Double your Pleasure, Double your Balloons

A week after our mini-gender reveal, on October 13th, my dear friend Jenn G, had her gender reveal.  Jenn is pregnant with TWINS and she's due the day after me.  It's really nice to have a friend going through the exact same thing as you are so that you can compare notes.  When you have those annoying should-my-stomach-be-making-that-noise kinds of questions, it's reassuring to have someone just a text away to ask.  It's especially great with Jenn because she has a precious older son, Noah, so this isn't her first rodeo.

Of course, I couldn't miss her gender reveal!  Ryan & Brendan had to work, so Jen and I hit the road for for the shindig as single ladies.  The fiesta was at Jenn's parents' beautiful home in Clear Lake.  The set up was mind blowingly impressive.  From a beautiful table of sushi, crab, vegetables and fruit to a dessert spread complete with festive cookies and cupcakes - it was evident no detail was spared.  I plan to enlist them to decorate for my next party.

Mmmm... crab.

Beautimous dessert spread.

 Pink or blue - everyone wins with cupcakes.

Jenn & Taylor opted for the balloon gender reveal, which I LOVE.  It makes for such fun photos.  (Editors note: by fun photos I mean if you have someone who knows what they're doing with cameras.  I don't fall into that category, so let's not look below with any expectations of prize-winning photography, mmk?)  Around 8:00 pm we all filed into the front yard to see if Noah would be a big brother to two princes, two princesses or one of each.  By the light of the street lamps we all found out that the Gartz crew will be welcoming....

The guests of honor!

Moment of truth... 

Baby A is a... little lady!

Baby B unveiling... Also a she... I apparently missed the boat on capturing the second set of pink balloons.  Doh.

 First family photo.  :c) 

Two little girls!  I'm so excited for all of them.  They'll make such a perfect little family.  I can't wait to meet Anniston & Blakely, and I'm sure our own little bean can't either.  Congratulations Jenn, Taylor & Noah!  We love you.

Sugar & Spice or Frogs & Snails?

Saturday October 6th, after 54 excruciating hours, the gender of our little jelly bean was revealed.  Ryan spent all day Friday grocery shopping, cleaning and preparing for everyone to come over.  Saturday morning he prepared a delicious spread of brisket, homemade baked beans and his critically-acclaimed pico & queso.

While Ryan was being super-husband, I busied myself with highly important tasks like... painting my nails festively.  Is he lucky or what?!  Apparently the anxiety of waiting on the gender reveal was far too great for me to actually apply myself to productive activity.  Besides running out to the store to get some paper plates and classy red solo cups.  (Oh, were you thinking that having a child would mean a red solo cup-free household?  Ha- cute.).

Team Pink or Team Blue is the new Team Edward or Team Jacob.

I forgot to take a before picture.  Pregnant ladies put food in front of photography.  So sue me.  :c)

Everyone patiently feasted on the toils of Ryan's hard work and then immediately demanded that we get down to business and cut the cake already.  Who are we to disappoint the masses?  Little Amy or Little Ryan?  Tu-tus and tiaras or suspenders & bow ties?  Carpooling to dance or to baseball?  We'll let the pictures tell the story.  Digital drumroll please...

Nervous anticipation...

 SHUT. UP.  Is that really... Noooo...

Mmmmhmm, it most definitely is...

 PINK!

 Apparently when I threatened Ryan's life and limb if he did this at our wedding, he did not think that ban extended throughout the remainder of our life time.  I've since cleared this up.

So excited to spoil a(nother) little princess... this time of the non-furry variety!

 Mamacita opening the envelope to make sure the bakery followed directions appropriately.

