Friday Night Anniversary Date

So I don't think I've been too crazy emotional from the pregnancy (Andy may tell you a different story though) but I do think I may be a little needy. Okay, a lot. There's been a whole bunch of "Honey, tell me about your love for me...my love bank is low". (As a side note, if you ever want to see an Engineer freeze up, tell them to pour their heart out and articulate their feelings ;) ) So anyways, I told him I wanted to do something special for our anniversary. He delivered. A few days before I got an Evite from him inviting me on a date and an awesome itinerary of what we would be doing Friday night to celebrate. It included taking the bus downtown and walking around to all my favorite places. I was a stinker and went for a three mile hike that morning and so I asked if we could tweek the itinerary a little bit. So we ended up driving downtown and eating at Romeo's and playing miniature golf and then getting a big Icee and coming home and watching Swamp People. Yeah, first two things were Andy's ideas and the last two were this trashy reality show-lovin, sugar-fiening pregnant lady's ideas!

Leaving for our date!


Dinner at Romeo's

Brushetta= one of my favorite things in the world

We shared lasagna and it was GINORMOUS and oh so tasty


Then went to Peter Pan mini golf for a very hot game of golf that Andy rigged the score card and let me win.



It was a perfect date and we had fun reminiscing on how fast and amazing the past five years have been. I will spare you all the husband doting, because I do my fair share of it one here and hopefully it is obviously how much I adore my amazing husband. I will say this though, I made thr best decision of my life five years ago when I married my best friend.

Friday night fun

I actually remembered to bring my camera out and about on our Friday night adventure this weekend. Thought I would go a little crazy and post about something other than our baby or the house!

We headed downtown with some friends to see a play in Zilker Park. A friend from church was in it, plus is was a Shakespeare play set in a 1960's beach theme- how can that not be awesome really? Luckily we got there early enough to eat our picnic dinner and hang out and to see Ryan (our friend) perform for about 5 minutes before it just started pouring down rain. Come on rain! You gotta start up 5 minutes into the play?




So plan B was what plan B should always be....go eat dessert. We loaded up our soggy chairs and went over to the Hyde Park area and got some gelato. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmm.

Happy girls= girls with gelato


So there is some proof that we do more than hang out at Lowe's all weekend!

6 Months!

Guess what? I am 6 months pregnant. Everyone kept saying it would go by quickly- man oh man were they right. Not too long ago I was moaning and groaning about how I would never be functional non-nauseous human being again in my first trimester and now I am 60 % through this thing.

So here is a true blue belly shot for week 24



I am feeling really good. No 'I'm-going-to-conquer-the-world' crazy kind of energy that I've heard some people get but I am definitely feeling normal besides this belly of mine. I was told several times at church that I have "popped", and I guess it's true because I've had a ton of people ask me when I am due in the last week or so and no one had asked me up until about 2 weeks ago.

I can also feel her moving around like crazy. Every single morning and after I eat she is flip flopping around. Speaking of food, it is absolutely insane just how much food I am eating. I am starving nearly every hour and am amazed at how much my eating has increased. I'm definitely not complaining though it does get a little inconvenient at times. I know Andy has enjoyed having more sweets and meals out because I am so hungry all the time.

Andy has been a trooper through this as well- taking care of me so well, putting up with me eating off his plate all the time, doing more house projects that I can't help him with, and just doing a great job of helping us to get prepared for her big arrival. I think he is doing more "nesting" than I am. He has begun a list of projects to get done around the house and is chipping away at the list awesomely. Last night we (mostly him) were on our hands and knees scrubbing the tile grout so we could seal it, who does that on a Saturday night? Okay, don't say lame people, even though I know that's true.

So here is to the next 111 days till we get to meet our little girl!

Inks Lake Camping 2011

So every year our young marrieds group at church goes camping, this was our fourth year of this super fun tradition. I absolutely love this awesome group of people that we get to call our friends and have no doubt that they are one of the biggest reasons we love Austin so much. God blessed us with this group when we moved and knew nobody in the entire city just four years ago. Anywho, enough of the sap, they are alright ;)

Our group!

Had to get a silly shot!

The first picture I've posted of myself since I got pregnant, so there you go. There's the belly to those of you who have been asking for a bump shot.

So I was brave/dumb and decided I would do two nights of camping this year- normally I have a one night limit. Not really sure what the thought process was there with me deciding three days in the 95+ degree heat 5 months pregnant would be a good idea but hey I survived and I was proud I did it.

So we went to Inks Lake, which is about an hour west of us (I think). It is a beautiful park with lots to do. One of my favorite things we did was rent canoes with a bunch of people and there was a pretty serious canoe battle going on. It was intense and luckily I was in a canoe with my friends Rachel and Jessica who are uber strong and were leave the boys in our dust which was pretty awesome. Yeah girl power!

Love this picture of andy watching Molly fetch a tree branch in the water

so here is our site, I think everyone is up and working on dinner, which was super yummy fajitas.


