FINALLY!!

That's right...I finally have some girl scout cookies! Some fun facts about them: 1. They are cheaper here than in AZ (another reason why my family should come and visit) 2. And for some unknown reason a few of them here have different names than I am familiar with such as the Peanut Butter Patties (Tagalongs) and the Caramel deLites (Samoas). As we speak the Thin Mints are being devoured and I've already sampled the Lemonades and Peanut Butter Patties. Yum! And I finally went to Walmart to pick up the Girl Scout Ice Cream that we paid for but never got.

I would like to thank everyone for the sweet comments regarding the pregnancy photos on my last post. They were so nice that I decided to include a few more.

This one is to prove that I sometimes will actually do my hair. And to show off my nice burn mark.

I was able to finally go to my doctor's appointment and I'm coming down to the weekly visits! I am officially 34 weeks pregnant and the official due date is April 8th. Less than six weeks to go! I was given all my medical records in case I go into labor early and it's interesting to look over them. From various appointments I have the due dates of the 3rd, 7th, and two for the 8th of April, and that's the date that was settled on.

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I think it would be fun to hold a contest on here and I will award a prize to whoever (whomever?) most accurately predicts the stats of my firstborn. You can guess however little or much information you want to from details such as these:

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1. What day will Stephen IV make his arrival?

2. What will be the time of the above-mentioned's birth?

3. How many hours will I be in labor?

4. Will I end up getting an epidural?

5. Will this child shock us all by being a "Stephanie" and not a "Stephen"?

6. Will an emergency c-section be necessary?

7. What will his length and weight be? And let's keep this to a relatively low number please, I will NOT be having a ten pounder!!!

8. Will he have a head full of hair or be a little baldy?

9. How much will I weigh at the end? (keeping in mind that I just downed an entire sleeve of thin mints while writing this post!)

10. Anything else you would care to remark on.

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You can just leave your predictions as a comment on here or email them to me. And remember, the closest prediction will be awarded a PRIZE! Which may or may not include the holding of my child ;) Happy guessing!

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Oh and you don't have to guess today, I'll leave the guessing open until the first of April which gives you a month!

Ready for a New Week

I am sooo done with this week and ready for next week to begin. Starting off, one night I was cooking dinner and I managed to burn myself pretty badly on the back side of my arm. I tried to capture it on my camera, but that was more difficult than it seemed. Luckily it didn't blister or anything and it's even stopped hurting. The downside is that now it itches like crazy and I can't scratch it because that would hurt waay too much. I am such a klutz in the kitchen. I'm dropping things all the time and Stephen will come running when he hears me yelp because he knows it might be bad.

I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday and I waited for an hour before being told that they would have to reschedule the appointment for the next day. Urgh. They also told me that I owed them some money which I know I do not and thankfully I was able to stand my ground (I normally would just pay it to avoid the confrontation) and it was quickly resolved. It bothers me how unorganized the offices are and how much it feels like they just want to take your money.

That night Stephen and I went shopping for some organizational materials and I was able to convince him to buy some girl scout cookie ice cream. I have been wanting girl scout cookies soooo badly! I even went so far as to call and email the local offices to see if I could get some but to no avail. We were busy last weekend and weren't able to get some and I am seriously counting down until this weekend. You better believe I am planning on going to as many different stores as it will take until I can find some of those darn cookies. I even have made sure to have PLENTY of cash on hand (which I never do), so I can buy up as many of those babies as possible. If I had enough money and a deep freezer we would be buying them by the case. Who wouldn't want girl scout cookies year round?

Well, we ended up leaving the store only to discover when we got home that the coveted girl scout cookie ice cream had escaped my grasp once again. Darn Walmart and their confusing rotating bag system! When we realized our misfortune it was too late to go back and get them so I decided to claim them early the next morning.

That night I got ridiculously ill. I was up all night long running back and forth between our bedroom and the bathroom. It had nothing to do with being pregnant although dealing with my tummy in the way made things all the more interesting.

