Reasons Why

I have the greatest husband ever. Here is the lastest evidence:

• At the ward Christmas party they had the primary program showing the first Christmas, complete with the angel chior. My husband and I were sitting in the back and I was worried I wouldn't be able to hear the songs really well. I shouldn't have worried. My husband sang right along with every song the angel chior sang.
• Monday night my husband did all the dishes for me and let me relax, take a bath, and read a book. There is nothing so good as a man with a dishtowel in his hand standing in a cleaned kitchen!
• Last weekend my husband finally decided on what he's getting me for Christmas. You may be wondering how I know exactly when he decided. I know because ever since Saturday he's been "mysterious" about going over to his brother's house to work on it and keeps saying, "I bet you wish you knew what you are getting for Christmas!"
• The other night he said (and I am completely quoting him here), "You probably didn't see it, but I just put my silly pants on." Right after he had said something completely out of character. It made me crack up!
• And the last, and best reason is what happened last night. For about a week now my back has hurt after laying down for a while. When I say hurt I mean it hurts so bad that it wakes me up from sleeping in the night and I spend hours trying to get back to sleep. I do my whale roll over and over in the bed trying to get my massive body into a comfortable position (impossible). I asked the doctor and he said that there's really nothing I can do about it. Now that my bellie is so big it's just going to hurt and I can't take anything that would be effective in treating the pain. I can do some exercises and put some heat on it, but that's it. I've complained to my husband about it, but I have tried my hardest not to wake him up since he has to get up so early anyway. Well last night my back started to ache before I even fell asleep so I was thinking it would be a not so good night for me. And I would have been right, except for the fact that when I woke up in the middle of the night with back pain I accidently woke him up with all my flopping around. Instead of complaining about waking him up he offered to give me a back massage. He massaged my back until I fell asleep again!

See I told you I have the best husband ever!

The Library

One fun thing about reading a book that you check out from the "Library of Mom" is that occasionally you get to find little treats. Like today when I found, between the pages of a book that I could swear had never been read before (only because she reads so fast she doesn't crease anything) some crumbs from a pink cookie she must have been eating while reading the book. Pink cookies! Mmmmm! I love Great Harvest. I love their bread, I love their cookies, I love their lunch menu! Next time I go home I'm getting a brown bag lunch from Great Harvest with the biggest pink cookie they offer!

A Very Merry Un-post

Well, I have lots of tidbits to share today, but nothing so big as to fill up an entire post so I thought this would be the un-post.

• Monday I drove 2.5 hours south to visit with my grandma and shamelessly use her sewing machine and her time. We spent 12 hours working on finishing my Christmas present crafts. They look so beautiful! I'm so happy with the outcome. Now I only have one present left! Hers!
• I realized that my grandma has a more active social life than I do. She had two Christmas parties to attend on Tuesday and hosted one last week. I have yet to go to any.
• I stopped by Cabela's on my way home to pick up my husband's Christmas present (which is awesome and I bet he'll love it!). When I walked in the doors I was floored by the display! They had an indoor waterfall!
• I'm beginning to hate my job! Seven hours of sitting around all day sounds good when you're in school and you need time to study, but when you've got to invent things to do it can become quite tedious. Dragging myself out of bed on the days I go to work is the hardest thing. I regularly get up 2 hours earlier on the days that I don't work than the days that I do. I'm sure its psychological, but oh well. I am proud to help support us at least a little while we're here.
• Recently my husband and I rented some movies at Hollywood video and they informed us that we had been randomly chosen to get a two for one rental for the next two weeks. (My husband being keen on the X for Y sales got pretty excited.) Last night he brought home Talladega Nights (don't waste your time) and to make me happy The Devil Wears Prada. Can you just imagine a man all alone going up to the checkout with that movie in his hands? He just loves me!
• Speaking of movies, recently I rented Marylin Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School. It was great! Even Dan liked it! I especially think that my in-laws would enjoy the movie.
• The baby is so strong now that when she moves my whole bellie moves around with her. I can just sit and watch it move. There is no explaining how amazing it is to feel something else living inside of you. It's awesome.
• Our trailer is so messy right now if someone stopped by I would be completely embarassed. I guess you know what I'll be doing tonight as my visiting teachers are coming over tomorrow.

Generosity

Last night I paid the bills. As I didn't really want to go out in the cold to deliver our rent check to the owners of our little trailor I had my husband take it over. When he came back he still had it in his hand. I was really confused when he said, "We have to re-do our rent check this month." I thought for sure I had done everything right (as it's not that hard to write a check). Then he told me that for the months of December, January, and February the owners had decided to lower our rent by $50 a month! They are so generous! That's a lot of extra money for us to use on other things that we need! I was blown away with their generosity.

Update:
Also at work today I got a Christmas bonus! Who gets Christmas bonuses for a part-time retail job? I am so lucky! I love my boss!

The Good with The Bad

Why is it that whenever I get good, exciting news about one person in my life I seem to simultaneously get bad, upsetting news? Without going into any details on either story becuase it's not my style to dish on other people here I just wanted to relate my joy and worry about both of my family members!

In a less cryptic matter I also wanted to share my complete joy at having my husband home! He got home last night after I went to bed and left for work this morning before I got up, but it was GREAT to have him at home. I could tell the moment he got home because he just snuggled right up to me! I can't wait to see him when he gets home from work tonight! Oh joy!

Other than that the only news is that now I have started pushing back on my bellie when Charlotte starts to push out. It's kind of fun sometimes when she'll respond by pushing right where I pushed. I also know she likes it when I laugh. Or maybe she doesn't like it and needs to find a new position, but each time I get a really good laugh in she rolls and tumbles about.

This morning I woke up with a completely numb left leg. I mean the entire leg was numb. At least it didn't hurt is all I can say. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it, but since it doesn't hurt I'll just save it to bring up at my next appointment.

Update

During his layover in DC my husband called me and told me that he thinks the interview went really well at VCU. The questions were about his experiences in education during High School and College. He said there were also questions about his mission. So today he's interviewing at Temple in Philidelphia. Cross your fingers that this one goes well too!

I miss him

My husband had his interview at VCU this morning! I hope he did well. I really missed him last night.

Left-overs soup and Laundry

Well, now you all know about the chicken fiasco I thought I'd give you an update on what has happened now. Yes, you all are going to get to read more about my food! (I think I'm starting to dream about eating more food lately.)

Early in our marriage my husband told me that he doesn't like soup because he thinks it does not fill you up. This I thought was odd since when I was growing up for the entire fall season starting about October and going through December we had soup for dinner regularly. Fall season=soup season. We had wheat chilli, bone soup (aka ten bean soup), turkey leftover soup, chicken leftover soup, beef leftover soup, and many varieties on those themes. My husband however, felt that when he eats soup all he is doing is drinking broth and not getting filled up. For this reason I tended not to make too many soups.

Yesterday I decided that we had eaten enough of the backwards bird and it was now time to make soup out of him. (Plus, my husband will be out of town for over half the week so I can eat it myself.) I made the stock and then I made noodles from scratch (which were huge because I didn't roll them out thinly enough) and it was so yummy! My only complaint was that I put in too many noodles, but when I said this my husband looked at me like I had just said something crazy (like, "maybe we shouldn't always live right next to cows.") To this he said, "I like the noodles, they give the soup some substance like the carrots and chicken." So apparently he does like soup, you just have to put really big, really recognizable chuncks in it so he can see he's actually eating real food.

Other funny things happened this weekend. I'll try to relay one. I don't know if I can catch the hilarity of my husband here, but I'm going to attempt it. This weekend my husband and I both had Saturday off of work and also my husband's brother's family was going out of town so we had some alone time. I decided Friday night that I would write down a list of things that we needed to get done on Saturday:

• Research the schools my husband is interviewing at this week (cross your fingers!)
• Clean the house (OK it's really a trailor, but I'm saying house anyway)
• Fold the laundry and put it away
• Do the dishes
• Put up the Christmas lights

There were more things, and we got them done, but I can't think of them all right now and it doesn't matter anyway. Saturday morning we got up and my sweet, sweet husband decided to make me breakfast since I had spent the entire night waking up every stinking hour! After that he decided he'd tackle the Christmas lights and leave me to do the dishes. Pretty good division of labor since I didn't want to get cold in the frosty weather and he didn't want to do dishes. There were a lot of dishes. Enough that I still had some when he was finished with the lights. Once he came in he decided to tackle the laundry (I know, you're thinking, "Where did she find this man?"). So he was in the back of the trailor finishing the laundry. Just as I was finishing scrubbing down the kitchen after the last of the dishes he walks out and marks off Christmas lights and laundry off our list. Then I say, "Now all we need to do is clean the house." To which he says, "It's clean isn't it?" I wish I had a photo for everyone, since it clearly wasn't clean. I just looked at him in silence trying to think of how to respond when he said, "Well you did do some cleaning so that task has been done." I decided that he could be right for that day since I wouldn't be embarassed if someone stopped by. So I told him that we could go into town I would just have to change my clothing. I went back into the back of the trailor and realized that he had applied the same logic from the "clean the house" task to the "do the laundry" task. Most of the stuff had been folded and put away, but there was still some stuff on our bed clearly waiting to be put away. I just started to laugh! He came up behind me and said, "Well, it was just too hard to figure out where that stuff went!" So the laundry could be counted as having been done since clearly some laundry had been done! He is so funny!

