Kitty Love.

So it has been an incredibly long hectic day that needs to be filed and put away on the shelf. It soon will be but I feel bad for not blogging for 4 days.

So here's a new fact about me (unless you have known me for a long time). I love cats. Especially ones with lots of fur! (notice my dog and cat) I am pretty sure that if I would not have found my soul mate I would have settled to be a cat lady.

Here is a video that I would like to share with you so that I can provide you with a smile until I provide another blog.




Tomorrow... Another day of work but also a doctor appointment. Yay!

Mascot Crazy.

The latest batch of mascot pictures....

The mascots are just so cute and irresistible, aren't they?

p.s. I even passed up a few other mascot picture opportunities at this game. I just picked the few favorites. Aren't you proud :)

Green Thumb.

This is news worthy in my book and worth documenting after looking at my past record.

Ready for it?

I have officially tended and had a plant in my care for six months and it is still living! It actually seems to be thriving! Go me and my green thumb!

Here is a picture for documented proof.

14 weeks.

Well we made it to 14 weeks today! Yay!

Here is the info for this week:

 

Our baby is busy thumb sucking and toe wiggling. I still haven't felt any movement from the baby yet but hope I recognize it. I can't imagine how exciting it will be :)

Along with our update comes the results of our most recent photoshoot! My husband started a new project for us to remember this pregnancy by and I am in love with the idea. The word caption for that week point he actually took off of my blog and it contains notes that I was feeling during that week. Amazing, right!?! I am impressed with his creativity and hopefully it wont stifle my writing ability knowing that it will be used for a forever memory :)

Enjoy the images!! (Images copyrighted by mJoy Photography)

Maybe a shameless plug but you never know who is looking.... If you are a fan of my husbands photography work check out www.mjoyphotography.com & he also has a facebook fan page :)

Cute as Cupcakes.

Finally remembered to take pictures of a few of my Valentine school decorations in my preschool classroom...

Cubby Decorations:

Bulletin Board #1 for my AM Class:

Bulletin Board #2 for my PM Class:

On each bulletin board I asked each classroom child who they love and wrote on a heart for each child what they said. Very interesting responses. It seems as though their pets ranked higher than their parents ;)

Isn't everything about Valentine's Day so cute? I just love them all :)

My weekend equation.

Not too much going on this weekend here with the weather being SUPER cold! The only thing that got us out of the house was some Fargo Force hockey. Otherwise our weekend equated to this....

A whole lotta this....

Fargo Force Hockey

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In which I finally made the decision...I am Team Jacob. Even with Edward having that quirky smile all the time and affection for Bella. Lets face it. Jacob is way hotter and seems to be kind of a smart talker to Edward. Somehow my heart changed this weekend.

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Schwans Raspberry Rumble Ice Cream

Definitely a staple for me right now. Its funny how I can never be turned off to ice cream while other cravings come and go ;)

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Ranch Sunflower Seeds.

For some reason this is my other snack of choice this weekend...

And of course a whole lot of this...

Time spent with my hubby and the furrs...

All in all you could chalk this up to a pretty awesome weekend!

Wish me luck as I leave the warm house tomorrow morning for another work week...

A dose of the best medicine: Laughter.

Well I found out the other extreme to my emotions tonight. I thought when you were pregnant you were just more apt to cry easily (which yes is true). However, tonight I found out the flipside of feeling sad. I had a laughing fit like I have never had before! The last few weeks I have noticed that I find things easily funny and have a bigger laugh at times (maybe due to the big belly haha). But tonight I completely lost my sanity.
Here is what happened and you be the judge of whether or not it was really that funny. Guessing it would have been better if you had been there yourself...

So my husband and I had to make an after hours money deposit at the bank because they were already closed. The drop box is at the window drive up so we pull into the little drive through. He places the car in park and cracks the door to realize he is too far away. He shifts the car out of park and says "I don't know if I can make it". At this same time I see the car slowly rolling and hear the engine starting to slowly build up to a loud roar. He looks down to realize we are in neutral. Of course he drives ahead and we drop the money but I could only imagine what the car next to us was thinking!! There was just something about that sequence of events in which he said "I dont know if I can make it" and hearing him putting the petal to the metal that made me ballistic. I mean I was laughing so hysterically that my laugh was so distorted and I honestly didn't know if the air was going in or out. This in turn made him laugh so hard that he couldn't see to drive. Never have I experienced laughing to this magnitude but it was a good time. Definitely a memorable moment between the two of us (and maybe the guy that was in the atm drive through next to us)

Tonight we also did another baby bump photoshoot to update the last series of shots we did several weeks ago. Our photoshoots should get a little more regular now that I am starting to grow with each week and honestly we quit for a while with the due date confusion getting moved around. Hopefully I will be able to post those pictures within the next few days. Mitch has a few other projects he is working on that need to be completed first.

