Davies-Bundalo Visit

This past Wednesday my Mom arrived for a visit. Besides helping me buy my first official maternity wear (black pants and jeans), she is helping us in refinishing the wood upstairs. The parsonage has all this great 1927 original dark hardwood trim, doors, and built-ins. She uses goof off to strip all the grime and messy paint splotches from previous parsonage dwellers, and then freshens it up with a min-wax stain/poly combo. She is very good at this task and it makes such a difference in the overall appearance.
The Davies arrived for their visit on Friday! We certainly kept them busy. Linda, my Mom and I did some serious baby shopping with a travel system and rug for the baby's room as our conquests. As usual we were very successful. Brian and his Dad were busy with many home improvement projects. They replaced the ceiling fan in the baby's room, put up new shelving in Brian's closet, winterized the lawn, and fixed the paint splatters on the house shingles. I think I was most excited about the shingles project. When the eves were painted a long time ago it was done a little hastily and there were a lot of white paint splatters left all along the side of the house. It was kind of like the garage doors and every time I pulled up they bothered me. Wa and Brian bought a can of reddish brown spray paint to match the shingles, Brian went up a ladder with his Dad holding, and they covered the 100 or so white paint splotches with the new color. You can't even tell where the white annoyances were anymore. It was great and brings a smile to my face whenever I come up to the side of the house.
On Sunday our visitors got to see the new contemporary service in action. Overall, it was a busy but fabulous weekend and we can't wait for them to return again soon. Thanks for all your help and everything you do for us!

Special Delivery

My first week of school has passed and it was actually quite the tough week in some respects. The kids were great and very excited their teacher is pregnant (maybe because that means a sub for the second half of the year.) I felt a little bit like a spectacle at times when my kids from last year saw me, gasped, and pointed to my expanding belly. I also tried to start out conversations with the fact that I was pregnant to avoid any awkwardness for the other parties. "No I did not gain 20lbs over the summer just from being lazy and eating chocolate, this bulge is my new little girl." I'm kind of glad the initial notification of my pregnancy is done at school.
The bad part of school has been the heat. It was 90 degrees last week, we have no air conditioning and I teach on the second floor which is nothing new from last year. However, our school is building a 9th grade addition to the south side of the building. Therefore, all of the classroom windows facing the south side have been boarded up for the addition, so now I have no windows as well. The classrooms got as hot as 97 degrees. The first day was particularly rough because I actually tried to dress professionally. I don't know if it was the pregnancy hormones or the heat or both but when Brian, my Mom, my Dad, and the Davies all asked me on occasion how my first day went I started sobbing. Sorry everyone! The rest of the week I wore sundresses and felt much better, but sweat more than I thought possible. Next week should cool off and hopefully will be better. I've already decided that when my work environment becomes a little more professional I will start dressing a little more professional.
There were many more important great things this past week that certainly pulled me through. The ultrasound being number one. Then on Friday my cousin, Ginger, sent me pink Gerber daisies at work in honor of my little girl. That definitely brought a smile to my face and made me forget about any heat I may have been feeling. The picture above is myself, my growing belly housing our little girl, and the beautiful bouquet.
On Saturday Brian and I started to register for some baby gear. Boy, were we out of our league. We realized that we know barely anything about baby equipment and decided to regroup and bring our parents to help. Brian was great though. I gave him an A+ for behavior. He is usually good for the most part during our shopping trips, but then starts breaking down at the end. This time as we were nearing the end and he was starting to get a little tired of contemplating between shades of pink, he held up his four fingers and started saying in the middle of the store, "Fourth quarter, Fourth quarter." This little self pep talk is a common football routine for the fourth quarter of a game, and I found it funny he employed the same technique to finishing the job that he used in a grueling head bashing football game to deciding between baby bedding. I'm not sure which was actually more difficult for him to finish out. Really, he did great in his Dadly duties. Our little girl and I are certainly blessed!

It's a Girl!

We had our first ultrasound today and we rejoice in thankfulness that we have a healthy little baby. It is amazing everything you can see from the ultrasound from the spine, to the heart, to the little hands. All seems well with our little one and we are so thankful. That was really the most important thing to us. The baby was sleeping at the beginning of our ultrasound and after all the poking became one active little baby kicking and waving hands, which was awesome to see. The baby was a little uncooperative in determining the sex but the doctor is reasonably certain our little one is a little baby girl! She had her hand on her hip which is something my Mom and I do all the time, which is crazy. Brian said with that tendency and her stubbornness to turn around she had to be a girl like me. Now we anxiously await her arrival sometime around January 28th. In the meantime we will worry about all the pink accessories I now feel the sudden need to acquire! Thank you so much for your continued thoughts and prayers.