A very American weekend

Hope everyone had a fun 3 day weekend! I did all kinds of stuff!

1. Rearrange furniture in the muffin's room! And pack away some clothes for storage.

2. Gym x 2. I swear it's not as impressive as it sounds.

3. Salsa Showdown!  It was SO HOT to be eating salsa in a parking lot at 2 pm.  But it was yummy:  I ate, I voted, and I left. I chatted with some friends, and lasted a whole hour before I started to melt. Mission Accomplished.

4. SEC Baseball tournament-I went to the final game with Rob to see the Gators take the SEC title for the first time in a lot of years. (I also learned that my new superpower is the 10 minute sunburn.) 

5. BBQ at Amy's house.  I made the Strawberry Summer Cake from Smitten Kitchen.  But added orange zest to the batter and topped it with homemade whipped cream. (Whipped cream from the store ruins a good dessert :/)  Too bad I'm not much for sweets lately, but everyone said it was delicious! And super easy to boot.

6. Clean the house so it doesn't look like trashy people live there.

Meanwhile, the animals did this:

So all in all:  fun and productive!

My Dad can beat up your Dad.

Well, it's time again for family weirdness a la the Petersons.  Most of you know from previous blog posts that my dad is a bodybuilder.  Last year was his first year competing (at age 50!) and this year he is evidently back and better than ever at 51!

At his first two shows of the season, he has taken first place!  He has beat his arch-nemesis Caesar, and kicked the tiny underpants off a whole host of 40 year olds!

Congrats-it's amazing to me what he can make his body do (I maintain that it's not at all healthy, but I will stay off the soapbox).  Especially since mine seems to be revolting at the moment., with good reason, but still revolting. The amount of dedication he has to his workout schedule and diet is completely astounding.  

Of course, I won't forget that time when he was "off training" that he ate and entire cake while everyone else was sleeping. You gotta watch him when it's no-diet time!

And now for some photos that are probably inappropriate for a daughter to post of her dad.

 Of course he is the only one that's smiling.

That's Caesar on the left, I think.

My mom says he could use his traps as earmuffs.

 

I'll be sure to remember this while I'm consuming an entire watermelon later, pssshhh.  Happy Memorial Day!

"Minnie" Muffin!

Turns out our mini muffin is a "Minnie"!  We are having a baby girl!

Everything went beautifully with the anatomy scan, and we got an early peek into all 10 fingers, 10 toes, etc. And she weighs in at a hefty 7 oz.

And as promised, we have a name:  Emerald Joyce

Why?

Emerald:  because we like it and it's unique enough without naming the poor kid "Rocketship".

Joyce:  because it's my mom and grandmother's first names

We might call her Em or Emmi for short, but either way we are certainly excited for her to make her grand entrance.  (Not so excited for my insides to explode all over the place.)

Here are some pics from today.  I have to admit was lazy and just used my camera to take pictures of the ultrasound pics instead of going through the scanning process.  So these are not the best images, but hey, everyone has seen an ultrasound before. 

Yay Team PINK!

Still a chance that Baby Emerald is going to be a demon:

Or perhaps a zombie?

 She wasn't moving as much this time, 

must be getting crowded in there.

Esp since I can still button some of my pants, 

won't last long though.

The "moment of truth" photo, I put an arrow so you can see that it's a baby girl!

We are now accepting donations into the wedding fund.

And Rob is getting more flexible so as to be wrapped around a tiny finger.

A three day weekend!  Everyone have a great time!

Poppyseed to Sweet Potato

At 18 weeks, the mini muffin is now the size of a sweet potato!

Taters, precious!

Crazy that when I found out about the muffin, he/she was only the size of a poppyseed.  Now that's productivity!

Not the most flattering photo of me in my yoga teaching

outfit, but it does show that I have a visible kid-pod.

And a sweet potato for reference.

A post about boring

This weekend I didn't do anything I planned to do.  My car needs a wash/wax/top condition, but at some point I lost motivation and decided to take it through the car wash.  None of these things happened.  

I also did not get taken up to heaven by Jesus in the rapture.  I thought about following the internet suggestion of laying clothes out on my lawn as if I had disappeared (i.e.  "punk the rapture"):

But that didn't happen either.

I did some shopping, which wasn't really planned, and went to a going away party for a guy that's leaving town, but didn't take any pictures.

And while this has made for a TERRIBLE blog post, I had a wonderful weekend.  Hope you did too!

Only 4 days til I find out if I'm birthing an animal, vegetable, or mineral this October.  I'm hoping for a penguin.  My neighbor Steven hopes for a giraffe.

AND only 5 days til the Birmingham Salsa Showdown, a great excuse to consume about 40,000,000,000 calories on a 90 degree afternoon.  I'm so excited I dreamt about it last night.

Happy Monday!

