31 Down- 9 to Go

I got ready for church this morning and thought I looked cute so before the wear and tear of motherhood got the better of me I had Aaron take a few snapshots.

I'm to the point where my face is getting a little rounder, my cheeks especially... I think it makes me look so much like my Father. Makes me miss him so much. I see him every time I look in the mirror. His birthday is in a few weeks.

This isn't the best pic of me, but it show the bump pretty well.

Our princess is doing fantastic! While she's very active she's very shy and only just this last month started to allow Aaron to get to know her a little better. She doesn't like being invaded as my doctor tells me with every visit. My Doctor always has a new and amusing adjective to describe baby girl's feistiness after trying to listen to her.

Life is a little crazy these days. With this teaching job and just getting farther along I can't keep up with my expectations for our home, ect. I know it's only temporary, and it has been a very good thing. I'm helping these students, Porter is learning so much socially during the few hours we're apart, he's learning he's not the only child in the universe that's invaluable right now, I'll have a small savings to spend on the nursery and girly wardrobe we've yet to acquire and best of all I'm keeping my teaching license current so that if I ever need a job I can get one. However all perks aside, I'm looking forward to finishing this job up, getting back into our old routine and diving into preparations for Little Miss!

Tears & Cheers

I hope that you're all having a very nice Presidents Day! We talked about doing something fun but quickly realized after getting up the day needed to be dedicated to the list of chores we never have time for, but we still had fun. After Porter finished up his french toast this morning he ran to the door and started begging to go play in the snow. Aaron, being the awesome Dad that he is, bundled himself and Porter up for a morning in the snow.

This is Porter all ready to go play. It was sad, he took a spill while he was playing and scraped his nose and forehead pretty good. I was in front of the boys and turned around to see Porter pulling his face out of the snow with blood on his nose. :( He was awesome about it, though, a brief cry and he was totally over it. This would be tears #1.

While the boys were out playing our friends down the street attempted to thread their flag pole with a new rope. It was frightening to see our friend get so high up on a pole tilting like that and I took this picture after he climbed down a little.

When he realized that wasn't going to work he called the fire department explaining that helping him would be better than having to be called out on a first response call to scrape him up. That and it's to put up a flag. After getting clearance from their Chief the crew came to help with the ladder truck! We weren't going to miss a chance to show Porter a fire truck up close. Soon another crew showed up in another smaller truck just to see what was going on.

They justified the trip as ladder practice because I guess they don't get to use it much. The guys had fun chatting with the firemen and the boys were mesmerized by the truck. The flag pole was actually very difficult to thread, so there was much cheering when the job was completed!

After getting half the neighborhood out to watch the firemen we decided to go out for lunch with some of our neighbors. Cheers for lunch with friends! After lunch we headed over to another friend's house so Porter could get a haircut. It's the same friend that's been watching Porter for me during the days. Porter is terrible at haircuts so we were hoping this might not be as traumatic. He still didn't do well and he cried a few tears, but he did much better than ever before. It was great because their kids got up from their naps to come play with Porter which helped him forget he had a reason to be upset.

Before- Long, wavy, out of control, do as it pleases red hair!

After- short, spiky, gelled, red faux-hawk!

{you can see his road rash on his nose from his fall}

3 Cheers for Porter's new do!

LOVES

Happy Valentines Day! I wanted to share some of the things that I found myself in LOVE with today with too many photos, of course!

{Red Tulips- they're perfect for today.}

{Souveniers from Daddy's Trip to Switzerland & Germany. Porter got this FC Bayern Munich mini soccer ball, baby girl got a darling FC Bayern onesie (I'll post a picture of it later - it's in P's room and he's asleep) and I got exactly what I asked for: Chocolate and European Coke.}

{Porter has already started to dribble his soccer ball! LOVE baby kicks from both the kids.}

{I LOVE him, not so much this photo because he looks sooo much like a little boy and it just reminds me he's growing up too fast!}

{How could you not LOVE this? Daddy gets kisses when he comes home from work.}

{These two are so excited to see each other after a long day of work that they have to play or they'd burst. This is a picture of a game Daddy calls "Neck Chops". Oh how I LOVE them!}


{We had a family night Valentines celebration this evening. We all worked together on dinner and baked heart shaped sugar cookies together. I LOVE nights together.}

{Porter had a great time! My mom would do this with me and my siblings when we were kids so it makes me happy from a place deep down inside.}

{Every cookie made with LOVE is worth a good cheer!}

{LOVE his smile, those eyes, that shaggy long wavy hair... LOVE HIM!}

{By the time frosting and decorating came around Porter was ready to be put to sleep. See his sleepy eyes?}

{And how could I not mention my true LOVE! This crazy glow in the dark runner who is scheduled to run 40 miles this week, yep I LOVE him. I honestly adore you Aaron! I'd be lost without you and am so grateful to be your wife.}

Thanks for all of you who have been spreading the LOVE this week!

