17 Weeks

Today I felt my baby move! Yep, there was definitely something weird going on in my stomach area, something I'd never felt before (though similar to gas pains) and then suddenly there was a shifting of weight to the right side of my body. It actually felt harder on the left then on the right for a few minutes. Several minutes later I felt it again. Today's belly movements are big excitement in my life. Now I will top off my evening with a gigantic bowl of Taco Rice, which I will probably have to eat in two sittings an hour apart, because my stomach seems to have shrunk (though my belly size is considerably un-shrunk).

Fhqwhgads, etc.

(Photo courtesty of http://www.johnrandallyork.com/ )

All sorts of thoughts in my head tonight and things I want to blog about. Seems like everyone blogged today, all my relatives here on blogspot and a bunch of my friends on myspace. When you comment on people's blogs and it has you type in that "code" of a jumbled bunch of letters, it always makes me think of "fhqwhgads." If you have not heard the word, fhqwhgads (pronounced fhuwgods) before, then you haven't browsed the homestar runner webpage enough. Click on my link to "Strongbad emails" which actually takes you to the Homestar homepage. Then click on "toons" at the bottom, followed by "Powered by The Cheat", and finally click on "Everybody to the Limit." Be prepared for some complete nonsense, silliness, and surprisingly, a bit of entertainment.
Second: I went maternity shopping on Saturday. Got some great stuff (on sale) at Target. Also bought a few shirts off e-bay and some pants from oldnavy.com.
Also went into TJ Maxx and discovered they have no maternity clothes but do have great Halloween and fall decorations. I snatched up some cute mini-lantern lights to go in one of my windows. Halloween decorations go up at our home promptly on September 1st as to take advantage of two full months of spookiness. I don't have nearly enough Halloween decor, but I also don't have many places to PUT decorations. I would like to put spiderwebs up somewhere this year. We'll see... Fortunately on Saturday the girl I was shopping with (we'll call her "Lacey", cause her name IS Lacey) shared my glee over holiday decorations. We decided to make one final stop on our shopping trip. We popped in at Hobby Lobby just to enjoy the aisles and aisles of "harvest" decor:) Oh joy!
And lastly, I'd like to mention that stretching Romeo and Juliet out to 22 one and a half hour lessons is a lot of work. And it is to that work that I head again now.

Nursery

If I have this baby at the beginning of February, that means we'll only be in the apartment for 4 or 5 months before moving. I don't think we'll really convert the den into a nursery. I think we'll just have the baby in our bedroom. Should we get a crib or just a basinet before we move? What other furniture items are necessities in the beginning? If it's a girl I want bedding, etc. to be light purple and green. When we have a nursery I want to decorate it with fairies. If it's a boy I want to do green. Maybe dragons or frogs. What do you think?

Quick Update

I still get to teach high school this year!! It's just an hour and a half a day now, but I love it. I am the Literature (English, writing, grammar...) teacher to two students. So now my weird schedule is 7 hours a week at the preschool, 8 hours a week at the high school, and 8 hours a week tutoring (all my kids are elementary age there so far). It's part-time, but I think I'm just going to be okay with that and get used to being poor for awhile. We've begun with Romeo & Juliet. We watched the Baz Luhrman film first and we'll be reading it beginning next week. Lots of work for me to do. The kids are at two very different levels and this may be the only work we are reading together. Anyway, I'm excited.
Today: taught in the preschool, had a veggie burger for lunch, had a sealant done at the dental school, returned books to the library, rescheduled my physical therapy appointments, ran to Petsmart, fiddled around online. I'm off to make some dinner and take Brandon to see X-Men 3 at the dollar theaters (I already saw it once awhile back, it's great).

