36 Weeks!

I can't believe we only have 4 weeks, or less, until baby Long gets here!  We've slowly gotten bags packed, furniture put together, and the nursery all painted and decorated.  At our doctors visit on Monday Dr Nance started checking me.  I was thinned out 50% but not dialated at all.  The doc said that if he were a betting man he would bet NO on a Christmas baby, but he's definitely thinking New Years.  Wouldn't that be something?  Right now I'm feeling really well.  I still have morning sickness but it's not every day thank goodness.  The break is nice!  My stomach is getting huge!  I have a few stretch marks but nothing horrible.  It's hard to get comfortable to sleep,  I always feel like I can't catch my breath, and I've been having braxton hicks like crazy for the last 2 or so weeks.  I think there have been a couple of real contractions mixed with it all but I'm not really sure.

Wedding Day

My baby sister Tiffany got married today to Mr. David Clark in the Manti Temple.  It was such a great day and we're so happy for her.
Our morning started out a little hectic.  Chad and I somehow got stuck with Addi and Trayson for an hour or so and then Brooke, Callie Jo and Kayslee ended up with us too.  The Olsen's were kind enough to lend their suburban to us so we could drive all the little rugrats over to the temple.  It felt like total chaos transporting that many kids and being 8+ months preggo.  Also, we were going to travel over with my parents but after they made it to Nephi they realized they had forgotten Tiffany's bouquet so they had to run back to Mona.
I was so stressed that none of us were going to make it to the temple in time to see Tiff and David come out.  I was seriously about in tears and so mad.  But as luck would have it we made it, with time to spare, because Tiff and Dave were slow to come out.  Thank goodness!

As soon as I spotted Rachelle I handed her keys to the suburban and told her the kids were now her problem.  (Chad & I bummed a ride home with Heather Jo and Alex).
We did the traditional family pics in front of the temple and then worked our way back to Mona for the wedding dinner.  Of course on the way home we had to stop at the Malt Shop for a little snack.  I was starving, Jo was hungry and Sophie will eat anything.  We ordered milkshakes, fries, a burger and a taco.  The service was a little slow but well worth the wait.  Sophie got super mad at Alex because he wouldn't let her have any fries (he thought they were ours).  Jo got in trouble with Sophie because she took a sip of the eggnog shake, Sophie really didn't want to share.  It was pretty funny.

We spent the rest of the day at the new Mona church.  The company that Tiffany and David hired to decorate and cater did an awesome job.  The reception was beautiful and the food was great.  Chad & I had a great time sitting and visiting with family and friends.  We're so happy for Tiffy and David and wish them a happy happy marriage! =)

Flu Bug

On Monday (December 3rd) I caught the dreaded flu bug that I had been trying so hard to avoid.  I woke up around 3 am feeling nauseous but tried really hard to blame in the pregnancy.  When I woke up around 6 am rushing to the bathroom to be sick I knew better.  It was awful!  Worse than morning sickness!  I was throwing up about every 20 minutes or so.  I finally sent Chad a text that he needed to come home and take me to the emergency room.   There was no way I was going to be able to take my meds, let along keep them down, plus I was 34 weeks pregnant and my stomach was cramping a little which made me nervous.

I was given an iv of fluids, a shot of zofran and had my blood taken.  After an hour or so I felt much better and was able to take my meds.  My stomach still felt crampy, but in a wierd way so Dr. Rosenbeck had me moved back to labor and delivery to be monitored and ordered an ultrasound to make sure all was well with baby Long.  Chad and I had to keep reminding the nurses and techs that we did NOT know the gender of the baby.  I was so nervous someone was going to slip up and tell us and then I would be mad.  It would be just our luck, go 34 weeks not knowing and then have someone slip up.

The monitoring went well, and we got a few visitors my mom, Heather Jo and Sophie.  I was monitored for a few hours and was having some good braxton hicks contractions that showed up on the monitors.  I was eventually wheeled back to a room where they did an ultrasound.

