Thursday Thoughts

Linking up with Sar for Thursday Thoughts

[1] Today I put the final touches on an exam for my legal class.  This exam contained sixteen essay questions, people.  Sixteen.  I must have read the instructions seven times in hopes to find a hidden, "Choose ten of the sixteen questions to answer."  Alas, no dice.

[2] It may be sad to some that I now consider "staying up late" to include any time past 9pm.  I however am relishing in the glory that is nine (or ten) hours of sleep while I can.

[3] This blog has been neglected.  Not due to a lack of material, but my time has been taken up with school (the aforementioned sixteen essay question exams), organizing the nursery, enjoying those small amounts of time where I sit here doing nothing at all, and sleep.

[4] Out of the blue the other day I got the serious hankering to clean (or nest, perhaps?).  Among other things, I was on my hands and knees in the kitchen scraping glue from in between sections of the linoleum floor.  Who does that?  Me, apparently.

[5] Grey's Anatomy starts back up tonight and Dexter premieres on Sunday.  This makes me very excited.

Take Luck,

LP

This Weekend...

This weekend I...

Linking up with Sar and Syndal for This Weekend I...

This weekend I watched my niece Kennedy play soccer.  She spent more time watching the spectators (to make sure we were watching her) than she did the ball.  But, Kenny was totally adorable.  She wears the same colors that Rachel and I did growing up - a lovely combo of orange and black. #nostalgic

This weekend we started mounting some of the wall decor in the nursery.  All of these little things and baby steps make this baby thing feel like it's really real.

This weekend the morning light coming out of the nursery (and into the hallway) caught my eye.  And I am so happy it did.

This weekend Brock, Sonny, and I met up with my girlfriend, Jessica, and her dogs Maggie and Scout for a walk.  It's safe to say that Brock and I may have experienced our last walk together until this pregnancy is complete.  I pulled a muscle in my quad/groin trying to wrangle him, and I'm pretty sure my left arm is now an inch (or six) longer than my right.

This weekend I officially reached the third trimester and this baby boy is the size of an eggplant.  My mother-in-law gave me props for coordinating my fleece and the produce.

This weekend Ryan and I were watching Jurassic Park and got into a discussion about our favorite dinosaurs.  Uh, what? #weirdos

Take Luck,

LP

Little Buddy

There's officially a new man in my life... At least until the one that's cooking in my belly makes his debut in December.

Liam's been in our lives since October - but he officially stole a piece of my heart last week.

During our vacation I oogled, hugged, kissed, played with, and spent as much time as I could with my new little buddy.  I am very happy to report (at least for mine and Ryan's sake) that he is comfortable around "strangers" and warmed up to us immediately.  Either that or he sensed how awesome his Uncle and Aunt are and just went with it.  We'll go with that.

I took advantage of playing with him on the floor, chasing him around the condo, feeding him, watching endless amounts of Bubble Guppies, changing diapers (or helping Cara wrangle the little monster while she was trying to change him), and sang him to sleep.  Twice*.

*Apparently he's a Taylor Swift and Zac Brown Band fan.

He fell asleep on my chest while relaxing on the beach and I was seriously lounging on cloud nine.  Everyone kept asking me if I wanted them to take/move him and I kept assuring them that I was more than fine.  I may have used the word "heaven" in there a time or two. Plus he was close to his little cousin - who was apparently having a solo dance party in my belly and trying to get Liam to join.  After our snuggly nap time, he peed on me.  Now, that's love.

I think a part of me felt like I was somewhat making up for lost time (the last 11 months).  That or stocking up my Liam snuggles until we see him again in January.  Maybe both.

Cara and Ryan came up with the cutest little song to sing to Liam and his sweet little face lights up whenever they sing it.  It is seriously the cutest thing ever.

It goes something like this:

"Liam Daniel

Liam Daniel Webb (That's you!)

Liam Daniel

Liam Daniel Webb

He likes to eat

He likes to toot

He likes to poop

He likes to sleep

Liam Daniel Webb

He is our favorite little peep

Yeah!"

See for yourself.

I know that I am not biologically related to Liam, but I felt (and feel) love for this sweet and special little boy as if he were.  He is now my little buddy and I can't wait to watch him grow.

I tried to capture as much of his cuteness as possible - for both my sake and for Cara's.  So, lucky you - you get to see it too.

 

Take Luck,

LP

Destin Vacay

Last week was spent soaking up the Destin, Florida sunshine with Ryan's family.

If I had had to guess how the trip was going to go purely based on how it started - I would have thought it was going to be a disaster.

Why, you ask?