Is this really breast?

Last night I cooked a whole chicken. It was delicious! I did make a tiny mistake though that made me smile and laugh at myself so I thought I'd share it on the Internet for the merriment of the whole world (well not really since I'm convinced that very few people actually read this thing).

So the recipe said to thinly slice an orange and then insert some of the orange slices between the skin and the breast meat. Keep in mind that I have only cooked an entire bird once before and it was a big turkey. When I had inserted things between the skin and the meat the first time it was really easy. This time, however, it proved to be quite difficult to separate the skin from the meat. I concluded this must be because of the size difference between the two birds (last night's being only about 5 pounds). I did manage to get it in and dress the chicken nicely. I even remembered to tie the legs in so that the bird didn't fall apart. I even got to use my favorite Le Crusset dish because the bird fit perfectly! Then I baked it for a little under 2 hours, basting every 30 minutes or so to ensure juiciness. My husband didn't come home in time for dinner and I had made so much food I was nervous about having to eat all of it on my own so I called my sister-in-law and told her not to cook dinner that I'd be bringing it over. When I got there I realized that I would also have to carve the chicken, since neither my sister-in-law nor myself really wanted to do it. So I picked the bird up out of the dish and put it on a plate to carve. I pulled out all the oranges that I had shoved between the skin and the breast. I tried to start with the breast meat (since that's what everyone eating right then prefers). Each time I tried to get a good size cut of meat I kept running into bone! There was NO breast meat on this chicken! I was so confused because when I had looked at it before starting to dress it I thought I had seen a boat load of nice juicy breast meat. I was about to cry thinking I had failed in cooking a nice juicy chicken for dinner when I decided to flip the bird over! I immediately saw my mistake. I had placed the oranges, spices, and butter between the skin and the meat in the back of the bird! When I cut into the breast meat it was so nice and juicy! I can't believe that I had mistaken the back and front sides of the chicken! With a degree in food science you'd think I would know better!

It Came! It Came! It Came!

Yesterday after work I drove home to find a big UPS box sitting on my porch! I instantly knew that it was our mattress support! I had planned on folding the rest of the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming the floors and changing the bed linens before cooking dinner, but all those plans went right out the window the minute I saw the box. Being the handy instruction reading, putter together-er of all things pre-manufactured I decided that I would start the evening's activities putting together the crib. It looks BEAUTIFUL! I finished it all by myself, which was sort of tricky to hold the one end while screwing in the other. I managed to do it though! Once that was done though I finally had room in that tiny baby's room to clean up and put things in order (well, sort of). I organized the closet, which is practically our only storage place so that there are now only baby things out in the room. Next I took out and admired every item of baby things that we now have and I displayed them inside the crib and cradle that I had put together. Lastly I decided to put together the little vibrating rocker for the baby. That room is so cute! It's not really ready for the baby yet as I have everything out on display in the crib and cradle, but it just makes me so happy.

Also today is the day that the upholstery place receives their shipment of foam cushion material and I ordered enough of it to replace the old foam mattress in the crib so that's almost ready too! Oh what joy! Some may say that my nesting instinct has kicked in a little early, but I say I've always been one to display things. Each year our Christmas presents are displayed like they belong in a catalog because I just like it that way. Now our baby's things are. If I could only just get rid of the faux wood paneling that covers all the walls of the baby's room, but you can't have everything. At least we have a space just for our little one!

My Dear Little One,

I never knew how much I could love someone I've never even seen. Each time I think about you my eyes burst into tears because you are so precious to me. There are a few things I want you to know, and I pray that I will be able to tell you so that you can understand them some day.

First, I want you to know that you are wanted, and despirately loved by your parents. We both feel so blessed to have the opportunity to have you in our home. We marvel everyday at our part in creating your beautiful little life. With each of your movements that I feel and that your daddy chances to get to feel we both are filled with joy. Last night I went to The Forgotten Christmas Carols and I know you can hear what's going on in the world outside your mom's tummy. During every song you tumbled and rolled around inside of me! I guess you love music! It brought me to tears (not that it's very hard to do right now.) Also your daddy leans in to my tummy each night to tell you goodnight and that he loves you.

Second, I want you to know that your mom and daddy love and cherish each other. I look at the wonderful man that I married and chose to start our family with each day and marvel at how much I really do love him. He is such a strength and support in my life. I have complete faith in his ability to be the husband and father he has set out to be right now. I also know that he loves me. He has a way of showing me everyday his love for me.

Lastly, I want you to know that I have such bright hopes for your future. I know that life can be hard, and I also know that I don't know everything, but I will work hard on your behalf to help you with that future you chose to follow. You are a precious gift from Heavenly Father and I hope to be able to guide you the best way I know how.

I love you with all my heart.

Love,

Maggie

Classical

I have discovered my favorite radio station to listen to at work. The other people that work here like country and "soft rock-music for the workplace," both of which make me want to poke my eye out after about half an hour of listening. The problem is that reception is pretty bad on the little radio my boss has set up and there are no speakers for the computer at work. So the selection of radio stations is pretty bad. A few weeks ago I stumbled onto a little station that plays nothing but classical music and I found out that I love it! I can listen to this music all day without wanting to run away or hurt someone. I take this as a sign that I am getting dorkier by the day. Oh well.

Another thing that I like to do at work is read other people's blogs. I have found that the genre that I'm most particularly interested in is pregnancy stories (no surprise there). I have found that after a few days of five hours on the internet I have started to have a hard time finding other women's pregnancy stories. Can anyone point me in a direction that has plenty of these stories? Thanks.

Get A Move On

My husband's family has a distinct schedule in which all of them like to road trip (or at least all the ones I've been on the road with.) They prefer to drive in the nocturnal hours. I can't figure out if this trait came from his mother or his father, but it certainly is strong! If they can drive through the night that's the best way to do it. Second best is to get up so early in the morning it can only be considered night to hit the road. They find no problem with stopping at a rest stop on the side of the road in the middle of the night to sleep for 4-5 hours or so and then just wake up and keep on moving.

Growing up I thought my parents liked to get us going on trips early by leaving around 6AM (boy was I wrong!). This time gradually became later and later as my sister and I got older to where leaving by 9AM was good for us. We liked to get going, but stopping frequently became necessary when my dad's diabetes required many breaks for food and rest rooms. Also, my father would never sleep in the car if a motel room was even an option. In fact I can only think of one example of my family sleeping in the car overnight. This only happened because there were NO hotel/motel rooms available in the city that they stopped in. (I wasn't even on that particular trip!) I consider us pretty efficient travelers, but we definitely had a different feel to the whole experience.

My husband and I are still trying to meld these two different versions of road travel. That is why I consider our itinerary for going home for Thanksgiving a personal triumph! We are leaving as soon as possible (one point for him), but we are not going to be sleeping at a rest stop. Perfection!

What?

I went to the doctor's today. He said that my ultrasound agreed exactly with my due date so little baby Charlotte is perfect! Then he measured my bellie and said that I measured at 24 weeks (which is two weeks ahead of schedule). So that means that my baby is normal sized, but my uterus is trying to get a head start on growing big! (I'm trying to not let myself think that my baby is normal sized, but I'm just getting fat.)

Also I told the doctor about something I've been noticing happening the past week or so. When I walk around for a while my left thigh, right above my knee cap starts to tingle and burn. He told me the problem is one of my nerves (not the sciatic nerve). It's the nerve that goes down the front of the hip (not the butt) and since my bellie is stretching everything out it's stretching the nerve and I'm feeling it in my leg. So now I have to wear a maternity belt to try and minimize the tingling.

Also my bellie button is starting to become an outtie. This news isn't good since I'm only just under 6 months and still have quite a bit of growing left.

On the plus side I got my hair cut last Friday. It looks so much better! Another plus is that it dries!

My husband thinks that the UW admissions committee met last Friday. That means that he might hear something from them today. I'm trying SO HARD not to get my hopes up that he's in and we don't have to worry, because I know there's a very real possibility that he'll hear, "you have to wait longer" or "not this year." Wouldn't it be so great if we heard, "We love you. You're in!"? He said he'd call me when he gets any news so I'm at work sitting practically on top of my cell phone waiting for him to call me. I think I'm making myself sick thinking about all this. I'd better stop.

Update: Dan just called and told me the news was that we still have to wait. We wont hear anything else from UW until March-April. Just like last year. This is starting to get really old.

Movement

Last night Charlotte was moving around a lot so I thought it would be a good time to try and get my husband to feel her move. I've been able to feel it with my hand on my bellie for a while now, but I figured that was because I knew it was happening from the inside. Last night he had his hand resting there for a while and then she moved and he said, "What was that?" I told him it was our baby and he got all excited! He can feel her move now too! YEAH!

A Baby Crib

The closer we get to my due date (which isn't very close at all come to think of it) the more I appreciate the bassinett that my in-laws gave us. This bassinett has been in my husband's family for generations, he was put in it when he was a baby and now our baby will be the sixth generation to use it. This means a lot to a lot of people, and although I'm very happy with that fact, it's not the point of my post today and not the reason I have come to think of this bassinett as precious.

