I'm feeling a little stupid lately.

Last night I learned something new. I got a birthday card from my investment guy (how thoughtful), and it had a sheet in it called "On this day in history..." with all kinds of interesting information from May 21, 1982. So I'm looking on there at the top songs of the year, and I see a title I didn't recognize (I know the song, I just didn't realize it) called "Maneater." I tried to get Matt to sing it for me, and he finally did but first he was like, "Who's it by?" I read, "Daryl Hall and John Oates." He's like, oh yeah, Hall and Oates. I had a lightbulb moment. Having never really seen it in print, I always thought the name of that group was "Haulin' Oats." Matt laughed at me for a while. There are stranger names out there, you know.

Before I go on to my really stupid moment of the week, here's some interesting information from 1982:

Stamps were $.20!

Gas was $1.28

The Academy Award winner for best picture was Ghandi

One of the "hot toys" was the Glo Worm!

This morning I was getting to sleep in (yea for my wonderful husband!), and I was laying in bed listening to Joanna have breakfast when I got a call from our business administrator, Hal, (a.k.a guy who does everything) at the church. He's like, "We opened the bulletins for 9:40/11:00 services and discovered that the outside looks great, but the inside is last year's program." Oh my goodness. I immediately realized my mistake. Here's what happened: Thursday when I was up at the church getting most of my work done while Joanna was in MDO, I couldn't get the outside of this week's bulletin to print properly. It was graduating senior Sunday, and I was attempting to print the names of all our seniors on the outside of the bulletin. For whatever reason, it kept printing a blank box instead of the names; everything else printed fine. We tried everything to get it to print, then finally I opened up last year's Senior Sunday bulletin and copied the current names into it. It printed fine! So I changed the rest of the outside to have the current information, printed a copy, and sent it to the print shop. I neglected to just print the outside of that one and the inside of the actual current bulletin. What a pregnant moment. I hate to blame the tiny innocent fetus, but... I've decided I need someone to follow me around for the next 8 months and double check all my decisions. Luckily, Hal was extremely understanding and kind. He just wanted me to email him the correct bulletin. I did, but then I packed up my computer, threw on some clothes, and ran up there to see if I could help. Luckily we had some good paper at the church, and our new big copy machine (that prints two sided AND folds) was up and working, so we (and by we I mean Hal) printed some for the services. I'm just so glad they found the mistake BEFORE it was passed out to the congregation. That would have been really embarrassing.

Now I'm going to go drool over the ipod I want...

We're all getting older...

First up, some birthday pictures:

My cards My beautiful roses
My cup of flowers (with attached balloon!) that were delivered
My YUMMY cake
My lit candles
After I turned 26, Joanna decided to turn 15 months! This was Thursday, and I also turned 7 weeks pregnant. Here's another preggo shot. We tried and tried to get a good one of Joanna and me, but she was so not in the mood to pose. I think this one's pretty cute, though.Thursday was also Joanna's last day of Mother's Day Out for the spring (sniffle, sniffle), and I tried to get a good one of her at school, but again, she wasn't posing or even looking at the camera. This was the best I got.
Here she is on her first day of school, about 9 months ago -- oh my goodness!
Thursday night Matt and I got to go out to dinner and a movie. I've started feeling my "morning sickness" in the evenings lately, but we still had a good time. Unfortunately, I think I ate too much with dinner and movie snacks. This might be TMI, but I got pretty sick late after we got home. I haven't had a repeat yet, so I'm hoping it was more bad choices on my part than pregnancy nausea. I'm looking forward to our 8 week appointment next week. Matt's taking half a day to come with me. We're looking forward to seeing our little peanut on the first ultrasound!
On Friday I took Joanna to her 15 month well baby check-up. Of course, she's perfect, but here are some specifics:
Height: 29 1/2 inches
Weight: 19lb 1/2 ounce
So she's still not on the charts for her weight, but it's moving up the "Joanna scale" nicely.
Finally, I will leave you with a scary (for me) story:
Joanna and I were hanging around the house on Friday just playing. She was practicing her climbing on the fireplace hearth. I piled a bunch of stuff on there so she wouldn't fit, then I sat down on the chair close-by to monitor her not climbing. She is always coming up to me and bringing me little treasures she finds (sticks, leaves, string, etc.). Well, this time she had a dead cockroach clutched in her little hand. I jumped up and started yelling (calmly, at first) at her to please put it down, please let go. She smiled for a little while -- what a fabulous treasure I've found! -- until my yelling escalated to screaming. I was terrified she was going to put it in her mouth and I couldn't make myself touch it. I was screaming "PUT IT DOWN, PLEASE PUT IT DOWN! JOANNA, PUT IT DOWN, PLEASE!" So she started to cry because she had no idea what I was talking about, but she was still clutching the thing. I grabbed her arm and used a magazine to pry her fingers open and push the roach onto the chair. Then I grabbed her and we went outside to calm down. I was shaking so hard. (Ya'll, I have a serious fear, here. I really am getting better, but this was more than I was ready for.) Joanna calmed down immediately (and tried to eat the leg still stuck to her hand). I did manage to flick that off, then we went inside and washed our hands with soap and water. My mom got home a few minutes later and got rid of the little carcass for me. Oh, it was awful. My mom said I should get to know my neighbors better. I can just see myself clutching Joanna as I knock on my neighbor's door and screaming, "Please get it out of her hands!"

I love birthdays...