I had to call in the morning to cancel my rescheduled appointment for that day and I was able to reschedule for today. The lady on the phone wanted to know if I would be feeling well enough the next day (today) so we wouldn't have to reschedule again. I said sure but really how do I know how I'm going to be feeling? It wasn't like I had planned on getting sick and I didn't know how long it was going to last. There's no LCD screen on me that announces when I'll be done being sick!

And once again the girl scout cookies and their ice cream would just have to wait. I miss being a girl scout. I almost voluteered to be an aide when we moved here. Now I just want their cookies.

Basically I'm done being sick, I don't want to have to reschedule any more appointments, I would love some girl scout cookies, and I don't want to get burned by my kitchen anymore. Hopefully by next week these issues will sort themselves out.

Oh, I was able to take some pregnancy photos for your viewing pleasure. You can thank me later. Or just get me some girl scout cookies.

So don't pay attention to the messy mirror, or my make-up less face, you're lucky I'm not still in my pajamas!

Pregnancy Picture

We had a mini-photo shoot tonight and Stephen came up with this picture. I love what he did with it! That ultrasound is our favorite and is proudly displayed on our fridge. oh and I'm about 32 weeks along.

Nurse Practitioner

So I've come to the conclusion that my nurse practitioner doesn't like people.

Or maybe it's only pregnant people.

Or maybe it's young pregnant people.

Or maybe it's just me.

Whatever the case may be, we're not friends yet and I can't see that ever happening.

I only see her about every other appointment and those are the ones I dread going to the most.

I'm thinking I'll ask my doctor to not have me see the nurse practitioner anymore. It's really hard for me to ask this, but I'm just not comfortable around her. And I'm tired of coming home from the appointments feeling depressed. Urgh. I don't even like doctors to begin with.

At the last appointment she looked at my overall weight gain and reminded me that "You know you're going to have to lose all the weight you gain now." How do you respond to that? "Well yes I know I will have some weight to lose, thank you for reminding me about how much my body is changing!" I think I even giggled a little while saying it. (Although I only said the second half in my head).

I wanted to remind her of the beginning of my pregnancy when they were worried about how little I was gaining. Can we please just pretend that just happened and now you're overjoyed that I'm doing so much better?

My favorites are the comments from church. Everyone thinks I look HUGE but then they say that a.) it's only because I was so tiny to begin with and b.) that at least I can still look cute. Last week at cub scouts I walked past some of the young women who remarked that I am "the cutest pregnant lady ever!" They are now my favorite age group.

The cute little girls who live next door asked Stephen if his wife was pregnant or just fat. He answered that I'm just fat. Too bad for him I could hear it all! HA! He didn't realize I was right there and turned bright red. I'm getting used to having people touch my belly all the time. Especially when it's cute little kids who want to know EVERYTHING about my baby. (They almost always want it to be a little girl!)

I've come to the conclusion that it's sad when your maternity clothes are too tight. I sort of thought they came in a one-size fits all. Not so. Now I'm wearing only the super stretchy materials. Less than two months to go!! Birthing classes start in March. That should be entertaining!

Stephen was interviewed on the news recently regarding some flood plane remapping and how it's going to affect quite a few homeowners. We really don't have much news to report on here and it keeps getting broadcast over and over again. It's fun to have the ladies from church come up and tell my that they saw my husband on TV!! They get so excited and I think it's just cute.

Last Week

For starters I would like to say that the last post was done by Stephen and not me. He put it together earlier (I think he's addicted to JibJab) and made me watch it before we had our Valentine's Dinner. I'm sure that I was just as uncomfortable as you while watching it :).

