A Fresh Start

Last week was rough. It was dark and gloomy in our house. There was an icky stomach virus that invited its way in. Kase was sicker than I had ever seen him. Then the week was topped off with me welcoming a new phase of pregnancy: swollen feet and ankles. I didn't feel like moving or walking anywhere. Fun.


But then the weekend came. I was able to sleep in and rest, Kase felt better, we enjoyed a lovely date night with Kase's parents, and the weather was beautiful. Sunday morning, I woke up to a surprise. Kase had hidden my favorite easter treat (the big Reese's Easter Eggs) around the house and I had to hunt them. He is the sweetest. Best of all, it was also General Conference weekend. My favorite is always the Saturday sessions. It seems that the things I need to hear the most are always that day. Saturday was full of talks about the importance of the role of women, families, and the teaching of our children. Sunday many talks were about the ressurection and atonement. Pondering the selfless love and sacrifice of our Savior touched my heart and warmed my soul.


This morning I awoke refreshed and renewed. I am ready for a new week. A fresh start. A new beginning.


I love Easter and Spring.

Dogs vs Cats

Dogs are better than cats. There I said it. Atleast I think they are. I am a dog person I guess. Yes I suppose Cats are smart and everything. But dogs just love you so much. Besides, how often do you see a Cat as a service animal? A seeing eye cat? I don't think so.


Our dog is special. She is not particularly bright. She runs into things a lot and is afraid of scary things like the cord on the space heater. She is a little obsessive complusive. She must exit the family room using the left side of the couch and enter by the right side of the couch. Everytime there is a doorbell sound on the TV she thinks it's our door. The TV is downstairs, the door is upstairs. Makes sense right? Sometimes, just to mess with her, we tell her to go check the front door to make sure noone is here. And she does. She also falls down the stairs if you accidentally turn off the light while she is going down them.

Our dog is somewhat well trained. She knows how to sit, lay down, go to her bed, and shake. She knows what porch, walk, and outside means. She knows she isn't allowed on the furniture or up the stairs in our bedrooms.

Our dog is rebellious. She knows what she isn't suppose to do and generally she doesn't do those things. Unless she is left alone. She goes through bad spells. These are times when we are not around and she does specifically what she shouldn't. Like snuggle up on the couch for a nap, chew on the puppy gates leaving splinters everywhere, going upstairs and clawing on the door so she can get into one of the bedrooms, or crawling under the fence and running wild and free through our neighborhood. The most random was when she clawed a whole into the wall for no reason. Yes, that is why we call her the Monster.

She has good spells too. But every time I say something like "our dog has been really good lately." She has a bad spell. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Last night, we were going to sleep and I said to Kase "You know, the dog has been good lately. I am going to regret saying it, but it's true."

And boy did I regret it. At 4:30 in the morning I woke up to a weird noise. At first, I thought it was a dream or someone in the house. Then I realized it was the dog. She was eating our carpet. Yes our carpet. The Monster had returned. There are holes in the carpet going up the stairs.

In her defense, sometimes her tummy gets upset and she wants to eat grass. There is no grass in the house so naturally carpet is the next best thing. Only it doesn't grow back.

So Kase had to let her outside and then back in and then I had to lay there and not sleep because I was afraid she'd eat more carpet. That's our dog.

Maybe cats aren't so bad after all.

But really how could we not love her with a face like this:

Or this:

Maybe she is getting us ready for parenthood. Although, I am pretty sure our baby will not eat carpet. I hope not atleast.

Speaking of parenthood, for those interested here is a photo of me and the baby last week at 27 weeks. Sorry it's so dark. Please ignore my hair and face.

Baby Update

Friday we went to the doctor for our 25th week checkup.

They did another ultrasound to check on the baby's kidneys. Her right kidney still has a blockage somewhere and is swollen full of fluid. It made my heart hurt to see her perfectly small bean-shaped left kidney next to the huge black (fluid shows up black on the monitor) right kidney. We'll have to do another ultrasound to check on the kidney again in 4 weeks. They want to make sure the kidney doesn't get too large and that the amniotic fluid levels stay high enough. She may have to be delivered early if things take a turn for the worst, she may need surgery when she is born, or everything may be OK and she could go full-term and just need medication to clear out the blockage. We're hoping for that one.

