10: 78/326

26 weeks. Baby is kicking more and more each day, and it's great to see and feel our baby respond to certain voices and songs. I love this baby and every little movement it makes!

10: 77/326

Saturday night we went with Jason's school to a minor league baseball game. It was a lot of fun! The kids had a great time and got to run around the bases after the game. There were also INCREDIBLE fireworks! I love using my camera to take cool pictures of fireworks when I get the chance.

10: 76/326

My friend Sara and I had a girls' night on Friday! I haven't done that in a long time, and we had so much fun!! Sara just had a baby, so I go to her with ALL my strange pregnancy questions. We started at her house with strawberry crumble, ice cream, and "Message in a Bottle." Then we had a relocation so that Sara's husband and son could watch the NFL draft, and we ended up at my house finishing the movie with chips and "con queso." We had such a great time, but I forgot how sad that movie is! Terrible! (And then Jason and I watched it AGAIN two days later - WHY?!?!) But I had such a great time hanging out with Sara and having a girls' night :)

10: 75/326

THESE are Granny's mashed potatoes. They are heaven. I have such fond memories of them as a child... trying to eat them as fast as I could without burning my mouth so that I could go get seconds, racing my cousin Pat back to the kitchen for the last serving, scraping off the top crunchy part and saving it for last, and calling my Granny a hundred times to ask for the recipe. I made them tonight without help, and I felt like a real grown up! They are a heavenly mixture of potatoes, cream cheese, and sour cream, with a delicious crust of butter and parmesan cheese (or romano for me since the other stuff gives me a migraine? Weird, I know.)

Granny, thank you for making these so many times when I was growing up. I don't know what my life would be without them (or you!) :)

10: 74/326

Our couches.

I really dislike them.

They have navy blue slipcovers, which attract Wilson's dog hair like you wouldn't BELIEVE! And we have them decorated with white pillows which look disgusting after a few days of Windsor and Wilson drooling all over them.

The good thing is that they are all removable so I can wash them when it's needed. But it's needed a lot more than I usually feel like washing them.

I got motivated to get these white pillows clean, so I washed them and bleached them and made them look brand new. I finished covering all the pillows and putting the slipcovers back on.

Five minutes later, I walked downstairs to find THIS! No wonder I can't keep them clean!

I let him stay on there long enough to take a picture, and then covered the couch with a blanket.

10: 73/326

This week, I made BLT salad. Yum... crunchy bacon, crisp lettuce, juicy fried tomatoes, and spicy avocado dressing. It was the delicious! The boys ate it in a few minutes, and I couldn't believe they were done so quickly!

10: 72/326

One of the ladies from my small group, Michelle, brought lilacs for us to all enjoy. I love seeing them in our house. Spring is so beautiful!

10: 71/326

Every Sunday evening, I meet with five other lovely ladies for our small group Bible study. Just looking at this picture makes me smile. We talk, eat, laugh, eat more, laugh even louder, and then eat some more. Oh, and we study the Bible too. Just kidding - the Bible study part of course is most important, but we have such a good time from the minute we step into the room. We are studying the book "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" right now, and I highly recommend it to any woman. You should all go read it. Soon. It will change your life.

Sue, Jayne, Shari, Lori, and Michelle - I love you all!!!

10: 70/326

Saturday, April 17

Saturday night, Kate came over! Kate, whom we haven't seen in 4 months! Kate, who had lots of exciting news to share with us! Kate, who loves to play games and eat snacks with us!

Oh I love Kate, and I am so glad we got to spend a few hours with her catching up with her.

(This picture is actually from church the next morning because I FAILED and forgot to take one while she was over on Saturday night. I'm pretty sure we usually hang out in our pajamas, not in our pretty dresses.)

10: 69/326

Friday, April 16

Tonight Jason and I got to have dinner and hang out with one of our favorite families in town - Carol and her two kiddos, Connor and Fiona. We had a great time eating LOTS of Mexican food, listening to Jason and Connor play the piano, and making a giant ship together! Fiona spent a lot of the night talking to the baby through my belly which was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

10: 68/326

Thursday, April 15

I've been reading a lot about making "pantry meals," where you try to use ingredients you already have at home to make an entire meal without having to run to the store. It seems a little bit intimidating to me, but tonight I did it! I used this recipe as a guide, but replaced things I didn't have with food that I did. AND it turned out to be a meal that I enjoyed more than anything else I've made in awhile. Too bad I can't remember exactly how I made it...

PS - Sara, this is what I was talking about the other day!!!!

10: 67/326

This is what I see when I try to look down at my feet. It's weird!

10: 66/326

Tuesday, April 13

My very first brand new purchase for the babe. I found this at Babies 'R Us on our trip yesterday, and I could not resist. Gender neutral clothing for infants is more difficult to find than I thought it would be. I can't stop looking at this little outfit. I can't wait to see it on our baby!

10: 65/326

Monday, April 12

My car was fixed after the debacle that happened on Saturday, and the miraculous thing was that it cost LESS than we thought it would. A lot less. I'm not sure when that ever happens, but we were thrilled. So thrilled that we all hopped in the rental Audi and drove over an hour to pick up my car, test drive a Suburban, eat at Chik-Fil-A, and go to Babies 'R Us. You know, all the good things in the life.

