Better Late Than Never

Once again, I'm blogging at the end of the week rather than the beginning. We had another busy week starting off but I think things should be slowing down now and the problem of blogging late will be eliminated :)

Last Friday, Tim's firm had a baby shower for us. It was so nice of them to do that and the shower was wonderful. Jason's Deli for lunch and a delicious cake from Central Market (picture below). We got lots of great gifts! I really don't like this picture of us (Tim looks squinty and I just don't like the way I look) but I feel it is an obligation to put a picture of us from the shower.

P.S. Tim is growing a beard this month, in case you couldn't tell. I think it's scratchy and don't like it. I told him if he could find a trimmer to keep it the length of Brett Favre's (you know, the permanent look of not having shaved in about two days) that I would be okay with him keeping it, so I think he's going to try that.

Here's a picture of the adorable cake. It's hard to tell here but the little blue things all around "It's a boy" are little baby booties!

After that, we left for Waco for me to go to Michelle's baby shower (my friend who is also pregnant that I had a picture of us last week from my shower) and spend the night. Tim hung out with Michelle's husband, Pete, while the girls were "showering" (haha). It was a great time and nice to hang out with them. We hope they will move to the DFW area after Pete graduates from law school so we can hang out more often!

Saturday, we left Waco and went to Boerne. My Nanny also came into Boerne so she could come to my Swearing In ceremony on Monday in Austin. We had a nice weekend in Boerne, pretty relaxing. Saturday night, we went to my friend, Stephanie's, house - she was my Practice Court partner in law school and lives in San Antonio - and hung out with her and her family. We had a fun time with them, too!

Monday, we got up realllly early to go to Austin for the Swearing In. It lasted about an hour so it wasn't too bad. It was pretty difficult for Tim to get pictures in the Frank Erwin Center, so I just have one of the judges and two from when we went and ate afterwards. My dad was also there but I didn't realize it because he snuck in for the ceremony and then left for a meeting and THEN texted me to tell me he was there!

This is the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals judges. The Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court administered the oath to us.

My mom, Nanny, and I from after the ceremony at Kerby Lane Cafe for lunch (it was good!).

I don't really like this picture of me, but it's cute of everyone else. My stepdad (Sonny), mom, me, and Tim.

After lunch, we headed back to Fort Worth. We stopped in Waco along the way to get Tucker because we left him there since it would've been too difficult to coordinate what to do with him during the swearing in. Got back to Fort Worth in time to unpack, eat an early dinner, and go to birthing class. It was our last class and we got to tour the Labor & Delivery hospital. I was really glad we got to do that because I wanted to see what it looked like before the big day. It's super nice and has only been open about a year and a half. We got out of that class at 9:00 and headed home to crash.

Tuesday, it was back to work for Tim and I ran some errands. We had another class at 6:30 that night called "Baby Basics" class for after the baby is born. Tim originally didn't really want to take this class because he thought we knew enough about this already but I think it ended up being very helpful for both of us. I thought I knew how to bathe a baby but they showed us a totally different way than I would have thought to do it, showed us soothing techniques, and told us about the different little skin irritiations newborns will get that you don't have to worry about. I was glad that we went. That was another night of not getting home until after 9:00 and poor Tim had been at work since 8:00 AM.

Yesterday, I brought lunch from Chik-Fil-A and a red velvet cake up to Tim's work to thank them for the shower. I think it was a big hit and everyone seemed to like the red velvet cake I made a lot. We were finally at home last night and ate Pizza Inn for dinner. We LOVE Pizza Inn's thin crust pizza and they just opened a brand new one not far from our apartment.

Also, yesterday was 10 years since the Bonfire fell at A&M. I think a lot (if not most) Aggies remember exactly where they were when they heard the Bonfire fell. I was in the bathroom at my house getting ready for school and listening to the radio. I was a freshman in high school but I already knew I wanted to go to A&M for college. It actually fell at 2:42 AM on November 18, 1999 but I didn't hear about it until I woke up for school. Twelve Aggies died in the collapse. It was an eerily significant number since A&M has the tradition of the 12th man and that's what the people who attend the games are known as. The 12th Aggie to die was alive in the collapsed stack for the entire rescue process, but everytime they tried to remove him from the rubble, he pointed them to other people that needed to be rescued and said he was okay. He was only 17 years old. I think that is the epitome of selflessness and the true spirit of being an Aggie. I went to the A&M/Texas game the week after it fell and it was extremely emotional. There was a memorial where people were putting flowers, notes, and other A&M memorabilia for the fallen Aggies. I remember seeing several Aggie rings that people put there. It was overwhelming almost to see those there as everyone who goes to A&M and even a lot of people who don't go there, know how important and significant the Aggie ring is to people who graduated from there. The cover story on Texas Montly magazine this month is about Bonfire and they talk to a lot of people who were there at the time as well as people who were part of it in the past and people who were injured in the collapse. It's still emotional to read about it to think of those who lost their lives. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I encourage you to try to google about it or look up Texas Monthly's website and see if you can read about it on there. But, I have to warn those of you that didn't go to A&M, there's a quote that Aggies use "From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. From the inside looking out, you can't explain it." Basically, it might be difficult to understand the significance and, especially, the tradition behind it if you didn't go to A&M or have family that did.

Here's the belly picture for the week. I'm 31 weeks this week (well, almost 32 now since I'm posting late this week). To me and Tim, it looks like my belly has already dropped some. It's not quite as full on the top as it was and seems to look lower. I don't know if it will be too difficult to scroll all the way down to last week's picture to compare, but you can let me know what you think! I've started to get more tired and sore lately. Toots kicks and moves around A LOT, which I love. It's more like rolls now and sometimes little tappings with his foot. I really enjoy watching my belly roll around but it seems like he can sense when I pull my shirt up to look and he stops doing it sometimes then! He also gets the hiccups quite frequently. I may have mentioned it before, but I don't like it when he gets these. Some people think it's cute but the rythmic tapping that it feels like in my belly is uncomfortable to me.

And here's what's going on with baby this week:

This week, your baby measures over 16 inches long (again, this is different than most other websites and books, which say about 18 inches). He weighs about 3.3 pounds (try carrying four navel oranges) and is heading into a growth spurt. He can turn his head from side to side, and his arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath his skin. He's probably moving a lot, too, so you may have trouble sleeping because your baby's kicks and somersaults keep you up. Take comfort: All this moving is a sign that your baby is active and healthy.

Michelle had an ultrasound this week and her little boy was weighing 4 pounds, and that's what other books/websites have said, so he may be closer to 4 pounds than 3.3.

Whew, that was a long post! We are sticking around here this weekend and might go to a movie. Tim's mom also sent me a Carrabba's giftcard for a congratulations on passing the bar, so I think we'll be hitting up my favorite restaurant for some Italian food! Hope everyone had a great week and has a wonderful weekend!