HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Everyone is posting pictures of their kids in costume today, so here's a picture of my baby in her costume. She is deep under cover if you can't tell. :)

You might also notice that my hair is much shorter that the last you time you saw me. I did this a couple weeks ago. I had been wanting to go shorter for a while, but was listening to all the books and people that say don't make any big changes to your hair while you're pregnant. I finally decided forget them, I want a hair cut!

Its a good thing I did it when I did because I got some tragic news from my hair stylist. When I got there he told me this would be my last time. I thought "whatever, I'm still getting my hair done once I have a baby!" But then he started talking about quitting. He's a big joker, so I didn't believe him at first but he kept going on about it. When I finally realized he was serious, I was very sad. I've been going to him for most of the last 6 years. He and his wife have just launched their own product line, Retro Chic, and are so busy with it that they don't have time to do hair any more. Good for them, but what about me?!?

NOW YOU DON'T SEE THAT EVERY DAY...

Last week when I was driving home after work I noticed something weird on our street. There were people sitting in the back of a parked pick up. There were people standing in their driveways. There were people sitting in the grass and in lawn chairs on the side walk. Definitely not the norm. When I got home I asked Matthew if he knew what was going on. He had no clue either. We decided to leave the front door open so we could see out the glass door in case something exciting went down our street. Well, in a few minutes we heard a marching band. We went outside and there was a parade going down our street!!! We live very close to the high school and apparently it was time for the homecoming parade. We're hoping this hasn't gone on the last three years we've been here and we've just been oblivious.

A couple of weeks ago Monica and I went to my parents house for the weekend. When we got back in town, I took her to her parents house where her bulldog, Penny, had spent the weekend. When I was getting in my car, Penny got a little mixed up and thought she was going home with me. I couldn't help but get a picture "little" Penny trying to drive my car.
And a few weeks before that...Matthew was knee deep into the wall project in Mallory's room. He was in the sanding stage. I got home from work and went to see what he was up to in there. When I opened up the door, I found him looking like this. Yes, I'm pretty sure those are swim goggles. In his defense, there was A LOT of dust stirred up from the sanding (that's why it looks like the camera needs a good cleaning.)

That's enough of my random pictures for tonight. Hope you had a great weekend!

MAKING PROGRESS

It was almost two months ago when we started on Mallory's room, but its finally starting to look like something. Matthew finished the painting this week and we put the crib together this morning. I'd write more, but all you (Anita) really want are pictures so here you go...

THIS MEANS WAR!!!

A couple of months ago we had an intruder. It was Sunday afternoon. My parents were here and Matthew had taken the day off. We were sitting around in the living room watching baseball I think when all of a sudden we spotted the intruder. A lizard had somehow made his way into our house and was climbing the wall. Matthew and my dad grabbed a broom, played the heroes and got rid of the little critter. During this adventure we learned that when in times of crisis chameleons turn from green to brown. We also learned that lizards don't fare well if you attempt to trap them with a cup, but catch them half in and half out of the cup.

I thought this would be our only episode with lizards.

Fast forward a month or two. I had been to the grocery store. When I got home I saw that I was not alone. There was another lizard friend out on the blinds in the kitchen. I quickly devised a plan. I moved the kitchen table out of the way, grabbed the broom, and started whacking! This is what the kitchen looked like when I was done with the lizard.

This is what the dazed little guy looked like after I had used my best broom ball moves on him and shot him out the back door. I gave him a very stern warning to stay away and pass the word on to his friends not to enter my house again.

Apparently lizards don't share warnings with each other. Tonight I sat down at the kitchen table and grabbed my folder of coupons. When I opened the folder, a lizard jumped out. I WAS MAD! I didn't know what to do but fight. I threw a couple sections from the newspaper at him, but my aim wasn't so good. With no other options or broom handy, I had no choice but to take the rest of the newspaper and start swinging. Luckily I got in a few good swats and the little bugger was laying crippled on the floor with his feet in the air. Score one for Marcia! Thankfully, there were no guts or anything so I opened the back door and swatted out the lizard corpse.

