wonderful Tuesday

red lipstick kinda day!

Yesterday was such a wonderful day.  I slept in a little bit with Henry, and then headed downtown to meet up with Amber and Adie for some girl time.  Henry came along too, but he didn't mind the girl talk and chit chat one bit. ;)  We ate lunch at Esoji, and I had sushi for the first time since I became pregnant.  It was absolutely delicious and I forgot how much I enjoy miso soup and a rainbow roll- the perfect lunch in my opinion!  I was so happy because H. didn't make a peep the entire time we were in the restaurant outside of happy little smiles and sighs, and the whole experience was really fantastic.  I still have that new mama anxiety about taking him places (especially restaurants) and having the fear that he'll cry and I'll have to leave.  But he was awesome, and we even went to Starbucks afterward.  All in all it was a lovely day and it feels so good to get back into the swing of things with my friends, and also to just feel "normal," after not going out very much over the past month.  It was so nice to spend time with my darling ladies and I'm so happy Amber is in town for a few more days.

It's hard to believe that 2011 is upon us, and I'm looking forward to making some goals to start the year off on a positive foot.  I actually really enjoy making New Year's Resolutions and I typically stick to them, surprisingly.  I think I just like any excuse to make lists, to be honest! haha.  But I will definitely be sharing my 2011 goals before the week is over, and they include both personal and blog goals.  One goal I can share now is getting back into taking photos more often.  It was easy to fall out of taking my camera everywhere with me while I was pregnant, but I definitely need to get back into the swing of things.  And speaking of getting back into the swing of things, I have one more guest post to share with all of you on Friday (originally it was going to be yesterday but I had other things to post), and then I won't have those posts to rely on anymore.  It is harder to find time to blog with little H. being my priority now, but it's not impossible and because I find blogging to be relaxing and quite the de-stressor, I make it a daily "must do."  It will be nice to return to more day to day posts, and start working on a few longer posts I have rolling around in my head.

Well, sleep is calling so I hope all of you have the best Wednesday.  Enjoy your day! xo

 

 Amber and Adie :)

Friday night update

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope all of you are having a wonderful start to your weekend. My parents are currently in town and we've been having a great time getting things done and getting the nursery all set up. First things first, we had to paint the nursery. Hank and I have been mulling over gray shades of paint for what seems like forever, and we finally settled on one: Valspar's "Polished Silver," which we purchased at Lowe's. The room has all white trim, so we wanted a nice gray that would really make the white pop. We got started last night and taped the whole room, and this morning my Dad laid the plastic out while my Mom and I got ready for breakfast. Afterward, it was painting time. The room that became Henry's room was the only room in the house that had been repainted outside of the color scheme and was a bright blue. Some of our friends loved the color and thought we should have kept it, but our minds were set on the gray and I'm definitely glad we changed it. The final result is so incredibly perfect and I'm totally in love with it. I'm so excited to get the rest of the room done...and just in time too since I'm about 36 weeks pregnant!

I'm also really excited for tomorrow because my sister and her fiance Abe are coming up so we can all go to the pumpkin patch! I've been looking forward to it for awhile and I'm happy the weather's been a little chilly so we can enjoy a nice Autumn afternoon. Tomorrow's also the day that Hank's band Hour of the Wolf goes on tour, but due to little H. being on the way so soon, he elected to stay behind for this one. Since it's a full-US tour, it was just too risky to have him across the country if I went into labor. Our dear friend Caleb is filling in for him during this 5 week jaunt all the way across the country to The Fest in Florida, so definitely check them out if they're in your area. You can see their tour dates on their Myspace page here or on the Think Fast! website by clicking here (scroll down and select "view all shows"). And be sure to say hi to the guys if you happen to catch a show!

In case you're not familiar with Hour of the Wolf, here are a few songs. Enjoy!

I'll be back tomorrow with some Fall-time goodness! Have a great night.

Happy Sunday!

