Monday, January 27, 2014

Baby Beginnings

When I started blogging again, I debated on whether or not I wanted to write about my pregnancy up to this point. I had decided I didn't want to, and then Jennica did. And it was so cute and I thought about my motivation to blog more this year is to print off a book at the end so that when my children are older then can look at them. So I realized I would probably regret it if I didn't record things about my pregnancy previously. I know I was sad when I'd ask my mom questions about when she was pregnant with me and she couldn't remember clearly if that was with me she felt that way or one of the other kids. Enough rambling though lets get to the good stuff.

1st Trimester Symptoms
Headaches: Yes. If I didn't take some sort of a nap you could count on me having a pounding headache by 5 and ready for bed. 
Morning Sickness: None, Nausea all day? Yes. Didn't help that I was waitressing at the time and to this day the thought of fish and chips or an onion bloom makes me a little queasy.
Tired: I have never felt so tired in my life. I was taking about 3 hour naps everyday and going to bed at about 9-10 o'clock. Sometimes my naps would even occur at 10 in the morning, after I'd only been up 2 hours.
Mood: Nothing really changed. I did cry twice at work and found myself crying in shows. And when I say crying I mean bawling. It was like my best friend had just died. 
Food Aversions/Cravings: I didn't really come to hate anything, but I had to have some things a certain way in order for me to like it. Vegetables, I could only eat with ranch dip and salads became the last thing I wanted. Water had to be ice cold. And gum had to be fruit flavored. As for cravings, pretty much everything unhealthy that I never ate before. French fries, sugar cereal, Kraft Dinner, candy... I thought I would be the healthiest pregnant woman. WRONG
Weight gain: about 6 pounds.  

I started thinking I might be pregnant a couple of days before we actually found out, but I didn't want to take a pregnancy test so soon because I had done that before and was disappointed when the results weren't what I had wanted. I went to the doctor on August 21 because I had swollen lymph nodes and was afraid I had cancer or something and when I started telling him how else I had been feeling he asked if I was pregnant. So I took a test there and he brought it back into the room and showed it to me and there was a pink line and a blue line not a positive sign (+) so I said "Okay I am not pregnant" to which he replied one of us is and it's not me! I broke down crying right then and laughing too. I was so happy. 
Matt and I waited until his mom came down in September to tell our parents. It was both grandparents 9th grandchild so we requested stir fry to be made and matt and I got fortune cookies and took out the old fortune and put in our own. It read "Great blessings are in store for you. Your 9th grandchild is due in April." Sadly, no one in our family really likes fortune cookies so getting people to actually take a cookie and open it was a struggle. I was getting ready to burst. It took a couple of seconds for things to register with our parents when they read it but after it set in there were cheers, smiles, high fives, and hugs. 
We waited until my first ultrasound to start telling people because we wanted to make sure everything was good and healthy with our baby, which it was. Hearing little baby's heartbeat was probably my favorite thing and continues to be one of my favorite things each time I go to an appointment. 
(How embarrassing, I am wearing the same outfit)


We called family members to tell them the good news. The best reaction was my sister in law Crystal, which I should've known would be the case. She started dancing around and cheering like a mad woman. It was one of those moments were I wish my head had a video camera on it and I could just mentally hit record and then transfer it to my computer. 
This is how we announced it to pretty much everyone we knew via facebook. It was so nice to finally tell people because it felt like everyday I was checking my facebook and people were announcing their pregnancy and I just couldn't wait to finally join in. Our little nugget is going to have so many friends her age. 

Well I think that about sums up the first trimester. 


Thursday, January 23, 2014

Favorite things

This is just a post about my favorite things as a stay at home wife.

I have all the time in the world to cook delicious things. I am convinced that anyone can make a good meal. They just need the right recipe and they are golden. Whenever people talk to Matt and I about me being at home all day he always makes this comment "I will tell you one thing, the quality of meals has increased substantially." So needless to say I think Matt is quite fond of my plans to be a stay at home mom. Some of the winner dinners these last few weeks have been

Creamy Chicken and Roasted Red Pepper Pasta  With this recipe I roasted the peppers myself instead of buying the jarred stuff. Tasted AMAZING, probably better then the jarred stuff. Also add some red pepper flakes for a little kick. You won't regret it.


Crock pot BBQ Chicken My Husband licked the plate clean, almost. He grabbed a slice of bread and used that to soak up the left over bbq sauce on his plate. 





Today I made Cinnamon Raisin bread because 1. It's so expensive to buy 2. Homemade is always better 3. You get 3 loaves instead of one for probably the same price and 4. Matt loves the stuff. 

                                     

Next I have taken up the art of crocheting. A girl in my ward helped me get started. So I am on a slow road to finishing a baby blanket for little baby. But that is fine, cause I have got the time!
                                     

Lastly this isn't quite a home making skill but it's something I have time for. For all you pregnant woman here are 2 exercise videos you can do. Don't be intimidated by the length, they aren't to terribly difficult and you can always break them into half hour work outs. If you don't have an exercise ball you should still do all you can without the ball, ESPECIALLY if you have any pelvic. lower back pain. One day and night I had really bad back pain. Did the one designed by the physiotherapist for the first time the next morning. My back, hips, and pelvic pain disappeared. It was like a miracle.
Prenatal Pilates 10 minute solutions
Pregnancy Pilates designed by physiotherapist.

Anyway, there is my list of favorite stay home wife things. 

Monday, January 20, 2014

Random ramblings.

