Birthday & Memorial Day Weekend

I realize I've been blogging a lot recently.  There's been a lot of wonderful things going on, and I want to be sure to be caught up on everything by the time the baby comes.  And who knows when that will be!

Seems like every weekend in May is a different holiday!  2 Sundays ago was Mother's day, 1 Sunday ago was Nala's birthday, and this Sunday (yesterday) was muh burfday! Today, of course, is Memorial Day!

Warning: Um, maybe don't read this post if you're hungry.  I've realized I talk a lot about and post pictures of a lot of food.  Eh, sorry...What can I say.  I love food?

It's been an exciting last week.  On Wednesday I had my final observation of a lesson for my Student Teaching.  Even though I'm not finished with this part of my student teaching until May 30, it felt SO GOOD to be finished with the big lessons that I needed to teach.  These next few days are mainly going to be end of the year activities like field day and dance festival.  It will be tiring, but fun! And I don't need to spend my evenings preparing lessons anymore :) instead I can focus on relaxing and any cleaning and baby prep.  It's been quite a relief.  And has left some time for relaxing! I got some of my birthday gifts a little early and put them to good use!  I think I've probably taken about 4 bubble baths in the last week thanks to Jim's Mom's gift and taken several wonderful naps with my new "Sunday Quilt" from Grandma Foulk.

Grandma's mom (Veva, my great-grandma) had made the top part of the quilt, which Grandma found on her recent trip to AZ.  Grandma took part of that quilt and turned it into a wonderfully comfortable blanket for me.  It's pretty awesome to not only have a beautiful and comfortable blanket, but to have one with so much meaning and family history behind it.  

Thank you so much to everyone for the wonderful and thoughtful gifts and birthday wishes! 

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Because my birthday was on Sunday this year, we went out Saturday nights to celebrate a bit.  We went to the movies and saw Iron Man 3.  Figured it would be a fun thing to do since going to the movie theaters with a newborn is... Difficult? Impossible? Frowned upon? Not enjoyable?  ...all of the above.

It was a pretty good movie.  Truth be told though, its just fun to go out on a date :) Also, a 2+ hr movie is hard to sit through when you're 38+ weeks pregnant.  I did it though!

(Even if your bestest buddy doesn't like to take pictures and you have to take creepy pictures when he isn't looking during the previews :D  I know, I'm hilarious.)

Sunday was church and I had some nummy French Toast for breakfast...DELICIOUS

After church we were able to spend some time talking with the family on Google Hangout and my visiting teachers came to visit.  

Then we went across the street to the park and had a nice picnic.  This was especially fun for me because Jim really, for some odd reason, does not care for picnics at all.  But since it was my birthday, we went on a picnic!

And a really healthy one at that...

Pizza rolls, anyone? Don't judge. They were delicious!

We had a real dinner later that night.  This was more of a little lunch :)

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I also, of course, made and decorated a cake.  But I didn't really want to go over the top with this one.  Normally I'd be all for an elaborate, edible, work of art.  But for now, I'm content with a simple, tasty, pretty cake.  

Also, I thought I'd try out my camera some more with the cake.  So, I'm sorry.  There's a few pictures of the cake :) I was having fun with it.  And because it's Memorial Day weekend, I thought I'd be a bit patriotic with the cake.  Can I just say: Easiest cake ever, yet it looks very pretty.  I mean this maybe took all of 15 minutes to decorate--frosting and all.

Devil's Food Cake

Whipped Cream

Blueberries

Strawberries

If anyone in the area is reading this... please stop by and get a piece?  I don't need to eat another chocolate cake entirely to myself.  I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. 

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Last night I was able to spend several hours doing family history... in honor of Memorial Day, especially focusing on the stories of those involved in the military and veterans.  You may consider family history work a lame way to spend your birthday... but if you know me at all, you know it's actually one of my favorite things to do.  It was a lot of fun :)

Memorial Day...Well today we relaxed! Being due in 10 days, there wasn't really too much I wanted to "go out" and do.  Memorial Day tends to be filled with BBQs, water parks, water sports, hiking, etc.  As fun as those things are... sleeping, organizing, and relaxing is good enough for me!  And you know what? I got 11 hours of sleep last night.  It was pretty amazing I was able to sleep that much (only slightly interrupted with bathroom trips) but I didn't have hardly any pain!  It was a happy birthday gift to me as one of the last times that I'll be able to get that great of a good night's sleep before the baby :) I'm enjoying it while I can.

I also used some of my birthday money to go get a pedicure! Heaven knows, I sure can't reach my toes anymore! (But I can still see them!) 

Now I don't want to be too negative, but I'd be lying if I said it was fantastic.  Am I glad I went and got it done? Yes.  Because it needed to be done, and seeing my toes now makes me happy :)  

However, sitting in a very hot place (when you're already always overheating in normal temperature rooms), filled with crazy fumes, with a massage chair punching your back, is not the most fun.  Within about 10 minutes of being there, I wasn't sure if I was going to throw up or pass out first.  Eventually I figured out how to turn the chair off and asked for a bottle of water, which seemed to help a great deal.

However, the poor woman across from me was already 2 days past her due date.  Poor thing! 

The foot and leg massage though was heavenly and I started feeling a lot better about half way through :) I just thought it would not be fair to other future mommas to say, like everyone I've talked to, that "it's to die for" and "the best thing you can do at the end of pregnancy".  If you do... 1) Bring water, 2) Make sure it's well ventilated, and 3) Find a friend to go with you.  I don't think I'll be going next pregnancy.

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Tonight, Geoff took us out for dinner for my birthday.  It was fantastic! And I'm sorry... I didn't take another picture of my food :) It was so fun and thoughtful though to be able to go out and spend some time together.  We will sure miss him when he moves to Virginia. 

Well! Tomorrow we'll be at 9 days til due date! Here's to hoping we can at least make it until Saturday, June first!  I think we'll be okay :)