Jump In

Have you ever looked at the sky and seen its depth.  I'll admit to having a very vivid imagination, but I'm sure I'm not alone out there.  On a peaceful day, laying out on the lawn staring up at the sky, have you ever wanted to jump in?  Too often life gets so busy that taking a few minutes to do something as simple as laying down on the lawn doesn't happen.  I get that craving pretty frequently now days, but we don't exactly have a patch of grass to  relax on.  Last night I was reminded of the beauty above us all the time and how much I used to want to "jump in" as a kid.  I took a few pictures to try and catch it, so you'll have to make do with some imagination and patience with my photography. :)

The cloud cover had the coolest patterns and waves that it reminded me of the ocean.  What do you think?  Want to jump in with me?

BUTTONS!!!!

I decided on a theme for the "nursery" part of our bedroom!  And if you didn't guess, it's buttons. :)  Yup, no Winnie the Pooh, no Mickey or Minnie Mouse; in fact, NO trademarked characters if I can help it.  If my child at some point begins to have an affinity towards a specific character, okay, but I'm not going to start them out with a ...pre-conceived?... obsession toward a certain one.  I have also always wanted a sophisticated/chic look, so I am going with buttons.  They are colorful, cute, simple, streamline, and I personally think lots of fun.  You can buy a bag of buttons at the craft stores here, and I found a collection that has classy colors without being dull or neon bright. :)

Dumped out of the bag

Organized by color

I have fallen in love with these colors!  No baby pastels or bright primary colors, but a fun mix.  Raspberry-a little more pink than the picture looks, Sage, Peach, Yellow, and Grey Blue.  It's called the Shabby Chic collection.  Now, I'm not a fan of lots of....stuff.  Especially when I know that the baby will have plenty of it anyway.  Shabby Chic tends to use a fair bit of stuff to create the right look, so although I love the colors, I think I'll go my own way with it.

Here are a couple sites I've found that show some ideas of what I'd like to do with them...

Lamps

Picture Frames

Picture - I'd probably do a couple flowers or something instead of a wreath...

Peg Rack

Let me try to illustrate the nursery for you so you have an idea of what I get to work with.....

As you can see, I have about a 3'x8' gap next to my side of the bed in which to have the "nursery."  Therefore, very limited room in which to decorate.  I would like to hang the letters of her name above the bassinette, but any creative ideas are welcome.  Especially any simple/cute button usage ideas.  Ready.... GO!

The Lime Light

He's almost done!!!!  Wahoo!!!  My hard-working husband just finished his second to last semester of school!  The amazing thing is, he managed to do this while working full-time, working on a contract job after hours, and doing all the cooking/cleaning/shopping/laundry/etc. while I couldn't.  Can you say my own personal Superman?  Now he only has two classes left to finish and he'll have that lovely piece of paper that says he knows what he's been doing for the past....oh.... 7-8 years or so.  Let's just hope that having this baby a month before the end of the semester won't cause too many problems!
We're so excited as this opens quite a few more doors, especially in finding a good job back in the US.  Sometimes (and by this I mean most/all of the time) I think the corporate mumbo jumbo about hiring people with a degree but not those with actual experience and no degree is ridiculous.  If you have your degree, they complain you don't have the experience (how on earth are you supposed to get that if they won't give you a chance?!?!), but if you don't have the degree and have loads of experience, they turn you aside just as quickly.  Oh the power of that piece of paper.
Second reason I'm excited.... TIME WITH MY HUBS!  As you can probably imagine, Superman doesn't have much free time to spend with his wonderful, magnificent, marvellous, mad mad mad mad, *cough* wife.  Especially when her bedtime sneaks up mighty fast every night.  So, with me being able to do a lot more with maintaining our house life, and him not having to work on homework (and hopefully contract work as "typically" you can get a higher paying job with a degree), I might actually get to spend time with him after the standard work day!  Either that or take a nap and let him watch the baby..... ;)  Either works for me!
........................................And done bragging.
An unfortunate side tangent to the school semester just finishing, I'm taking a short vacation back home!  Okay, let me 'splain.  No no, let me sum up.  Blake has no school, aka some free time, and I'm leaving until the Friday before the next semester begins.  Say it with me..... Bad timing...  However, I am very excited to get some good family/friend social time!  It will have been just over a year since I've seen any of them (except Matt) and will be a nice break for me.  Let's just hope the energy levels don't drop off the face of the earth, eh? :)  So, for the next two weeks (where did that time go?!), quality time with the husband, making and freezing meatloaf (the only request he's had so far), creating patterns and figuring out fabric amounts (much cheaper in the US), and making sure Primary can run smoothly while I'm gone.  I'm so excited *dancing* and I just can't hide it.
And a sneak peak for all of you who will be seeing me in the not too distant future...... and everyone else who cares.....