What a weekend. I feel like I got a lot accomplished, which is wonderful, but the moment I stepped foot inside our house I kind of melted into the couch and this is where I've been for the past thirty minutes. I should make myself some dinner, I should put away some of the non-perishable groceries sitting there in the bag, and I should be getting ready for Hank and my evening walk...but it's so much nicer to just sit here and kind of zone out for a bit. I snapped that picture really quickly driving home (at a red light, mind you!). You can kind of see my new hair color, which is a shade of red! Rhonda did an amazing job as always and I had a blast hanging out with her on Saturday AND seeing Melissa! Double awesome. I also got to spend great quality time with my family this weekend and they definitely were troopers as we shopped 'til we dropped. Exhaustion aside, we did get all of the nursery's furniture ordered! This is a relief to me and I'm looking forward to getting the room done in the next few weeks. Oh, and if you're curious about the slight chaos going on behind me in the photo, my car is filled up with some goodies from IKEA, part of our new bedroom furniture, and lots of other random things I grabbed from my parents' house. We move into our new place in about 10 days, so we are starting to get everything together and ready for that. I can't even tell you how excited I am be moving out of this small (but still wonderful) apartment and into our first home, which is has a million times more space. We won't even know what to do with ourselves, and I am happily anticipating having lots of houseguests to occupy our guest rooms! Who's coming to visit? ;)

Today I also got to meet my dear friend Erin's baby boy Kyler, along with Shirley. He is so precious and tiny, and it was amazing to look at him and think that our little Henry will be here so soon, and it will be him that I am holding! The girls and I had a great afternoon catching up over lunch and listening to Erin tell us all about her birthing experience. She's one honest gal, so I learned a LOT- and this makes me really happy. Tomorrow is our first birthing class and I'm looking forward to it, but it's always good to get the real deal from a friend.


This weekend Hank was also super busy up here in Prescott. One of his bands had a show Friday night, and then yesterday he played in a golf tournament. He didn't win but did really well, which is awesome. I love that he's so into sports and I can't wait for our little guy to maybe be the same way! Growing up my parents were always at our dance practices, recitals, gymnastics, early morning soccer games, practices, you name it. I'm excited to do the same- I'm just really curious to see what he is into. I know that's a long way away, but it's fun to imagine what Henry will be like. If he's anything like his Dad I'm sure he'll pick up skateboarding pretty early and probably play some basketball and football too, but we'll see! I don't care if he wants to tap dance! I will be there, with bells on.

I'm looking forward to this week for a couple of reasons: one, our birthing classes begin as I mentioned earlier. Two, the Peters family is coming up for dinner one night, and three, the weather is starting to the get nice and fall-like, with the temperatures in the 50s at night. I love it so much and I can't wait to do some Halloween decorating.

I hope all of you have a fantastic week ahead.

Hello Friday!

Thanks so, so much for all of your kind words and positive thoughts about our inspection! It went very well and we are good to go. Now we just have a termite inspection on Monday and we are hopefully off and running towards our closing date. Like I mentioned in yesterday's post I hadn't even seen the entire house, and we hadn't seen it for a month or two since our first and only visit, so it was fantastic to be able to walk through it, and imagine US living in every room. It's a lot bigger space than we're used to, so it's almost shocking to think about having all of that room to make our own! I can't wait. I didn't want to take tons of photos until it's cleared out and ready to move in and it's actually ours, but I did snap a photo of part of the kitchen. I'm so weird and still feel like all of a sudden the bank will say, "Oh just kidding we DON'T accept your offer!" even though we are past that part and safe. I hate worrying but it's hard when you are so excited about something!



I just keep imagining all of the wonderful meals, sweets and treats we will be cooking in that great space. Hank and I are so excited to have our friends over for dinner (we'll finally have a proper dining room), and all of the holiday baking I'll have space to do. To give you a bit of a comparison, here is our teeny, tiny kitchen now:



Yes, that little green counter top is seriously the ONLY counter space we currently have. As you probably know, we cook and bake a lot and somehow make it work, but I am just over the moon happy about having so much more space to work with. Like I said yesterday, this is our "first home," in the sense of being homeowners, so it's a big deal for us and I'm glad we were so patient. I know I won't feel 110% secure that this is truly OUR house until we have the keys in our hand on our closing date, but unless something insane happens (ie, termites eating the house alive), I'm getting more used to the idea. :) It's just hard for me to think anything is definite until the process is truly done and over with. It's funny because our realtor today was like, "Yes, Danielle it's okay to get excited now" because she knows how cautious I am. Still crossing my fingers and looking forward to the day I can just sit in the new place and breath a sigh of relief! ...and then get straight to work getting the house together before Henry arrives! haha. But really, thank you again for all of the positive energy! I definitely think it helped.

