Post Birthday Wrap-Up

Well Dan's birthday was a roaring success! I was so keyed into getting up and going at the same time he did that I didn't really sleep the night before. It was just like Christmas. Then when we got up he went to the shower while I hung his HAPPY BIRTHDAY letters (which I think I will leave up for at least a week because I like them so much) and make the pancake cake. In my family the birthday breakfast is a big part of the day. At the birthday breakfast you get to have a pancake cake and open all your family presents. So when I finally finished the pancakes and he blew out his candles he got to open his presents.

• A pair of pajama pants with horses on them
• A nail brain teaser
• The Everything Father's first year book
• $25 gift card to Walmart
• Country Living interior book
• Soldering Unit

All in all he had a pretty good haul for his breakfast party! Later that day more presents arrived:

• A rotary sander
• Birthday card

Then today another birthday card came from his parents! Man he is loved! I'm pretty sure more presents are in the mail for him too! Plus, I made him an applesauce cake. He asked me to make it so I thought I'd acquiesce. Since I didn't have the recipe I had to get it from my sister-in-law, but it was worth it. He also got a chocolate cake for his birthday from his brother and sister-in-law and I think his brother took him out to lunch. I think it was a pretty good day for him!

Castles in the Air

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the things that my husband and I do without. (If you think this post is going to be complaining, then you should read on because it's not.) I am married to a "bowl and spoon" sort of man. By that I mean that if he were on his own he would have in his apartment: a bowl, a spoon, his crash pad, and his clothing. With these things he would be perfectly happy and content. Through the past year and a half of our marriage I have learned a whole lot about being content in this manner. He is teaching me so much just by how he naturally thinks about things! We live without some things partly becuase we don't have all that much money and partly because as we have lived without some of the things we have learned that we don't really need them. I think our little single wide is cute and funny. Granted, I don't have a dishwasher, washer and dryer, TV, the internet, or even a bathtub that I can fit into. In fact the other night I decided I'd take a bath and while bending my legs into some sort of contotortionist maneuver to try and maximize the amount of body that was actually touching water I just started to laugh at myself.

Despite, or perhaps because of, all that, I really am truly happy. I love where I am, and who I'm with and what I'm doing. I do have to exercise self control and not get everything I see and want. I bet this will probably get much harder when I see things that I want for my children to get and we wont be able to. That is to say, living without somethings doesn't really come naturally to me. I do catch myself building castles in the air. I see where my husband and I are now and where we might be in 10, 15, or 30 years. I like to think about our family growing, and the two of us growing together. I like to think of milestones and achievements. I do admit that I also like to think of how established we might be. That we might eventually own a house (perhaps it could even be the house that my husband draws plans for?). I would enjoy having a dishwasher, and a big bathtub. Today, in fact, my husband is moving in our washer and dryer! They're probably something like 30 years old and the loudest things I've ever heard, but I'm so excited for them.

I don't think there's anything wrong with building castles in the air for our future so long as I remember how happy I am with what we do have now.

We're Back

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I updated. Since I do this during down time at work, when there is no down time there are no posts. Anyway, as for updates I went to my doctor's appointment last week and they told me that I'm anemic. So now I have to take iron supplements. I have to take them in the opposite time of the day as my prenatal vitamins. Since I take the vitamins at night (because they tended to make me sick) I now take the iron in the morning. Ever since I started taking the iron guess what little friend popped back into my life. Barfing. Yep, last night I completely emptied the entire contents of my stomach from dinner on at about 11 PM. So I guess I'm really back to taking the anti-nausea medicine because I threw up again this morning. Although yesterday afternoon I went on a crazy cleaning streak where everything I touched needed to be spotless, organized, and sanitized so at least the toilet bowl was sparkly clean as my face was in it!

But on the plus side of the iron supplements it really got me motivated finally to exercise and drink enough water. The funny thing is that all the benefits to exercising that they told us at our childbirth class (quicker delivery, quicker recovery after delivery, less complications in general) didn't really motivate me to get back into exercising once I had stopped months ago. The threat of constipation from the iron supplements got me completely motivated and I haven't missed a day since I started. I guess I just needed the right sort of motivation.

