Maternity Photos

Back when I was 36 weeks pregnant, my friend Janey Ratto took some maternity photos for me!!! I figure that since I'm being induced tomorrow (yes, tomorrow - my 39 week mark!) that now would be a good time to post them. :D

The Bug Analogy

How often have we been in the car and found a bug ramming itself into the window trying to get out? Some people squish the bug (that's not very nice, unless it is a mosquito) while others roll down the window to try and help the poor bug. But usually, what does the silly bug end up doing? It scoots down the window as you roll it down, continually running into the glass.

Sometimes we watch the people in our lives struggle like that little bug. The solution seems so simple to us, just fly out the window... but to them, it must be more complicated. It is difficult to stand by and watch as people we love beat their heads against the glass.


Another thing that can happen is when you roll down the window to let the bug out, the wind is so great that the bug isn't ready for it and it gets thrown to the back of the car simply to restart the journey back to the open window - usually ramming its head against every window between there and the one that is actually open.

This is another difficult thing to witness. We watch as the answer hits our loved ones square in the face and they don't want to accept it so it throws them back to the beginning (or somewhere there abouts). They start again with all the ideas that don't work, ones they've tried and know don't work but are familiar enough that they'll stick with it - just to be safe.


If the bug doesn't get out of the car when the opportunity is there (the window is down or the door is open), then the bug will roast - burn up from the heat and die.

We often watch as those we love don't take the opportunity while it is there and end up giving up - they either don't see the opportunity or don't want to and in the end, they roast.


I have a few people in my life right now that I am thinking of as I write this... but it is almost 3am so how much sense can I truly make anyway...?

Our First Year

I can't believe that Eric and I have been married for a full year now! How crazy is that??? If you had asked me a year ago if I thought I would be about to have a baby at our 1 year mark I would have said no way! I was very adamant that we were not going to have children until Eric was out of school... but it didn't take long after we got married for me to change my mind.

Because our anniversary is on a Sunday we decided to do the majority of the celebrating on Saturday. I was treated like a queen... Eric did so many things to make me feel special. He really went all out. First, he let me sleep in then brought me breakfast in bed.

He had cleaned up the kitchen and put up decorations as well!

He got me a beautiful glass rose which was special to me because that's what my Dad did for my mom on their anniversary. I mentioned it a long while ago and I talked about how special I thought it was. Eric decided then that he wanted to do the same for me.


He also got me  a food chopper to make chopping vegetables easier!

For my gift to Eric, I made him a plaque to celebrate the year we got married. This was a project that I was very excited about and I am glad it worked.

We played games in the afternoon and then went out to my new favorite restaurant, the Thai Kitchen. We discovered this restaurant during our first year of marriage.

 After our early dinner we went to see a movie and then grabbed some more food to take with us to go star gazing. We went star gazing for our first date in October of 2009.  While we were up there we sat and talked about our marriage. We reflected on our first date, the first time he gave me flowers, the night he proposed, and our favorite memories that we had made together. As we talked I couldn't help but think, this can't be me. I can't be this lucky - I can't be this happy. I felt like I was taking a glimpse into someone else's life - someone who had a perfect life. We had Eric's Xoom with us so he started playing music and asked me to dance. He has a way of making me feel so special, of letting me know that I am the most important thing in his life. I love him so much and honestly cannot imagine my life without him.


I thought I would conclude this post with a music video of "our song." The song is titled Beautiful and it is performed by Jim Brickman and Wayne Brady. The story behind this song is simple. I have never considered myself to be pretty and the first time Eric told me that I was beautiful I was actually slightly annoyed. I thought he was just trying to be nice, or felt that he was supposed to say things like that. It took a long time but eventually I came to believe him - believe that he truly thought I was beautiful. It took me a while to understand that he wasn't my boyfriend because he felt obligated or guilty, but that he truly was attracted to me and that he truly loved me. So for us, this song is special because it marks the time that we accepted that we loved each other, and that we were loved back.

