How Things Change

Wow, I found this old pic on my computer today. It was 2 1/2 years ago, when Lexi was maybe 8 weeks old? I really had two babies, but didn't realize it at the time. I thought Jordyn was so mature! Anyway, it's just fun to look back at how much they have merged and become best friends. As much as their arguing can drive me up a huge wall, I am grateful that they have eachother and hope they always stay close like they are now. It's also strange to look back at baby pictures and realize that we're getting ready to do it all AGAIN! Wow!

Baby Blankets

My sister-in-laws are so nice and they both made us blankets for the baby:

Lynda Ann made us a perfect University of Utah one! You see, Tucker's family is sort of divided down the middle - half BYU fans and half UofU. So this was VERY nice of Annie (a BYU fan) to make us a UofU blanket! We love it!

And Maren's is just as perfect. Hawaiian flowers AND purple? Who could ask for more? These silky edges are the best way to fancy-up a fleece blanket and it looks just beautiful! Thanks Maren!

Magic Answer?

Does anyone have a magic potion or answer to helping me survive the next 9 weeks....and then the first three or so months of the baby's life? Seriously, lately, I just feel like I can't balance it all! Life requires more than I feel like I have. I'm running on a depleted energy bank. It must be very tied to my physically-way-less-than-par status because things do not usually overwhelm me as much as they have been lately. Whether it be cleaning my house, or doing my church duties, or telling my kids not to (constantly) fight, cut their hair, draw on the walls, talk rudely to me, or getting them to actually get dressed, eat and get out the door ON TIME.....ugh. Sorry, I'm just a big complainer lately. If I were objectively talking to someone like me, I'd simply think "just hang in there, 9 more weeks and you're body will start to feel somewhat normal, etc", but at this point that does NOT help me to think that. It's amazing how life can feel all jumbled and hard even when nothing is really actually WRONG, you know?

Anyway, thanks for listening. Oh, and email me if you have that magic potion or answer! :-)

In Case You're in the Market for a Frog...

...I just thought I'd warn you of their potential lifespan!! We have a few African Dwarf Frogs (tiny water frogs) that Tucker bought (for some unknown reason) over THREE years ago! I was like "fine, okay, how long can they really live?" - we'd had fish before and the never seemed to make it much more than 6-8 months. Well, these suckers have lived for WAY longer than we'd hoped (not to be rude) and the fun has worn off! Getting Tucker to clean out their bowl is worse than coaxing a kid to take care of their pet! Well, I just read that these frogs have the potential to live for a ridiculously long time! One guys said he had his for 18 years! We just can't quite get ourselves to "dispose" of them. Maybe there's a young kid at church that'd love 'em, huh?

Pre-School

Today was Jordyn's first day of pre-school! She has been so excited for this. A few of her close friends, as well as her cousin Alyson, just started kindergarten, so she's been looking forward to starting her "school" too. She goes two days per week from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. I think it will be a fun social/learning time for her...and a break for mommy from the sibling rivalry!! Lexi, however, was not so keen on the idea of not getting to stay and play there. She and Jordyn are so close in age that they're used to doing most of the same things. So I'll have to come up with some special Mommy-Lexi time while Jordyn's away.

Each transition of parenthood has had its own unique surprises and challenges! The phase I'm starting to enter is much more structured than the phase I've been in for the past four years. Deadlines and timeframes! And I'm sure adding child #3 will bring on a whole new world of it's own. Speaking of child #3...I went to the Dr. today and, as I had suspected, she is breech at the moment. My Dr. isn't too worried yet since I've still got a ways to go. But something felt different about this pregnancy because Lexi was head down from like 23 weeks on and this just felt a bit different. Anyway, all is well and fine and we're getting anxious to meet this little one!

Visit to Utah

I've finally "recovered" enough to write about our trip to Utah last week! We spontaneously decided we should go before the baby comes and so we booked reasonably priced airline tickets from LA to SLC on Southwest. Not the most convenient as we live three hours from LAX, but the tickets were like $200 cheaper EACH than from our usual Fresno airport. So we went and had a great time with family and a few friends. It's always hard to fit in everything we WANT to do while we're there (which is only like once a year) and see everyone we want to see (so we're sad if we missed you this trip)! But we did get to see Maren & Greg and Lynda Ann & Jeff's new houses (both quite a ways out west, but opposite sides of the SL Valley) which were very beautiful! Our family has grown so big with so many cousins that it's quite a gathering when we're all together! I love to watch all the kids have so much fun together.

