31 Week Update and the First Week of School...

T.G.I.F.

I have officially survived my 5th first week of teaching!  And truly, this was the best one yet!  However, I am still SO glad it's Friday.

Frosty and I had twin day today, as you can see from the photo below.  Didn't anyone else get the memo that it was dress like your pet day?  :) 



Frosty is always stylish in her black and white, so I decided to go for the same look!

So, turns out, the first week of school was not NEARLY as awful as I expected it to be!  Nice, huh?  I wasn't nearly as exhausted as I expected to be, and while I was generally pretty tired and sore by the end of the day, it wasn't unbearable.  For those who don't know, I was moved out into a trailer classroom this year, which has turned out to be pretty nice.  It's tough being far from a bathroom (luckily someone is usually around to cover me if I need to go) but it has be REALLY great being able to control my own air and having only 18 students.  It is tough that EVERYTHING is far away, though.  I'm not going to lie, I was kinda out of breath today when I had to book it from my room to the gym... :)


The fact that my students seem really nice and well behaved has made this week pretty great, too!  They have been so willing to work, accommodating to my pregnancy (they pick things up when I drop them and let it slide when I'm a little forgetful), and really cute towards the baby (I literally had a kid put his head on my belly yesterday and one today come up to my belly and say "Ah...baby"). 


It has also helped that I am actually pretty well planned.  Being the slightly type-A person that I am when it comes to classroom procedures and how I do things, I knew I was really going to have to work to stay on top of planning so as to be prepared to do my maternity leave.  So I worked really hard before school started to get most of my first units planned.  That way I would be able to (hopefully) keep myself ahead (being out in the trailer has helped in this area too, because there are WAY less distractions).  It doesn't hurt that this is my 5th year either.  For the first time I really feel like I know what I am doing! HA!  It only took until the 5th year... geesh.


So, all in all, it has been a wonderful first week!  And I am seriously hoping it continues to be. 


Now for the pregnancy news/pictures....


Our little man has been very active this week!  He stays fairly calm during the school day, but when I sit down at the end of the day, he generally starts a movin' and a shakin'.  And then, of course, he saves the MOST movement for the moment I lay down to go to sleep!  Last night he must have seriously been doing flips because I just kept feeling his feet (or what Todd and I were pretty sure was a foot) rub against my belly.  He likes to stick that little foot of his right next to my belly button.  I was having a little fun with him last night... I was pressing on my belly just slightly, and he would kick (or punch, jab, elbow) wherever I was poking!  I don't know if it was just coincidence, or what, but I was getting a kick (total pun intended) out of it!  I have really LOVED feeling all this movement, and I keep telling Todd that as great as it's going to be to actually have our little man here, I think I will miss the special bonding feeling of having him moving inside me. 


Now for the pictures... Please excuse my hair.  These pictures were taken this morning and my hair was still wet... not so great!

You may have started to notice I wear these same black capris ALL THE TIME... they are by far the most comfortable thing I own right now.



Sweet socks, huh?

 So that's how I'm doin' at 31 weeks.  Pregnancy symptoms aren't too bad.  I've kinda just entered the basically a little uncomfortable/sore at all times... and I have been told (by numerous people, may I add) that I am a waddler.  What can I say, most of the time either my feet or legs are hurting, so walking isn't as easy as it once was... and have you seen the belly I'm carrying around??? I mean, are we really that surprised I'm waddling?? :) 


Oh, by the way... despite the fact that I FEEL huge and people seem to THINK I'm huge, according to my midwife my belly is measuring exactly normal for how far along I am (apparently it's one centimeter for every week you are plus or minus one... and last week I was measuring 31 centimeters and was 30 weeks)... when I told her I had been asked if I was having twins just two days before, she suggested I hang a sign from my neck that says "My midwife says I measure perfectly.  STOP TELLING ME I'M HUGE!"  Hehe!  I think I'd rather get it on a t-shirt than on a sign... :)


Todd and I start classes at the hospital on Tuesday... stay tuned to hear how those go! 


And have a LOVELY, hopefully not as wet, weekend! :)

29 Week Update... and Puzzling Meltdowns

Well, so much for my 28 week update!  The week caught up to me, and before I knew it, it was time for a 29 week update instead of a 28 week!  I was officially 29 weeks on Friday, and am still enjoying pregnancy despite some new not so fun symptoms.  This past week I have really started having swollen feet by the end of the day.  My leg just goes straight to foot with no real ankle in between!  I am contributing this to my return to work and sitting at my desk a lot in the last few days. 

Well, without further ado, here are my week 29 pictures...

