survey says...

 

It's a BOY!!!!!!!

we had planned to wait to tell family tomorrow at a little lunch at our house, but the weather just keeps getting worse (and, really, we just couldn't stand to wait)!

he was a little wiggly during the ultrasound, but this is a great one of him waving with his hand by his face....

 

we also got a great one of his long legs and little feet....little feet which are positioned perfectly to give my bladder a few good kicks during the day! :-)  

we are so blessed and absolutely overjoyed!

break

classes finished last week, so i am officially on vacation. unfortunately, brian works the rest of this week.

i made nut rolls with my mom, aunt dee dee, and beth this weekend. we use my grandma elsie's recipe... so, so good. we finished with about 18 dozen!

so far, the break this week has consisted of a trip to the grocery store, a visit to the vet (poor boo got some shots), and a date with the dish network installation dude.....and lots of naps with the heating pad...because according to "what to expect", my rapidly growing belly is shifting my center of gravity and pulling my back all out of whack!  here's the 18 week belly on my last day of school. i would apologize for the unmade bed and dirty laundry in the background, but the apologies would be completely insincere....our bed will NEVER be made and there will always be dirty laundry!!!  ultrasound on friday!!! boy or girl????!!!!!!!

17 weeks

i felt my first kicks on sunday. we were at church, and i grabbed brian's leg and started crying. he thought something was wrong. since then, the flutters have been pretty consistent...midmorning and evening. you know how it feels when your stomach turns? it feels sort of like that, only definitely not in my stomach!

this picture was taken on friday...officially 17 weeks. we are working on getting a real camera...so hopefully not much longer for grainy iphone pics!

crusty bread

my parents came down yesterday to help us with some things around the house. i decided i was going to make dinner so mom wouldn't have to go home and cook.  we had pioneer woman's beef stew (this has officially entered the sunday dinner rotation) and this incredible crusty bread....i mean INCREDIBLE!!!

i pinned this recipe on my pinterest boards a while ago and finally thought i'd give it a shot.  i followed her instructions exactly.  this recipe is extremely easy...i whipped it up the night before and just let it sit.....four ingredients, zero kneading, and deliciousness in the end.  this is a picture from the Simply So Good blog...and it really does look exactly like this....

so if you want to impress and influence people...try this recipe. eight thumbs up from everyone at my dinner table!

http://simplysogood.blogspot.com/2010/03/crusty-bread.html

all out of red ink

today was my last day of lectures. AMEN! i did a little happy dance when all of my students were gone!!!

unfortunately, i am absolutely buried under grading. i've already graded SO much....enough that i have drained TWO red pens of ink. but the stacks just keep sitting there laughing at me.

in the meantime, we got blinds up in the bedroom so that we will no longer be flashing the little lady next door (though i did have the windows partially covered with craft paper).

my mom helped me decorate the house. this is only the second year that we've had a christmas tree. it makes me so happy.

and i got together with my best friends and their moms for a little holiday dinner at oliverios. i was craving a steak, and their filet is fantastic. i ate like a hog. two thumbs up for the "eating for two" motto!

hilarity

i got an email from my friend cj a few days ago referring me to a youtube clip from the show "flight of the conchords".  i didn't get to watch it until this morning...and haven't even finished it yet (my students are extra needy at the end of the semester, so there has been a constant stream through my door and waiting in the hall). the short bit i have gotten to watch had me in tears.

here is how cj set the clip up for me:

A little background:  This was done as part of a fundraiser for Cure the Kids foundation.  There is a 15 min version of the video but I thought it better to just provide the 8 and summarize the other 7 minutes.

