24 weeks

well...24 weeks as of tomorrow but who's counting.  I officially look pregnant-people smile at me and tell me to have a good day all the time now when I go to stores whereas before I was invisible apparently.  Everynow and then I look at myself and swear that I somehow got bigger literally over night.  Sometimes it feels normal and no big deal and then other times it's hard to recognize myself underneath the baby bump. We have goal to go for a walk/do something physically active once a day whether it's together or apart-depending on our schedules-and I think it'll help me get ready for any hiking/lots of walking we do in New York in a week so that's good. 

so some fun stats:

When are you due: How many weeks?: Aug 3, 2012 (24 weeks)

How much weight gained: umm..10-12 pounds?

Size of baby: almost a foot long (ear of corn) and over a pound now

Gender: it's a boy!

Latest food craving: shrug still nothing crazy other than the occasional sweet tooth which is normal for me...

Aversions: don't mind meat but hate preparing it.

Sleep: not too bad though sometimes I wake up entirely too early and can't get back to sleep til 7 or 8.

Worst Thing about being pregnant: um...shrug, feeling pretty good now-I guess the back aches/typical growing pains.

Best Thing about being pregnant: feeling our baby boy kick and letting code feel

Are you more scared or excited: excited

Happy or mostly moody: hmmm...I'd say 80% happy 20% moody (if I ever get mad it's cause of the stupid computer players in the ticket to ride app we play, and the crying is less frequent.)

Last time you cried over something ridiculous was: um...my back started aching before bed so I was using the hot pad and they were just tears of frustration- worrrying I wouldn't be able to be comfortable all night when code came over and started comforting me without me even saying anything-he barely started comforting me when I switched, was no longer sad but was crying cause I was so grateful for him and how perceptive/caring he is.  It took him a minute but then he was tracking haha.

Weirdest dream you've had since pregnant?: too many to count

Movement: baby boy likes to kick in the morning when I talk/sing to him and ALWAYS starts kicking like crazy during our nightly prayers just before bed-I know a good sign right?....

Baby Gear: We have a graco pack-n-play, some cute onsies/articles of clothing, a baby carrier cover, some burp cloths/blankets, cover-up for nursing in public, and I just bought my diaper bag today-so excited!  We're waiting til may to buy the big furniture items and make sure it ships alright/has all the right pieces/we're happy with it etc in case we need to return anything.

other symptoms: shrug, can't go super long without eating something-inbetween snacks, achey back from time to time, and apparently I snort from time to time during sleep....not snore mind you, just snort....just once....sometimes it wakes me up.  I find it extremely embarassing but code finds it hilarious.

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Forget-Me-Nots

I'm really greatful for family night and that my church encourages me to have it.  Growing up in the mormon church you are no stranger to acronyms like CTR, YW/YM, and FHE.  The latter is what I'm talking about: Family Home Evening.  This is one night a week (usually monday night but you can pick a different night if that doesn't work for you) when the family gets together and spends time together-typically it's opened and closed with a prayer maybe even a song of some type and there's usually a spiritual lesson involved, an activity of some sort, and maybe even a treat at the end of it.

It can last from 30 minutes to over an hour, just depends.  Clearly the content depends largely on the family dynamics/ages of the kids.  I attended FHE from the womb and ever since growing up.  Often to help involve the kids in the evening there are different jobs/roles handed out each time: someone to conduct the evening and welcome everyone to family night, someone to pray, someone to teach the lesson, someone to come up with an activity, etc.etc.I don't know if everyone did this or if it was just my family, but we always used it to coordinate all of our different schedules.  Each kid would get a turn to announce anything they had happening that week from practices/lessons/mutual etc and mom would write it down in her planner so she wouldn't forget etc.

Even though Code and I don't have kids yet we still have family night every monday.  Sometimes it's short and sweet and sometimes it's a little longer.  We tend to switch off on coming up with spiritual thoughts/lessons for each other.  Tonight we watched the talk given in the Relief Society Broadcast (our church's organization for women 18 and older) by President Uchtdorf titled "Forget Me Nots"

I loved this talk so much and remember it meaning so much to me when I first heard it.  All of it is soo so true and we often forget these basic things.  the five things that we are cautioned to never forget are:

To be patient with ourselves

That there are good sacrifices and there are foolish sacrifices

To be happy NOW

the WHY of the gospel fo Jesus Christ

God remembers and loves you

If you have 15 minutes I highly recommend watching it again-it's amazing at bringing the right perspectives back into your life and I always feel the spirit so powerfully: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMJTrAL-XLY]

 

Afterwards we planted some forget-me-not seeds in a little planter that I got in Relief Society on Sunday.  i'm excited to see how they do and hope they grow-never have really tried my hand at growing anything.  I'm thinking of making a cute holder for them to sit on my windowsill or something with either a framed quote from this talk near them or maybe the individual things above painted on the pots?  I dunno...but I'll blog about it once they grow and I figure it out :)

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anywho, I'm just greatful for the opportunity we have to get together every week bare our testimonies and uplift and strengthen one another and hope it'll be a source of strength for our kids too.