It's amazing right now because in the blog world there are so many wonderful things happening for so many of my friends. One had a baby today, one announced her pregnancy, one found a great new place to rent, another is engaged, and another is starting a new career! That's one of the reasons I just love reading personal blogs- there's always so much good to share in, and at the same time when there's some bad, there's always a great support system. It's a beautiful little world we have here.

With that said, I hope all of you have a wonderful night! I'm excited for an extremely laid back weekend full of rest and relaxation. Until next time!

Thursday night update

What a week! It's truly been a roller-coaster these past few days, and luckily it seems to be ending on a very great note. If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you'd know that Hank and I have been house hunting since last spring. We have pretty specific things we want, and it's hard living in a small town because there aren't as many houses for sale that fall into our specifications. Although we're in a bit of a time crunch (12 weeks until our baby is due), we still didn't want to settle at all. Plus, this is our first time buying a house and we really wanted to take our time and do it right. So we've been looking, and looking...and looking. Almost two months ago a home popped into our listing cart at midnight, and of course I was awake and immediately got excited. It was exactly what we wanted. It was seriously perfect for us, and had so much more than we wanted with no negatives that we could see. I got Hank and showed him all the photos, and emailed our realtor. We ended up going over there first thing in the morning, absolutely falling in love with it, and submitting our offer that same day. We were so fast that no one else even went to see the house before we submitted our offer (with a stipulation in the contract that they couldn't accept any other offers/contracts), and the agent told us that the next day about 20 different people called about it, so I'm so thankful we got there right away. Being that it was a short sale we had no idea how it would pan out. It could take months and months for something to happen, so we continued to look. It was hard because nothing matched up to "that" house, but we kept our search going. Little by little our short sale house started to move along. And to make a long story short, the bank accepted our offer! We found out earlier this week, but the house was set to go to auction, so we had to get that taken care of. Apparently even though the bank approved our offer, sometimes houses can get inadvertently sold at auction like this if someone drops the ball. Luckily that was cleared up today, before the auction date, which happens to be tomorrow! Our last hurdle is the inspection, which originally was happening on Monday but is now happening tomorrow! I'm really excited to see the house again, and hopefully hear that it's in great shape and we can move forward. Being that it's almost brand new and it's hardly been lived in I am hoping the inspection goes smoothly, but I'd appreciate any and all positive thoughts being sent our way (tomorrow at 10am Arizona time! haha). ;)

I'm just SO excited. To be able to have a HOME to welcome Henry into, to be able to stop renting, to have a garden in the big backyard, to have so much space and so many rooms, to be able to finally get the furniture I want, to decorate, I'm kind of dying a little just thinking about it. We've been renting for six years now and started off living in a teeny tiny studio, and shared a TWIN BED for a year. So you could say we are very excited for this big step.

In other news, school is going very well. It's definitely my best year yet and the kids are so fun. I'm having a great time. This week I've been really overwhelmed with everything going on, and I owe about five of my friends phone calls, so I'm looking forward to getting comfortable this weekend and making some time for that. Hank also had a basketball game tonight (they won, yeah!), and it was so fun to watch him and our friends have a great time. Now they're all downtown have celebratory drinks, and I'm sure Hank is enjoying a Shirley Temple. ha.

Here's a little collage from some photos from this week:



each row from left to right: my handsome breakfast date at Cuppers, waiting for a basketball game to start, flowers in our front yard, my giveaway win from Merry Made Handmade, the Pink Team wins again!, driving/looking like a bug with those huge glasses, cuties lounging on the couch, baked potato with broccoli- so good, vintage tee for Henry, gifted by the lovely Ashley, Mike's b-ball legs, tonight's game, a present for Henry from Kat and Oliver!

