Our gift.

Today has been a day Joseph and I have been looking forward to for a long time.  Today was finally the day of my first ultrasound!  I was all excited and nervous walking into the office, hoping for the best and expecting the worst.  I probably shouldn't expect the worst but I seem to handle bad news better if I've prepared for it a bit.  Alas, my attempts to prepare for the worst news possible were in vain, because it was all wonderful.  Not only was the jelly warm that the nurse so abundantly sprayed all over my belly, but I got to see my beautiful little baby!  It was strange to think that the child on the screen I was looking at was mine and Joseph's, but it really hit me when I could feel the baby move or kick around and see it moving and kicking on the screen!  I suppose I'm having a hard time believing that there is another person inside of me.  And I can only imagine Joseph thinking, freaked out, to himself whenever I grab his hand and put it on my stomach for him to feel the baby "There is something inside of Abby that isn't Abby" but as soon as that baby flashed on the screen I could see on his face such happiness.  Happiness that came in the form of my favorite smile on Joseph's wonderful face.  Could I be so lucky that this man sitting next to me is my husband - my eternal companion and the father of the child I am growing??  I still can't believe how blessed I am.  

Back to our baby.. first of all, baby is very healthy.  Everything is growing the way it should grow and looks the way it should look.  We saw it's brain, face, arms, belly, legs, heart, kidneys, stomach and feet!!  Oh yes, we also got a good look between it's legs...  AND our little baby is a little girl!!  It's funny though, before I went in I was majorly concerned with finding out the gender, but as soon as we were actually looking at the baby it didn't really seem to matter that much.  All I really wanted was for the baby to be healthy.  I realized just how much could go wrong.  The nurse measured and checked all of these things to make sure the baby was growing properly.  I just can't grasp how blessed we are to have a perfectly healthy babe.  A babe that will make Joseph a father, and me a mother.

Her face.  You can see where her two little eye sockets and nose are.  Even though she's pretty much a skeleton and skin right now she's absolutely beautiful.

Her little feet!  One is just behind the other.  They look pretty big so I assume she's going to have awesome balance.  ...Or she'll trip over her huge feet all the time.

If I EVEN need to say it, this is a photo of her bum and legs.  The itty-bitty arrow is pointing at the "proof of gender," yep it looks like a girl to me.

Our Thanksgiving

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything on here.  That probably directly reflects how exciting my life is as a pregnant woman.  Really, the only thing I do these days is make sure I'm not hungry, plan meals throughout the day and occasionally do some laundry.  Did I mention I eat a lot?

Joseph and I decided to make the great trip to Iowa for Thanksgiving this year.  It was really fun and I got to see a lot of people I've missed - unfortunately not all of them.  Can I blame my forgetting to visit people on my pregnancy brain?  Well, I will whether or not that's kosher.  You see, I'm growing another person, so I figure that gives me some leeway or something.  

Dear little Vincent is H U G E.  He's got adorable curly red hair and the cutest little teeth.  I enjoyed watching him a lot while we were there and he's such a boy!  He laughed at everything especially when it involved someone looking like a fool.  It's amazing how much personality children have at this age.  By the bye, he looks EXACTLY like his mother, he's got her smile, eyes and dimples.  Very cute.

TWINS.

He has never learned to crawl but he has mastered the technique of scooting.  So he just sits on the ground and uses his legs in a window wiper motion to get himself where he needs to go (it also usually includes butt hopping as well).  When he gets really excited or just happy he starts spinning in circles which is probably one of the more hilarious things I've seen a kid do.  In this video, he was more than ready to eat some supper.

I was also able to hang out with my niece Scarlet, who has grown about a foot since I saw her last.  It was only six months ago that I saw her but she has learned so much in that time!  She can draw lots of things and knows what letters words start with by their sound - and she can even write some letters.  Her memory is crazy to me, she was telling me about all of the things we've ever done together.  It was so cool.  She's like a little adult, but only 4.  And WHAT a 4 year old!  She hops and jumps and spins around just to release her energy.  It's really cute but weird to think she's so old now.  But I've decided we're twins - she's my little mini-me.  Every time I would say something she would repeat it or she would try to move like me.  

Scarlet is too cute.  I don't think I can say that enough.  She would constantly put her hand on my belly, rub it and say hi to the baby.  

My mom and I.  I'm so glad Joseph and I got to stay for a whole week!

Heck yes.  Please ignore my partially closed eye.

While we were there, when Joseph didn't have anything to do he would play this video game called Red Dead Redemption.  It's all about cowboys and the wild west.  It's actually really entertaining to watch.  

