I'm a nerdy organizer, too!!

Nat and I have been having a little shared crisis the past...um... few years, at least. We feel like the talents we used to have, no longer exist. Because we don't have time to foster them. Does that make sense? These kiddos of ours have taken over every spare moment. There are no more spare moments in which to work on our talents, or to find new ones. But Nat had an epiphany - she does have a talent that she is able to foster - she is a nerdy organizer.

Me, too! I'm pretty good at it! And I am kind of compelled to work at this talent, because I run a household full of slobs. None of them gives a rat's arse about cleanliness or organization. I have to make them be clean and organized. And I usually don't have time or energy to do that. So my house is a pit. It's frustrating.

Anyways... when I found out I was having a boy, my first thought was, "Aw man. I kind of wanted another girl." Because what I have learned, at least in my house, is that boys=hard. Girl=easy. I know that's not always the formula in others' households. But so far, my girl is my easy one. My boys kick my butt. Right now, I am really hoping that Gage has a Sadie soul inside of his boy body. I really need another Sadie soul in my house.

My second thought, when I found out I was having a boy, was, "SWEET! I can get rid of all of those little baby girl clothes in my storage room!" I perked right up and even stopped feeling nauseated for a small moment. That is how much I love an organizing project. So I took all the boxes of clothes that my neice will be able to fit into in the future and took them over to Nat's. I think it was hard on her, being a minimalist (as I am), taking on like six boxes of stuff, but I'm sure the thought of free clothes overrode her minimalist-induced panic on seeing the six boxes.

Then I took the stuff that is too small for Ivy over to the second-hand children's store in town. They are pretty picky there - they only take some Gap, Old Navy, and Gymboree stuff, I swear. I think they probably accepted like two items of clothing from each of my boxes. But whatever. I made $40. And had to put it in my bank account to cover for Easter expenses. Sigh.

Then I bagged up the clothing the snooty second-hand store didn't want (I wanted to keep my boxes) and took it on over to the D.I.:

My storage room is just a teensy bit less cluttered than it was. It's not nearly where I want it to be, but that's because I need to force my hoarder husband to get rid of several things. And that is a tough thing to do. Nat's husband is the same. We often have to sneakily get rid of stuff, because our husbands won't do it. They need those boxes of never-used mystery wires, dang it!!

The next thing that perks me up - the thought of getting rid of all my maternity clothes when I'm done with this hellish pregnancy. Aw yeah. Like five more boxes, outta there. And I'm thinking of tackling my enormous spice collection. I swear I only use half of the spices in my kitchen.

It doesn't take much to excite me, I guess. :)

An Eggstremely Eggsciting, Eggsistential Eggcercise

I don't even really know what "existential" means. I just wanted to put as many "egg"-like words in my title as I could. I should know what it means. But I don't. As a former English major, I am ashamed. But not really.

I was so busy Easter weekend that I didn't dye eggs with my kiddos. I had gotten this really luxurious Paas dyeing kit, and I was sad I didn't get a chance to get 'er done. I decided it was better late than never, though, so we dyed our Easter eggs a day after Easter. True story. It was an easy Family Home Evening. That's how I look at it.

This kit was nutty. In addition to the egg dye, it had glitter, foil, stamps, stencils, beads, paint, you name it. So here I am, explaining the different options, and how to do each one:

Dyls was a fan of the stamps. You can't see his egg very well in this pic, but he stamped this one:

Sades was a fan of painting. Every single one of her eggs looked like this:

Little dots on just one side of the egg. She was proud of her eggs.

Micah just walked around, pulling off his dang 3D glasses and whining for me to put them back on him again. Sigh:

They had these awesome rubber bands that you could put around the eggs that were so tight, the dye couldn't seep in. So you could make white stripes. Ben did a bunch of those:

I was so busy helping the kids that I only had a chance to dye and decorate one egg. I decided to use the beads option. You just put this glue on the egg, and then press the beads on with a toothpick. I made one for Ben that says "Dad":

I'm not a fan of the beads.