We flew from SeaTac to Denver and then onto New Orleans, only our bags didn't make it to our final destination.  I will spare you the saga, but it took almost 36 hours for us to get our bags and many, many phone calls to Southwest Airlines.

Luckily, we were greeted outside the Southwest Airlines Baggage Service Office by three of our favorite people - Ryan's sister, Cara, her husband, Ryan, and the little guy we've been dying to meet for 11 months - Liam.  The reunion/meeting made everything better.

Destin was a mere five hour drive from New Orleans.  Cara had warned us that Liam does not (repeat, not) like his car seat.

She sure wasn't lying - but the trip East honestly went better than I had thought it would.  Thank God for Orajel and Bubble Guppies.

So, how did we spend our time in Destin?

I oogled, hugged, and kissed Liam as much as possible.  And may have taken a strangely large amount of pictures of him.  It's OK though, 'cuz I'm his Aunt and he is too stinking cute to not have his picture taken.

 I watched like the hormonal (sort-of) pregnant woman I am as Ryan bonded with Liam, too!

 We were continually awed by the sunsets.

We watched a lot of Bubble Guppies.

 And we spent a lot of time at the beach with the whole family.

 

 My least favorite part about vacation is knowing that it has to come to an end.  Wah, wah.

I am so happy that we got to spend a full week with Ryan's family, and being in a place as beautiful as Destin was just icing on the cake.

More to come on the time we got to spend with Liam.  Like so many other things - this little dude deserves his own post.

Take Luck,

LP

Thursday Thoughts

Linking up with Sar for Thursday Thoughts!

[1] Sneezing has become a new enemy.  My "Oh, no - a sneeze is coming" face has
gotten a whole lot uglier because it's evolved into a, "Oh, boy.  Don't
sneeze.  Don't pee!" face.

[2] Our vacation starts bright and early (6am) on Saturday morning when we fly
to New Orleans.  I cannot, repeat - cannot, wait to see Ryan's family and
meet Liam.

[3] There's nothing like a vacation to throw me in a Ihavesomuchshittodo frenzy.

[4] When opening my lunch this afternoon I realized that I was missing my
Laughing Cow cheese wedge.  I called Ryan and asked, "Did I put my cheese
wedge in your lunch?" (I thought I may have put it in his lunch by mistake).
His response: "That sounds dirty."  My response: "Yes, yes. Funny. Do you
have my cheese?"  I'm not really sure why I called him because it's not like
if he did indeed have my cheese it would have helped me any.  So, I hung up
and continued to eat my lunch... Cheese-less.

[5] Last night during our Financial Management lecture I noticed that every
person pictured on the PowerPoint slides and in the text are all happy and
smiling.  I couldn't help but think to myself, "They must not have taken
this class."

Take Luck,

LP

Baby Shower

It feels like just last month that I was throwing a baby shower. And on Saturday, it was my turn to be the Mama of Honor.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I don't particularly like being the center of attention.  But as I previously mentioned, I guess that comes with the territory when you are a first time Mama who happens to have amazing family (and extended family) and friends.

The weather was gorgeous so we were able to spend a majority of the time outside.  The food and drinks were delicious, and all of the little details that the hostesses (my godmother/Auntie Lee, Momma, and Rachel) put into the shower were amazing.

 

 

I was completely overwhelmed by the generosity of my family and friends.  Truly and 100% overwhelmed.  Our little guy got oodles of books and clothes, and Ryan and I got plenty of contraptions to try and make raising this little dude a little easier... Or maybe more complicated?

I think (and hope) fun was had by all.  I can't begin to express my gratitude for everyone's generosity and their love for this baby boy.

Take Luck,

LP

A Blonde Surprise

Yesterday I wrote how my Labor Day weekend was spent differently than I expected.  I think it's safe to say that it was spent differently than in my wildest dreams.  And if you've read my dream re-caps - you know that it means I can dream up some cray-cray* stuff.

*I've wanted to use "cray-cray" for the longest time and now that I've said it, I can move on.  Thank you.

So, I knew going into Saturday that Ryan was going to have a surprise for me to kick off the baby shower day.  Up until Saturday morning I hadn't really thought much about what the surprise might be - other than jokingly asking him if he was going to dress up as a giant baby and pop out of a cake at the shower.

Rach, Momma, and I had planned on going for a morning walk to start off the day.  We knew we'd be eating lots of yummy shower food in the afternoon, so why not give our metabolism a jump start?

We walked two laps (with Brock and Sonny) and as soon as we were finishing the second lap - both Mom and Rachel stopped walking and were talking quietly.  They then said, "We have to go.  Ryan has a surprise for you and it's ready.  So, we have to go."

