A Day in the Life...

...of a not-yet mama and teacher-on-spring-break.

Here's what I did today:

1. Wake up on my own time. Not to an alarm clock. (Or the sweet noises of an infant.)

2. Make a large bowl of oatmeal and a small cup of coffee.

3. Slowly enjoy said breakfast, all while reading a book I've been meaning to finish.

4. Stay in pajamas and finish that book on the couch.

5. Once finished with the book, give myself an at-home manicure.

6. Watch a couple of episodes of The Office. (What else am I supposed to do while my nails are drying?!)

7. Clean the kitchen.

8. Finally get dressed.

9. Get out to enjoy the beautiful day and make a run to Babies R Us for a few essentials for the little Bee.

10. Take my time shopping and pick out this cute little number. Elle's ready for swimsuit season:

12. Stroll around Sprouts and pick out a few delicious veggies for dinner.

11. Go to Chic-Fil-A for an ice cream cone because it was the perfect day for one and I didn't have any reason not to.

12. Come home and check the mail only to find the newest Real Simple issue lovingly tucked into my mailbox.

13. Read Real Simple cover to cover.

14. Decided that my day was too wonderful not to commemorate with a blogpost.

After all, these are my very last days of cherishing things like this: Quiet, slow, easy, calm. But it's so sweet looking forward to what my new life will be like. Cherishing things like this: Crazy, new, filled with firsts, baby snuggles, problem solving. :) Moms... feel free to add any things that my life may be filled with that I've left out. Teachers, I hope your Spring Breaks have been as slow and restful as mine has so far.

Happy Spring!

35 Days...

That's the number of days (give or take a few) that we have until we meet the Little Bee.

To which I respond... WHAT?!

Tyler and I are so so very excited to meet this little one. But, oh my word, 35 days? It's leaving me feeling a bit like a deer caught in head lights. And the thought that realistically, she could come any day is stressing me out! It almost makes scheduling an elective C-section sound like a really good idea (although, that's not what i want to do). Thankfully, I can rest in the fact that I really can't be prepared for the life change that's about to happen. And that God knows the exact minute that she'll enter into this world, and He's completely trust-worthy. So there's that...

As for physically, I feel great! I hear that I can thank my long torso for this. I'm still measuring pretty small compared to other preggos, but I've been assured that this isn't reflective of the little one's size. Currently, I think she's still head down with her little bottom up near my rib cage and her legs curled up on the other side. Occasionally she'll do some yoga stretches and make my stomach look really strange. This thoroughly freaks the baby-daddy out. So I really love it when she does that :). But seriously, Tyler has been really great. He does things like buckle my shoes when he hears me grunting and panting to try to get them on correctly. Ha! Love that man.

Last weekend, some sweet, sweet friends threw me a few showers. I had a shower at school and a shower with friends and family in Austin. They were fabulous. Both of them! It's always a wonderful, (and slightly overwhelming) thing to be surrounded by the people you love most. (Overwhelming, because I want to sit down and chat with them all, but it's not always possible.) Elle's got almost everything she needs to be happy, healthy and cute when she makes her little debut. I'm so thankful for everyone that came!!

In other news, the nursery-nook is complete! I'll do my best to get some good, quality pictures up this week. I really love how it turned out. All Elle's sweet things have filled up our home and created a warmth that wasn't there before. And those are just her things! I'm excited about what adding a baby will do :)

I have a few posts that I need to do, so be looking for them this spring break:

-Crafts: A Crib/Changing Table Mobile

-Cooking: The Best Homemade Pizza. Seriously.

-Decorating: Elle's Nursery Nook

-Teaching: New Students...

I'll leave you with a belly picture...

Slowly but surely taking over the world,

Lauren and the Belly.

On being lame...

There are so many things I LOVE about being a teacher. It really is the best job in the world and the only thing I want to do, except for maybe be a mama... and I'll get to try that very soon, too. BUT, the one thing that makes me sad about being a teacher is how absolutely spent I am on Friday nights. Granted, I'm also growing a close-to-4-pound baby, but this really hasn't changed much about my Friday nights. Typically, I can't stay up past 10:15 or so. I just cannot do it. I try. I really do. And it especially makes me sad when Friday nights are my only quality time with my favorite man on the planet.

Here's how my most recent Friday night went:

-Get home around 6. Get ready to go on a hot date.

-Go to Moonshine with Tyler and wait for 45 minutes for a table on the enchanting patio. The weather was beautiful. I enjoyed a water with lemon, Tyler a beer, and we split a corn dog shrimp with blueberry mustard appetizer. (mouth watering and delicious, I promise!!)

-Enjoy delicious dinner and fun, heart stirring conversation with hubby.

