3-Day Weekend

I am so glad it is the weekend, and a 3-day weekend on top of that! We slept way late this morning, and when I did get up it was only to fry up some cube steaks to put in the crockpot for dinner tonight. Then I got back in bed. :) Once I finally got around to eating some lunch and getting dressed, I went outside to pull some weeds from the front flower bed. May I please say, I hate crab grass! We have a couple of plants out front that the crab grass had just like taken over. Luckily, after Anthony took the trash to the dump, he helped me with that. That stuff is so ridiculous... I think it should be called cancer grass, since it spreads and takes over like cancer. Stupid stuff. But I "think" we got it all, all that was taking over those two plants at least. So hopefully it will stay away from those now. Now I am beat from sitting out in the sun doing that. I need to clean the bathroom, vacuum, and do laundry, but it will be there when I'm ready, right?

I sent in our registration for the childbirth preparation series class at AMC this week. We are going to do it in November. Really, according to what they say, we should be doing it in October, but that didn't work out. There are 4 consecutive Monday evening classes, and Anthony will have quiz bowl meets he has to be at every Monday evening in October, so I didn't want to do every week without him. He will still have meets in October, but he and the other coach will be taking turns going to meets by November. I think there is also one Tuesday, one Wednesday, and one Thursday meeting as well, for a total of 7 meetings. So on the couple Mondays Anthony can't go, Ashley is going to go with me. So I'm looking forward to that, although it's still 2 months away. At least we have that taken care of now.

Last night we went to Chili's for dinner and had free chips & salsa and free wings! In case you didn't know, you can get those for free on weekdays before 7 I believe. So when we go to Chili's we always go on a Friday so we can get the free stuff! After eating we went to Walmart to make a registry there, with intentions of putting a few things on it that we couldn't find/didn't like at Target. One of those things was a crib, but there was nothing at Walmart to satisfy me either. So apparently, that's not going to be going on a registry! We'll have to go somewhere else and find one I guess. We also got groceries and then headed home and stopped at Sonic to get some slushies! I love strawberry fresh fruit slushes from Sonic!

As far as baby news goes, tomorrow I'll be 24 weeks, so I'm in my 6th month now. I was just thinking the other day, that in a few days it will be September, and then I'll be able to say I'll be having the baby in 3 months.... yikes! Exciting of course, but also scary. I'm still feeling her move a lot, and sometimes the movement can be felt from the outside. I've tried having Anthony feel a few times, but I think he's not convinced he has felt it yet. That will be fun, when he knows for sure that he can feel her. I just can't wait to see what she looks like, will she look more like me or Anthony? What color will her hair be? Will she have freckles like her daddy? Etc, etc. I still have moments where I can't believe I am pregnant. I wish I could relive that morning where I took the pregnancy test, or just watch a video of myself. I was just in such shock. I thought sure it would be negative but just needed to know for sure so I would stop wondering. And there it was, two pink lines. Pregnancy is just such a miracle!

Well, I think I'm done being sentimental now, haha. Maybe I'll try to convince myself to get up off the couch and do something productive... or maybe not. :)

Top 10 - Stolen from Courtney

1. Favorite movie- maybe The Notebook, also love Dumb & Dumber
2. Favorite TV show- Survivor
3. Favorite music- contemporary Christian mostly
4. Favorite color- blue
5. Favorite food- don't I look like it's all my favorite?? cheese fries comes to mind at the moment
6. Favorite Bible verse- I don't know that I have one favorite verse, the one that is probably most meaningful to me lately is 1 Samuel 1:27 - "for this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him"
7. Favorite store- Maurices
8. Favorite animal- anything little mostly, puppies, kittens :)
9. Favorite article of clothing- lounge pants!
10. Favorite season- summer I think, I'm excited about fall though

Getting Old

Almost the weekend! Thank goodness. And even better, it's a 3-day weekend. I'm so looking forward to sleeping in on Monday morning and doing whatever we feel like. It's been a pretty uneventful week. I started washing and putting away baby clothes. We already have more clothes than we can handle, which is amazing, thanks Ash and Zoe!

