my new pregnancy obsession

So I haven't had much to write that is nice lately, so I haven't written at all. I'm thinking my very bad mood is mostly due to a lack of adequate sleep. I've been really struggling all weekend with Chris, and I don't like to vent about it, because the majority of things said in irritation aren't usually true, nor are they helpful. This morning, the garbage man stopped at my house and honked like 10 minutes, I finally got up and went to the window to see who was honking and why. I was so embarassed. I had asked him to take it to the curb yesterday, and figured since he was gone this morning to class, that he'd take it out on his way out....but no. The can was about 50 pounds...thanks to us forgetting to put it out last week and about 1/2 of it was full of water from the rain we had last week. This only adds to my pregnant psychosis anti husbandness. I am grateful for that garbage man honking and hanging out until I got there, because our can was very full and oh so not sweet smelling. To Chris's credit, he has been rather ill this weekend. He stayed home Friday and lived on Nightquil-D(the good stuff with psudophedrine) to sleep it off. It's just made the weekend extra long for me as I had no help--resulting in this

On a high note, Ava has slept in her toddler bed for 3 nights now. Naps are still not successful as of yet, but we'll get there. Don't get me started on the toy box.......stupid piece of chinese made CRAP!

UPDATE!!!
Nap time in the new bed has been accomplished. It was a battle, just like the first time in the crib...but she is asleep in the bed with a blanket...and she did it all by herself! wooooooot!

funny moment

So today, Ava chose to wear a bright blue onsie with pink pants. About 2 hours later, she brings me another blue shirt and wants to wear it TOO. So I put it on. She walks out and brings a red long sleeve onsie and asks to put it on. So, I smile, and add it to the madness, starting to feel like I'm creating a "can't put my arms down" situation. Then, she brings me the red dress she wore for Nat's wedding. This is her favorite thing to wear...and she adds it too. She is now 4 layers deep in clothes. She disappears to the blue room for a few moments, and emerges with pink lipstick all over her mouth, cheeks and right eye. She is ready to party!

Funny girl

Giant Pills

So, yesterday my arm randomly felt like I had burned it on the oven...only, I was riding in the car. Last night, my left forearm began to swell, and was feverish. I called my OB office today to see if this was something I needed to be wary of, and they advised me to head straight for insta-care to be sure it wasn't a blood clot. The dr. said that I have an infection. *PHEW...no clot, no bedrest, no daily shots during pregnancy* However, the meds I have to take are the largest pills I have ever seen in my life! They are y-u-c-k-y too...and I take them 4 times a day...however, it is much better than the alternative of the infection spreading and making things worse. YEAY for scientists and doctors to develope meds.

Any advise on how to make grocery store visists less hellish? Each one creates a horrific tantrum from Ava as she wants to be anywhere but in the cart. Please help me end the madness!!!!

I <3 snow basin

Last night, my throat began feeling like it was on FIRE. This morning, it's still sore. Ava seems to be getting better, which is good.

I was messaging Chris this morning and told him that I wish we had some chicken no0-noo soup...and he laughed, because Joye had just dropped off 2 containers of homemade chicken noo-noo soup at his office. He brought it home. Ava ate 2 bowls!!!!!!!! It's the first thing she has eaten in DAYS AND DAYS!!!!!! I was very excited and grateful for Joye making soup and thinking of our little family. It made my throat feel better, and it filled Ava's tummy!

Chris then asked if we wanted to do a car ride. That's usually code for, let's drive till Ava passes out. However, 30 minutes into the drive, Ava was still singing to herself, and we were in snow basin. It is GORGEOUS right now. The colors are amazingly flouresent and beyond anything I could properly describe. I've decided that our new goal is to live there. Facing the Cache National Forest. Who cares if 6 months of the year we'd be buried in the snow. The fall is AMAZING!!! Fall is my favorite time of year, and there is nothing more beautiful than scrub-oak trees in the fall. We took a little bit of a trail. Ava took charge and ran down the hill and just loved it! We didn't stay very long, since Chris had to get back to work, but it was a nice hour of "hooky" to get away from everything distracting and be trailmix for a while. I hope we go again before the end of the season, and get some good hiking and pictures in.