Just so you and I know

It may seem weird but I want to know when I look back at my blog why there may be a slight decrease in posts this month. I mentioned I've been substituting and shortly after writing that post I was offered a half day long term sub position teaching 6th grade. I took it not understanding that I was really being hired as a teacher, they just can't afford to pay a teacher. Lovely. It's really not that bad, I was extremely overwhelmed my first day because I was thinking of myself as a sub.

My students are awesome and the ladies I get to work with a fantastic. I will for sure be there at least 4 weeks but the principal is already trying to convince me to stay until our little girl is born. We'll see what happens. Needless to say we're all adjusting to the new schedule and adapting where needed. The biggest change- being away from Porter. He's spending his afternoons with my friend, her 3 kids and all the love they have to offer. Porter LOVES it! He comes home happy as can be and sleeps better at night from all the play. I really like that I still get mornings with him and he has time to play with his friends in the afternoon.

I'll try to get a funner post up for you soon, but I make no promises. I'm off to grade papers! Hoping I have time soon to leave you some comment love! ~Megs

Happiness is...

...working with Children!

I recently started substitute teaching and got the chance to sub a 3rd grade class last week. I'm hoping I get more opportunities to sub it was really nice and it's a great way for me to keep my teaching license current. I couldn't take any jobs this week with a sick kiddo, but maybe next week. It makes me miss the classroom so much! It's comforting to know it's not a skill that's going to leave me, it felt so natural and the principal told me several times what a good teacher I am. Yeah I'd love to work for her! It's so nice when people tell you you're doing a good job!

1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders are my favorite ages to work with and these kids didn't let me down. I introduced myself at the beginning on the day and showed them an ultrasound of baby girl. They instantly asked her name. I explained she doesn't have a name and that was not acceptable to one student. She used all of her free time that day to create this list of girl names and it just melts my heart. Isn't that adorable! Little does she know she really may have helped us out, we're taking several names off of her list!

It's been a very frustrating experience trying to name this princess. We've come to the conclusion she probably wont be named until we meet her and I am actually okay with this. I like to be prepared but unlike with Porter her name isn't clear yet. I think it's fun waiting to meet her, that way we can be sure her name is right!

Click on the list to make it large. What are your favorites? Mine: Diamond. ;)

Kitchen Help

Lately one of my favorite things to do with Porter is bake! I get everything ready, measured and then invite him to join me in the kitchen. He does pretty much everything from that point on, he adds the ingredients, he stirs, he scopes, ect. The top 2 pictures are from the night we made chocolate drops, so FUN!

{Rolling the cookie dough in the powdered sugar. What kid wouldn't love this!}

{I let him try a spoon of dough... not the best idea because now he samples everything. Just like his Mom.}

{Porter got himself in there. He must have been remembering all the good times he received infant baths from his Grandma. He wasn't a lot of help with this nights baking, but he did enjoy Aunt Baylee's brownie cupcakes.}

{All that hard work can sure wear a boy out!}

{He's playing with his hair; which made his Dad and I laugh.}

{This outfit (daddy dressed him) reminds me of a quick story- see below.}

Since it's winter we've been spending all of our time inside. I took the garbage out and came around the corner of our house to see my son in bare feet, no coat, with his onesie undone and untucked walking as fast he could up and down the sidewalk. A quick glance at his Father and Aaron informed me that it was warm enough (it was, almost) and that I should let the boy be a kid. I agreed to let them play for a while, but just couldn't deal with the barefoot thing so I tossed some shoes out the front door hoping they'd find their way onto P's feet; they did. Aaron and Porter walked our neighborhood street several times dreaming of summer together. It's a silly story, but it's so us. It's also a happy memory of my boy walking all over the place.