-Ice cream run to Randall's.

-Ice cream and catching up on shows from the week on our couch.

-Lauren's out by 10pm. Even though I fought hard against it. Our evening of quality time down the drain.

Well, it was a great evening up until that point. :)

In other news... I'm currently 32 weeks preggo. That's 8 months. Just 8 weeks left. I really need to buckle down on getting this little lady's room ready. Here's what is currently on my to-do list. (If you've been reading this blog, you may notice that this list has not changed much. )

-Order crib bedding

-Make mobile

- Get cute drawers knobs from Hobby Lobby

-Wash Elle's clothes in baby friendly detergent

-Move baby things that we borrowed from storage to our apartment.

-Find a place for these things

-Make these cute wall hangings. Aren't they great?!

-Find a fun colorful fan like this.

-Take before and after pictures for the Bee's baby book.

I currently have accomplished:

-Order glider

-Paint dresser and changing table/bedside table (double function!) for Elle

-Borrow a really great antique bassinet

-Decide on crib bedding

-Organizing a crafting party so that I can gain motivation and inspiration from my crafty friends to get this finished :)

Alright! Who's ready to get busy!?

I feel a little weird...

...being this excited about something that catches poo.

But I AM! That's right friends, we are cloth diapering. For multiple reasons. I'll lay them out for you:

1. It saves LOTS of money. Even calculating the cost of water and electricity you use for all the extra cycles of wash, I calculated (using this fancy shmancy cloth diaper money saver calculator app. I did not do the math... ) that we would save upwards of $700 over the course of sweet little Elle's diapered life.

2. It's not that difficult! I've done my fair share of research and have talked to lots of close friends that do this and, sure, it will take a little extra effort to do a load of laundry. But our laundry doing is going to be up by like 200% anyway... why not throw in a load or two of diapers every week?

3. Did you even SEE how cute that diaper is?

4. In some small way we're lessening our carbon footprint on our world. We do live in Austin, after all.

This weekend has been full of things for Elle. The most exciting of which included a cloth diaper shower thrown by the wonderful Anneke Swanson. The girls in my missional community came together, bought Ellerbe Anne some much needed poo catchers and accessories (thanks ladies!), prayed over us, and made lots of cute onesies. It was so much fun. I'm really blessed to be a part of such a wonderful community that is learning to love one another as Jesus called us to.

The second most exciting thing was our birthing class. Tyler and I sat and attentively (most of the time) listened to all the wonderful and gory details of labor and delivery. There were multiple times that both or one of us were crying. Out of sheer joyful anticipation for that day. Oh, friends, we cannot wait! We're so excited to meet this little river dancer. It's going to be a wonderful, wonderful day. I'm not nervous about the whole "giving birth" part, just yet. I know it won't be comfortable, although I'm hoping to have something to help with that, Lord willing. But it's one of the most hopeful kinds of pain I'll ever experience. No matter how ridiculous everything gets, there will be a sweet little crying, pooping, love nugget at the end of it all. I kind of feel like I can handle anything if that's the end result. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but those are my current sentiments on the subject.

The THIRD most exciting part was having dinner with the Dansby's. They have 2 sweet kids (Noah and Annalise) and they are loaning Elle LOTS of really cute baby clothes. I mean, my child is going to be VERY well outfitted. Here's one of the cute little numbers that we inherited for a few months from Annalise:

You'll just have to excuse the awful lighting. But you can clearly tell that it's capital A-Adorable.

Pretty cool that God is providing in such practical ways for our little family.

Also... today I'm 31 weeks. That's a big deal. Because that means that in only 9 weeks we could be meeting our baby girl. Those are single digit weeks, friends. My mind's reeling a little bit.

Here's the 31 week belly:

Wow, it looks a lot bigger on that picture than I feel like it looks in real life??

One day, I'll take one with my REAL camera and put it on here... but for now, computer pictures are just a lot easier. and also, maybe one day I'll write about something other than Elle, but right now I don't think about much else. :)

Happy Sunday!

I guess it's that time...

I know, I know... I'm THAT pregnant lady. But my mama, grandmamas and friends around the world want to see...

My 29 week Ellerbe Anne belly. There's something wonderful about calling a pregnant stomach a belly. Mostly because if I were not pregnant, I don't think that calling it a "belly" would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

You can see why the new clothes that I raved about in my last post are needed. :) Ellerbe's got at LEAST 77 more days of growing left. I just can't even imagine where she's going to go.

Sunday Night Dinner...