Other than that everything else looks good. Strong heart and good bones. She weights 2 lbs already, which is big for her age. And her feet are HUGE! Already 2 inches long!

It was fun to see our baby again.

Here are pictures from the 3 ultrasounds we have had so far. I labeled things because it just looks blob-like to me:



7 weeks- a tiny peanut:
20 weeks- looking like a baby: 25 weeks- She is bigger and squished and kept moving around a lot so they couldn't get a lot of good pictures. Here she looks like Skeletor. It's just one eye, nose, and skeleton mouth: 25 weeks still- They tried to get her huge big foot. It's the blobish thing above her body. HUGE
25 weeks still: This is a picture where they tried to get her hand. I can see an arm and a fist.
Anyways. We are really excited to meet our baby. We're praying that things get better with her kidney. We love her so much already. She loves her daddy already and moves around a lot when he talks to her.

One day I will post pictures of my growing belly. But my computer is slow uploading things. Stay tuned.....

Finally

It finally happened. Someone who doesn't know that I am currently growing a baby, asked if I was pregnant! That means that to atleast some people I actually look pregnant, and not just put on a little weight! At work we have several older gentlemen who are our security guards and I pass by them every morning. I did not tell them about the baby because they are very grandpa-like and I wasn't really sure how to start that conversation. This morning I got on the elevator and one of them followed me in and whispered the ever coveted question "Are you pregnant?"

YES!!! YES I am thank you!!!!

In hind sight I wish I had said no and acted offended. You know just for a little while. But I guess that's not nice to do to your work grandpa.

Obsessed

So I decided to not buy much for the baby until it gets closer to baby time. Mostly to save money because we're hoping we get a lot of hand-me-downs, and I want to wait until after any baby showers so I know what we need.

But there is one problem with my plan.

I can't stop thinking about baby stuff.

I dream about it.

I MAY have even drawn a picture of what I would like our nursery to look like. Hoping that doing this would make me stop obsessing. I MAY have even considered taking measurements of the room so I could draw this picture to scale. I MAY have showed this picture to my husband and he still loves me. But I won't tell you if I really did that cause that would be embarrassing and dorky.

I don't want anything fancy. Just the necessities.

Anyways. I broke down and bought ONE thing for the baby/nursery a few weeks ago.

I had been eyeing this item for a while. It was on sale. Free shipping. I could build my Target rewards points. It was a sign.

So our baby has crib bedding.

She doesn't have a crib, but at least she has bedding.

And now I am making you look at it because I keep thinking about it.

Sorry.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Have you ever had that awkward experience where you think someone/something is someone/something they are not.

Like you think you see a friend walking by. You say hi and they turn around. Only you see that they are not your friend but a complete stranger.

Awkward.

Or when you were a kid and you were shopping. An adult walks up next to you with the same pants as your parent. You tug on their pant leg and ask them a question. Only you look up to see a stranger staring down at you.

Awkward.

Well that happened to us last night. Only not so much with a person.

Last year for my birthday Kase took me to Pigeon Forge. We shopped and ate at a place called Connors. For our meal we shared an appetizer sampler and the most delicious plate of nachos. I am not talking Taco Bell nachos. I mean a HUGE plate full of chips, beans, guacamole, cheese, green onions, jalapeños...OK you get the picture.

Lately, I have been craving these nachos bad. Real bad.

Last night, we were running errands in Turkey Creek when suddenly I see a Connors. The beholder of the coveted nachos. We decided this would be our valentine treat. (Ok I really decided and Kase is nice to me seeing that I am growing his child and all.)

So we park. We go into the restaurant and get a table immediately. I visit the restroom facilities. An employee chats with me at the sink and is super nice. Quick service, clean restrooms, nice employees, delicious nachos. This place rocks!

