First Ultrasound

Last week we had our first ultrasound.  So cool to hear the heartbeat and see our little blueberry!  Everything looked good, and I ultimately got to get off of my meds (awesome!).  I am due April 11.  Spring baby!  We go in a couple of weeks for our second ultrasound, and then I guess if everything looks good, they'll release us to a "regular" doctor! 

If you'd like to see a more detailed post or catch up on our journey, go to http://trialsoftrying.blogspot.com/. 

Good heartbeat, I guess!

Beanie Baby.  Better keep this in case it is worth something someday.  But I have to keep the tag on.

Baby News! Guess What This Post is About!

Well, it's been 2 1/2 years of waiting, praying, doctors, what-ifs, and heartache.  After all this time, we finally have good news!

Yup, that's right!  We're having a baby!  Thank you all so much for your prayers and support during this time.  It hasn't been easy, but it is definitely worth it.  We are so blessed to be a part of one of God's miracles!

And as per usual, Doug used this as an opportunity to do a mini photoshoot.  Here are some samples of the nerdiness:

Get it?!  Get it?!

I am a legitimate longboarder.  No.

Excitement!

So in love.

Taos Trip

A couple of weeks ago, we took a trip to Taos, NM.  Neither of us had been there before, so we weren't exactly sure what to expect.  We just wanted a relaxing, inexpensive weekend getaway.  And we did!  It was really nice.

Guess where I am?

We stayed at the Hotel La Fonda (or, LaFAWNduh, ala Napoleon Dynamite).  It is the oldest hotel in Taos, right on the town square.  It was nice, because it was close to all the little shops and restaurants.  

We ate at an awesome restaurant called Antonio's,  It's a Mexican restaurant, and did I say it was awesome?  Because it was.  They made the guacamole tableside, which was pretty cool, I guess, but also awkward.  We had some chit-chat with the guy making it, and I felt bad that he has to not only make guacamole, but have boring conversations with the patrons.  Ah, well.  Then we shared the seafood paella...OH. MY. GOODNESS.  The most delicious thing I've ever had ever.  And I'm glad we shared, because it was HUGE!

Um, this is not at Antonio's.  This is another restaurant we ate at called The Gorge.  It was delish too.  But Antonio's was so delish that we didn't have time to take a pic!

Another thing we did was go to the Taos ski area.  I had no idea how steep that mountain was! 
We also made a trip to see the Taos pueblo, which was pretty neat.  It's amazing that it's been around for so long!

We went to see the Rio Grande Gorge--so scary!  I didn't really know it even existed!  I'm a little afraid of heights, so it totally creeped me out, but it was very majestic and beautiful!

Doug's so brave!

The pic doesn't even do it justice!

The First Day of School

Yesterday was my first day of my fifth year of teaching! Yay!

I must admit, I wasn't quite ready to go back.  We stayed busy this summer, but didn't get to go on any "real" vacations.  Plus, this summer was shorter than usual. Womp-womp.  Nonetheless, I love my job and I know 2 months is a lot more vacation than many people have.

Doug always takes a picture of me on the first day (if I looked hard enough, I bet I could find my first day of school pictures from preschool all the way up to today!).  I always feel silly doing this, but I think someday it will be neat to see.  We take pictures of everything anyways.  That's just us.

Hi, Mom!

 

So I got to school and tied up a few loose ends.  A few kids and parents trickled in to drop off supplies or introduce themselves.  After the bell rang and we got settled, I made the kids tell their parents goodbye and sent the grownups on their way (I hate having an audience while I'm teaching.  The parents make me more nervous than the kids!)

I forgot to do a quick introduction, where I usually talk about things that I like to do, my puppy, etc.  Oh well; that probably bores them anyway.  I started off with attendance procedures, announcement procedures, and lunch count.  Then they all came to the carpet for a "name game".  I do this every year, and I like to keep it simple, because it seems to work well enough.  I have a ball that we toss around, and whoever has the ball has to say his/her name and favorite flavor of ice cream.  The kids got pretty creative with "cotton candy" and "watermelon" being the most original responses.

After the name game, we started putting supplies away, and let me tell you, there are a LOT of supplies.  I never have room to store all of them.  We end up stuffing them wherever they will fit in cabinets, in corners, under tables, etc.  I hate that part because I hate having clutter, but we will need every box of tissue that they brought!