Here's a bigger version of their team photo, it's so cute!



I mentioned in the caption but I want to give a HUGE thank you to Ashley over at Merry Made Handmade for sending over the biggest box of goodies for me (and even adding in a present for Henry!). I won a giveaway over there a week or so ago and I was so excited to see a cute little package from her. I opened it, and it was chock full of so many awesome things. Definitely stop by her blog if you don't already- she is a Phoenix gal who runs her own business, and she's the sweetest little gal in the world. Click here to head over to her blog. So I was just blown away by that wonderful package, but then Hank tells me I have another box waiting for me, and inside I find the cutest Seahorse toy for Henry, from my darling friend Kat and her son Oliver. I love it so much and I know H. will love falling asleep to his "Soothe and Glow Seahorse." :) I have the sweetest friends- thank you both SO very much. My heart is so happy.

That's it for now, but I will be back this weekend with a pregnancy update, and the second part to my "10 Things I've Learned in my 20s" post. Have a great night!

TGIF, right? (I'd love some input too!)

older photo I made into a button over there on the right hand sidebar! ;)

Well, it's Friday! Today was a good day. I'm extremely happy it's the end of the week- not "relieved" because my classes are actually all pretty great, just basically overall happy. I had a doctor's appointment today and got to hear the thump-thump of our little boy's heart. It's always such an amazing thing to be able to hear that, and it always kind of makes me tear up a bit. Since it's a group practice I've been scheduling all of my appointments with the NP/Midwife and I love love love her. I should have seen her all along, but better late than never I guess. I got to talk to her about some things I've been experiencing that I haven't even talked about here. Since I've been pregnant I've had some weird episodes that are similar to anxiety attacks (which I am no stranger to), but they're slightly different. I get really hot, light headed, and overall it feels like anxiety, but the doctor thinks it from my very low blood pressure rather than my mental health. Who really knows. All I know is that it's not fun. Last time it happened was about 4 days ago on the first day of school, in the morning, and it was pretty bad. I had to sit on the couch for about 20 minutes until it passed. The midwife told me that even if I have minor anxiety issues (like I do from time to time), these can be exacerbated during pregnancy, or it could be the blood pressure thing she was talking about. It's happened just a few times but she said to keep an eye on this and let her know. So...let's hope that it was a passing thing and it is smooth sailing from here!

In other news, I began a really wonderful book last night. It's called "The Center of Everything" by Laurie Moriarty and according to my Kindle I've read about 30% of it. Obviously I can't give a review of it since I'm only about a fourth done but I will say that it has the possibility to be in my top 10 favorite books ever if it continues at the pace its going. I don't want to give anything away (I hate even reading summaries on Amazon beforehand), but here's a vague snippet about the book from Publisher's Weekly:

For 10-year-old Evelyn Bucknow, there really is no place like home. On all the world maps she's ever seen, the United States has been smack dab in the middle, with Kansas in the middle of that. "I feel so lucky to live here, right in the center," she proclaims, in Moriarty's wonderfully down-to-earth debut. Dazzled by visions of Ronald Reagan on the television, the twinkle in his eye and his contention that "God put America between two oceans on purpose," Evelyn's youthful optimism is shaken by her young single mother Tina's inability to take control of her life.

I definitely, definitely recommend it if you're looking for a new book to read!

Other than that, I've been keeping busy with sleeping a lot, hoping and wishing we hear news about our short (long) sale house offer, and daydreaming about holding baby Henry. Currently I'm thinking about getting myself to the gym for a late night workout to stretch my legs a bit and clear my mind. It seems like a perfect night for a long go on the elliptical with some music and a good book. If you couldn't tell, I'm having a wild Friday night!