I feel like I have a monster inside of me sometimes. A starving, kicking, funny little monster. I feel like she is going thru some major growth spurt because I think if you were to come over to my house, 9 times out of 10 I would be eating something, and I probably just ate an hour or so before hand. I AM STARVING ALL THE TIME. The most annoying thing lately is that little baby is being a stinker and waking me up not only once, but sometimes twice in the night because she is hungry. It's like a game to her or something. I try to stuff myself before I go to bed, but I still usually get up around 430 with a growling stomach, feel my way to the kitchen, grab a piece of bread and sit and munch. Then I get back in to bed and just lay there for the next hour unable to sleep. The only nice thing is I get to spend that hour with my belly buddy. Sometimes she is a little restless at night too so I just lay there with my hand on my stomach thinking about her and how much I love her, despite having to get up in the night to eat and go to the bathroom. I guess she is just preparing me for when she is REALLY here and is REALLY hungry. Oh I can't wait.
She has also become an even bigger monster because she has found her way to my ribs. It doesn't hurt yet. Mostly just tickles and makes me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I even laugh out loud because it feels so WEIRD. I kind of have a sense of how long she is cause when I can feel her little toes tickling my ribs I can feel her little hands punching diagonally next to my belly button. 

In other random married news Matt is a teachers assistant to a business teacher who owns a brick oven. He invited us to his house tonight for pizza. Matt tells me it tastes just like the pizza in Italy. All I know is it's unlike any pizza on the american continent.
 This is the woes of living on the 3rd floor in the 3rd building when the only 2 places to do your laundry are located on the first floors of the 1st and 4th building. We forgot to bring our hamper down with us when we went to get the laundry and in order to avoid having to walk back upstairs, downstairs, then upstairs again we bundled all our clothes up in our sheet. Mission accomplished.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun

Once upon a time, I blogged all the time. The end.
But not really. I am ashamed to admit that I couldn't even remember how to update my blog, it has been that long since I haven been on here. It's certainly not a New Years Resolution of mine to blog more often but I do hope to blog more often. And I should be capable of that seeing as how I have graduated and have no job and have a husband who is at school all day, then does home work and who has a time consuming calling in the church. So needless to say, I have A LOT of time on my hand. So now is a perfect time to play some catch up on my blog. Some highlights of the last 7 months have been.




Taking Matt on some of my favorite hikes. Crypt, Wishbone trail, Chief Mountain, Goat Lake, and or course Bear's hump. As you can tell he was a little afraid on top of Chief Mountain. (You can also tell I don't know how to format my pictures on here...)

Teaching him how to golf. He broke two of my dad's nice golf clubs in the process, but the end results were worth it. He has also become a pro golf ball hunter like my dad. 


We got to see ALL our family members this summer. So much fun!



We also found out in August that we were expecting a baby! It's a dream come true for us. I didn't tell Matt in any fancy way, because I had gone to the Dr.'s office for something I thought was unrelated to being pregnant, but found out there that it wasn't! So I got home and Matt asked me what the diagnoses was and I said. "That you are going to be a daddy." We were both a little shocked for a few days and walked around the house repeating, "We are going to have a baby. We are going to be parents."


In October for Halloween we dressed up as an oven and a baker for our ward Halloween party. We thought we were pretty clever, until someone showed up dressed as the same thing, and their oven was a lot more fancy. Also you'll notice my bun is missing a couple of bites. Some friends of ours snuck into our house that day and thought it would be funny to eat have the roll...Little did he know I was planning on using it that night...


Matt played competitive soccer for the last time this year. They won all their games! It was a great way to finish and I was a nice wifey and went to all his games, no matter how late or how cold. Whether or not I saw the whole thing or sat outside cheering him on is a different story though.


For American Thanksgiving we travelled to Canada and got an ultrasound done while we were there. We found out we were expecting a little GIRL, which was sort of a shock to both of us cause we convinced ourselves it was a boy. Matt asked our Dr. "Now what is your confidence in that?" to which the Dr. Replied 99.9%. We were satisfied and so thrilled. We love her so much and can't wait to finally have her here! She moves all over these days in my stomach but you can't REALLY tell I am pregnant yet.

It was also Matt's birthday in November. We celebrated by going to Red Robin beforehand since his birthday was on a Sunday. Then I made him an Ice Cream cake, which was DELICIOUS. (And yes I made the plate and yes I am aware I spelt Celebration wrong. How embarrassing.)


In December I graduated. Hallelujah. It is very nice to be done, but now I have nothing to do, cause lets  be honest, getting a job in Rexburg is hard enough as it is already, then throw in that you are 6.5 months pregnant and leaving the end of March and your chances dwindle to below zero. I am hoping to be able to volunteer at the temple to make time go by. Other then that, I watch netflix, clean/organize the house, make dinner, exercise, nap, and am learning how to crochet in the meantime.




For Christmas we went to Fresno, California to spend it with Matt's mom. We were also able to make a little stop in Southern California where my brother and sister-in-law live. My parents were also with us so it was nice to be able to spend a little christmas time with them and enjoy a BOWL OF HEAVEN. Believe me, it really is a bowl of heaven. We went to the Fresno Zoo which was a lot of fun as I have only been to one other zoo in my life and that was when I was 10. Sadly no pictures were taken as my iPad was malfunctioning and my battery died. We also picked lemons and oranges and had homeade lemon meringue pie, lemonade, and fresh squeezed orange juice. The fruit trees alone have me thinking it's okay to live in California, granted we have a tree in our backyard! Also the 65 degree weather in the dead of winter doesn't hurt either...

Lastly, my most recent baby bump picture. She kind of exploded over christmas for some reason... I actually had a girl come up to me in church the other day and this is how our conversation went.
Her: You are pregnant right?
Me: Yup sure am.
Her: I thought you had to be cause there is no way you could've gained that much weight over Christmas. I was looking at your arms, legs, and face and they were still skinny, you just have a belly now.
I accepted her compliments gracefully.