Christmas recap

Josh and I spent Christmas in northern Utah this year, since we spent Thanksgiving with my family in southern Utah. His family Christmas party was Friday, Dec 21, so we spent this Christmas morning without any fanfare. We slept in until after 8am, then Josh finally got up to shovel the "White Christmas" driveway and sidewalks while I made us breakfast. Josh got me a Presto Professional Salad Shooter for Christmas this year, but let me open it early to make au gratin potatoes for the non-denominational holiday feast we shared at Lacie's Christmas Eve, so I used it to make homemade hashbrowns. They were so yummy! We feasted on potatoes, scrambled eggs with cheese and salsa, raspberry muffins and hot chocolate. It was so nice to sit down and enjoy a hearty breakfast together. I can't remember the last time we were able to enjoy a morning together like that.

Santa didn't quite make it to our house this year, and in addition to my Presto, we already bought and installed flat screen computer monitors and this headboard for Christmas, so we weren't expecting to have many gifts waiting under the tree. We were so wrong! Maryann's family gave us Blokus, Josh's folks generously gave us "Dinner & a Movie", Nate & Holly gave us the Scene It? movie trivia game, Penny sent up a beautiful Christmas plaque, Duane & Amanda sent up a super-cute photo calendar set, and Holly gave us a book of her family's top recipes. We totally made out like bandits! We felt so loved. The spirit of Christmas filled our home and we felt all warm and tingly inside.

We spent part of the afternoon visiting at Josh's folks' house, then on to Gary & Wendy's to visit with the Heaps family, and finished the day off at Jon & Maryann's where I got to put together a huge fire engine puzzle with Riley, Preston, Hailey and Hunter. It was such a beautiful day and I loved every minute of it. It was the perfect Christmas.

Baby update

Quick update on December 20 ultrasound...

Our little boy is growing very well and just as he should be. My abdomen is measuring small because my amniotic fluid is low, but it's not low enough to cause concern or change any behavior. He's measuring due Jan 29 now, but I'm still keeping Feb 5 as my due date and the doc is keeping Jan 26, so who knows when he'll come. He's already 5 lbs, 3 oz, and still ridiculously active. The ultrasound tech couldn't believe how much he was moving around and how difficult he made it to get a good profile picture, but boy, did we get another great shot of his boy parts! It's nice to be 100% confident in his gender, but I secretly can't wait for him to get a little bigger, leaving less space for him to move about while he finishes baking.

Only 7 more weeks!

I had Josh take this picture after church yesterday when it dawned on me that we're fast approaching the home stretch. We're still so nervous, but now the excitement is starting to creep in.

33 weeks and growing

I 'Heart' Howie

I absolutely love this SNL skit of Howie Mandel and Deal or No Deal. Enjoy!

Bad news?

I can't believe I forgot to post about my last ob visit. It was Thursday, December 6, exactly five weeks after my November 1 visit and guess what? I only gained one pound in those five weeks. My doctor was concerned, primarily because most of his patients gain too much weight during the holidays, not too little. He asked me if I thought I was measuring normal compared to my last pregnancy. Well, that *was* eight years ago, but yeah, I think so. He says I'm measuring a little small, but he wasn't concerned about it because I'm a small person, I'm fairly active, I've had the picture-perfect pregnancy, and I've always had regular weight gain. Until now.

Personally, I don't think there's anything to be worried about. I think I just got extra exercise while we were gallivanting about during Thanksgiving. Believe me, I ate more than my fair share of goodies. All I know is I've already gained 21 pounds and I still have eight weeks to go! I gained 27 pounds total with Amanda. But even though my blood pressure was good, the baby moves constantly, his heartbeat sounded great, and I haven't had any pain/cramping, I'm going to have another ultrasonic look at the little guy on December 20 'just to make sure he's still growing.'