We peeled the eggs the next night and made deviled eggs to go with dinner. When I say "we," I mean Sadie and I, of course. She's my little chef. I could have just had nothing but deviled eggs for dinner and called it good. I love me some deviled eggs.

3D

My sweet mom took my two oldest kids to How to Train Your Dragon in 3D. They refused to throw their 3D glasses in the recycling can when they left. They absolutely had to bring their glasses home. You know, to watch all the 3D stuff on TV. Oh wait. There isn't 3D stuff on TV. :) Except maybe a couple of Super Bowl commercials this year. Micah is a big fan of the glasses. He can't get them on by himself, so he follows me around, whining to have me put them on him, and then he pulls them off again, and then he whines to have me put them on him again, etc. It's super fun.

Here's my thing about this new 3D craze: Once you've seen Captain Eo, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, or that Muppet Movie Thingey at Disneyland, the "3D" they're showing in theaters now is practically non-existant. Ben and I went to Clash of the Titans in 3D on my birthday, and I kept waiting for 3D stuff to happen. I don't think I ever saw anything that seemed 3D-ish. Same with Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I guess Captain Eo spoiled me. I keep waiting for stuff to flutter in front of my face, or a long tail to swipe out at me. Haven't seen any of that happening yet.

I got a very serious, very funny e-mail from my friend, Megs', hubs, Mark, when he learned that Ben and I were going to Clash of the Titans in 3D. I just have to share it. I hope you don't mind, Megs (or Mark):

Karlenn,

This is Mark.

I told Megan to ask you earlier if you guys were going to see Clash of the Titans in 3D or 2D. Why, because I have only heard bad things about the movie in 3D. I'm not kidding. It is being called the singled handed worst 3D movie that has yet come out. Jeffery Katzenberger (not spelled right, but he's one of the heads of Dreamworks) has said that this movie is going to be the movie to kill 3D in theaters because it's turning so many people off thanks to its poorly-done, stereoscopic mess that's an apparent insult to 3D. (Other than an IMAX visit when I was 16, I've honestly not watched a movie in 3D, so I'm really going off what others are saying here.)
Go watch the movie, I hear it's enjoyable in 2D, but do not waste your money on the after-thought, tacked-on 3D, I implore you. From what I hear, you can only regret seeing it in 3D.
Consider yourself warned, and we'll see you tomorrow night whether you heed or ignore. :)

I laughed really hard. This 3D stuff is very serious business to many men. We didn't heed Mark's advice (we had already gotten the tickets when I got the e-mail from him), but I didn't hate the movie. I just couldn't see anything that was 3D. I could follow the plot really well and everything - I love mythology stuff. But from now on, I'm just going to keep the $2 per ticket and watch it in 2D. Besides, those glasses kind of hurt my ears.

A Mealtime Necessity

Micah won't eat one bite of food unless he has at least two toys with him. Sometimes the toys are rather large, but he is adamant. I'm too tired right now to fight him on it. You gotta pick your battles with this kid.

The Papaaaaa! THE PAPA! 2010 Edition

Mon Pere had a birthday on Easter weekend. We had a little Easter Egg Hunt/Birthday party on Easter Sunday to celebrate.

My adorable Mom stuffed 150 plastic eggs with candy, taped each and every single one of them shut, just in case, and hid 'em. She said there were so many left after she did the hiding that she just hucked the remainder all over the lawn.

And she had a fantastic idea this year - she let the toddlers go first and find five or so eggs, then the middle kids, and then the oldest kids. That worked out really well. Usually, the oldest kids go out there and grab all the eggs before the teeny kids have a chance to even grab one.

I have really good memories of egg hunts with my sisters when we were younger. Like six years ago. :) I have no doubt that, had Lex and Beads been here, they would have insisted on participating, and they would have dragged Nat and I into the fray. We used to push, shove, trip, etc. to find the eggs, giggling the whole time. It was a blast. This year, my pregnant self just wanted to do the bare minimum so I could go lie down.

Dyls and Sades:

Me and Micahrooney:

Holy shnikeys. My hips get WIDE when I'm preggars. But my butt remains a big flat pancake. No matter what.

