Prenatal Appointment with some Ramifications

I had my latest prenatal appointment yesterday. The midwife had the official results from the ultrasound, and said that everything looked really good - except that my placenta is low. It's not covering the cervix, but it's lower than it should be. We're not too concerned, because placentas tend to "travel" upward as the uterus grows. But just to be sure, she's going to have me do another ultrasound at 28 weeks to make sure it's moving up like it's supposed to. Low placenta - not so good. Another ultrasound and an extra peek at the baby - hooray!

We listened to the baby's heartbeat - after a few minutes of trying to find it! She wouldn't hold still enough to get the heartbeat for a really long time. This is the third time this has happened. I think that this little lady is getting to be quite the little fireball! But eventually we found the heartbeat and it sounded good - 150 bmp.

Also at my appointment we went over my headache diary. For the last two weeks, I've kept track of everything I've eaten, taking special note of common migraine dietary triggers. I also kept track of other triggers (bad weather, stress, etc) and when I got migraines and how bad they were. We're trying to figure out what things in my diet may be affecting my migraines. Well, the diary proved to be inconclusive. Some days when I had eaten several triggers I ended up with a migraine - other days after eating the same triggers I didn't. So now we're going to try completely cutting out all the common triggers from my diet for the next two weeks to see if my migraines improve. If they do - great, it just means that I have to avoid those foods. If not, the next step would be to see a neurologist, get a brain scan, and figure out what's going on to cause the migraines.

What this all means for me right now is that for the next two weeks, I can't eat: cheddar and other aged cheeses, hot dogs and other foods with nitrites, anything containing MSG, peanuts and peanut butter, sour cream and yogurt ... and chocolate. That's right - no chocolate for two weeks! I'm a little sad about that, but am determined to find acceptable substitutes for all these foods. For instance, I can't eat cheddar, but I can have mozzarella or Monterey Jack. No peanut butter, but almond butter is okay. I just won't make any foods that require sour cream (or I have a recipe substitute for baking and cooking that works okay). And instead of chocolate chip cookies I can do oatmeal raisin, sugar, or snickerdoodle. Yellow cake instead of chocolate cake. Fruit pie instead of chocolate pie.

And after all, it's only two weeks.

But I guess my yummy nighttime snack of banana or apple spread with peanut butter and sprinkled with chocolate chips is out of the question. Sigh.

Sunday Bag in the Making

I've decided to put together a special Sunday Bag to bring the Church to keep the kids occupied and quiet during Sacrament Meeting. Usually we toss a book or two and some snacks into the diaper bag and hope that works - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. So I decided to get crafty and put together a special bag with special Sunday quiet things for the kids to play with.

After a very fun (and a little more pricey than I would have liked) shopping trip in the craft section and office section at Wal-Mart, I was ready to get started. The first craft I worked on was one that I started many months ago at a Relief Society enrichment activity back when we lived in Idaho - the Gospel ABC Book. Basically, there's a page for each letter, and each letter goes with a gospel topic or word, and a picture (that I drew myself) and phrase based on a scripture or a Primary song. I got all the pages put together at the activity, but had yet to laminate them and turn them into an actual book. So today I used those self-adhesive laminating sheets and some book rings and finished the book. Here's the title page and a few example pages:





The next project I started working on was a Crayon Pouch. Wal-Mart had those Crayola 24-packs of crayons for 25 cents each, and I grabbed one to use for the Sunday bag. I like brand new crayons! :-) But it's inconvenient and frustrating to pull them out and push them back in those little boxes. So I made a roll-up pouch for them, with individual slots for each crayon. Yeah, that took a while...



But holy cow! Didn't that turn out so cute? Now it'll be much easier to pull out individual crayons for coloring. I'll pack coloring books in the Sunday bag to go with the crayons.

I'm also in the planning stages of making a cloth Quiet Book, but haven't really started on it yet. I'm excited about it though - I've already bought the fabric and felt for it, and have a list of pages that I'll be making for it. I also have plenty of yellow flowery fabric left after making the crayon pouch that I can use for the Quiet Book cover.

Other things in the Sunday bag will include small toys, a couple regular books, and of course, a snack! I may or may not make an actual bag to put all this stuff in. If I have one that will work already I'll probably just use that. But I think it would be fun to make a nice big bag for all of this stuff, and sew the words "Sunday Fun" on it or something. Haven't decided yet. Whether I make a bag or not, I'm really excited about this fun new project to work on!

Somebody's Sleepy...

I was hanging out on the computer while Zaylee finished up her pancake from lunch. I planned on maybe watching a Disney movie with her when she was done, since Jeff and Thomas are both napping and it would be just the two of us girls. However, I suddenly noticed she was being really quiet and looked over to see what she was up to. Here's what I saw:


I guess the boys aren't the only ones who are sleepy this afternoon! Awwww, she's so cute... :-)

I Love Our Ward!

