Birthday 29

Yesterday was the kick-off to my 29th year and it was one stellar kick-off if I do say so myself. I had an absolutely beautiful day.

But to rewind back to the week before the b-day, I was lucky enough to start my celebrations with flowers from my dad and a delicious family dinner made by my momma while we were at my parents' house last Sunday. For real - her twice baked potatoes will knock you out of your shoes. I didn't have my camera with me, dangit, but the company and food were lovely. We left full and happy with a small mountain of Mandarin Orange cake with Pineapple Cool Whip icing. Thank you family!

Fast forward to yesterday and we have a special day of texts and facebook messages and phone calls and lots of love. We also have a day of Matt being his super adorable self. He planned a whole day of surprises fit for a queen! First, he visited me at school during my lunch break so we could eat together. Then I met up with him again after work for dinner. I thought we were going to the very nice Sophia's, but he had made other plans! The sly dog - he took me to CC's City Broiler for dinner! I know this might not mean much to people who don't know my town, but after 11 years of living here, I have never once found a reason to go out for such a swanky dinner. We sat down among the glassware and white linen tables like children at the adult table. We've shared plenty of fancy restaurant meals before, but because I've always, always, always wanted to eat at this particular place the excitement I felt was like the pleasant torture of waiting for Santa to make some noise on the rooftop.

Anyway. The house chop salad has been touted my all who enter as the best in town. Hands down, this is the truest of statements. From the bowl actually formed from cucumber slices to the housemade dressing, this salad has my full approval. Best. In. Town. We moved from salad and the best sourdough bread Matt has ever eaten to our main entrees - the Surf and Sirloin. Insert angelic music here because I don't have words to describe these melt-in-your-mouth delicacies. Sirloin steak with herbed butter. Beer battered lobster tail. Angels singing. Seriously. Even the baked potato (baked in rock salt so as to hold the moisture, dontcha know) was above my expectations. It was the best meal I have ever eaten. What a great surprise. Thank you, Matt Foster!

[ A dark phone picture of us at CC's. Full and happy.]

After dinner, Matt took me to one of my favorite coffee shops/bakeries to play Scrabble. We sat for almost three hours and battled it out, word after word. What a fun date and a way for us to chat during this busy, busy, busy season of basketball refereeing and other work. It was perfect. Around 10:00pm we packed up our letter tiles and made for home. Sleep has been eluding me lately, but last night it was not as bad as normal. Thank you biology!

What a wonderful birthday full of friends and family and gifts and food and games and my love. Thank you everyone!

Girl Power

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! It's a girl!!!

At our 20 week appointment, we learned that our girl is just that - a girl! Her stats as of right now are these:

Weight: 12 ounces

Belly Measurement: 55th percentile

Hearbeat: 154 bpm

Gender: GIRL

Special tricks: flipping, toe-touching, waving and thumb-sucking (all caught on camera!)

We are over the moon excited to say "she" instead of "it" and "her" instead of "the fetus." :-)

Here, I reluctantly post a 20 week picture update....

Guest Room Makeover - Phase I

Now that we'll soon have a little person who needs a room to call his or her own, we've finally started the makeover we've been thinking about for a long time. Our guest room has been in shambles since we moved in. No excuses - just lots of indecision mixed with some laziness.

Sorry for the fuzzy photo of the room overall. This doozy of a shot is from the doorway. Since moving in two and half years ago, this room changes appearance depending on what we are currently storing in it. Most often, on the bed one can find a pile of my clean laundry waiting to be folded. Based on this photo, here's what we'd like to change no matter who is living in this room:

1. The wobbly and outdated ceiling fan has got to go - we'd like to add a fun punch of color with a repurposed chandelier.
2. The room needs a cohesive feel with new bedding, art and window treatments - long overdue.
3. Above all, the two tone wall color and Winnie the Pooh wallpaper border must change.

Photo taken by standing in front of the window.

The dreaded Pooh paper.....

And now that we're focused on this room as a child's room, not much has changed from our original vision. We were always going to incorporate pops of yellow and we continue to have yellow in our plan. We've settled on soft gray walls and have taken a maiden trip to the hardware store to pick up some swatches.

We started with quite a pile and ended with two - the one on the left is Matt's favorite and the one on the right is mine. Admittedly there's not much difference and even that subtlety is hardly noticeable in photographs. Our plan is to take these two to the store and have them color-matched to a low VOC paint with less fume-action. We'll take their advice about how these two will turn out on the wall.

Other than paint, we're airing out our new (old) dresser! We found it at Itchy's Flea Market when we stopped by on a whim. Not expecting to find anything at all that day, we were so excited to find exactly what we had in mind for a dresser/storage/changing table piece of furniture! It's from the 1950's and is made of solid wood. It has dovetailed joints and all of the hardware is sturdy and in great condition. The mirror that attaches to the back is totally secure and in great shape. And the price.....it was the best we've seen! Like any old piece of furniture, it has a "flea-market-ish" smell. So we're airing out the drawers and plan to use some vinegar/baking soda/Murphy's Oil soap to aid our efforts soon.

The mirror is unattached and leaning against the mattress and platform from our guest bed - now homeless.

We still have up our old brown, light blocking grommet curtains, but we've purchased some material for some new window treatments that should really brighten up the room. More on that after they are finished.

After examining the curtain rod, we decided to leave up these dull but functional rods because they provide us with the opportunity to hang a light blocking panel behind my handmade curtains later if we need to.

There you have it. Phase one. Room still in shambles - actually it's worse. But instead of being in a perpetual lazy state of "ugly but functional," it's on its way to being what we hope will be a pretty darn cute/functional child's room :-)

Refreshing Students

A mere ten minutes have passed since my seventh hour class left me in my room at the end of the school day. It was as normal a day as the first day back after winter break can be. However, there was one special twist.

Today I told my students about our baby news. And whoa nelly! I was so shocked and so happy to hear and see their reaction. They were excited beyond my expectations - girls, boys, everyone all gave one collective gasp/scream. And then there were questions - oh so many, questions. How far along am I? Is it a boy or girl? When is the due date? Do we have names picked out? How long have I known and not told them? Are my parents excited? Do you care if people touch your stomach? Do I prefer a boy or girl? Nothing inappropriate and all just because they are curious and happy for us. So much fun. Wish I would have had a camera crew to film it.

It was the last frontier, the last group of people in my life to tell and I have to admit that I was a little bit nervous about their reaction. Sometimes 17-year-old students don't react the way you expect them to. You tell a joke that cracked up your colleagues and they just stare at you with blank faces. You tell them a sad and compelling story and they don't even flinch. Now that's not always the case. Sometimes they act exactly as you'd expect. They aren't robots, but they are teenagers who react based on their hormones/moods.

To soften the blow of my crazy news, I agreed to wait to tell classes about the baby until after Christmas. The reason? Well my teaching partner, Jeff, proposed over winter break and we decided to make announcements together upon our return to school. Following my announcement, Jeff made his news known. And then the questions for him started flowing. They were just as excited and happy for him as they were for me. And many of them made jokes about how they were overwhelmed and were having a hard time processing. We blew their minds and it was so cute.

I was in a rut with them before winter break. I wasn't excited to come back to class today. And for at least tonight, I will go home thinking warm thoughts about how funny and honest and unfiltered their reaction was to something going on with me.