For dinner, we had some amazing spiral-cut ham. Ben always shoves his way in to carve meat, or marinate it, or grill it, or whatever we're doing that involves meat. He is a meat-meister:

Mom had me bring a salad, as usual. That has become one of my official family jobs. I bring the salad. My mom is a salad-meister, and she loves my salads. I'm happy to oblige. My other family jobs: being stuck in the back of the car on long trips and giving everyone food out of the cooler, family peacemaker, and having the title of The Fat Sister. :) Hey, someone's gotta do it.

I am pretty sure this is the worst picture that has ever, ever been taken of me:

I had been too busy doing food and taking care of kids that day that I didn't have time to do the hair and makeup. And I'm really not a fan of that shirt of mine. Every time I see it in the closet, I sigh. But it's comfortable. I'll give it that.

Then we sang Happy Birthday to the Papa and had super-yummy German Chocolate cake, courtesy of Nat. (Nat's official family job is to bring the dessert.) German Chocolate is my dad's fave.

Nat and I gave Dad some homemade Almond Roca from Sarah's Candy Cottage. I cannot iterate enough how in love I am with Sarah's Candy Cottage. Dad loves Almond Roca, and we thought homemade might even be better than the kind in the pink cans.

Happy Birthday, Pops! You are the bomb dot com. I just love you to pieces. Thanks for being so generous and wise and spiritual. You are such a good example of undeviating righteousness. I really admire you. Kissy, kissy.

How about some slides?

Per Request - Oven Barbecue Country Ribs

Okay, friends who wanted this recipe (which involves the abominable buying of brandy). Here it is:

Oven Barbecue Country Ribs

10-12 country-style pork spare ribs
1 jar chili sauce
12 ounces brandy
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

Place the ribs in a spacious roasting pan. Mix the chili sauce, brandy, and brown sugar thoroughly. Pour over ribs and bake slowly, covered, at 325 degrees for 3 hours.

*I actually put the ribs in my crock pot and poured the mixture over the ribs. It worked just fine. You can do it either way. This recipe is insanely simple.

"...since Easters??"

I adore the movie, Nacho Libre. It makes me laugh soooo hard. One of my favorite sayings from the movie is, "Do you not know that I have had diarrhea since Easters??" Hilarious.

Ben got the kids some of those pre-packaged Easter baskets this year, which was fine by me. Less work on my part. We put them into the locked storage room until Easter came. A few days before Easter, I had this cleaning/organizing attack and started going through my storage room. The kids were upstairs playing. I totally forgot about the Easter baskets, there in plain sight. The kids started fighting, of course, and the two oldest came downstairs to tattle on each other. They walked into the storage room, yelling simultaneously, and then stopped dead in their tracks. They had seen the Easter baskets. That the Easter bunny is supposed to bring them. Sitting in our storage room. Sadie's face was pure joy. Dylan's face was pure confusion. Sadie yelled, "EASTER STUFF!!" Dylan looked at me like, "Wait a minute..." I shooed them both out of the storage room.

I thought for sure Dylan would bring up the whole "Then is the Easter bunny real?" issue, which might inevitably lead to a "Is Santa real, then? Or the tooth fairy?" issue. But over the next few days, he kind of took on a "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. He didn't mention it again. Sadie didn't either, because I don't think she made the connection. As the kids were pulling stuff out of their Easter baskets, Dylan took special care to thank me and Ben for the stuff - no mention of the Easter bunny.

And that was the end of it.

I'm considering telling Dylan about Santa/The Easter Bunny/The Tooth Fairy this fall, before Christmas. I learned when I was seven, and he'll be seven by then. And I'm tired of carrying on the charade with him. He might blab the truth to Sadie, but I remember keeping the secret well after I found out. I felt so superior to my naive sisters after that, winking eggageratedly at my folks as I yelled, louder than necessary, "OH MY GOSH, SANTA IS JUST THE BEST. IF HE WAS HERE, I WOULD THANK HIM FOR THESE PRESENTS." Dylan might find the same pleasure in feeling superior to his siblings. He usually does. :)

Some pics from Easter morning -

I got Ben some nicer candy for his basket - he is a chocolate lover:

Dylan playing with some cheap plastic gun that broke like two minutes after this picture was taken:

Sades with one of her toys:

Micah with Sadie's new sunglasses. He loves these things:

That is one of the cutest pictures EVER.

