Ups and Downs

I am discovering more and more that life as an adult always does and always will have its ups and downs. I was going to write this blog post yesterday, but then I was in the depths of despair because my morning sickness came back and I was pretty upset about it, but I've been thinking about it all day, and I'm sure there is a reason for it. (God gives us weaknesses to humble us and if we turn to Him, He'll turn those weaknesses into strengths... maybe this is an opportunity for me to be stronger?)

Anyways, originally I was going to write about how much fun this last week was, and include a few more stories of ups and downs in our lives that have happened. I'm not going to post a baby bump picture, because my bump looks the same, and I don't have any more good shirts that I haven't already worn in the last two pictures that make it noticeable. So, I'll wait until I actually look pregnant and not just slightly overweight so that you can tell no matter what I'm wearing. (Lucky for ya'll, I made Ryan take lots of pictures with me this weekend though, so you get to suffer through looking at ALL of them, because this is MY blog and I can post whatever I want!)

Ryan took this picture, he thinks it's a good one.

Some ups:

Ryan has most Sundays off now, which is a huge blessing! We also have 9 am church this year, instead of 1 pm church like last year. So we go to church and then have the whole rest of the day to relax and spend time together!

On Saturday, it finally snowed, which hasn't happened since Christmas. It finally looked like a Utah winter around here and I was actually pretty excited about it. (I got a magical new coat for Christmas that actually keeps me warm and I've been waiting for it to snow so I can really take advantage of it!) The downside was that Ryan had to work ALL day on Saturday, which was a bummer, but because he had Sunday off, we went to church and then after church we went into the canyon and played in the snow and took pictures and had a blast. It's been ages since we've been able to do that, and for me to be feeling up to it at the same time. It was so much fun to be outside, to wander around, to take pictures, and to not feel sick the whole time. Also, kissing when it's cold outside, in my opinion, is one of the best types of kissing you can do. ;) (This is where all the pictures will come from.)

Wise words from my first BYU bishop: "Kissing is better than not kissing." I agree!

Ryan has been growing a beard out for the last couple months. Also, he loves eating snow. All the snow stuck in his beard was cracking me up while we were out. :) He's so cute!

Then, to top of a wonderful day, Ryan and I got creative and made real Ratatouille! I took a picture so you could see how beautiful it turned out! It was so fun to both be home at the same time, to work in the kitchen side by side, and to enjoy a delicious meal (without feeling sick! I'm not sure if this is obvious or not, but I LOVE not feeling sick!)

Also, I made a snow cone using real snow from the backyard. Which just made it way more cool!

Another up is that we went on a double date last week and I found a place that has REAL milkshakes, that actually taste good! (It's called Smashburger. I'm surprised Ryan and I had never been because he is obsessed with burgers and fries! That's always his first choice for dinner!) Also, we had a lot of fun on our date.

Oh and another one. This one started as a down and then turned into an up. :) On Monday night Ryan came home around 8 and had homework that he needed to get done. (Background, there are few things that make Ryan more grumpy than being hungry, having spent the day at work with annoying people, bad drivers, and SCHOOL. Which includes: homework, emails from teachers, doing anything with the school website, tests, going to class, etc. School just is not something he enjoys... Oh, and when things go wrong. He doesn't like that either, but who does?) Anyways, so he needed to turn some homework in before the end of the night, but our laptop decided it needed to update. Which concerned me because I didn't want Ryan to be grumpy immediately upon arriving at home. So, he got home and I tried to get the computer to hurry along. Then I made something for dinner so that he would be distracted by the food. However, the computer was still updating almost 45 minutes after he got home, so I pulled out our other computer (which is NOT reliable) but I was really hoping it would work, but then it needed to update TOO! So, we were sitting on the couch watching both computers update (You know when a computer updates and sits at 0% for an hour? That's what was happening...) I could tell that Ryan was getting grumpier and grumpier so I was working on coming up with ways to cheer him up or make him laugh, but my mind was at a blank, so I went into the kitchen and prayed/tried to make a deal with God (not in a sacrilegious way...) that if we had family home evening (read a conference talk together) if he could PLEASE make the computer finish updating so Ryan could get his homework done and we could just enjoy the rest of the night. So, I proposed this idea to Ryan and he agreed begrudgingly, and so we read a talk and I kept frantically looking at the computer to see if it was working (by this time it was at 16%). We read the talk, which by the way was Russell M. Nelsons recent talk about the Book of Mormon. And I could tell that Ryan had little faith in my deal with God, but I tried really hard to have faith, and guess what?! The update miraculously finished just as I finished reading the talk! And Ryan was able to finish his homework in a couple of minutes and we were able to enjoy the rest of the night without anymore downs! He is SO lucky to have me. ;)

Some downs:

I already mentioned the one where Ryan was at work ALL day. That was lame.