So now that you've heard all my disgusting pregnancy updates I'm sure you all wish you were me. I really do feel good besides all that. Exercising has really helped reduce the annoyance factor that I have been feeling lately so I'm sure my husband is also happier.

My baby is so cute! Everyone told me how later on when she got stronger she would move a little arm, leg, or bum across my stomach and you could see it. Well, she doesn't really do that. What she does like to do is stick an appendage straight out from my stomach so I get this small very hard lump. My husband's favorite thing to do is feel around my tummy and find the hard lumps and push them in and see where the next one will appear. It's pretty funny.

Another cool trick is that she can detect changes in light. When I put a flashlight on my tummy she moves away from wherever the light is. It's so funny! You can follow her around with the light and she'll always move away from it. That makes me wonder if she's afraid of it or something so I don't really do it too often.

She also will always wiggle around when my husband talks to her tummy. He'll come home or lean over and start talking to my tummy and I tell him that she must be asleep because she hasn't been moving much lately, but as soon as he starts talking to her she starts moving. It's so funny!

Actual conversation at 12:30AM a few nights ago:

Me: "Now I can't sleep because I'm really hungry!"
Husband: "Hmm that's too bad."
Me: "I wonder if I can go to sleep and just eat in the morning or if this will keep me up and I should just go eat."
Husband: No response
Me: "What do you think I should eat?"
Husband: "Perhaps a smackeral of honey."

Guess what tomorrow is? My sweetie's birthday! I have wrapped the present that I'm giving him and also put a bow on the card that came from my aunt and uncle in the mail and also the two other presents that came in the mail from my family so his birthday breakfast should be pretty good tomorrow. I'm so excited! Honestly I think I might be a little more excited than he is but 25 is a big one isn't it? Maybe not, but I just want him to know how special he is. This morning I spent some time cutting out big HAPPY BIRTHDAY letters that I'm going to hang up in our trailer to surprise him in the morning. Oh I hope he likes my present to him!

Guess what happens two months from today? My due date! Woohoo!

Bragging

Last Saturday my Sweetie took me out on a date. We weren't planning on going out, but when we got everything done we had planned for so quickly we just looked at each other and said, "Now what should we do?" Since we have no TV, and we've seen all our DVDs about a billion times the choice to go to town (30 minute drive) seemed pretty straight forward. What a treat! We haven't gone on a date like this in a loooong time. He took me to Sonic and we got ice cream and then we walked around Smith's Marketplace just looking at all their stuff for a while. I know this isn't really a fancy date, but it was so great to just be with him and talk and walk around. Then we made it to the infant clothing section of the store. He said that we needed to go look at the stuff. I'm always in for looking at cute little onesies and such so I agreed. Then he found a onesie that he fell in love with. He said we needed to buy it and I said, "We should probably take stock of what we already have. We've gotten a lot of clothing already so we need to know what size to buy the onesie in." His reply to this was, "We can get this for her going home outfit." Then he found cute little pink sweat pants to go with it (since it will be Logan in March) and worried about needing a hat or some other such things. Then he found a pack of 5 onesies that he decided to get too. As we were walking back to our car he said, "The first clothing that we bought for our little girl!" He was so happy! He was so cute! I love him so much!

Keeping with the same train of thought I thought I'd like to list just a few more things that I love about my husband and how great he is:

• He just finished my Christmas present last night and it is amazing! I love it so much! He spent 30 minutes last night just washing the mirror off so that it's sparkling clean. I think it's so cute how he puts his all into every project he does.


• The other night I was so uncomfortable in bed that after laying there for 20 minutes I just threw the sheets off me and stomped out of the room. When I came back in he just asked me how he could help! Then he gave me a back rub!


• Did I mention how much I love that he does the dishes every other night?! Isn't that amazing?! Oh how I love that man! I've taken two photos of him doing the dishes just because it makes me so happy! He thinks it's weird that I take pictures of him doing them because he doesn't think it's a big deal.


