The Buerglers

While Eric and I were at my grandparents cabin, I had some time to return to the book and to spend some time reflecting on a few more gifts in my life... 111. starting vacation with a deep breath in the parking lot at work 112. cathcing up on the low priority to do list 113. friends fixing computers for free 114. photography class with my dad 115. a day trip to Asheville with no plans 116. visint old college friends and doing nothing...but talk 117. drum circles 118. watching people of all walks of life joining in a common song 119. the peacefulness of Gabe 120. massages from the husband 121. listening to the rain on sky lights 122. the cabin and all that it stands for 123. sharing a room with my spouse on family vacations... it's still weird to me to share a room with a boy when they're around 124. waking up with the sunrise 125a. bon fires 125b. jeep rides in the mountains....alone. 126. root beer floats 127. kindles

Last week my sick computer took a turn for the worse. Dennis is continuing repairs. Lesson learned, back up your computer more than once in three years. Thus, I am writing a quick post via the Blogger app on my phone. This weekend Eric and I went to North Carolina for some R&R We visited Ashley, Mike & Gabe and Kathryn surprised us for a visit too. Details on the whole trip to come. This coming week ill be at camp with 15 middle school kids from our church - my last responsibility with them. Bittersweet. Eric will be home with the guys finishing their brewing stand (a post on this coming soon). We also received our Kindle in the mail so he's excited that it'll be out of my hands all week so he can finally play with it. In other news baby turns 15 weeks today!  Ill do a 15&16 week update when I get back. Im looking forward to catching up on lots of posts when I get back, but in the meantime the unplugged lifestyle has really helped me work on my relaxing and...

Normal is a woman, and a woman getting married and having a child ~ Liz Lemon I am so sorry for the lack of photos.  I have been taking them, however, my computer has been rather sick.  It's in the process of being fixed (Thanks, Dennis!). But until then, it's Eric's 2001 Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop from college.  At least it's not a Tangent.  Did I mention we had to ghetto rig the wireless card? And the enter key squeeks?  Hey, beggers can't be choosers :) How far along? 14 weeks How big is baby? Speaking of Liz Lemon, baby is about the size of a lemon this week. Total weight gain : Quite a jump this week. I'm up to about 8 pounds. I don't know if the milkshakes have caught up with me, or if I weighed in at a bad time this week.  Or, maybe I just need to come to grips with reality that it's okay to gain weight. Maternity Clothes?   Whelp, most of my non-stretchy bottoms are done for.  I have about one pair of jeans that I ca...

(Please pardon this really old picture!) What I love about this recipe is that my Mom ripped it out of a magazine advertizement for was was then Durkee (now French's) French Fried Onions.  When I photo copied the recipe a few years ago, it even photocopied the food stains on the page.  Love. Another thing I love about this dish is that it's SUPER easy to make, a well stocked pantry and freezer has most of the items, and kids can help make it.  We each used to take one task of the preparation and it was literally ready in less than a minute. Ingredients: 1 standard bag of frozen potato rounds (aka tater tots or crispy crowns) 1 pound of ground beef (can sub ground turkey or soy crumbles) 1 package (10 oz) frozen chopped broccoli, thawed (I use one-two crowns of fresh) 1 medium to large tomato, chopped 1 can (10.75 oz) condensed cream of celery soup 1/3 cup milk 1 cup+ shredded cheddar, colby, or good melting cheese of your choice Garlic power and pe...

106. Watching my husband drive up to our apartment with a tight t-shirt, 5 o'clock shadow, and the top down on his Jeep 107. Comfort food 108. A quiet Friday night 109. A clean kitchen sink 110. Cheesey puns that make me belly laugh!

It's not monday.  Nor did I post last week.  I have two excuses.  Both are lame.  My journal was in the black hole that is the back seat of my car.  Once I rescued it, I caught up on my list, but then traveled for 4 days including a monday.  Here we go... 71. the technology allowing us ultrasounds 72. an understanding midwife 73. health insurance 74. organic food 75. girlfriends 76. blog friends 77. air conditioning 78. healthy conversations with co-workers 79. maternity jeans 80. warm showers 81. baby shower for other women 82. being told that I am "glowing" - especially by men 83. wandering Barnes and Noble with no purpose 84. Chick-Lit with happy endings 85. mid-day naps 86. phone calls with old friends 87. planning a plane trip 88. scrabble 89. free checked bags 90. uncharacteristically good moods 91. generous friends 92. Buddy passes 93. airport friends 94. layovers that force R&R 95. watching the sunrise over the clouds and rain 96. a ...

