Week and Weekend

Here are some random pictures of the past week and weekend.

David took all week of last week to work on our house. The house has a carport-shed type thing on the side of the house, that David is connecting to the actual house. It will act as a mud room/laundry room and I can't wait until its finished. Once this is done we can move the washer and dryer from the basement upstairs, and then he will start working on the basement. What a handy guy. He's had all sorts of helpers all week, including my dad, Lori, Jasper, Todd and Heather, a cousin/electrician, and of course our neighbor Larry.







Jasper and his cousin Kazia are now in Ohio having a wonderful summer vacation with their other cousins and Aunts and Uncles. They left Sunday morning, so Kazia slept over Saturday night and we stayed up playing Apples to Apples.

According to the game, I am Extreme, Haunting and Meek.

And Jasper is Hilarious, Powerful, Bold, Primitive, and Lucky.




In the SLC airport parking lot. . .

And then at the airport. They got to fly their by themselves and got special attention by the flight attendants and early boarding. They made it safely there and apparently already had a fun trip to Lake Eerie.

Here's an attempt at a video.

The Worst

You know what is the worst?

Having a bad cold.



What's worse than that?

Having a bad cold while pregnant.



What's worse than that?

You can take very few medicines while pregnant, so your cold symptoms seem even more horrible.



What's even worse than that?

While you are pregnant with a cold having taken only limited medications that don't really work, your husband is trying to do some remodeling on the house and you are not of much help.

And the VERY WORST thing - is that the duck baby mama is gone and her nest full of eggs is now motherless. I did some research on the internet about what to do with an abandoned duck nest, and I read that duck mamas very rarely abandon their nests and that it is more likely that the mother was killed or injured. Also, apparently abandoned duck eggs rarely live even if we had an incubator.

So we have bad news.

On a lighter note - baby boy baby moves a ton and I love it!

Duck Baby Mama and other news

Becky accused me of being a "blog non-updater." I realize it has been a while, and I have no excuse except for being tired and not feeling like updating. Here are some things that have been going on around here.

Jasper did very well in his pinewood derby. He even got the "Smoothest Ride" award. These are some pictures from my camera phone, and they didn't turn out very well. The car that says "AMERICA" is Jasper's and the car with the stars is David's.

Jasper's last day of school was Wednesday. Since then he's had nonstop fun. Thursday he got to have his mom and Grandma come up and take care of him while David and I were at work. Then, his aunt and cousin joined them and they all went to Boondocks and had a blast with the go-carts, the miniature golfing, and everything else. Friday my mom came up and they went to the library, McDonalds, and Kung Fu Panda.

While Jas was out partying with his family on Thursday night, David and I were out back doing some weeding. When David bought this house it came complete with an old picnic table. This picnic table has been sitting on the side of the yard pretty much since then. We moved it to get some of the weeds underneath it, and David saw a ball of feathers. He moved the feathers and found a nest of eggs - huge Duck eggs!



Lately we had been seeing a duck wandering around our back yard often and we wondered what in the heck she was always coming over for. There is a pretty big canal down the road and the duck traffic is pretty heavy around here anyway, so it wasn't too out of the ordinary. But I guess now we know why she has been around.


Not soon after we discovered her nest, she came back and found us near it. She quacked nervously and then flew off. We were worried she'd abandon it. But, not to fear, she came back and sat on it almost all day yesterday Jasper informed me. We even had a little BBQ in our back yard right next to her nest and although she was visibly nervous and very aware of us, she didn't budge from her nest almost the entire night.



We threw bread crumbs at her, because - heck she must be hungry. But then I think she thought we were harassing her and she flew off. She then brought back Daddy duck, and she and the daddy kept flying back and forth, sitting on the roof, and the neighbor's roof, spying on us and watching us for the rest of the evening. We finally left and we put her picnic table back, and she's sitting three contentedly right this minute.

I wonder if Duck Baby Mama has as hard a time sleeping as me? I think it might be even more uncomfortable sleeping on a pile of 11 eggs, then sleeping with one baby in your tummy. What do you think?

Happy Birthday David

It's my husband's birthday!

David loves:

Ultimate Fighting (David saw me writing this and corrected me. He doesn't love Ultimate Fighting, he just likes to watch it a lot)!

Fresh fruit!

Sour Patch Kids!

Reading. He especially loves to read philosphy and books on religion (our religion or otherwise).

And of course, the Utah Jazz!

I sure am lucky. Happy Birthday Dave!

Boy Baby Bennett!