Another was a SERIOUS case of pregnancy brain (which doesn't actually make me feel any better). Ryan and I are in the nursery at church on the 1st and 3rd Sundays each month. (Nursery is the class for the 18 month old to 3 year olds. They play with toys, eat snacks, have a very short lesson, some songs, and then more playing with toys. Pretty much the best place to hang out during church.) So, when church is over, we wait for the parents to come and pick up the kids, and this Sunday there were only 5 kids, and 4 adults so it should have been incredibly easy to keep track of them... but somehow I let one escape when the parents started coming and he made it out into the parking lot before he was found! It was terrifying, and I felt SO bad. Worst nursery worker ever award. (I'll add this to my list of traumatizing experiences in nursery. Once a couple of years ago when I was home for the summer, I was asked to help in the nursery, and on my watch, one of the children split his forehead open on the door hinge and ended up having to go to urgent care and have stitches... and a couple of weeks ago one of the girls got her head stuck under the room divider and I had to push her under while keeping the rest of the kids from sticking their heads under too... Does this make you worry about my qualifications for becoming a mother in a few months? Apparently God trusts me because I keep getting asked to help in the Nursery...)

The others just have to do with some unexpected expenses that we ended up having to pay... which was a bummer because saving up for a baby is stressful, and every day there is some new charge that we have to pay or something that breaks that has to be replaced. (From listening to other adults, I think this is something that will happen for the rest of my life, only the expenses will go from $120 unexpected dollars to $2000 unexpected dollars for a broken dishwasher or air conditioning or something.)

Oh, and that I forgot to take my morning sickness medicine the other night, and lost all the food I ate for the entire 2nd half of yesterday. (I shouldn't be too upset though because it's been about a month since I last threw up, so it hasn't been as bad as I make it sound. I just think it's unfair that I am 5 1/2 months into this pregnancy and if I skip my morning sickness medicine, I won't be able to keep anything down... but life isn't fair, I know, and I do have medicine, that if I remember to take, seems to cure my problem so, I don't have too much to be upset about.)


So, if your life doesn't have any ups or downs (ha!) enjoy reading ours from the last week! (Also, enjoy a million more pictures that I liked from when we played in the snow.)

Isn't he the most handsome guy you've ever seen? :) I am so lucky!

Another Baby Bump Post

Here's another baby bump post. As you can see I am starting to actually look pregnant. So, that's good. Most of my ward doesn't know that I'm pregnant, and it would be awkward to just show up one of these days with a baby. But it is starting to look like I'll look pregnant for a little while before that happens. :)

School started again this week. I have decided that I will call this chapter of my life "Walking a Lot with a Heavy Backpack." Somehow, no matter how strategically I try to park my car, I still end up walking a million miles all over campus up hill all the ways. The air is thin here, and I have a hard time breathing. It's rough.

Yesterday, this was the path that I walked. For a pregnant person with a heavy backpack, it's even harder, okay? So, if you don't think it's a lot of walking just take it back and agree with me. And then commiserate with me that they don't have pregnant person parking on campus.

Number 1 is where I parked. Number 2 is where my first class was. Number 3 is where I walked to take a midterm. (By the way, I am already half way finished with my online Doctrine and Covenants class, which I am pretty proud of because I started over Winter break.) And Number 4 is when I walked ALLLLLLLLLLLLL the way from number 3 back to where I parked. I just looked it up, and I guess it's a mile one way. (I looked at it in walking so it even went diagonally the way I walked so I'd say it's pretty accurate. So, I walked 2 miles yesterday. Just to get around campus. And if you aren't impressed than you should be!)

Anyways, so that was just one day, but I feel like this is how my week has gone so far, and it is what I imagine the rest of my semester will be like as well.

Um, other information to update ya'll on.... the baby is healthy and kicking. Kicking a lot. Normally very persistently when I'm in a class and trying to focus. Or, when I have to go to the bathroom she kicks my bladder.

My pregnancy brain is settling in nicely. I accidentally almost stole a book from a store recently. Ryan and I were in a used book store looking for books to add to our collection. We found this beautiful old book that we were considering buying. Ryan was looking at a few more books and then I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom...like RIGHT away. (You know how it goes.) So, I told him that we needed to leave and we walked out to go find a bathroom, and then he was talking to me and looked down and noticed that I was still holding that book that we had been thinking about buying, and he said "You still have the book!" and I freaked out and ran back into the store to put it back. And then we found a bathroom. So, pregnancy has turned me into a thief.