I guess I haven't covered anywhere on this blog what Ryan & I's official gender guesses were, have I?  Ryan thought from day 1 that this little bean was a girl.  He was so convinced that he nearly bought a pink cashmere sweater from J. Crew in week 8.   As many of you can likely identify, this is very out of character for him.  I, on the other hand, told most people that I logically thought it was a boy but for some reason I couldn't fully commit to that.  Why did I logically think that?  Because on my Mom's side of the family EVERYONE has a girl first.  My grandmother had my mom... in the next generation my Aunt Jan had Kara, my Mom had me, my Aunt Jean had Ashleigh... in our generation, Kara had Ava, Travis & his wife Miranda had Shiloh and about a month before our gender reveal we found out that my cousin Ashleigh, who's due in January, is also having a little princess.  How long can that pattern continue?!  Guess we'll find out when Julie has her first, won't we?

After the grand reveal, everyone was so elated that we celebrated in true Ryan Martin style.  What is that, you ask?  Why, with jaeger, of course.  Ryan busted out a bottle that has been in our freezer since before our wedding, apparently waiting for this very occasion.  The remainder of the evening was spent watching football, looking through my old baby book and enjoying celebrating with some of our favorite people.  Thank you so very much to everyone that participated and for all the love and support.  It was an absolutely perfect day and I look forward to sharing many more with you all when baby girl gets here.

No pregnant wombs were harmed in the making of this photo.

Cheers to many tea parties in our future.  :c)

Quickly after the celebration the boys assumed their usual Saturday/Sunday positions.

 Julie & Jen discussing their future babysitting plans.  After overhearing them I feel fairly certain Ryan & I may not go on a date again until this child is 18.

 Tiff & Kylie.  I'm so excited that Baby Martin will have such an awesome older cousin.

You might think Lola is pouting here (*cough* she is), but i prefer to think of it as getting her beauty rest to chase a little one around the house.  (P.S. I realized that I did a pitiful job of getting photos from the party... How did I completely miss getting the grandparents?!  I promise they were all there!)

Best Birthday Present Ever

So...BREAKING NEWS: it's almost November.  I know, I was as shocked by this when I looked at my iPhone this morning as you are.  I suppose that means I should get to work on documenting October, eh?

Earlier this month, I hit the big 3-0.  Apparently I've been in mourning since, hence my lack of blogging.  I jest, I jest - I actually wasn't that phased by it.  For those of you weary of any impending life milestone - I have JUST the solution for you.  Get pregnant.  This year I truly looked at October 4th as the day that we got to see our little bean, not the day that I entered a new decade.  I guess it's hard to mourn the loss of your twenties when you know that your life is really just about to begin.  (Hallmark- did you get that?!)

Due to the proximity of little bean's gender ultrasound to my birthday, we decided that doing a mini-gender reveal with just the fam and a couple close friends would be a fun idea.  It happened to work out given Ryan's work schedule and mine that our actual ultrasound was the morning of my birthday, a Thursday.  Luckily, mini gender reveal/birthday fiesta was set for Saturday.  Which meant Ryan only had to hide the envelope from my prying eyes for a little over 48 hours.  Which, in case you're curious, is not nearly enough time to get suitable x-ray spy equipment shipped to you.  It IS, however, plenty of time to spend way too much energy and effort comparing your ultrasound picture to what little info you can find on the internet about the skull theory.

So Thursday morning we grabbed some Starbucks (ohhh I love you salted caramel hot chocolate with no whip) on the way to make sure that Baby Martin was appropriately jazzed and ready to flash the cameras.  (This is literally the only time you will find your father or I encouraging this type of behavior- so don't get any bright ideas, little one).  If you're thinking that since we didn't get to learn the gender ourselves that morning that we would be any less excited, you would be completely wrong.  It truly was the greatest birthday gift in my 30 years.  It was only our second ultrasound, and our first was 10.5 weeks earlier at 8 weeks.  It was so heartwarming to see how much our little one had grown and to hear his/her sweet little heartbeat.