More specifically, I love the chair of the activities committee, Sister B. She always plans the neatest ward functions, and they always include food. Then, she gives away the stuff that didn't get used/eaten. For instance, today she approached me and said that there was still some pancake mix and syrup left from our recent ward breakfast, and would we like it? I said of course, and she gave us a bag full of two boxes of pancake mix and several specialty pancake syrups. I'm really excited - we have regular pancake syrup, two containers of roasted pecan syrup, some whole blueberry syrup, whole blackberry syrup, and maple praline syrup. Yummm.....

Yeah. Sister B. is awesome. :-)

Growing Up

Well, Zaylee has passed an initiation rite into the realms of big-girl-hood. Tonight she got her first bloody nose, poor thing. She was running around the corner to her room just as Thomas was running around the corner coming out of the room, and they collided. He came out perfectly fine, but she immediately grabbed her face and started crying. I tried to make it seem really cool and grown-up, so she wouldn't freak out - "Hey, look at that, your first bloody nose! Wow, you're being such a big girl!" I was cheerful and encouraging as we went into the bathroom and pressed tissue to her nose. It worked, she calmed down quickly, and was more curious about seeing the blood on the tissue than she was upset about the pain.

Ah, growing up. She just keeps doing it! Like earlier this evening, she was at the table and I was busy at the computer. When she wanted more water, instead of making me get up and get it for her she took things into her own hands. She carefully poured water from the pitcher into my larger glass, then poured it from my glass into her little cup. She did this a little at a time until her cup was as full as she wanted. Wow, she really is getting to be a big girl.

Outside My Window...

There are two fire engines parked outside our apartment, and fully-geared fire fighters keep going in and out of the building, with hoses and axes and all the trimmings. I'm really not sure what's going on, but assume that if there were something dangerously wrong they would go through all the apartments and get everyone out...

...Okay, as I've been typing it looks like they're packing up now. Wonder what that was all about? I dunno, maybe there was a cooking fire or something. Gosh, this whole thing has me a bit weirded out.

Freezer Meal Progress

I've been making lots of progress on my freezer meals project. So far I've made chili, curry, frozen burritos (out of homemade refried beans), and bean soup. That's approximately 14 or 15 meals (depending on how many burritos we eat at each meal). I've got more beans on the stove now to make baked beans with hot dogs, which will add about three more meals. My freezer is getting so full!

This has been such a fun project to tackle, and I like knowing that those meals are there, ready to be used. They sure beat those piddly little Banquet entrees Jeff and I used to buy all the time (my excuse is that we were students and they were convenient for eating on campus). I've got a few more meals planned, but am not entirely sure how to make them fit in the freezer... I really wish I had room for a chest freezer! Anyway, just thought I'd do a little update on my progress, because I'm sure having fun with it.


As for pregnancy news, I've been feeling strong kicks and wiggles several times daily for a while now. They're strong enough for Jeff to feel now too, which he's excited about. My midwife has me keeping a headache diary for two weeks. I get migraines two or more times per week, and we're trying to figure out some of my dietary triggers so that I can do more to prevent them. I know most of my other triggers (bad weather, stress, heat, exertion, TV/computer, etc) but never paid attention to how the foods I eat affect my migraines. Apparently there are several foods that are common migraine triggers. Cheddar, chocolate, MSG, peanut butter - all the good stuff! Upsetting, but if I learn my personal triggers and avoid them, I can have much fewer migraines. Sigh, I guess I knew all that chocolate, cheese, and peanut butter wasn't doing me any favors. :-(

Happy Birthday to Thomas!

Thomas turned 2 years old today. We had a low-key party, just the four of us with some cake and ice cream after naptime. Thomas has been enjoying his birthday - first we opened gifts from Grandma and Grandpa B.

Ooh fun, it's a colorful puppy book!




And some really cute clothes! Grandma has great taste.


Mommy made a really fun cake with alligators on it. The alligators are made out of green chocolate.


But they won't let me eat the cake or the alligators until after they sing! Phooey!


Mmmm, this was worth waiting for! See the cars that Mommy and Daddy got me? I've been playing with them all evening!



I wish we had better lighting in this apartment. Half the pictures I took of Thomas' special day turned out really weird because I couldn't get the camera to cooperate with what little light we had. Yucky. And please, don't notice/judge the mess in the background of some of these pictures. Please.

Happy birthday to my favorite little 2 year old!

Me Time?

Today there's a Primary activity, and there's also a Relief Society Enrichment activity. Jeff is taking the kids to the Primary activity at the Church History Museum, while I wait around the apartment for Enrichment. They just left, which means that I get some precious "ME TIME" all to myself - two whole hours just for me!

Now, what on earth am I supposed to do with it?

It's a ....