Bret and Jermaine are charged with the last minute task of coming up with a charity song for kids. They decided to do a little research by going straight to the source.  The interviews with the kids set up the song at the end. It’s worth the wait. Bret actually wrote the music for the latest Muppet movie. 

mono vs stereo

when i saw this post on DesignSponge, i got instantly excited about our record player...not because it's cool all of a sudden, but because we don't have to buy something new to get the old retro look. we already HAVE the old!

when we got married, someone in brian's family (his dad's uncle) gave us a bunch of furniture when his father passed away. we have been using the end tables and tv stand since the beginning, but we never had room for the record player. (my mother tells me it's called a stereo, but my stereo growing up looked much different) It has been in brian's parent's garage for five years. now that we finally have the room, it has a home in our dining room.

inside the stereo were tons of records...bing crosby, engelbert humperdink, the kingston trio, etc.... not our parent's music but our grandparent's music. there are also at least 10 christmas records. bing crosby songs of christmas is my favorite so far. i plan on popping on some records, making some hot chocolate, and decorating a christmas tree this weekend! christmas music just sounds better with a little crackle behind it.

thanksgiving break...

...was wonderful and BUSY! we got to spend time with both of our families. brian's whole family stayed with his parents...8 adults and 5 kids...it was a blast and extremely loud and exactly what my tired-self needed.

we officially moved in to our house on saturday, the start of break. then we made a trip to ikea on monday (my birfday!!) and purchased a bed, a bookshelf to be used as a pantry in the kitchen, and a desk.  we got everything put together except for the hutch on the desk, thus completing our swedish engineering degree. 

the joy of home ownership hit us like a freight train. we have....
- replaced a broken L-shaped shower curtain rod in the bathroom (so that we can finally take a shower)
- fixed the garbage disposal
- rewired the laundry room so we could use our dryer
- bought a new refrigerator because the one in the house wasn't working (yay for no more ice trays!!)
- ran a water line from the basement to the refrigerator for water and ice
- put a new lock on the back door so that we have a key for at least one dead bolt rather than just a storm door
- sanded down the threshold of the back door so that it would actually close
- reattached the loose soffit outside
- removed most of the ivy from the front porch
- fixed the latch on the fence so boo can't get out of the yard
- fixed the latch on the fence where the garbage cans are stored
- changed practically every light bulb in the house because they were almost all burnt out
- fixed the bulging plaster walls in the living and dining rooms
....and i'm sure the list could keep going.  but when i say "we", i really mean "our dads". they know how to do everything...and are teaching us along the way!

in the meantime, i am 15 weeks, growing one gnarly belly, and can no longer button my pants! we will likely find out the gender of baby webb at our appointment right before christmas! YAY!!! hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!

Almost there

the hardwood floors are finally finished. brian, my parents, trey, and brian's parents worked tirelessly over the weekend to get them done. here's the bedroom and dining room (thank you vana!)

 

my dad's best friend roger also laid new tile in our bathroom. this is a picture mid-project...it looks fantastic finished. and we got a new toilet (with a #1 and #2 button HA!...it's awesome).

 

we also discovered while roger was there that he knows how to fix plaster. we had been trying to find a plaster guy for weeks...who knew that a guy i see at least three times a week could handle the job! SO, the water-damaged living room and dining room walls are almost fixed as well!

we are moving in this weekend!!! (three exclamation points)

learning to plan ahead

brian and trey finished sanding the living room floor and decided to stain it before we went home. (it looks fantastic!!!) they started at the far end of the living room and worked their way to the dining room....and then realized they hadn't locked the front door or closed the window.  we are slowly learning to think these things through a little more thoroughly.  locking the door and closing the window required some acrobatics that were too funny not to document....

crazy week

last weekend we took a trip to the wv mountains with our charlottesville friends. it was exactly what we needed....time with them and time to relax. the standing requirement when we hang out with these folks is that you wear pants with an elastic waistband. how awesome is that! the weather was foggy and rainy, but we didn't care. it was fantastic! robin has tons of beautiful pictures over in her little slice of blogland...check it out.... Robin's Song (i really need to get a camera...beside the fact that she's a professional....her pictures are amazing. my ipod is not going to cut it for much longer)

photo courtesy of Robin's Song

when we returned home sunday, we started preparing for frankenstorm, which was originally predicted to dump inches of rain on us. brian spent the afternoon (in the rain) on our new roof fixing missing shingles....

