tomorrow's family date

last week baby girl and i were out of town until late friday night and this week we've been kinda lacking on family time together because i've had stuff going on in the evenings.  monday night i was planning something with the laurels, tuesday night was young womens, wednesday night was a presidency meeting, thursday night was stake auxiliary training for young women leaders, tonight i have quilting, and tomorrow night is the relief society broadcast.  so i've seen my honey in passing.  like one would see a babysitter.  honey arrives, we hand off the child, i leave.

so earlier this week, i had fun planning an awesome saturday date for us.  saturday family dates are my favorite.  

after much deliberating, i picked the museum of transportation in denver.

then i thought, we should drive through the mountains to see the colorful fall leaves!

golden gate canyon is in it's peak right now...

and the park fee is only $7 for the day...

and it's close!  the museum is only a few minutes out of the way!

so we're going to get baby girl up early and let her eat a banana or granola bar (probably both, she's been eating like crazy lately) in her carseat while we drive to the museum and then we're we're done there, we'll spend the rest of our time enjoying the mountains and fall leaves.  i just hope we can get everything in since i have to be back in time for the 6:00 broadcast.

but seriously though, i'm so excited.  i even looked up hikes.  that's saying something.

so i'll take a minute again to address those not living in colorado... you should totally move here.  and then we can be bff in real life.  the amenities are excellent.

purple

baby girl knows her colors.  she's better with some than others and she's changed her "BLUE" response when you ask her what color something is to "GREEN!" but all in all, she's doing great.  even though she always tells me something is green when i ask her, i know she knows her colors because when she says things on her own, she's almost always right.  like "ball!  it's a ball!  it's one yellow ball!" or "daddy's white shoes."  i'm thrilled about this.  it's amazing how children soak everything in like that and have such an eagerness to learn!  this gives me hope for her future that she'll be more like christopher than myself.  i've never been a huge fan of learning.  christopher, on the other hand, does stuff (like getting an mba) just for kicks.  very expensive kicks.

anyways, i've started developing this completely irrational fear that baby girl's favorite color is going to be purple.  she likes to tell me about all the colors but we can be in a room with only one purple object and she'll run to it and exclaim over and over just how purple that thing is.  she's definitely showing favoritism to purple.  my favorite color is pink though... and i've enjoyed having everything pink for her.  but purple?  if her favorite color turned out to be purple i would be totally betrayed.  let's hope this is just a passing phase.  because pink and purple are kind of competing colors.  

so here are some pictures from yesterday.  the first few are from after my doctor's appointment when i was waiting for an hour to go by so i could have my blood drawn for the glucose test.  naturally i'm wearing a pink sweater and baby girl is dressed in purple.  a true testament to how excited she is about the color purple?  she had two older women stop to tell her how cute she was and how much they loved her outfit and shoes and SHE ACTUALLY TALKED BACK!!!  i about fell on my face when i saw baby girl point to her sweater and tell them it was purple and then point to her sandals and tell them that those were purple too!  she's not afraid of strangers holding her or anything but i'm pretty sure this is the first time that she's really independently talked to any. 

it was me who got my blood drawn, but baby girl who got to pick out a sticker.  she wanted the "green car" and picked out a sticker of "acer" from cars 2.

she's spinning and dancing.

and in case you were wondering.  she still spends every second of the day telling me "i want friends."

and that's the story of purple.

27 weeks

How far along:  27 weeks  (9.27.12)

Total weight gain/loss: +19... a loss!  the travel anxiety pays off!  and lack of an appetite this week.

Maternity clothes:  i still need more maternity pants.  although i will admit that i'm surprisingly satisfied with my options for tops.  i still wear regular jeans (obviously, because i only have one pair of maternity pants) and just zip them up and wear them with a belt (leaving the top button undone).  it works super well although it gets me every time i do my belt that i'm wearing it on the next to last hole.  HA.

Sleep:  it's been really good.  i haven't taken any naps this week and it has made that moment at night when i crawl into bed just the best feeling ever.  i haven't been overly tired, i haven't needed bathroom breaks during the night, and i haven't had any crazy dreams (except last night.... chris decided to serve another mission so baby girl and i moved into this insanely huge mansion (i think it belonged to his old mission president or something and they were going on a mission and wouldn't need it) and i remember feeling awkward around my parents and my friends that we would be living in this multi-million dollar estate but then i was also concerned that chris would be without a paycheck for two years and at the end i got slightly annoyed when i realized he didn't even consult with me first before deciding to go on a mission.  and then there were a bunch of other random things.  bizarre doesn't even begin to describe it!) so all in all, i'd give this week a 10!