We had our ultrasound this morning. First the tech took care of all the important and boring stuff (measuring the head and abdomen, looking at the heart, checking the spine), and we got to see a bit of our baby's attitude (wouldn't cooperate and actually flipped us the finger, yikes!), then we finally got to see the gender:


It's a girl! Here you can see the arms and hands curled up by her face, then the gender shot. Sorry the pics are blurry, we don't have it on CD and the sheet of pictures they gave us wasn't the best quality. You can click to enlarge the pics. The next pictures are her face and then her left arm/hand:


Then her little foot and curled up little legs:


She weighs about 13 oz. and the tech said that everything looked normal and healthy. :-)

My Hands Are Cold

My hands are cold, because I just went through our highly disorganized freezer and wrote down everything inside it. I pulled everything out, wrote down what we had and how much of it there was, and put it all back in. Funny, when you stack everything nicely, it makes it seem like there's more room in there somehow. Nice. :-)


The reason I did all that strenuous work is because I want to put together some freezer meals. I want to be able to just pull something out of the freezer to thaw in the morning, heat it in the evening, and have a delicious meal without having to do all the work of putting it together every day. Plus, it will be good to have some experience with freezer meals under my belt for when I'm further along in pregnancy and preparing for when the baby's born.

But before I can start putting together freezer meals, I have to clear out some room in the freezer, which means figuring out what's in there and how I'm going to use it! That's the next step - deciding what I'm going to use and how. For instance, I have four baggies of pureed squash. Gotta figure out something to do with that! What should I do with my 3 quarts of broth? What about that loaf of bread dough? I'm sure lots of the chicken and ground beef will go into my freezer meals, so that's taken care of. But what about the brown bananas and shredded zucchini?

Anyway, I'm just excited about having completed the first phase of my freezer meal experience. Next, I've got some planning to do!


Completely off-topic here - Baby is hiccuping! This is the first time I've been able to feel hiccups with this baby, so fun!

Another New Toy, hehehe

Since we're going to be adding to our family later this year, we decided to make a nice big purchase that is necessary but exciting - a minivan!


Our entire afternoon has been dedicated to the purchase of this big, shiny, new toy. We looked up places and prices online (we've actually been looking casually for quite a while), then headed over to the Ken Garff in West Valley after lunch. We wandered around the show room for a while, waiting for our sales rep Rhett, then it was off to look at vans! We test drove two separate vans, one a silver Kia Sedona, and the other a silver/blue Dodge Grand Caravan. The Sedona was fun, it had lots of little nooks, crannies, and cubbies in the front, and handled well. But we ended up preferring the Grand Caravan, with its bench seats and plentiful trunk space.

So we went to the little office space, armed with little water bottles and a package of crackers to occupy the kids (thanks Rhett for the snacks), and signed a bunch of papers. The kids took the opportunity to wander around and climb all over the 4-wheelers on display in that area of the building. Wish I had brought the camera - it was so cute! Then we went back to the show room and waited for a nice long time, while Rhett and the accounting person took care of a bunch of stuff. He provided us with cold water and lukewarm pizza (again, thanks!) while we waited. Then finally we went in another office and signed a whole bunch of other papers. Then waited a bit longer, took Zaylee to the bathroom, an elderly gentleman gave the kids some nice big helium balloons, and the van was ready and we were off!

The kids really love balloons! I think that for them, the balloons made the whole trip worthwhile, and they haven't let them out of their sight since. :-)


All in all, I feel like it's been a productive, enjoyable afternoon.

Hooray!!!!

We've been storing some food storage for Aunt Annette for a couple weeks. Esther came and picked it up today. Yay for our space back, though the kids will miss being able to climb on the buckets. Plus, Esther and Nathan brought a super special surprise for us...


An ice cream maker!!! Jeff and I are so excited, we've wanted one for a while. I'm excited to be able to make all sorts of frozen desserts with our new toy. :-)

Our Fourth of July Festivities - Lots of Pictures

Figured it was time for a good long picture post, and our fun day yesterday was the perfect excuse.

We headed over to Joy and Jim's house late morning to spend the day with them. First we went to the parade in Magna - Magna is a fairly small town with a cute little parade. The floats were simple, mostly cars with signs, but they all threw lots of candy and the parade wasn't overwhelmingly long. Lots of fun for everyone.

Here we are waiting for the parade to start - Zaylee sitting beside cousin Jaime, and Jeff and Thomas hanging out together.



Zaylee wasn't exactly an assertive candy-grabber, so Aunt Joy helped her. Zaylee was more interested in the eating part.



There were a couple more creative floats that I wanted to share. First was the local theater company, who were advertising their production of "Once Upon a Mattress." That got me excited because my school did that show when I was in the 8th grade. It was my first time being in a school play, and led to my lifelong love of the theater. This float brought back memories!


