oh, hello

First, I posted this link on my Facebook page, but not everyone does Facebook. About 10 months ago my friend Jordan's dad was diagnosed with brain cancer. One of his dreams is to participate in the Kona Ironman Competition. This link is his video to get people to vote for him to get the chance to go to Kona. While I've never met Dean, I would love to see him reach his dream! If you have 1 minute and 31 seconds, watch this video, and vote for Dean (please!) You'll have to copy/paste the link to get to the video, I don't know of a better way to share the video since it isn't a youtube one. 

http://konainspired.thismoment.com/base/kona?region_id=us-en&content_id=634&tab_id=20

Now that that's been said, I'll move on to my normal "random stuff" post.

I'm pretty sure that Baby Girl is either a ninja or a gymnast. She was all over the place yesterday. Last night we were watching some episodes of Jeopardy! (because we're super cool like that) and she was going nuts, to the point where Chris could totally feel it and see it. 

Chris is kind of doing better! He's been going in to work all week and most of last week too. We remembered that his allergies really seem to make things worse so we talked to his dr about his allergy meds and added another allergy med to his list of meds. Since then he seems to be less congested and that has helped him to sleep better, kind of. He still gets headaches and has to be careful, but it seems like he really is doing better. 

After a follow-up with the ENT yesterday we got test results back for him that show improvements over the past two months, so that's nice. While he was there he also spoke with their allergist, which is where he got his allergy testing done last summer. The Allergist was able to give him some really good info about his specific allergies, including some precise data of what he's allergic to and how badly he's allergic to it--before we just had a list of things they tested and if he reacted to them they circled it. We didn't realize before just how horribly he is allergic to Live Oak, and apparently the last two months are known for being really bad months for people with oak allergies. Maybe that is what triggered this whole relapse? We're going to start him on allergy shots (or allergy drops, which we learned may be more effective for his specific allergies) soon, we're just waiting to see how much it will actually cost. Hopefully we'll get the shots/drops started soon. 

I haven't really felt like cooking much recently. Yesterday we were supposed to have omelets, but I didn't feel like trying to make something new... so I made chicken fajitas instead. They were delicious, and something that I always have all the ingredients for (except for right now, because we finished off our tortillas yesterday), but I don't think Chris appreciated having fajitas again... they've become one of my go-to meals recently because of how little prep work they require and how tasty they are, AND because the way we make them actually fits with Chris's diet restrictions. 

I'm 34 weeks now. Next week I have two dr appts, one for an ultrasound and one is just my normal 35 week appt. At my appt last week I was measuring two weeks behind so I get to go see baby girl and hope that she's measuring fine. I'm pretty sure last week she was just in a position that makes me look smaller, because it felt like the next day I looked a million times bigger. Hopefully that's all and everything is okay. I'm not too stressed about it, if they were really concerned they wouldn't have had me wait 2 weeks for an ultrasound, right? 

It rained the other day! I was almost asleep one night and then all of a sudden I was seeing tons of lightning and then... BAM! Major thunderstorm. I couldn't fall asleep for about 2 hours as this freak storm came. Then yesterday I was doing some dishes and cleaning something up when it just started pouring outside! It was nice to be able to sit in my house and watch the rain. I'm glad I didn't need to go anywhere yesterday because the roads by our house get flooded pretty easily during these freak rain storms.

OH! And because I know everyone is wondering... I went to taco bell last week and got my Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco. It was better than I remember the Nacho Cheese one being. I'm not in a hurry to go back for another one, but it was pretty good. I'm more likely to go back just to get a Caramel Apple Empanada, because those things are freakishly tasty and I had forgotten about that. 

Taco Bell

We've been watching a lot of basketball lately, with hopes that maybe my bracket may not be a COMPLETE bust (so far it is... I don't recommend using alphabetical order to pick) and I've seen a ton of commercials for Taco Bell. Specifically for their Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco. I want one (or five) SO BAD now!

One of the first cravings I had back in my first trimester was the Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco. It was a beautiful thing, and I have gotten a few more over the past few months. Now I just really want the Cool Ranch one.

I have my 33 week appt on Thursday, and I think afterwards I will be treating myself to Taco Bell. YUM! Or maybe I'll just forget about making tomato soup and grilled cheese for dinner, and head to Taco Bell right now!

NOOOOOOO!