26th Easter Sunday

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This Easter was even more special than normal since it was Cody's birthday too-yup 26.  Church was great.  It marked a big deal for me since it was the first time I directed a choir.  I won't lie, I was a little nervous.  Don't get me wrong, I've been IN choirs and bands performing infront of large audiences my whole life but never had a ton of conducting experience other than conducting the hymns in sacrament or something-which I don't (let's face it, no one looks at the conductor). It's definitely been a learning experience.  Sure I have all the technical knowledge and background and have a natural inclination and ability when it comes to music, but this is one of the last frontiers where I don't actually have experience in. 

The first practice when I lead them for my song (I'm the assistant director so the director also directed a song with them) was a little shaky.  I was nervous and set a way-too-fast tempo for everyone, but I settled into it and it got better.  It took a little practice to get used to the whole, keeping the beat for everyone while still bringing different sections in/ cutting them off/ and reminding/encouraging them in the dynamics, all while keeping eye contact with them and showing a lot of energy/emotion to help them feed off of it but I got it down.

We performed on sunday and it went great.  It was really pretty and even though there were a few moments when I felt like we weren't as settled in the tempo as we could have been-shrug, the dramatic dynamics were really powerful.  I was hoping and praying that everyone would feel the spirit of the song rather than worry about the lil details, and later in Relief Society one of the sisters commented on feeling the spirit during the music etc so I was happy that they got  what they needed out of it, and it made me excited for the next opportunity I will have to lead which may come sooner than I think cause I know the lead director is going to be out of town for awhile this summer so I'll be taking over practices and who knows, maybe even a performance.  All while being VERY  pregnant of course ;) that should be interesting....hopefully the kiddo doesn't come too early or we'll be out of a choir for a little while.

Anywho...after church we went to my parents house for easter dinner and Cody got to open the rest of his presents.  He got a couple of itunes gift cards, an expansion pack for dominion (a new fav game of ours), some new cologne, a byu onesie for baby boy, Men In Black (I know, I don't know how we have lived this long without owning it-totally psyched for number 3 this summer!), Hop (cute easter movie that came out last year and on theme with the day), and of course there were the spiffy new running shoes I surprised him with last week and the fitbit he opened in san antonio.  

San Antonio

Remember the Alamo! I now know why they have to shout this to get people to remember it cause it's not as memorable as you'd think...but anyways, san antonio was cool.  We decided to go for a quick two day trip this past weekend for Cody's birthday since his birthday fell on a sunday and easter so we wanted to make sure it didn't get over-shadowed :)

First things first, we arrived, checked into our hotel, and walked a block to the alamo.  But first I had Cody open his first bday gift: a fitbit.  It's actually pretty cool. It's really small thing that looks more like a flashdrive than a pedometer and clips on your belt and counts steps, calories burned, stairs climbed, and even tracks your sleep-how long you sleep/how many times you wake up etc and in cody's case: how many steps taken.  Cody's been wanting to make little life style changes to be healthier and you can even record caloric intake etc on the app and it'll keep track of everything for you.

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Anywho back to the alamo: It's not that big but it was cool to walk around it, and no, we did not find a basement (kuddos to any and all who know what I'm referencing).

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After the Alamo we walked around the river walk.  It was really pretty besides the heat and we eventually met up with Nate and Andrea for dinner who happened to be there apartment shopping since Nate's job is taking them there after they graduate ATM.  After dinner code and I went on a riverboat ride-it was much nicer in the evening twilight than earlier in the day. 

After that we headed back to the hotel-my feet were KILLING me and we tried out our new swimsuits in the hotel pool.  Other than it being way busy with splashy kids it was nice just to soak and I look forward to swimming much more in the future.

stay tuned for day two of our trip...

out and about

tons to catch up on.  First of all last week we went strawberry picking with our friends the brownings.  It was way fun, way hot, and we couldn't pick much since we were getting ready to go out of town for the weekend.  This farm was out in alvin, tx so we girls picked up the guys from work on the way.  They had fresh vegetables, fruits/jams/peserves/ and even homemade fried pies-it was pretty awesome. Afterwards we stopped at the burger barn for dinner-it was pretty good and very rustic :)

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Stay tuned for our san antonio trip, code's birthday/easter, and an update on me and the lil man!