• Every night when he comes home he takes time to give me a good kiss and tell me he loves me! I try very hard to make sure that I let him know that I love him every day because I read in the parenting magazine that on the online pole they had 86% of moms had told their kids they loved them that day, but only 34% (I think that was the number, but even if it wasn't the number was so low I was surprised) had told their husband/significant other that same thing.


• My husband is so funny/silly. I know I post a lot of silly things he does, but rest assured that I don't post the bulk of it. He seems to love to make me laugh.

Well, that's it for now. I have to go think of something special I can do for him today because he's so great!

30 weeks!

Can you believe it?! I'm at 30 weeks! I realized yesterday that I must have completely lost the morning sickness sometime in the past 10 weeks. I can't really be sure when that happened though mostly because of the stomach flu I had sometime around week 27. I might have lost the morning sickness earlier, but those 3 days wanting to die really cloud my judgement. At any rate not only am I no longer getting sick, but I'm also off the anti-nausea medicine! I weaned myself down little by little (the doctor told me I could of course) and for a few days now I haven't taken any! Man this feels great!

The only drawback to being off the medicine is that the wonderful side effect of it being a sleeping medication is gone now too. I feel great during the day now, but at night after about an hour of laying down my entire body starts to scream at me. "How could you possibly think that laying down to sleep would be a good idea? Don't you know that your extra weight in the front of you will make the rest of you ache and hurt?" This morning I woke up at 3:30am and didn't fall back to sleep until well into the 5 o'clock hour. My Sweetie didn't have to leave for work until 7:30 today and on those mornings I really like to get up and have breakfast with him (I secretly think he really likes this too), but this morning when he gently asked me if I was getting up I had to say no. I should have just gotten up because once I was awake my body started to scream at me again and sleeping wasn't much of an option.

Does anyone know of any trick to sleeping that I'm unaware of? I'd really like to not continue taking the medicine just because I'm a wimp that can't sleep. (Although my doctor did say that he does give it to women that complain about not being able to sleep at the end of their pregnancies.) Plus, I realize that it makes me sleep in a whole lot more than I would like.

In other news I got my week 30 gift. Pink and cream striped fleece pants with a little pink bow. So cute!

Sewing

Well yesterday I was so excited about my surger being fixed that I went out and bought fabric for two projects that I've really been thinking about. First, the cradle mattress cover. Second, fabric to make replacement bags for our laundry bags. We bought a laundry bag hanging system when we got married and it works great. It has a plastic frame and three mesh bags that hang from it where we put our dirty clothing. Well, the mesh bags have not held up well. So I decided to get some lightweight canvas type fabric.

After I got home I decided to start with the bags since for that project I already had a pattern (the old bags). Well, let me tell you I must have been completely looney yesterday becuase I purchased only half the amount of fabric needed. That wasn't too bad I decided. I just started to make the first one anyway. Then when I was trying to put them together I cut out the bag so wrong somehow that it was 4 whole inches short in circumfrance! I have absolutely no idea how I managed to mess up that bag so badly! I was so upset by this that I decided to just give up on that project all together for the day. I'll go purchase more fabric and start over from scratch.

So to boost my spirits I decided to start on the mattress cover. I ended up making it like a duvet cover and I think I'll just get some velcro that I can put on the flap that goes around the back. If I had been a little more patient I could have waited for my mother-in-law to help (I didn't read that comment until this morning) and it probably would have turned out much better, but now it's done and it's servicable. I think I'm going to wait for my mother-in-law to help me with the laundry bags (since I've obviously proven my inability to make a simple bag.) It would be nice if I could put button holes in the canvas to go over the frame and I can't do that with a surger.

PS. As for photos of Charlotte's nursery, they're coming, I promise. I'm just having a little difficulty with transferring them. It shouldn't be hard so I don't really understand why it isn't working. (And this is where I show everyone my slowness with technology, oh well.)