I just got home from an appt with my OB. They scheduled the rest of my appointments for my pregnancy, and when we got to my 40 week appt the lady mentioned that "oh, that's the week that Dr S is going to be out of town".

The look of sadness on my face must've been pretty crazy, because the lady felt really bad and apologized to me that my doctor won't be in town the week I'm due. Let's hope this little girl comes a teeny bit early, or a few days late so that I can have Dr. S be there... although I know the other doctors at her practice are good docs too, I wanted Dr. S to be the one!

31 weeks!

School is done. I feel like I have so much more free time now. Beautiful.

Chris is done with his big extra project (or at least the hard part... they still have to present about it, and depending on how that goes they may have more meetings, but during business hours!!!)

I go to my OB every other week now. And I love her. Still.

I don't have Gestational Diabetes.

We've at least ordered all the big furniture for Baby Girl's room now. My rocking chair got delivered today, and tomorrow the crib will be delivered! Then the big stuff is all here. Well, unless you count a crib mattress as "big" because we definitely haven't picked one of those out yet.

I'm having two baby showers in April, one that a friend in my ward (did you notice I didn't call it my new ward??? that's like a first!) is hosting and one that my friends from my old ward are hosting. I'm super excited for both. They're going to be totally different showers which is kind of really exciting. I love my friends!

I'm trying not to let myself buy anything for Baby Girl until after the first shower. I don't want to purchase a bunch of diapers today if I'm going to end up receiving some then. My second shower is a book shower, so I just have to stop myself from buying books (which is a lot harder than it sounds).

Chris is taking Friday off. He needs a day off to help him rest, relax, and hopefully get his health back under control. He also decided that we needed an extra day to just spend time together, so a long weekend it is! I'll be 31 weeks tomorrow, which means Baby Girl is due in 9, but could come sooner/later. I'm hoping that we spend at least part of Friday assembling either the crib or the rocking chair/footstool. I also hope that as we go out and run a few small errands (Chris wants to go look at Sam's Club to see what types of Contact Lens Solution they sell... and since I don't wear contacts I'm not choosing this for him) I can convince Chris that we should pick out a "coming home" outfit for Baby Girl! I love the clothes we've received for her so far, but I decided I want us to pick her coming home outfit!

I've been checking out pinterest, trying to decide some cute way to either display her name or at least the first letter of it somewhere in her nursery. I was originally going to do something that could go on the wall above the crib, but a friend is designing some super cute canvases to hang above the crib, so now I'm thinking I'll do something that can stand up on the cube organizers. I'm thinking that something like this could be cute (this is not her name, nor will I tell you her name on my blog you creepers), or maybe something like this except that I have only ever seen uppercase cardboard letters, and I'm not sure I want to wrap multiple letters in yarn.... or if they would stand up very well. Something kind of like this is on my mind as well. Find cute buttons and a cute frame, or even just some cheap frame and spray paint it a fun color? The wheels are turning. I browse at Hobby Lobby quite often. Yesterday I was near a Jo-Ann's and I went and browsed in there too. I'll figure something out eventually.

And that's what is on my mind right now. That and that I sure as heck hope I get a decent amount of sleep tonight. I keep waking up in the night with really bad heartburn even though I've been paying attention to what I'm eating and making sure to take heartburn meds every day regardless of what I'm eating. I go to the OB tomorrow, I'll definitely be talking to her about this then.

I'm pretty sure that getting a king sized bed would help me sleep better. Chris is a bed hog, and with my ever growing belly I need more space than I'm getting! After he leaves for work in the morning I end up sleeping a lot better, I think because I can spread out a little. If only a king size bed would fit in our room... maybe when we buy a house :)

A lady at church on Sunday approached me and said "I heard your pregnant! Congrats" I laughed and thanked her, after which she said "you're what, like 20 weeks now?" She just about choked on her water when I told her I was 30 1/2 weeks. Don't know where she's been the last few months, but apparently she didn't hear the news when everyone else here did! Kinda makes me laugh, and feel good because that means that I'm not super huge... but at the same time, I'm already 31 weeks! Start noticing!

The Biggest Loser finale is next week. Chris and I are excited. We placed our votes after watching this weeks episode! I can't wait to see how everyone looks at finale! I'm also excited to see who wins. It's too close to call at this point (in my opinion at least!).

Wednesday Nights.

