Its finally Spring!!

Sorry, I've been a bit lazy about blogging. Easter weekend was great because Jenny came home with John and Charlie. John is getting so big! They actually stayed at our house that friday night because their flight got in pretty late - this was mostly uneventful considering the crazy dog, so our crib got its first (partial) use. I'm a bad aunt and didn't hardly take any pictures at all. But I did take a few with my crappy camera phone....here John is playing at Great Grandma's house.


This weekend was good because we finally got to do some yardwork. I spent a lot of time weeding my flower beds and cutting back dead branches. I planted a lot of daffodils and tulips last fall, and they are all blooming and beautiful right now. I love spring! See the cute dogs in the doorway? Lucy is harder to see since she's black; you can really only see the white of her chest.



Kevin finally got the garden tilled up, and planted some onions, broccoli, and cabbage so far. Of course only hours after the garden was tilled, it poured rain, and then the dogs ran through it.....my house is a mud pit.



Kevin made a new bed for asparagus! I LOVE asparagus, and he doesn't even like it...but he planted some for me. What a good husband.



I am fascinated by crazy unexpected colors in nature. We had a few trees cut down last fall, and one tree stump is growing the brightest orange fungus I have ever seen. I think it looks more fluorescent in real life than it does in the picture!


Seems like lots else going on, but not much worth blogging about. Yesterday morning I went with Jessica to watch Jackie run the half marathon downtown. It was very interesting....the race started at 7:00, and it was raining, and then we walked to see Jackie at the 6 mile mark and at the finish. Crazy Jessica ran to try to catch her around the 10 mile mark! There was no way my fat self was going to make that, so Allen and I just went to the finish line to wait. She did great, especially considering the disgusting weather!
I had a doctor's appointment today. The only interesting thing is that I'm measuring more or less normal now.....At my last appointment the doctor measured my stomach at about 29 weeks (when I was 24 weeks), and she said something like maybe I was having a moose. But today (at 28 weeks) I measured at 30 weeks....much better. Other things on the baby front.....Jenny helped me register at Babies R Us last weekend, and then Kevin and I went to Target on Saturday to register for some more stuff. Its impossible to know what we'll need though. I'm just most excited about the crib bedding. We've also been shopping for a dresser of some sort, and I wanted something oak that would match my rocking chair. My mom found an interesting posting on craigslist, and we went to look at it today after my doctor's appointment - and we bought it! Woohoo! Its a very different piece, which I'm sure we'll have forever. I'll have to take pictures once we get it in the house. But I'm excited to be done (I think....) as far as furniture goes.
Coming up this week - Lucy is getting spayed on Friday. Do girl dogs calm down after being fixed? Because don't they say that boy dogs do? I'm at least looking forward to a hopefully calm weekend for once.

Tri Beta Reunion

This weekend I had the pleasure of hosting most of the Tri Betas (the name my roommates and I gave ourselves in college). Erikka was driving home to the midwest for the first time in about a year and a half (!!!!) with her hubby Brian, and they decided to stop in St. Louis for a couple of days. So Katrina drove down from Chicagoland with her hubby Brad, and Anna also drove down from Iowa City. I'm fairly certain I've never had more than two extra people sleeping at my house, so five extra was interesting, but it worked out ok (I think....).
Saturday I spent the day cleaning and baking brownies for Erikka's birthday. The biggest chore was cleaning up the guest bedroom, since it was covered in drywall dust from the work Kevin has been doing in the closet. Kevin ended up cleaning up more than I even expected, and the room didn't even look like a construction zone. Yay, Kevo! Everyone arrived around 6pm, and we sat around at my house for awhile before heading to Sqwires for dinner. Dinner was pretty good, but the service was horrible. This is reminding me that I wanted to check online and see if I can leave comments about our service. Then we went back to the house for brownies and ice cream and general sitting around.
Sunday morning, when Lucy got up and I took her outside, she proceeded to run into every bedroom/sleeping area to bark at our guests. I think she has ADD and forgets when other people are around. After cooking breakfast at home, we headed to the botanical gardens while it wasn't raining and was still relatively warm out. The bulbs there were beautiful, especially lots of fun colorful tulip varieties. My favorite thing to see is the cherry blossoms in the Japanese garden, but we must have just missed them - there were a few, but it was way past full bloom. So sad.



Here are the four of us....Me, Erikka, Anna, and Katrina.


Here is a nice picture of some red and yellow tulips - I love that color combo in a tulip....otherwise it makes me think of hot dogs.


After the botanical garden, we headed to the Schlafly Bottleworks for the noon tour. Our tour guide was mediocre, and the tour was filled with women who were obviously in town for the NCAA women's final four..... The worst part was that they had a yoga class in the tasting room, so we had our tastes in the 'museum' at the end, and people didn't get to pick what kind of beer they wanted to taste like you usually can. Alas, my friends will just have to go on the tour again the next time they're in town ;) We also ate lunch at the bottleworks, before Katrina and Anna headed out. Later that afternoon, Erikka, Brian, and I did a little bit of shopping, then for dinner we made homemade pizza and watched some of season 4 of Weeds (they don't have Showtime, so this was their choice....we didn't force them to watch tv all night). Erikka and Brian left yesterday morning to head to her parents' in central IL. It was a great time seeing everyone!!!! I'm just sad I had to miss Emily's baby shower...sorry, Em!
Jenny, Charlie, and John are flying in Friday night for Easter!!!!!!! I can't wait to see that baby!!!!!

My kids

I can't get enough of this picture of my dogs, so I thought I would share it. Lucy was running around biting Satchel like usual, and then they got on the couch and Lucy jumped on top of Satchel. I had my camera right there, got their attention, and snapped the perfect picture. I love my dogs.