Ribbons, buttons and cardstock--oh my!

I am not much of a "crafy" person, but my best friend from my BYU-I days really is. Kira is an amazing artist. She's one of those people who has the Midas touch. About twice a year, she talks me into doing a scrapbook night. The last one we did about April. We went up to her timeshare and met up with our old college roomie-Carolee and ate lots of bad for you food, laughed about old times and how strange it is that we're all moms now...and they scrapbooked. My photos had been printed at the wrong Wal*Mart, so I mostly observed and was in charge of using the Cricut for whatever they wanted it to do. --which was way fun!

This last Friday, we went up to Comfort Suites in Ogden for a Scrapbook Club. I paid $50 and got a room, dinner, breakfast, snack-a-roos and it was really fun. I didn't realize, however, just how truly crazy some people are about their scrabooking. Now, Kira and I did make like 3 trips from car to the conference room they had to get all her supplies in, but holy cow some of these people had mary poppin bags of scrapbooking goodies. I'm sure we had close to $100,000 worth of paper, embellishments, etc in that room...if not more. It all started at 4pm on Friday. I am not a night owl by any means, and didn't last very long. I went up to my room about 12:30a.m. Kira came in about 5:30a.m. I went down about 7:30 for breakfast, and sure enough people were in there...still plugging away. Some of these ladies only slept for 2-3 hours and were right back to scrapbooking. I'm talking 20 hours of straight craft crazy times. It was the most insane thing I've ever witnessed. I called Chris about 11am to have him come get me. I had finished, and had not one ounce of creativity left in me. The event continued on until 4pm.

It was a lot of fun, and if Kira goes again, I'd most likely tag along again. I did get Ava's book started, and it is extremely cute, if I do say so myself. I'm not sure I'll ever be a marathon scrap-booker, but who knows...

Fevers and Sniffles

Yesterday, we took Aves home from church early. She was having a hard time. She fell asleep on the brief ride home, and woke up about 45 minutes later with a roaring fever. Chris made her some grape juice with grade ibuprofin mixed in. She sucked it down and snuggled up with me under a few blankies. Within about 30 minutes...the medicine kicked in and she was back to her silly self.

Mimi and Papi came up about 4pm and brought dinner. Every other month or so, they randomly call and set up a time when they can come up our way for sunday dinner. We had homemade mashed tatos, and pot roast, homemade rolls...it was wonderful! After dinner, we took a long walk down the trail by our house. The weather was PERFECT for walking; and we got to talk--mom put in her notice at the paper---HORRAY!!! I'm really proud of her. She's really hated that job since the day she started almost 3 years ago, and finally let them know she'd be leaving in October. She seems really pleased with the decision. She laughed and said "If we can't live on what your dad makes, there is something seriously wrong with us!"

Ava passed out on the walk home from the trail and woke up with yet another fever. She fell back to sleep on me and my dad for an hour or so, but when he got up to leave, she woke up and was none too happy. She reached for all the blankies around the couch, and cried so hard. I felt so bad for her. She didn't want to take her medicine or the juice concoction. My dad and Chris gave her a beautiful blessing that really comforted her, and then she took her medicine. Again, about 30 minutes later, she cooled down and kicked off her blankies. She got up and started drawing.

I am so grateful for baby medicine and the doctors who have taken the time to make it safe and effective. Other than holding Ava, there was nothing that I as her mommy could do to make her feel better. She slept through the night, and hasn't had a fever today. I gave her a bath in the morning to help with her congestion. She loved that! She played and played. I also gave her a dose of zyrtek to help dry up her runny nose. She wanted to put on her bee costume after bath, so we put that on. And braided her hair into pig tails to keep it off her face. I really feel that today will be a better day for her-health wise. She's had a really hard few weeks breaking like 6 teeth at once. I'll probably keep her indoors for a couple of days, just to be sure the fever and nose are tooth related and not a flu.

