Belly & Buckeyes

Most people in the area planned on a snow day Friday due to this big winter storm/blizzard thing - and they have already called it off in most places. But today was a little bit of a surprise! We got a snow day today too! My school called it kinda late (6:30AM-ish) but apparently it was bad out there. Big Rapids Public Schools didn't close in the morning and ended up closing down early and sent kids home at noon. 

I spent my day doing things around the house. It's days like today I wish our dog could come in the house and keep me company! Since we're renting and the lease clearly states "No pets indoors," and our landlords live right across the road :) , we can't really break that rule. Junebug had to stay in her kennel in the garage. 

Even if my dog couldn't keep me company, my bulging belly did! Ha ha! She was moving around in there a whole lot today!

24 weeks

Zach still had to go to work; he made appointments with customers and they had to install a new tank of some kind at the office - which had to be hauled up way into the air by a crane - which had to be unattached by someone in a harness when it got up there- which happened to be Zach... I don't think I would have worried as much on any other day but with the rain/sleet and high winds today, I was not thrilled to get a picture via text of this huge tank going up into the air... then when he came home he told me that they didn't have a harness so they rented a lift. But the lift didn't go high enough. So they used a ladder on top of that... in the high winds and rain. Good grief!

Later this afternoon I went down to my in-laws and helped make buckeyes! MMMMM! My favorite Christmas treat! Tyler, my brother-in-law, is usually the one in charge of rolling up the little peanut butter balls but since he was living out of state last year, I took over the job. He's since moved back home so we both sat at the kitchen table rolling buckeye balls. Once the chocolate on the stove melted, I dunked them in and put them on a cookie sheet to cool. I had to dip mine into the chocolate because I rolled the balls too big and they kept falling apart & making things difficult on mom. Whoops! They looked small when I rolled them!

Buckeyes

Currently, Zach is in the basement putting a coat of polyurethane on a buffet table we ordered from a local store called "Bare Furniture". The store sells wood items such as tables, beds, end tables and orders everything "bare" aka: no stain or polyurethane. So you either have to pay for them to stain/polyurethane it for you or you do it yourself and since my husband is so handy, he is doing that job in our basement. He must be enjoying it because I can hear him whistling and humming as I sit upstairs on the couch. :) Anyway, the buffet table is a light wood and will go in our kitchen. We commissioned a family friend do a set of paintings (which turned out AMAZING!) for us to hang above it. 

Four Seasons Paintings by Deb Rutkowski

It's a series of four paintings; each canvas is a season with countryside trees or a house or barn or tractors. They're very neat and we're so happy with how they turned out! Can't wait to hang them up!

Yesterday Zach said that if they cancel school Friday then he would take the day off work too - and they did! So we'll both be home tomorrow! This does NOT happen very often at all so I'm very excited. 

Our Christmas Tree - 2012

Well, I'm off to watch the last Christmas movie on our list: The Grinch with Zach. The others included: Elf, Home Alone, and A Christmas Story - which I had never seen until this year. Thanks to Katie & Kyle for renting it and bringing it over while you were here!

Love,

Sarah

Early December Update

Well, well, well. Another post! And so soon after the last!

Things have been moving right along around here. We finally got our first big snow of the year that stayed on the ground. We got a snow day out of it on Monday - it was debatable whether school should have been cancelled or not, but I'm not complaining!

June was hilarious in the snow for the first time! She just kept running around getting mouthfuls of snow and eating it! It didn't seem to bother her that it was cold or wet, she just wanted to eat it. But what doesn't that dog want to eat?! Then later that night when the snow was falling again, we walked her around and she kept jumping up in the air to try to catch the snowflakes in her mouth. It was quite the sight and I wish I had a picture or video of that.

June's first walk in the snow!

Trying to eat the snow 

Sunday afternoon we cut down our Christmas tree and put it up. We didn't get the chance to decorate it until Tuesday night... oh well. It's done now. I'm always so torn between wanting a pretty, matchy-match tree and wanting the nostalgia of a hodge-podge tree.

Hodge-podge.

You know. The tree covered with macaroni ornaments, clothespin reindeer, and puzzle piece wreaths with your school picture in the middle that you made in elementary school?!

Yeah, that one.

It's fun to get out each ornament and remember why you got it or who you got it from. They bring familiarity to the season. But the matching ones look so nice! Maybe next year I can talk Zach into having one of each...

Teaching has been going well. That's an understatement; teaching has been going VERY WELL compared to last year. It's amazing how different the groups of kids are each year. This class has been so much more easygoing, independent, and advanced than last year. It's been fun to do more things with this class because they can handle it and I'm not dealing with downright rude & naughty behaviors every two minutes. That's not saying this year has been an entire cupcake, easy, breezy class. I've got a few who are challenging enough to make up for the rest of the class when it comes to behavior.

The countdown to Christmas Break is on! Only 7 more school days! Our last day is Friday, December 21 and we've got a whole bunch of stuff packed in there: regular lessons, plus Christmas lessons, students making crafts for their family members, plus a fun sledding day and a Christmas party... whew! Somehow it will all get done!

Zach's been a busy beaver. He's still working at CPS. He was one of six people from the whole division who got asked to be on a new technology team. CPS bought their salesmen iPads and Zach's really good with that techy kind of stuff so they asked him to be on this team. They have to meet and put together a presentation about new apps and the best ways to maximize the use of the iPad on the job. They have to present for their big conference this winter which I think he's a little intimidated by but he'll do a great job. Especially since it involves technology and farming and teaching others how to use it to their best benefit.

