27 weeks

I'm huge already.... I can't imagine what I will look like in 13 more weeks... HAHA.

Menu Plan

Well I have skipped a couple of weeks on my menus but with school starting last week it was a very chaotic in my house and I did still manage to cook!!! This week our menu options are:

• Stuffed Shells I do not use the spinach because neither one of us are very fond of it and I think this recipe calls for a little bit of Italian sausage and the rest to be ground beef, but I just use Italian Sausage. I also use part skim ricotta cheese instead of the whole milk kind.
• Roasted Chicken- This I am not cooking. We buy the whole baked chickens from Kroger and I am going to let it cool for a while and then I will pull it off the bone and put it in the containers. With this we will have squash and zucchini with a little onion. For that, I just slice the squash and zucchini and onion, put a little water in a saute pan, put the lid on, and let it sweat. It will cook for a good while. We will also have cheesy broccoli. I have only made the cheesy broccoli once but we LOVED it and it was SUPER easy!
• Teriyaki Turkey Burgers- these are a homemade creation that my husband made one night and every since then I crave them quite often. All you do it dump a pound of ground turkey in a bowl with some teriyaki sauce (be careful not to add to much or your meat will be runny) and mix with your hands. With our burgers we will have roasted sweet potato cubes. This recipe is kind of made up too..... I peel and cube the sweet potatoes (I use two potatoes). Spread them out on a cookie sheet or in a cake pan, either will work. You can also use foil so you do not have to wash the pan afterwards. I sprinkle with a little olive oil and a tiny bit of salt and brown sugar and then bake on 350 for 30 minutes or so. HAHA you can tell how well I pay attention to them. They are so easy because I can pop them in the over and forget about them for a while. They are SO good!!!
• Tater Tot Casserole I have never made it but I thought I would give it a try. I will use ground turkey instead of beef and fat free (or reduced fat) cream of chicken.

I hope that everyone has a great week!!!

First week of school and some other thoughts

Well I made it..... through the first week of school that is! I was ready to go back and I now know why, I honestly love what I do. I had a great first year and couldn't have asked for a better team (5th grade and the rest of the school) to work with but there were a lot of things that I would have changed about my first year also. Not the kids, not the wonderful people I work with, but just things that I did as a first year teacher that were probably more of a survival mechanism more than anything else. I looked forward to this new school year almost all summer so I could start over and try new things and so far so good! I can honestly sum up my first week as AMAZING! The kids are good, routines are started, and I have already started digging right into curriculum. I also love getting to see my Townley family everyday. I know I already said it once but I love my 5th grade team!!! I honestly believe that if I did not have them last year I might not have made it. The other teachers are amazing too. There are so many of them that will just come sit down in your room just to talk or give you those little bits of information that might make our lives easier/less stressful!

On to other things.... I have discovered this week that pregnancy is not for sissys. (Please do not take this as me griping or as me not being thankful that I am pregnant because that's not at all what I mean, these are just things that have made me realize that pregnancy really is hard work) For the most part my pregnancy has been the easiest thing ever. I have LOVED being pregnant, I love the belly, I love maternity clothes (I know that sound weird), I love the movements, the shakes, the kicks, etc. but just this week some things have developed that have made me realize that my body is really working hard and that I am working hard to grow this little one. First of all, my heels are killing me everyday. This first week of school consisted of a lot of standing so being on my feet with all the added weight make for some sore feet. Good thing my principal stopped me on the first day of school and said he "expected" me to be sitting and not to worry if they came in and I was sitting down, it was ok. It should be easier to find time to sit down once the routines are actively in play. Second, the indigestion. It has gotten so bad lately. I can go to bed fine and wake up with an empty stomach but have indigestion. Just doesn't make sense to me how someone can have indigestion on an empty stomach. (haha). The dr told me to stop taking the tums because they do not work and gave me some names of some other meds that will help. Third, two nights in a row now I have be awakened with charlie horses in my calf muscles. AHHHHH, the worst pain ever. I used to have a lot of leg pains but it was not charlie horses, it was just cramps and aches and pains. But these are full blown charlie horses that hurt so bad when they are happening and then continue to make the muscle sore the day after. I guess I will stock up on some bananas this week. And fourthly, the hardest thing for me has been the weight gain. I have always been someone who puts on weight extra easy. I can eat ONE ice cream cone and gain weight, but I really did not think that I would gain this much weight during pregnancy. I don't mind my belly at all, I love it actually. It has just been hard not to look at the number on the scale and not almost fall over. HAHA. I have dealt with this a lot lately but I am feeling better and constantly reminding myself that the end result will be well worth the enormous weight gain. My nurses have been so sweet and reassuring that I am just fine and that some people just gain weight easier than others and that it WILL come off after this baby is here (which by the way is in 13 weeks!!)