For the past few Wednesday nights Chris has been working late. He's doing this extra project at work, designing some app for some contest with a couple other guys. I don't know much about it, but even if he explained it to me (which he may have) I wouldn't understand it all too well anyway. Anyway, the team at first was each working on the project when they had time, but the past few weeks they've all stayed late together on Wednesday's to work.

So far they've only been working for about an hour, and they probably have about 2 more hours of good work ahead of them, but I've already made some good use of my time!

I finished a book (loved it, can't wait to get my hands on book #2 tomorrow), did all the dishes, cleaned the dish rack (it was gross), and swept the house. I need to plan meals for next week still, but that can wait. I think I'm going to turn the tv on now and enjoy something from Netflix. If the place I like to get my eyebrows waxed was less busy I would head there right now, but they get way busy after 5 when the working people are off work. I'll have to stop by there during the day later.

Yesterday I added like 30 documentaries to our Netflix queue. Chris doesn't particularly enjoy watching them, but I do. I figure over the next 10ish weeks til Baby Girl gets here, and then in the weeks/months following, I'll have some time where I won't have the energy to do much but sit/lay on the couch. With the documentaries I at least feel like I'm learning something. I found some about space, about The Civil War, several other random National Geographic documentaries, and some about food/health. If anyone has any documentaries (or really ANYTHING from Netflix) that they recommend, let me know! I want a wide variety of things to watch.

Sleep

It's just about 7:30 am. I've been awake for about 4.5 hours now and told myself I couldn't blog earlier because I didn't trust whatever I might write.

Yesterday I found out that I passed my three hour glucose test, so hooray! I also found out I passed my final exam and ended up with a B+ in my class. I was pretty pleased with that as well.

I woke up at 1:30 with way bad heartburn (and I needed to go to the bathroom). I took some meds while I was up and a little while later I was back in bed, I think I fell asleep. Next thing I know it's about 3, I'm super hot, have even worse heartburn, and need to pee again. I spent an hour in the bathroom (the tile floor was cold and laying on it cooled me off) and wondered if I was going to puke. My heartburn was crazy! Then I went out to the living room so I could sit up for a while to help my heartburn. I grabbed my iPad, read my scriptures (maybe I would fall asleep?) then spent about 2 1/2 hours perusing Pinterest. The humor category had me laughing so hard I was crying, it was fabulous to kill time.

Around 7:15 Chris woke up and came out toask me what was wrong. Part of the reason I went to the living room was so I wouldn't disturb his sleep-he's still not been feeling so great lately and I know his sleep is important. He got to see baby girl do some crazy ninja moves in my tummy. It's kinda fun when she moves enough that you can see my belly move.

And here is my saga of the night I was up more than half the night. I know this will be more normal inthe future, but I would love to get some sleep tonight.

can't focus...

I can't focus right now, so blogging is the obvious option, right?

I'm taking my final in 2 hours. I'm so excited to think that in a few hours I won't have to worry about school again for a while. I can focus more on getting things ready for baby girl (I'm 29 weeks now! We're getting closer!) I can't wait to get this class done. I was planning on stopping at the store on my way home and picking up a bag or two of Cadbury Mini Eggs, but then yesterday I got a call saying I failed my 1 hour glucose tolerance test. Tomorrow morning I get to go in and take the 3 hour version. Guess I shouldn't celebrate today by loading up on sugar, right?

I'm not looking forward to the three hour test tomorrow. While the fruit punch flavor isn't too bad, I'm not looking forward to sitting in the lab for 3+ hours. I'm not looking forward to fasting for about 12 hours. And I'm DEFINITELY not looking forward to paying for 3+ hours worth of parking so I can do this. I guess one plus is that it means I get to read for like 3 hours, and I can read a lot of Harry Potter in 3 hours. Hopefully I pass the test with flying colors and don't have to worry about going to another doctor or shaking up my diet. Gestational Diabetes isn't the end of the world, but I can't imagine adding more diet restrictions on top of what we limit already for Chris.

So here I am. Now that I've cleared my mind a little I should probably get back to reviewing for my final!

relapse

My last post was really long and an important part was so short, that I decided it gets its own post.

A few weeks ago Chris forgot to take same of the vitamins that he's been taking since he got sick last year. Magnesium and B2 apparently are helpful in preventing migraines. We learned this lesson the hard way.