First, I'm really thankful for community. Why? Because my ever-growing belly and I were running out of options in my pre-preggo clothes. Shirts are two short or have that funny gap that irritates the heck out of me, pants are quickly becoming very uncomfortable with a slight chance of wardrobe malfunction. (i.e. Belly Band has wriggled it's way up my belly, or my pants have slid down, with my zipper/button flapping open in the wind. Not pretty.) Which may or may not have happened in a very public place the other day. But, I don't think anyone saw. I hope. Getting dressed has been a frustrating thing lately. Now, thanks to my sweet, very un-pregnant (and super tiny! there's hope for my post-preggo body!) friend Morgan, I have a storage bin FULL of cute things to put on. Honestly... I don't care all THAT much how cute things are at this point. I just need things that fit and are comfortable. I also borrowed some pregnancy leggings from a friend... and oh my goodness these things are so comfortable! There's no irritating elastic rolling down my belly and/or cutting off the circulation in my hips. I'm so excited. :) So, thank you friends for being willing to pass around maternity clothes!

Second, now that we're talking about how large my waistline is these days, I thought I'd share a David family recipe. Ok, it didn't come from me. But it has made the regular rotation when I start to meal plan. I found it at wholefoods.com, so you know it's healthy :) I love fish, but I usually just love the fish that can put a big dent in my grocery bill for the week. This recipe calls for Tilapia, which is usually fairly cheap, especially when you're just feeding two. Anywho, it's crumbly, and savory and all things good. And oh! The green beans are my favorite part! I LOVE fresh green beans, but usually I just steam them and add some salt and pepper. I love the nutty flavor the almonds and sauteed onions give the green beans. It's on the menu for tonight. Happy cooking!

Ingredients

2 thick slices crusty whole wheat hearth bread, torn into pieces
4 cloves garlic, divided
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 pound fresh or frozen green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
½ cup toasted sliced almonds
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1½ teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
3 (4-ounce) tilapia fillets
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method

Preheat oven to 450°F. Put bread in a food processor and pulse until it forms coarse crumbs. You should have about 1 cup crumbs. Spread crumbs on a rimmed baking sheet and toast them while the oven preheats, until browned and crisp, 5 to 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat 1/2 cup water to a simmer in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Thinly slice 2 garlic cloves and add to the skillet with the onion. Cook 7 to 8 minutes or until beginning to brown, stirring occasionally. Stir in green beans and 1/4 cup water. Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook 5 to 7 minutes or until green beans are just tender, stirring once halfway through cooking. Stir in almonds and black pepper. Cover and keep warm.

While the beans cook, crush remaining 2 garlic cloves with a garlic press or grate with a fine grater into a small bowl. Add toasted bread crumbs, parsley and lemon zest and stir until blended. Cut tilapia fillets into 8 serving pieces. Place tilapia on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and drizzle with lemon juice. Press bread crumb mixture on top of fillets and bake 8 to 9 minutes or until flesh is opaque. Serve with green beans.

Happy Sunday!

Pregnancy Brain...

It definitely exists... please don't get me wrong. I'll be the FIRST to admit that I'm scattered brained as heck, and if I ever am organized and seem like I have it together, it's because I've freakin' busted my butt and probably have a dirty kitchen and piles of laundry spilling out of my laundry room at home. Organizational administration just doesn't come naturally. BUT... I have NEVER forgotten SO MANY important things in one day. Here's how Thursday went down:

- One of the sweetest boys in my class' birthday was on Thursday. I didn't think about it ONCE during the day until after school when I looked at my calendar for the next week to see who's birthday was coming up. I don't know if you remember being in 3rd grade or turning 9, but it's no small thing. We make a big deal of it. There's a birthday book, birthday song (which can be rapped, sung in opera, rocked out or sung underwater), special pencil and bookmark, and a large sombrero that gets to be worn around for a few glorious minutes. It's a day filled with fun and lots of attention. What third grader wouldn't want that?! Well... I blew it. I completely forgot about Benjamin's birthday and he just never said anything. Luckily I caught him before his mom picked him up and apologized and we'll be celebrating on Monday. (I was out Friday afternoon...)

-I walked out of school with everything BUT my purse. Drove halfway home then realized I didn't have ANYTHING that I needed. No cellphone, no wallet, no snack for the drive home. (Essential these days...) Sheesh.

-I got home around 6:30 or so, sat on the couch for a few minutes then had to get up to head to my missional community meeting. On the way there, I realized that I completely stood someone up at 4:30. Just plain did not show up. How horrible! I felt like a pretty terrible, horrible, no good, very bad human being. Even worse? I didn't have her phone number. We'd been communicating via email and my computer wasn't working and my husband took his computer with him to Dallas for a conference. Eesh. Luckily, the girl I was meeting with was super gracious and doesn't hate me.

Please tell me that this doesn't get worse...