Something so sweet it needs insulin poured on top

After considering a lamp purchase for the muffin's room, I thought I would get an Eddie Bauer one with deer and other woodland creepers to coordinate with the Bambi theme.  Just to remind you I have these movie posters matted and framed.  They are currently being stored in the crib with clothes that are either too big or too small.  Storing things in the crib is a topic I'll return to later.  Anyway, here are the posters:

But I was feeling like an Eddie Bauer lamp for a child's room would be waaaay too yuppy-ish. Especially paired with the above decoration and the puzzle that Amy and I are still plugging away at.

So yesterday I was on Etsy hoping to find some cool Bambi stuff for the muffin's room, because apparently Bambi is the red-headed stepchild of the Disney Corporation.  But I'm not so interested in all new shiny stuff anyway.  I'm totally not into matching crib sets with bumpers, blankets, pillows, curtains, etc, and would rather use a little imagination and legwork to make a (more affordable) cooler baby's room.  And I'm certainly interested in people making me things rather than buying them (*ahem Joy and Amy). To each his own, but I'm certainly having a lot of fun doing it this way!

SO on Etsy I found this great Bambi lamp from 1964! (for cheap!) It needs some cleaning, like anything that is almost 50 years old.  It also needs a new lampshade,  but these are easy things to do, plus the lamp works-a bonus for sure-why would I buy a lamp that doesn't work?  It comes with an old children's book which is neat because I love books, but the real star of the show is the lamp!  Presh! I think it will be perfect for the muffin's room!

Only 1 week and 2 days til we find out if we are pink or blue!  I'm excited but I don't know why since it really doesn't matter to me.  I'm pretty sure everyone else is way more excited than I am to find out what we're having.  The exciting part is we have the names picked out and will announce that too, for all those people out there interested in embroidery and making various other things.  I'm very lucky to know a lot of crafty people!

Happy Wednesday everybody!

OMG I LOVE PUPPIES

Today Joy brought a PUPPY to work!  His name is Stanley and he is so adorable.  He comes almost up to my ankles and weighs in at a hefty 2 lbs.  I nearly had an aneurysm when I saw him and there was SO. MUCH. SQUEALING.

Thanks Joy for making my day!

At my doc appt today I made an appointment for the anatomy scan-this is where we find out if the kid has all its body parts and whether it is a girl or boy!  It's in two weeks!

Again:  so. much. squealing.

Happy Friday (the 13th) everyone!

Float On.

Rob and I drove down last Friday to Homosassa Springs, FL to visit his grandparents at their river house.  They are not renewing their lease after this June and are moving back to their home in Gainesville, so this was the last chance we had to visit them and get some QT on the boat.

We had a lovely time, though the fishing wasn't great.  I mostly just hung out on the boat and read my book, enjoying the sunshine.  Granny and Grandpa were pretty convinced I would melt/break, so 4 hours was all they would spend on the boat in the sun, but it was plenty for me.  The rest of the time was spent on the deck or screened-in porch enjoying the fresh non-smoggy air.  

Catch of the day.  No, I didn't catch it.  Grandpa did. Of course.

A beautiful day on the river:

Coming back to the dock after a long day of sunscreening.

 A beautiful sunset-we were so lucky to have nice weather on our trip!

Other things:

Today I am 16 weeks into mini muffin baking! To commemorate the occasion, I am holding up my jeans with a ponytail holder. Too small for fatlady clothes, suddenly too big for my size 2's (this isn't a complaint, just an observation).  I will be wearing a lot of dresses in the coming weeks I think. I'm surprised that I'm finding this really fun instead of extremely depressing, let's hope it holds!

Happy Wednesday!

Family Adventures

This weekend my mom, sister, godmother, and nephew came to visit!  They brought me all sorts of baby holders (for sleeping, swinging, bouncing, walking, etc) and we spent a little time shopping for a few things like curtains for the muffin's room.  We also went to the market (!) for good coffee and fresh tomatoes.  BLTs for lunch, anyone?  Lots of fun plus QT.

Rob was a good sport, but is spending today mountain biking while I'm at the lab for the afternoon. He needed time with boys, understandably.  

Pictures!

Tye plays with his "pot-holder puppet". 

Nothing like going to a no-kid house, which is also a no-toys house.

Guess that will be changing soon enough!

Porch swing photo op:

left to right:  Donna, Mom, Tye, Rikki

Cute stuff in the nursery.

I promise these curtains aren't quite as shiny as they look!

Also they coordinate perfectly with the Bambi prints.

Yep, that is my dog in the baby swing.

Our little fam, sort of.

 Remember this puzzle?  

We had grand plans.

Turns out there is a lot of green and brown.

And shopping with an 18 month old makes you tired.

We made it this far:

A fun weekend, and even though it's quite early, I'm excited to have things in the muffin's room!