21 weeks
22 weeks
23 weeks
24 weeks
25 weeks
Definitely feeling bumpy now! Symptom-wise...I've had morning sickness again in the past couple weeks (several days, but at least not every day?....) and some leg/back pains. Baby boy is pretty active and I love feeling his kicks! (or punches? Or hiccups...) Thankfully he doesn't keep me up at night though. Yet!
We've signed up for childbirth classes in May...the info mentioned a childbirth video, my goal is not to faint!
Not much progress on the nursery although we've put the existing furniture where we want it, to make room for crib/changing table/dresser. We're going to get cousin Hayley's crib and changing table since she wants white furniture for baby girl (due in April! So close!), so that's exciting! Speaking of more babies, Caitlin had Rebekah Josephine in February and Brandi had Ian Scott this month! Can't wait to meet them!
Three generations of beauties :) "Bekah Jo"
And I will get to meet them very soon, as I'm flying to Texas on Thursday for baby showers! Teri is throwing one in Dallas on Saturday, then my mom hosts one at her friend's house on Sunday. Then I fly back Monday - whirlwind weekend! Would have loved to stay longer but I'm trying to save all my PTO for when baby boy arrives. Brad's already there - he flew down yesterday, coming back April 5th (not being able to find a job is of course frustrating but it does mean he gets plenty of Texas time!) Right now it's 30 degrees warmer there than it is here, so I'm pretty jealous. Ready to be there and to see all my loves.
Winter...I'm over it. I'd like to think I've had a pretty good attitude about it overall, being a Texan and all, but I'm just done. We've had a couple of days that get into the mid-40s and we get excited (it's really sad when that's exciting!) but then it drops to 20 again. Sigh. It's been a jerk of a winter all over, though, so I know we're all ready for spring (you know, that season that did technically start this week).
Other random tidbits from the past month:
I took a machining course! Signed up through work - we spent three days learning just some of the basics on the lathe and the milling machine, and we made a "widget" (doesn't actually serve any real function) out of aluminum. It may not seem like it has direct application to what I do, but it was good to get an understanding of how "can't you just machine 5 more specimens so we can get more statistical power with this test?" can be a really big request!
The guys on my team of three were fun to work with, and I must say we were all-stars...we were the first to finish each task. It definitely helped that the instructor used our piece as a demo for each new technique, but still. Then at the very end, once we had already done most of the work on one of the more complicated pieces, we were reading the drawing for the position of a second hole after drilling the first. I said "move down .945, move over .573", we positioned it, and the guy doing the drilling hesitated a bit, saying it didn't quite look right. But I looked at the numbers again and said it was correct, so he went for it. When he had almost finished the hole he stopped again, still thinking it was too far in to be correct. We asked the instructor and sure enough, it was in the wrong spot. Turns out it was "over .945, down .573" and I had just read it wrong! I felt like a major doof. Our nice, shiny piece now had a random extra hole in it. So, we decided to put in two MORE holes in line with that one (for a total of six!) to make it look more like it was "on purpose". The instructor just laughed at us.
Lathe
We had to keep spraying oil on the machine so it wouldn't overheat as it's cutting into metal...I kept doing that part even though I sprayed it on the wall/teammates more than the actual point of interest.
Milling machine
Team with finished product!
The "before and after". So shiny.
The piece all put together. It really does nothing, the center cylinder rotates and there are screws in the three (correct) holes holding the pieces together. It's a lovely paperweight.
Since there were three pieces, we thought it fair that each of us keep one. I volunteered to keep our big mistake piece since I was the one reading off the wrong numbers! It's doing quite nicely as a pen holder on my desk (holds up to 7 pens! Wowzers!)
Aside from that little adventure, mostly we've just been having fun times with friends. Jenna bought a house recently:
(She's just a little excited.)
So we've been having game nights at her house on the weekends. It's soo cute and I'm a little jealous! (one of these days we'll be ready for home ownership, but for at least a little while it's apartment living all the way.)
Anna had a birthday party recently at a tea house, we rented out a back room and caused quite a ruckus with our Cards Against Humanity game. I guess we didn't make the employees angry though, since they're wrote funny messages on our teapots:
And, as I've been typing this, Baylor men's bball has made it to the Sweet 16! Sic em bears!!
I think that's all I've got for now. Will be back with happy stories of Texas and baby showers!