So, does anyone have tips on how to keep lizards out of your house?

"EVERY DAY MATTERS"

If you haven't noticed, "Every Day Matters" is JC Penny's slogan these days. After my dealings with them, I don't think they take it very seriously. I ordered Mallory's bedding a month ago. I called them today to find out the status of the order. All they could tell me was that it was supposed to ship yesterday, but it hadn't. They would have to check with the manufacturer and get back to me in 3-4 days. Well every day does matter to me, so we canceled the order!

Matthew emailed me some choices this morning, and we ordered new bedding at lunch time (from someone else of course). Before I left work today, I got an email saying it had already been shipped. That made me feel so much better!

The best part is that I liked the first bedding, but I LOVE the new bedding. Here's a picture of the new stuff. Its kind of hard to see, but there are pink, brown and mint green polk a dots. Looks like Matthew will be painting on his next weekend!

I went to the doctor yesterday for my 28 weeks check up. Everything is still going great. I start going every two weeks now, so we're getting closer! Unfortunately, I don't feel like I'm getting any closer to getting my braces off. I had hoped to have them off before Mallory was born, but I don't think that's going to happen now. Oh well!

FINALLY!

Our bedroom is finally put back together. We had survived for almost a month with our bed pulled into the middle of the room and the night stands shoved where ever there was room after the "Door to Wall" project began. Thankfully, the work on our side is done! When I got home from Beth Moore on Tuesday this week, Matthew had gotten all the painting done, put the furniture back where it belonged, and made the bed. I was so excited. This came not a moment too soon because I wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be able to squeeze between the foot of the bed and the TV. Now, I get to make some curtains for the windows.

We're still waiting to get Mallory's bedding before we can start painting her room. Penny's website still says the expected ship date is 10/4. By my calendar that was yesterday! Hopefully they just haven't updated the website and it will be arriving at my door very soon because I'm getting very impatient.

I was tagged by Kellee. I should have known that after my last blog, I would get tagged by somebody for something.

1. Who is your man? Matthew Jonathan Brittain. I call him several other names (cougar, wildcat, 86, Pete…) depending on which t-shirt he is wearing that day.

2. How long have you been together? 9 years – married 5

3. How long dated? 4 years

4. How old is your man? 31 as of yesterday…HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

5. Who eats more? He does, but I can give him some good competition.

6. Who said "I love you" first? Outloud – him. In a whisper – me. I would just barely whisper it into his shoulder when we would hug because I wouldn’t say it first. He still says he never heard me.
7. Who is taller? he is

8. Who sings better? Definitely Matthew. He was a member of the world famous group Mountain Top back in college. What, you haven’t heard of them???

9. Who is smarter? He will say I am. I say he’s smarter than he gives himself credit for.

10. Who's temper is worse? Matthew, but its better than it used to be.

11. Who does the laundry? Mostly me. He helps out at times

12. Who takes out the garbage? Matthew

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Matthew

14. Who pays the bills? me

15. Who is better with the computer? We both have our strong points…It depends what you want done.

16. Who mows the lawn? Matthew. I had to mow for a while after he had his knee surgery and hated it. I was so glad when we was able to take that back over. He never did trust me enough to show me how to edge or weed eat.

17. Who cooks dinner? I do, but with Matthew working 4 nights a week I don’t end up cooking that much. Someday this will change.

18. Who drives when you are together? Matthew. He tries to get me to drive on road trips sometimes, but is usually unsuccessful.

19. Who pays when you go out? Matthew

20. Who is most stubborn? We can both be pretty stubborn at times

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? i’m stumped on this one

22. Whose parents do you see the most? mine

23. Who kissed who first? He kissed me – nine years ago this Wednesday!

24. Who asked who out? Technically, he never asked me out. I still give him a hard time about this. When we met we spent a lot of time paired up while hanging out with friends and eventually it became "what do you want to do this Saturday?" I know, so romantic!

25. Who proposed? he did!

26. Who is more sensitive? me

27. Who has more friends? This is a funny question to me. Who keeps track of how many friends they have? We both have a lot of friends and share a lot of them.

