24 Weeks!

Baby Caroline is officially "viable" today! That means she would probably survive if something happened and she were born now. But many prayers that she stays in until March. I like my babies like I like my steak- well done.

Pregnancy has been wonderful, with a small dash of miserable. Here's an update on all things baby:

Symptoms: still have morning sickness (better when I take my nausea medicine) and a 5-month-long cold

Baby's size: 1 lb. 3 oz., 12 inches

My weight gain: 11 lbs

Clothes: maternity pants and a mix of maternity shirts/baggy regular shirts

Stretch marks: not yet!

Sleep: my stuffy nose and coughing keep me up at night more than baby does

Movement: She moves ALL THE TIME. Her little kicks are the best. Sometimes my belly feels like a hamster wheel. Not only can you feel her kicking, but you can see her kicking. Super weird. When I eat chocolate, ice cream, or cake, she looks like this:

Cravings: chocolate, ice cream, and cake. We might share some DNA.

Exciting news: We registered this weekend! Chris survived 2 hours at Babies R Us before becoming a zombie. [slow clap for Chris] We were very confused and overwhelmed by all the baby products. We don't know what they all do and everything is so expensive! But since the only thing Caroline currently owns is a handful of clothes, we need to figure this stuff out asap.

Sad news: We have to buy a new car. Again, very overwhelming. I'm looking for advice. We need a car with trunk space. We've been looking at Nissan Altimas/Rogues but are open to ANY ideas. If you have an affordable car with awesome trunk space, let me know!

Finally, a recent picture of our little girl:

A Baby Adventure

We're having a baby!!

We are SO excited. I think it's important to first mention that we do not take this blessing lightly. There are so many people hoping and waiting to be parents. We understand that. I thank God everyday that he has given us this child, and I pray that if you are waiting, your wait will be over soon.

As you can imagine, this has been a long road. Most of this story is not appropriate for the interwebs, so long story short, birth control pills are the devil. They made me 50 shades of cray the last few months I took them. I'm all for most people taking birth control, but until they make child-sized dosages (let's all pray they don't), I don't need to take them. Turns out--if you don't take birth control, you can get pregnant! I'm currently 18 weeks.

Pregnancy has been a barrel of fun so far. Joking. (But seriously- so thankful to have this gift.) Morning sickness is no joke. It didn't seem real until our first ultrasound. At first, we found out we were having a Sour Patch Kid:

10 weeks

I found out I am due on March 10, which is 2 days before my birthday!! Since my birthday is my favorite day of the year, I'm so excited to finally have someone who will share my excitement.

Later, we found out the Sour Patch Kid is actually a baby:

13 weeks

This is Baby lounging on its head with both hands under its head and legs propped up. This would normally be super cute, except that the ultrasound tech was trying to measure the back of its neck and it wouldn't move its arms. Stubborn. I don't know who that comes from.

We had our most recent ultrasound yesterday and found out Baby is a GIRL! Chris and I totally thought it was a boy, so we spent most of yesterday in shock. We have some pictures, but they all show the lady bits so I'm gonna not put my child's business all out there. She's definitely a girl. Her name is Caroline. <3

There has been very minimal progression in the belly region, but I promise it's there.

Pregnancy brings some strange symptoms. I expected the "ralphing" every morning, but I did not realize I would also acquire narcolepsy and a never-ending string of brain farts. Seriously, my IQ dropped like 50 points when I got pregnant. I tried to break into a closed dialysis lab yesterday because I thought it was my doctor's office. (I was on the wrong floor.) My current favorite symptom is rhinitis. Yesterday, my doctor told me my nose looked swollen. I called her several bad names in my head and thought, "Are you telling me my nose is big?" But Chris confirmed that my sinuses were indeed swollen. Turns out this might not go away until Caroline is here. On the bright side, I've got a sweet man singing voice. Like, Miley Cyrus would be proud.

Our next major milestone will be passing the glucose test. If anyone has any tips on how not to get gestational diabetes, let me know. And don't say stop eating cake.

I can't wait to share this adventure with all of you!

Lil Update on the O'Briens

Well, it's been a while since I've blogged. I wish I could say it's because we've been super busy, but it's actually because we've been super boring. No one wants to read about boring people.

