st. louis surprises

So, ahem, if you ever need to, say, SURPRISE some one I am your girl. Seriously. It's almost embarrassing to tell you that, for my 30th, I had a second surprise party and again had ABSOLUTELY no clue until I walked through the door.

My mom and my sister did the majority of the planning this round. (Me. Spoiled.) Karl, to his credit, managed to get us there. (This really was a feat in and of itself because SEVERAL parts of the the highway to and from were closed due to flooding in Arkansas and Missouri and we took some scary highways in the dark that had water creeping eerily close to the road.)

Here's a shot at dusk - I don't believe those power poles are supposed to be under water. Now add complete and total darkness - slightly CREEPY!
Anyway we got there. And safely! (ADVENTURE!)

We woke up and hit Grant's Farm and the Cardinals game: And arrived back home to mom and dad's to a room full of friends and family. (Did I mention I am spoiled?)

The menu? All my favorite foods including the famous Gus' Pretzels and ENTIRE trays of P'sghetti's cheese garlic bread.
What more could a girl want?

may day may day

This may be a ridiculous and nonsensical post and I'm not apologizing.

Because... May.

Jaysus. (Mary and Joseph.)

It's been an exhausting and emotional month. If you were to ask me about this pregnancy, I would describe it in one word: MORE. I THOUGHT that I was supposed to be all easy, breazy and have this no-big-deal-i've done this before type of attitude but (MAN) that is just NOT happening. I feel MORE emotional and MORE crazy and MORE MORE MORE of everything. I finally had a bit of an emotional meltdown last week and I feel much better now. I guess I've been feeling a little like this pregnancy has gotten no attention (from me) and a little like I already know (ish) some of the emotions that come with having a newborn and I alternate between being terrified of those emotions and not being able to contain myself with excitement to feel them.

We have been to both St. Louis (yes, again.) and Tulsa in the last few weeks and (other than a brief planned trip to Memphis in July) I am refusing to go out of town until this baby comes out.

(Expect posts re: St. Louis and Tulsa trips in the next few days!)

oh and

I forgot to tell you all that I've already started having contractions! (of the Braxton-Hicks variety)

I went and saw my doctor (at one point I was having multiple per hour that weren't going away with water and rest); diagnosis - normal, expect them from here on out.

I had a lot of this type of contraction w/ Nate's pregnancy starting around 30 weeks (not TWENTY ONE.)

This pregnancy rocks.

pregnancy dreams

I've been meaning to post about some of the hilarious and strange and VIVID dreams that I've been having while pregnant. I've been trying to roll over and record them on my 'notes' app on my iPhone when I wake from the dream so please excuse the misspellings and weird punctuation. Squinting at a tiny screen at 5 a.m. and trying to tippy tappy out the dream on a teensy keyboard is not a great recipe for, um, grammatical correctness? (Also, for sane-ness.)

I'm not a huge dreamer but all the crazy hormones apparently bring out some subconscious ridiculousness.

Let's make fun:

This one was not long after a two-day work conference in Hot Springs, AR so I'm filing it in the work-related dream category:

Also, it was after a long drive to STL... hence the ghetto gas station?!?

This one is fun. A lot of suicide bombers I know LOVE ihop.
This one I had to edit a little b/c of some names BUT it's good to know that food has emotions, yes?!?
And THIS ONE is my favorite. WHO WANTS TO GO TO PONCHO CONGO? Hahahaha. AND WHO IS BONNIE?!
Welcome to my crazy.

21 weeks, 3 days

30 years, 20 weeks

So it only seemed appropriate that I hit the 20 week mark on the day of my 30th. AUSPICIOUS! (as my midwife would say - the 4th also marked her 300th birth! ZEROS EVERYWHERE!).

ANYWAY pictures? BOOM! You all better appreciate these photos b/c I see nothing but ICKY when I look at them. Sucks starting a pregnancy off at a weight that I almost ended Nate's pregnancy with. Sigh. Who's fault? MY. OWN. And that is all the body image complaints you will here from me because I've finally started feeling this baby kick on a regular basis and, well, that's one of the best feelings in the world.

Also, I've stopped vomiting so the world is ALL AROUND a better place!

Also, it stopped fucking raining and I haven't heard a tornado siren in over a week! Hooray!

I've always wanted one of those pics where people are all "My toddler resting on the belly" except, UHHHH, yea, he's too big and I barely lift him at all anymore. This just looks ridiculous:

I think it might be an awkward family photo contender.

And this, more so:

I SQUISH YOUR FACE!!

But this series is pretty hilarious:

HALFWAY THERE FOLKS.

Well, probably (possibly) more than halfway as Nate popped out at 38.5 weeks. Moving right along... I guess at some point we'll need to, you know, figure out what we're going to name this child and where he or she is going to sleep.

baseball, birthdays, beer = boosh

Some of you know that my 30th birthday is TODAY. (Wednesday. The fourth. May the fourth be with you. Cinco de mayo EVE. Just trying to give you some CLUES for your memory banks for future reference. HA.) Anyway sometime last week Karl informed me that he made an appointment with some bathroom remodel people at 5:30 on Wednesday. At first I thought he did not remember that Wednesday was my birthday. But, then I asked him. AND HE DID. And then I asked him if he thought that I wanted to sit around and talk about toilets and light fixtures on my the day intended for celebrating my 30th year of life. He said (hesitantly) that he thought I wouldn't mind (since the bathroom remodel has been MY plan and since I would be out of town for work on Monday and Tuesday). I informed him (oh so nicely) that I would very much mind and just because I was pregnant did not mean that I didn't at least want a birthday dinner and am sure I yammered on like the pregnant hormonal lady that I currently am.

Little did I know as I was lamenting about being old and having only things like bathroom remodels and prenatal vitamins to discuss on my birthday, Karl was planning a surprise party.

Yep.

SURPRISE.

He rented out the private party suite at the Travelers stadium (our minor league baseball team) and invited friends and family to help celebrate.

Everyone's ticket (I think there were 40 of us!) had a little birthday message on it:


Me = CLUELESS.

Right up until the minute we got off the "staff only" elevator (which I thought was odd but still didn't question; he told me the tickets were from someone at work) and he pointed to a private suite w/ some decorations... I told him I thought we were going the WRONG WAY and were walking into someone's party. Until I realized that OH RIGHT I KNOW THESE PEOPLE. ALL OF THEM!!

I've always wanted to see my name on the scoreboard!

Dream realized - ha!
SOMEHOW (and I am not entirely sure how) the torrential downpour that was headed our way held off until after the game and after the drive home.

My only regret is that we didn't take any pictures. Ah... well.... sometimes you're just too busy enjoying your friends and celebrating 30 years of life. It's definitely a night I won't forget. Karl knows what I love most - being with my people, eating and drinking together, and some BASEBALL and he made it all happen at once - he WINS at life.

They even sent a camera man up:
NOW ON TO TALK ABOUT THOSE DAMN TOILETS!