Obviously, I was quite confused and clueless so we walked to the car and I tried asking what the surprise was.  Of course they weren't going to tell me so I started asking for hints and clues.  My first question was, "Is this surprise going to make me cry?" and they assured me it would not.

Upon arriving back at home (luckily it's a 2 minute drive), Rachel told me that we needed to go in through the garage.  So, we did and I immediately saw a note that had been stuck to the garage door.  I started giggling/laughing like an idiot and Rachel started filming.

The note told me that "...in order to show me how excited he is for our coming addition, he's done something special for me with the help of my family.  Don't ask questions, just follow the clues..." and my first stop was the microwave.

After the microwave I am sent to the couch, the refrigerator, the bathroom, the remote control, and then finally to the nursery door where my final clue was waiting.  The final note told me to "... open the door to reveal a surprise for me shower..."

After the craziness calmed, they all said they were worried that I knew.  But I assured them that because of the scream and the tears - they should know that I was 100% clueless.  There was no way that I could have faked that reaction.

Becky, Mom, Dad, Rachel, and Ryan started telling me all the details of the plan.  It'd been in the works for two months, and many a fiblet had been told by all of them to pull this off.  Those rascals.  My brain hasn't been as sharp lately (I think I have some sort of pregnancy-induced ADD) so I'm going to cut myself a little slack for not picking up on something.

It never even crossed my mind that a person might be my surprise.  I honestly thought that Ryan and my godfather, Frank, had built us a rocking chair for the nursery.  That was the most logical thing that I could think of and even that was a little far-fetched.

Two hours passed before my heart slowed down and I really started believing that Becky, one of my very best friends and college roommate was standing in our house.  In our house!  All the way from St. Louis!  The whole time she was here I just couldn't believe that I was standing/sitting there talking to her face-to-face.

It seemed like almost everyone at the shower knew that Becky would be there and I loved being able to introduce her after being asked, "Where's your surprise?!"

Sunday we spent the day in Seattle - taking a ferry over, walking through Pike Place Market and Seattle Center, and having lunch at Red Robin.

There was nothing that sounded better to us after that than to come home for dinner, and curl up to watch The Hunger Games.

Becky was flying out Monday afternoon so we went for a little scenic walk together in the morning, and then stopped for lunch at our favorite place/cafe - Panera Bread Co.  Panera was a staple in our college diet.

Did I mention that she packed and brought nearly all of the nursery wall decor that she made for the baby's room?  Yeah.

This was one of the greatest surprises ever and one that I most certainly will never, ever forget.  The amount of planning that she did and coordinating with my family and Ryan is seriously one of the nicest and most thoughtful things anyone has ever done.

She rocks.  I miss her already.

******

This is the full video that Rachel took while walking behind me during the scavenger hunt.  The video quality is really poor for some reason - but you can at least hear what is going on and see how things played out from my view.  Please ignore my moments of awkward and silly laughter.

Take Luck,

LP

Weekend Recap

Holy, Labor Day weekend.

I had every intention of a quiet and relaxing extra long weekend - and I got the exact opposite.  But probably in the best way possible.

Friday was spent running errands, majorly cleaning the house, catching up with a gal pal, watching Kennedy and Riley, and driving down south to Olympia to say goodbye to Ryan's cousin and his family.  They are relocating to Washington D.C. for a few years.

Saturday was baby shower day.  Mom, Rachel, and I started the morning off with a walk down at Lion's Park (to help counter all the calories we knew we'd be consuming that afternoon) that was abruptly interrupted by them saying, "We have to go.  Ryan has a surprise for you and it's ready.  So, we have to go."

I came home to a scavenger hunt and a little surprise in the nursery.  This surprise deserves a post all by itself, but I will tell you this - she's just over 5 feet tall (I said it was little!), blonde, my college roommate, a very best friend, and her name is Becky.

  

More on the surprise and the sneakiness in another post.  Becky deserves her own post.  Trust me.

The baby shower was wonderful and overwhelming at the same time.  I hate being the center of attention, but I guess as a first time mama with a growing belly - it just kind of comes with it.  I am so thankful to be surrounded by such wonderful family and friends.  I am truly blessed and spoiled... And so is this little man.

Sunday, the day I had completely intended on relaxing, moving very slowly, going to prenatal yoga, and resting with my feet up - was spent showing Becky around Seattle.  I love showing around the city and all its glory.  We came back on this side of the water, picked up dinner, and laid on the couch to watch Hunger Games.

Today, sadly - Becky had to return back to St. Louis so we went for a walk this morning, had lunch at our favorite restaurant/cafe - Panera Bread Co., and headed to the airport.

Needless to say (oh, wait - I just did) this weekend didn't really pan out as I was initially planning.  It got much, much better.

Take Luck,

LP