Ryan kept our ultrasound tech suitably entertained with such insightful commentary as - "this has to be a boy, that's a huge dome," and later, "oh, I see a butt- I know that didn't come from me... so maybe it is a girl."  She read us very well because she quickly pegged us as the types who would cheat.  She made us turn around while she wrote down Baby Martin's gender and then proceeded to cover the golden ticket up with about 15 sticky notes.

Sweet baby Martin.

Little bean's monster feet.

So, after our ultrasound, I headed off to work, already feeling like I was on cloud 9.  When I walked in the door I was greeted with the most fabulously decorated cube in the history of office birthdays.  There were about 5 separate collections of 30s around my desk, beautiful flowers and a delicious cake.  I really do love my job and my co-workers.  The fact that they were able to lift my already soaring spirits even higher is a true testament to their awesome-ness... and how lucky I am.  Thank you all so very much for spoiling me to bits.

"Oh, is it your birthday?"

  Tea bags and thumb protectors.  There was no underlying message here, despite what it may seem.  And yes, there are 30 of each.

 Birthday tiara, cake & flowers.  Just another day at the office.

 30 paper clips and 30 random stamps.  Who needs party city when you have a supply closet?

 There are in fact 30 sticky note candles accompanying this happy birthday banner in french.  I know this because I audited it.  Also, it took a solid 2.5 weeks for that balloon to even begin to deflate.

Deeee-lish homemade cake courtesy of Miss Becca.  Are you shocked to learn this did not survive the day?

The icing on the cake (the pun never ends) for the day was that I finally revealed to the rest of my co-workers that I was pregnant.  I figured, sure- I might miss Q1, but who can be mad at me for that on my birthday?!  I was really touched by how excited and sweet everyone was about it.  I am a very, very lucky lady.

Oh, and then I had a wonderful dinner at Cheesecake Factory with my adorable BabyDaddy.  This birthday will most assuredly be my favorite of all time.  Unless I have another child with an ultrasound on my birthday... and even then, unless there's a 30 cake, it will still be a very close second.  ;c)  Thank you EVERYONE for everything on my birthday... you sure know how to make a girl blush.

Stay tuned for the actual gender reveal post (as if you didn't already see it on facebook).

Trip to Missouri: Part Three

Our last full day in Missouri was kicked off Martin-style with... biscuits & chocolate gravy!  If you are an avid reader of the blog, you know that there are two wonderful food products that I've been blessed to marry into - biscuits & chocolate gravy from the Martin side and sausage balls from the Workman side.  Typically these items are associated with the holidays, so it most definitely felt like Christmas had come early.

If that look doesn't say "OMG, OMG!  Biscuits & chocolate gravy," then I just don't know what does.  Love myself some sweet Hershey dog.

We all hung out and watched some football in our pajamas for a while to let our food settle.  Around 1:30 or so we headed over to the YMCA to watch Jace's football game.  Jace is in 4th grade and quite the little spit fire.  Since he's the youngest and didn't have homecoming festitivites to participate in like the older kids, we spent the most time with him while we were there.  During our stay he educated us regarding his 8 pack (8 pack = being hilarious, awesome, smart, confident, athletic, etc, etc up to 8 different qualities), showed us his impeccable starting receiver skills, his enviable dance skills and really just showered everyone with clever commentary.  He is something else and way too much fun.  It was exciting to get to see him participate in sports since he's been watching his cousins and older brother do it for years.

 Jace man looking fierce.  My favorite starting receiver, most definitely.

After witnessing a 3rd or 4th grader who's jersey read "Pain Train" in place of his last name and an excited father running down the sidelines yelling that "no one could catch" his son - I'm determining that Texas football may have spread to neighboring states.  Jace played awesome- as you would expect of one with an 8 pack.  I think the game wound up in a 0-0 tie.  Clearly it was a defensive battle.  :c)

It looks just like my TV every Saturday.

If this picture had sound, you'd hear Jace bartering to get on the other side of the line because that's where the ball kept going. 