To finish, I thought I would share a funny comment from one of my four year olds in my class today.
The conversation went like this:                   
Me: So James*, you are going to Texas in a few days right? Are you going to go in your car to get there or fly?
James: *with the craziest look on his face        "I don't know how to fly!"
Oh how literal young kids are! Too funny. Just seemed like lots of things were striking me funny today. If its the pregnancy talking, we can look forward to many more months of this :)

* names have been changed

And the vote is....

Well I am back. I disappeared a few nights but still only managed to get through the letter G in the girls name section of the baby names book....and the girls names come before the boys. Whew! We do have a list of a few boys and girls names that we like but will continue to add to our list as we plug through the book.
The other dilemma, whether to find out what we are having drew incredible results through a survey on both Mitch and I's facebook status. Lots of responses were given and opinions were shared... After calculating the results, the total number counts were 20 to 21. THEN a suggestion came in today suggesting to wait. This means we are dead even on votes. We have lots to think about and some good suggestions/opinions to mull over while waiting. Guess we will have to wait a few weeks to see what we decide :)

Time for a baby update: As of yesterday we are officially 13 weeks. Our baby is now a....

PEACH!

Teeth and vocal cords are developing! :) 

Hoping to do some baby bump shots tomorrow night since we haven't done them for a few weeks. It seems like the tummy keeps popping and I don't think its all the ice cream I have been eating ;)

Baby = ?? 's

No fear. The Christmas decorations are officially stripped down in my house. This led me onto a new adventure. Mission baby.

Now that the reality is starting to set in that we are going to have a baby we are starting to evaluate a few things. Two big questions have come to a head lately....

#1: Do we find out the sex of the baby or not?
I am torn on this because I always said I would like to be surprised and I even have had a gender neutral nursery theme picked out for a while. However, when thinking about all the items we are going to need for this baby I become overwhelmed. I am a planner and like to be prepared for as much as possible. With needing all these items, I know my family and baby showers will be a huge help for preparing us for a baby. With that though, I would like my shower guests to have fun picking out gender specific outfits rather than buying everything yellow/green. It is also fun when showing off your new bundle if they are clearly defined through their clothes as to what gender they are. Let's face it, if we have a little girl she is going to be girly girled out :) Another thing I wonder with finding out... Would this baby bump become more of a close personal experience knowing what it contained? Right now I say he likes this but what if its a girl? But I dont think it is any better to say "it". That doesnt' seem very nice. I guess time will tell as to whether or not we find out. We do have a few weeks before we have to decide....

Onto the second big dilemma....
#2: The great name debate.
Picking out a baby's name is such an important and personal experience. The name you pick is one that you will hear/see forever and something that I think determines your baby's personality and sometimes life experience.This is what I have been studying for the past few nights....

Basically, if it isn't in here, it doesn't exist because this book has every name you could make up. Wish me luck as we study the giant baby book of names....

If I am not blogging for a few nights, you will know why ;)

The little things...

Just gonna share about a few items that are making my world go round right now. :)

My shower cap which was a goodie in my stocking. I have figured out that a shower before bed helps me sleep better lately but not possible with wet hair. Isn't this shower cap so cute? Polka dots are as good as sprinkles and glitter in my book ;)

My new skincare products. I had sampled it after a microdermabrasion a few months ago and finally splurged on the line. It is awesome and well needed as my skin is trying to adjust to all these crazy pregnancy hormones.

A bath thermometer that my hubby bought me. I have a hard time regulating the temperature to a "safe" temperature and so I had banned myself to taking baths while in the early stages of pregnancy. Now that I have hit 12 weeks I am thinking about taking a bath soon. This will help me to be sure I am at a safe level---which is going to be an adjustment.

Some odor-eliminating lemon scented bath and body works soap. A really clean almost like a lemon drop scent. A real lifesaver when I suddenly had cat poop on my hand last night. Getting rid of the smell of poop and turning it into a lemon scent made my world keep going round last night. Might want to buy a few bottles when we have to start changing diapers ;)

My new slippers that my husband bought me the other day on his grocery shopping spree. They are soft like a rabbit and so comfortable!