A sampling of our school supplies.  Just the paper towels, tissue, and Clorox wipes!

After most of the supplies were sorted out, I had them do an "All About Me" worksheet.  The kids had a hard time with this, and needed a lot of help.  Next year I'll find something simpler.

We then took a tour of the school, during which I learned that this group needs a lot of practice walking in line!  They are a chatty bunch!  I will definitely have to make sure that I acknowledge those students who are modeling good behavior, because that always creates a ripple effect.  A note for next year:  I need to make sure that I ask the students who are new to the school, and put them in front of the line during the tour.

When we got back, we finished the worksheets and I answered some questions that they had written on note cards.

Finally, it was lunch time!  And I was HUNGRY!  I need to remember to snack, but I just get so busy with the kiddos, that I forget!

It was apparent after lunch that I could wait no longer to go over the behavior chart.  I got the idea from Pinterest (of course).  The idea is that everyone starts on green.  With poor behavior, a student will move down to yellow, orange, and finally red.  With superb behavior, they can move up to blue, purple, and finally white (hey, I ran out of colors).  I had a few students who moved up to purple, and one even to blue!  By the afternoon no one moved down from green, so that was a good thing.  However, I am definitely going to have to put some thought into a seating chart.  I also need to modify my teaching style to make it more "boy-friendly" (not trying to be sexist, but I have a lot of boys this year, and it is much more active than my class last year!).

I got a little break while they went to computer class.  And by break I mean a chance to organize my things and do some lesson planning.  This continued when they went out to recess.

After recess I read a chapter from Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  In this chapter, an evil teacher turns all of her students into apples.  The students were eyeing my desk as they noticed that I had 3 apples all in a row.  I played right along!

We then moved on to coloring our book boxes, something we use for The Daily 5, one of my favorite additions to my teaching from last year!  We made it into a contest, and the kids will judge them to choose the winner.

Finally, we sat together and shared what our favorite parts of the day were.  Many students said recess, decorating book boxes, and a few said that I was their favorite part (I'm not convinced, but I appreciate the effort!).

Then the school day was over!  I was going to have them write something about their first day, but time just flew by!  I was so exhausted by the end of the day, but I really needed to get more organized, so I ended up staying until nearly 6.  Doug came by and helped me put my new office chair together (isn't he sweet).

I know that this is a super boring post, but I always forget what I do the first day of school, so maybe this will help me next year.  A

Updating the Bathroom Mirror

Lately on Pinterest, I've been seeing a lot of tutorials for framing builder-grade mirrors in bathrooms.  This is something I had heard of years ago, but had never seen, and certainly had not attempted.

The mirror in our bathroom didn't bother me too much.  It was nice and big, and reflective (a quality I see as a "must" in a mirror).  However, there was a lot of water damage on the bottom of the mirror, which I had always seen as an eyesore.

Before

Before

A close-up of the water damage.  Ew.

So, with Pinterest and its access to tutorials, we decided to tackle this project.  Here are the links to the tutorials that helped me: http://www.thehouseofsmiths.com/2010/04/framed-mirror.html and http://impatientlyprayingforpatience.blogspot.com/2010/05/mirror-frame-tutorial.html

First we measured, cut, and put the frame together.  And when I say "we", I of course mean "Doug".

Measuring like a boss!

You know he's serious, because he is closing one eye.

  Then "we" applied some wood glue to hold it together.  Didn't read the blog very carefully, which said to use Liquid Nails, so it didn't hold very well.  Doug put some staples in the corners to strengthen it.

Glue time!

After that, Doug notched out the areas for the brackets that hold the mirror in place.  We had a bit of a scare, because the ones on top were peeking out of the top of the frame!  Luckily, Doug discovered that the mirror is completely glued to the wall, and the brackets were really unnecessary.  So he took them off.  Problem solved!

After the glue had dried, Doug used wood-filler for the seams and any imperfections in the wood.  Then we let it dry.

After this, we spray-painted the back black, and took it into the bathroom for a test run.  Yuck.  I liked the black frame in the tutorial, but it just looked wrong in our bathroom.  So we decided to go with white instead.  We just used some primer and paint that we already had.

Yuck.  We didn't like that either, because the countertop is more like an off-white, and so it just looked dirty.

So we took one final trip to Home Depot, and we found a grey that matched the towels in our bathroom.  And painted it ONE more time...