Yep, its a boy! And we are very excited. The ultrasound was really fun. It took about 1/2 hour and the ultrasound tech tried to take good pictures of every part of the baby. She said he looks healthy and all his parts are there. Thank Goodness! Next week I'm meeting with my doctor to go over the ultrasound results.

Baby boy Bennett was bouncing all over during the ultrasound. He was very active and kept himself busy grabbing his feet, pulling on the umbilical cord, rolling and turning and constantly kicking my ridiculously full bladder. It was very fun to see. It seems like this baby will take after David and be full of energy.

Lately I'm feeling very pregnant and pretty uncomfortable. Actually I feel pretty good during the day, but at night it is hard to find a comfortable position, especially since I feel like I need to pee every 5 minutes (probably because the baby keeps kicking my bladder)! Who knew that while pregnant you can't lay on your back? Not only is it very uncomfortable, but if you lay on your back you squish an important vein (the inferior vena cava) and it stops blood and oxygen from getting to your baby. I'm a stomach sleeper and that is obviously out of the question. The best position to sleep in while pregnant is apparently your left side. So I try my best to sleep on the left as much as possible. Also my tummy kind of aches, which is normal I guess.

I've also been feeling the baby move more the last couple of days. It kind of just feels like a little tickling in my tummy and I love it.





Jasper's pinewood derby is tonight and he has been thinking of nothing but that for the last month. I had no idea what a pinewood derby was before Jasper. I thought it was some kind of boxcar race or, go cart race. So did my mom. Shows you what growing up in a house with all girls does to you. But that is about to change!

Zeus

Jasper has to give a report tomorrow in school. He could choose any subject in the world, and he chose Zeus. I helped him find some information and then he started to put it together in report form. When I read over his first draft, this how it read:

"Zeus had a wife named Hera and cheated on her like crazy. That's why he has a lot of kids."

I burst out laughing. He said "It's true!" and as I read through the material on Zeus it did say that he had numerous mistresses. AHH! That version was not in his final draft.

Oh, and I'm having a BOY!

Can I Play?

Jasper just went outside to play with his friend from school. When the phone rang and it was for him, he got so excited. A few minutes later he asked "Can I play?!" "Yes!" I almost screamed. I'm so so happy he is making friends and having friends come over to play. It has to get so old playing only with us. We are so boring. Yeah for friends!

Boy or Girl?

I'm having THE ultrasound on May 29th and yes we are hoping to find out whether we are having a boy or a girl. Jasper really wants it to be a boy, but says "it doesn't matter, I'll toughen it up if its a boy OR a girl." What do you guys think? Are we having a boy or a girl? I posted a poll to the right so cast your vote or leave a comment!

Baby Mama

For my birthday, David took me to see Baby Mama with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. If you like these two on SNL, then you will like the show. It wasn't David's kind of movie at all - what a nice guy to take me to it anyway. We went on this date while my mom and dad watched Jasper for us. When we came home, there was a 4 man tent up in our living room. They all went to REI and I guess my dad couldn't resist. Poor Jasper has sure done a lot of shopping lately - Target with me and his mom. Ikea, and maternity shopping with me and my sisters and now REI. He is such a good sport.



I taught the lesson in church Sunday. I haven't taught for quite a few weeks and so when I got up in front of everyone, the mini podium somehow missing, my pregnant tummy seemed to be the focus of the room. When I looked out into the sea of white puffy hair, I saw 30 pairs of eyes staring straight at my belly. I'm now officially out of the pregnancy closet. Not that I was trying to hide the fact that I was pregnant or anything. Its just werid to figure out when to tell people, or if you should, or if you even want to. One woman did come up to me after the lesson and just said "Congratulations!" I was really tempted to reply with "Congratulations for what?" And deny pregnancy, just to see what would happen. But that would've been mean.


So I finally decided that my slicked back ponytail and barely combed hair look, is not really in anymore and decided to get a haircut. It has been so depressing lately looking in the mirror. All I see is zits, and grody hair. Zits and grody hair. At least I can take care of the grody hair part immediately. The zits might not go away until post baby.



Ta da! My new do:

And here is my pregnant self. Me at 18 weeks.

Pneumonia

My poor husband has pneumonia! How did this happen? I feel so bad. He's been sick for about a week. He complained of just feeling achey and weak. At first, I thought it must be the flu. However he never threw-up and it just kept getting worse and worse. Finally even he agreed to go to the doctor on Friday. He hates the doctor and hates taking medicine. Until yesterday he had actually never been to a doctor once in his adult life. I'm glad he agreed to break this impressive record. I hope he gets better soon!

Happy Birthday Becky!

Becky loves. . .

Her husband Jon

Shopping at Country Village, where there are wonderful stores like The Weed Patch.