Before I go, I'd like to ask all of you for some input about something I've been thinking about for a few months. Here are some of my blog's stats: currently I average 7 posts a week, have 1581 followers via blogger, 2,174 readers via Google Reader, and average about 3,150 page views a day (averaging approximately 14,500 visits/22,000 page views a week- and these numbers have been consistently growing). The reason I am telling you about all of this, is to share that I am currently thinking about opening up sponsorship spots. In the past I've been wary of sponsorship, but the larger my reader base becomes, and the more small business owners I meet, I've come to realize what a neat opportunity it is to be able to feature people I support- be them Etsy shops, Mommy bloggers, bloggers in general, baby shops, tattoo-related products, small-companies, etc, and share them with so many thousands of like-minded people. I've seen a handful of my blog friends go this way recently (the darling Holly Sarah being one of them who has inspired me- be sure to check out Create Loves if you don't already), and I've spoken to a few about it (thank you again Diana for your input), and I believe that this is something I'd like to do. What I'd like to know from YOU is how many of you would be interested in a sponsorship spot here on Sometimes Sweet? I would be doing a small number of month-to-month ad runs at a reasonable rate (with options for longer runs at discount) with giveaway options. The one thing I DO NOT want my blog to turn into, is a space that is all about sponsors, making money off sponsors, etc. There's nothing that I hate more than when I blog I love suddenly turns into giveaway central with tons of "ads" from all sorts of random shops and people, and the content I love falls to the wayside. This blog is about my life. That will never change. I never started blogging to have this many (wonderful) people a day come here, but it's happened, and I've welcome it with open arms. It's given me the chance to meet so, so many amazing people and have a place to share my writing, which I just love. I think this will be a fun step for me, and if I don't enjoy having sponsors, or I feel it takes away from the "me" aspect of this space, I will stop. But I think it is worth a try and something I am moving towards, probably as Fall begins.

So again, I'd love to see who is interested in a spot here, as well as get any and all feedback about this topic.

Thanks so much for your input, as always. Love you all!

Worker bee!

Well, two days down...a "few" more to go, but I am definitely enjoying my time at work! I've had great luck and I think that all of my kids are just darling, each and every one of them. Even after two days I can tell that my time at school going to be wonderful and continue on without any problems. It's nice to keep myself busy, and I think I will enjoy it as my due date gets closer. It's nice to be around all my teacher friends, and it's also kind of neat to have SO many new people in our department!

Here are a few photos showing one of my "tattoo and maternity friendly" work outfits of the week:





and the cute details of the top without the sweater!


So yes, overall today (and yesterday) was really fantastic. On the first day, I do an activity with all of my classes- one of those awkward, getting to know you games that students probably hate, but I really like! :) I have them turn to the person next to them and ask them 10 questions I've already chosen, write down each others' answers, then introduce each other to the class. It's always really interesting to see their answers to the questions I've picked out- especially their favorite band and their biggest wish for themselves. Today was down to business and I literally talked all hour, every hour. We went over the syllabus and all of my rules, upcoming projects, etc. I teach the same exact thing five times in a row so it can get a little monotonous but overall the kids make it fun. Tomorrow we actually start "learning" something and we begin our Native American Lit. unit.

Hank has been so incredibly sweet about me going back to work for a bit while pregnant. For the past two nights he's had dinner ready for me when I walked in the door. He basically told me to take a seat, put my feet up and then fed me such great food. What a man, huh? ;) Last night we had Thai and tonight I came home to a delicious, delicious home cooked spaghetti and "meat"ball/fresh veggie dinner. Yum. If you're curious, our favorite meatless meatballs are the Trader Joe's brand, and that's what he used here. They are incredibly good.





After dinner we headed downtown so Hank could play a show with one of his bands, Hot Skin. I really, really, really LOVE this band. Addison is the singer/guitarist, Pat plays drums, Jordan plays second guitar and Hank plays bass. It's really fun music and always a good time. Plus, I got to see a million people I haven't seen in awhile which is always fun.



If you're curious about what Hot Skin sounds like, here's a video I took awhile ago at one of their small shows here in town. The quality isn't anything special, but you can kind of get an idea of the type of music they play. It's a side project for these guys (all but one of them are also in Hour of the Wolf with Hank), but they're about to record an EP, so I'll post info when they release it.