We headed back to Sandy & Kevin's where some of us napped and some of us proved that we spend way too much time playing video games by showing the kiddos up in Madden.  I'll leave you to decide who did what.

Amazing view from Sandy & Kevin's porch.

After a relaxing nap, we headed back into Springfield to watch Street Car Nationals.  Per our resident insiders, Larry, Scott & Craig, Saturday night was the big night.  For 2 hours in the evening the cops let people do burnouts without pulling them over.  How many times in your life do you get the opportunity to witness such excitement?!  We decided this couldn't be missed.  We all loaded into the car and spent the evening in the Culver's parking lot watching and cheering as the parade of old cars showed off their engines - and whatever else goes into producing a burnout.

If you're expecting to be dazzled with some car knowledge - you came to the right place.  I'll caption them in my terms.  Try not to be too impressed.  Here is an old fire-y car.

This is an old lime green car with some weirdos getting a little too close to the windows.

  Here you have an old blue car.

 Ahh, yes.  An old orange truck.  Did you think I was some kind of one trick pony who only knew cars?  Please.

An orange batmobile impersonator.

 Larry's nova.  :c)  (Okay, so I did know one).

The evening was so inspiring that on the way home at a light, Sandy & Kevin looked at each other in their separate cars Meet the Parents-style to signify a race.  Sandy was so amped up about her obvious impending victory that she failed to catch Mike switching her car from drive to neutral.  Needless to say we produced a different kind of burnout and were not the victors. 

By the time we arrived home we were all exhausted.  We spent a little bit more time together since it was our last evening.  It was allegedly "late night," but we were all way too tired to participate in a proper late night.  Instead we just layed around and watched some TV.  Then sadly had to say our good byes since Mike, Ryan & I were slated to hit the road bright and early for our 11 hour drive back to the Lone Star State.

 Dear Future Child - we'll get this behavior straightened out in the next 5 months.  Luckily, Jace has an 8 pack.

It was an incredible first trip to Missouri for yours truly and I look forward to many, many more over the years.  Thank you to the Krueggers, Sechlers and Browns for your hospitality, generosity and fabulous company.  Can't wait til you all move to Texas!  ;c)

Trip to Missouri: Part Two

Dia dos in the Show-Me-State was kicked off in my personal favorite fashion- by sleeping in.  After we finally rolled out of bed around 10 am we got treated to french toast a la Sandy.  I hadn't had french toast probably since I was in Jr. High, I kid you not.  It was delicious.  The kiddos were at school, so Ryan, Mike & I didn't have to do any arm wrestling over the last piece or anything.  It's a wonder I ever came home, isn't it?

Post toast (haaa... do you see what I did there?), we headed over to a cute little home goods/baby item store called Beyond Blossoms and did a little browsing.  Despite much prodding from the pencil test conductors to buy some pink items, Ryan & I left empty handed.  We then headed over to Kevin's office, Capstone Insurors, to check the place out.   If you're in the Bolivar area and need insurance- give him a shout- he's better at insurance than leg wrestling, I promise.  Obviously this type of strenuous activity made us exhausted so we headed back to Sandy & Kevin's to re-fuel. 

Ryan was almost too nervous to eat.  I don't think I've mentioned yet that it was Bolivar's homecoming weekend and that Ryan had the honor of driving the highschool girls softball float in the homecoming parade bestowed upon him.  It should be noted that said "float" was really his uncle's truck with their flat bed trailer attached, but in my mind that did not make the safety of the youth of Bolivar any more secure.

We arrived up to school to watch the ladies decorate the float with blue and gold.  I have to say, this homecoming parade was quite the to-do.  We were behind a float that had a legitimate animal skull painted and crushed to symbolize pulverizing their opponents, the Buffalo.  Or Bison?  I'm really not sure because the head was definitely not either of those.  Regardless- I admire that spirit. 

