Saturdays are nice.

My last three posts all included the word "sometimes" in the title. I think that's indicative that I'm overusing that word.

I can't say this with utter certainty, but I think there really is some kind of "mom gene" that kicks into gear when you're about to become a mom. You see, until a couple months ago, I didn't really cook. I tried. Every now and then I'd feel inspired to make some lovely sounding meal, only to taste it and feel utterly disappointed at my cooking skills. Most of the time I'd just throw the leftovers out--that's how much I didn't like it! But lately, my mom gene has kicked in and I can now cook quite yummy meals. It's strange, really. I made Chicken Pot Pie (with my own homemade crust, I might add) that turned out very yummy. I made some Homestyle Potatoes to go on the side of our grilled chicken that were awesome! I also made Chicken and Wild Rice Soup AND Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole (they tasted completely different, but both wonderful!). And I've made a vanilla pound cake, a vanilla yogurt cake, and have the ingredients for some no-bake chocolate bars. :) I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of myself. Hah! :)

The dogs have improved immensely in their training. We still have a bit of work to do, but overall, I'm glad we didn't spend the ridiculous amount of money to have them trained. We're doing quite well on our own--for free! Last night my sisters arrived for the weekend. Now Sabre loves Brittany something fierce and keeping him from jumping on her seemed like it might be the ultimate test of our training abilities. However, it's exactly the situation we need so we can get him to stop jumping on his favorite people. And wonderfully enough for us, he jumped towards her but not on her--a vast improvement from times past! Both Sabre and Tatum are doing much better at waiting for my command to go outside when we open the door. It's still not foolproof when someone knocks on the door, but we're just taking it one step at a time. Sabre does seem to understand that when he brings bricks into the house from the backyard (the best toys in the world, apparently) and I say, "Sabre, that's an outside toy," that he needs to take it back outside. Hah! He, of course, brings it back in a few minutes later, and then we go on repeat, but the fact that he takes it out at all amuses me to no end. :)

My chiropractor taught Travis how to do a basic back adjustment (similar to cracking someone's back but much more beneficial), so now I can get a basic adjustment for free! And I think Travis rather enjoys that he can actually do something that helps long(er) term. :) A back massage helps in the moment, but doesn't last. He's asked me to do it to him, but between my ever protruding belly and complete and total lack of upper body strength, I'm not sure there's much chance it's gonna happen.

I apparently decided that as soon as I entered into my third trimester of pregnancy, I would start working more. It's a bit backwards, perhaps, but it'll probably be good for me. Better than sitting home all day long, trying to find things to do to fill up my time. Instead, I now tutor Monday through Thursday in the mornings, and starting next week, I will resume babysitting in the afternoons throughout the week. On the upside though, I will be contributing a bit more to our monthly income than I was (hah!) and that's always helpful. Oh yes!! Now that it's April, I can officially say that in the month of March, we cut $100 off our grocery bill AND, compared to February, we knocked off $120 from our "eating out" spending! That's $220 saved just by planning meals, eating leftovers, and resisting the temptation to eat out all the time! I think I've found a new way of life. ;) Plus this whole meal planning allows me to embrace my pregnancy nesting by cooking and cleaning. Because after you cook, you then have to clean. (Which is probably one of the top reasons I avoided cooking in the first place. But the nesting, guys! It's real!)

Last night I went to my last movie before having a baby. And that's my final decision. We watched The Winter Soldier (Is it sad that I only seem to go to movies based on comic books? Comic books, I might add, that I've never read...) and while it was a good movie, I have never been so uncomfortable in a movie theater in my life. It's as if my back has changed shape or something, so I can't lean back and get support in the right places so I end up slouching more, which then hurts my butt and shoulders. I could kind of lean back and be semi-comfortable but to do that, my feet couldn't be completely on the floor, so in the end, that wasn't very comfortable either. It's a good thing I enjoyed the movie, because otherwise, I would have been out the door halfway through.

Everyone is sleeping still, except the dogs who are being dangerously quiet in the backyard. A quiet dog (unless sleeping) is never a good sign. Sabre always hides behind the couch and is suddenly as quiet as possible. When we go check to see what he's doing, 9 times out of 10, he's found something he's not supposed to have and is in the process of chewing/tearing it up. Luckily it's usually a clean paper napkin we were going to use (he loves ripping up paper products)... or at Christmas it was frequently a favorite ornament from the tree (though he rarely fully destroyed those). In other dog news, both Sabre and Tatum are now microchipped (Tatum took it like a champ, Sabre cried like a baby) and Sabre's days as an intact male are coming to an end soon, now that he's pretty much done growing (give or take a couple months, perhaps). (That last sentence probably needs to be restructured, but I'm not going to do it.)

Oh and if you haven't tried Blue Bell's new ice cream flavor "I Heart Chocolate," you are seriously depriving yourself of true deliciousness in this world. Go buy some. Now.