If you can't tell, my shirt says "Growing and Growing," which my belly TOTALLY is doing!

So my back is totally killing me most of the time from carrying around my ever growing belly... imagine that!

So other than going back to work, Todd and I have been filling our time with doing puzzles this week.  We put together a large "North American Sports History" puzzle a few years ago which now is framed and hanging over our fireplace in our family room.  Well, last week we decided to go buy a new puzzle because we remembered how we had enjoyed putting that one together.  Todd found a very cool puzzle that was all crushed cans at Goodwill, which proved to be VERY difficult.  When we assembled the edge pieces, we realized some were missing, and it kinda took some of the fun of doing the puzzle away.  I mean, how fun can it be if you know you're missing pieces.  But we kept at it...

...until I found TWO AWESOME sports puzzles at a thrift store up in Winchester.  They are from the same company as our original sports history one, and one was all about baseball and the other was everything football.  We decided to start with the baseball one.  We had a good time working on it, but in the end it was missing 5 pieces.  We felt accomplished, and really loved it, but still... an incomplete puzzle is kinda sad.

Well yesterday we started on the football puzzle.  As we were sorting through the pieces looking for the edges, I dropped one on the floor.  Before we could stop her, Frosty snatched it up and ate it!  I was really upset because as I mentioned above, puzzles are not as fun when you know you're missing a piece.  And, of course, since I am pregnant, this let to a full blown crying meltdown!  Before I could stop myself, I was SOBBING and muttering incoherently about how it was all my fault that we were going to have an incomplete puzzle.  Poor Todd was just left there, patting my back, trying to calm me down, and trying to comfort me by telling me it was ok and no big deal (however, I was inconsolable, because when you're pregnant apparently ANYTHING can seem like a HUGE deal).  

Eventually I was able to pull myself together and we kept on working.  The whole time I kept saying things like "You realize that with this one we're only going to be missing ONE piece, right?" and as we got closer to finishing it became more and more likely that this was, in fact, the case. 

And, that is exactly what happened.  We finished the puzzle with 999 pieces, and only ONE missing.  One lonely piece that I dropped on the floor... luckily, this did not lead to another melt down... because...

...as some sort of comic relief, it turned out that the piece I had dropped and that had been gobbled up by Frosty turned out to be the piece that had the Terrible Towel right on it!  (If you don't know, the Terrible Towel is a symbol of Steelers love, and we in the Narcross house are NOT Steeler's fans).  In the end, we could only really laugh that her little snack was such an icon piece... and of course, we couldn't really be mad! :)

A close up of Frosty's Puzzling Snack... Half of Heinz Ward's face and most of the Terrible Towel will never make it into the puzzle.

But really, could you be mad at this face??

Roommate Reunion, Yard Crawl, and Delicious Food: Part 3, Saturday Afternoon and Night

Our Saturday afternoon plan had been to head up to a local orchard for their Peach Festival, but because of the rain that came, we were only able to go and pick a few peaches and raspberries and missed most of the festivities.  We came home with a bag of delicious peaches and a small container of raspberries that were HARD earned and wonderful (it took 5 of us what seemed like FOREVER to just pick one small container).

For those of you who know Todd, you know he is always eager to use his deep fryer.  So, on Saturday night he was in hog heaven when he got to deep fry chicken and french fries for dinner.  What you might not know about Todd is that when he has the deep fryer out, he also has a philosophy of "throw anything you want in."  So we also experimented with some deep fried peaches (alright, though they would have been better if we had battered them first) and deep fried broccoli (yuck).

Inspired by the peaches, I decided to make Paula Deen's peach cobbler.  Sadly, I forgot to take pictures... but I followed the recipe exactly as it said to, and it turned out AMAZING (though it took much longer to bake than it said). 

We all had a really fun evening of talking, laughing, reminiscing, and eating delicious (though in NO way healthy) food! 

Overall, the whole weekend was really, really, really, wonderful.  It was so nice to get to see old friends.  On Sunday morning Todd even made breakfast for us all (his specialty: pancakes on the griddle) and it was a major blessing to have my mom there because she did a lot of cleaning that would have made the weekend way less fun and way more exhausting for me!  In the end, I think everyone had a great time.... and I know Claire has already put it on her calendar to do again next year! :)

Emily, Michael, Claire, Todd, Me

I realize this was a super long set of posts... but since it was one of the best things I did this summer, it seemed worth it! :)

Week 28 pregnancy update coming early this week... :)  Unless, of course, I'm too exhausted to do ANYTHING since we go back to work tomorrow... Goodbye summer....