Making crafts for her kids. She made these bows!

She loves loves loves to read.

and of course. . .

her beautiful children!

African Dancing

We did not look this cool.

Saturday, Heather and I went African dancing at the Rose Wagner Theater in SLC. Twice a week they have an exercise/dance class featuring dances from different countries throughout Africa. Saturday we learned the male circumcision dance from Guinea. Yippee!

It is actually really fun and hard work. The teacher is awesome and the moves are really fun. They even have live Congo drums every class. The best part is that Heather and I are NOT DANCERS and are very uncoordinated and look like imbeciles compared to most of the class. Especially since we only go every once in a while (i.e. last time I went was probably 3 years ago). For a good laugh, ask us to show you some of our African dance moves.

So I'm 16 weeks pregnant now. Each week goes by faster and faster. I'm starting to look actually pregnant now, and not just fat. I will post a picture soon, since I'm sure you all are dying to see.

Some interesting things about being pregnant:

• I love love never having to suck in my gut. My stomach has never been very flat, and this is new and actually pretty liberating.


• Every part of me is getting bigger. My chest gets bigger every day it feels like. How is this even possible? Stop growing!


• My body wants and needs lotion all the time.


• I find myself blaming everything on being pregnant. I blame the messy house, my messy room, my messy hair, all on being pregnant. I blame forgetfulness, belches, toots, and being late for work, all on my pregnancy. Jasper and David don't believe a word I say.


• I have finally gained my appetite back and love eating everything in sight, with absolutely no guilt.

Happy Birthday Mom!

My Mom loves:

Chocolate Cherries

DSW

Shoes

Her Husband

Megan

Garrett

And Lindsay of course!

I LOVE YOU MOM!

Felicity Lover

I just watched a bunch of Felicity episodes. I love that series. Molly introduced the show to me, and I think we watched the whole series together in a matter of weeks. Watching it totally reminded me of the days when we lived together in a hole of an apartment next door to the scary schizophrenic neighbor. Ahhh, those were the days.

Scene from Ben and Felicity's first kiss:



The first time I watched this scene, I think I rewound it and watched it over and over again, at least 50 times. Yep, I'm a nerd.

Horse Stuff

A couple weekends ago we went to my parents house and had a nice huge "dad style" breakfast, and then headed over to the barn. We did a bunch of horse stuff including grooming and feeding Jasper got to even do a little riding.

Jas and I went into the barn to get some oats for the horses, when - TA DA:

A horrible jumping MOUSE!

Of course Jasper wanted to keep it and named it Jumper, because it did a lot of that.

I refused to bring the mouse home, so he had to escort Jumper to his new home in the neighboring field.

Good riddance Jumper!

St. George

This past weekend, we all went to St. George to visit Heather. We had such a great time! I took a ton of pictures, and of course my camera is not letting me upload anything onto the computer for some reason. I'll get them posted eventually.


Some of the highlights of the weekend included:

• Hiking


• Swimming


• Watching "The Apple Dumpling Gang"


• David and Jasper both ate ants. Although not my highlight, definitely Jasper's.


• Visiting Sister, Heather's horse


• Seeing a brand new baby horse at the "Horse Motel" where Sister lives


• Flying paper airplanes


• Playing on two of the many playgrounds in Heather's gated community. One of the playgrounds had a glider - which Jasper LOVED, and the other had a rock climbing wall.


• Playing catch


• Having a picnic

Another of Jasper's highlights was also a gift given to him by Heather.

She gave him The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden. As soon as he opened the book his eyes got HUGE. It tells boys how to do wonderful things like fold paper airplanes, build a go-cart, what the rules of rugby are, how to use Morse code, how to build a tree house, coin tricks, etc.

One of my favorite parts from the book reads:

ADVICE ABOUT GIRLS

You may already have noticed that girls are quite different fro m you. By this, we do not mean the physical differences, more the fact that they remain unimpressed by your master of a game involving wizards, or your understanding of Morse code. Some will be impressed, of course, but as a general rule, girls do not get quite as excited by the use of urine as a secret ink as boys do.

Piggie

How piggie is it that I ate a whole box of fruit by the foot in less than 5 minutes?

First Baseball Game

Jasper's first baseball game of the season was on Thursday. He's on a team with kids ages 8-12. It was pretty chilly Thursday, but we had fun, and so did Jasper.

First time up to bat, he got to first base because the pitcher hit him with the baseball (this is an actual baseball rule, and not a made up rule for kids baseball, Dave clarified).

Second time up to bat - the same thing happened, and he still has the bruise to prove it.