The Past Two Weeks

So much has happened in the past two weeks I hardly know where to start. I left for Utah the afternoon of the 10th. I had layover in Phoenix where my sisters Sarah, Robin, Karen, my brother Mark, 3 of my nephews and my tiny neice Charlotte all met up with me. Sarah cried a little when she announced that, "There's a bump!" and indeed there is. She brought me a bag of maternity clothes and books. Yippee! We sat and talked and ate cookies for a glorious hour and a half. Jackson, 3, fearlessly walked up to any stranger in uniform to introduce himself and make a new friend. Tucker, also 3, oohed and awed over the airplanes and cried when his mom wouldn't get him a ticket to go on one. It was great to see my family!
Friday, August 11th began hanging out with Brandon's family. For lunch Brandon, his 16 year old sister Katie, and Kathy (a cousin of sorts), and I went to have my favorite burritos in the world at La Puente. Delicious! Later that afternoon the four of us, plus Brandon's dad Alan, his wife Linda, and two dogs all drove up Parley's Canyon headed for the family reunion. We joined up with Alan's two brothers, his sister, and various other relatives for an evening of food, fire, and fun (s'mores too). The next day around noon, Alan, Brandon, and B's cousin Jamon took off farther into the Uintas for a 4 day backpacking trip. The rest of us stayed and enjoyed our little campsite and a short, lovely hike up to another lake with most of the family.














More tales of my trip to Utah to come...

February 6th

February 6, 2007- that's my due date. That's right, you are reading my official pregnancy announcement! As of today I am 14 weeks along. After 3 years of trying, with several complications and setbacks, we are finally having a baby!!! And wouldn't you if you're husband was this cute as a kid?

My first trimester wasn't bad. I was nauseated a lot but only threw up twice. If I ate, the nausea usually went away. It isn't over yet, but I hope it won't be long now.

All of my pants and skirts got tight last week when I gained my first two pounds. I'm excited to look pregnant and to get maternity clothes.

Answers to your questions: I have known I was pregnant since I was 4 weeks along. We didn't share the news with our families or anybody until I was 12 weeks (because of my miscarraige last summer). It was really hard to keep the secret to myself when I was SO excited! We won't know what sex the baby is until about 20 weeks. That is also about the same time I should start to feel the baby moving. The baby is currently about 3 inches long and has all of its major organs, etc. We have a few name ideas but we are not sharing them, so don't ask. I don't care if it's a boy or a girl (Brandon already calls it, "my boy" though. Not that he really cares either).

Well, that's all I can think to share at the moment. Feel free to ask questions. Love you all!

Saturday Night

Saturday night we did something rare; a double date. We had our friends Jennifer and Andy over. I made "waikiki" meatballs and rice. Brandon made the salad. Dinner was a hit. After dinner we decided to play games. We began with Rook (of course). We had never played with four people before (only 2 or 3) and it was fun. You have to have partners. Then we moved on to Hoopla, one of my favorites. Then we played True Colors (my favorite in high school and still great). Then we played Bop It Extreme, don't laugh. To end our evening we showed each other our favorite funny videos online (on You Tube, etc.). Jokes of the evening: "Beat 'em up and take their shit" (a quote Andy had heard earlier in the week from a military guy/judge) and "It's 7:45." Apparently, Jennifer gets tired as soon as she hears it's after 8pm (mental conditioning?) and starts yawning/dozing, so Andy never let her look at a clock and all night it was 7:45, even though they didn't actually leave until 1:15! Well, that's it, fun at the Jensen's place.

Mac n' Cheese

Isn't it funny how when you're in the mood it's the best food in the world? When you're not in the mood, you're NOT in the mood. Brandon will eat them as leftovers the next day and I won't touch it then- yuck. And is it just me or do they make the boxes practically unopenable?! I have to scratch and tear at the top and side to finally claw my way into the noodles. "To Open Push Here", HA, what a joke!
They recently released Supermac & Cheese with whole grains. The first time I tried it I didn't like it as much, but the second time I really loved it. Yeah, extra grains for me. I like the cartoon shaped noodles the best, not just because they're fun, but because they somehow hold the cheese better and just taste better, I swear. Sponge Bob noodles are a regular at our house (and we have no kids). Brandon loves Mac n' Cheese even more than me, sometimes he binges on it and often we buy it in bulk at Sam's Club.
I like how you can add almost anything to Kraft's mac n' cheese and it all goes. Brandon likes red pepper flakes. I used to like mustard. We both like throwing in a can of chili or some frozen vegtables (brocolli, cauliflour, corn and peas are all good).
This week I tried a very fancy mac n' cheese at a nice restaurant. It had asiago cheese, leeks, and tomatoes. Very good, though not enough tomatoes.
My mom used to love the kind you buy frozen and bake in the oven. I should buy that sometime, I haven't had it in YEARS.
Well, I'm off to eat lunch. You'll never guess what I'm having. It has spiderman noodles.

Grrrrrr

I'm in a bad mood, so deal with it.