Storms

We've been having lots of rain and thunderstorms around here lately. I am TERRIFIED of tornadoes and Matt thinks it's hilarious. I don't. Every time there's a storm I'm so afraid it will turn into a tornado. So last night while the hail was threatening to break all the windows I was clinging to Matt and hiding my face under the pillow on our couch. He tells me it won't help our kids if I'm more afraid of things than they are. I guess he'll have to be the tough one.
Anyway, so after the hail stopped we stood out on our balcony and took this little video of the lightning. It was actually pretty cool and I wasn't freaking out anymore. :)

Last Day, False Alarms, and Baby Names!

Last Day!
Today is officially my last day of work. It's a staff development day but I only have one meeting from 9:00-11:00 so the rest of the day is for planning for next year and cleaning classrooms and etc. Since I don't have to plan for next year I don't have much to do because I have already cleaned all of my stuff out of the room. I just have to make it look a little more presentable for the next person. It has been a great year and I'm amazed at how fast it went but I'm so anxious to be able to be at home all day so I can actually clean and get ready for a baby! I'm so excited to be a mom.

False Alarm
Well, this wasn't a REAL false alarm but it kinda scared me!
Tuesday night Matt had a softball game and I was half watching it, half talking to the other wives when I realized that I was having contractions. At first I didn't really think about it cause I've had TONS of braxton hicks but then I realized that they were starting to hurt and that hadn't really happened before. After a while I decided to time them and they were consistently 7-8 minutes apart and were lasting about a minute each. They kept up like that not getting any closer together but getting progressively more painful. So after we got home I took a shower and just decided to go to bed. I woke up countless times in the night and didn't really sleep because they were keeping me awake. I kept thinking "This can NOT be it. I'm not ready!" but by morning they were gone. PHEW! But it really got me thinking that I need to get all my ducks in a row just in case he decides to come before we're expecting him.

Names!
So I've been really reluctant to share any of the names we've come up with because #1 we had WAY too many on our list and #2 I didn't want people to say negative things about names that I liked. :) So last night I compiled a list of every name we had even mentioned (there were over 20 when I was done) and Matt and I took turns crossing names off until we finally got down to six. I will share them with you now but if you don't like one, keep it to yourself. :) hee hee I'd love to hear which one(s) you DO like, though. These are all first names and the middle name with either be Matthew or Randal depending on which sounds better with the first name. This is the list we'll take to the hospital and we'll give the little sprite his official name after we've met him.

• Brendon
• Brennen
• Dean
• Garrett
• Landon
• Micah

2 Weeks?!

Ok, so I know my due date isn't for almost 3 weeks but I logged onto my blog today and saw that my count down started with "2 weeks" and it kinda freaked me out.... :) I'm still excited, though!

Work and Exotic Animals

For the first half of the school year I loved my job. I loved teaching music and I never dreaded going to work. It wasn't even that hard waking up at the crack of dawn in order to catch the bus by 6:50. Then as my pregnancy progressed and I realized I wasn't going to come back out I have been counting down the days. Plus the kids have seemed to get more and more lazy as the year goes on and they are driving me crazy!

So I took a sick day yesterday and I dreaded coming to school today but I actually had a lot of fun with the kids and I realized that I actually am going to miss it! I feel like I'm pretty well liked by the students and staff and it seems like I just got started with my "career" so it's sad that I'm leaving. But I can't even tell you how excited and impatient I am to just be at home with my adorable little guy (cause I already know he's going to be adorable, of course)! :)

I am also a big fan of all sorts of animals and lots of them are kinda strange (my favorites are foxes, penguins, and various odd creatures I see on the Planet Earth DVDs). So this afternoon when we had an assembly about the rain forest and I realized there would be animals involved I was pumped! They were just kinda roaming around the gym one at a time while the lady talked about them and it was really entertaining. Here are some pictures of some of the animals we saw but not the actual animals cause I didn't have my camera. I found these online. I seriously feel just like one of the little kids with how excited I get. :)

Iguana

Blue and gold macaw

A kinkajou. She was really cute!

A ring tail lemur

And last but not least a red tail boa. I actually held this guy!

A bunch of randomness

My concert is finished! WAHOO! I think it went pretty well but it wasn't as good as the Christmas program. Oh well, what can you do. It's over. The elementary kids were awesome, the strings kids forgot to listen for intonation, the jr. high choir was really good but it's too bad no one past the 4th row could hear them, and one of our high school choir altos decided not to show up (that means we ended up with 3 sopranos and 1 alto. Good thing that one alto really knows what she's doing).
Now I'm moving on to other things such as organizing and cleaning my classroom as well as starting to move stuff out that I don't really need here anymore. I have four weeks left of teaching and it's bitter-sweet. I will also have a little more time to actually get stuff ready for a baby to move into our apartment. I keep telling Matt that I don't want the baby living in the junk room. Now I can finally transform it into a baby-type room.
Also, my little friend is no more. Our head maintenance guy came in and set a trap for me and the little guy was done for before the next day. I was strangely kinda sad to see him go...
I got an interview for the choir position at Laramie Junior High and found out this morning that I didn't get it. I wanted the job but at the same time I want to stay home with the baby and now I won't have to decide! :) When the principal called to tell me the news I actually felt really relieved instead of sad. Plus Matt got a job at Walgreen's in Cheyenne and that is GREAT.
I haven't had many cravings during my pregnancy (except cinnamon) but lately it's chocolate!!! I like chocolate of course but I have never WANTED it before and it's probably not a good thing if I don't want to turn into a blimp... I swear I ate half a LARGE bag of peanut butter m&ms all by myself the other day. Help?