15 Weeks and Counting

Three and a half months pregnant is a strange time. I definitely feel as though I look a little more pregnant these days though half the people in my life say "You look the same!" and others say "oh my goodness look at that baby pooch!" My belly is swelling, but not clearly full of a baby just yet so it's a weird in-between time where friends and family know I'm pregnant and the world thinks I'm bloated. haha Both of which are true!

14 Weeks (since I missed it last week)

15 Weeks

This week our baby continues to work its way through the produce section and is the size of an orange (about 4 inches from the top of his/her head to his/her bottom). Following previous weeks where the baby developed fingernails and teeth under the gums, baby is taking more steps this week toward being an attractive person with proportional arms and legs. The eyelids are still sealed shut, but the baby can sense light and tastebuds are forming. He or she also now has functioning joints and is wiggling around in there like we saw on the sonogram last week... but is still too small for me to feel.

In other news, my braces are on and no longer sore. This past weekend we went on a family vacation with my family to Wimberley and had a great relaxing time. Aaannd last but not least, the last day of week 14, yesterday, we came home to a broken AC. We're staying with our good friends G & Lu at least one night to see if we can get it repaired ASAP, but for now the same sweet friends that saved us during the water shut-off crisis have pulled through again. Huck is in doggie heaven playing with their Boston Terrier Charlie Daniels... and it sure beats our 93 degree house!

Huck with our 'ghetto A/C' - a bowl of ice and a fan - before we left for G & Lu's.

Winter Wonderland

So we got 2 - 4 inches of snow last night and they expect we could get up to 6! It felt more like a Winter Wonderland (which is a good thing) before the power went out (which is a bad thing) but it is still sooo beautiful.

Happy 2010

It's been too long since I blogged and I think that's most likely due to all the time I've been spending in the "fast lane", literally! Michael and I went 'home' to College Station Dec. 23rd through Dec. 26th/27th. Dec. 30th I headed back to College Station where I stayed until Jan. 3rd at which point I drove to Austin to work for the 4th. The evening of Jan. 4th I drove to S.A. and Jan. 6th I drove back to Dallas. Whew!

I think Michael would agree that 2009 was a banner year for Michael and I - and for our first year of marriage. We bought our first house, got little Huckleberry.... and finished the year by finding out we're finally getting a new sister-in-law (Congratulations David and Sara) and that we're going to be an Aunt and Uncle this coming summer 2010 (Congratulations J & A on your baby-on-the-way).

I am still not used to writing 2010 and it's even crazier to think it's been 10 years since we graduated High School, 10 years since Michael and I met, 10 years since so many people thought we were coming to the end of time! 10 years ago I was just barely getting my own cell phone, own car, and moving away from my family. I don't know if I could have predicted that we'd be where we are today, but one thing is for sure - I know I couldn't have planned the last 10 years better than what God has made of them.

An Anderson Weekend

Good Evening! I am in Austin writing this blog - I'm here for work for two days - and can't believe how cold it is! I also can't believe that Michael missed the opportunity to post another breakfast of champions... perhaps he went into work too early these last two days to eat like a champion - instead he had to eat like Otis (in a hurry)!


Anyway, on to our updates. We had some visitors again this last weekend - this time Charlie and Cathy - and Michael and I were both so excited for them to see the house. I've been feeling more and more settled over the last couple of weeks now that we have a picture hung in the breakfast nook and a duvet and frame 'installed' for the guest bedroom. All of this settling in has been taking it's time but I finally feel we're at a point where it is less stressful to have guests and so their timing was perfect! (It also helped that I cleaned on Wednesday because David was in town for work on Thursday - I was extra prepared!)



C&C got into town on Friday afternoon and we took a quick tour of the house and headed out to dinner at Besa's for some Italian food. We've tried to go there before when they were in town but they were closed (it was a Sunday). We had Greek salads and two huge pizzas and lots of good stuff to talk about :-D

Saturday morning we headed down to this drug store in Highland Park that Charlie read about. This store has been around since 1912 and serves breakfast and milkshakes and all sorts of other things at different times of the day. Breakfast was good but the coffee left a little to be desired... Charlie and Michael said it tasted a little bit like popcorn. STILL, there were some cool little bookmarks and picture frames and other little things to look at in the shop after breakfast.

After breakfast it was on to Steins Bakery (if you read the reviews you'll know just how fabulous it is! http://www.yelp.com/biz/steins-bakery-dallas) and picked up some cheese and cherry danishes for dessert the remainder of the weekend and breakfast on Sunday. THEY ARE FABULOUS! We headed to the house afterwards, enjoyed a danish or two, and then Charlie and Michael began work on the yard. Cathy and I headed out for some shopping at Dillards, TJ Maxx, TJ Maxx and TJ Maxx (haha), aaannnd... hmm, I can't remember where else.

We ate chicken spaghetti at the house on Saturday night and visited until it was time for bed, which it was early if you know my husband! Church on Sunday and Babe's for lunch rounded out the weekend ... after which we were ALL ready for a nap!

We had a great weekend getting to share the 'grand baby' Huck for the weekend and relaxing with our parents/in-laws. We are loving our first year of marriage, new home and the visitors coming to see it, and our fast-growing new baby HUCK!!

Natasha

Slumber Party Fun

So yesterday we received notice that something had gone in the transfer of our water bill and it was still in the sellers name. Actually, she found out that something went wrong and stopped service immediately. This meant that we had to get the water transferred into our name but something else happened that required a bill to be paid before 5pm and it wasn't.... yada yada yada our water got cut off.