28. Who has more siblings? Matthew – a brother and sister. Me – just my sister (not that I’m complaining).

29. Who wears the pants in the family? Matthew…another funny question.

30. What do you love most about your husband? He’s my Matthew, perfect for me!

I'll admit it, I've been a bad blogger lately. I've been thinking about blogging a lot if that counts for anything. I guess my excuse is that I haven't had a whole lot to blog about. Life has been pretty uneventful around here lately.

I guess the most exciting thing has been that we ordered Mallory's bedding last week. Here's a picture of what it looks like. Unfortunately, it is going to be another three weeks before it gets here.

That's it for now. I'll try and find some more excitement that I can blog about soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

Matthew and I both have birthdays at the end of this month. We decided to treat ourselves to our birthday present a few weeks early. We finally got ourselves a new kitchen table last week!!! We're pretty excited about it, if you can't tell.

The table we had been using was the one that my roommate and I bought at a second hand furniture store in Lubbock when we moved out of the dorm. I had used it in six different apartments plus our house for the last three years. If four people sat at it the there was barely room to spare for the salt and pepper shakers! We found our new table on craigslist.com, so its not new to us but its a definite upgrade. It has a leaf too, so there's even more room than it looks like. Come on over for dinner now!

FUNNY

Mallory started moving enough/got strong enough last week for Matthew to feel her. It was pretty special. He movements started out very faint. He had to sit waiting for a while to get a faint feel of her. Last night, this was not the case. He had his hand on my stomach feeling her when we were going to bed. We were both laughing at how strong her movements had suddenly become. They became so strong that Matthew asked me, "Are you sure this is her we're feeling?" I told him, "I sure hope so, or I've got some serious problems!"

So...I'm thinking the coffee gelato I had last night might have had a little caffeine in it!

"Uh, I might be tearing up the house!"

I spent Labor Day weekend with my family. On Saturday, we celebrated Abby's second birthday. She got lots of fun and VERY GIRLY gifts. When Matthew and I were shopping for her gift, he said "I guess our house it going to be full of all this girly stuff soon!" I said "You bet!" Here's a picture of the little sweety in her crown her big brother gave her. For more pictures, check out Anita's blog.

On Sunday, we celebrated my grandma's 82nd birthday. It was just a small family gathering of close to 100 people. Yes, that was all family. No, I don't have any pictures.

On Monday I called Matthew to let him know I was on my way home. When I asked him what he was doing, he said "Uh, I might be tearing up the house." This may sound like a scary thing to you, but it was actually a good thing. The work converting our study into Mallory's room has begun!!! We HAD french doors going from our study into our master bedroom. Thanks to the help of our friends Brad and Brad, we now have a wall. There's still work to be done, but here are some pictures of the guys hard at work and our wall in progress.

Right now we have a layer of dust covering our bedroom. Seriously, everything is white! We're temporarily sleeping in one of our guest bedrooms. Check back soon (i hope) for more progress!

KISS YOU ALL OVER

Did that title get your attention? This something fun we passed around at work lately so I thought why not make it a blog. Go to this fun website and enter your birthday. It will tell you what the Billboard number one song was on the day you were born (or any day). After you check out what your song is (because I know you can't resist) leave it in a comment. Sound fun?

Mine was "Kiss You All Over" by Exile. I'll admit, I've never heard it. If only I were two years older, I could have had "Play That Funky Music".

THIS AND THAT

Here’s one of the pictures of Mallory from the ultrasound this week. The picture itself isn’t great, but I still think it’s pretty special. We’re loving being able to talk about her like a real person with a name and everything. No more “it” and “the baby”.
She got her first shoes this week. My friend at work, Mary, asked long ago to be the "local practice grandma". On Wednesday after we found out Mallory was a girl, Mary bought her a pair of oh so sweet pink ballerina slippers and a pair of pink Ugs. I’m sure she will need the Ugs quite a lot during the long cold south Texas winter.