Two Quick Questions

Three posts in one day seems a little overboard, but I had two questions:

1. I finally took my surger in to be repaired so now I can sew a mattress cover for the cradle mattress. I have to sew a new one since the piece of foam that I got from the upholstry store is thicker than the old mattress and I couldn't fit it in the old cover. (Don't even get me started on how I will never work with that upholstry store ever again!) Anyway, I was thinking about how I could do this without having to put in a zipper or hand sewing. My sister suggested that I make it like a pillow sham with two pieces that just overlap in the back. I thought this was a good idea, but I'm not sure. What do you think about getting the foam in and out of the cover like that? (My mom told me a trick with a garbage bag that might work.)
2. How long after Christmas can you leave your Christmas lights up on a single-wide trailer without looking like white trash? We're moving sometime in July so I know they'll be down by then.

Photos-my growth

My mom just showed me the photos that she took during Christmas and one was of me and my expanding mid-section. My perception is so distorted right now! I don't really feel all that large most of the time. I think that's just becuase I grew little by little and I've been big for a while now. I looked at a similar photo she took of me in September and I realize that I've grown-a lot. So I thought I'd let you all see my expanding girth.

This is me back in September. I think it's funny that I actually thought I was getting big back then! Yes, that is my single-wide trailer in the background. Isn't it beautiful?

This is me at Christmas. Neither of these photos are really great of me, but you get the idea. At work I sit behind a tall counter so that when customers walk in they can only see me from the bust line up. When a mom and daughter came in the other day I got up to show them something in the back of the store so all they saw was my bust line up and then my back side as they followed me. When I swung around to show them something the daughter said, "WOAH! When are you due?" and the mom said, "Congratulations." I thought the delayed reaction was so funny!

Patience is a Virtue

Well, I forgot the CD I had with all the photos I took on it at home when I went into work today so you wont get to see the glorious bounty that baby Charlotte already has. You'll just have to be patient.

Speaking of photos I decided to use my $50 from grandma/pa to get a memory stick. We borrowed one from my mom last year during the school year and ever since we gave it back to her I've missed being able to carry around all that information in such a compact and convienent format. When I told my husband my plan he was very supportive of it. I think this is because he plans on using it for med school in the coming years. This is fine with me since I've never even been close to needing all the space on one of those things at once. I was actually thinking that maybe I should buy him one for his birthday. (January 24th for anyone that wants to give him something or call him or think good thoughts for him.) I decided against it though since the main reason I wanted to get it was to use it as an easy and convienent way to transport photos from home to work so I can email them to family and friends. It seemed a little selfish to get him a present because I wanted to use it too. I have decided to get him something else entirely that I'm sure he'll enjoy and I really have no use for. Anyway, can you guess the first thing that went on the little device after I got it? Well, it wasn't any photos. It was my Sweetie's letter of intent that he's working on. Plus, he took it with him to California so I can't use it at all while he's gone! Lest anyone think I'm complaining, I'm not. I just think the whole situation is so funny! I never thought he'd like it so much! I'm sure I'll get plenty of opportunity to use it for my own reasons. I just need to be patient.

For the astute readers out there, yes my husband is in California. He left yesterday and had his interview at Loma Linda today and will be back tonight. I had awful sleep last night. He wasn't there and I've gotten used to him propping up my leg while I sleep and having a pillow at my back so that my ribs stop hurting. He wasn't there last night and boy did I feel it! Also I have this anxiety about his interviews. I thought that would pass once he was accepted into one school, but it hasn't. I still feel very anxious each time I know he's in an interview. I think it's just that I want the people he's interviewing with to see how incredible he is. He still has two interviews left (Ohio State, and NYMC). I'm not sure of the dates for either one though. I hope it's before mid February because I really don't want him in another state that close to my due date. Applying to medical school is the longest process! (I'm sure applying to dental school and law school are too.) I just wish it were over. I still day dream about him getting into UW and how great it would be to be so close to family. Not that a five hour drive is all that close, but it's way closer than Phillidelphia. Patience. Patience. Patience.