Funny random story for the day.... a few weeks ago I got a membership offer for AARP in the mail. And then just the other day, I got an overview type thing of my social security eligibility and benefits type thing. What is going on here? Apparently you get ready to bring a child into the world and you are suddenly old or something! Can't wait to see what's next. :)

We took more belly pictures tonight so I will post those when I get a chance. Now it's time for me to get a foot rub from my wonderful hubby! :)

Week Update and Baby Registry

Okay, time for another update, and it's not even been 2 weeks since my last! Haha.

This week was super busy, but good. Anthony started school on Wednesday and has broken up two fights already! They ought to pay him an allowance for every fight he breaks up. :) We had our food show on Wednesday which was good and pretty sucessful I think. I was exhausted when I got home and we skipped church. :( Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do I guess. Thursday and Friday were spent catching up and doing food show follow up, so those days went by fast for me.

Last night (Friday) I made Italian stew for dinner and then, we were late owls again for the second Friday in a row and Ashley came to pick us up to get ice cream with her and Zoe. That was fun and yummy of course, and then we came back here and colored for a little bit till they headed home.

This morning we slept in, which was wonderful! Then Anthony finished up on the ramp for the shed, which I will put up a picture of once I get around to it. I vacuumed and relaxed a little bit. Then we had Mexican for lunch. After lunch we went to Kohl's and use the $10 off card I got in the mail. We got Anthony a dress shirt for school for $6 and we had to find something else to put us over the $10 mark, so we got a little sundress for Bailey in the summer, which Anthony picked out. So after we got our $10 off we had to pay a whopping $1.26! I love getting those cards and it makes me feel so good like we beat the system, cause there is no way they made any money off of us today! After Kohl's we went and made our baby registry at Target. That was a lot of fun, and I'm glad we have that done now. There were a few things I couldn't find at Target to put on the registry, so I think we will make one at Walmart as well.

Also, I have been meaning to blog about this, but keep forgetting every time. Anthony is going to be starting grad school in September with South Dakota State University. Everything will be through their distance learning program and he will be doing his masters in mathematics. He chose this school because they are one of the only schools that offers this program through distance learning. He is taking two classes this semester and we'll see how that goes as far as what he is able to handle time wise and go from there for future semesters. Hopefully it won't be too hard so he can get through this and get paid more! :)

Well, I'm going to go make some peanut butter bars for our lifegroup tomorrow evening. It is our last one for the financial peace series so we are all bringing food!

Prayer Please! :)

Just a quick little note.... I just applied for an online teaching job, so please pray that I might be contacted about it. It would be so nice to be able to do something like that so I wouldn't have to work outside our home at all!

Indiana Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our trip to Indiana...


Anthony and my cousin's little girl, Makayla. He was trying to teach her how to play piano.

















Anthony and Makayla playing together... all kids everywhere love Anthony! He is going to be a great dad. :)

















Anthony & I on a walk near my aunt's house. I think the house in the background is the house that my mom was raised in, my grandparent's old farmhouse. I can't remember what direction we took this picture in, so I'm not 100% sure, but there's only so many houses out there in the midst of all the corn and bean fields! :)

















And, Anthony & I in a corn field!

Proof.....

Okay folks.... here is my proof that I am pregnant, unless the ultrasound pictures weren't enough, haha.


This was taken at 16 weeks, I think, which was 6 weeks ago. This was when I was just starting to be able to tell my belly was growing a little bit. I hate this picture, because I hate how fat I am, but I felt like it needed to be here for comparison's sake.























And this was taken today, at 22 weeks, 1 day. Wowsers! I can hardly believe it when I look at the picture! I don't feel like I have that much baby belly, but apparently I do. Sorry, no pictures of the progression in between. I've been a slacker with the pictures... hmm that sounds familiar... slacker with pictures, slacker with blogging... I must be a slacker in general! :) Anyways, here it is, so enjoy.

School Time Already?!

I am such a blogging slacker lately! I guess I'm just busy enjoying life and don't have the energy to do it when I come across the time. So this will just be a quick recap.

Last weekend, we went to Anthony's parents for the weekend. On Saturday we had Brynn's baby shower and the guys went to Chris's house to play video games. We had a good weekend and of course it's always nice to spend time with Anthony's family.