Ava slept through the night...and I started waking up about 5 out of habit. Gotta love that! I finally got my car registered today. It's been due for a long time, but in the rush of life...never got done. I had to get the windshield replaced, so I took it to Techna glass at 8 this morning and it was done by 9. It's such a relief to know that I'm driving legally. The inspection had been done since May, but since it had been so long, I had to pay for them to do it AGAIN. Can we say stupid tax?

I've been especially negative lately...I apologize to all around me. I'm now realizing it and working on it. Hopefully with some extra sleep...I will evict negative nancy from my personality.

I started making Beef Stew about 11:30 today...and I'm hoping it turns out ok. Simple enough directions...so if I screw it up--that will be really sad. I'm also wanting to make cookies. I'm currently weighing out in my mind what I want more...a nap...or homemade choc chip cookies. It's the first day that I don't have Kilgore trucks beeping and dumping crap from truck to truck infront of my house...so a nap is REALLY appealing. But mmmmm cookies. Perhaps I'll do a nap first...and then cookies. That way...they'll still be warm when Ava gets up. She LOVES warm cookies--although, who doesn't? I bought a massive bag of choc chips last night at the store...and am really excited to make some. I haven't baked cookies in ages. Apparantly, blogging is winning overall. Egh.

kilgore is parked in front of my house AGAIN today. They were out here yesterday from 6:30am until after 9pm. Ava was up last night from 1:30am-6am for some reason that I cannot for the life of me figure out. She would not go back to sleep. And, as a bonus...at 6:30am these stupid trucks start booming up and down my street. I'm not a happy camper. Luckily Ava was able to sleep through it until about 9am, but as for me...I got roughly 3 hours of sleep. Can I get an...uuuuuuuugh

RANT

Not only did Ava wake up at 12:30am in pain, and then again for good at 6:30 this morning...but then, to my much amusement, they begin tearing up the road this morning. Oh the joy of joys to look out my window...and what do I see? Piles of broken up road across the street. Now, they have parked directly in front of my house to begin dumping those piles of broken road into some other truck. Wow! Thanks! That's not annoying. I realize roads need fixed, but if you're going to be this close proximity to my house, shouldn't I receive notice?

Dear Homeowner, be advised that on Sept 16 from 7am on there will be noise, horrific smells and random people in front of your home for the entirety of the day. We thank you for your understanding in this matter.

How am I or Ava expected to be able to rest during this? How am I supposed to deal with the melting tar odor that is seeping into my home? GROSS! As if I wasn't feeling neaseated enough...you've helped bring me to a new level of sickness. Thank you...very much. Also, in the future, try to watch your language-this is a heavily child populated area... and stop oogling...I'm in sweats for heaven's sake! WEIRDOS!

I woke up this morning...and felt as though I had never fallen asleep. My sinus's are soooooooo congested. That pain that shoots up behind the eye...and the headache pounding. Ava's been really whiny this morning...and seems to be stuffy too. I blame the cupcakes we had last night. Death by cupcake...is that rational?

I've decided that Listerine is awesome, but the most self-inflicting painful 90 seconds of my day. It literally causes me to cry. But, nothing makes my mouth feel as clean as swishing some Listerine after brushing.

My sister Hilary had her baby yesterday. I think they named him Daniel. They weren't really sure what they should name him. He was 6lb 13oz and looks perfect from the pictures they sent. We're going to see him tonight. ..although, if this headache stays, we might wait until I know if this is a pregnancy thing or a cold. No need to expose little guy to germs.

Today was our last day as primary teachers. (is it wrong to do a little dance here?) A ton of people--such as my parents--love love love being primary teachers, however...I do not. It's not that I don't like kids...I just don't enjoy being a primary teacher.
We are now assistant Choir Directors for our ward. This will be an interesting adventure, as I do not read music. I can read the treble clef, but that's it. Our ward has tons of extremely talented singers, so I'm very excited to get our choir going.
I love having morning church. We came home and had lunch, and then Ava napped. She's still napping actually. We had tomato soup and grilled cheese. Ava LOVES grilled cheese, and will eat all of her very own sandwich. It's awesome!!
I'm a bit tired...so I might try to nap for a minute.

