Alex and I have been today for 5 years today. I think I posted on an old blog the story of how we met and I don't really feel like typing it out all over again but I will say a couple quick details to paint a picture.
Natural Icee
Dancing
Pizza
Walk Home
Here's a story of one of our first phone calls.
After him finally calling after about a week and having his phone number, I called him one evening to see what his plans were for the night. It must've been a thursday or a friday. (Words may not be exact but this is close enough).
(Ring, Ring)
Alex: "Hello"
Michelle: "Hey, what's up?"
Alex: "Who is this?"
Michelle: "What?! You have my number, it's Michelle"
Alex: "Michelle who??"
Michelle: "Michelle Elscheid, what the heck??!!"
Alex: "I don't know any Michelle Elscheid"
Michelle: "........(silence probably)"
Alex: "Just kidding, I know it's you"
Michelle: "Oh my god, I thought you were serious"
..Laughing, etc. even though I was completely caught off guard. The conversation was normal after that and I think he did a couple more things like that in the beginning of the relationship, just for a laugh. I laughed too so it wasn't like I was mad or anything. He's a jokester and I was just getting to know him.
I can't believe it's already been five years. I'm the luckiest girl in the whole universe. He's my best friend forever, literally and I couldn't think of a better person that I would want to bring a baby into the world with. He's going to be such a great Dad. And finally, his college nickname will actually be legit.
I love you babe!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Martin Drive Drafthouse: The Kegerator
Alex's personal brew pub (since we can make food in this joint) is called the
Martin Drive Drafthouse
And there he is, the Kegerator, i mean. With his new shelf from Ikea to hold the glasses (and clear up some space in the kitchen cabinet). And the sweet sign that Nick and Laurel made Alex for his birthday to show what beers he has on tap. I will get a close up of that tonight. He currently only has an APA on but I think he just kegged an ESB last night so that'll probably go on soon as well. He's such a craftsman. He has more hobbies than any other person I know, and I'm very proud of him for that. :)
21 weeks
Anyway, I hit 21 weeks on Monday. I never know what to say when i'm in the next week, so I always just tell people "I was __ weeks on monday, or I'm going to be __ weeks this monday" makes it easier. It really gets me when people ask how many months that is because apparently my brain has trouble dividing by 4. Anyway, it's 5 months or so I guess.. In the 2nd trimester. Babycenter says the baby is about 10 1/2 inches long and they relate that to a carrot (must be a big carrot). Eating healthier has been going pretty well. I try to bring my lunch everyday as opposed to buying it.
Everything is still going smoothly, still some minor backpain from the sciatica which I'm positive can be helped by a chiropractor if only I wouldn't be so lazy and go visit one. I did really well walking around Ikea on Saturday though.
I feel like a bus but I'm sure that's normal. Yesterday my bump looked huge and today it looks down a little bit. I should line up the first 5 months of pictures and check out the progression. Maybe i'll do that at the full 6 months! Something to look forward to.
No new milestones to report other than I feel her moving more. Sometimes she taps me a couple times in a row which is cute. I don't think she likes that I sit at a desk all day and don't move around all that much. I'm trying to pay closer attention to the patterns though to see when she's awake and when she may be sleeping. It's pretty early for her to set any patterns that won't change by birth but it's interesting to try to decipher.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Delaware +. Ikea + Bachlorette + Baby Shower = Busy
Busy weekend!
Friday after work, we headed down to DE to spend time with Nick and Laurel. They made a delicious dinner, we at Gelato on Main Street and played Mad Gab, which was hilarious to say the least. I almost touched their cat Dilla, which is pretty much a success because he's the shyest kitty on the planet (but also possibly the cutest).
Saturday morning, after breakfast we headed to Ikea in Baltimore. It was awesome. I hadn't been to Ikea in about 6 years so it was nice to go back and see the whole showroom setup. We ended up getting a bunch of stuff for the nursery. We got a 4 cube shelf, some picture frames, some little globe-y lamp things that I want to use as 'night lights' as well as the image to the right.. I pinned it a while back but didn't actually look to see where it was from. Pleasant surprise to find it at Ikea, at obviously an awesome price. Now i don't have to try to recreate it myself! We also got some new bathmats for the bathroom up there as well as a new shower curtain. I'm going to try to add pops of color in there as well. Why not! The last thing we got was a shelf for the dining room to go over the kegerator to hold beer glasses. Alex put it together and we put it up yesterday, so i'll snap a picture of it and include it in the post about our new mailbox that Alex also installed. He's so handy! Anyway, back to Saturday. After Ikea, we hit up PF Changs (and weren't overly impressed due to the amount of hype we heard prior) but it was still good. I love fried green beans and they give a huge plate as an appetizer.