The reason is the brand spankin new crib that my mom bought us. I picked the crib out myself and when I saw it in the store I loved it! We bought it way back in September, but never got around to putting it together. (Not a big deal since we have no baby, and we have a bassinett). So my husband tried to surprise me the a few weeks ago by putting the crib together while I was out of town for a while. There was one problem, the metal matress support doesn't fit. It's too big-by at least an inch! His answer to this was, "No problem, I can fix it. I just have to bend the metal." When I got home and he told me his solution to the problem I was nervous. If this is furniture that we are putting our baby in, I want it to fit right the first time. I told him to wait on the bending metal issue until I called the company service number on the instructions. What a headache! So I called the company today. They were great about the whole situation and said they'd ship us an new matress frame! Now I just worry that the new one will be too big too and we've just spent money on something that's never going to work as I want it to! Arrgh!

In the mean time I've got the bassinett put together on my own (not that assembly was too hard, I just had to put the rockers in the slots.) And I've cleaned the little matress cover and it's completely ready for our baby! Oh the joy that fills my heart when I look at it! I'm still thinking that maybe I want to paint it or something, but it's just so exciting to look at it and imagine my baby laying in it rocking to sleep!




PS. My sister's week 21 present arrived yesterday! It's the first distinctively girl present I've gotten so far and I love it!

A Be-Genious

I just thought I'd let everyone know how proud I am of my husband! Yesterday he got interview invites from Temple University and Loma Linda University! The tally is up to four schools so far! Yeah for him!

Also yesterday he told me that he would pick up the few grocery items we are out of at home while he was in town. Then he lost the list.

Not that it's a big deal since I had to go to work today anyway so I can just pick up groceries today. So I re-wrote the list:

• milk
• butter
• chilli powder
• soft scrub
• pam

To which he added:

• fruit smiles

I introduced him to the Walmart brand of fruit snacks and I think I may have made a terrible mistake. Now he wants them all the time.

Our Roof

Growing up I learned that if you listen closely to the sounds your house makes at certain times you can know a whole lot of what's going on around you.

For example:

My sister and I both learned the violin. She started taking violin lessons at the age of 5 and I started with her teaching me when I was in the third (?) grade and then my mom signed me up for private lessons with my sister's teacher. For this I will ever think that my mom is SUPER-MOM. Having a child that plays an instrument means having a mom (or dad) that knows how to use creativity, love, and persistance in ensuring that learning is taking place. One of the rules in our house growing up was that practicing MUST be done before anything fun like TV watching or playing. My mom, however, would be away from home for a little while right when my sister and I got home sometimes. If you were really tricky/lucky you could time it right and "fool" mom into thinking that you were the most obedient child in the entire world and chose on your own to practice those 30 minutes she was away from home. Meanwhile you chould watch [insert afterschool cartoon of choice here] to your heart's content. The real important thing was to have your violin ready, music out and to have the TV low enough that you could hear the start of the garage opening. Then you would run to the front room and start playing in the middle of a song. My sister and I thought we were pretty tricky. (I'm sure the racket we must ahve made running the length of our house never clued our mom into our little trick.) The point is, the opening of the garage could tell you what to do next.

Example #2:

In high school I could always tell who came/left our house and why by the sounds around the house. This was especially handy when I'd made a complete mess in our basement doing various activities (ie. dirty dishes from eating in front of the basement TV, dirty clothing from being out in the snow, scraps from sewing.) If it was Mom I knew that I needed to start cleaning pronto! If it was Dad however, cleaning could take place later, probably tomorrow.

In all the years of listening to the house, I've never had a house tell me so much about what is going on outside as the one in which my husband and I currently live. First of all there's the sound of our furnace. My husband and I held off turning on our heat for as long as possible because a) it's really loud and b) we're cheap. The colder it gets though the more it turns on. I have noticed the nights are getting much colder by the number of times I am awakened in the night by the sound of a 747 right next to our headboard. (The furnace is located on the other side of the wall.) Then there are the numerous places around the windows that must have small cracks in the wall. I know this becuase it's getting windy and when the wind blows I can hear it blowing through ALL of these cracks. Also the wind sort of moves our blinds. Finally, there's the roof. The roof of our trailor is metal and sort of acts like a drum. I feel very connected with the wildlife living outside and occasionally on top of our trailor because everytime they run across the roof you can hear the pitter-patter of their tiny feet. But the best, and perhaps loudest thing that our roof tells us is when it's windy. The wind must be able to get under one of the layers in the metal and move it around some becuase it sounds like thunder. That's why I knew before I even got up this morning that a storm had moved through in the night. I was surprised to find out that it had dropped about 4 inches of snow on my car!

I really should stop

Tuesday night I barfed.....again! I told myself that I wouldn't start telling people I'm over morning sickness until I go a complete week without barfing and I'm at 21 stinking weeks and I still haven't made my goal! This is barfing with my anti-nausea medication. I have to admit that it works so well on me that I thought I must be over and started trying to take half of what I was previously taking. I'm back on full medication. Hopefully week 21 will be barf free!

Also, sleeping has become a rather difficult task lately. My husband is a cuddler. This is something that I really like, until I'm actually wanting to fall asleep. And lately the extra weight of him on my already stressed body just hurts. He's such an angel and doesn't complain at all when I tell him that he has to stop touching me now that my body hurts anyway. Last night I may have stumbled on gold with the use of three pillows-one between my legs, one behind my back and the other (a very little one) holding up my stomach. It's sort of ridiculous. I'm still waiting for my husband to look over at me and just start laughing. It's also bad if I get uncomfortable in whatever position I've got all the pillows in. Turning over in the bed with that many pillows is a real task.

But I really should stop complaining about how my body seems to be on revolt from it's happy self. I really am happy with my pregnancy and I feel so blessed about it! I realized this very powerfully last night. I was with my sister-in-law (also pregnant-her fourth) when my sister called me. I told my sister that I hadn't felt my baby move since the night I got my ultrasound (that would be two days of not feeling her move) and it was starting to make me sad. This is because I love to feel her move. For some reason everytime she moves I just get the happiest feeling! Anyway, later that night my sister-in-law asked me if I really hadn't felt the baby move at all in two days. I told her no. She said that it wasn't a good thing and that I should go home and lay down and relax and concentrate on seeing if she moves. "Probably you've just been too busy to feel her, but you should make sure," was her reaction. Then she said if the baby didn't move I really should call the doctor in the morning. My ever-rational mind jumped to the thought that my baby's dead. I finally got to see her on the ultrasound and now she's dead! I completely freaked out when I got home alone. (There is no need to remind me how irrational I can be. I know it already.) I tried my best not to cry, because when I'm all upset my baby never moves anyway. I did pretty well not crying for the hour and a half laying down on the sofa alone until my husband got home. As soon as he walked in the door he knew something was up. He asked what was wrong and as I started to tell him I completely lost it. He asked me what he could do. I knew he felt awful not being able to do anything to help the situation. He even tried poking my bellie trying to make the baby move. (It didn't work.) We just cuddled together on the sofa watching LiarLiar. That movie is much better to watch with him because, like his father, he laughs out loud at movies. I couldn't keep being so wound up cuddling and listening to my husband laugh. When I finally did relax I felt her move. That little movement seemed like the biggest blessing of all! It completely erased the past three hours of worry and stress. I know the whole situation was probably completely manufactured in my head, but that doesn't make the fear any less real.

I learned that I should stop complaining about how uncomfortable it is to be pregnant (even if most of the complaining does just happen in my mind.) All those things mean I'm going to get to have a little miracle of my own! So anyway, my back hurts, I'm still throwing up occasionally, and I'm starting to have problems sleeping. Isn't life great?

The Best Kind of Pet

I also forgot to tell everyone about our new pet! A couple of weeks ago my husband and I went to the temple. The session was a little late and we didn't get home until about 10 pm. When we pulled up into our drive my husband said, "What's that? Did someone put a fence in our backyard?" I looked and indeed an electric fence had been set up just behind our propane tank. (Keep in mind we are renting so the backyard isn't actually ours, we just think of it as such.) It was weird to have a fence put up without anyone telling us, but since it isn't actually ours we weren't really concerned. Later that night, while getting ready for bed my husband looks out the back door and says, "We have a cow in our backyard!" I said, "You've got to be joking me. I know you want to live on a farm, but we don't have a cow in our backyard!" To which he responded, "Yes, we do. Come see!" I looked out and indeed, the glossy eyes of the cow were staring back at me. Someone had put a cow in our backyard while we were out that day! As I was looking out the back door a knock came at the front door. It was our neighbor. She had noticed we forgot to turn off the dome light in our car and wanted to let us know. As she was leaving I said, "Do you by any chance know why a cow showed up in our backyard?" She told us that it was her husband's cow (he's a farmer) and they always put it back there so it can eat the weeds and the owners of the trailor don't have to mow. She said the little boy that lived in the trailor before us loved "Huey." Yes, the cow has a name. After she left my husband turned to me and said, "I told you there were blessings to going to the temple!" Crazy me! I never thought a cow in our backyard would be a blessing from attending the temple!

As of two days ago Huey got a friend. Now we have two cows in our backyard! My husband is on cloud nine! At least this kind of pet you don't actually have to take care of or feed. We can just enjoy having them out there.

A little slip

In all that excitement about the baby I forgot to update everyone about the other love of my life. My sweetie had his interview at UW medical school what seems like forever ago, but really it was just about two weeks ago. When he gave me the post game wrap-up he seemed very happy and positive. He said he had a different interviewer this time than last time and they didn't talk about socialized medicine. This means that he didn't take the whole time defending himself against what the interviewer though. They had the ethical questions and healthcare questions that he had to answer, but he felt really good about his answers. So that went well. Hopefully we'll hear from UW in a few weeks and, fingers crossed, we'll be out of the suspense for the rest of the year.