Aren't the little things in life great! :) 

What things are making your day a little brighter?

My Own Love Story.

I am inspired to talk about how my husband and I's relationship came into place in light of the video he composed and posted to his facebook page (will be posted at the end).

So my husband and I really are the perfect couple for each other. Not in that obnoxious, make you nauseous, make sure the whole world sees type. We truly are eachothers best friend and could not possibly spend enough time with eachother. Whenever you see us, we are more than likely together.

Our story is a unique one that was starting to be written a long time ago.... 

Let's start at the beginning:

Mitch and I first met on the Internet a long time ago (back when the Internet wasn't such a creepy place). I was searching through Yahoo people users for a person who moved away from my school and somehow came across Mitch's screen name which was something about lovehurts. So cheesy and dumb I know but I was young and thought I could save this random guy who apparently wasn't having much luck with love. He was the only guy I added to my yahoo messenger and I didn't even try to talk to him for several months after this. (His claim is that he would try to talk to me and I would blow him off) HAHA. At some point we started to talk and spent hours on the Internet chatting about all the things we had in common. Then at some point it led to phone conversations. We spent soo much time talking and there were several expensive phone bills that I had to choke up and pay for but I thought he was worth it!
Fast forward several months of talking..... Mitch offers to come visit me. My friends and I meet up with him and his friend in my hometown and we hang out together. I am head over heels! We continue to talk lots and he then starts to visit me at my house during school breaks. Thank you mom and dad for letting him visit and hopefully you knew this was something special even though we were so young. You helped make our relationship possible. We officially start dating April 17, 1999. I was 15 and he was 16. We knew we cared for eachother so much but had no idea what our relationship would evolve into.
He graduated and went to college for a year in my hometown while I finished high school. We then both transferred to the FM area for college.
We dated several years and then my junior year we moved in together. This basically allowed us to share bills while saving money on separate places since we were always together anyways.
My 21st birthday was an important point in our relationship. I didn't have the typical 21st birthday. It is not who I am or what we like to do. I was more interested in something personal and special. We went on a picnic with a couple close family members. At the end of our picnic we went for a walk. My sister wanted Mitch and I to pose in front of the lake with the sunset (which was super funny considering she had no idea about Mitch's plan) As my sister was getting ready to take a picture, Mitch proposed!! It was absolutely amazing and I felt as though the world stopped. I of course said yes! Because my sister was ready to take our picture, we have pictures to document our engagement. For that, I am forever grateful! Thank you Amy!

(Sorry for the poor picture quality: I just used a point and shoot to take a picture of the frame)

Our engagement lasted longer than we intended because we were having a hard time picking a good time for both of our families to escape for our destination wedding. We also were having problems making wedding plans because hurricanes kept destroying every place I picked for a location. It was a really active year with the weather but with the help of an awesome coordinator/pastor down in Mexico we were able to pull together an amazing wedding that meant so much to us! (Thanks Petra)

Here is the video that I was mentioning earlier that my husband put together today. It is a compilation of pictures and video documenting our wedding day in Playa del Carmen, Mexico on April 7, 2006.




A wedding day is such an important day and I am glad we have so much to help us remember our special day. It is always fun to look back at that point in our relationship.

We look forward to this next journey of our relationship in which we expand our little family and share our love for each other with our baby. Just another wonderful addition to our love story....

And We Got a Plum...

Its official... I have reached the 12 week point. Woo Hoo! I know what some of you may be thinking. Wasn't she 12 weeks a few weeks ago? Well thats what I thought until my last doctors appointment when he casually said I was about 10 weeks along. I said "what?" "I am 13 weeks." Then he showed me the ultrasound from a few weeks previous showing that I indeed was not as far as they first predicted. Long story short. I am 12 weeks today rather than 15 (my original thought).
At the doctor appointment, I was reassured that the baby is healthy from the ultrasound and we even got to hear the heartbeat. Pretty surreal! I can't wait for my next ultrasound pictures now that it will look more like a baby.

Here are some facts about our mini bee.

At 12 weeks, our baby is the size of a plum. (love the fruit comparison)

Almost all of our baby's systems are full developed. Baby has vocal cords and is starting to develop fingernails! So amazing that something so tiny can be so intricately developed.

Such an exciting time although to help document my journey I have come up with a list of things I could do without at this point of my pregnancy...

• Late evening hugging sessions with my toilet. Over it! 