After this late lunch we parted ways. I had a bachelorette party to go to in the evening which started at Jen's house with silly cookies and sangria that looked amazing (but I couldn't drink, obviously). We headed to dinner at Cultura's and it turned out I had an awesome coupon for 50% off food. Cultura's is a tapas restaurant so we probably ordered 30 plates of food to share between 10 people. It was delicious as always. I thoroughly enjoyed my two raspberry (virgin) margaritas as well as some red raspberry ice cream from the Strasburg Creamery. After dinner we headed to the bride's sisters home to hang out, play games and watch a movie. We played Mad Gab, which was hilarious again and then watched Bridesmaids which I was so excited to see. The movie was funny but had some slow parts. That whole night, I probably did more laughing then I have in a long time. That group of girls are hilarious! I ended up getting home around 3am. Crazy! Time had just flown by and I didn't realize it. I knew I would have to do some hardcore sleeping in the next morning.
And that's exactly what I did. I finally got up around 10:30am. I putz-ed around and then vacuumed the house. We put the shelf up above the kegerator like I mentioned above. Then we headed to our friends Courtney & Derek's couples baby shower. We'd never been to a couples shower before but it was so fun. They had some cute games like guess the baby food flavor (which baby food is pretty gross, even more reason why i'm probably going to make my own food, although the fruit was much better then the meals) and bobbing for nipples, which Nick won! We got to meet Dedra and Justin's brand new baby boy, Jack, who was super cute wrapped up in Dedra's (what i'm assuming is a) Moby Wrap. He was so tiny at 2 weeks old, which is completely normal obviously, and when Alex was holding him he looked like a complete natural. Cue the awes. After the shower, Nick and Alex watched the Eagles game we recorded and Laurel and I watched Bridesmaids.. long movie, the funny kind of dies off in the end and is brought back with the Wilson Phillips. There was a small break at half time for them to move furniture though which was a huge help. I'm so glad that's completed and now I can actually take picture of the nursery and get moving on all my other things related to it. After Nick and Laurel headed back to DE, Alex went over to the Herr's to watch the night game and I really needed to go to the grocery store, so I did that, plus I hadn't eaten anything since lunch so I made some spaghetti/meatballs and spent the rest of the evening facetiming with Julia and then my parents. Gosh facetime is amazing.. it's going to come in SO handy when we have this little bundle.
That sums up our super busy weekend. I can't believe it's already the 2nd week of September. This month is flying by already! Tomorrow I will take a picture of my 21 week bump to share with you! It's definitely getting bigger!
Friday after work, we headed down to DE to spend time with Nick and Laurel. They made a delicious dinner, we at Gelato on Main Street and played Mad Gab, which was hilarious to say the least. I almost touched their cat Dilla, which is pretty much a success because he's the shyest kitty on the planet (but also possibly the cutest).
After this late lunch we parted ways. I had a bachelorette party to go to in the evening which started at Jen's house with silly cookies and sangria that looked amazing (but I couldn't drink, obviously). We headed to dinner at Cultura's and it turned out I had an awesome coupon for 50% off food. Cultura's is a tapas restaurant so we probably ordered 30 plates of food to share between 10 people. It was delicious as always. I thoroughly enjoyed my two raspberry (virgin) margaritas as well as some red raspberry ice cream from the Strasburg Creamery. After dinner we headed to the bride's sisters home to hang out, play games and watch a movie. We played Mad Gab, which was hilarious again and then watched Bridesmaids which I was so excited to see. The movie was funny but had some slow parts. That whole night, I probably did more laughing then I have in a long time. That group of girls are hilarious! I ended up getting home around 3am. Crazy! Time had just flown by and I didn't realize it. I knew I would have to do some hardcore sleeping in the next morning.