But if not, he got an interview invite from Virginia Commonwealth on December 5th. Virginia sounds like a long way away, but so long as he gets into school I don't even care where it is! Plus, it sort of takes the pressure off the interview he had at UW.

I think he's super excited that our baby is a girl. He did get to go to the ultrasound, which was so great. I was so excited just to go to the ultrasound and see our baby that I had made myself sick (sort of like my sister did every Christmas Eve growing up) and it was good to have him there to hold my hand. Now he kisses my bellie every night and says goodnight to Charlotte. Although I'm sure I'd be just as excited with a little boy, I just feel so blessed with our little girl! My husband is going to be such a great daddy!

A Break From Tradition

I have a tradition on my blog of not putting any photos on it. Mostly that's because I don't have a camera (digital or any other kind) so I don't have any photos to put on. I thought I'd put a little break in that tradition today because I'm just so excited about these photos! Yesterday I went to the doctor and got my ultrasound that confirmed that my husband and I are having a girl!

This was the first picture that we got to see of her cute little body.

Then she yawned!

The photo we have after this one is showing that she's a girl and not a boy, but it's this grainy black and white shot and I can't distinguish anything so I'm not posting it.

After this we got to see the really cool part of the ultrasound where they take 3D shots!This is Charlotte Claire covering her ear. She was all curled up in the ultrasound and tumbling around a ton so she made it kind of hard for the ultrasound lady to find a good photo of her whole body.

Yet another shot of her little face!

You can see her little toes in this shot! She's pointing right at the machine too!

There are a few more photos, but they're pretty much the same. She kept spinning around in my belly so getting anything but her hands over her face and a foot or two was pretty hard.

So that's the big news of the day today!

November 6th countdown

I'm sitting at work and I've had the worst cramps I've had in a long time. It's probably because I'm big now. Also my little baby has been moving all day long! It's funny to feel and I like it right now.

I found out that Dan's work is so busy right now he told me not to plan on him being there for the ultrasound (November 6th for those of you that don't already know). I tried really REALLY hard not to take this news too badly. I just said, "Well, at least Jenny will go with me. I'll miss you, but I'll make sure they record the still photos." (They forgot to record them during Jenny's ultrasound so she doesn't have anything to look at and remind her.) What I wanted to say was, "It'll only take like half an hour! They can't spare you for half an hour?! I'm not complaining about you getting home at 8PM and having no time to spare so I should at least get this one little thing! You're going to miss all the live action stuff where you can actually see the baby move! You're going to miss discovering our baby's sex! You're going to miss everything!" But I figure he already feels bad about not being able to go so I shouldn't make it worse. Plus, he probably doesn't realize he'll miss all the "live action" shots.

PS. Don't mention to him that I complained about him not making the ultrasound. He can't really help it. I just wanted to complain a little.

Mommies

In the past two days four pregnant women looking for scrubs to wear have come in to the store. When you're big and nothing fits, I guess scrub bottoms are the way to go in Utah. I do wonder if I'm noticing these women because I'm pregnant and getting big or if there really are a lot of them coming in right now. Who knows.

Here's something that nobody ever told me: when your baby is growing inside of you and getting bigger your insides feel like they want to explode. It's the feel you get after Thanksgiving dinner when you're so full it hurts, only you're not full. In fact, most of the time you're starving. There's just no room for anything left.

My husband has his interview at UW on Monday. Don't forget to send him some good thoughts and prayers! I'm so nervous for him! (I'm sure he's nervous too.) He's done so much preparation for his interview(s) this year. Plus, he's had the opportunity to realize that he really does want to be a doctor, going to med school isn't just another box on his life's checklist. I hope that translates to the interviewers. I know he's my husband so, of course, I think he would make the best doctor ever, but I really do think that he would be such a capable person for that job.

Week 19 present from my sister: I heart daddy onsie! So cute and so appropriate for right now! I'm sure he'll love it when he sees it!

Lite Steam-A-Seam 2

This question is for anyone out there that works with fabric. I went to the fabric store the other day to purchase supplies for Christmas presents. I needed to get some fusable web. I instictively picked out the wonder-under because that's what I grew up with and I know how to use it really well. The lady at the counter told me that this new "Lite Steam-A-Seam 2" is really far supperior to what I had chosen and it had this extra feature of being paper lined on both sides of the glue, not just one. When you pealed the first paper off the glue is slightly sticky so it will stick to the fabric a little before you use the iron on it so you can be sure to put the piece exactly where you want it. I bought the song and dance hook line and sinker so I paid the extra to get the new and improved technology. My question is do you, that have worked with both brands, think it's worth it? The paper lining that you peal off first is falling off while I'm trying to trace my stencil so it doesn't seem like that second lining is really necessary. I'm not sure. What do you think? Also, what is your favorite brand of fusable web? Should I ditch both brands for one far superior that I don't yet know about?

I have two funny things to post about my husband today.

Funny Story #1

Yesterday, while my husband was at work, it snowed. It was the yucky rain-type of snow so I figured it would probably melt before he even got to see it. I have no idea why I thought this because the later it got the more snow-like it got and everything stuck. It was only about 1/2", but when my sweetie came home at 8 PM last night he was overjoyed! He actually suggested we walk to his brother's house in the cold at around 9 PM. I made him drive, but when we got over there he bent down in their front yard and made, "The first snowball of the season!" and threw it right at my butt. He didn't miss. It was really wet. I think growing up in Aberdeen made him lunie about snow.

Funny Story #2

So after posting about trying to find some maternity jeans I found a pair of jeans at gap. They are awesome! Mostly because my insides aren't being squeezed, which is why I have decided that I will only ever wear elastic waisted pants from now on for the rest of my life. Well, probably just for the rest of my pregnancy. I only purchased one pair of pants because they were a little pricey and they only had one pair in my size in the entire store. (I know right now you're thinking, "She said this story would be about her husband, but all we're getting is more shopping news!" It's coming, I promise.) I was at work on Tuesday and I spilled some food on my jeans. I was really upset about this because I just did my laundry on Monday so it will be a while until I can do it again (we don't have a washer and dryer at our house yet). So yesterday I had to wear my old jeans. I was telling this to my husband and he asked, "How dirty are they?" I said, "As it turns out I only have two levels: clean and dirty." Apparently he has a whole spectrum of dirty, some of which are still acceptable to wear out in public. That story doesn't sound very funny written down, but I think it's funny.

PS.

When I came in to work today the girl that worked yesterday left the heat on. Not only that she left it all the way up to 80 degrees! I came in and I turned it down and I'm still roasting an hour later! Who leaved the heat on when nobody is in the building? Who heats a business up to 80 degrees? I just don't get it.

Grocery Shopping

I'm almost positive that this will be the most boring post I've ever written, but I wanted to know what others think about this topic. Grocery shopping is perhaps my very least favorite of activites. I am known to spend weeks just foraging through empty cupboards, inventing new dishes out of nothing until eventually I have to face the facts and go to the grocery store. This avoidance has been compounded with our current situation of being 30 minutes from the closest grocery store. In order to make sure I get everything we will need and also keep my time in the store to a minimum I make a two week eating schedule and then purchase only the ingredients that are on that list. Today at work I did the schedule and list on the computer. Now I feel like an obsessed, nerdy woman and walking around the store with my list might be too much for me. We'll have to see. My question is does anybody else hate to grocery shop? Does anyone else make a list of only the items that will be in the meals during the week? (I generally don't buy snack foods, not because I don't like to snack, or I don't want to spend the extra money, but because that would mean more time in the store.)

Mineral Deposits

In case any of you have encountered this problem I thought I'd share the small miracle of modern chemsitry that happened last night. I got a brand new maternity top from my mom a couple of weeks ago and decided to iron it before wearing it. It had come via UPS and was really wrinkled because it's 100% cotton. It took a while, but I was really excited because it is really cute and I'm tired of just looking fat rather than pregnant. As I was on the final section before finishing, my iron decided that would be the perfect time to leave a huge white streak across the front of the shirt. This is a mineral deposit that comes because I live in Utah and have very hard water. Also, I very rarely actually press the self-cleaning button on my iron. The stain showed up and I couldn't wear the shirt. I decided that I would wash it. Yesterday, when I was doing the washing I noticed it didn't come out in the wash. I sprayed it with shout (always my first course of action) and then put it back in the machine. No luck. So I did what any resourceful woman would do, I called my mom. She said to try vinegar. I tried vinegar on my shirt and rubbed the spot. Some of the stain came out, but you could still clearly see the streak. Just as I was about to give up hope on my new shirt that I had never been able to wear I decided to call my aunt. She told me to try Lime-Away. I was worried because this product clearly has marked on the label "Danger: Corrosive to skin and eyes." That doesn't sound like something you should be putting on your new shirt, but I was despirate. It makes sense too, if the prodcut can remove Lime deposits "from a variety of household surfaces" why not my shirt? So I put on the rubber gloves and sprayed away. Just like magic the stripe was gone! I then rinsed the shirt four or five times just to make sure all the Lime-Away was gone. So, if you're ever stuck in this situation, now you know.

