Birthday, Birthday!

I am fast approaching my 25th birthday. This makes me feel old. Ever since I turned 21, it seems as though I feel more and more ancient with each birthday. Especially now that I'll be a married mother of 2 by the time I turn 26 next year. Craziness! Never thought this is where I would be at this point in life.
Life tends to take a lot of different turns that can't always be anticipated. This is not to say that I don't have an amazing life. I am so incredibly blessed. But in my wildest dreams, I never would have imagined that I would be pregnant with my 2nd child at 25. I probably wouldn't have guessed that I would even be married!
But life is good and I wouldn't go back and change a thing about it.
We got the birthday festivities started tonight. Andrew's parents threw a party for all of us September birthdays in the family. My brother-in-law, Paul, and my sister-in-law, Cora, as well as my little brother (by way of Andrew, and technically my brother-in-law as well), Seth, also have September birthdays. So we had dinner and gift exchanging together. Fun fun!

What do I hope this year holds in store for me?
I hope that I can genuinely be transformed by the power of God's word as I take part in my Bible study that began last week. I hope that God's word will affect me strongly and that it will trickle down into my marriage and the parenting of my son. I hope that I will feel confident and at peace about bringing another child into the world. I hope that I can be a bringer of life and encouragement to people around me in everyday life.
I'm excited to see where I will be at one year from now. I've come a long way from last year and as I type that I have a genuine smile on my face. Remembering where I was and realizing how God has carried me through this past year is so encouraging. Makes me feel like I can do anything with His help.

Looking forward to my birthday dinner with Andrew and some close friends next Sunday, which is of course my actual birthday. The Melting Pot......mmmmmm!

I've been meaning to post a few pictures of some fun we had a few weeks ago. Andrew and I decided to take Judah to the splash park at Forest Park as a last hurrah to summer. The splash park was only going to be open for another week or so, and summer is quickly drawing to a close. In fact, today is the first day of fall! So here are a few pictures from the splash park. Although Judah seems more and more like a big boy here at home, I was quickly reminded of how small he still is while he ran around through the water. I had to help him watch out for the big kids.

TARANTULA!!!

Clearly I am exaggerating a bit with the title of this post, but seriously....
This morning I felt more terror than I have in a long time. I'll start from the beginning -
Last night Andrew and I got home from our trip to Las Vegas. I arrived home first in my car. (We had taken separate cars to the airport because he left a day before me.)
I came in the house and began unloading the luggage. Bauer, our dear sweet cat, who had been cooped up in the house for three days, was meowing like a banshee to go outside. I let him out and when I opened the door I noticed a decently sized brown spider right by the front door. I was happy that I found it, and that it didn't find me while I was relaxing on the couch late at night. I quickly squashed it and went to close the door when I looked closely and noticed there were two more spiders right by the front door! Both were much smaller, but I couldn't believe there were so many right there! I wasn't too creeped out after that because I figured I had killed three, how many more could there be in the house? Zero, I thought.
This morning was a bright and cheery one. I hadn't seen Judah since Sunday night. We had a nice morning together. After he finished breakfast we were playing together on the living room floor. For a split second I remembered the spiders I had killed the night before and hoped there weren't any more in the house. I decided to glance around the room just to be sure.
To my utter horror, two feet from me was the biggest, ugliest, most disgusting wolf spider I have ever seen in my life. I let out a shriek, grabbed my child and ran into the kitchen. Judah was absolutely terrified of my screams. He started crying right away. But I had to kill the beast!
I placed him in his high chair so that he was out of harm's way. I had to kill this monster. I ended up playing a cat and mouse game with the nasty creature while it ran from couch to couch. I was finally able to suck it up with the vacuum as it attempted one final getaway.
I am still shuddering. I keep finding myself glancing around the room expecting to see yet another tarantula running my way. Let's hope that was the last one.