That’s when it happened. I returned to our table and found Kase looking grim.

“Either this is not the same Connors, or they have changed their menu” he says.

I glance through the menu. Nope. No nachos. No appetizer sampler. Just expensive stuff that I don’t really want to eat. “But the restaurant has the same name with the same sign in the same font and everything!” I was starting to get really worried.

“What are we going to do?” I say very panicky. “I don’t want this stuff. I don’t want to pay money for stuff I don’t want to eat. Let’s leave.” I look over the menu again just to make sure we didn’t miss the nachos, or a section with cheap food.

I was ready to bolt for the door without a word to the waiter. (We only had waters on our table.) But Kase is polite and says we need to tell the waiter we’re leaving.

At this point the waiter shows up to our table with bread. I told him we had to go. Kase said we had a phone call and needed to leave. (Which was true because I had received a phone call at some point and we did need to leave.)

We got the heck out of the nacho-less place. Apparently Connors in Pigeon Forge is different than the Connors in Turkey Creek. I should have known.

Awkward.

Now does anyone know a place that has really good nachos? I know I could make them myself, but they just don’t taste as good.



P.S. Everyone thanks for all the advice from my last post. I really appreciate it. I’m sure I will be asking for more!

P.S.S. Erin, I went to the Ross in Turkey Creek and got some super cute maternity tops for super cheap. Thanks!

Advice Needed: Apply Here (or whenever I see you next)

If there is one thing that I have noticed about being pregnant, it is that everyone has advice. Don’t’ get me wrong, I need advice and lots of it. (I will get to that part in a minute.) But lately I have been getting advice on things that I don’t want. I am sure this problem will get worse.

Here’s how it goes:

Unneeded Advice: At this point I am still fitting into some of my regular clothes. However, for some reason several people at my work keep insisting that I go out and buy a bunch of maternity clothes. One lady even texted me on a Friday night to remind me that I need to go shopping for maternity clothes, as if my expanding belly and unbuttoned pants were not enough to remind me.

I am going to get maternity clothes. If fact, with help from my Mom I have purchased a few things. But I don’t have money just lying around to go buy a new wardrobe that I will only use for a short time. I will get there. No rush.

Needed Advice: Where is a place to buy cheap maternity clothes?

Unneeded Advice: People like to comment on my appearance. Apparently being pregnant gives everyone the right to be rude without actually being rude. Example #1: A coworker walked by at work and called me chubby. Perhaps it was a joke, but I don’t find it funny. Example #2: Another coworker told me about a girl she knew that ended up with boils on her face. Thank you. I really needed to hear that. Now I have another thing to worry about, getting face boils.

Speaking of bellies. People at work keep asking me if I am sure that everything is fine because so-in-so that they know who is pregnant is as far a long as I am and they are showing a lot more. They say I should double check with my doctor that everything is OK. Just FYI I have checked with my doctor and everything at this point is fine. I am a tall girl. I have lots of room for a growing baby.

Needed Advice: Is there a magic lotion that will make my belly not itch as much? Anyone?

Unneeded Advice: I need help with girl names. I admit it. We have a few that we like, but we just can’t decide what feels right. I change my mind everyday. I think I like old fashioned names. There is a coworker of mine that keeps suggesting that I name our baby the same name as her teenage son. No offense, but I don’t want to name my kid after someone else’s kid. That’s weird. At first I thought it was a joke, but now it’s been suggested so many times I think she may be serious.

Needed Advice: I do welcome name suggestions! Just not your kids name. That’s weird.

Side Note: If you are my coworker who has stumbled upon my blog and think or know that I may be writing about you. I am sorry. Just blame it on my hormones and/or stop being weird!

More Advice that I need:

Do you have to use special laundry detergent for baby clothes?
Do you prefer the stand alone high chairs or ones that strap to a chair?
Are the car seats that go into the strollers the best route or two separate things?

I know I still have a while to figure most things out but I am obsessed with looking at baby things online.

I’m sure I’ll have more needed advice later. I need lots. I promise not to complain about any given advice on my blog in the future.