I, of course, got to live out my life-long dream of riding shot gun in a homecoming parade float.  Luckily, Ryan navigated the mean streets of Bolivar like a pro and no injuries were sustained.  He found himself so comfortable at one point in his route that he saw a house for sale that piqued his fancy and called the number.  Because that's definitely not a safety violation. 

We stared at the back of for about an hour.  Class of 2015!  (How old does that make you feel?!)

Boys soccer float.  More affectionately known as the kids who kept pelting us with Laffy Taffys.

My kinfolk. 

I just thought this looked like the perfect shot of a small town homecoming parade.  Because of the water tower?  NOOOO... Because of the Thor reference.   Duh.  (Okay, maybe the water tower).

 Some good-looking Bolivar-ians.  Bolivares?  Bolivarettes?  Whichever - here's Meemaw & Sandy looking very excited to see that Ryan has not yet crashed into anything.

 Town Square packed in quite the crowd.

We arrived safely back at school and deposited the superstars themselves unharmed to head to practice.  The adults rushed home to clean up a little bit and then we headed into Springfield for dinner.  Ryan's grandmother's brother, Larry, his wife, Linda, and their kids, Scott & Kristi, plus Kristi's family (Craig, her husband, and their adorable kiddos, Parker & Griffin) were all meeting us for dinner.  I had the honor of meeting Larry & Linda at our wedding last year but hadn't gotten to meet Kristi, Craig or Scott - despite hearing lots of fun stories about them over the years.

Dinner was at Houlihan's and it was divine.  It was really good to see Larry & Linda again and to get to meet everyone else.  As if that wasn't enough, at the end of dinner, Lori & Sandy brought out a cake and surprised the bajeezus out of Ryan & I with a baby shower!  Since they live so far away and we unfortuantely only get to see eachother a few times a year, they wanted to make sure they didn't miss out on this time.  Ryan & I were both so humbled and touched by their thoughtfulness.  We got way too many cute things and we more than quadrupled the previous amount of baby items we had.  (0 * 4 = about 12 in my scenario here, btw).  Thank you, thank you, thank you from the very bottom of our hearts, everyone!  I'm not sure why or how we got so lucky to call you family, but I'm incredibly greatful - particularly when you consider all the Ryan-isms you've dealt with over the years.  ;c)

I never did ask if the pink was a pre- or post-pencil test addition.

 

I hope we are better at changing diapers than we are at unwrapping presents.

 Mike, Larry, Linda, Kristi, Griffin (you can't see Craig & Parker) and Scott.  They are probably hoping that we are more adept at diapers also.

 

 

This outfit brought to you  by the letters S & L and their fool-proof scientific genetic testing.  (I apologize for the blurriness of these pictures - just pretend that we were shaking with excitement rather than photographing without flash).

 Hooded towels are my favorite.  So cute!

  Thank you everyone!

After dinner we headed over to Andy's for what I was told would be the best custard experience of my life.  I forgot to mention that it was Street Car National weekend in Springfield, and that Larry, Scott & Craig all have beautiful (is that a manly enough term) cars that they'd driven into town to show off.  Larry & Scott have Novas and Craig has a GTO.  Scott was kind enough to chaffeur Ryan & I over to Andy's.  A baby shower AND arriving in style for custard?  Again - incredible that I ever came home.  Andy's lived up to the hype.  I had a caramel pretzel crunch and it was a taste of heaven.  I give it two thumbs up.

Meemaw, Lori, Sandy, Mike & Ryan - the newest Andy's franchisee-hopefuls.

Once we'd ordered our custard, we headed across the road to check out the Applebee's parking lot where a bunch of old cars had congregated.  I'm going to save all those pictures for my next post though because we went back the next evening.  Plus- I have to give you something to come back for, right?

 Okay, okaaaay - you twisted my arm.  Here's a sneak preview - Ryan, Scott & I in Scott's nova.  Sweet ride, huh?

Another fabulous day in the books!  Stay tuned for burnouts and football Jace-style.