Working with Incompetence

My job is easy and by easy I mean I can usually count on at least 2 hours a day with absolutely nothing to do. It is for that reason that I get so angry when I come in to work and the girls that have worked the day before me have left whole boxes of things that haven't been put away. Mostly their excuse is that they were too busy. I know that this is a lie. I know this because there is a program on our computer that shows how much sales were done the day before and also how much sales each associate has rung up and guess what, I'm the highest seller. If I'm the highest seller and my days are consistently more busy than the other days and I still have hours of free time then I know the other girls have plenty of time to get the job done. How annoying!

88 cents

**Warning** this post is completely about my shopping debacle yesterday.

This post will need a little background before the really crushing part will come. While growing up, since probably 9th grade, I have had to spend at least $70-100 on jeans. Some of you may not think that's a lot of money for a pair of jeans, but others may think I'm absolutely crazy. The reason that I have spent so much on jeans is that I'm tall and it seems almost impossible to find jeans that fit me and aren't 2-3 inches too short. My husband thinks it's still way too much for jeans (I never tell him how much my sister spends on jeans because he might have a heart attack) since he wears levis that cost approximately $30 and buys them only when they're on sale for under $20. Since living with him I haven't purchased a pair of jeans for myself. That's not to say I haven't gotten any new jeans, they've just been presents. Anyway, I was thinking that perhaps my husband is right and I'm just looking in the wrong places to find a pair of jeans that fit nice.

Jump to my present situation. I'm almost 18 weeks pregnant and I'm still wearing my size 6 pre-pregnancy jeans. This may sound absurd, but there are a few factors that have made this situation not so bad. Factor 1: they're gap jeans and I don't know if anyone else out there has experienced the phenomenon of the ever expanding gap jeans. The first wear out of the dryer is how they fit in the store for about 1 hour. After that they become pretty big. Before my pregnancy I wore belts to coutneract this, but now I don't need them. The pants just expand. Factor 2: they're a little low cut (not immodestly so, my tummy is always covered). This means that after expanding to full extent they can kinda go below the belly. Keep in mind that I am wearing maternity shirts so they cover that whole area anyway. This has been OK up until a little while ago that I noticed that trying to bend over to pick things up or lean forward when I'm sitting down is uncomfortable. I decided last week that I really should just bite the bullet and go purchase some pregnancy jeans.

Jean shopping has always been depressing for me because I try on about a billion jeans that fit great, but are too short or that are long enough, but way too big. Also my concern was that pregnancy clothing is a restricted category as it is so there wont be the selection I would like. I was thinking about how much I used to spend on jeans when I happened to see that JCPenny was having a buy one get the second for 88 cents sale on their maternity clothing. I decided for 88 cents I can at least go try. I went with my sister-in-law who is also pregnant. My excitement was actually building when going in because you have to have positive thinking when shopping. We tried on jeans and pants and shirts. NONE of them were long enough. In fact some of them were so short that my sister-in-law laughed when I came out of the dressing room. She found some really really cute jeans that fit her great. I decided to buy two shirts just so that the trip wasn't a bust. I guess I'm just stuck wearing my pre-prego jeans until I can figure something else out. At least this way nobody can say I didn't try.

Money Matters

My husband and I have a very similar idea about how money should be spent. Our philosophy on spending money is don't, unless you have to. That means that we both find no problem in paying for rent, utility bills, insurance, and groceries. It is just in other things that spending money comes into conflict. Let me clarify here the conflict is rarely with each other. In fact we both will think several days about something we want to spend money on before we even bring it up with the other person and then most times the other person agrees that the expense is reasonable. We both had this philosophy in varying degrees before we married so the transition has been a rather smooth one. I do not bring this up to tell everyone how great my husband and I work together or how responsible we are or anything of the sort. I bring it up because I didn't realize it until a couple of days ago.

I realized, with the help of family and friends, that since moving to Utah I have had absolutely no outlet for myself that is my own. My husband saved his graduation money and bought a membership to the local climbing gym that he goes to twice a week and gets to have alone time doing something he loves to do. I on the other hand never set up anything like that for myself. I realized last weekend perhaps one reason that my mother-in-law is so good at so many crafts and music things. Those were things that she could do by herself and for herself to get out of the house and the "mom" mode. (Not that I'm in the mom mode yet, but I think everyone needs time for themselves.) So I decided to go see if I could sign up for any classes. I had a problem with that since we just moved in the area I don't really know of any places that offer adult classes on, well, really anything. What the class teaches isn't really the point. Getting out of the house and meeting new people and doing something on my own is really the point. Also I realized that this wasn't really a need so spending money on it seemed like something I didn't really need to be doing. I went to the fabric store and they had a quilting class that I signed up for. Now we get back to the money subject. I've never committted to spending that much money without at least talking to my husband about it first. (Not that the class was that much money, but I need to buy the fabric to make the quilt and, well, fabric isn't cheap*.) I had a hard time doing it too, not because I hadn't talked to my husband, but because taking a quilting class isn't a need. Clearly it is just something I want to do so I stay sane, but I had decided that it was OK. That night when my husband came home I told him what I had done. I don't really know what I expected him to say or do but I was so pleasently surprised with his response! He said that he thought it was a good idea and that we would figure out how budget for the class and fabric. I also told him I was thinking it would be good if I talked to my OB about any prenatal fitness classes that I might be able to sign up for and he thought that was a great idea.

Don't I have a great husband? Maybe I was getting him worried with the ammount of crying I've been doing lately and he thinks, like I do, that these classes might help me stop crying. I'm not sure. What I am sure about is how much he values me. He wants me to be happy, even if it means that we have less for other things. He is so great!


*Also I need a sewing machine, rotary cutter, cutting board, and ruler for the class. I will need to borrow these from family as I don't own any of them. I hope I'm not imposing too much in that regard, but the idea of the class just made me so excited. Plus, it's only for a day and I hope to return everything in excellent condition.

Out of Control

I'm sure I'm not alone in this feeling, but I still wanted to vent my frustration about it for a little while. I feel like my emotions are completely out of my control right now. Not only that, I feel like they are very volatile--if I'm happy then I'm the happiest I could ever be, if something happens that normally would irk me a little right now it seems like the biggest problem. Most frustrating of all is that I feel like it takes almost all of my energy not to cry at the weirdest moments in front of everyone. My worst fear is that I'm just going to break down in front of everyone and completely embarass myself and probably my hsuband at the same time. I just want to hide away right now until things calm down. Then I think that's silly since I figure the reason for this instability is my pregnancy and that's not really going away anytime soon. I can't just be a hermit and not live my life. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to run away from home for a week though? I could go somewhere and just relax and not worry about how I seem to anyone else. That's completely impractical right now though.

Two Great Books

When I went home I made a much needed visit to my favorite library. It has a seemingly endless supply of great books and the librarian knows me so well the books she suggests for me to read are always captivating. I've loved all but one of her suggestions during my reading history. This amazing librarian is my mother and the library is her personal library located in our basement. I recently finished two of the books I borrowed from her library and both were amazing.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was so great! It is a novel decidedly about women, but despite being in a foreign country during a foreign time I could easily draw similarites in my own life.

The Life of Pi is such an amazing story! I truly do recommend this book to everyone!

The only problem with the reading of these two books is now I want to talk to someone else who has read them and see what they think of them. There are so many questions I would like to talk about. Both had group discussion questions in the back of the book that sounded very much like topic questions for papers that high school seniors have to write. Regardless of that I would very much like to talk about some of them. For instance, do you think the narrator of the first book was the hero or the villan? How does what a society consider beautiful shape the people and how do the people in turn shape what the society thinks of as beautiful? Or for the Life of Pi I would like to know if people believe Pi's first story of what happened or the second story he told the investigators? What is the significance of the book being exactly 100 chapters? Does Pi's story make you believe in God? What do you make of the floating island?

Anyway, these books are great! You should read them. Then when you do you should tell me what you think!

A Muscle Spasm?

This morning as I was laying in bed I felt something. I would describe it as a muscle spasm. The only thing that makes this not a muscle spasm was that it was inside my stomach, where I've never had a muscle spasm before. I'm pretty sure you can't get muscle spasms inside of you anyway. I felt this little feeling all morning long and debated as to whether or not it was indeed a muscle spasm or my baby moving. It felt really rather high to be my baby in my mind. This feeling was about 3 inches above my belly button. I decided to call my mom and ask her and she said you don't get muscle spasms inside of you. So now I'm really excited that I felt my baby move for the first time today! Yeah!

Also today I bought new bras. I didn't realize how much larger I had gotten, but I did go up an entire cup size and when I put on the new one it was like a miracle had happened! Suddenly I wasn't being squeezed in! It feels great. My advice for anyone is when you think your getting bigger don't put off gettting a new bra. You will be much happier if you have a bra that fits.

I also have a new project that I'm super excited about. I can't say what it is because it's that time of the year when people can't know what you're getting them for Christmas! (Christmas is coming!)