And that's exactly what I did. I finally got up around 10:30am. I putz-ed around and then vacuumed the house. We put the shelf up above the kegerator like I mentioned above. Then we headed to our friends Courtney & Derek's couples baby shower. We'd never been to a couples shower before but it was so fun. They had some cute games like guess the baby food flavor (which baby food is pretty gross, even more reason why i'm probably going to make my own food, although the fruit was much better then the meals) and bobbing for nipples, which Nick won! We got to meet Dedra and Justin's brand new baby boy, Jack, who was super cute wrapped up in Dedra's (what i'm assuming is a) Moby Wrap. He was so tiny at 2 weeks old, which is completely normal obviously, and when Alex was holding him he looked like a complete natural. Cue the awes. After the shower, Nick and Alex watched the Eagles game we recorded and Laurel and I watched Bridesmaids.. long movie, the funny kind of dies off in the end and is brought back with the Wilson Phillips. There was a small break at half time for them to move furniture though which was a huge help. I'm so glad that's completed and now I can actually take picture of the nursery and get moving on all my other things related to it. After Nick and Laurel headed back to DE, Alex went over to the Herr's to watch the night game and I really needed to go to the grocery store, so I did that, plus I hadn't eaten anything since lunch so I made some spaghetti/meatballs and spent the rest of the evening facetiming with Julia and then my parents. Gosh facetime is amazing.. it's going to come in SO handy when we have this little bundle.
That sums up our super busy weekend. I can't believe it's already the 2nd week of September. This month is flying by already! Tomorrow I will take a picture of my 21 week bump to share with you! It's definitely getting bigger!
Friday, September 9, 2011
What a week..
Well this week just FLEW by, which is something I love about weeks after a holiday weekend.
It was supposed to be a 4 day week anyway but due to the flooding, I actually 'worked from home' yesterday. This just means accessing email since I can't actually do any other work at home. It was weird to be off on a middle of the week day but also nice.
We didn't have any damage from the flooding, our basement didn't see a drop of water which is a relief. We have a large patch of wetlands behind our house that held the water from the creek, at least for us. Some of the other neighbors down the street weren't quite as lucky. We also live at the top of a slope, so i don't think it would've gotten to us anyway. It's nice that it's not raining at the moment. Hopefully it'll be a nice weekend.
So yesterday, with a whole day off (Alex came home as well).. we weren't sure what to do. We decided to make homemade pizza for lunch so I started the dough around 9:45am. We went to the grocery store for some ingredients we didn't have. We watched The Wire (or Alex did). We made delicious pizzas. One pepperoni, one cheese, and one onion/pepper. They were probably the best pizzas we've ever made. I should've taken the opportunity to photograph the process, maybe next time. After we stuffed ourselves with pizza, Alex accompanied me to the mall to buy some maternity clothes. Shopping while pregnant is no fun thing to do. 2 pairs of pants later and we were done. I found out later that I bought a pair of skinny jeans instead of bootcut. Which is fine, except I need a pair of bootcut, so I guess i'll have to get them at some point. Skinnies make me look huge these days. Anyway. After the mall, we stopped by the Herr's which turned into hanging out at the Herr's for a couple of hours. Alex was downstairs playing old school NES and Steph and I were upstairs having a great conversation and watching Brutus be the cutest rotty ever. When we left it was around 5:30pm. We didn't think the day was ever going to end. So when we got home, Alex made dinner and I probably just sat on the couch, I can't remember. Then we watched the Packers/Saints game and I went to bed at 10.
Here we are now. I'm finishing up work for the day and then we're headed to DE to visit Nick and Laurel. Tomorrow we're traveling to Baltimore to hit up the Ikea and then I have a bachelorette party to attend in the evening. Sunday we're busy too. Nick/Laurel are coming over to lend a hand moving furniture upstairs since I can't help Alex. I can't wait to have that stuff put into storage so I can really get a good look at the room that will be the nursery. And of course, before pictures will be taken! Hopefully we can get some sunny weather so I can spray paint the crib and we can put it all together. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of that too (look at all these promises!). I feel like my excuse is that I have a blog that people look at but don't comment on. LOL. Things really went up since I posted it on Facebook. I'm not surprised by that though, I'd be doing the same exact thing. :)
Have a great weekend! Maybe we'll welcome baby Snyder into the world?!
It was supposed to be a 4 day week anyway but due to the flooding, I actually 'worked from home' yesterday. This just means accessing email since I can't actually do any other work at home. It was weird to be off on a middle of the week day but also nice.