We had quite an interesting week. On Tuesday it was super cloudy and there was most definitely a storm coming through. While I was waiting at my doctor's appointment we were watching the news and they were reporting tornado weather in Oklahoma City. The same storm that we were getting was producing tornadoes just up-north. When Stephen came home we went running around to a few stores and were fascinated with the changing weather. This was taken before it started pouring.It was crazy to see the clouds that were producing tornadoes elsewhere! We didn't find what we were looking for and we almost drove down to Dallas where there are more stores. At the last minute we decided not to go and I am sooo thankful we didn't. Instead we came home and were watching the news again to see more about the storm and basically along the road we would have been traveling, they were reporting tornado conditions and even had two tornadoes touch down! While on the one hand I think it would be cool to see a tornado in real-life, I am glad we weren't driving through one.

I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day on Friday because then I could get everything set-up while Stephen was at work and it would be more of a surprise for him. I am so proud of the dinner that I made. Most of it was made from scratch which is quite impressive for me. I used to be better at cooking dinner for us, but since being pregnant and having the sight of the kitchen make me nauseous to now dealing with my swollen feet dinners have become much less complicated. I made lasagna and had a salad and fresh bread with it (the dough was from the store) and I was most impressed with my mozzarella sticks. I even made the breading myself!! Here they are waiting to be frozen.I had made marinara sauce to go with it and loved the way these turned out! For dessert we had a store-bought banana cream pie and I also bought us some sparkling cider. I ate sooo much and was really surprised when none of the red sauces gave me heartburn, I'm still trying to figure that one out...maybe garlic helps to avoid heartburn? Who knows but I am thrilled to have eaten something yummy and not be paying for it later on!

My mom is super cute and sends us packages from home, so for February she sent along a ton of Valentine's Day things that I used to decorate the table with. My sisters got together and made the suckers and mom sent along the kisses, hugs and sweethearts. The only hearts she could find (besides those in the suckers) were in Spanish! We got a kick out of reading what was written on those, and the bad printing job made them even more difficult to decipher!

While I was running around buying stuff for Valentine's Day I snapped a shot of this mansion in our neighborhood. We live in the older part of town and so there are many historical buildings. This one is right down our street and one day I'm going to go through it to learn more about it and share it with you here. There are town-home style buildings all around this one that have been turned into apartments and office spaces.

I enjoy hearing the stories behind some of the older houses. Our landlady lives in the historic district and we loved seeing the inside of her house. Apparently almost all of the older houses were paid for with new oil money. Many people would get rich quick off of oil and would move here (why they would choose here I have NO idea!). They would build these elaborate houses. In their garage the original owner had a turntable put in so he could drive his car straight into the garage, then turn it around and drive straight back out without needing to back up. I'll definitely have to take pictures of that district to post here.

My Valentine

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Our City

It is my goal to go around town taking pictures and posting the stories about them here. I really enjoy living here and I want to remember all the reasons why. For some reason I have this issue stating the name of the city where we live. I guess that way no one can just google the city and up pops my blog. I don't have the same issue using my name or Stephen's whereas the rest of my family does and have given their family code names like Pollyanna. But I just can't say the city name. I'm sure I've said it somewhere on here and I am equally as sure that you could find out if you did some searching but trying not using it makes me feel better.

Here's the first picture. This is actually the building where Stephen works (from behind anyway). It used to be an auditorium and now it houses the city offices.
It is located in the downtown area and one thing that I love is how the freeways seem to fly right up next to some of these tall buildings. I'll have to take pictures of some of the tall downtown churches that have their steeples literally feet away from the freeway. The freeway was put in through the downtown more recently and instead of bull-dozing some of the older buildings, it is just elevated above the street level. I remember growing up hearing about other cities that had done this and I just couldn't fathom it, to me it seemed like there were two "levels" of the earth but now I realize that it isn't that crazy.

I need to take more pictures of the downtown and tell some of the interesting stories, but on this little excursion I was more focused on some of the various home architecture. I love how different all of the houses are here and I much prefer it to the cookie-cutter developments that are all over Phoenix, there is just such a different feel to the neighborhoods here. I love this country-style blue house and only wish the porch was bigger!