My McGuyver

Well this weekend was great! I just wished we had more time to spend with everyone. Also we didn't get to say goodbye to Dan's dad. Our travel for this trip was a little out of the ordinary. We flew up Saturday morning (because Daniel had to work late Friday) and then drove my brother's Toyota Solara back to Utah to deliver it to my grandma, who purchased it from my brother. My grandma lives about 1.5 hours south of our house. Our original plan was that we drove our car down to her house Friday night and then left it there. When we would drop off the sports car on Sunday we would pick up our car and head north again to our house. Well, Sunday night came and Daniel didn't really want to add almost 4 hours to our trip. Since I didn't work Monday I told him we could stop at home for the night and then in the morning I could drive the car down to grandma's on my own. This genious plan (that my mom came up with) would make it so we got home at 8:30pm. So we called grandma and she said it was ok. Everything worked out well until we were walking to the front door of our home when I asked him, "Do you have my car keys with the house key on it?" He replied, "No I left those in our car at Grandma's." This posed a problem since I had locked our trailor before leaving on Friday. So we were locked out. Luckily my handy husband had brought all his tools down from home to be able to do some odd jobs for some people here. We found an old flashlight and to our surprise when we turned it on there was a weak yellow glow! After trying every window and realizing that I had also done a very good job at locking all of them we went up to the front door. We tried many tactics but the one that worked was when Daniel took the pins out of the hinges and then pushed it as far away from the latch side and used an alan wrench to jimmy the lock open! It was truly amazing! Now we know that if someone really wanted to get into our trailor a locked door really wouldn't stop them. We also found out that our neighbors really wouldn't stop them either. (They didn't even look out the windows at us.)

Mourn with those that mourn

This morning I found out some hard news about a really good friend of mine. We both got married the same year and right away she and her husband started trying to get pregnant. My husband and I weren't so ready right away, but I wished her well. When my husband and I were ready to start trying getting pregnant came pretty easily and quickly. She was so excited for us when I told her even though I was really nervous to tell her since I knew they'd been trying for a while. A couple weeks later she called and told me good news of her own! They were expecting and although things were pretty scary for them and the doctor was really concerned about the pregnancy the baby's heartbeat was loud and clear.

When I called her today she told me that on her last ultrasound (two days ago) the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat. Nothing. She said that yesterday her husband took off work and just stayed home with her while she was crying. She has a little pile of baby things (very similar to mine I'm sure) reminding her of what she just lost. When she told me I just started crying for her. I have no idea what it must be like, but I know that losing my baby was/is a big fear of mine. I spent an hour on the phone with her just crying and talking and doing my best to make her laugh or at least chuckle a little. All I wanted to do was sit down and cry with her and hug her and give her all the love I could because I know there's nothing I can do to help the situation. She asked all sorts of things about how my baby was doing and how my pregnancy was going but all the complaints I had seemed so selfish and trivial compaired to her's and all my little joys of my pregnancy seemed.....less so I guess.

I wish I knew what to say or something to do. All I could really do was cry right along with her. Maybe I could get her some little something to cheer her up. Any ideas would really help.

I don't really have a whole lot to say, but I thought it would be good to post something of an update. I went to the doctor yesterday and I have gained weight. It was only one pound, but I'm still so early in my pregnancy that he said not to worry. (And when my worries were gone I thought to myself, what a stupid worry.) He also said that I need to drink tons more water because I'm really dehydrated and also sleep more. I don't know how I'm going to sleep more because since I've been on my Unisom and B-6 I've been sleeping more than ever.

The real highlight of this week is going to be that my husband and I are going home this weekend! I only wish it could be longer! I'm trying not to complain about it because my husband does have to work and it will benefit us in the long run. I can't wait to see my sister! It feels like it's been forever since I got to see her. Also my husband and I are driving my grandma's sports car from Washington to Utah to bring it to her. That's kind of cool.

I get to have my ultrasound in six weeks! I'm so excited that it's finally scheduled and I can't wait until it happens and I get to see my baby's face!

My brother and sister-in-law are buying a house and moving down the street and I can't believe how long its taking. Everyone keeps calling them and asking them if they're moving yet and it's making me feel really bad for my sister-in-law because she's getting so stressed about it. From what I can gather the hold up is in the Salt Lake office of the underwriters for the loan that the people buying their house are getting and so my brother and sister-in-law can't close on their house until that happens which means they can't close on the house they're buying until then either. Anyway, everyone's getting so anxious about the whole thing and it would make anybody really stressed about the whole deal. Fingers crossed it'll happen this week!

Deep(?) thoughts

Yesterday I had an appointment related to me being pregnant and the lady needs to track my pregnancy weight gain so she asked what my pre-pregnancy weight was. I told her what the doctor had weighed me at and then when she weighed me it was exactly the same weight. I'm almost 14 weeks along in my pregnancy now and I have officially gained no weight. I think something must be wrong because I am growing. In fact I got my first stretch mark the other day and that proves I'm getting bigger. What an intersting puzzle, how does one grow in the tummy and boobs and not gain any weight. Now I'm anxious to see my doctor on Monday, then I can officially know how much weight I've gained. Some of you might be thinking she doesn't know how lucky she is that she doesn't have to worry about gaining too much weight. To that I respond, at least you're not throwing up, which is probably why I wasn't gaining all that much weight because I've been eating like crazy. I bet I have gained weight and that the two scales were just not calibrated to each other.

Anyway, I don't know if you noticed that I mentioned I got my first stretch mark. Yes, and when I found it I showed my husband (hoping that it wasn't what I thought it was) and he seemed to think that it was no big deal. To which I thought, no big deal, yeah right, because it's not your body! Then I calmed down and realized that it really isn't a big deal since it's on a spot that nobody but me, him and my doctor will ever see. Plus, wishful thinking says it might go away on it's own later. Who knows.

Speaking of my husband, I don't think I have every loved him more than I do right now! Sometimes just thinking about him makes me so happy I don't know why I don't explode, instead I just cry. My feelings about him are so tender and jumbled right now. I am proud of him, I love him, I'm worried for him, I'm (very occasionally) upset with him, and I can't stop thinking about how blessed I am to be with him. I look at how hard he is working towards his goal of becoming a doctor, and in a more general sense of just helping all the people he can. He literally does all he can to help those around him and it blows my mind away, especially since mostly he tries to help me. He is so proactive about his life's plans. I am so happy with our life together right now! The only worry I have is really for him. He's getting really very stressed out about his application process. He has his secondary applications into about 10 schools right now (I think) and he's only heard from one about inviting him for an interview. Nevermind that the school he's heard from is the one school that would be an answer to all our hopes and dreams. It's in the perfect location and is the perfect price (if there is such a thing). Nevermind that it's still September and there's plenty of time for him to still hear from schools. He's getting really upset about it. And it makes me worrry. Seared onto my memory with a burn that still hurts is the scene from last spring when I walked into our little apartment and found scraps of paper flung all over the floor. Only after I tried to piece them together did I realize that it was a letter from this very school declining acceptance to him. He had to go to work before I had gotten home so I just picked up the pieces and put it in an envelope to save until he later needed/wanted it. I know he has a big heart and willing hands. I know he's smart enough and strong (physically, emotionally, mentally) enough to fulfill his dreams. I despirately want this for him. I really don't care right now what sacrifices that means for us and our family. I know that's his dream and I want him to achieve it. I wish and hope others will be able to see this in him too.

One thing I think has really helped us taking this year off and living close to his older brother. His older brother is such a great example for him. His brother is an incredibly intelligent person, and also a very hard worker. He had plans to become a veteranarian, that have never worked out for him. In fact, most of his brother's big life plans haven't worked out the way he planned and yet he still has a life that can be envied! He has a wonderful and beautiful family that he can support and a job that is challenging to him. Although I know he would like to have been able to have his life a little different, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't change the love that he has for and from his family. He is a husband and father that anyone can be proud of. Now I don't want that to happen for my sweetie, but I know if it does that everything will be ok. I know I will love him no less. I hope that my husband sees the great example his brother is for him. Regardless of this great example, I still worry for my husband.

I've also been thinking about being a mom. I've been thinking about what motivates women (and me) to become a mom. It's got to be strong motivation because it's hard. I'm not even a mom yet, and I think it's hard just to have the babies. I feel like I'm in for the biggest surprise of my life because I really have no idea what it feels like to be a mom. Oh I have notions and little glimpses and memories of what my mom was like, but I realize that it's not the same. So my question for anyone, especially my mom and my mother-in-law, is what was/is your motivation to become a mom? What was/is your favorite part? What were/are your big struggles with the process?

One thing that I have really liked about being pregnant is how close it has brought me to my husband. I see him in a different light every day. He is so helpful! I would never be able to do this without his help! Man I love him!

Itching for Christmas

Well, it's not really Christmas, or the holiday season that I really want, but it is the next big thing to look forward to. What I really want is for time to move more quickly! I want to have my baby here. I'm so impatient! I feel like I should really be more happy about the whole pregnancy state and enjoying it much more. Now that I'm not barfing up everything I've eaten in a day I do enjoy it much more. Plus I'm almost into my second tri-mester (I'm a little over 12 weeks right now). The way I figure it the second tri-mester is the holy grail of pregnancy. For most women the sickness stops (maybe I'll get to stop taking Unisom?), you actually look pregnant and not just fat (which is where I'm at right now), and you're not so big that it's uncomfortable. Plus, in the second tri-mester you get to see an ultra-sound of your baby! I've had one already, but all it really looked like was a lima bean. Yesterday I went with my sister-in-law to her ultra-sound and her baby is so cute! The ultra-sound monitor was so good! You could see the little arms and legs and the head and the face. You can tell the sex (although they don't want to know so the nurse didn't even bother to look). If I'm wrong about this second tri-mester holy grail thing then brake it to me gently.