I didn't get many pictures of the people we visited but I did get pictures of my adopted family GELDER.  It was so wonderful to see them and they certainly made an already exciting week fantastic.  

Now, I might have been the only one who noticed... but Lara is 8 months pregnant and I was only 20 weeks.  We looked pretty much the same.  That gives me so much hope for how giant I will become by the end of this pregnancy.  

All in all it was a great week we had.  Although I got to see so much of my family (including extended family in Burlington for actual Thanksgiving) I think the best part was being able to be with Joseph all the time!  No school or work to keep us apart for a few hours.  It was the greatest thing!  But, I can't wait to see all of them again soon.  However I think the next time I'll see most of them will be after I have my baby!  Eeek!!  

My memories.

Ah, tonight was a wonderful night!  Joseph and I watched the documentary on President Thomas S. Monson (President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) which was so inspiring!  It really makes me want to be more involved in doing service for others.  He's done so much to serve everyone around him and it makes me feel like I've done nothing!  Even when I know that's not true.  I think it's a very good goal to try to be more like him though.  Very selfless with all that he does.  After the video was over we were sort of just sitting around being bored when Joseph started talking to me a little bit about the fun things they would do on his mission, one of them being "a Tim-Tam Slam."  For those of you who are unfamiliar with a Tim-Tam Slam, I'll inform you, apparently it's the "best."  You make hot chocolate (why they even drank hot chocolate in the blistering heat of Taiwan is crazy to me, but whatever) and set the cup on the floor, they would then take a Tim-Tam (a little chocolate square with some nuget inside) bite off the two opposite corners and drink as quickly as they could the hot chocolate through the straw they made with the Tim-Tam.  All this while laying on your stomach on the floor.  I can only suppose they did that because you felt like barfing afterward and could easily lay down and die a little.  Once he told me this story it became perfectly clear what we needed to do next.  Go buy some Tim-Tams and slam them like they've never been slammed before.  Alas, we couldn't find them.  So we came home and had some hot chocolate anyway.

  

Now I could pretend this is a photograph of my own creation... actually, yes, that's what I'll do.  I MADE THIS.  Doesn't it look wonderful?  I love hot chocolate.  Tonight, while drinking the scalding hot liquid as fast as I could (as it is apparently tradition to burn every inch of my mouth when I have the opportunity) I was reminded of the wonderful days of my youth.  The days where I had no cares.  When I would go and sled outside for hours not realizing I was starving, dead tired and half frozen. I would stand on the porch while my mom (pretty violently) broomed me off to avoid getting snow in the house.  And I would sit in my clean dry clothes slowly defrosting and drink some hot chocolate, burning my tongue, but completely at peace.  

My thoughts. Yes I'm venting.

TOLERANCE.  I've found something interesting.  I always thought the word tolerance really coincided with the political team the Liberals (I'm talking about the tolerance Liberals preach for).  However, over the past few days I've gained a knowledge and an understanding that I hadn't before seen.

A definition of Tolerance : 2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.
But lets get a little more, a little deeper shall we?
Another definition of Tolerance : 1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc.,differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry

It is not toleration to have (for example) 10 gay friends when you believe in gay marriage/gay rights.  It is not toleration to be pro-choice.  This is not toleration even if you aren't gay or would never get an abortion.  However, this is the kind of "toleration" that many preach for.   But it will never be toleration until you actually accept someone even when you don't agree with them.  Many people preach tolerance especially in the United States where you are free to be whoever you want to be.  People preach tolerance - but those same people are hypocrites.  They won't accept someone if they disagree with them.

Anyway, all this comes down to my discovery, as a fairly conservative person, I am more tolerant than the most "tolerant" Liberal.  Huh, weird.


This might not make sense or have come together in the most poetic way but venting feels soo good.

Our little not-so secret

Ah, a nice Sunday is calming down into a rain storm.  The amount of rain that Utah is getting these days is unheard of.  I'm assuming this is the "rainy season," as in, it rains once about every week or so.  Even the rain seems kind of bored though.  There's no personality, no "oomph."  But heck, I'll take what I can get.

My life right now has suddenly taken a turn!  I may or may not have expected such a turn.  But it's been pretty rough.  I'm starving all the time.  Which is a pleasant change from not wanting food near me or in me.  Apple Chips and I were good friends though for about a week.  They taste like tree-bark but boy they did wonders for the nausea.  I have also noticed that I have immediately aged about 60 years.  I NEED to be in bed by 10 (even though I would prefer about 6ish, but I consider that unnecessary), if that for some reason does not happen the next day is ruined.  AND if I do not succeed in taking a nap in the middle of the day the next day still might be ruined, it's a little less of a surety though.  What could all of this MEAN?!  By golly, if you haven't gotten it yet, you silly, then I MUST RESORT to photographic thing!