We didn't have any damage from the flooding, our basement didn't see a drop of water which is a relief. We have a large patch of wetlands behind our house that held the water from the creek, at least for us. Some of the other neighbors down the street weren't quite as lucky. We also live at the top of a slope, so i don't think it would've gotten to us anyway. It's nice that it's not raining at the moment. Hopefully it'll be a nice weekend.
 |
| Sorry for the reflection but it was raining and I wasn't going outside. |
So yesterday, with a whole day off (Alex came home as well).. we weren't sure what to do. We decided to make homemade pizza for lunch so I started the dough around 9:45am. We went to the grocery store for some ingredients we didn't have. We watched The Wire (or Alex did). We made delicious pizzas. One pepperoni, one cheese, and one onion/pepper. They were probably the best pizzas we've ever made. I should've taken the opportunity to photograph the process, maybe next time. After we stuffed ourselves with pizza, Alex accompanied me to the mall to buy some maternity clothes. Shopping while pregnant is no fun thing to do. 2 pairs of pants later and we were done. I found out later that I bought a pair of skinny jeans instead of bootcut. Which is fine, except I need a pair of bootcut, so I guess i'll have to get them at some point. Skinnies make me look huge these days. Anyway. After the mall, we stopped by the Herr's which turned into hanging out at the Herr's for a couple of hours. Alex was downstairs playing old school NES and Steph and I were upstairs having a great conversation and watching Brutus be the cutest rotty ever. When we left it was around 5:30pm. We didn't think the day was ever going to end. So when we got home, Alex made dinner and I probably just sat on the couch, I can't remember. Then we watched the Packers/Saints game and I went to bed at 10.
Here we are now. I'm finishing up work for the day and then we're headed to DE to visit Nick and Laurel. Tomorrow we're traveling to Baltimore to hit up the Ikea and then I have a bachelorette party to attend in the evening. Sunday we're busy too. Nick/Laurel are coming over to lend a hand moving furniture upstairs since I can't help Alex. I can't wait to have that stuff put into storage so I can really get a good look at the room that will be the nursery. And of course, before pictures will be taken! Hopefully we can get some sunny weather so I can spray paint the crib and we can put it all together. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of that too (look at all these promises!). I feel like my excuse is that I have a blog that people look at but don't comment on. LOL. Things really went up since I posted it on Facebook. I'm not surprised by that though, I'd be doing the same exact thing. :)
Have a great weekend! Maybe we'll welcome baby Snyder into the world?!
Gender Reveal: Pink Icing Filled Cupcakes
In a fun way to announce the gender to our coworkers, Monday afternoon/evening I made a couple batches of cupcakes for us to take into work. I filled them with pink icing to reveal the gender but topped them with white icing so that you couldn't see the pink. They turned out awesome if I do say so myself. Here are the steps in case you want to do something similar in the future.
Anyway, just thought i'd share this step by step in case anyone ever wanted to do it and didn't know how. It's a great way to reveal the gender. Alex had a good idea to only fill one of them so that they'd have to eat through the cupcakes to find out what it is, but that's a lot of cupcakes, sugar.. butter.. etc, lol. We might use that in the future though!
Step 1: Bake cupcakes and let them cool. Obviously.
Step 2: Use a sharp knife to cut a cone out of the top of each cupcake,
saving the cones in a bowl.
Step 3: Separate the icing that you made into two parts.
(I had to keep making more pink icing and then I had to make more
white icing because piping icing uses a lot more than just spreading it on).
Step 4: I chose a regular large open tip in my piping bag (sorry, no picture)
and then piped the pink icing into each cupcake.
Step 5: Put the cones back on. They don't have to be perfect since the rest
of the icing will be covering them anyway.
Step 6: Fill another piping bag with the desired tip attached. I did a large star tip. Frost those beautiful cupcakes, doing your best to start far on the outside to make sure to cover the pink.
Step 7: Test one! The lighting is way off in this picture but it showed the pink the best.
MMM.. i wish i had more here to eat, lol.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Gender Reveal. Birthdays. Shuffleboard. Housework.
Labor day weekend was great!