Then there was this amusing float advertising a business called Forever Roses. Click to enlarge so you can read it. I thought it was kinda funny.


The weather cooperated pretty well for the parade. It was mostly cloudy, with spurts of sunshine. Just as the parade began to wrap up, it started raining. I thought this scene was fun, this was a group of people sitting in front of me, all with their different colored umbrellas, watching the end of the parade.


After the parade, the rain let up almost immediately as we walked back to the cars, which was nice. Then it was nice and sunny/partly cloudy for the rest of the day. We spent the next several hours at Joy and Jim's house, just hanging out and having a good time.

We went outside for a while, where the kids had lots of fun. Zaylee and Marilee played with this little shopping cart and doll, while Thomas enjoyed scooting around on this bike thing that he absolutely loved! We'll have to get him something like that when we actually have room for it, because he was playing on it practically all day Friday and Saturday.



Jim hooked up the guitar and amp outside and was rocking out, hoping that Thomas would do his crazy funny dance again like last night. He didn't really dance the same, but he had a great time running around excitedly! I think he was just too excited about being outside. That, and this time it wasn't 10:00 at night... Anyway, this is the closest he got to dancing like last night. I still think it's cute because it shows his adorable running - I love how his arms flail when he runs!

Later, back inside, Joy broke out karaoke mike and hooked it up to their CD player. Zaylee had a great time singing along to Ozzy Osbourne, rocking an awesome hairdo (if it hasn't been made clear, this is a family that really enjoys their rock music).


In the evening, we went with Joy and Jim over to Joy's friend's parents house for a barbecue. Joy's friend Marlise invited us to come along last night when she and her girls came over, even though we'd pretty much only just met. Friendly folk! So we went and, despite not knowing anyone there, had a great time! We were welcomed as part of the family.

Thomas, having already had a long day, fell asleep on the way there and stayed conked out for quite a while.


He later woke up and found a great deal of enjoyment on the kiddie swing. Look at that face!


Zaylee found the bounce house immediately, and spent much of the evening there.


Marlise's mother brought over a box of corn husks for the kids to feed the horses, and Zaylee had a blast with that! Unfortunately, she was only wearing socks at the time, having just come from the no-shoes-allowed bounce house. All the weeds and stickers that stuck in her socks rendered them unwearable for the rest of the evening.


Dinner was absolutely delicious! They had grilled steak, grilled chicken, corn on the cob, lots of fruits and vegetables, chips, potato salad, rolls. Yum!



Unfortunately, I ate waaaaayyyy too much and ended up getting sick in the middle of the night, and feeling slightly ill and super sluggish all day today. But boy howdy, it was some delicious food!

Of course, a highlight of the evening was setting off fireworks. Some of the older kids took responsibility (with adult supervision) for lighting the fireworks. There were some really fun ones!



Thomas and Zaylee were enthralled - they didn't get even a little bit scared. During some of the bigger, louder ones, Thomas even got so excited he was clapping his hands and laughing. So cute!

So there you have it - our Fourth of July festivities. We had a great day!

Last Night

We had a fun time last night. Jeff's sister Joy and her husband Jim (lots of 'J' alliteration there) were going to the temple with some friends, and asked us to watch their girls for them. We gladly agreed, eager to get the kids out of the house and let them play with their cousins. So the kids had a great time playing with Jaime and Marilee (I don't recall Jaime's exact age, she's going into the fifth grade, but Marilee is Zaylee's age). I forgot my camera so don't have any pictures, but it was fun. After Joy and Jim got home, we stayed and hung out for a while. Joy's friend brought her two girls over for a little while, so there were six hyped-up kids running around the house having a great time! Then Jim and Jeff and several of the kids went down to the basement, where there's an electric guitar all set up. Jim started rocking out and boy did Thomas love that! I really wish I had brought the camera because I could have gotten some hilarious video. Thomas was shaking and boogying and dancing up a storm! He was grabbing chairs and shaking them around, running around with a gleeful look on his face, trying to jump up and down, it was absolutely hilarious! We're going back there again today to hang out for the Fourth, and I'm definitely bringing my camera. Jim said he'd play again so I could catch Thomas on camera rocking out again.


You know, I think my blog posts are boring. I really just don't have the talent of making our days seem interesting. I just write what happened in the driest possible way. Reading back over my post, even though I lived it and we really did have an entertaining evening, just bores me to tears. Does anyone have any suggestions for making my little online journal here more readable and fun? I don't like that I can't even stand to read it.

My latest project

I made some super cute maternity shorts! I had a pair of pants that I planned to cut off because of some enormous holes in the knees. Then I got pregnant and the pants were forgotten, since they no longer fit anyway. But I realized yesterday that they were good candidates for adding a maternity belly, since they fit everywhere except the belly. Some cutting and sewing and a panel of cute fabric later, and they are now maternity shorts. I love having a sewing machine!