Most of the other things that happen are just dumb embarrassing things like not being able to remember any words anymore. For instance, I asked if it snew somewhere. (The past tense of snow. Even now, my blog writing thing is telling me that "snew" is not a word." But for a second, I thought it was. Nope.

Other things that happen to me because I'm pregnant:

- Strange nightmares, I was in World War II the other night and it had an alternative ending. The Germans were winning and I was about to be killed by a bomb, but I woke up just in time. I also had a dream about scary clowns that killed people. (I have purposely NEVER even watched any of those movies because I knew it would scare me and yet, here I am having nightmares about it!)
- I started to enjoy bananas this week. If you know me, you know that I hate bananas. But they taste good to me this week, so I guess my body is telling me that I need more potassium.
- I cry while I'm driving fairly often because I imagine how sad it would be if I died in a car accident and Ryan was left by himself, or the other way around.

One last thing that you will be happy to know is that I went grocery shopping the other day and food actually sounded good to me. That hasn't happened since September. Things are looking up. :)

It's going to be a crazy semester and I'm a little worried about how Ryan and I will handle all of it, me with my 20 credits of classes, a growing belly, and lots of walking, and Ryan with his full-time job, full-time school work and an anatomy class. But last semester one of my teachers told us that:

"Two [or in this case, three] people can do anything as long as one of them is the Lord."

And I'm counting on that. 

I'm also so grateful to have so many sources of inspiration and hope from church leaders like President Thomas S. Monson who passed away last week, people have been quoting him all week, and the one that has made me think the most, has been to "find joy in the journey--now."

This year, that's what I will be working on, finding joy in the journey. It will make surviving school a little bit easier I think. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

PS. A little side note, Ryan and I saved up for months to buy me a new camera so that I could take better pictures when I have photography jobs. One of the super duper cool features on it is that it can be hooked up through wi-fi to my phone. I have this nifty app that makes it so I can see through the lens on my app and change the settings and take these pictures! So, it's like the ULTIMATE selfie camera! I can change the ISO, aperture, shutter speed, etc and then move my phone out of the picture and take the photo with no one the wiser... except that I just told you because I think it is SO cool! 

Half Way

For anyone who has seen me lately (and maybe even more so for those who haven't), this may come as a shock to you, but I am more than half way through this pregnancy! I hit 21 weeks this past Wednesday.

I always thought that I would want to be the kind of person to post those week by week pictures of my belly bump, but it hasn't really been very noticeable until recently. Even now you can't really tell. Which is mostly just because I wear sweaters and warm, comfortable clothing. But today, before school starts again and things get really crazy, I decided to take a picture so that you could see that I really am pregnant, there really is a human being growing inside me, and she really is coming in May. (Hopefully, not any sooner than that.)

I know this isn't really that impressive of a bump, but I promise there is a baby in there! 

What kind of information am I supposed to share with these updates? I feel like I have family members that will be upset with me if I don't post occasionally, so I'm trying to be better. But what kinds of things do people want to know?

I can feel her kick now. She mostly kicks me when I lay on my stomach or wear tight pants, I think she gets annoyed at me for squishing her. I went to way too many stores for Christmas shopping and now I have very little desire to go to the store, but I'm trying to convince myself to put in the effort to go and buy at least one pair of maternity pants. Until then, baby will probably keep being frustrated with me for squishing her. At the doctors office today, my doctor was checking her heartbeat and she kicked his little microphone thing. I'm starting to think that she might be a little feisty. Or she just doesn't like when people get in her personal space. (Although, I don't feel like she has any reason to get upset because I am the one here who has a little human getting all up in my personal space! ...Now that I think about it, she probably gets that trait from me. Does anyone else think it's strange that people all of a sudden feel super comfortable touching your stomach when you become pregnant?)

It's been a whole week since I threw anything up, so I think that's a good sign. Now I'm just working on getting my appetite back. Right now, only a few things sound appetizing to me. Cinnamon toast, anything with homemade coconut syrup on it (pancakes, waffles...), Nutella (of course. This baby may possibly come out with one of those drug addictions, but it won't be drugs, it will be chocolate.), jell-o, and quesadillas. I am starting to feel more comfortable in the kitchen again, so I'm hoping to muster up enough motivation to make a real dinner tonight for Ryan when he gets home. We got an instant pot for Christmas, so I'm going to try that out tonight and see how it works. (If it really cooks frozen meat in as little time as people say it does, then I'm convinced that it's one of the best inventions ever!) ((If anyone has any ridiculously easy but delicious meals that they like to make, would you please send me recipes? Nothing really sounds good to me, but if it's super easy, then maybe if I start cooking I will start wanting food again.)

Oh, and please don't ask me if we have come up with a name for the baby. I promise I will let you know what we decide when she comes into the world. :)