Best moment this week:  i think probably my friday lunch at the varsity with my parents.  or all the fun times baby girl and i have had with christopher now that we're back.  and every time someone tells me i look small and cute.  

Movement:  it's picked up again this week.  and it catches me off guard when i'm doing something on my computer and i see my stomach bumping all over the place.  it's amazing how visual it is from the outside!  also, big news is that several days ago i started consistently feeling movement even while i'm standing up and doing things.  and i'm still unsure if what i'm feeling throughout the day is contractions or just this little guy settling super low in my belly.  it's hard and uncomfortable like a contraction but it's not as hard above my bellybutton as it is below.  so since it's not equally tight then i'm inclined to think it's just weird positioning.  i'll have to ask about it at my appointment.

Food cravings:  i haven't loved food as much this week except sweets.  my typical egg breakfast isn't as delicious as it once was (although it's still good enough for me to think about it right before i go to sleep and right when i wake up!) but i still eat it every morning because it's still super tasty... it's just not a euphoric experience like it was before.  i haven't wanted to eat or cook since i got back in town.  not laziness, just that i'm not excited about any of the recipes i see.  when we had the missionaries over for dinner i had honey grill burgers because nothing sounded good enough to put effort into.  i also told my christopher on saturday that i wasn't going to meal plan or cook this week because i didn't feel like it.  he was totally fine with that so we've just been eating stuff out of the freezer.  or more like, my honey has.  i take soup (or whatever leftovers i have frozen) out of the freezer, bake a sweet potato, and then sit down with honey and baby girl while they eat.  on the other end though, i've been way too in the mood for mellowcreme pumpkins and candy corn and dark chocolate.  yesterday i wasn't paying attention and i snacked on candy corn for three hours and i didn't even notice how much i'd eaten until i literally felt sick to my stomach and had a bad headache.  i have a higher tolerance for sugar than most people i know but yikes how i was regretting that for sure!  straight sugar and artificial colors are not my friend.  i hate that i'm eating so much sugar this pregnancy but for some reason when i'm actually putting it in my mouth my rationale is off and it always seems totally worth it and not that bad.  i don't feel as bad about eating dark chocolate though and mmm that stuff hits the spot every time.  

Gender:  BOY!  my christopher and i have joked this week about naming him james so that we can have our own sweet baby james.  i won't lie, for lack of many others, i think that puts james in our top five names now.

What I miss:  baby girl fitting on my lap.  it is quickly disappearing and it makes me so sad that when she sits on my lap to read stories before nap/bed, i feel like she's six miles down the street.  so she tries to lean back with her head against my chest and it looks so terribly uncomfortable and awkward i don't even know whether to laugh or so cry.  other than that, i am so perfectly happy being pregnant.  it's wonderful.
Milestones:   hitting the third trimester!  that's a pretty huge deal!  this has been flying by so fast lately!  

Theme: the week of feeling great!  the weather has cooled down considerably here in colorado and it's helped significantly with the headaches, breathlessness, lightheadedness, and lack of energy.  the cooler weather even helps me not feel so big!  give me a cardigan and i feel cozy and cute.  
Extra:  i think this is the best i've felt so far in my pregnancy which gives me great hope since i'm entering the third trimester.  i love my bump, i like my clothes, i'm not extremely obsessed with or hating food, i'm not too tired, i'm close enough to the end to get excited but not too close that major anxiety has set in.  i'm just going to sit back and relish in this moment as long as i can!  also, i did the orange drink glucose test today.  once again... i think that stuff tastes good!  i didn't chug it like last time because i'd just eaten a big breakfast and was still full from that, but it still enjoyable!  and the lady that drew my blood was nice too.  i was so distracted talking to her (her little girl is super skinny too and she adds powdered milk to her kid's regular milk so it's twice as "beefed up" and i'm thinking i'll have to remember that because it sounds less painful than drinking a can of ensure everyday like i had to) and helping baby girl pick out a sticker that i barely even noticed anything else going on.  

