Ultrasound Results

So the two-year-old called it! We're having another boy! We are so excited for A to have a new little brother. If we let A choose names his suggestions have included lollipop, brother, and ice cream cone. We took A to the doctor's office for the ultrasounds and he was just enthralled! All day he had been saying that we were going to doctor's office to see pictures of mommy's baby. It was very sweet. How fun this new adventure will be for all of us. Can't wait to reuse all the super cute boy clothes that my sisters, sister-in-laws, and friends have supplied us with over the last few years. And the new baby will be wearing clothes A outgrew during just the right seasons. I do keep telling all my sisters that they must hang on to their cute girl clothes, just in case down the road.... Until then, I'm going to enjoy being the mother of boys! This makes the sixteen boy of my parents 24 grandchildren. We love it!

It's Been A While

The other day a new friend asked if I scrapbook. That was a resounding "no" on my part. Instead I blog, I told her. Well since I have have used blogging as a good excuse not to scrapbook, I have decided to renew my effort to update my blog more regularly. So here are a couple of updates and a few pictures:

Happy Mother's Day to me! I got a much longed for ipod. It's a little ipod shuffle that I can clip to me and run, walk, what ever to work out. It was such a suprise when I opened it. My husband said he's never seen me so excited over a gift before.

J took A to the Father and Son Campout with our Stake a few weeks ago. It was all A could talk about all week. He couldn't wait to roast hotdogs, marshmallows and sleep in a tent. He loved it!

We've been doing a ton of work in our yard this Spring. It feels like every spare second it spend doing some yard work, hauling dirt or mulch, tilling soil, planting trees and shrubs, cleaning up debris from last Fall and the Winter. Our son is such a trooper. He has a few of his own tools and pulls things around in his red wagon.

Chocolate Covered Cinnamon Bears

I have to pay a belated tribute to my sweet husband. For our anniversary back in February, J heard me say that one of the things I miss most about my college home town was the chocolate covered Cinnamon bears. So what should arrive by mail from in sister-in-law in a beautiful little BYU Bookstore bag the day before our sixth anniversary? A happy little one pound package of chocolate covered Cinnamon bears. This week I ate the last blessed one! I stretched it out to last all these glorious weeks, eating one or two here and there. Now and again I shared. But mostly I just savored them myself.

These yummy bears of goodness bring back great memories of studying late into the night at the food-banning Library and sneaking in my bag of non-drowsy bears tucked in the deep recesses of my backpack. I remember 1/4 lb bag-fulls taken to International Cinema to enjoy while I watch Chinese and Latin American movies for my humanities classes. Best of all I remember buying bags by the pound during the two-day pilgrimage my sisters and mother and I would make to BYU Women's Conference every Spring. Oh how we bonded over those bears. I think we get it from my mother. It must be in my blood.

Thanks, good husband, for the wonderful walk down memory lane!

Of Pie and Buttered Bread: Thirteen Weeks

Today I am officially 13 weeks pregnant! My due date is October 8, though I will have a scheduled c-section about a week before that. We are so excited for A to be a big brother and are so greatful to have been blessed to be able to get pregnant again.

So here are a few of the interesting things that have been a part of this first trimester. This pregnancy has been similar to and different from my pregnacy with A.

I'll start with the things that are the same:

• Food aversions. I can't stand the smell or taste of most meat, especially chicken. Though the thought of a good cheese burger has crossed my mind several times, especially if I dont' have to see or smell it cooking. I can't eat veggies, though occassionally I can stand a carrot or a piece of celery. Very few things sound appetizing.
• I'm sick all day--none of this morning sickness business; it's an all-day affair.
• I'm tired. All the time. Tired (that's why I haven't updated my blog in quite a while)

There are a few differences, too:

• I love pie and cake. I eat it every single day (really). I especially like strawberry ruhbarb pie. With A I couldn't eat sugar. In some forms and in large quantities, it still makes me queezy.
• With A I ate a lot of pizza (several times a week). With this baby it's buttered bread. I eat it for breakfast and snacks, and sometimes lunch or dinner. Carbs seem to be the only thing that really settles my stomach.
• I am able to take a nap every day. Before, I would try to sneek in a power nap for 15 minutes in my car on my lunch break. Now I can sleep for a solid hour or so while A takes a nap. This helps so much because...
• I can't sleep. I remember this happening before, but not this early. I can't get comfortable as I try to train myself not to sleep on my back.
• My clothes don't fit. It seems like I could fit into my clothes for a lot longer before. Though I have to admit it is probably because this is my second child and I bought a bunch of new clothes when I lost all that weight and they were very trim. I'm going to have to go buy an intermediate size pair of pants until maternity clothes actually fit.
• I'm trying hard to exercise. I rarely did anything until I was in my third trimester with A. I get in a good, brisk walk and even an occassional run on my tredmill a few times a week. I'm hoping with warmer weather and less queeziness in the second trimester it will make that a little easier. It better help because I've been eating a whole lot o' pie!

