Hummingbirds!

Daniel made a new 4 sided shepard's hook to hang our hummingbird feeders from this year. That welding class really paid off! Our feeder used to be in the back of the yard by the seed feeders which meant i had to squat in the grass to wait for the hummingbirds to feed. Now, I can watch from the comfort of my kitchen while having my morning coffee! Yay! So far, I've seen two different couples of hummingbirds feeding. They seem to be getting used to my constant presence in the kitchen window in the mornings, so getting pictures is getting easier! So far, they definitely prefer the feeder on the left with the rail for them to stand on the most. They really are amazing to watch though!








(she's totally checking me out in the last one)

On the baby front...I went in for my 3 hour glucose tolerance test this morning. YUCK! I had to fast from 7 pm last night and didn't get through with the test til almost noon today! That's a long time with nothing to eat or drink for a pregnant woman! For those of you who don't know, here's the process: they draw a vile of blood from your arm, you drink a super sweet orange drink, you wait 30 minutes, they draw another vile of blood, you wait 30 minutes, they draw another vile of blood, you wait an hour, they draw ANOTHER vile of blood, you wait ANOTHER hour, and the draw YET ANOTHER vile of blood. That's right, you get stuck 5 different times in the arm for blood on an already super empty stomach. My test was done at the Oxford Diagnostic Center which is new and really nice, so I spent all that time stretched out on a couch reading. It definitely helped keep my mind off how bad I felt. Fingers crossed that I passed! Not sure when I'll get the results, but hopefully by Monday at the latest.

Daniel and I are headed to Memphis tomorrow morning for Merry Claire's wedding. After the wedding, we'll all be going to the cabin for the night! Anna is in town from Seattle to be a bridesmaid, and I can't wait to see her tomorrow! I'll take lots of pics!

Memorial Day Weekend

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend. It was wonderful to have an extra day at home, but the weekend still flew by! We had friends over Sunday evening for a cookout and, thankfully, the weather held off so we could spend some time outside! Daniel bought me a new camera for Mother's Day, so this is going to be a jumble of photos- some decidedly better than others.





Can you tell how obsessed I am with my blooming hydrangeas?! I just love them and wish they would bloom all year!


We've got tiny tomatoes and squash and zucchini! Can't wait for the first harvest!


Doesn't this spread look like it belongs in Sur La Table! Sunday's festivities were potluck and Corinne brought this lovely selection!


Some of the beautiful ladies that were in attendance! Audrey, Nina, Lulu, and Corinne.


Chris (making a funny face) and Charles.



Jennifer and Andrew Parker!


Much like a junior high dance, the men stick to their area and the women to another. This seems to naturally occur as soon as women begin discussing wedding details and childbirth.


Lulu, Charles and Grace hanging out by the fire!

On the baby front, I have made it to the second trimester! WooHoo! And magically, the morning sickness and other icky symptoms are gone or leaving! I've actually made it to the gym several times! it's a miracle! As for belly pics, I still just kinda look like I've had too much beer, so I'm gonna hold off on sharing that loveliness with you all! When it gets a little more preggars looking, I'll post!

this is for my mom

I really don't have anything interesting to say, but my Mom is tired of looking at the snake post. So....how about we talk about the responses I receive to the snake post. All in all, my friends are heartless killers of innocent snakes in distress. Let's hope none of you come back as a snake in your next life...you know what they say about karma! Snakes are one of the few generally considered icky things that don't really bother me. Considering how vividly I remember my Mom screaming when a snake slithered into her bedroom through the open screened porch door about 20+ years ago, you would think I would have inherited this fear. But, alas, I escaped one phobia! In fact, I kept that intruding snake as a pet for a few days and named him Sherbert. He was an eastern gardener snake and was green like lime sherbert. I planned to take him for show and tell at PDS, but that sneaky sucker escaped the day before. It always made me happy to find snake skins in the yard after that; reassuring me that Sherbert was out there somewhere living the life. Now let me end by saying, had that been a water moccasin (or other poisonous snake) trapped in that veggie fence, he's be one headless s.o.b. I do have my limits.

For those of you wanting a baby Martin update. I'm in my 13th week which means this is the last week of my 1st trimester! Crazy to think I'm a third of the way through! The morning sickness seems to have left thankfully, so I'm only left with occasional headaches, slight fatigue, and skin broken out worse than I ever remember. I'm still waiting on this supposed 'glow' to show up. Baby is the size of a peach this week! Daniel is still taking care of majority of the cleaning and laundry (score!) and pampers me constantly. I could definitely get used to that!

Snake in the grass

Actually, snake in the 'fence' around the garden. We've got a net fence around the veggies to keep the deer out, but this poor black racer snack got himself terribly stuck in it. Daniel to the rescue!


Daniel used a board to hold the snakes head down and away from us while he carefully cut him free.


