While Matt's away...

Though I sadly had to drop Matt off at the airport on Friday night for his long flight(s) to Singapore, this weekend has really seemed to fly by (thankfully!).  Before the rush of Matt packing and getting ready for the trip, we enjoyed an amazing (per usual) dinner with friends cooked up by Lex. It's always great to spend time with these two - it never feels like enough!

This was the 40 garlic clove chicken... wow:

And then... it seemed like all of a sudden we were driving to DIA to say "see ya later" to Matt.  By we, of course I mean me and Lincoln.  :)  I will admit that I cried saying goodbye... and I cried on the way home... and I've cried a few times since.  We'll pretend it's the pregnancy hormones, but I know I'm also just a basketcase with him being gone, let alone with him being halfway around the world.  Lincoln hasn't been doing so well either - he waits up every night for about an hour staring at the door, and barking at any noise that could potentially indicate his dad's arrival home.  It's both cute and incredibly annoying while I try to sleep.  Thankfully, we've been able to video chat and text, so that helps with the sadness of missing him every night.  (And yes, he's having a great time and eating lots of yummy food!)

See you in a week!

I woke up early on Saturday to finish a (late) paper for class and then got to spend some time with my mom, brother, sister, and DJ.  We grabbed some lunch, played a little putt putt, and hit up Old Navy (this expanding belly needed some cheap maternity shirts!).  And then, much to their dismay, I headed to a previously scheduled engagement organized by my friend Mackenzie - a fun "Pinot & Picasso" night at a new place called "Doodlebugs" in Louisville.  Sadly, I could not partake in the Pinot part (though they were kind enough to make me a fake mimosa with OJ and Sprite), but the painting portion was a blast!  We were guided through quite the adventure of painting something similar to a painting Georgia O'Keefe did of a peace lilly... I am by no means an artist, but it was fun and pretty basic, and the final product (mine is the one in the middle below) is now hanging in our bedroom. :)  Thanks for the fun night Mackenzie! 

While I was "slaving" away over my painting, some other folks were literally slaving away painting our nursery.  My mom, Amber, and DJ (my heroes) painted it all before I got home!  I had done a bunch of taping, organized supplies, and laid down a drop cloth before they came, but they did all the rest (including a layer of primer over our VERY red accent wall that had been in there).  I can't even begin to tell you how awesome it was to come home and see the cute, baby blue walls!  Matt and I have plenty of work left to do in the room, but that was the biggest hurdle by far.  I am so thankful for them!!  Maybe now we can start moving some of the wonderful hand-me-downs off the dining table and into the nursery :)

The walls are much brighter than this picture lets on... I'll try to post pics as we get more done.

And now time to get back to schoolwork.  Of course.  What's new?  :)  In another post for another day, I'll tell you all about the kinds of students I'm working with at DCIS - I have been so moved and touched by these kids and the adversity they have overcome!

Mountain Getaway

Hmm... it's been 11 days since I last posted.  Bad blogger, bad!  My apologies.  It's not that nothing exciting has happened (well, nothing all that exciting), but life just honestly seems to be flying by.  Slow down, I say.  But no one is listening!

Let's see - we had another visit with the high risk doc to do another ultrasound at 22.5 weeks, but BL was very uncooperative being all turned around and upside down and whatnot.  So, we didn't get many decent pics.  But, we did get confirmation, once again, that BL is indeed a boy.  (Commence getting a baseball-themed nursery underway...)

And the next day, I decided it was finally time to document my growing belly... (notice the artistic lens that helps cover up how silly I look/feel taking that picture) :)

We've also been busy collecting an incredible amount of fabulous hand-me-downs from amazing friends willing to part (permanently or temporarily) with some of their baby "stuff".  I can't even begin to tell you how awesome it is to know such generous people!  We are beyond blessed looking at the cute clothes and contraptions that will soon be used by the little man himself.  :)  And on one particular trip to pick up some adorable newborn clothes from Mackenzie and her cute little kiddos, I even had the pleasure of riding the mall train with them :)  Bode, thanks for passing along your sweet style!

And since life has been filled with lots of school and BL stuff, Matt and I were finally able to take a quick getaway (a mini-babymoon, if you will, minus a pool and virgin pina coladas) up to the mountains for the weekend.  We had a great time relaxing, enjoying the Fall weather, and meeting up with a couple friends at the Breckenridge Oktoberfest.  Weekends seem to come and go much too quickly these days, but I was happy for the retreat nonetheless.  And though my cough still persists, I have been able to sleep for durations of more than 1 hour at last.  A small victory, but I will take it!

Friday night's dinner - stuffing ourselves with Mexican food:

 Saturday in Breck (it rained almost the entire time):

 Andrew bought a spiffy new raincoat in honor of the rain:

Naptime for the boys:

Taking a nice hike on Sunday morning:

 BL's first trip to the mountains!