It was so fun getting to see our baby.  We got to see baby Long blinking, wiggling around, giving us the peace sign, and sticking his/her tongue out at us (sassy little thing!).  The tech told us that our baby had a really cute face but I couldn't really make much out of it so I'll just take her word for it.  The tech also informed us that our baby had a large head measuring at 36 weeks when the rest of him/her was measuring right on at 34 weeks.  Great!  Everything seemed to check out good and I was feeling lots better so the doctor let us go home.  It was an exhausting day but I was so glad to feel better and to know that our baby was just fine.

A few days later Dr. Rosenbeck called me with a concern he had with our ultra sound.  Baby Long's left kidney may or may not have a problem with it.  It was a bit larger/fuller than he would have liked to have seen.  He assured me that it's probably no big deal but that we should definitely have an ultrasound done on our baby when he/she is 1 month old just to make sure.

6 more weeks until our baby is here!

Nursery

The baby's nursery is finally done!  I'm in love with how things turned out!  Chad did such a great job painting and putting up vinyl and building furniture.  I didn't get to help out too much, being 7 1/2 months preggo.
This room was a bit extreme in the beginning.  The walls were painted painters tape blue, the trim was fluorescent green and the inside of the closet was blue and purple.  Chad had to do 3 coats of white to get it all covered and then he worked on the accent wall and trim.
I had found the crib bedding online and we decided that sage green with baby animals would work perfect whether we have a boy or a girl.  And as luck would have it, one day while browsing on Etsy I found the vinyl which was a perfect match, what are the odds?  I wasn't going to buy it because it was a little pricey and had talked about having my talented aunt paint trees for us instead, but Chad told me to go ahead and do it because it would be easier to take down rather than paint over if and when I change my mind on decor. =)
The vinyl was a bit of a pain to put up.  I've played with vinyl before and this stuff was stubborn!  It tore a lot but we made it work.  It ended up taking us about 4 hours to get it all up!  The wall started getting pretty busy so we decided to not put up all of the vinyl that came in the package.  I LOVE how it turned out and can't wait to bring our baby home to this super cute room! =)

30 Weeks

I don't normally take pictures of myself, in fact I avoid being in front of the camera like the plague!  I had to take a picture of this growing belly though.  I'm feeling pretty good lately, just getting bigger and bigger (and STILL dealing with morning sickness, blah!)

26 Weeks

I can't believe 26 weeks have come and gone.  It feels like it's gone pretty fast, but at the same time it has been thee LONGEST 26 weeks of my life!  I'm really starting to get big now.  It's so crazy to me to wake up in the mornings and look down to see that my stomach has grown again.  I love feeling our baby move around.  The other day we had a poking war.  It would kick in one certain spot, just once, then I would poke it in the exact same spot.  We went back and forth for a good 5 minutes, it definitely put a smile on my face =)  Our 24 week doctor appointment went great.  The baby had a fast heartbeat again, making Dr Nance guess girl again, that's now 2 out 3 girls guesses.  I can't wait until January so we can know.  The suspense isn't killing me,  I'm not curious at all, I just can't wait for this big surprise to get here.

--I've noticed my balance is a little off (more than usual, yeah, I'm a klutz to begin with and then add the belly...)  I actually am embarrassed, but laugh at the same time, to admit that the other day while shopping I bent over to pick something up and fell right on my behind!  My pride was hurt more than anything, but it did strain some muscles in my back a little.

--I have a MAJOR sweet tooth that I just can't satisfy. I need sour candy people and I have yet to find anything sour enough to fix it.  I've tried sour patch kids, zots, warheads, etc and none of it does anything for me.  Any suggestions for super sour candy?  I'm willing to try anything.  Speaking of sweet tooth, it finally caught up with me yesterday when half of my TOOTH BROKE OFF while chewing on a SOFT jolly rancher!  I'm going to the dentist Wednesday to see if it can be fixed or if I have to wait until after baby.  Yay.

--I also crave really spicy stuff lately.  Everything has to have Tabasco or salsa (or both) on it.  I've been eating some of the weirdest combos.