I'm a nerdy Mormon.

Okay. My mom thinks this is abominable, but sometimes I cook meat with alcohol. I have maybe three recipes that call for some alcohol, but in all of them, the alcohol is mixed with other stuff and then cooking for several hours with the meat. I always feel really, really weird buying alcohol, but it makes the meat sooo tender and yummy. So I just go with it. And then if I have surplus, I dump it down the drain.

This one recipe I have calls for 12 ounces of brandy. I guess they don't sell brandy at the grocery store (I know that you can buy some types of alcohol at the store, but not others, and I don't know why. That's how much I don't know about alcohol), so the one time a year I use this recipe for pork ribs, I have to go to the liquor store.

I headed over on Saturday. It was hilarious. I walked in, with my big pregnant belly, and all the people in there stopped and stared. I think they were thinking, "What is a pregnant lady doing buying liquor??" You know, the whole Fetal Alcohol Syndrome thing. I felt really dumb. I hurried and grabbed the cheapest thing under the "Brandy" heading and walked up to the register. I could still feel all of these eyes on me. As the lady was ringing me up, I said, conversationally (and loudly), "Yep, just cooking up some ribs!!!" I hoped that the staring people heard me. The lady stuck the brandy into a brown paper bag, which had this sentence in bold on it: "DRINK RESPONSIBLY. DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE." Nice.

Then it was time to head out the door. Again, I felt really sheepish, because the dollar theater is right next door to the liquor store, and I thought, "What if someone sees me? What will they think??" So I peeked out the door before I left, looking left and right, like someone stepping out into traffic, to make sure nobody I knew was out in the parking lot.

I hopped in my car and headed over to the office to get some hours in. As I pulled into the parking lot there, I saw a couple of coworkers' cars. And then a new terror struck me. I was going to leave the brandy in the car; what if one of my coworkers saw my brown bag? The "DRINK RESPONSIBLY" bag? I saw an old McDonald's bag on the floor of the car (Ben drives that car during the day - he is awful about cleaning up his garbage) and discovered my solution. I stuck the brandy with the brown bag still on it into the McDonald's bag. Successfully camoflauged.

I'm like the Ethan Hunt of brandy. The pork ribs are cooked. The brandy bottle is in the dumpster in my alley. Mission accomplished.

(And I've only had one bite of the ribs. I'm just not into meat when I'm preggars. Ben adores them, though.)

Forgetful Jones, Spring 2010 Edition

I wrote last fall about Ben being Forgetful Jones. Ben=kettle. Me=pot. I think I'm worse than he is, really. I've been especially bad since I got pregnant. Some recent Major Forgets:

1. I forgot to take Sadie to dance class one day. Just totally spaced it.

2. I do the ward bulletin. The second counselor called me last week to tell me the two speakers for Sunday's sacrament meeting. We had a lengthy discussion on how to spell the second speaker's last name. When I finally got around to doing the bulletin (on Saturday, because I'm a procrastinator), I could not remember who the second speaker was. After the lengthy discussion of the spelling of his name, and everything!! It was High Council Sunday, but the speakers were both people in our ward that I know! How could I have forgotten the second speaker? I called a million people, and no one was at home to help me out. I left messages, and I finally found out who the second speaker was, at 10:30 at night on Saturday.

3. Sadie had to do the scripture and prayer in Primary on Sunday. I completely spaced that. I think one of the ladies in the Primary presidency had to help her. They all told me what a good job she did when I went up to get her from the Primary room after the block. Oops.

4. Yesterday, I had my 20 week appointment. The lady told me to go on back and pee in a cup before going into the examination room. So I go in to the bathroom, and I was thinking about our car situation, and I just... peed right into the toilet. Like normal. I realized wayyy too late that I had forgotten to pee in the cup, and I didn't have one more drop to give. I had to go out and tell the nurse I had no pee to give her. She laughed and said that I could just wait until next month. I felt so dumb.