Tired Day

Let's see...
This morning I woke up way too early, even before Andrew's alarm went off. I tried my best to fall back to sleep but could not for the life of me. I ended up being awake for the day around 6:30 am. Not good considering Andrew and I stayed up until midnight watching The Office.
The good part about getting up early is that I had about an hour and a half to myself before Judah woke up. I had breakfast, made coffee, watched the news, did some dishes. It's definitely nice to have that alone time, which is rare in the mornings.

Judah and I enjoyed the morning together. He rifled through all of his toys and all his books were soon strewn across the floor. He absolutely loves it when I read to him. He loves his books so much. He cries when they are over and hates it when I close them. We read book after book after book and he wants to read some more. It's definitely a good thing, and it keeps me reading to him throughout the day.

For lunch I re-stir fried some leftover Chinese food I had made the other day. It didn't sit well with me at all. I followed it with a tall glass of apple juice to counteract the saltiness of lunch. It was way too much sugar for my stomach. I felt terrible afterwards. Thankfully Andrew was on his way home and Judah was taking a long nap. As soon as Andrew walked in the door I went upstairs and took a 3 hour nap. I had still been so tired from waking up really early this morning. Gotta love the husband for allowing me to do things like this.

Andrew was meeting a friend for dinner tonight so Judah and I were on our own. Apparently he had a huge lunch with Andrew when he woke up from his nap. He just kept eating and eating and eating. I tried to feed him dinner around 6:30 but he didn't really seem interested. He kind of just played with the peas and corn on his tray and snacked every once in a while. I didn't force him to eat anything else.

After dinner there were some kids from the neighborhood riding their bikes outside our house. Judah just loves other kids. He toddled over to the screen door and just squealed with delight seeing them ride their bikes around. He can't wait to be a big kid too.

Judah picking and choosing his peas and corn.

Longing to play with the big kids outside.

I also decided to include  a photo of my most recent ultrasound. I had my 13 week appointment back in August. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time, which is always so exciting. It's one of the best sounds in the world to hear that little heart thumping away so strongly. They had a little trouble finding the heartbeat so they brought in the ultrasound machine to help find the baby on the screen. 

This was a special treat because normally we would have had to wait until 20 weeks to see the baby again. Baby was so active! It's amazing to see at that size just how much baby moves! It was just as much as I remember feeling Judah move in the 3rd trimester, no less. If I could feel all the movements now, it would honestly have been just as active. 

Dr. Chien printed out a bunch of pictures for us, so here is one of them. 

Only 4 more weeks until we get to find out the sex!

Baby Michels, 13 Weeks

Beautiful Fall Day

I love days like today. Gorgeous sunshine shining down, but a crispness in the air telling me that fall is near.

Andrew stayed home from work today because he wasn't feeling well this morning. I love having him home, even though he was sick. It's just nice to have him around. I kind of like this guy.

I decided to make some cinnamon streusel topped blueberry muffins this morning. They were absolutely heavenly! I've never actually made muffins before. This was my first attempt and I'm must say that I'm pretty proud of how they turned out.

I finished my show Epitafios today. It's an Argentine crime drama that aired back in 2004 in Australia. HBO Latino decided to pick it up and put in On Demand. I've been watching the first season for the last week and I really got into it. It's not as graphic or gruesome as other HBO shows, and I appreciated that. It's probably just a step up from CSI with a little more blood and more language of course (it's still HBO, after all.) It was quite the thrilling show! Season 2 is about to start up in a few weeks and I'm hoping it's just as thrilling this time around.
I loved getting a brush up on my Spanish too. The show still has English subtitles, but hearing the Spanish is what counts the most. HBO actually tried to enhance the graphic language by translating certain Spanish phrases into more colorful English. Kind of comical.

Both my boys are asleep. Judah is sleeping soundly in his crib and Drew is snoring on the couch. It's not even 9 o'clock! I can't believe he's asleep! He was watching football, so maybe that explains it.

Catch Epitafios Season 2 on HBO Latino beginning September 21st at 9pm.

Cinnamon Streusel Blueberry Muffins