is there a limit for # of posts/day? yikes. anyway. this afternoon is a hard one for ava's nap. She hasn't gotten a nap until almost 3 all week, because of me being an insanly busy person lately. So today I put her down for the 2nd attempt (first one was a 45 minute screaming protest.) and headed outside. It's been cooler, and about 3 weeks since Chris has mowed the lawn. We have these stupid trees that sprout mini trees every 2 weeks and they are driving me CRAZY!!!! I figured I'd mow as much as I could. About 15 minutes into it, I see Chris. He came straight home from class to pick up some lunch stuff for his office fridge. I went in with him to hear ava still crying. So he got her out, and we did lunch together. Now Ava is back in her crib, screamin...talking...screaming....talking....yelling for daddy--who is back at work by now--and I have lost all motivation to continue mowing. like...3/4 of my front yard is done. It's pretty hokey. OH WELL! Sorry neighbors. Does anyone know a kid that would like to make like $20 mowin my lawn? haha


update--dear neighbors, I have completed mowing my lawn...your patience was much appreciated.

Today I got to hear the baby's heart beat. It was pretty cool! I forgot how quickly it beats. Ava did so well. She didn't get upset at the doc for touching me...like she has in the past. She received 2 pair of gloves--her favorite--as a thank you for great behavior. Dr. Listor did bring up my weight as a concern. I'm negative 2 pounds, when I should be up 5 or so. She said that I need to be up 10 pounds by my next appointment...it's not that I'm doing anything to avoid gaining weight, I just have no appetite, and when I do get hungry, I fill up very quickly. Other than that, things seem to be going well.
My kitchen has stayed clean ... perhaps because we've been on the run for a few days. We've been spending a lot of time with Ash Mattocks--yea-and it's been really great having her so close. I also took Ava to Sandi's last night. We bottled 21 quarts of tomatos...and quit about 10pm. Ava stayed up the whole ride home so that she could make sure she had her daddy time. She hasn't gotten to have much time with Chris the past couple of weeks. His schedule is so demanding with school and work, and they are both having a really hard time adjusting. Ava just adores her daddy, and she misses him like crazy. She tells me all day long over and over with a sad face "daddy work". He's pretty amazing that he can do school and work and family. He's doing all that he can to give our family the best possible future. And when he's done with homwork he's 100% focused on Ava no matter how tired he is. It's really amazing. I have a real winner!

Ava passed out in the car last night about 8. She missed her nap--so that didn't surprise me. However, it's now 9am, and she's still asleep...and that is surprising. I figured she'd be up early from hunger.
Oh there she is now ....

You know that new washer commercial where the huge rolling ball of laundry attacks the mom and kid? Sometimes, I feel as though that commercial is my life. WHERE DOES IT ALL COME FROM? I'm telling you...that it never ends. Especially the whites. And how is it...that someone so small...and who lives 90% of the day in PJs and dress up creates so much filthy laundry? I went out and bought a tub of oxy clean to start adding to my laundry to see if it can end my affair with spraynwash. I have a ridiculous area for laundry--my basement door, garage entrance to the house door all open into my laundry doors--thanks for testin that out contractors-and when the laundry bi-fold doors are open there's not even enough room for Ava to walk through the hall to find me. It's pretty crazy. Sometimes I dream of a one level home...open floor plan, with Eve Mattheson's laundry room...ok honestly, I dream Eve's house being mine. If you haven't seen her laundry room..stay away. It will instantly catapult you into severe coveting. Anyway...I'm halfway through my laundry that's piled up the last week or so...and am already getting bored with it. How do you do all your cleaning in one day Hil? HOW????

Clean the laundry...do the dishes...

I must say...I'm proud of today's accomplishments. Not only did I get in my 9 hour work day, but I fed my family (sure KFC, but I went and GOT it!) went to the grocery store and managed to do everything I wanted to get down house wise...ok not everything, but for a tired preggy mom--who isn't a natural cleaner-it was a successful day.

Clean Kitchen

• Dishes out of sink and into dishwasher-run dishwasher
• Dishes back into cupboards
• Counter tops clear of never ending clutter and Lysol treatment
• Oven wiped down
• Microwave wiped down and cleaned out--ewww
• Sink washed out
  
• Lysol everything!!!!!!