Friday night we had the gender reveal with our families. My mom bought Alex and I these cute booties (2 pairs) to hang from our car rearview mirrors. Mine are already in my car but here are Alex's. How cute are they!! They were actually supposed to be booties but my mom turned them into the car accessory, how creative! I can't believe babies tootsies are that tiny! The reveal went well, it was nice to hang out with both families at once, although it's quite hard to socialize with everyone at a restaurant. Everyone is excited for a baby girl!
Saturday we had to wake up early to head to York to sign a couple of papers that were missed when we bought our car. First we stopped at the Herr house to pickup a rototiller. Then we had to take it home before heading to York but got to experience the convenient cargo space of the Pilot. Speaking of.. here's finally a picture of it! After the signing which took about 5 minutes, we got our car washed in the rain (bc it's free for 30 days and only in York). We then headed home to pack and get ready to head to Nicholson for Glen's birthday party. First we lunched at Isaac's and took advantage of a coupon and then got on our way. 3 hours later, we arrived! lol. This was a surprise party for Glen so I think (hope) he was surprised. I totally underestimated the weather.. it was super humid out and I was wearing skinny jeans that stuck to me like glue. It was nice chatting and playing shoes and washers with the Hettel's and catching up with Glen and Jeanette. We ended the night around the fire and with some Ghost Adventures on tv.
The next morning, Mrs. Mackey made delicious potatoes and sausage. Mmm! We headed out around 10am and got home around 12:30ish. We ate some lunch and then headed to Home Depot to get a couple things. I thought about taking a nap and about starting some projects but settled with playing on the iPad and watching Titanic on tv. Later in the evening, we met up with Phil, Ashley, Anne, Jess, Lauren, Andy and one of Phil's coworkers at the Taproom in the city to celebrate Phil's birthday. We spent most of the time chatting and playing shuffleboard. It was awesome! Later we stopped by the Rendezvous Lounge at the Marriott where the following pictures were taken:
Today, we got to sleep in, which was fabulous. Followed by some rearranging of the upstairs furniture and then spray-painting the changing table while Alex brewed a beer. Now i'm writing blog posts for the week and hopefully having an early dinner followed by some straight up relaxation! I love busy weekends and especially weekends that I actually take a couple pictures! Enjoy the rest of the week!
Friday night we had the gender reveal with our families. My mom bought Alex and I these cute booties (2 pairs) to hang from our car rearview mirrors. Mine are already in my car but here are Alex's. How cute are they!! They were actually supposed to be booties but my mom turned them into the car accessory, how creative! I can't believe babies tootsies are that tiny! The reveal went well, it was nice to hang out with both families at once, although it's quite hard to socialize with everyone at a restaurant. Everyone is excited for a baby girl!
Saturday we had to wake up early to head to York to sign a couple of papers that were missed when we bought our car. First we stopped at the Herr house to pickup a rototiller. Then we had to take it home before heading to York but got to experience the convenient cargo space of the Pilot. Speaking of.. here's finally a picture of it! After the signing which took about 5 minutes, we got our car washed in the rain (bc it's free for 30 days and only in York). We then headed home to pack and get ready to head to Nicholson for Glen's birthday party. First we lunched at Isaac's and took advantage of a coupon and then got on our way. 3 hours later, we arrived! lol. This was a surprise party for Glen so I think (hope) he was surprised. I totally underestimated the weather.. it was super humid out and I was wearing skinny jeans that stuck to me like glue. It was nice chatting and playing shoes and washers with the Hettel's and catching up with Glen and Jeanette. We ended the night around the fire and with some Ghost Adventures on tv.
The next morning, Mrs. Mackey made delicious potatoes and sausage. Mmm! We headed out around 10am and got home around 12:30ish. We ate some lunch and then headed to Home Depot to get a couple things. I thought about taking a nap and about starting some projects but settled with playing on the iPad and watching Titanic on tv. Later in the evening, we met up with Phil, Ashley, Anne, Jess, Lauren, Andy and one of Phil's coworkers at the Taproom in the city to celebrate Phil's birthday. We spent most of the time chatting and playing shuffleboard. It was awesome! Later we stopped by the Rendezvous Lounge at the Marriott where the following pictures were taken:
Today, we got to sleep in, which was fabulous. Followed by some rearranging of the upstairs furniture and then spray-painting the changing table while Alex brewed a beer. Now i'm writing blog posts for the week and hopefully having an early dinner followed by some straight up relaxation! I love busy weekends and especially weekends that I actually take a couple pictures! Enjoy the rest of the week!
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