I did not get a picture of him once he was free cause he was GONE! Not that I blame him. Instead, here is a pic of how our veggies are coming along.

This weekend I have got to get some cucumbers, a few more herbs, and my flower seeds in the ground! Hoping for at least a little sun this weekend!

In other news, I had a baby check up yesterday! I failed my first glucose test, so I'll have to go take the 3 hour test one morning next week (fingers crossed I pass the second one). Daniel and I did get to hear the heart beat for the first time though! It's amazing how emotional such a simple sound can make you! The heart rate was 161 and everything looked good!

I also wanted to give a quick follow up to my last post about my biggest fear. My idiot husband (along with a friend's idiot husband) actually want to do the King's Walkway featured in that video. Someone please knock some sense into these two!

My biggest fear

Most of you probably know this, but I have a fear of edges. I say edges, cause it really has nothing to do with the height (well maybe it does), it has to do with the 'i'm gonna slip off the edge or go nuts and drive off the edge, or get pushed off the edge, etc, etc'. I do several things that involve heights: I used to go repelling, I used to do ropes courses, I've been para sailing, I ride ski lifts, I love the mountains. What I do not love, getting to the top of mountains. If I'm walking I'm usually ok, but being in a car is torture (whether i'm driving or not). See this post if you need a recap of my last riding in a car up the side of a mountain experience. I feel out of control and my whole body tenses up and i just wait for my stomach to drop as we go over. I need help, I know this. :)

Back to this post...Feel free to watch this video to experience one of my greatest fears. I literally wanted to get on my belly and crawl while watching this (or roll into a ball and sob :)) and my tummy can be currently found on the first floor or below. The whole video made my stomach drop. These people are idiots. Daniel says he could do it with a parachute. Who knows. Maybe if I had a parachute and I was clipped in I could do it too....but I have my serious doubts. I hate that something defeats me before I've even done it. I can pretty much bet that once I got to the top, I wouldn't ever go back down. No way I could do that twice. Who's with me on this one?

yard stuff

Thank goodness for blooming flowers!



Ground cover roses.


The deer didn't totally kill this rose bush. Slowly nursing back to health.


New yellow rose bush to replace a bush the deer demolished.


David Austin's Generous Gardener always does well and stays healthy!


Did you know if you cut a grafted rose back too severely you can end up with a different color? The deer killed this bush too, so I cut it back to the remaining live growth. Strange that they grafted a white rose with this dark red. It's kind of fun to have a totally new rose in my garden though!


Our veggie garden is coming along. Still need to build a bamboo trellis for the climbers, but should have plenty of time this weekend for that. Currently planted: several types of tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, edamame...I think that's it. Oh and some herbs. Also on the list of to do items is to seed last years veggie bed with tons of flower seeds! I'm hoping to use it for cut flowers all summer!


Baby front news: still exhausted most of the time. Typically start feeling really nauseous in the evenings, so I just go to bed to try and sleep through that most nights. Can't wait to get some energy back and feel a little more normal. Next appointment is in two weeks!

Double Decker 2009

My mother in law and one of her good friends came to spend the weekend with us, and the picture above is the only one we took the entire time. Sad, I know. We hit up Double Decker around 10:30 am on Saturday and left around 2 pm. Never made it back out for music, but such is the life of a pregnant woman apparently. We had a nice, relaxing dinner at home and then it was straight to bed for me! It was wonderful to get to visit with the MIL and friend and they were sweet enough to gift us with azaleas, gerber daisies, and maternity clothes! Score! Now if only Friday would get here!

Here is to 3 years of wedded bliss!

Dear Daniel,
I can't believe it's been 3 years since our wedding day! Time flies when you are having fun! You make marriage so easy and something wonderful to experience! You are so kind, compassionate, supportive, romantic, helpful, handy and handsome! I'm so glad I get to come home to you every night. I'm so glad that I have you to go through this life with. And I'm so glad you are my baby daddy! If you are half as good a father as you are a husband, our child is already the luckiest kid in the world. Here's to the last 3 years and to many more to come! I love you.

My Romantic Husband

If you will recall, a few weeks ago, Daniel went on a hiking trip and I went to Mobile to visit family. Daniel beat me back to Oxford and took it upon himself to clean the house and plan a little surprise for me. Flowers all over the house!

There were flowers by the t.v.


flowers in the guest bathroom


flowers in our bathroom


flowers in our bedroom


flowers in the kitchen



and flowers in the living room



Now, alot of women might get worried if their husband had been gone for a weekend with the guys and she came home to a house full of flowers. But not me. First of all, I'm married to the most romantic and wonderful man in the world. Secondly, about two hours before he left on his trip

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We found out we are having a baby!

We went for our first appointment and sonogram yesterday. Baby Martin is due November 28!