• Being able to eat more meat/protein to hold my hunger over longer rather than being grossed out by it. This has slowly been getting better. (Irony Example #1)  
• Swallowing my fish oil pill vitamins. The one kind gives me indigestion and the other kind is supposed to help with that however is really big and stinky which therefore gets me queasy while trying to swallow. Those of you who have been pregnant and had the gag reflex thing going know this is trouble.

• Restless nights. I swear I can only sleep once it gets close to my alarm clock wake up time.I miss being able to sleep all night for so long and take naps without them affecting my sleep schedule. So tired all the time and yet can't sleep. (Irony example #2)
  
  I do love however that I can brush my teeth and tongue without gagging until I throw up. Definitely an improvement because lets face it, brushing til I puke defeated the whole teeth brushing idea.
  
  Hoping that in the next week I will be doing more blogging. I really intended not to be a deadbeat blogger because I know how frustrating it is when you check blogs and nothing is updated. I hope my ambition will be building but honestly I have had not one ounce of ambition the past few weeks. Its actually painful to try to complete a task. Those of you who know me, know this is not typical. Here is an embarassing confession to document how sluggish I have been... shhh! (my christmas trees and decorations are still up) So out of control. I will try hard to complete the task this weekend. We'll see how I do. I do have a few days off of work this week and next making a long weekend. Wish me luck ;)

20 questions with a 4 year old.

Well back on track to a routine. First day back to work with being home sick yesterday. On antibiotics and remembering how much stamina it takes to deal with 34-4 year olds. Whew! It was so much easier dealing with being pregnant while on vacation. I could use the bathroom and snack whenever I felt the need.

So it seems as though my belly is growing by the day and when all my class kids give me hugs, their heads seem to rest right on it. They don't say anything but I feel as though it must be a little more comfortable because the hugs seem to last longer. Ahh how I love unasked for hugs from kids.
One child though points to my belly and says "Baby?" I said yes there is a baby in there. He then says "Can I see?". I explained to him that my baby is still growing yet and it can't come out for a long time. He then quizzed me to see if I was going to the doctor. I reassured him yes and then he wondered what the babys name was. I said I wasn't sure yet but what did he think I should name him? He simply said one word. The word he said was his name. Awww.
Just what every teacher thinks of doing. Naming their baby after a child from their class. HAHA I feel as a teacher there are many names I couldn't pick after the experiences certain names have provided.
I thought it was a sweet suggestion but not sure I would need a daily reminder forever of that particular child. I couldn't help but to smile and laugh a little at the suggestion. So sweet.
How funny a game of 20 questions can be with a four year old. Reasons like this are why I love my job and the kids in my class.

Holiday cards.

Ok. So after 3 solid days stuck in the house, I am starting to get stir crazy. You would think that being stuck in your house would provide you with a great opportunity to tackle projects and/or complete laundry, clean, etc.
That would be great if that had all been accomplished right? Well that hasn't exactly happened. Instead I have hung out watching tv and taking naps. I can blame part of this on my sinuses which are battling something not so pleasant but I am also going to say I just want to relax.
Kind of worried about getting back into the work schedule though with having four days back in the classroom right starting Monday. That will be a quick refresher. :)
I had planned on creating a ribbon display for all of our Christmas cards that we received but that was one of those didn't have time to complete projects as I realized suddenly Christmas was 2 days away. Maybe next year. Instead I simply taped them (using painters tape) to our pantry door. Look at the love!!

Receiving cards in the mail is even better with your husband being a photographer. Over half of the pictures used on the cards were all taken by my husband!! It's always fun to see how families and friends use the pictures we take and also to see which pictures were their favorites from the photo shoot.

I then realized I never posted a picture of our Christmas card. Now these always take a lot of time to make but this year took even longer because it was how we shared the big expecting news with our parents. We gave these to our parents shortly after Thanksgiving when we realized we couldn't hide the secret from them with being so close to them.

Kind of hard to see with it being a picture of a picture and still somewhat small. In the lower left hand corner there is a stick people family which says "coming soon" with the little baby pictured after the pets. Then in the green square it says from Mitch, Melissa, Jade, Mac & ___?____ . Kind of a fun way to spread the exciting news.

Hope you all had a happy and safe New Year.

Here's to busting out of the house tomorrow ;)

2011.

Happy New Year!

Here's to another great year filled with love, good health and new opportunities!

What better way to start the new year but with a picture of fireworks. This coming year is going to bring us an extra family member. Here is to a healthy firecracker for our family :)