Third time, he hit the ball right to the pitcher, but the pitcher luckily missed it. He was one of two kids who actually made it to a base by actually hitting the ball, during the whole game! Everyone else made it by getting balls, or being hit.

If I were to play sports, this is the kind of team I would want to be on. Where everyone is bad and they don't care or realize, the game is over in 50 minutes no matter what, and you get a donut at the end.

Oops

When Jasper and I get home from school and work, usually the first thing we do is homework. That is, I ask him what he needs to do, make sure he does it, and help him if he needs it. He is a smart boy, and is great at math. Today I decided to look through his backpack, and I found a flyer for school pictures. "Oh good, school pictures," I thought to myself, "I wonder when those are." I looked closer at the flyer and found that his picture day was actually April 7th, that is YESTERDAY.

Me: Um, Jasper?
Jasper: What?
Me: So, did you know that school pictures were Yesterday?"
Jasper: Yes.
Me: How come you didn't tell me?
Jasper: I didn't know.
Me: Well, did you get your picture taken then?
Jasper: Yes
Me: What were you wearing?
Jasper: That red shirt.
Me: Oh.

Well - lesson learned. Look through the backpack everyday! I had no idea. I hope that his pictures turn out okay.

Boys Are Weird

So it is Saturday morning and I just finished making a french toast breakfast for David and Jasper. They sit down and we start to eat.

Me: I love french toast!
David: I love making farting noises!

He then starts to make farting noises with his hand and armpit, while I give him a look of "what in the heck are you doing?" Jasper also gives him a look and says, "you can't even do it right." He then proceeds to take his left hand in the air, LICKS IT, and then expertly puts his hand in his armpit and makes better sounding farting noises.

WEIRD!

Tagged

I'm finally getting to my sister Staci's tag. So here goes!

Ten years ago I was ……

• 19 years old and finalizing everything for my study abroad program to BYU Jerusalem.
• Working a job from heck to finance said study abroad program (telemarketing torture)

5 things on my to do list today....Well the day is almost over, but 5 things I did were:

• Got to work as close to 7 am as possible (very hard to do for me)
• Made sure Jasper did his homework
• Made dinner (do leftovers count?)
• Dishes
• Showered

Snacks I enjoy. . .

• Fruit rollups
• Yogurt (whips!)
• Chocolate donettes
• Wheat Thins

Bad habits. . .

• Waiting until the very last minute to head out the door for work.
• Scratching my very dry legs
• Not making my bed

5 places I have lived....

• Clinton, UT
• Logan, UT
• New York, NY
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Orange Walk, Belize

Jobs I have had. . .I'm not listing them all, as I've had over 20. Here are some highlights:

• Spanish interpreter for court mandated group therapy
• 411 operator
• Social Security Claims Rep (currently)
• Sandwich maker
• Video Clerk
• Cheese assembly line worker (picture Lucy and Ethel)
• Retail
• Telemarketer!
• Dishwasher

Five things you don’t know about me...

• I love to garden (my family knows this).
• I'm scared to ride horses although I grew up around them and on them.
• I miss travelling
• I HATE to fly
• Pregnancy gives me gross tasting saliva

People I admire....

• All ya'll cuz you read my blog.

I tag. . . whoever is in a blogging rut.

New addition

Some of you may know already, but recently our nephew Jasper has started living with us. His mother is not well enough to care for him for the time being. He's been living with us for a little over week now and we are all adjusting to our new lives. With just the two of us, we'd begun to get pretty lazy and unstructured. I cooked at the very beginning of our marriage, but found that I never had the right ingredients to make dinner when needed so we ended up eating out a lot. Now we have a new reason to cook every night and have family home evenings and family scripture study. So my mom and sister Becky have both been helpful in compiling recipes for me that are easy and delicious, and I did a weeks worth of shopping last Monday night. My cooking isn't too shabby, I must say. Jasper is giving our life some more meaning and we love having him here. Last week we enrolled him in school and Sunday he got to go to his new primary class. He said "That is the smallest primary I've ever seen. Why did you guys move into a house with only old people living next to you?"


Right now David is giving him a haircut. Jasper said he wants it cut "military style" like his Uncle Mark's hairstyle. He also strongly noted "NOT SHAVED!" David said "okay" and gave me the look of "what in the heck is military style?" I warned Jasper, "what if David messes up?" (I should never have put that doubt into his mind, but this stuff is all new to me!) and he looked at me incredulously, "He can do it. David can do everything."

When David was almost done cutting, I said to Jasper "maybe you should just jump into the shower real quick to get all the hair off of you." He didn't seem too keen on that idea and said "OR, I could just dump water on all the hairy parts, and run around outside." Hmmm, which idea will we choose??