I say "recovered" because as a big pregnant lady, I was more tired than usual on this trip. But the breaking point was our flight home. Our incoming plane was delayed in another state for almost three hours, so we didn't leave the SLC airport until midnight - and after our drive home from LAX, we didn't get home until 5 am. We were SOOOO tired!!! Don't you just love those "tests" of patience where there's NOTHING you can do to change the situation? So we had a fun 5 hour hang out in the airport that night!

Anyway, thanks to all our family for the fun weekend! Unfortunately, I (who am usually the picture queen) got ONE picture the whole trip. I charged our camera before we left and the battery was mysteriously dead when we arrived :-(. Very sad. This pic is at Maren's house.

Laugh for the Day

I'm not usually big joke forwarder...but I got this one today and it was short and funny, so I had to share :-)

"This incident actually happened at the testimony meeting in March. Our primary president was visiting her sister's ward. A lady came up to the pulpit. She began by telling the congregation what a trying month she and her family had these past few weeks. Her husband had been in a car accident and had bruised his scrotum.

She then continued on, very weepily, for the next ten minutes about how this injury has been affecting their family. "He can't hold the children, he can't hug or cuddle, no intimacy, he'd been so weak, etc . . ." She finally sits down.

Then, to the already shocked and horrified congregation, the husband stands and approaches the pulpit. "I just have one word for my wife," he said, "STERNUM." Then he sat down."

Sugar Overload

Can you tell I've been in a blog-funk lately? But alas, here I am a week later to report on the excitement of my day today (yeah right). I had to do my blood glucose screening today - one of the fun tests done routinely during pregnancy. Anyway, it's pretty gross. I had to go to the lab first thing this morning (without eating, which is hard for me!). They drew blood, then had me down this 10 oz bottle of what is basically REALLY sugary orange soda - on an empty stomach. Then I had to stay at the lab for an hour and they drew my blood again to see how my body metabolized the sugar. Ugh, it is just the yuckiest thing to do first thing in the morning. Don't get me wrong...I'm always up for a bowl of Fruit Loops or Lucky Charms...but (sugar-wise) this was like eating about 5 bowls!

But at least it's one more step and one more test closer to meeting this baby! My sister-in-law Maren just had her third baby (congrats on little Brock - yet another cute red head!) the other day and it's made me begin to contemplate the inevitable....LABOR! It's about now in pregnancy that I begin to realize that there is NO way out of that part! My mom is so sweet and said she is "getting ready" by watching the baby birthing stories on TLC and Discovery Health. I'm glad SHE is because for some reason they freak me out too much right now! Luckily I have a few more months to get to the point where I'd do just about ANYTHING to get the baby out! I guess I'm not quite there yet :-)

Pismo Beach

Yesterday my really good friend Beth and I decided to take a day trip to Pismo Beach. It's around a 2 1/2 hour drive from where we live, but she'd never been there and it had been a while for me so we figured "why not?". So we packed up our four kids, plus the two in-utero (she's three weeks ahead of me) and spent a day at the beach. It was a lot of driving, but the weather was refreshing at 66 degrees and the kids had fun in the sand. We ate clam chowder bowls at Splash cafe (love that place) and enjoyed the ocean breeze. Despite running to the smelly public restrooms a million times for four children and two pregnant women, the day was a lot of fun!

Blog is our Family Journal

Even though I'm sure we can entertain some of you from time to time with some of our blog entries, my number 1 reason for keeping up my blog is to document the little things of our life to keep as a family journal. I try to do my own personal journaling, but lots of this day-to-day type stuff doesn't make it into my own writings. Today I printed off all our blogs thus far (October 2005 to now) and put each page into plastic slip-covers and safely secured them into a binder. My goal is to do this every few months. And even though it hasn't been too long since our first few blog entries, it was already fun to look back at them! Imagine how fun it will be in a few years. I think it is so important to "document" our lives for our posterity. It is amazing how quickly the 'present' becomes 'history' - and is easily forgotten! I love to do this not only through journaling, but video, dvds and photos. Technology today sure makes this possible in all sorts of fun ways!

*by the way, it was a nice relief that Monday came and went w/o a hitch - I was 26 weeks 5 days, which is when Jordyn was born. Hooray! Each day after that point is a (uncomfortable but) cherished day!