Just don't ask me to remember anything important until after I have this baby, mmmkay?

Church in Jammies

Oh, how I love General Conference. Not only because we can wear jammies for church that weekend, but also because I love to hear from the prophet and his apostles. Elder Holland's talk was my favorite, as usual. He's my homeboy.

Ben and Micah relaxing while watching the Sunday morning session:

I regret to say that I wasn't able to listen as well as I would have liked. My kids were loud. I was distracted on Saturday by needing to make a grocery list, and I was distracted Sunday by the fact that I needed to shower and make some food. I need to hop online and read the ones I missed. At least I didn't sleep through it, right? That's usually my problem. Those men have the most soothing voices ever. Maybe I should listen to conference on Ben's iPod so I can fall asleep at night... Last night was a killer.

When the menfolk went to Priesthood Session on Saturday night, Nat and her fam and my mama came over to party. We had pizza before they left, and then brownies when they came back. Yum. I never get tired of pizza.

Some highlights from our Priesthood Party, or PP, as I'm now calling it -

Sadie wanted to watch a My Little Pony movie. She soon lost interest, but guess who was riveted from beginning to end?

Yep. Our two manly six-year-old boys. Hilarious.

Nat and Sadie bonded over their strawberry blondeness:

Sades is such a cuddle bug.

Ivy was starting to get unhappy, so I found a doll that Sadie got for Christmas and hasn't touched since. That made Ivy very, very happy:

She loves babies. And shoes. Such a girly girl. Sades has never been into dolls.

Goodbye, Conference. I'll miss you until this fall.

At least someone looks at them.

Dylan loves to look at his scrapbooks. Back when I was a mother of only one, I made scrapbooks of Dylan's first year. They are so cute. He pulls them out all the time. Sadie's jealous that she doesn't have any. I'm a winner. Someday I'll have time to do something similar for poor Sadie and Micah. Someday when I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

The Perfect Night Light

My mom is the activities person in her ward. They have an annual Chili Cook-Off/Ugliest Shirt Contest. (My mom won last fall. She's very proud.) This used to be their roving trophy - a lava lamp:

They just got a "real" trophy for roving purposes (it has an engraved plate on it and everything), and Mom asked me if I wanted the old lava lamp. (Whenever Mom gets rid of stuff, she always asks me if I want it. Sometimes it's hard to resist.) I said H yeah. I've never actually seen a lava lamp in real life. Just on movies. But I knew I would love it. My Grandma H had all of these iridescent lamp thingeys when I was a kid. No lava lamp, but fake flowers that rotated and had these weird lights in the petals that would change colors. I stared at them for hours. I figured a lava lamp would have the same effect. And it does.

I put it in the kids' room, because I knew they would love it, too. Now it's a staple of our nighttime routine. Tuck the kids in, give them a hug and kiss, and turn on the lava lamp.

P.S. It's my birthday! A post and pictures to come. I promise to take more pictures this year.

I'll see ya there, buddy.

Yesterday, I was a big meanie and made Dylan do his homework, practice his spelling words, and read his AR book. All of his friends were playing outside, and he was pissed. He spent most of his time crying and yelling and throwing himself dramatically on the floor. I kept reminding him that, the more he did that crap, the longer it would take for him to do his homework. He didn't listen, as usual.

He was saying all kinds of things to make me change my mind. "If you loved me, you would let me go outside and play." Or, "I'll just practice my spelling words twice tomorrow night."

At one point, he said, "Mama, you are going to HELL!!!"

His appointment with the pediatrician is today. Give me the drugs, Doc. Now.

The Next Julia

My little Sadie girl is OBSESSED with cooking. Any kind. If I'm in the kitchen for any reason, even just getting a glass of water, she jets right in and says, "Are you cooking? Can I help?"


When I'm actually cooking, I usually let her help, though it's hard for me to do. When Sades is involved, cooking takes longer than usual. And we have had a few incidents, one involving my recipe box and a big pot of boiling water. Needless to say, I've had to call mom once to get a recipe that got boiled away, and I'm sure there are many more of those phone calls to come.