Ok, enough rambling off to our baby CPR and safety class then spending the rest of the day with my wonderful husband. (Have I told ya'll lately how blessed I am that God placed him in my life?!)

26 weeks

My countdown timer is officially out of the 100's and into the double digits! This makes me SOOO happy and even more excited! I remember my countdown time for our wedding and it felt like once it hit the double digits it FLEW by... so here's to hoping these next three months FLY by!!! Here is a picture of me at 26 weeks...... I do not particularly like this picture because I can tell that my face is getting bigger/fluffier (haha) BUT it shows how big my belly seems to have gotten in the last couple of days. I swear this baby either grew two feet in the last 4 days or it is just sitting funny or maybe it's just me realizing that my stomach is non-stop growing and is starting to get to the huge point (haha) I do have to say that I LOVE it! This morning we ran to wal-mart for a couple of things and I sat down and took my blood pressure for no good reason and it was perfect but my pulse was very high. Buddy, of course, pointed that out (haha) and I had to remind him that I am carrying a baby and that to get anywhere my body is working extra HAHA and yes my pulse does elevate very quickly, which is something I have noticed a lot lately!

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I am really anxious to meet my new students! I had a great first year and am so anxious for this year to begin and to get to know the students. I am sure this week will be full of craziness, chaos, and never ending exhaustion but I truly LOVE my job and the people that I work with so it is ALL worth it! Thursday I go for my monthly OB appointment and I also have my glucose test. They usually do the glucose test in the morning but since mine falls on the first week of school I have to go in the afternoon, which means I am on a very strict diet that day. We will see how this goes! Please pray that the results come back normal and that I do not have gestational diabetes.

classroom pictures

Classroom

Today was the first day that we were able to get in our newly renovated school. It has been under construction literally since the last day of school. We have not been able to enter at all. It was a huge process getting everything ready for the reno, meaning that we had to take EVERYTHING down, and EVERYTHING had to be moved out. It was pretty easy getting everything out or stored where it was safe but today started the process of unpacking it all and getting it all back out and into it's place. When I got to the school I realized my room was hot but I just thought that it was because nobody had been in there and I needed to "push the button" as we call it, but I pushed that button several times and it was STILL 81 in there. So, needless to say my a/c is out in my classroom. I didn't think that I would last as long as I did but once I started working I couldn't stop. It was a little hard because I wanted to climb on all of the cabinets to hang stuff but I knew that if anyone saw me up there they would have come yelled at me, haha. So I did what I could. Here are a couple of pictures I took before I left. It is not near finished but I am happy with the progress I made today.

These two pictures are what I saw when I entered the room. Let me remind you that Heather and I literally have the smallest classrooms in the school and they had stuffed THIRTY FIVE desk in my room. HAHA. I started giving them away quickly!

These next two are what I got done today.... still a lot more work is needed!
Our school looks AMAZING! The kids are going to love it too!!! I will post more pictures when I am done with my classroom.

25 weeks!

