Spring Break!

For the next week I am on spring break! This means that the next seven days are probably the last full week in many many years that I will have an abundance of free time and as much sleep as I want. I plan on taking full advantage of both of those things.

So, for updateness, Mom and Mark came out on Friday to visit/help get stuff together for Rhia. They left early this morning, amidst a freak late snow-storm (seriously, the pass sucked yesterday--how does that even work? It's almost April!). It was fantastic to see both of them, and I had a lot of fun. Mom went to my doctor's appointment with me on Friday, so she got to meet my doctor and hear Rhia's heartbeat (and sit in the doctor's office for an hour to do so). Yesterday we went to North Bend and Tukwila and hit Carter's and Babies-r-Us. After the stop at Carter's, Rhia will be the most stylish baby in Washington state this summer. :) Her grandma is already spoiling her rotten. When we went to Babies-r-Us we picked up a bunch of stuff so that we're ready for her to arrive, including a back-pack-carrier thing, a little bathtub, bedding stuff, and some other necessities. Mom brought out a bassinet with her, and while we couldn't find any covers (for whatever reason?) we did get sheets and whatnot. So Rhia has a place to sleep! I spent this morning washing stuff and organizing. We're getting pretty close to ready! Which is good, because there's only about 5 weeks before she could decide to make her appearance. Yikes.

In other news, Al decided to take the offer at UW, which means we'll be moving not to Pullman this summer, but instead Seattle. I am psyched. And a little nervous, as it means finding a job for next school year, but I shall manage. It's a fantastic school for him to go to, and while we're both nervous about it (we are both small-town Montana kids, after all), it's exciting. He's been dilligantly working on his thesis for the last week or so--so I haven't seen him much. It's going to be a busy couple of months.
So, some pictures of a couple of the outfits Mom and I picked out yesterday (overalls, cute skirt, and cherry dress with matching hat!), the bassinet, and my 32 week belly picture.

March Madness

Al and I filled out NCAA brackets before the tournament started--I am currently 2 games up on him. Bwuahhaha! However, I had Duke winning the whole thing, and they're out, so I'm thinking that my gloating will be short-lived. Whoever wins gets dinner at Pearl's, and whoever loses has to buy said dinner at Pearl's. Regardless, there is still dinner at Pearl's involved for all parties.

Anyways. It has been a very busy couple of weeks. Al was on spring break this last week, and he went down to Pullman to check things out. Upon his return, he received an acceptance letter from UW....meaning that the option to move to Seattle has presented itself to us. It is expensive, and it is crazy, but as far as job prospects for me go, it is much much better--while there are a few schools in Pullman, the greater Seattle area has an abundance of schools that I am qualified to teach at. And they pay better (although not really when you count the ridiculous cost-of-living on the west side). The same goes for Al--with a Ph.D. from UW he has a lot more options than with one from WSU. It would also mean being closer to our friends, not having to brave Snoqualmie--ever, and being able to just hop on a plane to fly to Montana to visit family (which is much more appealing than driving. We are sick of driving to Montana). No decisions have been made yet, but we shall see. We both want to go to Seattle.

While Al was out and about, I had parent-teacher conferences, which are always challenging. The more conferences I do, though, the better I get at understanding Spanish. Not speaking, mind you, but I can answer their questions before the translator starts to translate. Needless to say, I was exhausted all week, and have spent the weekend being a house-bum watching NCAA tournaments and catching up on my sleep. Thankfully, I have three days of training this week, so I only have to be in Mattawa tomorrow and Tuesday, then training, then it's spring break until April 6th!

And in Rhia news, all is still well. I'm starting to feel a bit more prepared (considering she could come in less than six weeks!). We went to Tukwila last weekend to Babies-R-Us and picked up a few things, I have washed all the baby stuff that we have in baby laundry soap, I have the start of a diaper bag packed for when she's born (with her going-home outfit and whatnot in it), I have shown Al the intricacies of diapering (newborn diapers are sooo tiny!!!), and Mom and Mark are coming out on Friday to do some more baby shopping on Saturday (and they get to brave my Seattle driving! Wheee!). We'll be getting the bassinet set up and whatnot, so I am super excited about that. Our baby will have a place to sleep! Mom's also coming to my doctor's appointment with me on Friday so she can hear Rhia's heartbeat and such. It's getting so close--tomorrow will be two months until my actual due date, although if I'm still pregnant on my due date I'm not going to be a pleasant individual. I have myself all psyched out for early/mid May. We shall see.