Here's one quick funny thing that happened to me the other day. I was so sick and trying to get lunch ready. We have several children's small plastic plates from Ikea, each one a different color. When I opened the cupboard door to get out lunch plates, I saw the orange and lime-green plates stacked on top of each other. In that moment that I saw those colors together, a wave a nausea came over me and I thought I'd throw up right then. That was a first. Smells have always bothered me, pregnant or not. Foods are bad. But, come on, the sight of colored kids plates! I can't wait until this phase is over. It usually lasts into week 15 or so. Here's hoping it doesn't keep going like it does with some of my sisters!

I can't get our scanner to work so I can't get the ultra sound picture we have to post. I'll work on it. I'll have another appointment in a couple of weeks and hopefully be able to show off those pictures.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Just a quick post about a movie we saw over the weekend that we loved. It is The Pursuit of Happiness staring Will Smith and his own son. It is the story of a young father who has real get up and go, but no money. His son's mother leaves them and he has the chance to take an internship at a stock brokerage firm in San Francisco, but without pay. If, he impresses the bosses, at the end of the internship he could get offered a job. He has twenty other interns with whom he is competing for one spot.

But the real story is how he fights so hard to take care of his son and provide for him. They sleep in subway stations, cheap motels, and mostly homeless shelters all for a chance to make it and create a better life for the family. It is a true story and the man about whom the story is was a consultant on everything. It is very true to his real experience.

We loved it and highly recommend it. The movie was rated PG-13, supposedly for language. However, we were surprised by how clean it it was. There is one scene at the very beginning where the five-year-old son reads some graffiti on a wall and asks if it is spelled correctly and I think that is the only reason it is rated PG-13. Go check it out. It will make you feel like you can do anything!

Turning Wheat into Gold

So you all know the story of Rumpilstiskin and the girl who can turn straw into gold. Well last week our stake organized a huge food storage order from some giant Idaho food distributor. Food storage has always been a hobby of sorts for me. But as of late, the price of wheat has increased significantly and has really got me thinking about how we are doing and if we needed to place an order. When I commented on the price of wheat, J reminded me of that Brigham Young quote where he says that there will come a day when wheat will be more valuable than gold. On Saturday morning I was listening to public radio and heard the Market Place Money Report which announced that gold has reached a new high. It is trading for more than $950 an ounce! My thought was, "Boy, I can't wait for my hundreds of pounds of wheat to appreciate that much!" Maybe that extra hundred pounds of wheat I was thinking of ordering will come in handy one of these days as a long term investment strategy...

(Okay, reality check also says that if my wheat is more valuable than gold, I probably need to keep it because the state of the world will be such that my basement may be the only grocery store I have access to for quite a while.)

Long story short, Saturday night we did an inventory of our food storage and found ourselves fairly satisfied, minus a few exceptions. The peace of preparation far outweighs the price of gold.

BTW, the Church has emphasised a little different strategy for food storage as of late. It emphasizes a complete three month supply of food and then a years supply of the very basics (the three months supply can be part of that year supply). That may not really sound new, but if you go to providentliving.org, the approach is slightly different and the recommended amounts have changed some what.

Have You Ever Tried a Netie Pot?

So I went to the doctor today and have a particularly bad sinus infection. My nasal passages have been plugged up for quite some time now and I generally feel awful. Besides doping up on Tylenol, the nurse told me on Monday when I called to make the appointment not to take anything else until I could see the doctor.

I was getting desperate for some relief. A nurse friend of mine suggested trying a netie pot. It's like a tiny little watering can than you hold up to your nose and let the water drain through one nostril, circulate through your sinuses and then drain out the other nostril.

I tried it! It's really interesting. At first I felt like I was drowning. You look kind of stupid with your head cocked and a pot stuck in one of your nostrils. A just kept coming in to see what I was doing. (It sort of reminded me of a picture in one of A's books, No David, where mom tells David to keep his finger out of his nose.)

I did it once on Monday night. It took forever because my sinuses were so clogged up. But I'll tell you what, so much came out of my sinuses it was remarkable. I didn't think it did much as far has helping me feel better until I woke up on Tuesday and felt so much less congested. Tuesday was a really busy day and I didn't have a chance to do it again and today I'm feeling terrible. I don't know for sure if it has to do with the netie pot, but I'm willing to keep trying. Put that together with my antibiotics from my doctor and hopefully I'll be good as new in a few days.

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