This is what you're getting! Bwahahahahahaha

Oh, and this too.

Yay for 23 weeks gone!

*Btw, how many movies did you catch? :) *

Thorns or Flowers

As promised, here is a picture of our little one!  Isn't she cute? ;)

Not only did we get to celebrate knowing who our little one is, we also got to celebrate being married for our first year!  Wow time flies!  

One of my counsellors has been married for 21 years and she made an interesting comment that made me think.  Right now, most of us are dreaming of our future.  Where will we be?  What will our children be like?  What will we be doing?  What have we accomplished?  She and her husband were married here (Gold Coast) and then moved to the Cook Islands to where she was from.  They only recently moved back and she finds it interesting to be living in her "future."  Once we get to our future, will we be excited that we're there?  Will we have gone through life loving every minute, or always dreaming of the next step?  It is so easy to think, "Once we have a bigger place, we'll be happy."  "Once we have the perfect jobs, we'll be happy."  My guess is that happiness will continue to elude us until we figure out how to enjoy the little things around us.  I'm not going to lie and say that I enjoy my challenges in life, but I can at least hope that I've learned something that will make my life richer and deeper.  I also hope I learned enough that I won't have those particular challenges again!  

So, after a year of marriage, is it all I ever imagined?  No.  Was it as hard as I thought it would be?  Harder.  Have I enjoyed every minute of it?  No.  Who ever made marriage out to be a 'Happily Ever After' *cough Disney cough* must have been living in their own fairytale.  However, along this trail surrounded by thorns are the flowers that can be simply overlooked by all the scratches and dreariness, or they can be focused on to see the happiness surrounding us.  Flowers like spending an afternoon running in and out of the waves to collect rocks while trying (failing) to keep our pants from getting wet.  Coming home from an evening of meetings to find the dishes done and the house cleaned up.  Curling up together under a blanket to get warm and falling asleep.  Phone calls asking if it's okay to buy me something.  Almost giddy excitement whenever dinner happens to be meatloaf (I make one killer meatloaf).  Being told it's a girl (notice the flower on her head?).  No matter what we do, life will continue to be its trail through thorns with scratches here and there, but the great part of marriage is that now there is someone else to help point out the flowers if we might have missed one along the way.  Some day I hope it will be like a rose bush, where the thorns are forgotten, or at least completely disregarded, and the flowers be the complete focus.  Maybe that's why roses are such a symbol of love.  There are always the thorny parts, but the beauty makes it all worth it!

And for my very own reminder.......

 

Thank you, Love.  It has been a great year through it all.  Looking forward to a life full of roses!

Sore Belly

I'm not the biggest fan of ultrasound technicians anymore.  After almost 2 hours of poking and prodding, slathering and poking again, I feel like my whole stomach is bruised!  Hopefully baby didn't mind too much.  Oh wait.... did I say baby?  What I meant was Charli!!  We are indeed having a girl. :)  Took her a while to get over the shyness, but she cooperated in the end and let us know who would be joining our little family.  We'll get the pictures on Monday, so I should be able to post her little profile then.

Beware of Steam, You Will Get Burned

This last week has been interesting.  I've had a few really really bad days, and a few really really good days (yay!!!).  However, mixed in with my own physical state have been little things nagging at me mentally and emotionally, so warning: the vent has been opened to release the pressure.


First, the most common comment I have received during the past week is along the lines of, "Wow, when did you get so big?" or "You're really popping out now!"  Although I'm sure these statements are all meant with the sweetest intentions, they do tend to grate on my nerves a bit.  For one, yes I am pregnant and will continue to "pop out" until the baby decides to make its entrance.  For two, thanks, I didn't notice on my own and appreciate you pointing it out to me!  Okay, so maybe a little harsh, but I do realize that I'm getting larger with each passing week.  Some of my loose fitting clothes don't even fit anymore, so that's a pretty big clue.  Oh, and I do look in the mirror on a daily basis.  Even full length ones as our closet doors are mirrors.  I'm at the point where I do realize I have a baby growing inside of me, but I feel more on the getting fat side than the miraculous growing a baby side.  I've had to start going through my clothes and putting aside some of my favorite things that no longer fit.  And to go along with that, I've had to look at buying maternity clothes.  If you're trying to live on a budget and can't afford to spend $100 on a shirt and $200 on a pair of pants, you will be wearing a mu-mu and sweat pants.  Great, not only do the clothes I love not fit, but I will look and feel like I'm wearing a tent for the next 5 months.  *To keep myself in line, I will be making some shirts that I found online that I think are super cute (hope they turn out so I don't spend $100 on one!!) and I just bought a pair of comfortable, but not lounge type, dark grey maternity pants that are kind of normal/cute*  Oh, and the next person that mentions that I'm waddling before I get to at least 30 weeks will probably not appreciate my response to their "well intentioned" comment.


