wasn't actually due until September, she only weighed 2 lb 11 oz at birth. My older sister is amazing and though I'm going to miss 'being pregnant' together, I'm thrilled to have my brand new niece!

Pool Party, Anyone?

The HOA company for our condos went bankrupt and I think they're in the process of transferring our account to another company . . . I think. Something like that! I don't really know what's going on except that our pool now looks like this:

Wouldn't you love to jump into that on a hot summer day?!!