Living Room red-up

• Books back on shelf
• Chairs against wall--wow I have a living room floor?
• Crayons collected and put into car trunk--there's carpet under there?
• Toys back into toy box-including dress up
  

Laundry

• Seriously...I need to set less goals
• Dryer emptied and laundry placed into basket
• Washer contents put into dryer for a cycle to avoid yucky smell and re-washing
• Washer filled with Tide and Oxy Clean...new load started
• I can't feel my leeeeeeeeeeeeeeegs
  

Today is the start of Heiner Cabin Weekend. Chris's family has a cabin up in Weber Canyon. They share it among his mom's siblings-so we get 2 weeks a year to have it. I'm pretty excited. It's a beautiful area, and even when it's freezing cold--like it was last time we went up--the air is so fresh and the atmosphere so calm, that you don't even care. We'll be MIA for the next 3 days.

Ava is just as addicted to tomato soup as I am now. The weather has been just perfect for it in the early afternoon. We have soup and grilled cheese right before naps, and then she goes down without a fuss, because her belly is full and warm. The way she says "soup" is SO adorable too. LOVE IT!

Blake and Kira's moving sale starts today. If you want killer deals on everything--and I do mean everything--check it out. Toys, Swings, couches, a fridge...Blake isn't too excited about the idea of selling it all, but Kira figures it's better to sell it now, then to have to store it while they're traveling the next 18 months or so. We made the most beautiful signs to advertise. I LOVE her cricut machine. It's amazing, and so much fun! (i want one) Jen and Jayden are going to come play with Ava so that Kira can run the yardsale in piece this morning and Blake can get some real sleep in, since he worked the graveyard shift last night. Ava will love having them over! They haven't been here in ages. It'll be great!

So, I had an appointment to get my windshield replaced yesterday. I show up, and NO ONE was there. So I left a note...and no one called back. hmmmm I wonder why no one has ever heard of your shop...could it be that you have HORRIBLE customer service skills? Seriously, things like this tick me off. How hard is it to call your next appt if you can't make it and reschedule? Or to return a phone call when a customer leaves a note wondering why she was sitting in a dirty stairwell for 15 minutes waiting for someone to open the door. grrrr SO since my insurance is going to cover the replacement 100% without hurting my policy, I'm going to just go through safelite.

I feel as though I've been a special brand of "Crazy" lately. My mom used to tell me that she would get horrible depression during her pregnancies, but as soon as the baby would be born, she would be back to normal.
My pregnancy with Ava was so fun. Easy. Exciting. This pregnancy is so odd. Nothing feels the same. I'm super emotional. Chris can say the most innocent things to me, and for the next hour or two I can't stop crying my eyes out. I have no appetite at all, and am scared that when I go to the doctor that my weight won't have changed the way it's supposed to. I'm now officially in trimester two, and it seems I'm only getting more emotionally unstable. Ava grounds me though. I have started to come up with projects to do when time is passing to keep my mind occupied. I've never experienced anything like this on a consistent basis. I don't think dangerous thoughts, just very sad ones. Is this normal? Will it last the entire pregnancy? What more can I do to balance myself so that my family doesn't deal with Moaning Myrtle? So many questions...no real answers. Don't get me wrong ...I'm not sad all the time, it's just...it hits out of nowhere.

In other news...I made some tie blankets yesterday. With the weather so cold and yucky, and the fleece on sale at joann...I went and bought 3 blankets worth. I got done with 2 before my back screamed NO MORE!!!!!!! One was for Sa-J, and the other was for me, but Ava has claimed it. It's BEAUTIFUL. She's way into walking around with a blanket wrapped on her like a cape or beautiful shawl. I'm excited to finish the last one. Then I want to go out and get some cross stitching stuff and start learning. Kira is moving at the end of the month--this makes me sad, but it's an amazing oppertunity for their family--so it makes me happy too. My best friend is going to be MIA for a year or two. Ok time for Ava's nap and for me to force myself to eat.