So naturally, we've begun worrying, even though we really don't think there's reason to, and we began altering our normal routines slightly to keep me from unnecessarily going out and about. We decided against me helping Josh shovel the driveway and sidewalks Friday night after our ward Christmas party, 'just in case.' I'm more aware of when the baby's moving or not, and Josh is constantly lecturing me to eat something and 'just sit still.' He ran errands yesterday so I could stay home and relax, so I got to bake four 'thank-you cakes' and finish putting up Christmas decorations - yay, all done!

But I knew it was stressing me out subconsciously after the dream I had last night. I was competing on the TV show The Biggest Loser, and the dark-haired girl, Jillian, was my trainer, and she was telling me that if I didn't lose any weight I would be kicked off the show. I was crying because I didn't want to lose weight but she didn't care that I was pregnant and was being very mean and threatening. Then she told me my baby didn't have to lose weight because I could lose a couple of pounds in my bum! I was so embarrassed and completely devastated. No one was happy with me.

After I woke up and processed it all, I started laughing. Just yesterday I told my friend Shama that I thought my bum was getting longer from the pregnancy. Not wider (my hips are still super narrow, oddly enough), just longer, but I didn't realize it would sneak into my subconscious and stress me out.

Anyway, we're a little worried about it, but trying not to be. This same thing happened to my sis-in-law Holly and my friend Sarah as well. Even the doc said he thought everything was fine - it's just a precautionary ultrasound. The silver lining is that I scheduled it for a time that Josh could take off work to be there, and we get to see our baby again!

Forgotten Carols

After having him around so much the last little while, I've been missing Josh this week. After working late at Utah Valley Tuesday night, he flew down to St. George early Wednesday morning to fix a problem at Dixie. He flew back late that evening, but was up and at 'em again early yesterday and didn't make it home before I left at 7pm to go see The Forgotten Carols for girls' night out.

Last night was the third time I've seen Michael McLean's Christmas production, and it was incredible. While I don't think the Cottonwood High venue is the nicest I've been in, last night's show was perfect. I had never heard of Jordan Bluth before, but wow, what a voice! I had to look up his name in the program about 30 seconds after he began singing, his voice was so striking. His tone is quite rich and powerful - I could easily listen to him all day. I also really liked Kelly Shepardson's voice (Connie Lou) and Michael's wife, Lynne, sang the absolutely beautiful song of Sarah in the maternity ward. It's hard to choose a favorite song out of The Forgotten Carols, but that one will always be in my top three.

Anyway, Josh and I are hoping to spend some quality time together tonight before 10pm rolls around and I'm too tired to make it through the news. We'll probably just hit up RedBox and watch a video as we snuggle by the fireplace after dinner. There are several movies we always intended to see, but never got around to. Shrek 3, We Are Marshall, 300, Superbad, Surf's Up, and Premonition are all currently available. Any recommendations?

Wordless Wednesday

Vacation highlights

We finally returned from our 2-week excursion all over Hell's half-acre during the end of November. Here are some highlights (in no particular order):

• Pam's homemade black forest banana cream pie
• The new kid-sized 4-wheelers and all the crashing and dirt that ensued
• Cards, cards, and more cards - including a magical win for Josh and I at hand and foot!
• Seeing my father sealed to his parents
• Zeno, Sapheneous, and Milo - my ancestors
• Maryann's pregnancy announcement over dinner
• Grandma's reaction to said announcement
• Don's Lake Powell response
• Target's rain check and our new monitors
• Family Flag Football
• Dice with Dennis and Raleigh
• Finally seeing Bourne Ultimatum at the dollar show
• Staying up 'til 2am with Russ and Hill
• Lots o' rain in Las Vegas - it never poured like that while we lived there!
• Inheriting a crib, dresser, Boppy, and Moses basket for the coming addition
• Coming up with a name (but we're not telling anyone what it is)
• Family pictures!
  
• Jon Schmidt at Tuacahn, even though it almost rained out
• Hot chocolate that made the concert bearable
• Emily's blessing and the party afterward
• Perfect weather for driving home with a trailer carrying all our junk

All the pics are still in southern Utah on my Mom's camera and computer, so I've no proof that we had a great time. You'll just have to take my word for it.