A rare moment- Molly worn out.



Saturday morning breakfast tacos!



So, it was an awesome trip and I'm glad we were able to go camping a couple of times this year because I know it will be a while before we go again. I don't think I am outdoorsy enough to be taking baby L camping anytime soon. It is a shame though because camping is such a good way to enjoy this beautiful place we get to live, spend time with friends, and of course eat s'mores :)

How our fence went from trashy to classy (well at least as classy as a fence can be)

Our fence was bad. Not like "oh it looks old" bad, but "hope that light breeze doesn't take out another chunk of our fence" bad. So after doing our research- and boy howdy was there a bunch of very different opinions out there on cedar vs treated pine, wooden vs metal post, spacing of pickets, well you get the idea- super exciting stuff ;) we bite the bullet and took our vehicle of choice-our crusty truck (ps. I need to blog about that, we have an awesome old truck that we both have a weird adoration for, in fact Andy is in the driveway waxing it as I type, anyways, another post..) to Lowes and bought all the wood.

Okay, so here is the rotted beast (please look at the ugliness of the fence and not the barren wasteland that is our back yard, next step is sodding the yard in the fall! Baby steps right?)


Andy and our neighbor Tim working hard! Should 12 hours of work end just because it is dark? Apparently not....




There was a little bit of debris to dispose of so we had a field trip to the dump. Thank goodness our friend Ryan has the hook up with an amazing dump trailer that did all the work. We were SO the fanciest people at the dump that day :)



And here she is! Yes, our fence is a girl- she's pretty.



Our sweet fur baby that likes to escape from the backyard (but never leaves the front yard for some reason) was a good girl stayed put the enitre week we went without a fence. Plus she is cute so she deserves a photo too right?


Woo hoo for Andy rocking out another home project while I sat and ate ice cream sandwiches on the deck (pregnancy does have it's perks). Next project is replacing dining room, kitchen, and nursery window, we are going to pick them up tonight. Hmmmm...I thought nesting was suppose to be cleaning the baseboards or something, this baby is kicking us into overdrive on the projects!

Easter 2011

So Easter has never really been a big holiday for us. I don't think I've don't anything Easter-y in since I was a kid. Being away from family makes holidays like Easter kind of slip by. But not in a bad way, I love our quirky way of celebrating the holidays that we are on our own. Last year we went for a long bike ride, years past we have gone for a picnic. This year I wasn't feeling so good (dang allergies are killing me this year) so we laid around all day and decided to "splurge" and went out to eat that night. We shared some ribs and a Sprite (big deal to us, we rarely order drinks- yeah, we are quite the party animals). What a treat. We sat and ate our dinner outside and relished the fact that this would be our last "no kids" Easter.
We talked about how next year we would have a precious little baby girl in her Easter finest and would make her an Easter basket and tell her the story of why we celebrate Easter and what an awesome God we serve. Granted, she will remember none of this, but just to get to share our lives with her, well, I just don't know what I am doing to deserve such a blessing.
Now here is the other half of what was going through my head. As fun as fantasizing about our sweet daughter is and looking forward to next year, I was so very very happy to spend the day being lazy, making no plans, eating cereal for both breakfast and lunch, just hanging out with my honey. We have had nearly five years of "just us" and boy howdy has it been awesome.
Making last minute plans for happy hours with my friends? No problem.
Spending the afternoon watching Dr. Phil and Oprah curled up on the couch with my pup? Yes please!
Being completely helpless when I am sick and having Andy to take care of me and just laying around for days at a time? Um, yeah!

So as excited as I am to meet my daughter I am also so very grateful for the time I had to be self indulgent and do my thang' and know we are going to have a wonderful next 5 months bouncing back and forth between "Can't wait to meet her!" when we see teeny tiny little babies of our friends and "Holy moley, how are we going to do this?" freak out moments sprinkled in there too.

IT'S A.....

GIRL!!!!!!!!

Had our 20 week apt today (can I get a 'what-what' for this getting half way!) and found out we are having a sweet baby girl! We are both crazy happy and have been saying "our daughter" as much as we can work in sentences, which isn't hard because we talk about her all the time.

Here are some baby stats:
Size of a cantaloupe (that is just crazy to me!)
10 inches long
Aprox 10 oz
Doc said she is in the 40% for size, healthy but petite

She can hear us and so I've been playing lots of oldies, (listening to Sergeant Pepper turned up loud right now so she can hear it as I type this), and Andy has been talking and reading to her at night.

The ultrasound was amazing because they took all sorts of measurements, it was a full hour of watching our little dancing queen groove around. They said she was super active and we even saw her do the Andy pose a couple of times which was awesome.

Doctor said everything was looking great. I am also feeling really good and beginning to show a little bit and feeling little bits of movement which is amazing and weird and just the best thing ever. My cup overflows with blessings.