He also got asked to go a weeklong event in February out in California where they will tour a bunch of farms... and something else that I can't remember... whoops. I need to listen better and ask more questions.... All I know is that not many guys get asked to go and they asked him, so that is pretty cool! I'm super proud of him! He works really hard and puts a lot of time and effort into doing his job right, solving tech issues, dealing with unmotivated co-workers, helping the guys in the shop, keeping schedules organized, and taking care of his customers. So it's great that others have been noticing - not just me! :) Had to brag him up a little bit!

Zach's also been going through Fire Department Training since September. He has class two nights a week and then one Saturday a month (which thankfully went down to one night a week starting this week!). He carries a pager/radio thing around with him now and has gone out on a few calls: one was a garage fire and another was a single-wide trailer fire. Since he's still in training he has to wear a bright orange vest that says CADET on it over the top of his fire gear - and he can't really do a whole lot at the scene besides stand around and ask questions. But he's getting his face around the guys which is good. The class goes all winter and into the spring when they test out in April... April 13 to be exact. Which is three days after our baby is due... Here's hoping she's three days late or that he can pick a different test date!

Baby's doing good. She's moving around lots in there! Being kicked and poked and prodded from the inside is a straaaaaaaange and very unique feeling... Here's a picture from this week:

23 weeks

There's no denying there's a bump! As you can see, I need to buy more maternity shirts since the ones I have stick out at the bottom because they're not long enough. It turns out that Big Rapids doesn't have maternity clothes at ANY of the few stores we have (Meijer, Wal-Mart, Peebles, JC Penney) so I'm going to need a shopping trip to Grand Rapids very soon. Plus, as you CAN'T see from this picture, none of my pants really button anymore and are being held up by a rubber band around the buttonhole. :)

Moral of the story: none of my clothes fit. And that's okay. Because I very happy there's a baby in there that we get to see and hold in April!

Love,

Sarah

It's a Girl!

This year my birthday fell on Thanksgiving week (which meant a short work week for me) AND the week we got to find out the gender of our baby! The much anticipated ultrasound was on Wednesday afternoon (Nov. 21). I was supposed to have a half-day of school... until I threw up in my car on the way there... so 7:30AM I had to call in for a last-minute sub and drive myself back home and crawl into bed. It was the 24-hr flu. Ugh. But I was bound and determined to get to that ultrasound by 2:00PM because it would be another month wait if we had to reschedule. So I slept all day and tried to keep down as much fluid as possible, which wasn't much. Zach came home around 1:30 and we decided to just go for it. I almost made it. Not really. I puked in a bucket as we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. But then I felt better so we went in anyway.... that was probably a huge no-no: going into a hospital while sick with the flu but, oh well. We did and its over. And we got to see the Little Cookie in there!!!

20 weeks

The ultrasound room was stinkin' HOT and we were in there for 45 minutes but we got to see the baby again! We asked the ultrasound tech not to drop any gender hints if she could tell what it was because we wanted her to write it down on a notecard we brought. She took a ton of pics and another tech came in and took more and they both agreed on the gender so they wrote it down and sealed the envelope. Baby didn't really cooperate until the very end -- all curled up and facing away from the camera then finally turned a little to let us see the profile a bit. But the chin was tucked down on it's belly so all we could see was the eyes and nose and barely the upper lip. Also, they both agreed NOT to change the due date based on the measurements and whatever else they look at. April 10th it is. They sent us home with a sealed envelope and a CD of pictures - that we couldn't look at until Sunday!!!

camera shy

All curled up with the chin on the belly

After my bout with the flu, the next day was Thanksgiving and we drove to Farmington Hills for Thorne Thanksgiving. Not much food cramming for this girl since my stomach was still recovering from the day before. The cool thing about Thanksgiving was that Zach got to feel the baby move for the first time! He's been wanting to feel it SO BAD and he finally got to! I still wasn't even feeling it much until that week. Anyway, one of those milestones that made me smile - just to see the look on his face!

 Zach went out at midnight on Black Friday with my brothers. They went to the Twelve Oaks Mall -- I think they're crazy!!! Then they got up early the following morning and went out again! I slept in. :) Later that morning we spent time with my grandparents in Westland.

On the way home, we took that sealed envelope with baby's gender written down and stopped at Babies R Us. We picked out a boy and girl outfit then we asked the cashier to open the envelope and wrap up the outfit that matched what the notecard said. We paid with cash and had him put the change and receipt back into the envelope then we went and walked around the store. After wandering through the super long aisles of strollers, car seats, and baby monitors we went back up to the register and took our wrapped up package home. So from Friday night until Sunday afternoon, we had a present all wrapped up waiting to be opened!!!

Somehow we waited until Sunday afternoon. With both our families standing around (and a few on Skype!), we opened it up with lots of screaming and saw the outfit was pink! There were a few tears shed all around. My mom just loves babies so she didn't care what it was. Zach's mom, the mom of two boys, was really hoping for a girl and she got her wish! The second wish to come true would be for her to be born on her birthday, April 6. We'll have to wait at and see! (You can check out the reveal video on Facebook.)

It's a girl!

I'm just glad I can stop calling the baby "it!" There's a "SHE" in there! :) And she's been quite active the past few weeks so I've felt her a lot and Zach has too. We're at 22 weeks this week: slightly over halfway there. 40 weeks is full term. Wow. My belly's got a lot of stretching to do before then! And we're got a lot of stuff to do & buy and books to read!

Love,

Sarah