But there have been a few things going on in our lives. They are as follows:

We spent the summer in Mississippi. That's a different place. Chris had a 7 week clinical placement at an acute care hospital in Columbus. We were sooo thankful that his aunt and uncle, Lynne and David, lived just down the road so we were not homeless. Also thankful their house did not have bullet holes in it... as ours currently did. That's another story.

The month in the 'Sip was just as you might imagine it-- fishing, lost satellites on the GPS, and wild hogs hitting our car. It was wonderful.

We Sarah made a cake:

Itchy tried to eat the O'Brien family cat 3x a day:

We lounged:

Sadly, we had to come home and take care of ourselves like real adults. And deal with that bullet hole.

A few other current events:

• I just started my 6th year of teaching. We are up to our eyeballs in Common Core, but 2nd grade is still the best of them all.
• Chris began his final year of PT school today. And paid tuition payment #8. One more to go. ONE. MORE. TO. GO.
• We have started attending a new church in Murfreesboro. This has been one heck of a journey. Chris and I had such great churches families in Knoxville and miss them so much more than we ever knew we would. Since being in Nashville, we have officially seen it all when it comes to churches. Churches with a little this, a little that, none of what matters. Churches that are HARD to fit in to. Churches with more emphasis on performance than community. Churches more interested in being relevant than preaching truth. On the recommendation from a friend (of course a Knox-church-friend), we have started attending a church 0.2 miles from our house. It's a mix between Calvary (my home) and CrossWalk (Chris' home) with a Mark Driscoll/Greg Pinkner/Louis Giglio hybrid pastor. We are really praying this is our final home. We are so tired of being homeless.
• And finally, football season begins in 5 days. So at this moment, we're still really pumped about Tennessee's season. Don't rain on our parade. We will begin accepting flowers and chocolate by the end of October.
• Go Vols. We love you anyway.

Craziest Month of Our Life

Seriously though. Things got weird.

We moved! Yay! Chris and I have been wanting to move out of our apartment for quite some time. An opportunity presented itself to rent a beautiful town home from a friend, so we jumped on it.

Just kidding. We had a Uhaul, but I did pass this person the day we moved. Some very curious events followed.

Twin Oaks, our apartment complex in Nashville, had a "clerical" error. The maintenance staff were given a different move-out date than the one we were given. They went in 6 days before our lease ended and cleaned it out. We were really lucky that we only had 1 more load left in the apartment. That load consisted of a chest of drawers, an ottoman, all cleaning equipment and supplies, and all the food in our freezer. Apartment managers insist everything was thrown away, but nothing could be located in dumpsters. Suspicious....

Fortunately, they have reimbursed us for most of the things we lost. Some of our more special items can't be replaced, but at the end of the day, they are just things. My mom and co-workers have helped us replace some things, and we are so grateful for them!!


As all of this was happening, Chris and I took a trip to Charleston! We've been so excited about this trip for a long time, mainly because this is the first time since Chris began grad school that we have both been out of school at the same time! We did as much as possible in 4 days--Folly Beach, all the great restaurants, Ft. Sumter, a ghost tour, Shakespeare Abridged, Spoleto Festival, and walked about 30 miles.

Beautiful houses in the Battery. We found some friends.

We toured the Old City Jail. Didn't see any ghosts.

Chris has ADD. He chased crabs while I enjoyed the sun.

We came home to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary! Woo hoo! Reflecting on the past year of marriage, I would say the theme has been "unconditional love." When we are stressed, overwhelmed, worried, feeling hopeless,  and frustrated, we have promised to love each other through it. Chris is really, really good at this, and I am so thankful for his commitment to see me through everything.

June 12, 2013

Other exciting events since school ended:

We joined a small group called the Nashville Wiener Romp. They meet up at Centennial Park every so often and the wiener dogs frolic and play...or make butt-sniffing cha-cha lines.

We also celebrated Father's Day with my parents by grilling everything in the world. Then we tried to take a picture of the kids (minus Mark) and Dad. Its hard to get 3 Johnsons to smile at the same time.

When we're not gallivanting around with wiener dogs or ghost hunting, we're getting settled into our new home. We love it, but we are finally accepting the fact that we have the worst luck with neighbors. We'll leave it at that for now. 