Goodness gracious... I feel like since about my 8th week of pregnancy until now time has FLOWN by. I am so very excited but now I am thinking about all that needs to be done before then. Lately my thoughts have been "what if this little one come early." Although I am ready to meet this little one it freaks me out to think about the "what ifs." Wednesday is my first official day that I have to report back to school but tomorrow begins the adventure of putting my classroom back together after MAJOR construction. With school starting I seem to get more and more paranoid about this little one coming early. I know that the principals have picked a suitable substitute and I am sure she will do a fabulous job but it just scares me to have to leave my "children" in someone else's hands. So I try not to think about it. I try to think that I will carry this baby to full term and that with Christmas break during my maternity leave, I will only be away from my "children" four weeks. We shall see!
Let's see... this week in my pregnancy.... our baby is about 1.5 pounds and is somewhere between 9-13 inches long. (I know it seems like a huge range/difference but everything I read is different). The structures of his spine are starting to form, including 33 vertebrae (rings of bone), 150 joints, and 1,000 ligaments. These structures will eventually support your baby's body weight. Your baby's capillaries are also forming this week. Capillaries are the tiny blood vessels that move blood from the heart to tissues in the body. By the end of week 25, air sacs and blood vessels in your baby's lungs will develop, getting him ready for his first breath. So far in your pregnancy, your little one's nostrils have been plugged up, but they are now beginning to open up.

I have been really thinking about booking a 3D/4D sonogram. I would LOVE to see what this little one looks like but then again I start thinking.... do I really want to or do I want to wait. I know that Buddy is scared that if we do the sonogram that we will accidentally find out if it's a boy or girl but I think that we could tell the sonographer and they would be really careful not to "reveal" this little one's gender. We will see though. The website to the place that I would use says that it is best to do it between weeks 25-32 so I am just now at the point that it would be ok to actually do the sonogram so we will see what we decide. Ok well this is my second post for today and I already have another subject that I would like to post about but I might wait until tomorrow. This weekend has been busy!!

DIY shower project

We had a baby shower for my sister in law/best friend today and for the shower I made a baby carriage/bassinet fruit bowl out of a watermelon. I thought it turned out really cute! Here is an awful picture of it... the lighting was terrible in my kitchen but when I turned the flash on it was too bright.

My sister in law, Sarah, also did a DIY project for the shower. She made the adorable cake that I ate two pieces of HAHA. Here is it.....

Here is a picture of the cake, fruit, and punch table.... you can see the fruit bowl filled with fruit and fruit around it and the adorable cake for little Peyton!!!

Picture

My friend from work painted me a picture for the nursery and I absolutely LOVE it!!! Just thought that it was too cute not to share!

Just a picture

Not much going on just wanted to post my 24 week picture... I think I look huge.... goodness I can't believe I still have 15 more weeks of growing HAHA. This could get scary

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Blog Makeover!

Notice that my blog looks AMAZING?!?!?! Thank you to my co-worker/wonderful friend for re-doing the whole thing!!!! I LOVE IT!

Nursery update

My mom brought over the crib bedding yesterday... well the bumpers and the skirt. We are still working on the design and making of the blanket/baby comforter. AND, I love it!! Although its the only thing that might be put together with the nursery right now it makes me very excited to get it all started! I still do not think that the picture does the color of the bed skirt any justice.... it is really not that bright. Our plan with the blanket/comforter type thing is to use the blue some more along with the bumper fabric and then back it with minky. I can't wait to get started on that. While she was here we also decided on the curtain fabric....This is one of the fabrics that I used on the wall art that will hang over the crib.... here is a picture of those against the crib bumper.....

It's not much but we have many more plans in our head as to what we are going to do with the nursery, this is just the beginning! I can not wait to see it all put together!

