Just a Funny Story

I'm loving having a "blog journal" and this is just a funny story from the other week that I'd like to add to it.

So, I was trying to tidy up the house and started tackling the sink full of dishes I had neglected from the night before. Not long after starting, I realized my tummy was starting to feel quite warm and a little wet. Kind of like it was being washed too...

It was at that moment I realized I might be getting too large for my standard wardrobe. I continued my regular tasks for the day and tried my best to keep covered. But the hard part was that I couldn't even see around my belly to know when the shirt had ridden up. I learned my lesson and put the black shirt away for now and into my Post Pregnancy bin.

I now have a much deeper appreciation for shirts that cover, and much more sympathy for little Chancho. It's tough being exposed like that.

Yes! I have a Belly

28 weeks and 3 days along. We've worked hard for this belly. Here are candid and less candid shots for proof.

Sweet Sweet baby

So at our last ultrasound, they found some potential brain and heart abnormalities in little man. He had a choroid cyst in his brain and his little heart ventricles were at the very upper limits of normal. The doctor was awesome and bluntly explained that these could be indicative of Trisomy 18 or 21, or it could indicate learning disability or potential heart defects. The chances were really low, around .25% or something like that, but they wanted to do a follow up just to see where he was at. We knew we would love our baby regardless, but we did want the heads up if he needed special care immediately after birth. Yesterday was our follow up, and he is looking great. He's still at the upper limits of normal for his heart and there is a little bit of variation in brain tissue, but nothing to be worried about. He's been quite active and has wiggled himself into the head down position already. I just love the little profile shots we got of him.

He was stretching and arching his back in this one:



This one can be hard to see, but it's my favorite. Look at it more like a 3D image on his face, and you can see the shadows showing his eyes, nose and little cheeks:

Pregnancy is going great! My biggest complaint is that he LOVES moving at night, and during church. I've learned to just stretch out as much as I can when we starts kicking up towards my ribs and moving his head and hands excessively. Stretching helps. But I love it when he moves too. I guess I'll add that to my list of bitter-sweets in life :)

Visitors!

Mama and Papa Southwick came last week and it was absolutely wonderful. On Friday, Tyler and Taylor took time off from work and school to come see the Bloch exhibit at the Museum of Art on campus. BYU transported a collection of original alter paintings from Denmark to display at BYU. I had seen his work many times, but the beauty, size, and attention to detail in the originals was astounding. Here are a few of my favorites from the exhibit:





These pictures are borrowed from LDS Church News and some of them show the audio/ipad system they had set up for visitors to learn even more about the paintings.

Tyler and I loved seeing the paint globs, the brush strokes, the cracking paint, and flawlessness of detail in every shadow, expression, and bulging vein. It was also great practice as Tyler volunteered to carry little Nellie around with us in her car seat.

Sunday was another incredible day. It was an "ah ha" day in many ways. We started with Dallas and Jessica's baby blessing for little Kayla at 8:30. Tyler, Taylor, and a few of their friends from Anacortes were able to stand in for the blessing. Then we went to Taylor and Martha's blessing of little Nellie at 11, where quite a few pews were filled with Southwick family and friends. Both Kayla and Nellie were absolutely beautiful and so very loved. Listening to the blessings, sitting with family, sitting with friends, and knowing I have a husband who has lived his life in a way that he could stand in for those beautiful blessings and offer the blessing of our little boy when he comes, was wonderful. It was a reminder of my Heavenly Father's love as I realized how much I loved the people I was surrounded by. It was a reminder of the inherent and divine strength of families. It was a reminder of how happy I am to have an incredible husband and baby on the way to teach me how to love more purely.

