Joe and I flew home for our Pennsylvania baby shower in Pittsburgh.  It was nice to be back in 'chilly' PA, with a seasonably comfortable 50 degrees- a nice change from the Texas heat.  I swear that on Saturday morning there was some freezing rain when we left for the Strip District- which is almost like snow!

Here are some pictures of Joe and I opening pictures at the shower, plus me and some of the Saccos.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures with the Rutkowski's on my camera, so we'll have to get some from Joe's mom at some point.

-The cute diaper cake my mom made

-Lisa, Madeline and the belly

-Me and my mom

-Me and Grandma

-Grandma, me & my dad

-Me, my cousin Brooke, my dad, Grandma & Aunt Patty

We had a busy couple weeks between Easter and posting this as we have now moved from our 1 bedroom apartment (my favorite apartment, ever!) to a 2 bedroom apartment in the same building.  It's been a daunting task for Joe as I have been 'worthless' due to my 'condition' and he's been doing the bulk of the moving.  "Professional movers" came during the week and moved all of the furniture and thankfully, we were able to borrow a cart from Joe's lab that we would fill up with dishes, pots and pans, etc and then Joe would push down the loooooooooog (2.5 minute walk-long) hallway that sloped up on the way to the new apartment, of course. I moved what I could in our suitcases and I did move all of my clothes and shoes with the help of our friend Suzie- I trusted her to be gentle with all of my beautiful clothes that no longer fit.  I eyed them longingly as it will be months before I can wear them again.

It has also been weird moving into an apartment that looks 70% the same as the one we left. It's much more difficult for my brain to adjust to the slight changes than the big changes- yes, I'm still a geeky neuroscientist at heart. The second bedroom is a disaster area as everything got dumped in there so hopefully it will be ready for baby/my mom staying with us by the end of June, especially since we won't have much time over the next few weeks with the trip to PA taking up one whole weekend and the all-day baby preparedness class at Baylor Hospital.

 -The disaster of the spare room after moving

 

Once the apartment's more 'settled' I'll post more pictures. The baby's turning into a little monster and it moves around a lot! -but at least it's on a relative schedule of movement, I could set my watch to it's movements right now. The baby usually wakes me up around 4am- it is totally weird to be kicked awake from the inside out- and it's so scary when it doesn't wake me up and then you panic that maybe something's wrong, but it always starts moving again once I get up and about when I get out of bed around 6-6:30am. Sleeping's been difficult, but I think that also has to do with the stress of moving, getting ready for the trip to Pittsburgh and some crap at work.  Very hopeful that I'll be able to sleep better in a few weeks- the sleeping issues seem to come in waves.

And lastly, here are some more pictures from around our neighborhood, the Design District. And no, I didn't stuff a basketball up my dress, even though that's what it looks like!

Today, Jill and I drove down to Ennis, TX to drive the Bluebonnet trails. I had seen photos of these beautiful meadows full of bluebonnets somewhere in Texas, and now I know where they most likely were from. It was crazy that these farms and yards in Ennis are a sea of blue (with a pop of red from the indian paintbrushes) for acres upon acres. Thankfully, we did not see any snakes, but I did get chewed up by some fire ants and got all itchy after climbing into the bluebonnets for some of the shots. One of the locations on the Ennis tourism map was 'the big blue house'. We drove up to what we thought was the big blue house, set way off the road and parked in the front of the driveway to take some pictures. Of course, the tourism site also says not to trespass into people's yards and we weren't exactly sure if we were at the correct big blue house. We popped out of the car to take some pictures and of course, a pickup truck comes barreling down the long driveway. As Jill and I prepare to get an earful from the owner, we pop up from the patches of bluebonnets in the yard and walk over to the driveway as the dusty brown pickup pulls up with a 60+ year old man behind the wheel, passenger window rolled down and a rifle perched between him and the passenger seat.

man in truck: "You girls here to see some bluebonnets?"
me: "Yes, we are. Hi, I'm Carolyn." Eagerly eying up the rifle, I hope my introduction will at least increase the amount of time we have to dash to the car and delay getting shot at with his rifle.
man in truck: "Well, good thing, you found the bluebonnet man!"

Turns out, he has a nice scenic patch of bluebonnets behind the house near a pond and a lake that he lets people walk around for photos. Was a bit strange, but ended up being a nice place to take pictures without the throngs of tourists in the public areas. He even pointed out a spot along the road where we could find some white bluebonnets.

Below are the weekly pregnancy pictures. I'll need more time to process the flower photos (as I still haven't finished processing the ones from the arboretum), so I'll post those in the next few weeks.