--Weight wise, I was really surprised to learn that I had gained 6 1/2 pounds at my last Dr appointment.  Everything before that had been loss, loss, loss, gain 1, gain 1, gain 1...so to hear 6 1/2 shocked me and made me feel fat at the same time.  But, I'm still down 10 1/2 pounds from my original weight after the hellish month of June I somehow survived...

--Morning sickness is still around.  It's not as bad and I do luckily get 1 or 2 days off in between.  The last 3 days I've had no zofran, which is a huge deal for me because I was taking 2-3 a day to function.

All in all I feel great lately besides the aches and pains of a growing baby.  I'm really enjoying my pregnancy right now (even though I feel like I complain A LOT).  Next week I go in for the dreaded glucose test, I'm really not looking forward to that, but hoping that the results come back good.  I handle sugar well, haha.  And I'm looking forward to going hunting in 2 weeks.  The doc gave me the OK as long as I don't do any major hiking.  No worries there, I've always been a pansy when it come to that.  Everyone at the doctors office was shocked to hear it was ME that had a tag and was going to be hunting.  Heck, I'll only be 28 weeks by then.  I'm excited for it.

Kitchen Remodel

If you look closely in the first picture you'll see a tiny little brown spot on the counter.  The previous owners had left a candle burning for too long and it burnt the countertop.  When we got into contract with them to buy the house they agreed that they would replace the countertops for us.  We had them pick out a few samples and then we met up with them to decide which one we wanted.  The original plan was that the replacement would be done before we moved in but that didn't happen.  And then we waited and waited and waited until we finally got a date that things were going to happen.  On the 4th Trenton showed up to help Chad remove the old counter tops and on the 5th our new countertops arrived.  We LOVE the new look!  It changed our kitchen completely.  Now if I could just find the time, money, ideas, and energy to decorate the top of those cupboards...  

21 1/2 Weeks

I can't believe that we are over the half way mark!  We had Dr's appointments and an ultrasound last week.  Everything looks great!  The baby measured about a week ahead of schedule and we stuck to our guns and didn't find out!  Well, kind of.  Chad & I have no clue what the gender is, but we had the ultrasound tech take a peak and put the results in an envelope for us.  So we have it hanging on our fridge, to torture all of our visitors.  It's driving everyone around us crazy!  I had 2 weeks off from the whole throwing up thing and then it started up again at the end of 19 weeks.  I'm used to it by now but super annoyed at the same time.  I swear everything sets off my gag reflex and that gets me going: brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, washing my hair, and blowing my nose...are all things I DREAD doing in the mornings but they have to be done! 
The baby is quite the mover.  I started feeling the little one move at about 16 1/2 weeks.  It was so exciting but weird and freaked me out a little.  It took a couple of weeks before Chad finally got to feel it.  It's pretty crazy to think that there is a little human growing and doing tumbling tricks in my belly!  It's weird to watch my stomach do the wave =)  Last night as we were laying in bed Chad asked me if the baby was moving.  I hadn't noticed it for a while.  He put his hand on my belly anyway and said "where's my baby?" and the little bugger started kicking up a storm!  It was great! 

Our little thumb sucker

--I have had unbelievable heartburn, like to the point I was actually drinking milk! (that's BIG news people!)  Nothing was helping and I was really having to limit what I ate because it hurt so bad.  My Grandma gave me a pack of Prilosec and by the next day I was feeling much better.  I've been taking that every morning and have no problem at all now.

--My mouth bleeds bad when I brush my teeth.  I talked to Aunt Char about this and she assured me that it's totally normal in pregnant women.

--Cravings:  sour candy, V8, Mexican food (finally!), turkey sandwiches, mayonnaise and butter (like --I seriously just wanted to get a spoon out and eat it plain, Chad threatened me, and I knew better.  Still, it was weird!)

