Babies, Babies, Babies!

They say when you get pregnant it seems like everyone is pregnant, well in my case they are!

Last weekend I went to Fort Worth to Liz's twin baby shower. Yes that's right, Liz is having TWIN girls that are due in July! Along with Liz, there are 4 other pregnant ZTAs, all of which got married last year - crazy huh? Liz is due in July, Megan in October, Christy in November, and me in December! Here we are lined up for our bump shot!

Here's Liz opening the Princess Onesies I got her - gotta love that 5 point crown!

SFA Zetas

After the shower Christy and I decided to stay one more night (we had both originally planned to head home after the shower) and I am so glad we did. We met up with Natalie and Ashley at a cute little part of Fort Worth called West 7th (I think). We ate at a restaurant called Patrizio's that I assumed was going to be expensive because it looked so swanky, but was super reasonable! Yay for time with my girls!

I am so lucky to have such wonderful college friends. I'm not friends with that many of my high school friends because I graduated a year early, but I am so blessed to have these girls. Love my ZTAs!

Where have I been??

I don't know if I could even tell you - it's been such a hectic and busy year so far!

Here's a quick run down of what has been going on with the Pages in the last month:

First week of October: I had a mysterious mole removed on my arm. My doctor thought it might be Melanoma, but it came back clear - YAY! It did give me a good scare though, so I made a dermatologist appointment and when I went he said all of my moles/freckles looked good, but that I have pre-cancerous cells on my lips. I had to have the skin on my bottom lip frozen which gave me an awesome blister that looked like a fever blister. I also have to use this cream (over the holiday break) that will burn off several layers of skin on my lips to get rid of the scary pre-cancerous cells.

October 8th: College Day at my elementary school! I love college day because I absolutely love where I went to college. It was a blast telling the kids all about "Essefay" (S.F.A.) and letting them try on my cap and gown. They also loved seeing the picture of "Mr. Casey" and me on my graduation day.

October 8-10: Home to Longview to visit my dad and relax. Casey and I helped him fix the roof and paint his kitchen. My dad also started a new job recently that he really loves. Thank you Lord for giving my dad a job that he loves!

October 11: I survived Parent/Teacher conferences - Year 2. Last year I threw up on my way into conferences. This year was much better. :) I have a great group of parents this year - another thing to be thankful for!

October 16: Dinner with our old friends the Tolars. Trey was my outside salesman when I worked at Elliott Electric Supply and we became great friends during that time. It was so great to hang out with them and get to see their kids - they are such a cute family!

October 23: Stephen F. Austin vs. Sam Houston game at Reliant Stadium! Casey and I got tickets through the ZTA alumni association earlier this year to go to the SFA vs. Sam game and we had so much fun tailgaiting with friends and watching the game. Oh and the Lumberjack Marching band did Beyonce "Single Ladies" and Lady Gaga!! That absolutely made my day. :)

October 22: Family pumpkin carving night at Casey's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Gregs! A year ago Casey proposed to me at this event so it was really tough opening up a pumpkin and not finding a diamond ring (kidding). Casey and I went traditional this year and made pretty basic pumpkins, but they turned out really well. Here we are with our pumpkins!

October 30: Halloween parties. Casey dressed up as the "Hide yo' kids, Hide yo' wife" guy (Antoine Dodson) and I dressed up as Santana from my favorite show GLEE!

October 31: My MIL's birthday! I love that her birthday is on Halloween! We went out to eat at Black Walnut Cafe and then back to the house for ice cream cake - yum!

That pretty much brings me up to date!

Alice & Jennifer

Wow has this been a busy weekend! Friday Casey and I decided to take ourselves on a date (when you join bank accounts you really can't take each other on dates because we're both paying for it) to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie and have a bite to eat at a new pizza place in town. Unfortunately we had no idea how popular this new place is and didn't allow ourselves time for a 45 minute wait so we ended up eating at Which Wich? instead. All I can say about Which Wich? is that there are WAY too many options for someone as indecisive as I am, but they do make an awesome chocolate malt.

We finally made our way over to the movie theater and even though we were both skeptical about the new Alice movie, it surprised us both. You see, in our humble opinion, you can only make so many movies where Johnny Depp plays the same "tortured" character and Tim Burton throws his "crazy" spin on the directing. Tim Burton should just admit that he is in love with Johnny Depp and get over it. <--- joke. Anyway - we were very impressed by the actress (Mia something) who played Alice so it was a nice movie all in all.