Summer break rocks.

The Day After College Graduation

This post is dedicated to two of my favorite people in the world:

 

Catherine and Sarah graduated from college yesterday! Well, they both graduated for the second time with graduate degrees, which makes them even more awesome. I am a serious loser because not only did I miss both of their graduations, but I creeped their facebooks and stole these pictures. Derp....

Catherine was my roommate at UT for 328 years. We're actually married according to common-law cohabitation tradition. You can now address our mail to Dr. and Mrs. Moe-O'Brien. She is officially a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine! 

Sarah is my sister (in-law, technically). She is now the master of school counseling, which formally makes her everyone's favorite person. The coolest part is she's not even done yet! This overachiever is still going for more!

Reality hit hard yesterday when I realized that I graduated from college 5 years ago. I was super happy at the time. 

University of Tennessee Class of 2008

And terrified. 

Derp...

College is not real life. I have put together a comparison chart...because that's what I do.

To be fair (and not so depressing), real life has some pretty great perks too. It's nice to relax after a long day's work and not have homework. It's nice to make real money that you know where it came from. It's nice that most of your friends will be free at a certain time--no memorizing 14 different class schedules. Mostly, it's really, really great to get together with your friends from college and reminisce all those wonderful memories.

So, to Catherine, Sarah, and everyone else that graduated yesterday, welcome to the first day of real life! Congratulations on your huge accomplishments, and know that you have a lot of real life people cheering you on!

Artsy Fartsy

Spring break = craft time. And naps. And also, I ate an entire can of black beans today. Just the black beans, no other food.

I'm a weird spring breaker.

But I did do something productive! I made an art. I will now add this to my "Things Laura Can Do" website. (That is a whole other blog.)

First, the materials:

• 12" x 12" canvas
• acrylic paint
• brushes
• wooden letter
• brand new hot glue gun from your in-laws!

Step 1: Draw your design. I like things to be as close to paint by number as possible.

Step Two: Start painting.

Step Three: Keep painting.

Step Four: Put a second layer of paint on your art because that's what you do on walls. Then hot glue your wooden letter (which you also painted) right in the middle.

Viola! This is my art. And in Nashville, you are not allowed to criticize anyone's art. One of the perks of Nashville.

The Last Picture is the Best

"Lord have mercy on me."

We sang these words at tonight's Tenebrae service. So true. For always, but especially these past few months. When I first started the blog, Chris had one rule: No blogging about unkind things. That included whining or going in-depth about difficult situations I find myself in. Those conversations are meant for "Lifetime chats" over coffee.

So...I'd really love to have coffee with any of you. I have some complaints. God has been testing my patience and perseverance daily. But He's also been doing some really cool things--showing me He's still Boss, but He's also on my side. He wouldn't have died for me then let me drown.

Let's chat about that sometime.

Aside from some crazy hard life deals so far this year, Chris and I have been chugging through this adventure in Nashville. Chris will finish his 2nd year of physical therapy school in May and then begin a year of clinicals. We are pretty excited about his first two placements and are praying that he gets Nashville-area placements for spring 2014.

We haven't had much snow this year. Actually, this is the most snow we had. Sad times, but Itchy got to experience some snow for the first time. He clearly loves it.

Chris and I went to our first Predators hockey game. This is where all the sporty Nashville people have been hiding. It was actually kind of nice to have a conversation with someone from Nashville that didn't involve coffee shops or artistic endeavors.

Last year, Chris' family came to Nashville for a fun "Nashville-y" weekend. I hated Nashville at that point, so I pretended to be sick the whole time and we never left the house. -- Just kidding, I really was sick and felt bad that they didn't see anything. So we had a "Nashville Extravaganza" redo weekend and it was awesome!

Waiting in line at the American Pickers store...

Mother and Son looking adorable.

Sarah and I looking adorable.

O'Briens at a St. Patrick's Day Festival. So excited to finally have my own day to be celebrated for all my gingerness.


This week is my spring break, so I have high hopes for a great week of doing nothing. Really, I couldn't be more excited. This has been a rough couple of months.

In fact, I found a picture on my computer today that both sums up these past few months and makes me laugh so hard I forget about the last few months.

I have no explanation.