This blurry picture is of "Answer."  That's not the name I gave it HOWEVER, it does provide me with the UTMOST helpful answer to the burning question "what the heck is wrong with me?"  Yes, after looking back and forth between this pee stick and the box it turns out that I am PREGNANT!  Hmmm... that didn't take very long.  And heck, it was a LOT easier than I expected it to be.

It's so weird to think that Joseph and I will be parents.  It's still sort of blowing my mind.  The nausea and uncomfortableness is a constant reminder that I am growing a baby inside of me.  It makes me wonder how in the world someone could not want a thing like this.  It's a miracle.  It testifies to me even more the greatness of our Heavenly Father.  What a gift He has given us to bring children into the world.  What a responsibility!  But I'm happy.  I keep looking at Joseph imagining him with our baby who will then be our toddler and so on.  I can see him running around with our kid like a crazy person just trying to get a laugh or a giggle out.  I look forward to our baby pooping on Joseph while I get the bath water ready because he took the baby out of his diaper too soon.  Ha!  That'll be hilarious.  All in all, I look forward to watching our children grow and watching them grow with Joseph and I.  

My bad.

I failed at hard-boiling eggs today.  You literally JUST have to put eggs into boiling water.  What the heck?    I've reached new heights of chef in my house.

Our Mount Timpanogos hike

I realize that it looks like all we do is go on hikes.  That's not really the case.  However, I don't mind people assuming that I'm a physically active person.  : /

The top of Mount Timpanogos is something like 12,000 ft.  We began our hike the evening of Thursday the 22nd.

DAY 1

Mt. Timpanogos.

Joseph's pack was bigger than he was.  Unfortunately (for Joseph) we only have one pack... so he carried both of our stuff.  I carried a little backpack of a couple water bottles and food.  He did a super good job though.  It really worked out though, Joseph carrying 60 lbs of stuff and me 10 lbs made it so we needed breaks at the same time.

So for the first couple of miles of the hike there were a load of little waterfalls the crossed the trail.  It was really neat and very pretty.  AND when we were running low on water on our way back down we stopped and filled up at one of the falls.  The water was freezing and it only had a little bit of dirt.

For one of our breaks we stopped in Stuart Falls.  It was a cool, we got to sit behind the waterfall and eat some snacks.  BUT in order to get there we had to climb up this..

...a rock slide.  We were pretty sure we were following the trail, but this thing was really difficult to climb up, not to mention really long.  I guess it was a nice detour.  Nice in the sense that I was tired and ended up rock climbing for no reason.  Fortunately the actual trail was near by.

The sun was going down, and we weren't anywhere near our camp site.  

DAY 2

By the time we got to our camp site the sun was completely down.  But the moon was SO bright!  We didn't even use flashlights because everything was so lit up.  I've never been so happy in my LIFE to see a little rocky meadow.  However I also don't remember ever seeing a rocky meadow before.

After meeting up with our friends, we set up our tent, ate dinner and went to sleep.  As you can see by this picture of Joseph, the caterpillar look really helped out because it was freezing!

Number one, this was the view from our tent.  Number two, yes that's snow.

Ah, our little hill in the meadow.  It was really pretty at night, but EVEN better in the daylight.  

Our original plan was to hike 5 1/2 miles the first day and do the 2.1 miles the second day to the summit. But on our start of day 2, we both realized just how much pain we were both in.  And we decided that getting all the way down the mountain was more important than actually completing the hike.  GOOD THING TOO, because when we FINALLY got to the car I could barely move my legs.  And when we got home my hip hurt so much that even laying down hurt.  And the next day we were to sit in the car for 17 hours!  Ah, that was a memorably painful time.  But a good hike nonetheless.  I learned just how hard I can push myself.  

Maybe next time I'll get all the way to the top.

Our lazy days

First, I will be posting soon our hike up Timp and our vacation out to the mid-west.  The title of this post is completely appropriate to my mood in posting those things.  There are a lot of pictures I need to go through and witty commentary I need to think of.

Second, I love this movie,

I'm going to watch it and it will be magical.  I found on the back of the movie case that (the genius) Bosley Crowther from The New York Times said it's "a ginger-peachy show."  Mr. Crowther, you stole the words right out of my mouth.

