Sleeping In

This morning I indulged by sleeping in for as long as I wanted to without feeling the least bit guilty for it. Even once I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, I just continued to lounge around in the bed for quite some time. It was so incredibly nice! The fatigue from pregnancy and work just finally got the best of me. It made me feel better when I sat up and noticed that both of my dogs were keeping me company laying beside my bed. It made me feel a little less lazy by having company sleeping in with me, even if the company was my dogs who sleep virtually all day anyway.

When I did finally decide to get up it was just in time to make it to Zumba again at Babs McDance. I feel like I'm on a roll now having gone to Zumba two days in a row. It certainly helped to get my day started off right and made me feel much more productive after having slept in late. Afterwards, I felt revived and ready to make the most of one of my last days at home for the hiatus. Good thing too because Marshall had made plans to meet Dino and his 10 month old son, Dylan at Barnes and Nobles for coffee.

B&N is our coffee spot. It's where we always meet Tina and Dino for coffee dates. We always joke when we go there that we will probably see Dino and 75% of the time we do. It's his home away from home. He can usually be found in the cafe drinking coffee and reading either a Christian philosophy book or parenting book. So I ran home and and showered and changed and off to B&N we went. Fortunately, it is only a few miles from our house so we didn't keep Dino and Dylan waiting long. Dylan was pretty good for most of the visit despite being a little stir crazy. I don't think Dino brought enough things to keep him occupied. When I held him, he was immediately intrigued by my necklace. Ever since I received it, I've been wearing Nolan's footprint and a silver key my Mom gave me in the hospital so that I would always remember that Nolan held the key to my heart.

Holding Dylan and watching him try his best to get his hands on the footprint pendant I remembered what Tifni had told me about hers. She said her youngest child Mallory always would rub the pendant whenever Tifni would hold her. Who knows Mallory might have rubbed it regardless of what it was, but maybe she rubbed it because it was her brother's footprint. I don't know why Dylan was so intrigued with Nolan's footprint pendant but I found it interesting that of all the jewelry I had on - earrings, rings, bracelet and necklace - that was the one thing he wanted desperately to get his hands on.

Even though he's only 10 months, I venture to say that Dylan is much bigger than most 10 months old. Not being an infant anymore, Marshall was willing to hold and play with him. Ever since Nolan passed away Marshall has been unwilling to hold or even touch an infant, regardless of who it is. He wouldn't hold Dylan until he was several months only and could sit up and hold his head up by himself. It was nice to see Marshall playing with and holding Dylan. Marshall still won't hold or touch Harper even though she's over a month old. Hopefully, once we have our baby in March and he holds our baby and takes the baby home his perception on infants will change. I think he just wants the next newborn he holds to be our own healthy baby.

After B&N, Marshall and I decided to head to Wrightsville Beach for some lunch. It wasn't a good boat day because it was too choppy from the storm coming in and it wasn't a great beach day due to the looming storm clouds. It was, however, a great day to sit out on Crystal Pier and eat lunch. So we headed down to The Oceanic for lunch and enjoyed the outdoors. We managed to make it through lunch on the pier before the rain started to fall. It was a wonderfully relaxing lunch as we watched the surfers try unsuccessfully to catch the storm surf. More than anything I was able to quench my craving of some pregnancy approved fish.

One of the things I've missed the most being in Charlotte is having time with my girl friends. When I'm home we all get together at least once a week. So tonight is the weekly get together to watch So You Think You Can Dance and eat some grub. I'm hosting it tonight, so Marshall and I had to go shopping to get some things to make dinner.

I decided on tater tot casserole because it is awesome and easy and everyone seems to like it. The original recipe I have calls for beef, but usually I make it with ground turkey instead. Tonight though Marshall decided he would rather have beef so we are changing it up. It ended up just being Susan and Shea tonight as Stacey was busy but it was still a great time. Even though this is definitely not the best season of SYTYCD it was still a fun evening with some great company. I sure am going to miss those girls when I go back to Charlotte.