This one is just cute, Stephen and I like the windows up at the top and there's a name for them I just can't think of it now.

Here's another one with the fun windows and the big porch. I would love to have a house like one of these some day. It is interesting to note that these three houses are all on the same cul-de-sac. The other houses nearby aren't as interesting and these are definitely my favorite.

Then I went to a newer, richer neighborhood in town, and while I didn't take any pictures of the houses, I did take a picture of the lake that runs through the community. This person has there own island on the lake with a bridge that goes over to it. When Stephen saw this he knew we would have to have one someday!

Teaching

Yesterday I took on another sub job. If it sounds like they are few and far between it's because they are. It's so rare to find one for a day that I'm not sick. But the subbing stars aligned and I went for a FULL day. It's pretty impressive for me.

Anyway, I had decided that I wouldn't do any high school positions because 1. I'm too close in age to the students and 2. I look like I should be a student and not the teacher. But a high school math teaching job opened up and I accepted it. And then fretted about how it was going to go.

When I talked to my family about the day they were impressed that I had taken the high school job looking so young, and then they would ask if being pregnant made me seem older to the students.

Unfortunately I was subbing at an alternative high school.

One for students who can't handle a "normal" high school.

AKA almost all the girls at the school are pregnant.

So this was one day where I DEFINITELY looked like a student. Oh and did I mention that I was swelling up in the morning and couldn't put on my wedding ring? You sure betcha I was working to get that thing on all day long.

It was weird to have the girls ask question about my pregnancy and then be able to compare it to theirs. "Oh you're due on April 7th? I'm due April 6th!" Awkward.

It amazes me what these students have gone through. One girl was super excited because she was getting off of parole on the 14th! She had been in rehab and a juvenile detention center and now has a newborn girl. She's not even 18 yet.

Now not all the students have led that wild of a life, one boy was technically a seventh year senior and he was there because he lived with his aunt and kept getting moved around to different states. He dropped out of high school and is working at Walmart, but wants to do more with his life so he's trying to graduate.

At first he really bothered me because he seemed so cocky. Actually a lot of the students seemed really cocky. He kept going on and on about how incredibly smart he is and how he is such a good speaker that he could convince me of anything. I politely disagreed and remarked that you can only convince someone of something if they are willing. The best argument in the world won't do anything unless the person is willing to concede their way of thinking. He didn't understand and we went through a discussion about how vampires are "real" (I'm still not convinced).

He then told me about how popular he is, with his friends stretching across the U.S. and how he was going to make millions by the time he's 26. But he needed constant help with his math work. It made me gloat inside to see that for all his talk, the math assignments were too confusing and he needed MY help to understand. But it wasn't a gloating that I felt too good about.

I soon realized that for all of their talk, these students really weren't doing too well. Sure they have big plans and ideals that are unreasonable. They take pride in knowing all the different slang terms for drugs and they are way too self-assured but it's all a farce. Their big talk is much more for them than it was for me. They need to prove that they can do something with their lives because they really don't have too much going well for them now.

These are the students I want to teach. Those who really need the help and are willing to do what it takes to graduate. Amazingly enough they were super well behaved and did their work even if they do like slacking off and wanted to talk the entire time.

Back in high school it was my dream job to work at the Peoria Transitional Center teaching math. I wanted to help those who really needed it the most. Then I got to college and didn't see the point in taking years of Calculus just to end up teaching pre-algebra, especially when I was tutoring college students who couldn't add or subtract without using a calculator. So I changed my focus to middle school math where I felt I could give the students a more solid basis for math so years down the road they wouldn't struggle so much. After yesterday I realize that I still want to help those who need it the most. I want to help the students who are taking the same math class for years in a row just to pass so they can finally graduate. Even though I still don't know exactly what age group it is I want to teach, yesterday helped to reinvigorate my desire to help people share my love for math.