Now a picture of my growing belly. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to show any skin belly pictures. You might never read my blog again if I did that. My trip to Old Navy was very successful this week. I found several things, plus I even got some more pants with belt loops. Thanks for all the suggestions on what they’re for. I think Ashley’s idea of suspenders might be the best and could actually be useful in the not quite big enough for maternity clothes stage.

Now for something funny…we had a lot of rain yesterday thanks to Tropical Storm Erin. The south and east were the heavier hit areas. When Matthew got to work he was told that they would be driving “high water vehicles”. If he were a cop on TV, I’m sure this would have been a decked out Hummer or something equally as cool. In real life, it was a DUMP TRUCK! While Nathan thought this was pretty cool, Matthew did not. He did say that after driving it all day, he felt like he was driving a Ferrari when he got in his Civic to come home. I hope he didn't drive it like this guy, but Nathan would probably think this was cool too.

I might be crazy, but I'm thinking of battling the mall and the tax-free weekend shoppers. I heard a commercial that Foley's (I can't get used to calling it macy's) has a buy 2 bras get 2 bras free deal. It might be worth it. Besides, how many of the tax free shoppers are going to be in the ladies lingerie department.

I was watching 90210 this afternoon, yes its one of my regular shows, and I caught Brandon call Dylan Steve. Good job 9 0 folks. Yes, my sister and I just call it 9 0...the 2 1 0 is just too much and these are our "old friends".

THE SECRET IS OUT!!!!!

Today was the big day. We found out that our baby is a GIRL!!! We are just thrilled. So far, she is a very lady like little girl. She had made herself very comfy this morning with her legs crossed and was not interested in showing anything. Thankfully, the ultrasound technician was able to get a good shot after several minutes to confirm that she is a little girl. The pictures we got aren't great, but I'll try to scan and post them tomorrow.

Now, the other thing that you really want to know... Her name is Mallory Joy. There's no big story behind how we came up with this, its just something that we liked and both agreed on.

Everything else looked great! She's growing and is right where she should be. Seeing her heart beating on the screen this morning was so great. All I could think as I watched my baby's heart beating, was that God is so amazing!

We celebrated the day with lunch at Pappasitos and then a trip to the mall. We had to buy something for our baby to mark the big day. I was good and only bought one outfit for her.

Tomorrow, its my turn. I've got to get myself some clothes. Hopefully I can pull together something to wear to work for one more day.

GROCERY GAME

A friend at work recently let me in on a secret, its called the Grocery Game. There is a website where you pay a small fee (i think $10 for 3 months; i'm still using a free trial) and in exchange it lets you in on the best grocery deals for the week. You select the store or stores in your area and it gives you a shopping list. The Grocery Game folks go through the ads each week and tell you which are the best deals to buy that week and how many to buy to get the most value. Then they even go one step further and tell you which coupons to clip and use to save even more. There are a few items each week that come out free. I've noticed big savings on my grocery receipts since I started. OK...that's enough of my commercial for now. If you want to join the grocery game, let me know and I can email you a link. Yes, I do get credit for people I refer that sign up.

IS IT JUST ME?

I was trying on clothes last night figuring out what would fit to wear to work today. I decided on a blue jean skirt. Somewhere during this time I noticed that the skirt has three belt loops on the back! What is the point of that? Are the designers just trying to be cruel? What pregnant woman is going to wear a belt? What belt will fit around a pregnant woman's belly?

FUN FUN FUN!

This weekend I got to go to Ft. Worth to see most of my college friends when we had a shower for Tiffany and Baby Caroline. It was so much fun to spend a few hours laughing, reminiscing, and catching up with everyone. I didn't get a good picture of the group, but here's one of the two pregnant gals. Too bad our husbands had to stay home fighting crime.

When I wasn't with my Red Raider friends, I was with Anita, Clay, Nathan, and Abby. Abby was just as sweet and cute as ever. Every time I turned around, I heard her sweet little voice calling "Parsh! Parsh!" Nathan was his usual funny self too. Clay got him a scooter. He got to ride it for the first time on Saturday and loved it. Sunday morning after church and at lunch he kept saying that when we got home he was going to ride his "electric scooter". Clay finally told him that he didn't have to say it was electric every time. Nathan replied, "But what if people don't know what kind it is." Here are a couple shots of the little scooter. I'm guessing that's chocolate all over his face in the first one.