inches of rain eventually turned in to about a foot of snow in buckhannon! other than monday, brian has had the whole week off.  he has spent every day chauffeuring me around working on the house. almost all of the carpet has been torn up. today, he is starting the process of sanding the floors. tomorrow we will start staining and sealing our beautiful (hopefully) hardwoods!

trip

even though we have 4 million things to be doing, we planned a trip a long time ago for this weekend.

so rather than work, or worry about our jobs and the house, or run around like crazy people, we are meeting some of our favorite charlottesville folks at a cabin in the middle of us....which is literally the middle of nowhere. 

can't wait to see (most of) these fine folks....

hello hardwood

the first time we walked through the house, we both commented on how horrible the carpet was. and not jut ugly....dirty and gross. we knew it needed to come up, so the realtor let us rip up a corner in a closet to see if there was hardwood underneath.  from what we could tell, there was. but in some places, it seemed like the boards were really far apart.  we just weren't sure if they would be in good enough shape to use (and we didn't have the money budgeted for new floors).

the first thing we did last night was start ripping up carpet. we started in the bedroom (not a great "before"... we got ahead of ourselves and just started ripping!).....

after about an hour, brian had the carpet, padding, and tack strips ripped up, and my mom and i were finishing ripping out the millions of staples that were holding the padding down. and HELLO HARDWOOD!!! this room is in pretty good condition...some discoloration here and there.

my brother arrived to help out, so we moved to the living room....

the living room is almost done...just a few staples here and there. this room will definitely need to be refinished because of stains and a stripped finish in many places. but it is pretty amazing how much it has transformed the room already. i can't WAIT to paint in there (the dark blue trim is terrible!).

and in the meantime, boo was helping us clean all of the corners with her face...

homeowners

we are officially homeowners! is it normal to have the feeling of "what have we done" right after signing all of the paperwork? HA

we went to the house last night to make a huge to-do list. by item 1789, we decided to prioritize....ripping up carpet and the laminate bathroom flooring...in order for it to be livable (and not totally gross)! my brother helped and took our inaugural picture with the house (sorry it's blurry)....

examining this picture more closely made me laugh.  here are all of the things i saw...

we have LOTS of work to do! more pictures (and, hopefully, home improvement success stories) to come!!!

nightmare

i had a nightmare last night that someone stole our cards and drained our bank accounts....only to discover that our accounts were drained the morning of closing!

yep, didn't sleep well last night. but, it's finally here. 

we are planning to go to the house right after we close to start making a huge to-do list. in all reality, i may just sit in the middle of the floor and have a nice long cry. it will be a happy cry though..maybe with a little exhaustion mixed it....but happy.

that yard is going to look so much better without the "for sale" sign in it (and after lots of yardwork!)...

the weekend

brian's family had tickets to the wvu game on saturday, so they got to hang out with us at the mcquaid homestead before they left.

our nieces were particularly excited to play with boo. apparently they don't come to see uncle b and aunt jo jo anymore...just boo ;-) haha....i completely understand!

mimi is a regular dog whisperer...and boo knocked maddie (the baby) down a couple times, but all maddie did was giggle while saying "no boo"!

aunt jen got the girls ready with flying wv tattoos... (doesn't aunt jen's hair look awesome...she used wen shampoo...i'm going to have to try it!!)

holy cow...these girls are gorgeous...and love west virginia!!!