It really is so good to have one-on-one time with her, though. And I feel good knowing that she is going to know how to cook when she gets to college.

She's starting to get into some pretty complicated fare. Here she is, rolling out scones, then cutting a little breathing hole in the middle of each scone:

Impressive, right?

I have to make dinner tonight. In addition, I bought some gorgeous-looking rhubarb and strawberries at the store yesterday, which I'm making into a pie. So I'm sure Sadie and I will have lots of one-on-one time tonight. Ugh... standing for that long hurts my pelvic bone so BADLY, but that's life in the fast lane, right?

A Long Time Coming

Two of the buildings Ben has designed at his job are actually being built. It's so exciting!! The first is kind of like an airport for jets. It's called Spaceport America. I keep asking Ben to send me a rendering to put on here, and he keeps forgetting. But I'll keep asking.

The second is a charter school here in I.F. They actually had a ground-breaking ceremony last week, and it was on the news! Here's the link to the news cast:
http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story.asp?S=12280873

They interviewed Ben's boss; I was kind of disappointed. After all, it's Ben's design. But oh well.

The picture they show in the newscast is a little fuzzy. Here is a better rendering that's on our computer:

Ben's original concept was to have grass on the rooftops, but it would have been too expensive, I guess.

It's so gratifying to see so many years of hard work and schooling come to fruition. I think he is so artistically gifted.

Hoop! There it is!

A few weeks ago, my BFF, Pooh, was in Poky with her fam. Her son, Bishop, had a basketball tournament. Ben and I decided to go down and take the kids with us so we could spend a teeny bit of time with them. We don't see them as much as we'd like to.

Two pregnant ladies, one radiant and glowing, one looking a little green around the gills:

And now Pooh is no longer pregnant, lucky gal.

This is Pooh's younger son, Judge:

He's the spitting image of his daddy. And he is a mellow, sweet kid. He and my two oldest kids played together the whole time. They were being quite rambunctious. Pooh and I were both too tired to do much about it.

Cazzie, Pooh's husband, is Bishop's coach. Here are the two of them on the bench at one point:

Caz is so good with those kids. They had to play man-on-man, and they kept kind of forgetting that. So Caz had a little key phrase he would say to remind them to stay on their man - "Sticky glue." So he was yelling, "STICKY GLUE! STICKY GLUE!" the whole time. It was really cute. The team they played were dirty players. Major fouls.

Oh, and it's so funny, because at this level, they aren't sticklers about calling traveling. The kids were taking five, six steps with the ball in their hands. It was really funny. If they called traveling every time, the games would last about eight hours.

Here is Bishie on the left. I wonder if he might have had a wedgie he was taking care of:

The kid on the right is Bishop's friend, Deng.

Our little Bishie man in action:

We had a really great time. Pooh and I sat and laughed at people and talked about how she was going to have her daughter any minute now. It took a couple of more weeks, unfortunately. Pooh promised me her maternity clothes, and that makes me excited. Some kid came and asked Pooh for her chair. We couldn't believe it. Hellooooooo. You don't ask a pregnant lady for her chair. Sheesh. Micah was a butthead, so I made Ben deal with him.

Slides:

No Downs!!!

I got my amnio results on Friday - Gage is Downs-free!!! He has no chromosome abnormalities. What a blessing. I'm very relieved, but the truth is, I knew, deep down, that he didn't have it. That was one of the things in Ben's blessing he gave me after my amniocentesis. There have been many, many blessings I've gotten where I'm not told what the outcome of a particular trial will be. I'm usually told to stay strong and be brave and to stay close to Heavenly Father. But this time, I was told absolutely, unequivically, what the result of all this was - that Gage didn't have Downs. So, when I got the test results from the doctor that day, it was just a nice cherry on top of the Peace Sundae I was given after my amnio.



I know that there were so, so many people in my life praying for my family and my baby. I felt your prayers. They were palpable. And they strengthened me.



I also know that, if this test result had been the one I didn't want, it would have been God's will. And He would have helped me and blessed me. Would it have been hard? YES. But everything happens for a reason. His plan is the perfect plan. We can't boss Him around.

