baby guacamole

On the menu for this week: guacamole

why? Because our baby is the size of an avocado.

Did not mean to get the door knob right behind the avocado.  Also, there is a wreath on the outside of  our door-- so my hair is not that bouffant. 

She's feeling the early signs of neglect and worked her way into the baby picture. 

Baby blubber

Normally I wouldn't be advertising photos of my recent weight gain or my slightly chubby tummy...  But I suppose there is a good reason for this now!

I'm sure I'll look back at these photos and laugh that I even took these or thought that I was showing. Week 14 was the first time I started to notice something more there and week 15 calls for buttons on pants to be held with hair ties. Now a couple days away from 16 weeks... and I definitely noticed this morning (when I had a hungry empty stomach) that there was some belly protrusion underneath my belly button.

On a side note... I've become the unofficial English department substitute for one of the high schools here. I've subbed there several times over the last couple months and no one there knows I'm pregnant (unless they've silently wondered).  Now I'm thinking about subbing for them later this winter when it's obvious and possibly surprising some students and staff.  Ha! Fooled you for a few months! Maybe the kids will be a little bit nicer to their pregnant sub...  And a side note to this side note... there are two pregnant students in one of those classes (awkward) and I silently sympathized when they've asked to go to the bathroom. :)

life of my cat

the leaf sucker-uppers

Reasons why I like this city...

- has almost any restaurant 

- the walking street

- TONS of thrift stores

- easy recycling

- the leaf sucker-uppers

Yes, it's true.  This city will vacuum up your leaves.  At the beginning of fall, we noticed that people liked to rake their leaves in piles by the curb.  We thought that was a funny trend and joked that maybe a giant vacuum came by to pick them up.  

Well, one day I saw it.  It does exist. And it was right outside our house. A giant vacuum tube attached to a truck will come suck up your neatly piled leaves. When the mail came that afternoon, we got a letter explaining the rules of the leaf sucker-uppers and the dates that they'll come by each neighborhood district this fall.  Of course, the first date for our neighborhood was that very day-- so that wasn't much help.  Fail on the leaf sucker upper communication.

The next date for the leaf sucker-uppers is tomorrow.... and we are ready!

This is the front of our house... and the other side of our corner lot looks about the same.  It's hard to tell with the picture, but that pile is about 2-3 feet.  You can kinda see the piles across the street as well. Took a good couple hours and we worked into the night.... but it does get dark at 5:00 now, so I guess we worked into the early evening.

We didn't go all crazy to get every single fallen leaf in the pile... because apparently some people on our street do that.  I mean, it IS fall, people! But maybe we'll be the same way in 45 years when we're retired. And maybe we'll also turn our light off during trick-or-treating so the ONE house on the street that does welcome children gets only like 12 kids. 

Yeah, that happened.  We were a lonely illuminated light on beggar's night and therefore our beggar traffic was way low and I had to eat all the leftover candy. 

This was also my FIRST opportunity to hand out candy on Halloween-- so I had high hopes!

Keep in mind that I grew up in the country and now I live in town. So things like recycling, handing out candy on Halloween, using a push mower, and preparing for leaf sucker uppers is all NEW to me.  

But really, are giant leaf vacuums the "norm" for the rest of you town folk?? If they are, then I am WAY out of the loop here. 

Haphazard list of my first trimester

I'm 15 weeks pregnant (as of today!) So a week into my second trimester already! Things I've read have said I can expect to feel better and less tired.  Already, I've been able to noticeably tell how my energy has returned and I've subbed during the day every day (except one) since the beginning of my 2nd trimester.  First trimester was fun-- just getting used to the idea of being pregnant. Well, I think we'll still need some time to get used to the idea of being parents. Finally I'm starting to feel like my pants can't button comfortably so those changes are helping me as well.



It's really hard to distinguish if what I'm feeling is because of my pregnancy or if that's just a good thing to blame it on.  I craved things before-- but now it's maybe just a little more on my mind.  I've been tired before-- but I knew fatigue was my major symptom of this pregnancy when I'd fall asleep on the couch between 8:30-9:30 at night.  With that being said, here's what I want to remember...

My first trimester (in a haphazard and annotated list):

**Most of this is probably more for my personal records than the fact that I feel you need to know this :)


No sickness, no nausea.  Amen to that! Only a few smells turned me off-- but I think they would anyways. P-U stinky garbage can!! Also, very hungry immediately in the morning. I had Rice Chex every morning for about 3 weeks.

TIRED. Capitalized for emphasis. Taking naps was never a skill of mine before. Being wide awake at 10pm was rare.

My bladder is getting a little squished. From about week 10 on I always beat Ben to the bathroom when his alarm went off in the morning.  And then I'd head back to bed for another hour at least :)

Food cravings:
- pop. cold dark pop. With the good crushed ice.
- candy! Like sour gummy worms, nerds, gobstoppers...
- Hy-vee Chinese

No noticeable weight gain.  Just starting to notice some weight may be getting displaced a little. I think I'll be in the awkward hiding-extra-stomach-flesh-because-it's-not-obvious-that-I'm-pregnant-stage for a good couple months.

I fit into my pants better at 11 weeks than I did at 9 weeks. Not sure about that one.

New bra needed at week 9. TMI?? sorry...

Started to feel like the baby belly was growing at about 11-12 weeks.

I LOVED telling our families and friends. It was really fun to think of ways to "bring it up" in conversations. I noticed people would commonly look directly at my stomach after we tell them. Nothing there yet, people!  I kinda liked letting the word get out on it's own for a few weeks before doing the cliche "facebook official" thing.

SOMEDAY I'll post how we found out, and how our parents found out.  Pretty fun stuff :)