Mama Jana then came with Tyler and me to our ward at 2 to help teach our primary class. Our little five year olds were extra reverent and attentive when they learned Tyler's mom had heard how good they were and wanted to come and see them. Tyler thought of an awesome lesson plan to teach the importance of prophets and the priesthood in Christ's church both anciently and today. We took plastic cups and built a "tower" or "castle" depending on which of our boys you asked. Each cup was a component of Christ's church as we see in the bible and what we have today. After building the cup building, we talked about how the people weren't so good after Jesus and his disciples died, so they no longer had prophets or the power of the priesthood on the earth. We let two boys pull the cups labeled "priesthood" and "prophets" out from the foundation of our structure and the kids loved watching the whole building crumble. We also tried to show them that there were still good things on the earth, like the Bible and the ability to Choose The Right and do good things, but a lot of other important things were lost. Then as the lesson went on we talked about how all of those components were restored and rebuilt our building cup by cup. It felt so good to feel like we had a productive lesson that kept their attention (mostly) for the hour that we had them.


We ended the day with dinner at Taylor and Martha's with lots of Nellie holding. We were sad to say goodbye to Scott and Jana, but so so happy they came. We're excited for them to go see the Jason and Leah family in Florida and for them to be there for Ollie's blessing.

The Sad Truth

Tyler loves Christmas time. He starts listening to Christmas music after his birthday. His birthday is September 14th. This last Thanksgiving, Jana and I went to Martha's baby shower and came home to find Tyler and Scott on the roof putting up Christmas lights. Tyler was SO excited! They had found some colored lights and an adapter that twists into the existing porch light, allowing us to turn on the Christmas lights with the flip of a switch from inside. Our colorful lights were on every night. Until the sad truth was revealed.

I had been struggling the decision of how long into the year we should keep our Christmas lights on. I took note as one by one, our neighbors' beautiful yards reverted back to their pre-Christmas states. Most ceased to sport their lights within a week of Christmas: and only the stalwart few remained after the snow melted. When I realized ours was the only house with lights remaining, I suggested that maybe our season of Christmas Light Cheer had come to an end. Tyler was visibly heartbroken, but still switched our plug-in adapter for the traditional energy saving bulb. This was last week, the first week of February...

Baby Update

We had an ultrasound on January 5th, 22 weeks along, and found out we're having a little boy! He's doing well and was just as active in this ultrasound as he was at 12 weeks. Here are the few pictures we have of our little man:

Profile with his hand coming up to his face,


Little arm,And his little foot.
I love being able to feel him move. My favorite thing this week has been, not only having Tyler feel baby boy, but being able to lay down and watch my belly contort with his movements. Sometimes my belly looks like it's being jostled side to side, and sometimes there's just a quick protrusion as he kicks and punches.

My belly is finally starting to protrude. It is the weirdest thing to have one image of yourself in your head, and then look down or look at your reflection and the image is quite different. Quite often I'll think of myself as a regular me, that looks the same as I've always looked, and then I have one of those moments, and I love it! My mental picture of being pregnant always included a cute pregnant belly and I finally feel like I'm starting to get there.

This is me, 24 weeks pregnant:


Date Night

While I'm blogging , I might as well include the best date ever! I found the recipe for Tyler's favorite soup yesterday, PF Chang's Hot and Sour, here. It took quite a bit of searching at the grocery store, but Tyler managed to find all the ingredients. It was really easy to make and SO SO good! It made me so happy to see how much Tyler loved it.

I also made the Hershey's Chocolate Cake Recipe. It came out of the oven looking more like a crater than a puffy dome... but it still tasted really good!

After our delectable meal, we went to the musical play, Peter Pan, put on by the BYU Fine Arts Department. We both loved the performance and had the songs stuck in our heads this morning. We couldn't take pictures during the play, but here as some posted on the BYU website:




It was an awesome date night and I just love this husband of mine!

Ode to 2010

2010 was an incredible year. Some memories were captured and blogged about, some were not. This post may be a little long, but I want to summarize the wonderful events that made up 2010 for Tyler and I before we dive into the adventures awaiting in 2011.

January

Tyler and I drove back to Provo with Chelsea and Edwin from our Christmas break together . We started a new semester and enjoyed taking Stats together. We started talking very seriously about the idea of marriage and designed my ring at the very end of the month.

February

We took a weekend trip up to Spokane with Taylor and Martha for Valentine's Day and Mama Southwick's birthday. Little did I know Tyler had the ring, and he proposed on February 13th in Riverfront Park.

March

Colter was born. School, making wedding plans, finding an apartment, and trying on LOTS of dresses. My mom came down and we decided on a final dress design and worked out some more little wedding plans.