And let me make clear that I love people with Downs. They are loveable and such rays of sunshine. I'm not dissing on the Downs. But did I want that for my son? No. I want him to grow up and go on a mission and to college. I want him to get married and give me grandbabies. That's obviously my preference. But I do know that kids with Downs bring so many blessings to their families. And I know that they are perfect spirit children of our Heavenly Father.



I apologize for not posting the second I found out (Friday afternoon). I was trying to pack up and get everything done so I could leave town. My gorgeous, amazing, superwoman BFF, Pooh, had her baby last week, so I went to SLC to snuggle that little fuzzy baby and to spend time with Pooh for the weekend. Pictures to come.



Last week, I officially turned four months along. I had Dylie take a pic of my belly for your enjoyment:

My bangs look so gross. I cut them myself last time - not a good plan. I look like Dwight Schrute. Seriously.



I'm starting to feel a little bit better in the mornings. So I hurry and clean and fold laundry while I have the energy and don't feel gross. Then the exhaustion and nausea hit me pretty hard at about one o'clock.



I feel compelled to make a couple of lists. Indulge me.



Things I Hate About This Pregnancy


1. Pubic Symphysis Diastasis. It makes me feel a little bit like this:

That's a pig. But if he was alive and they were doing this, he would feel how I feel.

Sorry I grossed you out with the picture. I might have lost all three of my readers...

2. Heartburn that makes me feel like I'm being stabbed.
3. Nausea. Still. I still barf every morning.
4. Exhaustion.
5. Spit overproduction. I don't know what the deal is. It's like I'm swallowing gallons upon gallons of spit every day.
6. Loogie overproduction. I cough them up all day long.
7. My face looks like a pizza. I can't use my normal benzoyl peroxide wash. So it's pimple mania for me.
8. I can't sleep on my bed. It feels like a flat examination table that I'm going to roll off. I can't explain it. It's so weird.
9. Poofy fingers. Yep, that's already happening.
10. I don't have a cute ball belly yet. It's still just fluffy and fatty. People go to pat my tummy, then retract their hand speedily. It's gross.
11. That amniocentesis gave me PTSD. Not kidding.
12. Smells are really intense for me this time around. I have a bloodhound nose. And it isn't pleasant.
13. Nothing ever tastes good. I don't want to cook.
14. Breath is also a huge problem for me. Anyone breathing in my vicinity creates a bit of a problem. I hold my breath when I kiss Ben. I think it hurts his feelings. I was snuggling with Dylan on the couch tonight, and I had to ask him to brush his teeth for me. I'm such a jerk.
15. My Anti-Lutheran Antigen problem is still there, looming in the background. An intra-uterine blood transfusion would cause even worse PTSD, I think.
16. Restless Legs Syndrome at night. It's a killer.


Things I Like About This Pregnancy

Um.....

Let me think....

Oh. I have some good ones.

1. My baby doesn't have Downs Syndrome.
2. I've started to feel him kick!! He's small enough where it's cute right now.
3. I get to see him every two weeks for an ultrasound (because of my Anti-Lutheran thing).
4. I know this is my last pregnancy. It gives me a lot of happiness whenever I think of that.

And um, yeah... that's it.

I hope you don't think of my blog as the Negative Blog Winner of the Year. I like to think that I'm keepin' it real. Life is great and hard, all at the same time. I just like to be honest. I show the good and the bad.

And right now, despite how miserable I am when I'm pregnant, life is pretty stinkin' good. My baby is doing alright. That's all that matters.

I'm his witness - oooooEEEE!!!

So, apparently, "March Madness" is over. Yes, I adore basketball. Do I have time to watch it? Nope. Do I know who won? Nope.

My husband isn't really into watching sports, and I'm actually really grateful for that. After awhile, the roar of a football crowd or a basketball crowd on TV gives me a bit of a headache. I crave silence. So much. That craving began when I started teaching 8th grade English. Seriously. Junior high students are so freakin' loud.

I work some evenings and Saturdays at my dad's office, scanning older documents onto a database. I love it. Mainly because of the whole silence thing.

At my dad's office, March Madness is a HUGE DEAL.

