25 Weeks

I asked Michael to take a belly photo while we were eating dinner, but we both forgot. Since I am not feeling up to setting up the tripod you'll have to settle for this myspace style photo. Doesn't the Instagram iPod app make it so much more exciting?

This past week was really busy and I am still feeling tired. I got some advice from a lady with an 8 week old. She told me to get all the sleep I can now. This would be good advice if the amount you sleep was like having rollover minutes. We went on a whirlwind trip to Kentucky for our newest nephew's baptism this past weekend. We left on Saturday and came back on Monday. 

Just in time for Mardi Gras, which I wasn't planning on attending. However, my mom was going to watch the parade in Houma with my sister and my niece so I went with her. I do like to see the parade, especially the marching bands. People watching at parades is spectacular. When the floats started passing I stepped back away from the road to get away from the brouhaha. This apparently made me a target for the drunk fools on the floats. One idiot threw 4 foam footballs at me. So if you go to a parade and really want to catch something, stand back and don't wave your hands. Seems to work like a charm.

Here's the King of the Krewe of Houmas:

Here's a delorean, naturally:

They flew like frisbees, but turned out to be tortillas:

Next year I can use baby as bait for stuffed animals! Maybe even some beads with underwear attached to them if we're lucky.

More Caterpillar Fun

Girl Scouts: 1 Mrs. Perry: 0

Did I tell you that I downloaded an app called "FindCookies" so that I could locate Girl Scout cookies nearby? Last year I was unable to find cookies. I was pretty pumped to find out about this app. I've been impatiently waiting for cookie season to start in March. Which brings us to this post.

I was determined to have some Tag-a-longs. I had seen recipes and I figured they'd be easy to make. The shortbread cookie was easy, and so was putting the peanut butter mixture on the cookies. The dipping in chocolate not so much.

I have no idea how the person who wrote the recipe got chocolate on the top and the bottom of the cookie. So mine had chocolate just on the tops. The chocolate was a little too thick and I think the chocolate to peanut butter ratio was a little off - next time I'd put more peanut butter. (They were a little better this morning when they weren't still cold from setting in the fridge.)

Obviously this is serious business. You win this round, girls. I'll see you in a couple weeks.

Pregnancy Perks

There are some awesome things that you can get away with doing (or not doing) when you're expecting. Take for example my dinner this evening. I ordered a side of fried okra with a side of mashed potatoes and pancakes for dessert. Obviously not the healthiest choice, I know. Sometimes you just don't have a lot of options. Anyway, it was delicious.

24 Weeks

Today is technically the end of week 24. It's been quite a busy week and today's the first day I am put together and not looking totally exhausted.

We put the crib together this weekend because the box said to let the company know within 14 days if anything was damaged. Since the office furniture is still in the nursery we assembled the crib in our bedroom and we'll probably have to take it apart to move it. Oh well at least we know that it's in good shape.

I'm still feeling fabulous and baby is boogying away every night when I go to sleep.

Accidental Gardening

Yesterday we spent the day raking the back yard. In the summer I was trying to cure some of my sickly plants with pesticide (which I really felt bad about) and I foolishly sprayed the milkweed. I killed the monarch caterpillars and I even found a dead Monarch butterfly on the ground. I felt terrible. So when I saw all these caterpillars munching away I was beyond excited! I can't wait to share these friends with baby.

The way that gardening seems to work for me is if I neglect it, it will do just fine. The rose bush at our apartment in Charlottesville had more blooms than I've ever seen on a rose bush and we paid no attention to it. Now it's our hydrangea which seemed to be struggling in the dry summer heat and the soil by the shed that seems to always stay wet. Yesterday I removed the old dead blooms and leaves and noticed pretty new blooms. Who knew?

Pregnancy Humor

Thanks to my little bro for sharing that with me. We have another ultrasound tomorrow because baby was a little shy last time and the doctor couldn't get one picture of the heart that he needed. So we'll see if he's sprouted a tail and raptor claws.

Superbowl Food

We had friends over for the Superbowl. This was an excuse to hang out and eat yummy food. We made Root Beer Pulled Pork (with pork butt instead of tenderloin and added onions) and Martha's Mac and Cheese - both of which we've made before.

We tried two new recipes. Here are Baked Zucchini Fries with marinara dipping sauce, which I found on Pinterest. We decided to add 1/2 cup of parmesan and used 1 1/2 cups of Panko instead of 2. They were really tasty and they were gone in 5 seconds. I also made Ranch dip, but I think I preferred the marinara.

These Knock You Naked Brownies, I also learned about on Pinterest. I used a 9x13 pan and only 40 caramels instead of the 60 the recipe calls for. This is mostly because I don't have a 9x9 pan and bags of caramels come in packages of 44. These were definitely a hit and not as complicated as I thought they would be.

New Back Door Curtain

I saw this curtain at World Market and thought it would be a fun replacement for the dirty plain sheer curtain that was on the back door. Sorry there's no picture of the dirty plain sheer curtain. I think you get the idea.

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It turned out to be too long, so I sewed the tabs down (on the wrong side... whoops) and hemmed it. I got this curtain last week. Be impressed with how fast I accomplished this. I think it is still a little wide so I might cut it. This will have to do for now.

23 Weeks

I am getting a little tired of the same pose. So we're changing things up this week. We had a routine doctor visit on Monday. Everything is going really well.

It was a fun surprise at the beginning of the week to see that the crib has been purchased, and that it should be here tomorrow! This makes me really want to paint the nursery so we can put the crib together. I bought some no VOC paint from Sherwin Williams with my coupon last weekend. We'll see if we can get the office furniture moved into the guest room. And by "we" of course I don't mean myself.