April

Finals and graduation for me. Taking engagement pictures (lots of pictures...) and designing a wedding announcement with my incredible sister-in-law, Leah. Printing announcements and gathering addresses. I moved into our new apartment at the end of the semester when my contract at Brownstone ended.

May

I drove up to Spokane a little earlier than planned with Mama Southwick at the very beginning of the month to help with wedding stuff. Tyler stayed in Provo for work until the week of the wedding. May 14th came, and it was the most perfect and beautiful day. The wedding was beautiful and we loved seeing so many family and friends. Best day ever! We flew to Hawaii May 15th and thoroughly enjoyed our 9 day stay on Oahu. We flew back to Spokane for our car and made our way back to Provo in time for a little Open House at Nielsen's Grove on the 29th. Tyler went back to work at BYU and I started working as a Speech Assistant for an intensive summer therapy program using palatometry. I loved it.

June

June was spent settling into our apartment. Lots of unpacking, trips to Target, playing board games together, walks, exploring, and bike rides. We tried to help Jason and Leah as they packed up to move to Florida, though we were very sad to see them go. We casually started looking at houses with our Realtor, SuAnne Hoffman, whom we absolutely loved.

July

We Drove to Menan for a large Miller family reunion. Afterward, my family headed up to Yellowstone for camping and exploring. Tyler and I came back and participated in The World's Largest Water Balloon Fight at BYU. Just for coming, they gave us free T-Shirts, a sub sandwich, Creamery ice cream, and water bottles. The summer therapy program ended and I began my search for a new job. We found a few short sale homes we liked and submitted offers, hoping for the best. Our little house was approved surprisingly fast and we waited to work out details for closing.

August

I had quite a few interviews for Speech Assistant positions, but all went to candidates with more experience. With the offer already accepted for the little Provo house, and we spent most of the month just waiting to hear when the current owner would be out and we would be able to move in. Our Stubbs contract was due to expire at the end of August, and we just hoped there would be a smooth transition from apartment to home. By midnight of Tuesday the 31st, we had everything packed, loaded into a Uhaul and the apartment cleaned; still unsure when we would be able to unload our things.

September

A big month. We stayed at Taylor and Martha's while we waited for keys and permission to move in. We signed everything Wednesday, the 1st, and gave them our down payment. On Friday we were still waiting for the legalities to process and for the go ahead to move in. We were really anxious because if the title wasn't recorded by Friday, we wouldn't be able to move in until at least the next Tuesday because of Labor day weekend. And we weren't fans of paying for the Uhaul every day it sat outside Taylor and Martha's when "our house" was sitting empty, just waiting. We got the call Friday afternoon and we were literally unloading the truck 10 minutes later. Tyler even used his flirtatious skills to get the water, gas and electricity on before the weekend came ;) I had tried, but everyone told me that nothing could be turned on until the next week. We moved in and unpacked. We had suspicions of pregnancy early in the month, and they were finally confirmed early one morning. We were both so excited! The rest of the month was spent repairing holes in the walls, settling in, and learning how to deal with pregnancy.

October

Biggest highlights were our trip to Chicago, and replacing the moldy carport. The carport looked like it was bound to cave any day and we were so happy to have it fixed. Tyler put a lot of hours into cleaning out the back yard, which was loaded with junk left by previous owners. October was also our first ultrasound when we found out little babe was definitely alive.

November

Scott and Jana came to Utah to celebrate Thanksgiving which gave us, Taylor and Martha the chance to make the Thanksgiving feast. It was so delightful and wonderful. (Sorry Martha, I stole your picture when I realized I didn't have any!)

December

Little Nelli was born and we were so happy to finally meet her. We were especially happy that she came before Tyler and I flew to Spokane for two weeks of holiday. Christmas was so wonderful. We spent about a week total at each the Southwick's and Miller's, though this was the year to spend the actual Christmas day and Christmas Eve with the Millers, but we still managed to run out to Scott and Jana's for Christmas afternoon :)

Well, 2010 was an incredible year and had more changes and exciting events than I could have anticipated. Tyler and I are so happy about all the changes and so excited for this next year!