New Trellis

Daniel whipped together another trellis this weekend. This trellis will house our yellow and pink jasmine and maybe my clematis vine as well. The yellow jasmine, which is currently trying to take over our satellite dish and a corner of the house, has been needing a new place to 'branch out'. The pink jasmine is a new purchase. It smelled so absolutely heavenly in Home Depot, that I couldn't resist it! The clematis was purchased last year, but wasn't happy in it's original location. Let's hope it likes this new home better. Daniel really is going to have to start taking orders for trellises?/trellii? and bottletrees cause our yard can't hold much more! He needs to get back to the adirondack chairs as well! Feel free to harass him for what you want. :)

Our new trellis:


Here is the original trellis:

Just try and be in a bad mood!

I don't know if anyone else out there is having one of those days, but I've got a little something to help cheer you up! Just try and be in a bad mood after listening to the song below. I'm ready for Dance Party USA! I'll have a real post for you soon! Enjoy!

*you can also download it for free from www.shinytoyguns.com *

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW0_kTYvARc

Nekkid Kitty

For those of you who aren't familiar with our pets, let me take a moment to tell you about Gracie. Gracie is a beautiful Himalayan cat that people love to ooohhhhh and ahhhh over. Unfortunately, beauty is only skin deep. Gracie has always been skittish, but when I lived alone she would sleep on the bed with me and interact with me. When Daniel moved in, that all changed. She pretty much wanted nothing to do with us after that. When we moved to our new house, we decided there would be no more litter box, so both cats got das boot! They didn't mind at all! They are both hard core killers and love having lots of yard and woods to play and hunt in. The side affect of this is that Gracie's long hair became incredibly matted. We even made a point to catch her (not an easy feat mind you) and try and brush and cut out the matts, but we couldn't do any damage to them. They got so bad that she started pulling them out and was bald in spots. It was time to take aggressive action, so yesterday I had Gracie shaved. They weighed her before her shave and she was 11 + pounds. Guarantee she's not 11 pounds now.

Before:


After:




Can't blame her for being a little camera shy at this point. In the long run she'll be much happier without all those matts and she'll be much cooler this summer! I'm going to endeavor to capture her once a week to give her a good brushing to try and prevent this from happening again.

Before I forget, I hope you all have a Happy Easter! I have to work tomorrow, so we'll be staying in Oxford for the first time ever in my whole life! A big group of friends and all their kids are getting together for Easter dinner after church Sunday, so we still celebrate the season with 'family'.

Projects, visits, and misc.

Well I didn't find the motivation I was searching for to post this weekend. Considering it's a cold and dreary Monday morning now, you can guess how motivated I feel today as well. Alas, I promised you a post, so here goes!

Daniel has been his usual ultra handy self lately and has completed two major projects that have been on the agenda for a while.

First, he used the skills he's been honing in his welding class to make us a bottle tree. I think it's lovely and much more attractive than the typically stick straight varieties. Now we just have to get some bottles to add to it!


His next project was a new raised bed to house our veggie garden this year. As much good dirt, hummus, and manure compost as he put in this thing, we should definitely get some good veggies this year. You will also noticed we've learned a thing or two, and have added some 'fencing' to keep the deer out. On this note though, the putrescent egg solids stuff that we've been spraying around the yard seems to be keeping the deer away! HOORAY!


Mom came for a visit during her spring break before we headed down to Mobile together and she and I picked out some curtains for the big window in my dining room. I've been putting off this purchase since we moved into the house, mainly because I couldn't ever make up my mind about what to get. Mom helped me quickly nip that in the bud with the purchase of these curtains. I need to take a picture during the day with them open to give you a better idea of how they look, but I just happened to remember to snap a quick pic before going to bed last night to at least give the idea.


Here is a close up of the fabric. It's a dupioni silk pattern called Cutesy. Ordered them from Material Girls in Oxford.


I was unusually un- picture happy during our trip to Mobile. I only took these pics of the girls on the day we were leaving. Both girls and my Mom had a great time playing my violin. Sadly, they sound about as good as I do and they haven't been taking lessons. blah. We did have a great time in Mobile though! Gigi caught a ride down with Mom and I, so it was a girls weekend extraordinaire! We ate lots of good food and hit up an arts festival in Fairhope. Good times!



Last week our friend Lee came for a visit. We haven't seen Lee since our wedding, so it was very nice to catch up. Once again, the camera didn't really make much of an appearance. Thanks for my handmade pen Lee!



I leave you today with a few pics of blooming things in our yard. It's nice to see signs of Spring even though the weather is a balmy 43 outside.

azaleas

pink jasmine (smells divine!)

blooming rosemary

gerbera daisies


more azaleas



*Note*: when speaking of household projects that involve Daniel and I use the term 'WE'...I use that term very loosely. so when you see 'we', read 'Daniel'. I'm very lucky to have such a handy and hard working husband.