It's great to be back!

I know, it's been a while. I'm now officially 15 weeks, but I didn't update at 14 weeks. Here is a pic from 14 weeks! The last few weeks have been awesome. My job is amazing, I got to host a birthday party for my two nieces, we got sporked, I'm coming to terms with my need to reconsider the book challenge, we had a great doctor's appointment for Baby O'Rourke, SNOW!, and I discovered Family Guy on Netflix! Also, Patrick is away at a conference this week, which is really kind of sad because I just want him home (I've become needy during this pregnancy. It's like I'm super duper extra insanely attracted to and in love with my husband. Not that I didn't feel that way before, but now I just can't stand being away from him.) Oh, AND, my BFF got engaged!!!

So my job. . .I've been working with families all across my area on the FAFSA. The form is not too difficult, but there are some tricky things if you're new to it. Every time I leave a school building, or a library, or wherever the FAFSA happens to take me, I feel like the Pope! These people are so thankful to have me sit beside them while they complete the form. Every now and then they'll ask questions, especially if they have a special financial or family situation, but mostly I just smile and nod and tell them they are doing a great job. WOW!!!! At the end of every day, I know that I have made a positive difference in my area. I'm meeting some fun-loving people in the smallest Kentucky towns. They all have stories, remedies, superstitions, etc. about pregnancy too! Sometimes I'll end up in a place ready to present, and instead we talk about boob tenderness. . .crazy! I've seen some pretty sad situations with students. I try to tell them that they are not alone, and that they are doing the right things to ensure a positive future for themselves. I guess it teaches me even more about what type of parent I want to be.

PAR-TAY!!!!!! Ok, so Patrick and I got to open our home for a birthday party for my two nieces. First of all, I can't believe that they are one and three. My how time flies! I don't even recognize baby pics of Aniyah anymore. They are very very very very special to me. My mom got a lot of the decorating done, and my sister came over in time to help with some stuff. Her friends all came over with their children and so did some of our family. We had a blast! I can't believe I only got a picture of Alayah, and not one of Aniyah, but here she is. . .

Alright, so last Friday night, I got a call from one of Patrick's students. We'll call her Betty Rogers. So Betty says that she's feeling sorry for Mr. O because she know's he's had a particularly rough week (mainly because of her own behavior along with that of her friends). Anyway, Betty is honestly a really good kid, and I was curious to see how she was going to "remedy" Mr. O's week. She asked if it would be ok if she sporked our yard. After I got off the floor from heavy laughter, I told her that I thought it was the best idea in the world! She said she would come the next morning to clean everything up, which made it work even more for me. I told her how to not get caught, and made sure Patrick stayed in the basement during the deed!

The next morning, Patrick took our dog, Lee out on a walk. It was so early that the sun wasn't up yet, so sadly, he didn't see the yard. Once the sun came up, Patrick went to the front porch to get the paper. When he looked down, he saw this. . .

He says he thought. . .how curious that the newspaper man would leave a taco sauce packet and a spork with the paper. Then he looked out into the yard and saw this. . .

That's when I heard it. The sound came straight from the depths of his belly. In a low, growling voice I heard Patrick yell, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"!

BAM! The eagle had landed! I raced from our room to the front door, and all I could do was laugh. I imagined that as he yelled, he clenched his fists and looked to the sky! I asked him if he had any idea of who could have done this. Instantly he said, "This is the work of Betty Rogers". He knew!!!! What he didn't know, was that his sweet loving wife was in on the prank. So when his reaction was to clean up the sporks, I had to stop him. I told him my role and that he needn't worry about cleaning because the girls would be over later to take care of it at breakfast. He couldn't get over the fact that I was going to prepare breakfast for these vandals! I wasn't able to convince him to wait for the cleanup crew, so he went to work picking up all one-hundred-and-five sporks!

I found out a few interesting things at breakfast once the girls and one of the mom's came over. 1.) Sporks are individually wrapped. They had to put in a lot of work to make our yard art a reality. 2.) While they tried to be sneaky about collecting the sporks at Taco Bell, they got caught. After explaining their malicious plan to the worker, she gave them a giant bag full of sporks. That worker was one of my family members! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!! She still doesn't know that it was our yard that she helped vandalize!

So one last thing about getting sporked. . .the taco sauce packet had these words typed upon it, "I'm with the band". This is extra hilarious, because Patrick is an Orchestra director (not a band director). Oh the charm of teens these days!

As far as the book challenge goes, I'm going to have to modify the terms. My goal was to read 100 books this year. I calculated that it means I'm going to have to get through 8.3 books per month. From the looks of the panel to the right, you can see that I'm approximately 7.3 books behind. I think I'm going to have to change this to the 12 book reading challenge. When I finish, I will still have completed more books this year than last. . .and that's a great start. . .right. . .RIGHT!?!?

We had a doctor's appointment for Baby O'Rourke. You'll probably remember from earlier posts that I had become really concerned about being over the morning sickness. Part of me thought that meant the baby was not OK. Well, at the appointment, our first nurse wasn't able to find a heartbeat. THEN, the second nurse couldn't find the heartbeat for what seemed like a LIFETIME (which probably meant it was only like 45 seconds). Anyway, once she found it, I took in deep breath and sighed in relief. Then, I cried (imagine that-I cry at EVERYTHING right now!) Our doctor asked if we wanted to hear it again once he came in. We told him that we felt confident, and would be alright moving along with the appointment. Needless to say, my worry was for naught. All is progressing as it should with Baby O'Rourke!

It is snowing like crazy in Kentucky. It's quite beautiful really. I love taking Lee out in it because it's comical to watch him bury his nose deep into the snow to catch a whiff of something delectable. When he pulls his face up, there is a mini mountain of snow on his schnoz! Such a cutie! Since I don't like being out in the snow at night, it allows me to catch up on some incredibly important matters of business. . .on Netflix. . .like the Family Guy. How did I just get on this bandwagon? It's HILARIOUS! Anyway, I'm mostly through the first volume, and loving every second of it.

As I mentioned before, Patrick is away at a music educator's conference until Saturday. I've kept myself busy by inviting myself to people's houses. Last night, I had dinner (a feast really) with my best friend, Angela, her new fiance, Willie, and his father and brother. We had a great time! So great, that I spent the night. It was an awesome impromptu slumber party! One less lonely night for me!! Tonight, I'll end up at my mom's house and Friday I'm going to watch the Justin Bieber movie with my little sister. I can't believe she invited me to come with all of her girlfriends. I'm really thrilled to see Justin Bieber shake it on the big screen that my sister still thinks I'm cool enough to hang out with. It's going to be the highlight of my week!

I'm going to save the engagement of my BFF for another post! I'm so excited for her, that she deserves her own entry!

So. . .that's all for now, folks!