Last Monday Chris started getting headaches. Some days his head feels better than other days. He's been able to go in to work most days, although he worked from home yesterday. We went to his PCP yesterday and got more of his migraine meds, and today he went to see his ENT and both doctors agreed that it probably was the lack of vitamins that caused this little relapse.

One of the problems right now is that Chris is not getting very good sleep. This morning he woke up at 3:30 because he was too warm, then he couldn't fall back asleep so at 5:00 he decided it was just best for him to get up then. He took a shower, worked from home for a little while, then at 8:30ish he went in to work. He took a few hour break to go to the ENT this afternoon, and now he's on his way home. We're hoping that tonight he'll be really tired, and we'll give him a migraine med and have him take some Unisom and hope that tonight he sleeps well. His boss is understanding and told him to do whatever he needs and to just try to get his work done still. Luckily his work can be done at 3:30 in the morning, or 8:00pm. I think if he gets a good night sleep and continues to take his vitamins and other meds he'll get better soon.

We've also realized we got a bit relaxed with his diet, so we're getting more intense with that. His diet restrictions are still a challenge for me. You'd think that after about 8 months of this I'd have a lot more ideas... but my whole first trimester we pretty much just ate tacos over and over again. I'm realizing that I need to really expand our list of meals, especially with baby girl on the way.We need more ideas. So if you have some favorite meals that are pretty healthy send recipes my way! I'll figure out if they meet all his restrictions or not, or figure out ways to make them work.

We realized that eating out is pretty much just out of question now, and would've been difficult after the baby gets here anyway. We decided we'd take the money we budget for eating out and add it to our grocery budget. We decided we could do some more grilling, there are some good marinades you can make that don't have a ton of salt, and we have some good Mrs. Dash seasonings that are fantanstic on meats. We don't have a nice outdoor grill, but we did use a little of our bonus money to get this nicer indoor griddler/grill. We plan on breaking it in this weeknd with burgers.

And that's life.

Post number 500

This is my 500th post. I've been watching my number of posts slowly increase, and I always wondered what post #500 would end up being about. I'm still not really sure what it's going to be all about. You get one of those posts of random things on my mind... which are really my favorite to write anyway!

I've started nesting pretty hardcore. In the past few weeks I've deep cleaned my fridge, freezer, oven and stove. I got down on my hands and knees (while I can still see them) and cleaned the baseboards that I could reach. And our bath tub is pretty clean now too. I took apart our humidifier and scrubbed it pretty good, but that was mostly because it was making a funny sound and I wondered if it had hard water spots built up (it did) and so now that it's clean it doesn't just spew water everywhere and it doesn't make funky noises! We got our stroller and carseat recently and put them together last weekend. We bought them while Target was having their big January Baby Sale, and knew if we waited to open the box til closer to my due date there would probably be some missing part or something would be broken and it would be too late to return them. So now the stroller is folded up and in the closet, and the carseat is sitting in a corner for a few more weeks.  My rocking chair and ottoman has been ordered, but not received yet; and the dresser that we bought almost 2 months ago is still sitting in its box. We want to get those things all put together and arrange the furniture so we can figure out how big of a rug we want to get for the nursery. We still haven't ordered the crib yet, but that will be happening any day now!

I organized one of the closets in our hallway so that I could start stockpiling things like tooth paste and toilet paper. I made a list of different things to stock up on, and at the end of every month when I see how much money I have left in my grocery/household budget I make purchases accordingly. I also use that extra money to stock up on the canned goods that we use often. And in April I'll probably use it more for stocking up on meats for our freezer. Wanting to do this has helped me be even more diligent in my meal planning, and grocery shopping. It's kind of a fun game to see how much I can have leftover at the end of the month to use to stock up on stuff.

A few months ago Chris and I started listening to Harry Potter audiobooks again. This is like the 2nd or 3rd time since we got married that we've done this. He listens sometimes while he's at work and I listen at home, and then at night we listen to it together. Well, he's on book 6 now, but most of the time that he was working through book 5 I was working more heavily on my class so I hardly listened to it at all. So I'm on book 5 now while he's working on 6. I'm hoping to take my final this week (if my proctor calls soon to say she has it!) and then work super hard on catching up. Book 5 is not my favorite, but the book sure is WAY better than the movie.