So, this week is almost half over and I'm looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend spent with Hank and my friends. On Saturday I'm going to see Eat, Pray, Love with my friends Adie and Becky, and then hooopefully getting root beer floats at the Raven again. So good. (Amber, wish you were here!)

That's it for now, bed is seriously calling my name! I hope you all are having a beautiful week!

xo

Wednesday

Today's been such a good day. I feel like we're on pins and needles waiting to hear back about the house- we're scheduled to hear something this week! Possibly Monday, but hopefully before the weekend. This will seem like a bunch of nonsense if you're not familiar with short sales, but the bpo came back and our offer was right on point...so we're basically crossing our fingers that all the signs that are pointing to yes actually follow through and say yes. If you are familiar with short sales, you'd know that it could fall through at any time. Although we are in the very last stage and everything has been smooth sailing, and has moved quite quickly over the past month since we made our offer, nothing is certain until we sign those papers. I've been sending so much positive energy into the air and visualizing the heck out of this situation. With Henry arriving pretty soon this would make life a lot easier. So we'll see! We're continuously looking at houses, and although nothing we've found is as great as this one, I know we'll be able to find something else we like if need be. Time is the only thing that is a little iffy, since we are renting and our lease can only be extended month to month for so long! Apparently we're playing the "how much stress can we put on this pregnant lady" game. haha.

Other than that, work this week has been so much fun. It's nice to see so many happy faces and spend time with my teacher friends. This year has such a positive vibe about it and I'm glad to be back. I'm already done with my preparation so I've been having a lot of time to enjoy Harry Potter (currently on Book 2) and plan out the entire semester for the sub that will take over in my absence. The weather has also been so beautiful up here, and Hank and I have been taking evening strolls every night, and he's been playing basketball with his friends, which makes me ecstatic that he's out enjoying himself. As usual we've been cooking dinner each night, and tonight Hank is making his curry again. It looks and smells 100x better than last time, which says a lot since last time was amazing!

I realized last night that I forgot to do a 24 week pregnancy update so I will be doing my week 25 update tomorrow as scheduled, and you might see a bit of a jump in my belly size! I definitely think it's been growing a bit in the last couple of weeks.

Also, before I go, here are a couple odds and ends!

1) I signed up for Home Ec today and I am SO incredibly excited. Nervous, but mainly excited! Have any of you signed up or are any of you planning to? If you're curious, click here to learn more about this AWESOME class! And what perfect timing for me! I'm looking forward to learning all the basics (and a so much more), and making all sorts of things from curtains to plush animals, and one day, even clothing! As soon as I wrap up this entry I'm heading over to the Home Ec private blog for the first time and I can't wait. :)

2) I also wanted to share my current favorite blog with all of you-

http://chemicalfreeskinny.tumblr.com/

I've been an avid reader for a month or so, and this is seriously one of the absolute best blogs I've come across dealing with all-natural, healthy living. It's a wealth of information, and even though I feel like I'm very well-educated, I learn something new every single day (often many new things)! I urge all of you to add Chemical Free Skinny to your daily read, and be sure to let me know what you think!

3) Speaking of natural, I have to share my favorite snack of the week! If I'm in a bind and totally craving something chocolate, I've found Clif's Zbars in Chocolate Brownie to the be the best option. As a rule I try to stay away from consuming tons of packaged foods, but this is such a yummy treat and fairly healthy as well. I think it tastes just like a brownie and the entire bar is only 130 cal, 3.5 g of fat, 10g of sugar, and you get 3g of fiber and 3g of protein! Not too bad for something I like to enjoy for dessert, along with some fresh berries.

http://www.clifbar.com/


Well yay! I'm enjoying getting back into posting almost daily updates. This summer was a little strange with all the traveling we did, and it was hard for me to get into the groove and really sit down and write my usual posts, outside of the weekly features and pregnancy updates. I'm really looking forward to these next months, and sharing so many fun and exciting things with you all! Happy Wednesday!

So long, sweet summer...

