A first Easter and a first Easter egg hunt.

Happy Easter!!
I hope that all of you had as great of a day as we did!

An Eggcellent Easter.

Yesterday we made an attempt at decorating some Easter eggs, but armed with only seven eggs (one of which broke prior to me boiling it and one of which cracked when I dropped it post-boiling), we didn't get very far with our level of creativity.  I mean, it definitely wasn't a Halo Reach pumpkin status (show off, James)...  So today I'm going to pick up another kit on my way home from work and go for take two.  Tomorrow I'm having my mom + kids, Aunt Caryn + kids, and my cousin Tina + kids over for a huge Easter feast and Easter egg hunt to follow.  We're going to have the infamous dishes which I get made fun of on the regular by anyone who knows my family and their infinitely unique recipe titles.  "Broccoli dish" and "potato dish" alongside my mom's delicious glazed ham.  I bought about 150 eggs with candy and toys inside along with bubbles and sticky hands to keep the children happy.  There was talk of a beer hunt for the guys, and I think it'll be an all around good time, especially because I get out of work an hour early tomorrow which means I'll be home in time for everything but not early enough to have to cook :P

Update!

Oh, I know, I've been slacking.  But between a combination of school work, work work, baby making work, and parenting work...  I've been just a liiiittle exhausted.

So, while I've been busy, the baby has been ever so busy growing.  Since my last update (Week 6 - Sweet Pea), the baby grew to the size of a Blueberry (Week 7), then a Raspberry (Week 8), and now the little rascal is the size of an Olive (Week 9).

Rather than give you a visual idea through a photograph of a piece of fruit, I'd like to present, without further adieu...

Our little bean!

Well, I've heard peanut, bean, little beanie baby, granddaughter, grandson, grandbaby, aww wittle baby, alien, and even Plankton (from SpongeBob) so far, so feel free to leave your input.  But, when I saw that little heartbeat flicker on the screen, I was beaming.  Another four weeks until we actually get to hear the heartbeat, and I can't wait.  The little line you see to the right of little beanie baby (as James liked to say) is actually the amniotic sac.  Our doctor said it's usually not visible and this is actually a very clear picture for only 9 weeks.

In other news, we had a really nice 4th of July.  I'm terrible with making plans, because I make too many and keep too few, but this year we decided to keep true to our tradition and went to James' parents house to grill and blow some stuff up.  Tammy took table cloths and laid them on the pool table and had a huge spread of food that took up the entire pool table for us to eat.  We had a few friends over, too.  We blew off tons of fireworks and hopefully learned our lesson that just because they LOOK bigger (i.e. huge box that says it lights off 50 fireworks, etc.) doesn't meant they ARE better.  Those buy 1 get 1 $75 all-in-one fireworks were just a waste.  Next time I'll stick to our tried and true little boxes that have what they look like on the side and a huge tube to put the little firework balls into.

Since we're not going to be able to put Gavyn in preschool, I'm looking for different things that our family can do with him during the day while we're at work which will help him learn the same concepts.  So I'll be on the hunt over the next year for all things Leapfrog/preschool education/that sort of thing.  If you're reading this and have any suggestions, please let me know.  Believe it or not, NickJr.com has really great games that focus on the alphabet, shapes, colors, and numbers.

I'm at work right now waiting for James to get off since I got off 42 minutes ago.  That explains why this post is so long!  I'm gonna wrap it up for now and go wrap my mouth around a delicious shredded beef taco from Chipotle.  YUM.

Sickie McGee.

Well, my Mom is on her way to bring Gavyn to the doctor as we speak. I wanted to stay home with him today but one of the front desk girls is already on vacation so we're short as it is, and James just called out last week. I feel so bad when he's sick and I can't stay home with him. It's the worst part of being a working Mom. He has a fever of over 101 and has a really bad, congested cough. My little brother, Tyler, just came down with bronchitis last week, so I'm assuming that's what Gavyn has, or at least some type of bacterial infection which is going to require an antibiotic. Poor baby.

We've gotten the majority of his Christmas and birthday shopping done, minus a few things that we'll pick up here and there that we see and he'd like and plus the Power Wheels Mustang we're picking up tomorrow. Christmas is still a few months away and his birthday isn't until mid-January, but I love getting it out of the way and avoiding the Christmas-shopping traffic. Over the next couple of months we just have to buy eachothers' gifts and our immediate families'. I'm so glad we're almost done with this! Although James knows he's getting an iPhone for Christmas, and quite possibly a lawn mower - which is more for me than it is for him, even though he'll be using it ;P... I want to think of a few things to surprise him that he'll REALLY like. Our parents/brothers/sisters are always easy. They typically want the same thing every year. I can't wait to start decorating for the holidays. This is my FAVORITE time of year (fall/winter). I need to order Gavyn's costume soon.

I've received the rest of my pell grant in the form of a PHCC One card. I can withdraw a max of $500 a day from the ATM. The cash that spits out is immediately being inserted back in and then put directly onto our credit cards. BUT this is the only time I plan (*keyword: plan) to do this. I'd like to start putting any extra money from my financial aid into a savings account which is not linked to our checking (so that I'm not tempted to touch it) and put it away. I don't touch Gavyn's, and since it's linked it's easy to transfer money in there, but that's different. That's his money. I'd be tempted with this. But I'd like to put it away because during my last year of school as a teacher, I'll have to do three internships. Level one is interning 2 days a week at the school. This lasts an entire semester (15 weeks) and is unpaid. In fact, I actually have to pay for the internship hours, as if it's school (which will hopefully qualify me for financial aid during that time!). The second level is interning 3 days a week, which lasts another semester. The final internship lasts another whole semester and is full-time, so five days a week. At that point you're basically teaching the class with a real teacher watching over you. I'd probably be able to work part-time for the first two internships, but the last one would be impossible. So I'll have to rely on a) financial aid money that I put away or b) student loans. I want to do everything in my power to STAY AWAY from student loans. I want noooo part of that unless I absolutely have to.

I can't wait for our vacation, less than two weeks away! Gavyn's first time flying, we're all going to go on the boat with my Dad, the weather is beautiful right now, shopping, family get-togethers, Six Flags, spending time together, sears tower, the city, Chicago hot dogs, pizza puffs!, Lauren meeting Gavyn for the FIRST time, seeing everyone, NO work... I'm so excited. James and I remind eachother every day how many days are left until vacation. Ugh. Excited. Much needed.

While on the subject of vacation, it's going to be a tough squeeze after Christmas and everything, but I reaaally still want to go to Disney. Gavyn is going to absolutely LOVE it this year, and I want it to be a part of his birthday gift. So I've decided that I need to get the credit cards paid down ASAP so that we can still afford to bring him for his birthday. HAVE TO.

Bored of this now.