For Valentine's Day we kept things pretty lowkey, which is how I prefer it. I let Chris pick whatever he wanted me to make for dinner that night, so we ate Manicotti and Garlic Bread. We each got each other a movie (I got him Heavyweights, he got me You've Got Mail), and then we spent that evening watching the newest episode of The Biggest Loser. It was awesome.

Several weeks ago we got two of these for the babys room. The boxes have been sitting in the room, just waiting to be cut up small enough to fit into our trash can. Last night I had the urge to destroy something, so I took a knife and went to town. I felt pretty good as I ripped that thing apart. I got one of the boxes and all of the stuffing from the inside of it to fit into my trash can with plenty of room leftover, so depending on how much other trash accumulates before the trash goes to the curb tomorrow night I may start destroying the second box as well to fill the trash can up. I love accomplishing something. Also, it is fun to have those organizers set up because we've started getting some little things here and there and now we have somewhere to put them all!

Chris has had headaches/migraines for the last week. I'm super nervous about this because it reminds me all too much of how he felt back in May when his whole chronic illness thing started. Hopefully we can get these headaches under control and get back to life as normal. We don't really have 3 months for him to get better this time, and I don't really have 3 months where I can just take care of him and his health.

I'm reading President Monson's biography right now on my Kindle. I have LOVED learning about his childhood and growing up years. It has been really cool to learn more about him as a normal person, since most of what I know about him has been of him as an apostle.

We decided that if we can't decide on a name for our baby, we'll just name her Hermione. Probably because we are a little too obsessed with Harry Potter. Guess that's motivation for us to decide on a name.

I could live off of grapes and baby carrots. And Bosco Sticks.

I recently rewatched the first two High School Musical movies on Netflix as I worked on other projects around the house. Netflix didn't have #3, so I requested it from my library. It is in transit now, so sometime this week I will get to watch #3. This is ridiculous and I know it, but whatever.

Chris is going on a business trip in a few weeks and I decided that while he is gone (for 6 whole days) I am going to invade our kitchen table and scrapbook our wedding. When I created our baby registry at Target I got a little gift bag with some coupons and baby samples. Included in that gift bag was a $20 gift card to Shutterfly. I decided I'll use that $20 to print a bunch of pictures from our engagements and wedding pictures. I figure if I don't do our wedding now it won't happen for a REALLY long time. Also, why not take advantage of the free $20? I also got a $20 shutterfly gift card when I bought something at the local maternity store... apparently Shutterfly really is trying to lure people in and are happy to give away $20 gift cards but then people end up spending a lot more ordering/printing birth announcements (which is what they suggest doing). I can order a lot of pictures from them for $20!

I was going to make "Better for you Banana Bread" which is from one of my healthy ATK cookbooks today, but as I opened it up I realized I didn't have anymore sour cream, so it has to wait til tomorrow. This is our favorite Banana Bread recipe. With the size loaf pan I use it makes 2 loaves, so I'm planning on making one loaf of bread and turning the other half of the batter into muffins! The recipe is pretty healthy and is pretty darn low sodium, and it still feels like a good snack/treat to Chris. Plus when I cleaned out my freezer I found a bunch of bananas hiding in it. I can't wait to make banana bread again!

Oven roasted cherry tomatoes are delicious. I roasted some a few weeks ago to throw together with some pasta and chicken for a delicious healthy dinner. I will definitely be roasting some more soon, along with some other tasty veggies. I'd like to thank ATK for giving me some good ideas of what to roast them with. Balsalmic vinegar, olive oil, shallots and garlic belong with tomatoes. YUM!

And one final thought...

I made these for Valentine's Day and had to make a second batch the next day because I was obsessed with them. They are the perfect combo of sweet and salty. Also, with the ingredients I used they had 25 milligrams of sodium per treat, so Chris could have a couple without totally blowing his low-sodium diet.

25 weeks

Here I am! 25 weeks pregnant!

The last week has been full of school as I've finished 8 assignments! I have only one lesson left, and it will take some time. I hope to finish it by Wednesday night! If I get things my way, I may take my final by the end of this month! Otherwise it will be done early in March!

We bought a car seat (it gets delivered on Wednesday!) and picked out our crib (we haven't ordered it yet, but we have it picked out!). 

Also, my opinion... the superbowl commercials weren't really even that funny this year. There were a few good ones, but not enough for my liking! We did eat some tasty snacks and enjoyed the 34 minute power outage... and I did most of a puzzle, then gave up on it and put it away.