Back to my main point. I want my time to pass quickly. Yesterday I was talking to my 4 year old nephew trying to convince him that it was indeed fall and not summer any longer because it was now September. I could not, however, argue with his logic that it could not possibly be fall since all the trees were still green and none of them were dropping their leaves. Nuts! It's still summer. Not that I'm even excited at the prospect of winter, which is long and cold. It just marks the passage of time. Christmas will too. Remember when you were little and you got to make red and green paper chains to count down to Christmas? Well, I sort of like to do that for anything I'm looking forward to. I did it for my wedding (although the chain when I made it was ridiculously long and my roommate had good reason to make fun of me). See if you do that then every day can be an accomplishment towards your goal. I'd secretly like to do that for my baby, but you can't know the exact date of the birth, at least not this far out. Then if I make the chain and the baby comes soon I would feel completely off guard and if the end of the chain came and my baby wasn't here I would feel kind of depressed. I'm so neurotic, I know. There is no need to tell me this.

In the mean time I do know when Christmas is. I can excitedly think of presents for people (which takes a lot longer when you have to save up to get them). I can think of how I will make the season festive and I can think about how my family will be different this year with a little one on the way. I can count down to that. So right now I can't wait for Christmas!

Only a Woman Knows (and Loyd)

I dressed up for work today. I'm wearing a pretty dress and I decided on some sensible flats. Nothing that I thought would be bad for work when I got dressed today. Little did I know the torture I would be in today because of the dreaded nylons. The top of the waistband is digging into my expanding bellie! I can't seem to find a spot where they want to stay either. It's like trying to fit a hair rubber band on and egg. The top either wants to curl down past my bellie or I have to pull it way up over the top. Well, they don't actually reach to the top of my bellie (which would probably have been my preferred position today). I think this is a new form of torture for pregnant women. Now I know what you're thinking/saying to yourself, "She's a fool! They make maternity nylons!" All I have to say is that I'm only 12 weeks along. I haven't really needed anything maternity yet (although I have to admit it might be time to invest in some new clothes). My need for nylons today was sort of a last minute thing. I didn't plan it. I will not be wearing these again anytime soon. Trust me.

Two-Face

There are two things which I delight in "arguing" with my husband about. The first one is where, exactly, does the line for my half of the bed lie. The second one has to do with decorating. I like to "debate" with him over these things because we both know that in the end it really doesn't matter what answer we come up with. For example, when the "my side of the bed" argument was inititated I finally decided that the true line for my side of the bed lies approximately 3.5 inches from his edge of the bed. To that he decided that the whole top of the mattress must really be my half and his half lay in the air approximately 6 inches above the bed. Of course to get to his half of the bed he needed my help by laying directly on top of me squishing my guts out. Anyway, now it doesn't really matter whose half of the bed it is, if you want to sleep there, go for it.

We are currently in the throws of a towel rack debate. I say we need a new one he says our current system is OK. Last night the "argument" became completely comical when I stuck to my it'll look better and be better for drying towels point and he stuck to his we don't really need to change anything or spend any money at all point. I do have to concede that we don't really need it, but he also conceded that if we at least buy a new hook for the back side of the door it would probably solve a lot of issues. I also learned that he never uses hand towels to dry his hands, even if they're right next to the sink. He still turns around and uses the full sized towels that people have for after their showers! I thought that was really funny.

Rural America-Right Next to the Corn

Dan and I just moved to Rural America. We are actually living in a town instead of some unincorporated county area, but the town is probably six blocks on either side (if that). We don't even get to have mail boxes at our house, we have to have a PO Box because our town is too small. Also we don't have a sewer system. Yep, everyone has septic tanks (and some people just have ses pools-sick). Let me first say living here wasn't my idea--I never pictured myself in a town where everyone owns their own horse. I told Dan that the place we end up in has to at least have sidewalks. There are a few things that I absolutely love about the place we live in though. There are also some things that I think are cute/funny.

• Last night as I was driving home from work Dan called me and asked where I was, wondering how long it would take me to get home. When I said, "I'm at the slow part next to the corn," he knew EXACTLY where I was! How often do you hear that about your drive home?
• The valley that we live in is riddled with little lakes/swamplands. On my way home I get to see these beautiful vistas. Yesterday there were herons (at least that's what my uneducated eye thought they were) in one of those areas.
• I love to look at all the different crops growning and being harvested. It really is beautiful.
• Everyone in our town waves at each other. If someone is coming by you wave, even if you have no idea who they are. You will soon.
• There is a town square which is closed from dusk to dawn. They sell hunting permits in the town square during that time of the year.
• When we first moved in our neighbors would look out their windows checking us out each time we would go in. Now that we've introduced ourselves they must have figured we were OK and they no longer had to "keep an eye on the place" for the owners.
• Each person is linked with the house that they live in and each house is linked to the ORIGINAL owner/person who built it. Our in-laws "live in Sid's old house." We're "renting the Godfrey's trailor."
• I think half the town are Godfreys.
• I think at one point they've all had to spend some time living in our trailor.
• We have town pic-nics.
• You can see ALL the stars in the sky at night. It really is breath-taking.

If that doesn't make you love our town then you're crazy! There are things that I miss, like a grocery store less than half an hour away, but for one year of my life I think we made a great choice.

Because I never thought I'd be happy living in a place like this, and I am happy I was wondering if anyone else has had that experience. It doesn't necessairly have to be about living in rural America.

***Note, I will still want to have a sewage system, grocery store, and sidewalks in a town that I decide to live in for any extended amount of time.***

Grandma/pa

Growing up we always called our grandparents by their first names. For example, Grandma Jane or Grandpa Mel or Grandma Margie. When it came to great grandparents we called them by their last names like grandma DuBois.

My husband's family calls grandparents by first names (Grandma Whiting). Although this isn't unheard of to me, I've always figured that my kids would call their grandparents by their first names. My parents have always planned on this as well. My in-laws seem to be ok with it too. My father in law is even ok with me calling him by his given first name because Grandpa Greg and Grandpa Craig are a little close that it might confuse. The other people in my husband's family have expressed ideas that my way of addressing grandparents is unheard of/weird and (this part I may be extrapolating since it has never really been expressed this way) I'm just trying to rock the boat. (Since my husband is the youngest the tradition of Grandpa and Grandma Whiting is well established with the other grandchildren.) I love my in-laws and I don't want anyone to think I'm complaining about them so don't think that. I just want to know the opinions of others out there.

So my question is this: Do you call your grandparents by their first names or thier last?

***Note regardless of what people say I will probably still have our children call their grandparents by their first names so long as the said grandparents are ok with it.***

Da-Da-Da-Daaaaaa (Read: The first four notes to Monday Night Football)

My husband loves football. Not as much as he loves wrestling, but since wrestling (the real kind not the WWF kind) isn't really a big televised sport he puts his athletic entertainment into football (except for during the summer when it's baseball, YUCK!) I don't know if my readers know this but yesterday was the first night of Monday Night Football. Those four little notes really mean that the next hours of his life my husband will be glued to the television. He even has this old NFL quilt that I'm pretty sure is a hand-me-down from one of his brothers. This is the only quilt he owns and he's pretty attached to it.

I on the other hand have so many quilts it would probably make your head spin. This is a combination of factors really. First, I quilt so some of them I made myself. Also my mom and grandma quilt so I have ones from them. Finally, I'm cold all of the time so I actually use all my quilts. My husband thinks I have WAY too many quilts.

Anyway, when we got married I packed up his one NFL quilt in a box that I thought he would never open since the quilt is sort of old and falling apart and, well, I don't really like it. He found it when we moved this last time. I was making the bed and I needed a quilt to put on it and I asked him to get me one to which I replied, "Anyone you want." He came in with the quilt behind his back and sang, "Da-Da-Da-Daaaaa!" as he revealed his choice. He said it was in honor of Monday Night football coming back. So now we have the old stinky NFL quilt on our bed. He's lucky that I love him. And also that our comforter covers up the quilt. And also that his brother has satellite TV because without satellite TV or digital cable you can't get ANY channels in our little town (even with rabbit ears).

Miracle Worker

The medicine that the doctor told me to take was half a pill of Unisom and vitamin B6 that had been put into one capsule. Last night I started taking them and it was a miracle! It was the first time I've slept through the whole night without having to get up and eat something a couple of times. Also when I ate breakfast this morning it totally stayed down! At this point I love my doctor! And I love the miracle of modern medicine.

Twins

Today I went to the doctor and got my first ultrasound to check my due date. The doctor found out a few interesting things....twins.

Just kidding. If I had twins I would be more overwhelmed and scared than excited right now. I've just got the one. The fun thing about my baby was that as soon as the doctor saw whosit (that's what I decided to call the baby until I figure out the sex and the name) he said, "Woah! You have a very active baby!" It's arms were waving and legs were moving and it was sort of bouncing up and down and it made me laugh. Everytime I laughed it would move some more. I think that was well worth the being late to the appoinment because I was busy throwing up everything in my stomach all morning. Yes, I went to the doctor's on a completely empty stomach. I almost threw up during my check up too, but I was able to breathe it down. Luckily the doctor called in a Rx to treat mild nausea that I can pick up later today. The other thing the doctor was worried about was that I've had a kidney stone before. He said I had to really stay on top of being hydrated becasue of that and my throwing everything up. If I get dehydrated my risk for kidney stones goes way up. Just what I need. I can just see myself throwing up and passing a kidney stone at the same time. Yuck. Anyway, now I will really watch what I drink.