This next part isn't about being patient, but it does tie in becuase it's about my Sweetie. You know it's time to get yourself bigger undershirts when your husband sees you wearing it and comments on how you look similar to Winnie the Pooh. (How Pooh's shirt is always short over his tummy.) I did ask him if he knew that Pooh is described as being "tubby" and "stuffed with fluff." He said that Winnie the Pooh is also described as being a bear and I'm not a bear (also that Pooh can eat a whole meal just out of honey and I can't do that either.) Mostly I just thought it was funny, but I did get new undershirts.

Another thing that I have to be patient about is Charlotte's weekly present from Aunt Katie. My sister is the best sister/aunt ever and my baby hasn't even arrived yet! I know I've mentioned how I get weekly gifts from her before, but I've never gone into the excitement and anticipation I have each week as I visit the post office. I will make special trips each day just to check the mailbox. The only other things I get in the mail are bills and bulk mailings. It's been so great to know that each week I get something in the mail just for me (well for Charlotte, but for me too!) This has been the happiest mailbox I've ever had, even though I have to go a block to get to it! I feel so blessed to have a sister that is so excited to be an aunt! She's the only one (except for Daniel of course) that has been excited to feel the baby move. Sadly that didn't happen as much when I wanted it to. I wait, with varrying ammounts of patience, each week for our little manilla envelope of joy!

The thing I really need to be patient for right now is the arrival of baby Charlotte. After that childbirth class all I can think about is her arrival. Will my mom be here at the time? Will Charlotte come so that my sister's spring break lines up with it? When will we bless her? What will she look like? Will she have red hair? Will she have hair at all? I talked to my mom about her labors (my sister and me) and both were pretty short, if that's any indication of what I have to look forward to. Another change since the class we went to is Dan's attentiveness. He is such a sweet and loving husband! He keeps saying how he thinks I'm so brave and strong to do this and he would help me if he could. I think it's sweet, especially since I don't really feel all that brave or strong while complaining all the time. It's not like I really have any choice about this baby coming out at this point anyway. The only part of the birth that I think he will get distracted by is that I'm pretty sure that if/when I get the epidural he'll want to see that process and how it all works. Not that he's totally unfamilliar with the process though. I'm just so excited that I can't wait! Let's just cross our fingers she doesn't decide to arrive March 19th!

Childbirth Education

We just got out of our Childbirth Education class today. Wow, was it looooong! Dan kind of feel asleep for a while, but I couldn't even really get upset with him because it just took so long! (Plus, I don't think our baby is going to suffer that much if her daddy doesn't intently watch all of the amazing things your newborn can do video.) The class was really good though. I think I got some good information that will help me feel prepared when the big day finally does show up. Namely I learned what the hospital procedures are. They also went into detail about the stages of labor and what to expect with that. The thing about that is that they would say here's what happens first and it might last as little as 30 minutes or it could last 10 hours or more and this is what you can do to get through it, but only if it works for you. So I basically came out of the class with the general idea of things, but with a more go with the flow attitude. Luckily I have a good husband/coach that really knows that I like to have good guidance and direction to follow. Hopefully he'll actually practice some of the things I liked from the class with me and not laugh too much. I think we were the disruptive students of the class because we sat in the back and he made funny comments under his breath to me the whole time. Some of which really got me to giggling. ("That baby doll looks like it's doing a swan dive through the pelvis!")

Here's the question that I had that I never got the guts up to ask. I always assumed that the actual baby coming out of you was the most painful part of labor/delivery, but I think that might be wrong now. They talked about the final phase of stage one labor (transition) being the most difficult over and over in the class. Does most difficult mean most physically painful or does it mean mental or emotional difficulty?