--I finally caved and bought some maternity clothes and boy did I score!  I bought 2 pair of jeans, 2 pair of capris and 3 shirts for $35!  My belly is growing like crazy, I think it is anyway.  I've especially noticed since last weekend, twice that I've gotten out of bed in the morning and thought "holy crap! when did this happen?!"  It's seriously has happened overnight.

I'm thinking that in the next month or so we'll get the baby's room going.  We've been looking at cribs, strollers and car seats trying to get an idea of what we want to buy.  It's surreal shopping around like that, for us!  We both still can't believe it.  We're both so excited, and we both can't wait until January!

We've Moved!

We moved into our new place last weekend!  We're so grateful for our family for helping us pack up, move over, and pack in all of our belongings!  We are so excited to finally be in our new home!  It's amazing how quickly and easily everything fell into place with the sale of our old house and the purchase of our new one.  We are so excited to make this house our own!  And we're especially excited to get to know our new neighbors.  We've moved into a great neighborhood.  What a year!  A new house, and soon a new baby to bring home =)

Our First Home....we'll miss it but we're excited for our new place!

 Our new home!  We love and couldn't be happier with how things have worked out for us! =)

16 Weeks

We had our 16 week checkup today and everything looks and sounds great.  I finally gained a little weight, a whopping 2 pounds!  I have gone 4 whole days without morning sickness which is awesome!  I'm still battling the whole nausea thing but it goes away soon after a dose of zofran and a diet coke.  The baby's heartbeat today was really fast which makes the dr think it's a girl, but he quickly told us after saying that that he's almost always wrong.  We are scheduled to go back at 20 weeks and have an ultrasound done.  And for the record, as of right now, Chad & I have chosen to NOT find out what we're having!  It's driving our family and friends crazy (which makes it even more great!).  This is the biggest surprise of our lives people!!!  We're so excited and still can't believe this is finally happening.  We've starting stocking up on diapers and that's as prepared as we are for right now.  After the big move we'll definitely be doing some major shopping.  Of course I'm sure there's only so much we can do without knowing the gender of the baby.

As far as cravings go I don't think I've had anything majorly weird (well, sometimes Chad looks at me like I'm crazy), although, I'm starting to think I shouldn't be allowed to grocery shop anymore because I find myself buying odd things.  I drink a lot of V8, like 64 oz bottles last me 2-3 days, I drink 1% milk occasionally (I HATE milk!), diet coke (ew! but it tastes so good and helps settle my stomach), I've tried quite a few times to eat tomatoes and they taste good but the texture makes me gag so they quickly get spit out.  I'm addicted to lemons, limes, sour candy and salt.  Cooking meat of any kind turns my stomach so bad I can't eat, and it doesn't taste good to me anyway so I mostly avoid it.  The thought of eggs, bacon, or chocolate is disgusting to me and I'm a freaking chocoholic people!  My guilty pleasure is chips and salsa, chunks and all (which is huge for me).  I swear I've gone through at least a dozen bottles of salsa and who knows how many chips.  I can't get enough of it!  Since my 2 visits to the er 4 weeks ago I've done a complete 180.  I went from barely eating, to not eating at all, to OMG I CAN'T GET ENOUGH!  So I was really surprised I'd only gained 2 pounds.

Pregnancy is so weird for me to think about.  All of the changes going on with my body just freak me out:

-- 4 months of being sick to my stomach (I really hope that I'm done now).  It went from just nauseated to morning sickness, to all day thought I was going to die, back to morning sickness, and now just a little nauseated here and there if I'm not constantly stuffing my face with food.

-- Acne like you would not believe...it's out of control and I'm about ready to cry.  I've never had to deal with it my entire life and now, oh my!

-- Eating drives me nuts!  Something finally sounds good so I'll eat and 4 or 5 bites in I'm so full I feel like I'm going to pop.  20 minutes later I'm starving so bad it makes me sick to my stomach.  I can't win!  I try to snack all day long but I'm just not a snacker, it's hard, plus it's hard being gluten free.

-- I swear I have to go pee every 45 minutes, especially at night, I miss sleeping all night long.