I Made a HUGE Mistake

I climbed on the scale this morning...

Why, why did I do that? I mean, I realize that I am gaining weight and that it is for a good cause. But everytime I climb on the scale I always get depressed. I even make sure to climb on the scale first thing in the morning so that I weigh the least...

Before I got pregnant, I wore a ring size of 4.5, a pants size of 0, and a dress size of 2. Now, my ring size is a 6, and luckily I can't measure the other sizes... I went from being 105lbs to now 139.5lbs. YIKES!

It's not like I worked to have that size... I'm just lucky to have small parents. So I'm not trying to brag, I'm simply stating a fact. I had small bones, small feet, small boobs, small everything. Now, once I am done being pregnant, I am going to have to work to get my size back - which, from what I hear may never happen...

Am I depressed about this? Yes. Should I be? Probably not, all things considered... I'm going to get a kid out of it.
A kid that I am SUPER excited to meet. I have a friend who is due a bit before me and her blog mentioned that she is content to stay pregnant and let her little guy cook... maybe I'm just selfish but I'm ready for him to pop out! I want to meet him and hold him and move on to the next stage. I'm almost full term (37 weeks) and getting "trunky." I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to so that my body is ready (walking, drinking water, etc.) but I can't force him to come out early... that's not exactly possible without a doctor's help (or drastic measures like castor oil - blech!). He'll come when he's ready, but if he'd like to be ready sooner rather than later, I wouldn't mind. ;)

Happy Father's Day!!!

Happy Father's Day to my Dad, my Father-in-law, and my WONDERFUL Husband!!!

Why would they do that?

I know I'm judging and I have no right... but really?

I was sitting outside today reading a book on the lawn, guarding my flowers from cats, when a lady down the street starts swearing at her kid and knocking him around a bit. He must have been like 2 years old and he was trying to put his shoe back on but he was standing on the blacktop so he was burning his feet. He was crying and she wasn't helping - she was hurting.  After a few minutes of trying to ignore this scene I had to pack up my things and move inside because I couldn't stand it anymore.

It's probably terrible of me to think this, but I feel like people who don't understand what a gift their kids are shouldn't have them. They don't deserve their children. And I can only imagine how much it hurts Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father to see them treated that way.

If you think about it, when you are going out with your spouse and trying to find a sitter, you wouldn't just grab some random person off the street and ask them to watch your child; you would find someone trustworthy who you know will take good care of your children. When we receive children from heaven it is the same thing. A special and sacred trust is being placed in us to guard, teach, and protect these children.

Yes, I know there are circumstances that I don't know - perhaps the lady was just diagnosed with cancer or something, but still... no matter how bad you may think your life is, you are only making it worse by taking it out on a child.

Yes, I am a judgmental and horrible person for thinking this, but right now, I don't care. I'm going to go take a shower and wash away what I just witnessed.

Indoor Craft Day

It is GORGEOUS outside, but today I have people in my house fixing our heater (yeah... fixing the heater in the summer. Don't ask me) so I felt it would be better to stay indoors. Besides, the one time I went outside, I saw this --------------------------> and figured I should stay inside so that something else (besides me) gets buried in the grave...





At first it was noisy and I didn't want to add to the noise by running the sewing machine so I found a different craft to do. I made a 4th of July wreath! It took much longer than I planned because I was supposed to use card stock for the stars so that I could bevel them, but all I had was the right color paper and some green and purple poster board so I cut the stars out of paper AND poster board and then glued them together so that it would be sturdy. I added a few flags and voila! I'm very pleased with the result.

But, I had to get up before 9 since the heater guys were coming (my normal "wake up time" is 1pm) and so I still had a TON of time to kill considering the heater still wasn't done so I decided I didn't care about making more noise. So, I finished my baby quilt. YAY!!!  This first picture shows the quilt on my new rocking chair (yes, I know babies don't use pillows, but I had extra fabric).