taken 9.27.12 at 27 weeks

taken 9.27.12 at 27 weeks

at 27 weeks with abigail

a little break

ever since i got back from atlanta, i haven't been liking my calling too much.  it just seems like there's always too much to do and too much out of my control.  it's stressing me out and making me feel like a major failure.  tonight i had a meeting with my presidency and was able to focus and get some stuff taken care of.  i'm also trying to be more organized about delegating the responsibilities that aren't actually mine to take care of in the first place and being better about asking for help.  i know i'm going to need to pare back as i near my due date so with three months left, i'm going to try to do that gradually.  i think it's working already because tonight i've been feeling much better about things than i have this past week.

sometimes i have to step back and manually help myself to love my calling.  it's not like we ask for these things but they are given to us lovingly.

and now i'm off to bed.

belated pictures from atl to dia and "fearless"

and here are pictures from this past friday's wonderful whirlwind that go along with that novel of a post i wrote. 

when baby girl decided she was done with us, she left our booth and spent at least five minutes with this nice man and his three kids.  two year olds are oblivious and except from social norms.  my dad took this picture with his blackberry and emailed it to me with the title "no fear."

this has got to be at the top of my list from favorite pictures from this trip.  ps- typical varsity that you get a full mix of customers.  us in the middle, the semi-ghetto lady to the left, and the ultra prep southern frat boy to the right.

how perfect that my shirt was the very color of a frosted orange!

precious.  she kept calling it ice cream.  and as i've mentioned, grandpa never says no.

they're an adorable pair.

i wonder what the poundage was that i was lugging through the airport.  baby girl weighs 23 lbs, that carseat  weighs 25 lbs, my suitcase weighed at least 40 and the duffle bag almost broke my back.  and because i can, i'm going to add my unborn child in utero to that list.  because, despite it being constant, i was carrying him too.

sleep deprived baby catching a power nap on the way from the airport to the game.  she seriously NEVER falls asleep in her carseat.  unless she's been awake for 11 hours i guess.

well hello there.

family photo!

not napping... just super tired and snuggly.

like snuggly enough to curl up with this stranger down the row.

and i mean, all the way down the row.

we convinced her to come back and snuggle with us though.  

honey caught one of the rockies t shirts they sling shotted out while we were waiting for fireworks. 

it's good to be back as our little family of three.

also, about the lack of stranger danger, here's an email about it that i wrote to my parents yesterday (titled "fearless part two")...

remember this picture from friday at the varsity when abigail left usto sit with the family nearby?  well, we went to a rockies game thatnight after our plane landed and part way through chris turned to meand said "ummm, the people down the row are holding our baby."  sureenough.  and she sat with them for a long time before chris finallywent down there to retrieve her. 

today we were at a playdate at the park.  abigail was crying while iwas away putting something in my car.  when i came back she wassitting on my friend's lap (we never hang out with these friends soabigail really didn't know who she was).  so i said "thanks forholding my crying child" to which my friend replied "oh no problem...i was just surprised that she actually came to me and let me holdher." 

ha.  you're surprised?  i'm not.

at what age are you supposed to teach your child about this sort of stuff?  currently, she calls everyone "friends" in any context that any adult would just use the word "people."  like yesterday when we were playing out on the driveway and she saw a woman walking her dog up the street (in the direction of our neighborhood playground) and she kept telling me that our friend was going to the playground.  if we're in the car and she sees two men jogging on the sidewalk, she'll tell me that she sees her friends running or that her friends are running fast.

oh baby girl, with that mentality, the world really is your oyster.

free museum day!

i was just scrolling through facebook and apparently saturday is free museum day.  follow the link and see if there's a fun museum near you to hit up for free!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/ticket/

em's friday night bbq

friday night as a rehearsal dinner of sorts for em's wedding, we had dinner at a wonderful and fun bbq place. and here are pictures.

baby girl and her uncle wally

see that head of curly hair?  that belongs to my sister.  somehow the curly gene ran out by the time i came around because the eldest got that and as the youngest i got... well, well all know what my hair looks like.

emmy's friends from college

baby girl was in heaven

with marianne, lucy, and catherine

fun fact: i wore marianne's wedding dress when i got married.