Trial Run: Weekly Menu

Ok, I do not know how long this will last or if it will even make it past this week, but I thought that I would give it a try. I know that I get tired of making the same recipes OVER and OVER and I always enjoy seeing other people's menus for the week so today I will post our weekly menu and attempt to put the links to where some of the new recipes came from. There is a blog that I read sometimes and she always post her menus for the week and then other people can post theirs took, you can visit that blog here. I always make a menu for the week because it cuts down on our grocery bill and helps motivate me to cook during the week. We have been really watching where/how we spend our money so me cooking A LOT, has helped us save the money of going out to eat plus I love to cook. We have always been pretty good about eating at home during the week, but the weekends get a little tricky. I can honestly say that this last Friday was the first time I have cooked on a Friday night in a VERY long time and we ate the left overs for lunch on Saturday, which is another time that we usually ALWAYS go grab something. I also decided to do something different this week.... I usually plan the menu to the T. Meaning that my menu says the days of the week and what we will be eating that day and if we will be eating left overs, etc. Well this week I just made "menu options," meaning we bought the stuff to make those items and I will just decide what to cook on what day as the week progresses and how I am feeling that day (haha). The gives me more freedom to pick an easier recipe vs. a recipe that might take longer (I know I am a nerd). Anyways... so our menu options for this week are:

• Steak and baked potatoes (we did plan this one out for tonight while we watch the Cowboys first pre-season game).
• Black bean, corn, and turkey chili I will serve this with cut up corn tortillas and cheese melted on top.
• Creamy broccolli stuffed chicken breast , roasted sweet potato bites (I don't have a recipe for these because I kind of made my own but they are really easy to make too), and peas
• Glazed pineapple chops and cheesy broccolli, and green beans
• Grilled ham, cheese, and turkey bacon sandwiches

I know there are only four things listed there but we will be able to eat left overs on all of them except the steak and baked potatoes. Those are our menu options this week and like I said I am not sure if this will even make it past today but I love getting new recipes so I thought I would share some of the ones that I use/will be using!

Just a cute outfit and some bibs

I went to lunch this week with my sweet friend Karmen and she brought me a baby gift...I am in love with this outfit and think that it is so precious and I can not wait to have a baby to put it on!!!! I just thought that I would share!

23 weeks, shopping, and school

Sunday marked my 23rd week of pregnancy! This means that only 17 (hopefully) short weeks until this baby arrives! We are very very excited! I keep wanting to start working on the nursery but keep putting it off, maybe this weekend we will paint. I want to do the accent wall (the wall where the crib is) in the blueish/aqua color that is in the bedding. This way the white crib will pop. I made three square decorative fabric "things" to hang over the crib and I LOVE them! I did them in three different black and white fabrics... here is a picture. (Remember the wall behind them will not be white)
I plan to get the rest of the nursery going soon .....

I took myself shopping last week. This is very very rare that I go shopping for myself, but I quickly found out with this pregnancy that gaining weight, growing out of ALL your clothes, and squeezing yourself into clothes that do not fit can be very mentally draining. My doctor and sweet nurses have reassured me over and over that I am right on track with my weight and there is nothing to worry about so I feel better.... but I Just got to a point where I felt BLAH all the time because I was wearing the same few maternity things over and over. SOOOO... I went shopping and oh boy did I go shopping! It was so fun. I went to the first store and found some really cute things then I went to a maternity store and they waited on me hand and foot and I was able to show them different things I tried on and ask them questions. It was very nice. BUT then then guilt set in...... After I bought all new clothes I started thinking about what I could take back. HAHA. I was experiencing a little "buyers remorse," but with much convincing from my wonderful husband and mom they convinced me to keep it all. I just love having clothes that fit and I am ready to start this school year with cute clothes! =)

And..... the last topic... school! The kids start in 20 days.... I have two trainings next week and two the next and in between there we have to hope that our school renovations are complete and we are able to enter the school in time to get our rooms ready for the first day of school. Our projected date is August 16th but you never know. I know that that week will be very busy and chaotic but I just keep telling myself that the sooner we get school started the sooner we get to meet our little one! Ok well that is all for now.....