On Saturday we both woke up early because Casey had to work that morning and I had a ton of stuff to do. I ended up dropping him off at work at 8am so that I could pick him up at noon and we could head straight to Longview for Jennifer Mawer's wedding. After dropping him off I got my nails done and went to Bed Bath & Beyond to get a gift for the lovely couple. When I finally got home I was surprised to see that it was almost 11 - how does 3 hours go by THAT quickly?? I am realizing that the older I get the faster time goes by. I always heard my parents say that, but I guess Saturday morning I really realized how true it is. When you're 5 years old, 5 minutes seems like an eternity, when your 25 it feels like 5 seconds. Anyway, I rushed over to get Casey and off to Longview we went.

Jennifer & Carl's wedding was by far the MOST fun wedding we have been to together. Jennifer looked ridiculously gorgeous and Carl could not have looked happier. The wedding & reception was a perfect mix of elegance and party atmosphere and we were so glad we got to hang out with all of our friends that we don't get to see often enough. So here's one wedding down, 3 to go this year! As soon as I get some pictures (I forgot my camera, ughhhhh!!) I will post them!

Today we got up and went to have breakfast with my Dad and then did a little shopping around Longview and headed home. We stopped through Nacogdoches and drove around campus for a while and talked about how much we missed the place and how much it had changed. I was surprised to see that they are tearing down Garner apartments! It kind of brought a tear to my eye because (and you know this if you went to SFA) Garner is such a big part of SFA history and tradition with the purple light at the top and everything. Anyway, I guess I was just feeling nostalgic and it made me a little sad to see such a big SFA symbol being torn down.

All in all it was a fabulous weekend and Casey and I are looking forward to all of the other weddings this year, especially our own! Hope everyone has a great week, here's a shout out to all of my fellow teachers who are on Spring Break! Whoo hoo!!!

College Day, Pumpkins, and more!

Okay so I have been a bad blogger lately. Things have been so busy and now that I have an iPhone I hardly ever get on my actual computer at home. So here are a few updates:

2 weeks ago my school had College Day and we got to wear College Tshirts and bring stuff from college to show the students. I think this is a great thing because it introduces the idea of college to so many students, some of whom may not even know what college is because their
parents didn't go. So of course I wore an SFA Alumni shirt and I even brought my cap, gown, and a picture from graduation. The kids loved hearing about "Essefay" and learning how to do the "Axe 'Em Jacks" sign! Luckily my librarian, next door teacher, and all 3 principals went to SFA so I wasn't the only one trying to indoctrinate them. Here are a few pictures from that day:




Yeah so maybe I brainwashed them, but so what?













Okay so on to Pumpkins!

Jessica, Chris, Casey, and I had our 3rd annual Chagla-Page/Wood pumpkin carving get together last Saturday and it was a blast as usual. Since Chris had to work from 3:00-5:00 we went to the pumpkin patch around noon and picked out our pumpkins. This year it was slim pickins at the pumpkin patch and Case and I were very upset that they didn't have hay bails and corn stalks for decorating. Here are some pics from the pumpkin patch:


After getting our pumpkins we headed back home and Jess and I went to get pedicures and did a little shopping. I found a really cute pair of winter boots at Kohls and even though I was trying to stay away from stilleto heels, these were too pretty to pass up.


After shopping and pedis, Jess and I picked up stuff for tacos and some southwestern eggrolls from Chilis- one of my biggest weaknesses. I am obsessed with those things! After getting home and devouring chips & salsa/queso and the eggrolls I cooked up some taco meat and we had dinner. I love taco night - it never gets old to me. After eating we started carving the pumpkins and put on some "scary" movies. Jessica doesn't like horror films so we watched Young Frankenstein & Shaun of the Dead- if you haven't checked these out you really need to they are both hilarious! Casey and I chose a Nightmare Before Christmas theme and I carved Jack Skellington and he carved the Oogie-Boogie. They turned out really cute!



Chris did a Scarecrow and Jess did a really awesome and complicated Haunted House scene- yet again she won for most difficult pumpkin pattern! I got done with my Jack-O-Lantern first so I took all of our pumpkin guts and separated the seeds from the goop and made some roasted pumpkin seeds with a twist. Jess and I had read an article in Redbook about making gourmet pumpkin seeds so I decided to experiment. I made three different kinds: Mexican inspired, Italian inspired, and Indian inspired. They were all pretty good except the curry ones were a little bitter.

To make a long story even longer - pumpkin night was a success! More later!