Well, today is my last official day of summer! The photos above are from last summer and the summer before, while I was organizing my empty classroom...and as far as this year, I go back to work tomorrow! Although the kids don't arrive until Monday I'll be spending the week in my classroom, getting ready and doing some planning. It's actually quite easy because I'm teaching the same thing I've taught for the past four years, so all I have to do is make copies and review what I've done in the past and think about whether or not I want to change anything. In years past, no matter how much I've loved my job, I still dreaded the end of summer. I think it's natural...enjoying months of doing whatever you please and than waking up and having to go back to work can be a bit of a shock. However, this year I'm not dreading it at ALL! I'm really excited for summer to be over because that means fall will begin soon, and THAT means our son will be here! We officially have "approximately" 15 weeks until our little guy makes his arrival into the world, so my focus isn't so much on having to end my summer, but all about meeting Henry!

Besides the obvious, this year is a bit different because I typically teach a section of seniors, in addition to my 4 sophomore classes. This year I'm teaching ALL 10th graders, which makes my job about 10x easier and just kind of weird but I do the same thing all day, 5 times in a row. Much easier, but maybe more boring? We'll see. So I'm excited to get back in my classroom tomorrow and plan out the entire semester, so the sub that takes over when the little one comes will be totally prepared and my kids won't miss out on anything great. Hopefully I will be able to fit in teaching The Crucible before the birth because it's one of my all-time favorite things in literature. If you're curious, I teacher American Literature, and we begin with Native American Literature and go all the way up to modern day, ending with a poetry unit. The first quarter is actually one of my favorites so I'm happy to fully be there for that.

Other than school everything is going really well. Madeline's just the sweetest little thing ever and I swear she knows I'm pregnant. I can't wait until we end up in a house and can get another little Boston to be her best friend, I know she'll be so happy. Speaking of the house, things are moving along and looking so good. I do NOT want to get my hopes up but we should know something in the next week and things are looking very positive. So cross those fingers, friends! This weekend I came down to get my hair done by my darling friend Rhonda and while in the valley we ran by some furniture stores and I got so excited to maybe, maybe start decorating soon. I am bad about getting ahead of myself, but I figure if it's not this house it will be another, so no harm in looking at furniture right? haha. And as far as my hair, we added some lighter colored panels underneath the dark and it looks so good and so subtle. Rhonda's amazing and I'm really happy with it. I'll take a photo to share this week!

Now that school is back in session I feel like I have a lot more structure in my life, which I enjoy. I'm looking forward to planning meals and packing lunches, doing that sort of thing. I'm not too sure how much I'll enjoy teaching once I'm hugely pregnant, but so far it's been pretty smooth sailing so I hope it's okay. Let's hope! Wellll, I should be winding down since we have a faculty meeting at 8am tomorrow, so I'm signing off! I hope all of you have a great night.

Wednesday, today

This week has been a good one. The weather's been a dream- thunder and lightning almost every night, some rain, and every evening sky has been one of those weird gray-yellow colors that just screams that monsoon season is here. I've been trying to really slow down a bit and enjoy this last week of summer, before I head back to work next Tuesday. We've been taking walks, and sucking in every last bit of this amazing weather up here in the mountains. This week's been full of appointments for me- Madeline went to the doggie spa, I headed to the dentist, and I have a hair appointment this Saturday. I'm truly looking forward to freshening up my color and getting a little trim. I went through a phase a few weeks ago where I wanted to cut my hair...but now that phase is OVER and I am back to loving it, in all it's long length glory! The only thing I'd like would be for it to be more of a rich chocolate brown with some more depth to it. My hair feels so dull and Saturday can't come soon enough. Other than that, I'm just winding down the summer and getting ready to enter my third trimester next month. Can you believe time has gone by so quickly? Today while at the dentist (no cavities yet again, yeah!), I had to make my next cleaning appointment for February. I was looking through my planner trying to pick a day that would work with my work schedule until it hit me that I could come anytime, since my job will be taking care of Henry...who will BE HERE then! It was kind of weird to have that realization, and think about that life change, so I went ahead and made my appointment for 10am on a weekday...since that time will work out just fine for my stay-at-home-mom self! :) So, so neat and it made me really excited, as silly as it sounds.