...and we got an awesome family picture in the yard with the beautiful leaves! too bad the game sucked.

my home among the hills

today is the kickoff of homecoming weekend at wv wesleyan college. one of my favorite things about wesleyan is homecoming convocation. students and alumni attend, sororities and fraternities dress up, faculty enter the chapel in their academic regalia, and the concert chorale opens up the festivities with "my home among the hills".  every time i heard the chorale sing this as a student, i got a little teary. hearing it today, for the first time as a faculty member, will likely be no different.

check it out....it is incredible!

view

the crazy gorgeous view from my office window this morning....this place is beautiful in the fall!

shocked!

we have a closing date!!!!

our (new) banker called this morning and said according to his schedule and the attorney's schedule, we could close next tuesday! i am shocked. this is my shocked face....

a standard picture amongst us college roommates...taken in college...man, i was really blonde here

i will not be completely satisfied until we have keys in our hands (at which time i am sprinting out the door and not looking back)...but i still might have done a happy dance while on the phone ;-) we'll keep you posted!!!

an unoriginal but totally necessary DIY

my mom has a very well-equipped kitchen...the lady can do some SERIOUS cooking. over the years, she has accumulated lots of platters, baking sheets, cutting boards, etc. though mom has plenty of storage for these items in a nice, big cabinet above the microwave, anytime you try to get something out, the whole mess comes crashing out at you.....and i couldn't handle it anymore!!!

so, my unoriginal by totally necessary DIY project was based on some pins from my organization board on pinterest. it was obvious that these things needed stored vertically, but i didn't feel like cutting dowel rods or making custom vertical inserts. 

enter small $4 tension rods from target. spaced 5 or 6 inches apart....

 

TA DA! now everything is easy to find and easy to retrieve. phew. that was bugging me.

fall break

fall break was last thursday and friday. hallelujah! i needed the rest.

i brought home ridiculous stacks of grading but didn't remove them from my bookbag once :-)

the break consisted of a lot of pajama wearing, nap taking, movie watching, and cooking. the puppies were all about the nap taking right up against me....emma has finally quit trying to avoid boo at all costs...

yes, i'm wearing some sweet pajama pants

 i think everything i cooked was from the pioneer woman...surprise, surprise! thursday night was spicy beef with cheesy mashed potatoes. friday night was chicken spaghetti (a favorite). and saturday i made her tres leches cake....my mom wasn't sure about this cake at first, but i think she's fallen in love with it!

a good weekend

the webbies had a great weekend! brian found out on friday that he got a permanent job in upshur county! YAY!!!!!!! he will be a special ed teacher and will travel between the elementary and high schools. 

we napped and played with boo most of saturday. she was thrilled to be out of her crate for a full day. then we watched the mountaineers spank the longhorns.

sunday was another lazy day.  i finished writing my second test of the semester (which i am giving today).  we caught up on laundry and straightened the house.  mom and i whipped up two big pots of meatballs and two pumpkin pies (brian's belated 'birthday cake'...the man LOVES pie)!

i like to think that i am pretty good at making pies, but i still have a lot to learn. i can't bring myself to use store bought crust because martha's pie dough recipe is the best (and easiest....toss everything in the food processor). i also just use the filling recipe on the back of the libby's pumpkin can (but i half the amount of ground cloves). these crusts turned out a little wonky....i was rushing and didn't let the dough chill before rolling it out....but they were still absolutely delicious.

cold pumpkin pie is the best breakfast.

no news is good news?

bad news...i am pretty sure that after this process (whether we get the house or not), we will never want to buy a house ever again!  we have updates on the house, things i could go on and on about, but i won't. not until it's better news.

good news....brian is subbing for a teacher for the next three weeks. he has gotten consistent work for a couple of weeks now. he also had an interview for a special ed position. it could be a long-shot since he isn't technically qualified (but has tons of experience), but just getting the interview was exciting. it's also nice that he is working because we get to ride together. two hours in the car each day is too much alone time, in my opinion....so some company is awesome. 

bad news....little boo hates being in her crate all day now that we are both working. she seems to have her days and nights mixed up and has been whining all night long. we are about ready to stick her out in the garage.

good news....she is so entertaining and makes us laugh. she finds the biggest stick in the yard and prances around with it like she's really got something. she's a trip.