This made me giggle:

quick picture update

Back by popular demand, a belly picture! Please don't mind the semi-wet hair and mirror picture--Al is in Pullman, so I had to do it myself. Am in the process of getting ready for conferences and leaving for work, hence the quickness, but I had a request for a blog update. All is well.

Just for fun--the first picture is from 15 weeks, when I thought I was getting a belly. I laugh at that now, and just hope I can be that small again. The other one is 30weeks, 4 days (today).

Great news and my attempts to be artsy

So I went to the doctor for my weekly visit on Friday, and after talking to him and checking things out, he said that unless he would have known what was going on before, he wouldn't have any reason to think that things weren't completely normal! This means: 1) I don't have to go back until the 28th, which is 3 weeks, rather than the every week that I've been going--yay!! and 2) I don't have to sit/lay all of the time! He told me that I could be a "modified normal person." So, I have no restrictions, and I can function relatively normally again (not Cas normal, mind you, but pregnant normal). I'm hypothesizing that when I quit feeling sick in January I went back to Cas-normal, which is not o.k. when carrying around a baby. So I'm not supossed to be on my feet 12 hours a day like I did, but I can function. This bring me (and Al) great joy, as now I can help with things around the house again and not be an invalid. I just have to take it easy, slow down, and take breaks once in awhile.

With my newfound freedom, I went to Yakima yesterday and did some shopping. I bought some plain wooden block letters, ribbon, and paint at Michael's, and made these:

She has a long name! We don't have enough room on the wall in the office/baby stuff room for all of the letters, so for now she just gets Rhia, but when we move and she has a room of her own I'll put up the rest of them, too. It matches the crib bedding/decor that we picked out (here: http://www.babydreams.com/sweetdaisy.html ), so when we do move and I can decorate a nursery I think it will be very cute. :-) It's hard to get ready for a baby when we're moving so soon after she's born, but I figure she won't be in a crib/her own room until she's a bit older anyways, so that stuff can wait until after she's born.

11 weeks until my due date, and 8 weeks until full-term--eghads!

pictures for fun

Took some pictures today. Enjoy. :-)

28 weeks and 1 day! Only 12 weeks to go before my due date! She's getting bigger. Although I ran into someone I used to work with at the store today, and she couldn't beleive I was so far along.



The dress we picked out to bring her home in.



I got this one just for Al. :)

Third Trimester!!

Today marks 28 weeks, which means I am firmly entrenched in my third trimester. Yay! In three months, if Rhia is not here yet, then she will be much too late for my taste. While at my weekly doctor's appointment yesterday (in which I was very tired/cranky), I told him that I just wanted to feel like a normal person again, since I hadn't felt normal since August. He proceeded to tell me that I didn't even necessarily have to wait until May to feel like a normal person, because in all reality she could be born as early as April 26th (but no earlier! she has to stay put until then!)--which means that she could possibly be born next month. Next month. It's still pretty much two months away, but still. It's March. Rhia could be born in April. We are nowhere near prepared. At all. We have a changing table, some onesies/sleepers, a bag of diapers, and socks. Mom is bringing a bassinet, and Al's advisor is giving us a crib, which is great, but otherwise we're totally unprepared. This makes me panic a bit. Today we did a little bit of shopping and picked out a cute little outfit to bring her home in--I don't have pictures yet, but I'll post one when I do my belly picture for this week. We still need to get a little hat/sweater to go with it so she doesn't get cold, but it's a cute little blue gingham sundressy thing. Al actually picked it out, but I approved. :)

Also, as far as doctor's appointments go: I passed my glucose test, which means that I don't have gestational diabetes! Yay! I am also not anemic, according to my blood test yesterday. I am hoping it's the last time I have to have blood drawn while I'm pregnant. I am not a fan of needles. And, in more good news, things are still looking good with her staying put, and he told me that as I get closer, and around 33/34 weeks, he'll probably ease up more on my activity, since she'll be close enough to term. He did tell me that this next week it would be ok if I were up and around a little bit more, but not to push it.

Otherwise things are good--Al is dilligantly working on his thesis, so that maybe he can get it done before he has a newborn to deal with, we're looking into more stuff in Pullman to get everything together to move down there, and the sun is finally coming out and melting the damned snow that didn't want to go away! It was 60 degrees on Thursday and sunny--it was fabulous. I am now off to dust, because I can do things like that! How sad is it that I'm excited about dusting the bookshelves?