So, for the rest of the day today I'll be doing little things around the house- laundry, organizing, etc. and then getting a GOOD night's sleep. Last night I went to bed incredibly late, and I had to be up at 7am. It's imperative I get back into a good schedule for school because otherwise I'll be a disaster. Last night was fun though, I met up with Amber and Adie at the Raven to enjoy some dessert. Our original plan was to get pie, but we decided to do the Raven instead and enjoyed the most delicious root beer floats. I totally treated myself and it was so tasty. I can't wait to take Hank there on a little date night! I had a great time, even though it was a little bittersweet, since in the morning I knew Amber would be heading off to her new home in Texas. I'm so excited for her though, and it was great to have "one last night" before she left. So after a long night of root beer float sipping, girl-talking and downtown walking, I headed over to my friend Robyn's house for a little visit and got home way past twelve, and didn't get to bed until well past 2am. Not the best choice. I'm still feeling good though, so maybe it's what I needed in order for me to get to sleep early tonight. Let's hope!

Well, signing off now, but I hope all of you enjoy your Thursday, and have a great day!

TGIF

Today was such a lovely day. I had a lot to get done, and I got all of it done, yay for me, right? I started out the morning with a movie date with my sister-in-law Brooke. Our big plan was that by going to see Eclipse at 10am on a weekday, the theater would be totally empty. We still got there fairly early, but when we walked in the theater was packed! We managed to find two seats at the end of the aisle which was good (although the seats where you can put your feet up on the bar are preferable), but we were still comfy. I was SO happy with the movie though. I've read all the Twilight books (in my opinion- great story, horrid writing), and I've also seen each of the films so far. I thought the movie adaptations were pretty good, but this one takes the cake for being the absolute best so far! I really, really enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised. I'm usually really annoyed with Kristin Stewart but she wasn't so bad this time, and overall I kind of loved it! So, if you're on the fence about seeing it, I recommend it 100%! And if you did see it, what did you think? Do you share any of my sentiments? Which movie have you liked best so far?

Afterward I did a lot of errands, then came home and Hank and I decided to have a dinner date. We haven't gone on a just-us date in a week or so, so tonight was perfect. Originally Autumn's family was supposed to be up here, but unfortunately Jason has to work tomorrow, so they are having to reschedule their visit. I'm really sad but I know we'll see them soon. So due to the change in plans we decided to do a just-us night, and started the night off with a little stroll. I think it's so important to have nights like these, because I know when Henry arrives our lives will be a lot different than they are now. And not in a bad way, just a different way. We headed out down to street to see our friend Addison at the guitar shop he works at. They were having a little blues jam session, so we stopped by there to say hello then walked down to Taj Mahal, one of our favorite restaurants in town. It was so nice to enjoy a leisurely dinner and talk and talk. Everyday I feel a little bit luckier that I have Hank in my life, it's so neat to be married to your best friend, and nights like this always remind me to count my blessings and be so thankful for this love. :) At dinner I got to see my friend Robyn! She works there as a bartender/server and it was so nice to catch up for a bit, amidst the live piano music and delicious food. After dinner we strolled back home- I get tired pretty quickly so I wanted to veg out and rest. In a minute we're going to lace up our running sneakers and go on a little outdoor workout jaunt through the neighborhood and THEN....(oh I am so excited)...Hank is going to watch one of my FAVORITE movies ever for the FIRST time, Death Becomes Her.



I dvr-ed this via HBO the other day and it blew my mind that Hank had never seen it, so I've been looking forward to watching it all week with him. It will be nice to have a relaxing evening because tomorrow is going to be quite the day. All of my family is coming up to enjoy 4th of July up here in Prescott. Again, we're totally all going to miss Autumn and family but next year will be just as fun! Last year Sarah spent the weekend with us and we had a blast hula hooping, wearing patriotic crowns, and watching fireworks. This year should be great too and I'll be sure to take a million photos.

Speaking of, here are some pictures from today that I took using the shakeitphoto app on my new iPhone 4! Happy Friday, everyone!