Michael had already given our friends Garrett and Lu a heads up that we might need a place to stay and so last night we packed our bags and headed north to Carrollton to stay with the Frith fam. We had a nice dinner, Lu and I got to watch the Bachelorette together aaaaand Michael broke the handle on their back door - it wouldn't open anymore. Whoops! Anyway, G & Michael took the door knob apart and got that fixed ...

Then today Michael tried to get the service up and running again but alas, it may be another 48 hours before our water is back on. We packed our bags and are again playing double household with G & Lu who are nice enough to host again. Michael eats it up getting to play with their Boston terrier, Charlie, and we even worked in a dinner-for-six tonight with our other friends Ben and Amy.

A little inconvenience has allowed us to enjoy some more time with friends so I'm just going to look for the silver lining. However I DID just watch Michael - who was blowing in Charlie's face to make him do this crazy bite-at-the-air licking thing - spit his gum across the room onto their carpet. Forgoing any other broken doors or gum in the carpet, perhaps we'll be allowed to stay again one more night should our water still be off come 5pm manana. ha!

Have a great week!

New Homeowners

Friday night we had access to our new house. We ate Taco Cabana on the back patio and marveled that we were sitting on OUR patio! We also went hunting for things left behind and things that needed to be done over the course of the weekend.

Our seller left a variety of things in the fridge including champagne and some really pretty glasses, some coffee and two coffee mugs with sugar in the cabinet and more, including an ironing board, TV tray, gold brick (random!), a quarter, plungers (ew), saran wrap and other handy kitchen items, a picture in the master bedroom (we later found a nice big hole behind that picture thank-you-very-much), a fan, a beware of dog sign (ready for our Doberman ;) ) and a trash can already taken to the curb (score!).

We assessed the interior damage done by the foundation work and thankfully no cracked floor tiles were found to be hidden under rugs. The only cracks we found were inside cabinets and everything else was pretty clean and move in ready! We met our neighbors over the course of Saturday and Sunday and there are two very cute kids next door that said "Didn't I meet you the other day?" - about 6 hours after meeting us - as well as a guy Lance that ride bikes (that should be easy to remember huh?).

We got some painting and other projects started as well, but that is for a later blog... Happy Monday!

One big box of surprises...

So closing day is tomorrow. We went by earlier this week and saw the foundation work complete, added some top soil, and watched some construction guy haul off all the yucky dirt and cement on our back driveway.

We also peeked in the windows and saw no major cracks or anything from the foundation work and our Realtor's walk through confirmed the same. The sellers movers have come, her maid has come, the yard guys have come for the last time (on her bill at least) and the house sits in wait for us.

Because we've purchased a few items from the seller those things remain in the house, but we were told on Saturday that there would be an additional "surprise" for us. Then, we got an email this week saying she left "more than one surprise". Some surprises we know we're getting are awesome, like the extra speakers for the surround sound in the livingroom.... others are questionable, like the 'disco pillow' we saw when we went to her garage sale last Saturday.

I guess for now all we can do is wait until tomorrow night when we go to our new home to evaluate whether or not which of these surprises are 'the good kind' - she has promised it's not her standard size Poodle Emmy or Tess the Schnauzer. Any and all surprises aside, we are SO very excited about our new home.

Natasha

The Move

We close on our house this Friday and the big move is upon us. Today they are supposed to finish the foundation work and we should be able to assess the success this evening. Yesterday was the first day that we packed together - as opposed to one of us packing odds and ends on our own - and though we got a lot accomplished there are still a lot of little things that need to be put in boxes. (Like, ahem, everything in our kitchen.)

It's pretty exciting as this is our first house and because it feels more like our first place together than our apartment did. Because I moved into the apartment first and lived there for about 6 months before we got married, it felt a lot like we moved Michael's stuff into a place that I was living ... I guess because that's exactly what we did. Now we'll get to pack our things and have a true merger of our stuff when we get to the new house.

The house is also different because we know that we'll stay there for a while and we can really get settled. Since my Junior year in college I've changed residences at least once a year. My senior year at A&M I moved in with Meredith, then my first year of grad school I lived with Marcus, then with cousin Stephen for a semester. Then I moved to San Antonio for about 11 months and lived with mom, then to Austin. In Austin I lived by myself in an apartment for about a year, moved out and ended up living with a lady from church for a few months (that's another story), then got an apartment again in Austin by myself. After living in that apartment for just under a year I moved to Dallas. Between the moves that Michael and I have helped eachother with and the moves of others, we have been part of a LOT of moves over the last 5 to 6 years and we are sure looking forward to settling down.

All of this is made more joyous by the seller who has turned out to be a really cool lady (aaaand she's had some great furniture that she wanted to unload that we have purchased!).

The Green Gate House

Alas, we have fallen in love again. There is another home that we've made an offer on as of yesterday as a matter of fact, three offers on yesterday (long story for later). The back and forth is emotionally exhausting and because the home is new to the market, the seller is especially ornery.

This house doesn't really have a color that I can assign to the brick and when I told Michael it was like a cottage he said "no". Indisputable (unlike an opinion such as 'it makes me think of .....') is the fact that this home has a green deck and fence, so for now, that is how we will refer to it. That is, until we can hopefully refer to it as 'our house'.

We countered last night and supposedly our counter was never received, so we resent today at 5pm and are anxiously awaiting a response by 9pm tonight. We still know God's plans are better than ours, but Michael's been better at reminding us of that than I have lately. I'm just so ready to begin mentally arranging my furniture and planning a barbeque and I refuse to do that again without knowing a home is ours...