The apocalypse!

We have had quite the exciting couple of days here in Birmingham!  Not exciting in a good way though! A huge tornado ripped through the northern part of downtown, pretty close to where we live!  Luckily we live on the south side and it was not bad at our house.  Actually I was a complete brat about it, and pissed because "the power always goes out for no reason!".  Anyway, we didn't even hide in the closet, and power was shortly restored.  Here's a pic of the one that came closest to us (I would say within 5 miles or so). My friends Loly and Erik took this one from their loft downtown.

So a lot of you know that I work in Tuscaloosa AL on Wednesdays at Stillman College.  Christine and I took our regular morning schedule, went to Stillman, and then basically turned back around and left because of the expected bad weather.  I'm so glad we did.  This is about 0.5 miles from where I work in Tuscaloosa.  The area is completely devastated. At the very least, I would probably still be stuck in Tuscaloosa this morning because of the disaster.

So needless to say, I'm feeling quite lucky this morning that I escaped the apocalypse.  I certainly have those who weren't so lucky in my thoughts today.

Also:  It's national bring your kid to work day.  I'm participating!  Like I do every day.

Jesus is coming. Quick! Hide the Eggs!

I'm always amused during the Christian holidays (which I love) just how many pagan traditions have worked their way in.  Easter bunny, Easter eggs, Christmas trees, etc.  I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and it definitely makes things more fun for the kids-it's just amusing.  This past weekend, Steven and Amy (my neighbors, friends, and the planters of Ardent Church here in Birmingham) hosted a community Easter Egg hunt at the school about a block from our house.  I like this group because they really have a focus on getting groups in the community to come together, and they actuall do things instead of just talking about doing things.  So far they have also done two community cookouts with activities for kids.

Anyway, I helped out a little bit with the Easter egg hunt, which included the stuffing of 2000 plastic eggs with starbursts and tootsie rolls, and spreading them around the schoolyard on Saturday afternoon.  There was a good turnout, and kids love love love an Easter Egg hunt.  Photos!

Just one of the several boxes of eggs.

 There was no point to trying to hide this many.

Amy and Karis make a lawn of eggs.  

Karis helped by riding on Amy's back.

I helped by spreading eggs around with my feet :P

Ready?

Go!

The kids had a blast. 

I also have animal pictures.  Mostly for Abby, because she misses my fat and psychopathic cats, Slick and Homie, respectively.

Mr. Homie wants you to know that he remembers you!  

But you might now be 12th on the favorite persons list.

 Slick wants to remind you that he does not care.

This picture is not for Abby, I should clarify, because that would be weird.  Rob IS wearing pants in this picture, but gosh, this is quite the candidate for Awkward Family Photos: Pet Edition. Rob might very well murder me for posting this. (Abby, you can have Mr. Homie and my piano.)

I was just impressed that everyone was looking my direction, and that Rob was awake before 11 a.m.

the picture was  of rob looking naked while holding bells and homie.  

he was not naked.

but it has been removed.

Only three more days til my family comes to visit!  Mom, godmother, sister, and nephew!

Shameless Mush

It's mine and Rob's two year anniversary! So we celebrated this past weekend by going to see Jonny Lang in concert (SO talented!), and of course a nice dinner. In some ways I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. Then I realize we have done a LOT of stuff over the past two years.  We moved to a new place, I finished my Ph.D., started a new job, Rob is defending in June and trying to figure out his job, and we are preparing to become parents in October! Marriage certainly doesn't consist of all moonbeams and sparkles, but we have so much fun and we work well together when we need to.  We're happy, and we love and trust each other.  That's really all I ever asked for.

Hoppy Easter

Always good for a smile:

 

Hope everyone is having a great Easter- we have had beautiful 80 degree and mucho sunshine here :)

Penguin Tickler

This was enough to make my week, which may or may not be a little sad.
But it's 22 seconds of complete and utter adorable-ness.
Enjoy.

Gettin down low with the heavy equipment.

This past weekend I did all kinds of stuff.  Including:  take dog to mutt strut and carry her part-way because she was cold/overwhelmed.  Go to market! Frame pictures for the mini muffin's future bedroom.  Move furniture (well, carefully, and mostly I talked while Rob moved furniture). Eat. Clean carpet in the mini muffin's bedroom. Overdo it on squats and lunges at the gym (I'm convinced these will come in handy in 6 or so months).  Etc.

Anyway, we (well, okay, I) have decided on a Bambi theme for the nursery!  I found this great vintage-y posters from when the movie opened that were my inspiration, and I just had to have them:

So this past weekend I went to Hobby Lobby, had mats cut to fit the 11x17 size, and bought frames!  They turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself, and completely appropriate for a boy or for a girl:

I also found this 1000 pc (!!) puzzle that I want to put together and frame.  But I am not a diligent person when it comes to tasks like this.  So I'm very thankful that Amy likes to do puzzles, AND that my mom, sister, and godmother are coming to visit next weekend and also want to help.  Bonus points! 

The other reason that my mom, sister, and godmother are coming on their estrogen wagon is to bring me baby furniture!  My sister has a 18-month old, so I'm really racking up on the goodies.  The more I can borrow, the happier I will be, because it is less stuff to store.  Anyway, this means we needed to clear space in the room and get the carpet somewhat clean.  We still need to put this twin mattress somewhere (prob under our bed), but otherwise we have space for baby stuff, which is a miracle at our house.

In other news,  I have made it to the 3-month mark, and have the very beginnings of a tiny little bump that is there all the time and not due to eating too much salt. Although it could be due to the fact that I can't manage extremely strenuous workouts anymore.  I put this here because people keep coming up to me and saying, "HEY!  How are you!?!?  You look....the same".  And while this looks like nothing, please remember that it's all relative and that I have said goodbye to my flat flat stomach. In other news,  I could use some sunless tanner.