And now I must stop procrastinating and get back to school work (and my 24 week checkup in a couple hours).  Matt is leaving for Singapore on Friday (cue the weepy/whiny violins - I HATE when he's gone!!), and my mom will be up for the weekend to help out with a little nursery painting and whatnot.  We also booked tickets to visit Matt's family next month, so we're excited about that!!  But can it really be September 20th already?  I can't even believe it.

Life lately

I keep thinking to myself, "I should put that on the blog." But, about one day later, after not writing on the blog, I've completely forgotten my (likely unoriginal) thoughts.  So, unfortunately, by virtue of me having a few free minutes while Matt is on his way home from work and Lincoln basks in the sun outside, I am writing this, rather boring blog post.  Apologies in advance.

Life in Larsonland has been busy as usual - the end of summer has come and gone, thankfully taking with it the 99 degree temperatures.  My classroom no longer feels like a sauna, and wearing pants no longer feels like the most ridiculous idea ever hatched.  We've been keeping up with our normally busy schedule while also dealing with a grouchy, cranky me who's been sick for more than a week.  Yuck.  Somewhere in the past few weeks, I developed a nasty cough - the kind where your whole body lunges when you cough, the kind where you don't feel it coming, you just get an urge and have to cough so loudly that the neighbors can probably hear, the kind that happen about once every three minutes during the day, but once every minute at night, and the kind that has forced me to sleep in our guest room so that Matt can get at least some sleep while his wife is hacking away.  In case I need to say it: NOT FUN.  I even went to urgent care on Tuesday to what feels like no avail.  Being pregnant really puts limitations on what kind of meds they can give you, so at the moment I'm on some low dose Singulair hoping that maybe that will do the trick (though it hasn't so far).

But, enough whining about that (trust me, Matt is sick of hearing the hack)... we have also started working on All Things Baby.  After getting an unexpected and MUCH appreciated donation of clothes and baby "gear" from a complete stranger (a woman who one of my classmates nannies for), I was inspired to try and get our house in order.  I mean, where are we going to put all of this fabulous stuff?  This however, if you have seen our tiny house, is a large task.  Our basement is nearly full with storage (well, we still have room to do laundry thankfully), and our closets can barely close.  Trying to figure out how to fit a baby and all of his "goodies" into the house has been quite the chore (not to mention the simultaneous task of cleaning out my things from my parents' place as requested).  We, well more Matt with my "supervision", took a stab at "organizing" the basement, and then we dove into figuring out how the whole nursery thing will work.  After moving the office furniture into our guest room, we realized that it simply will not fit.  So, we now have a tightly packed guest room, a bookshelf next to the bathroom and a table under our wine rack (and a dining room table full of things we don't know what to do with)... but such is life. 

Here are things as they stand currently (our hope to paint this weekend is not coming true, we are just not even close to ready for that, nor able to decide on colors quite yet!):

Guest room under construction

 Nursery under construction

 Colors for the nursery (likely to be red, baby blue, and navy blue of some sort)

And in other All Things Baby updates, we are still working on a name.  Being a planner and all, I am hoping we have one picked out before the kiddo arrives, but who knows if that will happen.  Picking a name that will stick with a person for his whole life is a daunting task!  We test out nicknames, names that bullies could call him, abbreviations and initials... and still, no clear answer for us.  Several are leading the pack, but at this point I wonder what will ever push us over the edge!  Baby Larson, I hope we name you well! :)

And since our life does not solely revolve around little BL, we have been having some great times with friends and family in the past few weeks.  My beautiful sister's birthday was last week, and true to her style, we celebrated several times :)  Firstly with a delicious dinner made by yours truly topped off with gourmet cupcakes from a local shop!  But not to be outdone, my dad and stepmom later took us to Rodizios to stuff our faces in honor of Amber's 27th birthday.  I'm not sure Matt has ever been so full in his life.  His food baby belly was definitely comparable to my real baby belly :)

Forgetting what else we've been up to, I do know that my camera has reminders of a quick trip up to Golden to catch the USA Pro Cycling Challenge with some friends and a visit to the Taste of Colorado on Labor Day to catch BOYZ II MEN (woooo!)...

 

 

 BIIM and a gagillion people at Civic Center Park:

 ... but sadly I have no pictorial evidence of our fun times with Bryan in Sterling, a dinner with some old friends who were in town, a zucchini-themed supper group, a barbeque with my stepmom's family (and first use of my parents' awesome new firepit), or a fun get together with some old friends last night at Beatrice & Woodsley.  But, I promise, life is continuing as "normal" for the most part.  This weekend is already packed full with dinners, a concert in Boulder, seeing some old friends (and simultaneously acquiring some baby boy clothes!!), trying to finish our registry at Target, and Matt playing at church... oh, and somewhere in there actually doing my school work.  :)  Have a great one everyone!