Next, although EVERYONE notices my belly now, I personally have regained my invisible status.  I'm sure people are a little tired of me responding that I'm still sick whenever they ask how I am, but guess what.  I think I'M a little more tired of it than YOU, but I still appreciate it when people genuinely care about how I am doing.  I'm sure this is a bit on the selfish side, but I want people to care about me before my life becomes my baby's, and there isn't a whole lot of time left for that.  If someone asks how I am doing, (or going as they say here) I may respond that I'm fine or that I'm still sick depending on the day/person asking/sincerity of the question/etc.  However, when I get asked how my belly is instead, I may start responding with the exact measurement of that day, amount of gas cramps, or what I've eaten so far.  Those must be the details in question, right?  


Finally, to go along with my invisible status, (just on a different tangent) I believe I still have the same name that I had before I was pregnant.  ***Disclaimer-some of my best friends and family members may fit into this category and I have NO hard feelings towards any of you, so please don't take it personally.***  I realize that major events during life's course cause nicknames to pop up, and said nicknames tend to disappear once the novelty wears off.  Examples would be the Graduate, Newly Weds, Greeny/Newbie, etc..  We are all typically fine with these nicknames for a short amount of time, but would prefer for the novelty to wear off a little quicker than it sometimes does so we can get back to our real names.  I'm sure most are familiar with the names most prevalent in a pregnant woman's life, but my main two are Mummy-to-be and Prego.  Now, I do resemble those remarks, so to a point I don't mind.  My only complaint is when these nicknames become more dominant than my given name and my physical state becomes who I am.  I am pretty sure that last time I checked I wasn't in elementary or jr. high where Fatty, 4-eyes, Pimples/Zits, Baldy, Shorty, and the like became the person's identity.  I'm sure there are plenty of other names that I could be called that would be worse, like stretch marks or cankles, (don't have either yet thankfully) but if you feel so inclined to use my name versus one of the nicknames, I guarantee it will be taken as a more sincere interest on my behalf and a welcome breath of fresh air.


Now, on a more pleasant note, Prego would like to share a glimpse of the "popped out" belly of which she has recently acquired.

HAPPY 18 WEEKS!

Food, Glorious Food

With the wonderful condition of being sick almost endlessly, *seems that way anyway* Blake and I don't get to go out much.  By the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is move from my comfortable spot on the couch and go navigate my way through jostling people.  However, for Mother's Day this year I managed to convince Hubs that as I have a growing baby inside me, I deserve to get some special treatment.  And, lucky for me, the day before Mother's Day I actually felt mostly decent and could go out.
Now, in the raging free spirited artistic loving realm that is Utah...*quilting, etc. not included* .. there aren't many novelty food hot spots.  Yes, I love my Leatherby's and Iceburg and the likes, but it's just not Quite the same as Max Brenner.  Now if you're lucky enough to frequent Philadelphia or Broadway in New York, then perhaps you have seen a Max Brenner!  Have you ever stopped at one?  I have passed the one here quite a few times and never really felt the desire to go.  You see, the novelty that is Max Brenner is chocolate.  I might offend a few of the female kind by saying that I would prefer some fresh fruit to chocolate, but the last thing I have on my mind is eating anything of the processed sweets category.  However, it is a very 'hip/cool/in' place to go, so we decided that would be my Mother's Day treat.

Mine

Blake's

   Um.... yeah it was good!  I probably couldn't have downed my belgian waffle without all that fresh fruit, but it was SO good.  Blake's was a chocolate souffle that was so rich he had to keep stealing my fruit to help it go down.  Now that I've gone, would I go back again?  Unless baby starts craving some serious chocolate, I'll stick to one of the dishes that has something other than chocolate as it's base and add some fruit for good measure, but yes.

On another food note, I have gotten a little sick of the pop and pour dinners that are pretty common around here, *Hubs has been doing the cooking and it's one of the quickest meals to prepare so he can get some school work and contract work done* so I challenged him to make me something from a recipe instead.  I personally think he enjoyed creating something like he did.  Maybe I'll get recipe meals more often?

Dinner last night

Up close

It was prosciutto wrapped lamb with mozzarella, sweet potatoes, and garlic bread.  First time I have really had a meal with lamb or prosciutto and it was pretty good.  I'm not sure he's making me want to get back into the cooking shoes if he can pull out some dishes like this one. :)   I think we'll have to start taking turns once I can stand the smell of cooking again.

*Sorry for the camera phone pictures.  We wanted to eat and didn't want to try and find the real camera.*