Third, I love this movie,

Even if Adam makes me want to punch him in the face with his arrogance and stubbornness I do love a good 'ole fashioned musical (with amazing choreography mind you).  What better movie is there when there's an entire scene of choreography featuring the massively useful tool, the axe?  I'll tell you what, there is no better movie.  I could probably watch this every day.  If you haven't seen it, you're a fool.  But it's okay, I own the movie, and I'm willing to help a brotha out.


By the bye, (Joseph's mom) Deya made me some salsa and I'm pretty sure I could bathe in the stuff.  But I don't suggest actually doing that..

Our fluff sitting adventures. My obsession.

So I'm waiting for Joseph to come back home from his "meeting" with the boys.  They're all planning their hiking and camping trip for the end of the summer.  It's been hard for me (being that I have an obsession with Joseph that I can't begin to describe) to imagine him gone for three days.  Need I remind you that I haven't been away from him for longer than about 6 hours straight since we got married.  It kind of tears me up thinking I'll have to go to bed alone, wake up alone and eat alone.  The thought that he could get hurt somewhere in the forest or drown in that stupid river makes me want to shrivel up and die.  Even though I'm completely aware that he's done more dangerous things and survived, it scares me to think I won't have him here.  But amongst the fears there is a glimmer of happiness, I know that even if something did happen to him that we have been sealed together in the temple.  I know that we will be together for all time (a time that is much longer than this 80 or so years of life we have here).  I'm also aware that hiking and camping are the things that make Joseph the happiest and I want nothing more than for him to be happy.  It seems like an easy thing  - let him go on his trip - he'll be happy and I'll be happy, we'll be together forever, what's the problem?  I suppose there isn't one.  Perhaps the separation anxiety I have is one that will decrease once we're actually separated for a time, even though I know it will probably never really go away.

Eh, it'll give me some time to watch a season or two of M*A*S*H.  Oh how I love that show.  And I can eat what I want - and that will include meals that contain a box of stuffing mix and Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  Yes.  That sounds nice.  Yay for ice cream!  While I digress to a single lifestyle for a few days I might as well whip out a tea party with my stuffed animals.

Our fluff sitting adventures. Part four.

The fourth of July started out a cold one.  We went to church and came home to take a LONG nap.  After eating breakfast at about 4 in the afternoon, Heather and Silas called to see if we wanted to take a hike to go see some waterfalls.  A perfect Sunday adventure!  Going to see Heavenly Fathers creation was pretty amazing.  I say, more hikes on Sundays!

The very beginning of our hike.  This was where we parked our car.  We were somewhere around the foot of Mt. Timpanogos. 

Silas was soo ready.  Little Tesla looks less than excited.

Posing, for a candid photo.  Very candid indeed.

We, slowly, were making our way up the side of some mountain.  Occasionally the forest would clear making visible the beauty of God's creation.  It made me want to go camping.  And little Fluff did such a good job!

Don't mind the back of my head, but this was what a majority of the hike looked like.  I believe I remember Joseph calling this part Jurassic?  I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean, I can only assume there was a ferocious beast with teeth the size of my leg watching us from amongst the trees.  

Okay, seriously, just pretend the back of my head isn't there.  Again, the trees cleared revealing quite a view!  I was pretty sure I was going to see a nun running around on the hill singing to herself.

I'm not sure how long ago this happened but I was told there was an avalanche, so all of the trees were bent or broken.  There were a lot of trees in the background that were all at 90 degree angles.  Fortunately we were almost to our destination so turning back wasn't really an option - I just had to live with the fact that I might have gotten stoned to death.

 

We made it!  The hike wasn't so bad.  Here is husband enjoying his rest, and looking rather suave I might add.  Fluff was having a really good time being out in NATURE

(goulet).

On  our way back the sun was setting behind the mountains.  A very good trip.

By the time we got back little Sophie fluff dog was soo brown!  Not to mention smelly too.  So upon our return to the apartment we gave her a nice bath.  She didn't like it much and kept shaking dirty water off in both Joseph's and my face.  But it was obvious she was happy to be clean, once we roughed her up a bit in the towel she ran at top speeds around the apartment weaving around things.  A very good way to celebrate the fourth.  I am grateful to live in a country with the rights and freedoms we have.  I think it's important to protect them so future generations can live in the place we know and love.  This land of opportunity is a special and chosen land of our Heavenly Father.  A place of religious freedom - a place that the gospel had an opportunity to be restored to its fullness.