SUCCESS!  So we put the mirror up and traced inside of it with chapstick to see where the glue should go.  Then we took the Mirror Liquid Nails and put some gobs on the mirror.  Then we stuck it on...and prayed.  We taped it down with some painter's tape, and Doug rigged up some other ways of keeping it in place.

We used quarters as spacers, as we couldn't put it right up against the wall because the vanity is crooked.

Tape

Just to be safe.

The next day, we took the tape off, and voila!  I think it looks sooo good!  It really seems to finish the bathroom, and make it look more grown up!  If nothing else, it covers the nasty water stains.

The finished product!  And a handsome photographer!

Ta-da!

After, yo!

So that's it!  We feel so proud of our work, and ready to tackle the next project!  Well, actually we have tackled two more, so we'll blog about those soon too!

Bathroom Remodel

We have lived in this house for nearly 4 years.  When we bought it, it was nearly completely move-in ready, but we have done a few little projects here and there.  Doug was off of work on July 4, and we decided to finally fix up the master bathroom.  It was not a complete remodel or anything, but we think it looks fresh, and more grown-up.  Here are the "before" pics:

Ugh.  Those rugs had no backing, so they were always shifting and bunching up.  No bueno.

Of course the bathroom had to be messy when we took the "before" pics!  It makes the transformation much more impressive!

Not hideous or anything; just time for a change!

 During...

Yeah, this is attractive...

After...

Looks so much cozier!   We added handles to the cabinetry.  And the rug has GRIP and won't move unless we want it to! :)  The next thing we want to do is frame the mirror with crown moulding.  And eventually, we'd like to paint or stain the cabinets, but I'm not sure I have the guts to tackle that!

I love the wall color, and it coordinates with our bedspread in the room, so it really ties everything in.  We still want to change the light fixture, but the electrical box is not centered, so it will be a big project.  

We switched the towel bar out for hooks and put Disneyland silhouettes above them for a "His and Hers" look.  We've wanted to do this since we went to Disneyland 3 years ago!

Blah.  Maybe we'll put in some corner shelves here, and a corner hamper.  But one thing at a time!

 We are really happy with how it turned out.  We are so indecisive; it took us forever to decide on a paint color.  But once we figured that out, it really only took a day!  We had fun spending time together doing this project.  And the best thing about it is that I want to keep the bathroom so much cleaner because I love how it looks, lol! 

8 Crazy Years!

"Happy anniversary," were Doug's first words to me yesterday morning.  He's more of a morning person than I am, so it took me a little longer to get my bearings and remember what day it was. :)

Our 8th anniversary!  Yippee!  Doug then brought me my gifts: A bronze statue, gummy bears, and chapstick.  The bronze statue is significant because bronze is the traditional anniversary gift for 8 years.  The gummy bears--well, they're my fave.  And the chapstick--maybe for smooching?  ;)  Hee hee.  Anyways, it was very sweet. Then he led me into the living where he had a slideshow of pictures through the years playing on the t.v.  Not gonna lie; I got a little teary-eyed.  I love how thoughtful and romantic Doug is.  He always puts a lot of thought into his gifts.

I, on the other hand, was more practical in my gifts for Doug.  He needed some running shoes anyway, so I got some new ones for him.  He's also been wanting an Isotopes baseball cap, which I thought would be easy to ascertain (is that the right use of the word?).  WRONG!  The particular color that he wanted was not available at ANY of the stores I went to!  Add that to the fact that I don't know his hat size, and well... The story had a happy ending when I found his hat size (finally) and discovered that the hat he wanted was at the ball park!  Success!  So I guess all the work I put into it makes up for the fact that it is just a hat, eh?

The best part is that both of us got cards.  We always get cards, and write special notes in them.  I guess we've been together a long time, because we ended up getting the exact same card!  Oh, the nerdiness of it all!

"Day by day, year after year, side by side...  Being with you has been the adventure of a lifetime."

We had dinner at Farina Pizzeria, a place that serves gourmet (and gluten-free!) pizza.  Yum!  Then we went to an Isotopes baseball game (so Doug could try on his new hat ;) ) We had a really nice time.  Our seats weren't the best; the sun was in our eyes for the first hour or so.  But once the sun went down, it was nice and cool, and we could see the game just fine.  The point is we were together.  And we always have a good time when we're together. :)

Squinty!