Ty made a list last week of things he wants to do before he leaves to go back to Germany. On this list was "test drive a big American car." I think the Suburban accomplished that. Oh! I should note - Ty did not actually test DRIVE the car. Jason drove, the car salesman rode shotgun, and Ty and I were in the backseat. Nevertheless, he was thrilled! And I was excited to go to Babies 'R Us again, and we were all ecstatic to EAT MOR CHIKEN. Yum!

10: 64/326

Jason and I teach 1st and 2nd grade Sunday school, and today all of the classes got together to make Hygiene Kits for children and families in Haiti. Our kids and the preschoolers made cards to put in the kits. They were so adorable! I love this picture with the little hand and the markers and the stickers. So precious :)

10: 63/326

My car is broken. We drove all the way to Babies R Us yesterday to register for baby stuff, and the car started making weird noises and shaking like crazy. I insisted everything was fine, but my very wise husband didn't feel safe. We just happened to have passed a VW dealership, so he turned around and took the car there. It turns out it was broken. Just like Jason thought. They will keep it until Monday or Tuesday, so in the meantime we get to drive this fancy new car!!!! We're having fun pretending that we bought an Audi :)

10: 62/326

This is me.

I'm at Ty's track meet.

And it is hailing!

See those little white dots... that is hail!

10: 61/326

On Thursday we went to our town's cooking show! It was so much fun! There were tons of vendors giving out free samples and massages and FOOD! There were also tons of door prizes but we didn't win any. Our friend Miss Laurie competed against two other local chefs and won for best food and presentation! She made gnocchi out of potato flakes because she had to use non perishable items. The purpose of the entire night was to raise money for a local shelter, and they were able to give a LOT of money and canned goods to them which was great! Here's Jason with Laurie's son Andrew, who is also one of Jason's piano students. This is such a cute picture!

10: 60/326

Ty is on the track meet now! He is running the 100 meter sprint and maybe the 200 as well. I had a lot of fun at his first home track meet! This picture cracks me up. The boy on the right looks hilarious - like he's going to explode, and the boy on the left looks like he's trying to seduce me or something. But Tyrone looks good!!!!

10: 59/326

I love this picture. Jason brought in forsythia branches for our Easter centerpiece, and now they're sitting on our coffee table. It makes me happy to walk in and see these every day!

10: 58/326

We had another great day on Monday. Jason and Ty had the day off from school, so we slept in big time. Then I brought breakfast upstairs, and Jason and I ate carrot cake and hard boiled eggs sitting in bed! It made us laugh, and it was so much fun. Then we drove to Jason's sister's house for dinner and shopping at Babies R Us and a few other baby stores. Well not shopping, just looking. We got back late, very sleepy but happy. When we got home, I realized I hadn't taken a picture all day, so I figured it was a good time to get one of my rapidly growing baby belly. I made Jason and Ty each take a picture with me, which was great fun! I love this one :) Jason's been able to actually SEE the baby move a lot lately, and I love that he can interact with the baby a little more each day.

10: 57/326

We had such a great day on Easter. I'm going to post a lot more pictures, but this was my favorite from the day. We were playing the Egg Game, which my mom taught me how to play. Mr. Larry Stubbe was the champion of all time, and the rest of us were losers! I don't know how excited everyone was to play this game, but I made them anyway :)

10: 56/326

Jason and his dad have begun work in the vegetable garden that we are starting!!! When I say we, I mean Jason, because I haven't really done anything to contribute to this project except tell him vegetables I like. He has read books, done research, made up plans, shopped for supplies, and much more. I am majorly impressed by all of his work, and we are so grateful to his dad for all of his help. So far, they have leveled the area and dug up large chunks of rock and other crazy stuff. I never realized how different soil is up here compared to in Florida.

During the hard work on Saturday, I stayed inside and got ready for Easter, and the dogs watched the progress on the garden. Wilson camped out under the stairs to get cool, and Windsor went back and forth between inside and out. They were so cute like this when I turned around, I just had to get a picture!

10: 55/326

On Friday, Jason and I walked down to church for a self-guided "Stations of the Cross" meditation and prayer time. It was truly one of the most meaningful times I have ever had in church. There were seven stations and they described different parts of Christ's journey to the cross. Each reading included some thoughts to ponder and a prayers. We made our way around the sanctuary and ended up at the front of the church kneeling at the cross. It was thoughtful and personal and emotional, and I am so thankful to our church for setting that up for the congregation and to our pastors for being there for three hours to greet each of us as we came inside. I'm already looking forward to it for next year.

10: 54/326

Yum.

Last night after a beautiful Living Last Supper and communion service, we came home, went for a walk out in the gorgeous weather, and then came home and ate a piece of this.

It was so good.

10: 53/326

Jason and I sang with our church choir for the past two weeks, and it's been really great. I miss singing in the choir. We need more nights at home to spend time together which is why we gave choir up for the time being, but I do miss it! This horrible picture is from the dress rehearsal for the Maundy Thursday service. We were singing up in the balcony and I was trying to get a good picture of the reenactment of DaVinci's painting. It's a really great drama presention by Ruth Elaine Schram, and it really makes you think about the shock and confusion all the disciples must have felt when Jesus told them that he was leaving them and that one of them would betray him. I'm glad we got to be a part of it!