Scarlett Pannebaker

-I had a very vivid /awesome dream the other night about Matt Saracen and I crawling through plastic tunnels (a la McDonald's playhouse) together. What do you think this means, besides the fact that I have a dangerous celebrity crush in my life? If he shows up in my dreams anymore I might burst. Mega.Crush. Cannot help it. Still can't get over his real name being Zach (because he is such a Matt) but I will forgive him in honor of these pictures. Are you dying? Dead. 

(Source: Alexi Lubomirski)

-Probably dreamt about him (again) because I'm watching Friday Night Lights (again). I know. I'm a loser who just binged on all 5 seasons and now I'm starting over with season one. I realize there are other really great shows out there but we haven't settled on one yet. I figured I could just watch a few of the first episodes to see how different it is now, knowing how the characters change over time. I doubt I will re-watch the ENTIRE show or anything but I wouldn't put it past me, either. I love it so much. I could easily write one really long rambling post about the show but I will refrain. But Coach and Tami are the best, Julie does not deserve Matt, Tyra wins for 'most changed' character, and Grandma Saracen is heartbreaking/hilarious/my favorite. There you have my in-depth review.

-Onto the real-life man of my dreams (Hi, husband!)….Nate is planning to teach at a local PT school this semester. It will probably 'only' be an additional four hours each week but even having him working 44 hours plus a longish commute feels like a lot to me. He will be a great adjunct professor (TA?) and it's something he has wanted to do for awhile now, so I'm supportive of this decision. But we sure will miss our four 'family time' hours and will just have to make up for that on the weekends somehow. 

-I didn't include this in my Moms Make It Work post, but it fits here: because I work 3 days per week (roughly 20 hours) and Nate works 5 days (and 40 hours soon to be 44), I definitely do more of the housework/kid stuff/meals. That's part of our set up: I work part time to be at home with the kids more often, so I also get more of the 'household' duties on my plate. I don't mind at all except that I truly dislike cooking dinner with both kids alone. Nate doesn't get home until 7:30ish on Mondays and Wednesdays and it's usually not until 6pm on Fridays. That means we eat dinner without him for those three nights and I will prepare dinner as fast as humanly possible, usually while holding Cecelia or placing her strategically on the counter to 'help'. We meal plan and it's fine but life is just so much better in those evening hours when Nate is home...which is Tuesday and Thursday, when he gets home around 4:30 at the latest. I guess with his teaching gig he is going to try and maintain these two 'early' evenings to be home for dinner with us (thank god). He will be leaving for work at 6:45am now instead of his usual 7:15am and although I'm not a huge fan of getting both kids ready before work alone, I'd still do that 500 times over than deal with the crankiness of evening hours alone. Mostly it's the worst on MWF after daycare, when the kids are tired and I'm tired from working and dinner must be made. So anyway, yay for keeping our two weeknights at the family dinner table. Boo for the other nights when I wing it solo. But we make it work;)

(On a Thursday night when we are both home to be a team in the kitchen/child duty? We can rock out an amazing meal like this. Bacon-wrapped pork, garlic broccoli, couscous with butter and feta, and Ceasar salad. All that is missing is a beer...)

-My 20 week anatomy scan ultrasound is on the books. Tuesday, February 18th is the big day…at 20 weeks on the dot, 9 am in the morning and Nate plans to take off the whole day. Cannot wait! Talking to Andrea about a gender reveal photoshoot immediately after the scan, at her new studio. The possibilities are endless.

-Lots of great questions on the Six Questions site! Polls close on Saturday, and I will answer the top six on video. Might have to do a blog post to hit the others since a lot of them have the same thing (i.e. how do you get it all done? Spoiler alert: I don't.).

-Nate and I have been doing some of the p90x yoga DVD and it feels awesome. Well, it's hard as hell and we never get close to the full 90 minutes because that is just insane. But I definitely need to work on my posture and strength so this is a great trade off from my usual 'favorite' cardiovascular routine of running. I will just steer clear of too many planks since they make my uterus feel funny and there is no need to work on abdominal strengthening right now.

-Now that coffee tastes like heaven again, I'm having a hard time sticking to just one cup of the black gold. I don't even bother with any on mornings I work because it's not worth it to rush through the comforts of my beloved coffee. But on mornings I'm home? It's painful to stop at one cup. I find this interesting since for my other pregnancies, I was pretty hard core and had NONE with an occasional decaff thrown in there after the first trimester. Not that I was super strict about things with CC, but this third time around I'm a lot more lax (i.e. yummy deli turkey sandwiches, caffeine, soft cheeses). Anyway, coffee rules again.

-I washed all of my maternity clothes and have them in my closet already. Wearing my maternity leggings showed me that even though my bump isn't huge yet it's still SO comfortable to wear maternity pants. Still not sure the tops will look right on this 14 week belly but we will see. I'm ready for my last journey with my (somewhat pathetic) maternity wardrobe.


-Henry hasn't been groomed since July. He is the shaggiest he's ever been but somehow I just can't get his hair cut because it seems so cold without that furry mess. However, I did have an unfortunate incident involving cutting out unmentionable products from his backside today. And then I had to wash every sheet in our whole house which was also highly annoying and time consuming. Perhaps it is time to cut that mane after all.



(note the first pair of real skinny jeans, plus a rather odd tunic top. Love the jeans but the top seems too small around the bottom to me. Cecelia agrees)


-Have you ever heard of using a little bit of mayonnaise instead of butter for grilled cheese sandwiches? Our butter is always so hard and difficult to spread (even the tub stuff) but mayo? Genius! It tastes just as good and grills up so nicely. You are welcome.

-Cecelia calls any speck of dirt 'poop' now. For instance, our dish towel had some smeared peanut butter on it and she pointed to it with a worried look, saying: 'poop'. Any fuzz ball from our rug/dark socks? Poop. A freckle on my neck? Poop. I don't know but the way she says it is hilarious.

-She is also obsessed with brushing her teeth and will run to either bathroom to get the toothbrush NUMEROUS times per day. In fact, we have started to shut the bathroom doors because she is getting so out of control with her dental hygiene. That in itself would be fine, of course, but then I caught her licking the side of the toothpaste. Nasty. She also worries me in the bathroom alone because she likes to flush the toilet and you never know what will be leaving this world with that flush.

-Truman has been super helpful and really fun lately. It always goes in phases but right now he is a ton of fun. My big guy.


-Let's end this post on another Matt....er, Zach note. Um, this is Julie (Aimee Teegarden)??? YES. Although she still doesn't deserve him, her brown hair and absence of bangs RIGHT in her eyes at all times makes her adorable here.

(source: ace show biz)

And his real-life bride is even more beautiful, and their wedding was stunning. For some reason wedding photos weird me out with copyright stuff, so I won't post any here but do yourself a favor and google their wedding. You will not be disappointed. Note: he cried watching her walk down the aisle. Can't even handle it.