I'm so excited! Two arms, two legs and one enormous head. At 3.5 cm, little baby whosit is perfect!

Strep Throat

I don't have strep throat (which is a very good thing I think). The other girl that works at m y work does. Since there's only the two of us and she has strep it fell to me to work for her today. Not that I mind, it's not like my job is hard, I just sit here waiting for customers to come in, I just wasn't mentally prepared to come in. After she left I used our Clorox wipes and wiped every surface that she might have touched because there's no way I want that sort of thing. My boss, the owner of the store, lives about an hour away so she was really very happy that I could come in at such a short notice. The only cramp that it put in my day was that today was supposed to be the big pack-up-and-move-every-last-thing-we-own day today so tomorrow could be the big clean-the-basement-spotless day so that my aunt would be happy she let us live there for practically nothing for two months. My husband says he's getting off work early today though so maybe that means he'll do the parts of the packing that I don't want to do before I get home, although I doubt it because they're probably the parts that he doesn't want to do either. We'll probably just end up doing them together.

Anyway, back to work. Since I had no time to prepare for my hours on end of doing nothing I feel less prepared than yesterday. Although today I brought in some CD's that I like so I don't have to listen to the same stupid commercials over and over again on the radio. I also brought my bag of free things that the doctor's office gave me which has four baby magazines in it so I can at least enjoy some very light reading about baby issues.

As for baby names, sorry anonymous, my husband's family (read: my husband) likes to do the whole name the baby boy the dad's first name and then call them by the middle name. My father in law goes by his middle name and it never seemed to bother him. I don't have strong feelings either way. My problem is if we have a boy we're not going to get to name him anything since neither of us can agree on any name. It looks like Douglass is out because my husband said, "It's OK, I guess" (read: I hate it). We haven't narrowed to anything as far a boy names go so hopefully it'll be a girl. That's my secret hope anyway because I like the idea of having a little girl.

I almost forgot to talk about two things that have brought much warmth and excitement to my pregnancy lately.

1. Yesterday my sister-in-law's sister brought over her baby that is only five days old. She weighs approximately 6 pounds and I got to hold her for a while and it just got me so excited!
2. My sister has been sending me little baby gifts almost weekly. They are so cute! I wish I could show all of you photos of them. First she sent me onesies. I took one out of the package and sat with it on my chest and marveled at how little they were! Then she sent me some duck bath slippers that I immediately put on my fingers. This week I got a two pack of hooded bath towels and washcloths. The one I took out had a turtle on it and was SO CUTE!

My husband says it might be a little too soon to be getting the baby things out and gushing over them, but I say if he were barfing everyday he'd look for the up side to it too. I love babies! I'm going to have a beautiful baby!

A new feeling of calmness

Well, yesterday I went to my first prenatal visit. It was just the nurse's consult, but it was so much fun! Well, fun probably doesn't really describe it, they told me all about common questions and concerns and then did a urine and blood test. I hate getting blood drawn, mainly because it's never really smooth going. Apparently I have the smallest veins that a grown adult should ever have. They always have to use the child size stuff. This time I told the nurse that I get nervous, but I am perfectly fine and not to worry. Then she put the arm band thing on my arm and tried to find a vein on that arm and said, "hmm, I can't even feel anything on that arm. Let's try the other arm." In the end she made another nurse do it because she wasn't confident that she could find a vein. On the plus side the other nurse did just fine and I couldn't really even feel the whole thing!

One weird thing is that they didn't even weigh me to see my starting weight and track the gain. I bet they'll do it on Monday when I actually see the doctor. Not that they need to quite yet because I haven't gained any weight. I think that's a good sign though because you're only supposed to gain about 3 pounds during your whole first trimester (which I'll be done with in two weeks!)

Today at work my boss for some reason thought two of us needed to be scheduled to work. I have no reason why because I've been here for an hour and a half and nobody has even come in. Plus, the other girl that came in had a cold and a big red rash all over her body. I didn't want her to even get close to me because I really don't want anything that she has. I told her she needed to see the doctor and convinced her that it would be a good idea to go then called my boss and told her and she said it was ok for her to leave. So now I'm here by myself. I really need a good craft project or something to occupy my time! I think I'll look into getting a Christmas craft then I could have it done by the holidays.

I'm back

Sorry its been so long since I posted, but I haven't really had time to go to the library to get to the internet. Now I have a job that gives me hours of free time with nothing to do so my activity will pick up I'm sure. In fact I'm at work right now.

Pregnancy Update

Although being pregnant has been nothing like what I expected it to be it's still pretty good. I throw up pretty much daily, but it never hits at the same time of day so it's hard to plan around. I'm worried about being at work by myself working all day with nobody to cover me when I have to go to the bathroom to barf (which I have already done once at work and I don't want to repeat.) I'm still worried about money with this baby. If that got figured out I think I would be able to relax a lot more and enjoy myself. I didn't know I would feel like I have the flu for two months straight. Also that I would spontaneously burst out in tears for absolutely no reason. I know I've heard about all this, but it never really described everything that I'm feeling. Right now I'm starting into my 10th week so hopefully the sickness will calm down soon.

Church Update

So we just moved into this ward in a small town in Utah and last week the bishop asked us if we would be on this pannel talking to the laurels and the priests about dating (since we were newly married). There were two other couples with us and it was ok. Well, in all honesty I was pretty shocked about what they were telling the youth about dating and how unrealistic it was. I'm not going into the whole story, but they told them that your spouse being the first person you kiss is the right thing to do. I wanted to turn to the bishop and say that these girls and boys had probably already kissed people and that kissing wasn't a sin so there was nothing wrong with that. I didn't though. I just kept my mouth shut. I don't know about other religions, but sometimes the messages that get sent to the youth of our church seem incredibly judgemental and completely unrealistic. Plus, that's not the church's official stance on the topic anyway.

Big Jimmy

As I have been spending a lot of time with my wonderful niece and nephew I thought I'd take a moment to post something about how cute they are. My nephew has an AMAZING imagination. It's better than any other child I have met. He has an invisible friend named Rankeler. I'm not entirely sure how to spell it, but I do know if you pronounce it wrong (like wrangler) you are corrected. Anyway, Rankeler has an entire life outside of ours and occasionally he comes over to play. It's amazing his life's story. My nephew also has another imaginary character named "Invisible Jack." Invisible Jack shows up much less, but also has lots of fun with us. Whenever my nephew plays dinosaurs he has to be Big Jimmy. Sometimes you can hear him talking and you think he's talking to himself, but then you realize that he's talking to an imaginary person. He will ask a question and then wait for their response and then respond to them. It is truly amazing!

My sister-in-law is also pregnant and a couple days ago we were sitting around talking about names. She asked my nephew what he would name their baby if it were a baby brother and he said, "I would name him Rankeler Jack Whiting." We all thought that was a great name.

Aberdeen, WA

This weekend my sister-in-law, her two children and I made a 15 hour drive from Utah to Washington to attend my other sister-in-law's wedding reception. Here were the pros and cons to the trip:

Pros

• Rachael seemed to be so very happy to be married! The reception was enjoyable and it was kinda good to not be the newest member of the Whiting family.
  
• My sister-in-laws kids were amazingly good to be in the car for a total of about 40 hours in three days.
• My mother-in-law and father-in-law made the most impressive cake for the reception (like always) and it was great to see it.
  
• It was great to see the other members of my husband's family. Heather and her kids were there and so were John and LeAnn. We all went to the Ocean after the reception and the kids played in the water until their numb little feet couldn't handle it anymore.

Cons

• Both my sister-in-law and myself are pregnant so the drive took a little longer than we wanted it.
• I have never felt so sick and confined in my life. I spent most of the time in the car concentrating on not barfing.
• The not barfing was made harder when my sister-in-law's little girl barfed and we had to clean it out. We took turns cleaning out the car seat and walking away from the car to get air so as not to barf ourselves. Mostly I just felt so bad for her little girl though because she felt so sick and was crying so hard. It almost made me cry. Her son (4 years old) was so cute because when I asked him if he was sick he said, "No, but I am concerned." He was worried all night about his sister and tried to do everything to make her feel better. What a great brother!
  
• Once we were in our room the first night we passed out from exhaustion at about midnight. The previous people to stay in our room had set the alarm and we were not aware of it until 5 AM the next morning when it went off. It woke up my sister-in-law's son and he never went back to sleep. He was SO EXCITED to go swimming with grandpa and his cousins that he bounced around the room for about 3 more hours when we finally gave up any chance of sleeping longer.
• The first thing out of my brother-in-law's mouth was, "Looks like you're starting to show." I'm only 6 weeks along. I'm not showing yet.
• I was so completely hormonal that I felt I shouldn't really open my mouth because I would probably say something I regretted. It's hard not to feel in control of yourself.
  
• I will be making this same drive (UT to WA) in two weeks to attend my husband's best friend's wedding. At least it will just be the two of us. Hopefully the nausea will go down enough to let me sleep.

All in all it was a good trip. I don't know if I'd ever want to do the same trip again, but I am glad that I went. It was good to see and be with family. Just thought I'd catch everyone up on my weekend events.