On another note, we're getting closer to the big day. Its 5 days until we find out the sex of the baby! I can't wait.

Now something I'm not terribly excited about. Matthew and I came to the decision yesterday that I will be going back to work full time after the baby is born. This was a very tough decision for us. It was not what we wanted to happen, but we both feel we're making the right decision. Thankfully, I'll get to stay home for 12 weeks and then Matthew is home 3 days during the week so one of us will be with the baby most of the time. We think we'll only end up needing a baby sitter for 1-2 days and maybe for just the afternoon those days. Anyone know someone good?

IT WASN'T POPCORN!

Today was an exciting day in my pregnancy. I felt the baby move for the first time! I had thought maybe yesterday I felt something, but wasn’t sure. This morning I was been sitting at my desk for a while working when I felt a few little “pops”. When I felt them, I just knew it had to be the real thing. It was very exciting. I guess the baby liked the Starbucks (decaf) I had for breakfast.
Now, only 12 more days until we find out if it’s a boy or a girl! Any guesses?

WHAT A NIGHT!

Last night I didn’t want to cook dinner and Matthew and I were not wanting to spend much money on dinner either. So, we grabbed our handy Entertainment book looking for a deal. I saw a buy one get one coupon for Blimpie. I asked Matthew if there was a Blimpie around anywhere. He said the only one he knew of was in the Shell station by 290. I remembered eating Blimpie in college in the UC on campus and it was always good, but since we don’t normally dine at gas stations we kept looking. Unfortunately nothing else caught our eye. So you guessed it, we grabbed our coupon, got in the car and headed to the gas station for dinner.

When we got there things didn’t look too promising. But Matthew had his mind up, he said he we’re going in! When we walked in, the Blimpie side looked very clean…but too clean. There was no bread or meat insight anywhere. Within a few seconds the man working in the gas station informed us that Blimpie closed at 4 pm. How can a sandwich shop in a convenience store close at 4?

I was starving and reminding Matthew that it was time to feed the baby at this point, so we ended up at the closest fast food place we came to, Sonic!

This night totally took me back to college when Matthew and I were first dating. Back then, we probably ate a fast food restaurant almost every night. Sonic was my favorite by far and there was one less than 5 minutes away from Matthew’s apartment. Every Tuesday they had half-price burgers so we would get Sonic and then watch Felicity. This was after all our studying was done of course…

Here’s a picture of what we looked like back then. I saw this picture recently and wondered “Where did the kids in this picture go?”

This was on Matthew's 22nd birthday at Joe's Crabshack in Lubbock, right around when we started dating. This is the same night that Matthew put on a Batman costume and pink tutu and ran around the restaurant doing the donkey. Don't know about "the donkey" then you obviously didn't go to college with Chris Horner.

Hope you enjoyed my random rambling trip down memory lane.

So what's been going on around here?

Not much...

I think the pregnant mind might be starting to get me. One night this week Matthew was looking at the the mail from the day. Something didn't look right to me. I walked to the big trash can in the garage and just as I suspected, the movie, bill, and magazine that came that day were staring up at me. Yes, I had sorted the mail in the car and thrown away the good stuff and brought in all the junk. Do you think this could work to explain late bills?

People always ask if Matthew has any good stories being a cop. Last night he called me shortly after 11 and said, "You'll never guess where I'm going." I said, "You're right, just tell me." Well, he had just been dispatched to Barnes & Noble to cover the crowds that were waiting in line for the Harry Potter release at midnight. Yes, this was the big police need in Pasadena for the night. I told him he better come home with some good stories from this one. Unfortunately, his Sergent showed up shortly after he go there and sent him back to the station since he got off at midnight. He did say that there were lots of crazy looking folks wearing Harry Potter glasses and dressed up. Can you tell that we never got caught up in the Harry Potter craze?

Some of our friends with a pool are out of town this week, so I think I'm off to float in the pool for a while!