But I've decided I don't actually want to get any older. I'm not ready to be in the second half of my 2os (I know, cry me a river, right?). I've looked forward to all my ages so far, but 26 sure seems OLD. I'm not sure I feel older, although I do feel tired, a little nauseous sometimes, and a little stupid. Oh, yeah, I'm pregnant!

Today I've gotten lots of "Happy Birthdays," a few songs, TWO flower arrangements, lots of cards, and plenty o' cake. Today I had flowers delivered for exactly the 2nd time in my life. I LOVE getting flowers delivered to my door! Matt also brought me pink lipstick colored roses. I LOVE roses! These smell delicious, mmmmmm..... My mother likes to give gifts of service for birthdays so she's watching Joanna tomorrow night so Matt and I can go out. Yea! She also changed a dirty diaper and kept a snake from coming in the house today. I think I'll keep her.

I'll post pictures of my birthday fun later!

I'm a wimp; I know it.

This morning I made Matt come home after he'd already been on his way to work for about 15 minutes to kill a giant grey cockroach in my kitchen. Matt said it was grey because it was dusty -- it had been hanging out under the fridge (where it's apparently dusty). I think it was grey because it had some kind of disease it was going to pass on to me and Joanna and the little fetus. Thank goodness we have such a wonderful husband/daddy that would come and rescue us in our time of need. He even had to lay on the floor with a flashlight and look under the fridge and oven. What a good man I have.

Totally unrelated -- Joanna and I both did the pink and brown thing on Sunday so I had Matt take some pictures of us. Here are a couple of cute ones. To me, Joanna looks so old but so tiny in that dress. I love it! And she has little ruffle socks on with her brown shoes -- such a lady!

Last night we had home group at our house. Sometimes it will be all adults, sometimes a few kiddos, and other times there will be a bunch of little ones. Last night we were only missing one adult, and there were 6 kiddos, I think. It was a little distracting (in a totally good, cute way) having the little ones tottering around being so adorable. Joanna was having so much fun, she didn't go to bed until almost 9:30! Her usual bedtime is about 7:30 -- oh my goodness. She just played and played and showed off and played and walked and walked. She's never taken so many steps! I guess she just had to show everybody what she could do! Of course, this morning she woke up at 6:30 (which I knew would happen), not 9:30 (like I really hoped). Oh well, it's not like it happens all the time.

Hibachi!

This evening Matt's family met up in Humble at a Hibachi grill for Joanna's cousin Kurt's birthday. (Good choice, Kurt!!) Considering it was pretty much bedtime, I'd say Joanna did fabulously. She liked watching the Hibachi guy cook, and she LOVED playing with my chopsticks. I'm just really glad she didn't poke herself in the eye.

Hibachi Guy:

Okay, Joanna and I went to the mall this afternoon mainly because we were going to go crazy in the house. Just for kicks, we went into Gymboree, and THEY HAVE A GIRAFFE LINE. This is not good for me, people. I almost walked out of that store in serious debt. But I didn't. I bought socks. But this is what I could have bought:

A cute onesie with Mommy and baby giraffe.

A beautiful pink dress with little giraffes: Miscellanious giraffe stuff (hats, onesies, socks, blankets):
Giraffe PJs, giraffe tank top and bloomer things:
More assorted giraffe stuff (headband, hat, onesies):
And the outfit I made myself leave behind. I just couldn't justify it for my daughter who is not exactly lacking in clothes: A precious tank with cargo capri pants!
Oh, and Joanna wears size 6-12 months at Gymborree right now. Just FYI.

Car sick?

We were headed across the river for playday at Aidan's house this morning. I was so excited -- Joanna and I definitely needed a morning out of the house with our friends. We were a block away, when Joanna started making gagging sounds (scary), then she threw up. Yuck. So I pulled in to Theresa's driveway and knocked on the door to get a sack for Joanna's clothes. Then I got the poor little girl all cleaned up while we chatted with our friends as they arrived. Then we got back in the car and came home. Since then she's been fine, so I'm thinking she may have gotten car sick. She would come by that honestly. We were in Plinko instead of V'ger, and this was her longest trip facing forward in the carseat. I guess either or a combination of those things may have upset her tummy. She has been grumpy the last couple of days though, so who knows. Hopefully she's not really sick, and if she's car sick, I sure hope she can get over it fast!

Finally some pictures!

First up, some Mother's Day fun. We went over to Matt's mom and dad's house on Sunday afternoon for some burgers and dogs and CAKE!

Joanna getting some sugars from Aunt Mindy. Wanting to take her white socks into the yard where all the fun is. Her mean momma wouldn't let her. :)
Sitting with Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve
She's got her face pressed against the glass looking out at me. I think that's hilarious.
Burger and crackers, dinner of champions.
Mmmmm chocolate cake!
Fading fast. She let me rock her to sleep. It was like 4:30 or something; she just couldn't make it any longer.

Matt and his Mom.

Assorted Misc. pics from this past week:

Joanna climbed in and out of this basket a bunch.
This is her "sign" for "please start singing 'itsy bitsy spider' now." She puts her little hands together in the spider motion when she wants to hear it. She is sooooooo cute.
Just playin'
This is Matt in the car on the way to Arlington to pick up Renee.

The sign for Braums: my favorite place for ice cream in the universe. You can't get it around here, which is one reason I was so excited to drive all the way to Arlington and back in a day. Our rental car: a comfy Buick LaCross.
Spotted Joanna.
First ride as a forward-facing big girl! She loves it! She especially loves to say "hi, hi, hi" over and over to me.