-- I have zero energy (I'm SO thankful I have a desk job).  I get exhausted so easily it's annoying.

Other than that, ha ha, life is great!  I can't wait til the end of August when we get to see our little boy or girl on the ultrasound!

Big Changes

Life has been crazy for us the last couple of months.  In May we found out that we are FINALLY pregnant!  We had been trying for so long and had been to so many doctors.  We had a lot of tests done and our next step was fertility treatments.  Luckily we didn't have to.  Life being preggo has been so hard for me.  We just started week 13 and I've lost over 17 pounds.  I have been super sick, weak and had no appetite even with taking anti-nausea pills.  It's been frustrating for me because I know I need to drink and eat well for me and the baby but I just can't.  If I'm lucky enough to actually eat it comes right back up.  And it's been stressful trying to keep my meds down for my thyroid problem.  Today I finally caved and had Chad take me to the emergency room for help.  I was VERY dehydrated and sick and couldn't even take my meds.  I ended up with 2 liters of liquid through an IV, a shot of zofran and b6 and before I was able to leave I had to eat something.  I feel a whole lot better other than a pounding headache.  I still have the port in my arm so I can go out whenever I need to have things topped off =)  Hopefully this ALL DAY "morning" sickness will be gone soon so I can function somewhat again.

In other news, we sold our house!  Our neighbor had been bugging us for months to let him buy up the property.  We were pretty hesitant because we live on a great lot and had talked about building here.  Everything has worked out for the best though.  The neighbor offered us enough to set us up pretty good so we took it (plus, as miserable as I've felt there's no way I could think about house plans and all that, and it would have cost us a fortune just to get the lot ready to build -  curb and gutter and all that).  We were a little nervous about what we would do and where we would go but the neighbor agreed to let us stay here until we found somewhere to buy, rent free.  Can't beat that!  Well, here's the crazy part, 4 days after signing a contract with a neighbor we signed a contract for a new house that we fell in love with.  We think we're crazy!  It's the one and only house we've looked and walked through, but when it's right it's right.  We couldn't be more excited and as smoothly as everything is working out with our sale and buying the new home we're thinking we'll be all moved in the first part of August!  Which will be great because then we can enjoy and focus on baby and what needs to be done to prepare for that.

It's a big year for us for sure and we're definitely feeling overwhelmed and can't believe our good luck!

First Ultrasound

Today we had our first ultrasound done!  I guess normally you don't have one done so early but Dr. Nance wanted us to have one to make sure that our pregnancy is viable (thanks to my addison's disease and thyroid problem).  It didn't take Jay, the ultrasound tech, long to find our little baby.  It was amazing to see our little one.  Right now he/she is really nothing more than a little blob with small stubs  for arms and legs.  Our baby measures about 1/2 inch or about the size of my thumb nail.  It's mind blowing to think that in less than 9 months we'll be parents.  We've waited so long for this and we're so excited!  I'm especially excited for this little miracle because I was led to believe, years ago, that I most likely wouldn't be able to have kids.  Prayers are answered!

8 Weeks

We had our first preggo doctor appointment today.  According to the doc's little calendar wheel our due date is January 13, 2013!  We're so excited and can't wait to finally be parents =)

Going Pro, NOT!

I crazily volunteered to make Callie Jo's birthday cake this year.  I found a cute cake idea on pinterest and figured it would be easy to recreate.  Boy was I wrong!  I mean, it was fairly easy considering I had never made or worked with fondant before, but oh my was it a lot of work!  I figure it took nearly 8 hours to decorate, and that was with Chad's help!  I do like the way it turned out even though it was as sharp looking as the picture I had found on pinterest.  Callie Jo loved it and so did her momma and that's all that matters.  Oh, and the fact that it tasted awesome and was gluten free =)  I don't suppose I'll be volunteering to cake make/decorate again anytime soon...