How far along? 13 weeks, 1 day - Last week of the first trimester, baby! How big is baby?   About 3 inches growing to 3.5 this week And all I can think of is... "Ross bruises like a peach" Total weight gain: Holding steady at 4 pounds, whew. Maternity Clothes? Similar to last week, but I can wear fewer and fewer of my medium sized t-shirts, as they are getting too tight around my belly and chest. My undies and pajama pants are getting a little snug around my waist as well. Stretch Marks? Nothing new! Sleep: I haven't needed as many naps, usually just 10 minutes of resting in the afternoon is plenty.  I had very weird sleep habits this week because of flying and airport fiascos, but for the most part I don't need 10-12 hours a day any more, just my normal 7-9. My energy is slowly returning, thank you almost-second-trimester! Movement: While I haven't felt the baby yet, I can feel my insides readjusting when I roll over in bed or on the couch.  It...

Friday morning I was packed and ready to go.  I had my most comfortable maternity-ish outfit on: black leggings and a dress-turned-large shirt.  I threw a cardigan in my carry on because airplanes are always so cold, and off I went to the Atlanta airport. With my suitcase checked in, I walked out to the B gates to wait for my flight. For those of you familiar with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, you know that it is insanely busy.  Like streets of New York City in the movies, busy.  I was flying standby so I had no idea how long I'd be at the airport.  All the seats at my gate were full by the time I arrived so I settled on an empty wall with plenty of leg room. I sat down, pulled out my water bottle and book, and kept one eye on the standby monitor.  A few minutes later I decided to get gum out of my bag and noticed that the bottom was a little moist.  I wrote it off as a leak in my water bottle and continued my wait. Several ...

And I've only gained 4 pounds?  My jiggly belly is moving up & I look WAY more preggo than I am! Special thanks to my friend in real life, Ashley, who I took-without-asking the idea for this (and future) pregnancy updates.  I added a few ideas of my own, but basically the concept is from her pregnancy blog posts.   I love that she is a little more than a year ahead of me with having a baby. Eric and I have learned so much from her and Mike's examples and fabulous blog! How far along?    12 weeks and 3 days.  I have never been so keenly aware of weeks and days.  How big is baby?   I believe the ultra sound measured close to 3 in today, and I think about half an ounce. Does that sound right? (How that is the size of a plumb, I'm not sure) Total weight gain: 4 pounds.  The midwife said, "this is good. really good".  Granted, if you were to look at me, you'd think I've gained about 10.  I am just so bloated by the end o...

As we near the end of the first trimester, I am finally starting to feel more human and have more energy.  We've been (almost) back to our crazy busy social lives, with the exception that I turn into a pumpkin around 9 pm.  It's been nice to go out and see people instead of my three month routine of: work, nap, eat dinner, maybe go for a walk, go back to bed. We've been out and about - but unfortunately I've been out of the habit of carrying my camera around, so I have nothing but super horrible cell phone pictures (digression: my Droid X boasts an 8 megapixel camera. EIGHT! Yet, unless it's broad day light, the quality of the photo is about that of a flip phone... as you'll see) Thursday (4/28) , our friend Austin was in town from Charleston so we met up at a beer bar for drinks.   I found out that Austin is a loyal reader of our blog so I promised him this shout out & picture! Except, what's worse than my phone's inability to take quality pho...

Monkey Cookies Two as promised tutorials for the desserts I made I my brother & sister in law's baby shower Just how did I make the monkey cookies (or as Connor calls them, Monkey Doo-keys)?  I started with the Betty Crocker sugar cookies in a bag.  Regular sugar cookie dough usually has to set for a few hours before making the cutout cookies.  Given all that I had to get ready for the party, I used as many short cuts as possible. I found a pack of Wilton animal cookie cutters  on sale at Michaels.  This provided the template for how to decorate the face too.  So helpful.  I also love using Decorated Cookies recipe for frosting and tutorial for decorating cookies using the " flooding " method. (She also has a great sugar cookie recipe that I used for these ).  Here's my step by step.... Outline cookies with stiff frosting and a #4 or #5 piping tip.  "Flood" with runnier frosting and a spatula. Let harden, about 1 hour +  ...

I am obsessed with food.  I love to eat.  The last few weeks I have had some food aversions, so I've learned to appreciate food in a new light.  At the same time, I also challenged my self not to include so many food items in my list of Gifts this week.  Doing so helped me see the world beyond my dinner plate, and for that alone I am thankful.  I hope that this project will continue to help me re-view food. One Thousand Gifts 31. Wandering the aisles at Whole Foods 32. Spring Sunshowers 33. Rain that cleans the windshield 34. An afternoon alone 35. Soup 36. A long walk along the river with Eric, sharing about our hobbies 37. Pregnancy announcement from a close friend 38. Organic strawberries with gooey brownies 39. Reading on the couch, laying next to Eric 40. Praying together .... 41. Yoga 42. Sales at Macy's 43. Spring cleaning 44. Clean towels 45. Homemade bread 46. Air dried laundry 47. Donating 3 bags of clothes 48. Snuggling on the couch 49. Visiting ...