When I went in one evening a few weeks ago, I stopped in Dad's office to say hi. (He's always there at night during tax season. I feel really bad for him.) His partner, Brian, from across the hall, yelled, "Hey, Karlenn, before you go downstairs to scan, will you be my witness?"

Huh?

As it turns out, Brian was in charge of randomly assigning teams from the top four "seeds" to each person in the office. They have a little office "pot" - whoever is assigned the team that ends up winning gets the little pot. It makes for much excitement at the office. Brian used an excel spreadsheet with a random number generator to assign teams to each office worker. (He's an accountant. They are very meticulous folk.) He didn't want to be accused of cheating, so I was in charge of witnessing him as he went through this process. It was very serious business. As he was doing it, we had four or five people from the office stop by to see which team they got. It was really cute.

A few evenings later, at about nine o'clock or so, I was finishing up downstairs in my office, and suddenly, I hear this huge ROAR from upstairs. Everyone was still there, working (because it's tax season), and they all had their little mini TV's on, watching some game. Apparently, whoever won that game elicited great excitement. I thought it was hilarious.

On a day I didn't have to mother the children of strangers...

This was a day at the park sans abandoned three-year-olds, luckily. I look at this and can't even believe that there are roughly six inches of snow on the ground this morning.

Springs in Idaho. They're ridiculous.

I did get approached by those same gossipey fifth-or-sixth grade girls, though. They were hanging out at the park, as usual. They remind me of the Greasers from The Outsiders. The park is their Turf. Anyways, they informed me that, a few days earlier, when Dylan and Breckyn were playing in Breckyn's backyard (which borders the park), they were throwing rocks over the fence at the girls, and a couple of rocks hit that same three-year-old girl.

Nice.

Dylan and Breckyn need supervision, I've discovered. Last week, they were hanging out at the park with Breckyn's cousin, Taya. Apparently, somehow, they tipped one of those really heavy picnic tables over onto this poor little girl, badly bruising her legs. I found out about it when Taya's white trash mom came over and yelled at Dylan. True story. She came to the door, and when I opened it, she was seething. I had no idea who she was or what was going on. She had scraggly hair down to her butt, a pierced nose, and an oxygen tank with tubes going into her nose. Also, she was sporting Daisy Duke shorts and about ten pounds of makeup on her face. She asked for Dylan, and then proceeded to scream at him and threaten him.

It was really neat.

Needless to say, Dylan has been grounded all this week. No friends, and no computer. I'm really liking the No Computer thing. I really should make it permanent. He is so obsessed with computer games, and it drives me batty.

Part of me very much wants to ban Dylan from hanging out with Breckyn. But I imagine how I would have felt if one of my parents had banned me from hanging out with one of my friends. I would have rebelled, I think. What I need to do is teach Dylan correct principles, and then challenge him to be an example to his friends.

And I need to go with him every time he is at the park, apparently.

One more week until we get him some drugs.

Broccoli's Birthday

My cute nephew, Brock, celebrated his fifth birthday a couple of weeks ago. Nat was going to give him a "friend party," but whenever she asked him who he wanted to invite, he would name his cousins. Nat would be all, "Anyone else?" Brock: "Nope." So we just had a family party. Nat got off easy! Sadie wants a "friend party" this year for her fifth birthday, but, um, she doesn't really have any friends... There aren't a ton of girls her age in our neighborhood. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.


Brockie's first present was clothes. When he saw what they were, he went, "Aw man," threw them to the side, and picked a present that might have a toy in it. It was funny. Eventually, we made him look at his clothes, and when he realized that they were Toy Story clothes, he was happy:

He had asked for a stuffed kangaroo for his birthday, and Ivy immediately took it over:

Me and Dad (I look amazingly gorgeous, as usual):

While we were singing Happy Birthday:

Blowing out his candles:

The cake was a Wall-E cake, and it had little pieces of "garbage" on it (made of chocolate frosting). I felt like the pieces of garbage looked like little pieces of poo.

This is what Troy and Ivy did to the cake the following day:

Nat calls those two Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, for good reason.

Happy Birthday, Ba-gock!