What We've Been Up To

I can't believe it's March already.  I'm not sure how I got to be such a slacker at blogging but oh well.  It feels like life has been pretty boring around our house but in fact there is always something going on. 
Chad has been busy busy busy working on our "fleet" of vehicles and other projects.  We have an old '77 Ford that he has spent a lot of time working on, rebuilding it from the inside out.  It's looking great and is fun to ride around in.  There is still lots to be done though.  Our other vehicles must have gotten jealous.  They all decided, within weeks of each other, to give us stress and needed work done too.  It's been expensive, but all are up and running.  Chad has also spent a lot of time in Mona helping build a camp trailer with my dad and Trenton, and helping work on my cousin Layne's house.  Things are coming along great with both projects.
We've been doing a lot of thinking about building a house of our own.  We've met with the city and discussed a few things and now we are debating what we want to do.  We have our dream home all planned out at this point : the colors, the finishes, everything but a floor plan!  We're thinking we'll take the rest of this year getting things in order and then (hopefully) start building early next year.  We're both really excited and really nervous about all of this!
We have made a goal to get healthy.  We've been having fun trying new healthy meals and walking at night (yes, it's cold!).  We're both SOOOO ready for warmer weather and camping, hiking, fishing etc.  We just want to get out of the house and get active!
I have been thinking long and hard about starting a blog, and maybe a cookbook, full of gluten free recipes.  I'd like to share recipes I've created, adapted or tried that are good and easy and anyone would want to make.  I have plenty to share and lots of ideas and info, I just need to quit procrastinating.
And that pretty much sums it up for us!

75

Grandma Jean celebrated her 75th birthday this past Wednesday.  We decided that since it was her 75th we should party!  We planned a small family dinner for everyone on Saturday, so that everyone could come.  Rachelle and I baked and decorated a yummy gluten free chocolate cake and we put together decorations: balloons strung together and cute tissue paper puffs (ideas that she had found on pinterest).  I should add that Miss Addi helped quite a bit too.  She especially enjoyed when I would pipe the frosting straight into her mouth =)  Most everyone showed up for the party except for a few that live out of town.  We had a yummy little dinner of BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, yummy potatoes, 7-layer bean dip and chips, and veggies.  After filling up Alan and Leslie decided it was time for them to head back to Cedar City so we gave Grandma her gift.  We had all pitched in to get her a new Kindle fire.  She was SO excited!!!  Carissa had been nice enough to get a bunch of games and books loaded onto it so it was ready to go right out of the box, which was good because Grandma couldn't wait to get her hands on it.  She was grinning from ear to ear like a little kid.  We all got a kick out of that.  Grandma made the comment that she should keep visiting with us but she just couldn't help herself.  She was too into her new toy to notice she had a full house.  Rachelle and I got the cake lit and walked it into her while singing Happy Birthday.  Grandma sat her kindle down long enough to blow out that candles and that was that.  She multi tasked the rest of the night, playing her game with one hand and eating her cake with the other.  It was great!  I'm glad we were able to all get together and celebrate and give Grandma a happy day.  Happy Birthday Grandma!!!

My first attempt at cake decorating!

Welcome 2012!

This year we had a very low key new years eve.  To start off our night we headed out to Lisa's County Kitchen for dinner with Annette, Chris, Danielle and the kids.  We had a great time visiting and enjoying some darn good food.  Afterwards, Annette headed home and the rest of us headed to Reed's for some ice cream.  We visited for another 30 minutes or so and then went our separate ways.  Chad & I headed up to Grandma Jean's to check out the party there.  Imagine our surprise when we walked in to a quiet house.  Everyone was busy doing a puzzle and playing on their electronics (an ipad, kindle fire and 3 ipod touch).  Things have definitely changed.  We loaded up on snacks until we were about ready to explode (I hate that about the holidays, we always eat way too much) and then headed home to call it a night.  We were home by 10 pm.  We built a cozy fire, snuggled up on the couch and watched a movie.  Surprisingly we were both still awake when 12 am came and went.  It was a great night and we really enjoyed it.  We have a couple of resolutions to make, and they all seem simple enough so hopefully we'll be able to keep them.  Happy 2012!