Meanwhile, these guys have no idea what's coming:

 Slick thinks I cleaned the carpet and made this sunny spot just for him.

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

Bloom!

As I've mentioned previously, our yard is in bloom!  Flower happies posted below :)
Rob is great at taking care of the yard, and since I have a terrible allergy to yardwork, I let him do it.  It's beautiful!

The daisies are my favorite!

 Love the amaryllis, but it only really blooms once a year.

Rob worked very hard on getting our walkway finished.  

Soon we will have gladiolus blooms too!

Happy Thursday!

I have a fun weekend planned:

Mutt Strutt with Bells, Christine, and Batman

Market day and coffee shop with yoga buddies (!!)

Start getting the mini-muffins' room ready for furniture!

Team Pink/Team Blue

Today Rob and I went for a 12-week ultrasound!  It was an extra visit to look for any markers of Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18, and Spina Bifida-they say everything looks good and will check my bloodwork.  Honestly, there's no reason to think I have risk for these things, but insurance pays for the test AND you get to take an extra look at the mini muffin, which is about the size of a plum right now.

I couldn't believe how much the kid was moving around already!  It's surreal to see it flipping and kicking when you can't feel any of it at all.  He/She hated the ultrasound thing and kept turning up to kick and punch it every time the pressed on my stomach-hilarious. We got to see both hands, complete each with five fingers and some VERY long legs.  Rob took that pic to lab before I could scan it, but it certainly can't be my child with legs like that!

While the ultrasound tech and doctor had me on the table, he asked if we were going to find out the sex of the baby (of course!), and says while we shouldn't buy anything pink just yet, it looks like our muffin is shaping up to be a baby girl!  We will know for sure in a few weeks.  He showed me all the markers on the huge flat screen TV and said this is just what girls look like at this stage.  We will see if he's right! For right now we will remain on Team Green just in case!  I like green the best anyway.

And while I have your attention, I scanned some of the ultrasound pics to share with the internets! 

A couple of profile shots, too early to tell who it will look like, lol :)

I can has alien?  The face-forward shot is a little creepy.

So all in all, a lovely start to the week!

Passive Aggressive Recycling

On our floor we have some very bad lab neighbors.  They throw their trash in the hallway (even if it is soaked with organic solvents), never break down their boxes for the recycling bin, and even place cooling packs and styrofoam boxes in said recycling bin.  They also keep their doors locked AT ALL TIMES and do not answer the door when the delivery people knock/ring their doorbell.  Yeah.  They have a doorbell.  So talking to these very unreasonable people is completely out of the question.

Joy and I have posted lots of nice notes for people to please be considerate and not junk up the hallway with boxes and filling. And to please break down boxes so that others might be able to use the recycling bin.  They have been removed!  Removed!  It is a war!   

Here is my latest addition to the constant arsenal of notes:

 

I'm very happy to report that for the 3 days this has been near the bin, all boxes have been broken down, and no non-recyclables (coffee cups, cool packs, packing peanuts, etc) have been placed inside.  And to think- Lesley said I was being unreasonable! 

Happy Friday-Have a lovely weekend!

Dr. Dad

Rob got the okay to defend his dissertation today!

Quite the year for him!

Even more excitement at our house!

Relay for Life! And other things

(This past Friday I participated in Relay for Life, and all-night team relay walk for cancer.  Our team (PhD's outside the lab) met our fundraising goal and even went over!  We raised over 2,000 bucks!  Edie was our team leader, and her parents even came to support her, because this is a cause very near to their hearts.  When they took their "caregiver" lap, everyone squawled.  Even me.  (That's right, I no longer have a heart of stone, stop making fun of me.)

Our most fun fundraising adventure was the science-themed bake sale, where we raised about $650!  We had various science-shaped cookies, as well as a periodic table made completely of cupcakes.  It was a huge success!

Science-themed cookies!  Yes, there were test tubes, various stages of mitosis, flasks,

neurons, mitochondria, gel electrophoresis, mice, etc.

Our fabulous table, PERIODIC table, that is.

Our team!  We wore science garb for our team lap around the track. 

Most people snagged animal facility stuff, but I snagged a brain dissecting apron.

And someone brought  black nitrile gloves.  Sweet.

Edie did a great job organizing, so our success is definitely due to her hard work.  

In other weekend news, Saturday I spent some time laying on the couch and complaining that no one would bring me cupcakes or anything else yummy.  Then Rob took me on a walk instead, after which I felt much better.  So I caught up on housecleaning.  I'm pretty sure no one can understand how nasty I have allowed my house to get the past few weeks, but now it is livable and no longer looks like trashy people live there.

I had brunch with my friend Stephanie at Dyron's Lowcountry and then subsequently had regrets about the crab cake benedict I chose to consume.  But we had fun anyway, and then I went and bought some new tea at World Market!   

I also have spent the past few days fielding well-wishers, which is a lot of fun and very exhausting.  I like that so many people are excited for the bun in the oven. It's fun to talk about our plans. Although I'm already wishing it was more of a microwave than an oven--this is such a long process!  I'm lucky, because I feel good, even if a little sleepy.

I have also spent considerable time fielding personal (and somewhat intrusive) questions and comments {and avoiding people that think it's okay to blow smoke in my face (?)}.

Examples:

"Wow!  Your boobs are bigger already!" 

"Have you had problems with constipation? Wow, when I was pregnant....."

I don't know why these things bother me, but I don't just go around commenting on people's boobs and bowel habits.  BECAUSE IT WOULD MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE. I suppose it's something I have to get used to?

At any rate, hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!