Things which I am unsure about:

• pain medication-I'm a wuss and I never considered not getting an epidural. On the other hand I'm a wuss and I saw what they have to do to give you one and I don't know if I want that either. Let's face it, I have a hard time getting blood drawn. Plus, I also like the idea of being free to move around more if I wanted to.
• leaving with enough time to get to the hospital-they talked about not having to go right away since you're typically in early labor for a long time. We do have a 30 minute drive to get to the hospital though and that's with normal weather conditions. I'd like to get to the hospital with enough time that I'm not nervous about time. There's enough else that I will have to concentrate on besides making it to the hospital. At least we aren't the couple in our class that lives north of Preston, ID. They need to schedule for a 50 minute drive.

Things which I am totally sure about:

• Number of people in the birthing room with me-The hospital allows up to four people (besides my coach) in the labor/delivery room with me. That's five extra people! I don't really think I need an audience. The people I would like/feel comfortable in the room with me are 1) Dan, 2) my mom, 3) my mother-in-law. Those are the ones that if it's possible for them to make it I want them there. People that I would be OK with also being in there are my sister (although I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to see the actual thing happening, but if she does and she's there I'd be ok with that).
• I don't want the mirror-watching the head pop out of me isn't necessary.
• Feel the head coming out-in some of the videos the doctor told the mom she could reach down and feel the head coming out and the mom did. I so don't need that. Let's just focus on getting the baby out.
• My husband's interest in all things medical-although he did lean in and tell me during one video that OBGYN is totally out of the question for his specialty.

Mostly I'm more nervous about breast feeding than I am about labor/delivery. That may sound silly, but the fact of the matter is that in labor/delivery I will be surrounded by medical professionals that know what they're doing. They've done it many, many times before and although I am aware that every birth is unique and different, I'm in the hands of specialists. Breast feeding is all on me and I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want cracked, chapped nipples or mastitis.

Holiday Highlights

Well there's so much that has happened over the holiday! I think I'll take some time and just share a little. First, my husband made me the most beautiful Christmas present ever. He made a wooden mirror frame for me and I absolutely love it. I can't wait until it's stained (he didn't stain it before because he wanted me to chose what I wanted) and hanging in our house!

Second, the best way to make any holiday miserable is to get a bad case of the stomach flu here after to be referred to as the death sickness. First my dad got sick, then my aunt, then my other aunt, then me, then finally my sister. My dad was so sick we had to take him to the hospital. I on the other hand just spent three days laying around thinking about death. To all of you who are thinking, "She should have gotten a flu shot," I reply, "My dad got a flu shot and he was the first to get sick."

New Year's day was fun yesterday. We spent the day painting and working on the in-law's new house. It looks fabulous by the way. The only low point of the day was when I decided that I needed to chop the onion so fast that the tip of my thumb could go with it under the knife. I cut through the nail right into the thumb and bled all over the place, but luckily my husband is good at first aid. Now all it needs is a supply of band-aids and time to heal.

My sister came up and stayed in our trailer with us for a day and that was so much fun! We didn't really do much, but it's always fun to hang out with her. She says I'm on my trailer vacation and to tell you the truth it does kind of feel like one big vacation since we're only going to be living here for a year. We put the mattress in the crib and put the swing together and everything looks so good! I'm going to start having to figure out where to put everything. Daniel said the other day that we already have too much stuff and we don't even have the baby yet. My answer is how can you have too much stuff for your baby? Plus, I'm getting very good at organizing and fitting and packing stuff away so that it all fits into our little space. We just have to be super vigilant at not leaving stuff out because then we have no space to actually live.

Speaking of what's happening next year I almost forgot to tell you the big news! Daniel's been accepted into medical school!!!!!!!!! Isn't that just absolutely exciting?! He got into Temple University. Although moving with a four month old baby to Philidelphia where I know nobody seems really scary right now I'm just so excited that he got in! He's still got two more interviews to go to, (NYMC, Loma Linda) but it's just so great! It feels like our plans have been so fluid for so long that it's great to finally be able to count on the fact that my husband is going to study to be a doctor! I can say it with confidence.

With the holidays over the next big thing is my sister-in-law's baby and then mine! I can't believe how fast December went! I hope January and February go by just as fast! I'm sure there's something I'm missing, but that's all I can think of for now. I hope everyone is just as happy as I am today!

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.)