Had a good week, and it went pretty fast. We were both so glad to finally have a weekend at home! We have been busy/gone the past few weekends and were in desperate need of a weekend at home. Friday we actually went out after 8:00 and got movies and ice cream! We never go out that late! Haha. We are such old people. But it was a fun little adventure. Saturday morning I went to yardsales with Ashley and got some baby clothes. We always have fun going to yard sales together. Once I got home we went out to Lowe's to get stuff for Anthony to work on the ramp for the shed. We also made our Walmart trip and ate a late lunch at Applebees. When we got home Anthony worked on the ramp and I cleaned and did laundry.

Today we had church and went to Mom's of course. Ashley and I went through the 0-3 and 3-6 months tubs of clothes. We sorted a little bit and oohed and ahhed and reminisced over remembering Zoe in those clothes. So we brought home 3 big tubs full of clothes! Yay! After we finshed sorting we went outside to watch Zoe ride her bike but I ended up teaching her how to play "Mother May I?". She had a blast and we had a good time. She is so much fun to watch and play with. She just loves Anthony and laughs so hard at him.

Now, on to the week ahead. It's going to be a busy one - yikes! We have our food show on Wednesday so Monday and Tuesday will be spent getting ready for that. It will be a long day but I will be sitting, manning the "bank" most of the day, so that is good for me. Also, Anthony will start school on Wednesday. He is mostly ready and hopefully this will be a good year for him. Then on Thursday, we have the ultrasound! So we'll (hopefully) discover for sure that it is a girl, since that's what we've (I've) been planning for! We are very excited about that. Next weekend, we'll make our registry, so that should be fun.

Well, a few Oreos are calling my name, so I will get to those before bedtime rolls around. Oh and I meant to mention that the baby has been moving a lot more! It's so fun to feel *her* moving all around and I can't wait till Anthony can feel it too!

Halfway Mark & Update!

Well, I am half way through my pregnancy now! I can't believe it. A stranger probably wouldn't know I was pregnant still, but those who know me or see me any amount of time would be able to tell. I can definitely tell at this point. Us "big" girls take a little longer to show, haha! It has been a learning experience though, I didn't realize that I could be half way there and not be majorly showing. I am enjoying each day though. Yesterday, I definitely felt the baby move, kicking I am guessing. Last week, when I was laying down at night, there were a few times I thought I might have felt it, but I wasn't sure. But yesterday morning, at work, sitting at my desk, it was unmistakeable. It was so cool and I can't wait to feel it again and more frequently! It just brings back the realization of what a miracle pregnancy is. It's so strange, but amazing, to think that there is a little person, that Anthony and I created (with God's assistance of course!) growing inside of me! What an amazing Creator we have. I will probably put belly pictures up before too long. :)

Last week we had a great time in Indiana. We spent a lot of time with family and also got to relax a lot. One day I took 2 naps! :) It was so nice not to have any responsibility or anything to worry about for a week. I was cooked for, and my wonderful mom did our laundry, so it was great! The fam had a little baby shower for me, which was great! We got spoiled. :)

After we left Indiana on Friday, we stopped in Ohio and stayed overnight so we could get some outlet shopping in. I got some great deals at Motherhood Maternity and it was a nice break from driving. We got home Saturday afternoon. When we got to Mom's, Zoe was so glad to see us! A little while after we got home, she said to me "Tara, I love you." It was so sweet cause it was just random so you just knew it was from her heart. Then a little while later she said, "Tara, I love Anthony." She is so sweet! I love having a niece. :)

Sunday afternoon, after church and lunch Anthony and I ran some errands and went to Target and bought our car seat/stroller travel system. We got the Graco Passage in the Melbourne pattern. It was on sale (yay!) and from what I understand the SnugFit car seat, I believe, was the only or one of the only seats to pass all of the Consumer Reports tests. So our baby should be super safe. :) It was really exciting to buy that, and I am even more excited to make our registry (if we can ever get a free weekend, that is!).

I am sure there was more I wanted to update about, but I can't keep track of it all! I will post some pictures from Indiana once I get them on the computer.