Yummy Goodness

Recently, I have been having to urge to bake. And I have. I love baking, but the past few weeks, I've been wanting to bake something just about everyday. Not good on the budget or belly! I have refrained myself from doing it everyday, but I have baked something about once or twice a week. Still not good on the belly, but oh well! Craig loves what I make, but he's probably not loving the fact that I am making all these things! In the past three or so weeks, I have made snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, a pumpkin pie (totally made from scratch, even used a real pumpkin!), cinnamon rolls, and I have all the ingredients saved and ready to go, to make another batch of chocolate chip cookies in the near future. That's a lot of stuff! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, we have not been sharing. We didn't finish eating the pumpkin pie, because Craig didn't really like it, and I couldn't eat the whole thing myself. It was not sweet enough for him and I don't have a blender or food processor, so it was a little stringy. I thought it was really good. I'm very proud of myself because it's the first time I have ever made a pumpkin pie, and I did it from scratch. Crust and all. With no help from my mom.

On top that, I have been in the mood for reorganizing things and deep cleaning. But that's where it stops. After my usual chores around the house, I'm just too tired to do these things. But, I did do a craft! *gasp!* I am not crafty, and usually have no desire to do crafty things (hence the reason my house is not really decorated). I got tired of Ella's hair clips and bows just floating around the house and getting lost. So, I made a hair bow holder. It's very rough looking, but I think for me, it turned out pretty okay.

So that's what I've been up to recently. Ella is still as cute as ever! She turned 17 months old yesterday (only one more month until nursery!) and woke up saying two new words and calling herself 'Allah'. Her new words are 'morning' (as in Good Morning) and 'button'. She has a very large vocabulary. She can say 'nana' - banana, 'bapes'- grapes (her two favorite fruits), 'tink-oo' - thank you, 'welcome' - your welcome, 'here go'- here you go, and she calls Craig 'Daddy', and calls me 'mama', 'mommy', and 'mommo'. That was just a sampling. She says lots of other things, and mimics lots of words. She loves to talk, sing, and dance too. She is growing up so fast! Here she is kicking back and relaxing with her giraffe.

I just had to share this last picture. Ella made a TV friend yesterday. His name is William, and he was on The Price is Right. He caught her attention from the moment he was called out from the audience. When they announced his name, what does she say? "William!" About five times. When he made it up on stage, she could not take her eyes off of him! It could have been his very bright lime green shirt, though. I was trying to take a picture of her to send to Craig, but I could not get her attention so I could actually take a picture of her face! She acted as if I was not even there. It was so funny. She came back to life the second his turn was over.

Now I must go eat a cinnamon roll because I was writing about it!

Fragile

I swear, I must be fragile these days.

Yesterday I had a bit of a scare. My back and stomach was pretty achy and a little crampy. At first I thought it was just a reaction to the major stomach problems I had the night before. It was pretty bad. I thought I was going to die in pain. But then I remembered I had these stomach problems a few times when I was pregnant with Ella and had no side effects the next day.

I really started to worry when I realized that was most likely not the reason I was feeling this way. I couldn't stand up for very long without my back and stomach hurting, so I decided to rest and stay seated as much as I could. Unfortunately, Ella decided to act up a bit and continuously get into things (which is not common for her), and then I had to clean the kitchen because it was bugging me. So, it didn't go as planned.

As the day went on, I started to think that maybe it was braxton hicks and I was fine, but thought it was a little early for those. And I was having some pain, and I didn't remember if braxton hicks could be painful. Then I started thinking contractions. Not good. I'm only 22 weeks along. But then I ruled that out partially due to denial, but also that it didn't really feel like contractions.

The rest of the day, I took it easy as much as I could. I had a lesson to teach in the afternoon, but she didn't show up (which is very unusual without a call). We could have used the little extra cash, but it was a small blessing because I don't think I would have lasted through the lesson. Dinner was very hard to cook, but thankfully we had something in the freezer that was very quick to cook up. At this point, it was very hard to stand for more than 10 minutes at a time.

We had to go get dog and cat food, so even though we were both feeling pretty yucky (Craig got a flu shot the day before and had a reaction to it). While in the parking lot, I was rubbing my lower back and hit a spot that was extremely painful. It was very close to where the kidneys are. So then I immediately thought I had a kidney infection. But I wasn't showing any other symptoms. But who knows. The last and only time I had one, it had already turned into a pretty bad kidney infection before I even knew anything was wrong. Apparently, I don't feel UTI symptoms. Sorry, too much info.

Thankfully, by the time we left the store, I decided it wasn't a kidney infection. The pain was on my muscle. It wasn't until I was giving Ella her night time milk that I finally figured out what was wrong with me. As I was handing the cup of milk to her, I remembered that the day before while doing dishes, I was trying to unscrew the lid off of a sippy cup that had sat out too long. It was very hard to get off and I tried about five times before it finally came off. Then I remember thinking that I should be careful so I didn't hurt my stomach muscles. I got the lid off and didn't think anymore of it until last night.

So, my pain and cramping I had yesterday was from trying to get the lid off the sippy cup. I accidentally strained my muscles. I am better today, thankfully.

The moral of the story: if you are pregnant, and can't get the lid off of something, whether it be a jar or a sippy cup, do not try to continue to get it off. Wait until your husband comes home to get it off for you. Even if there's old milk inside and are wanting to add it to the load of dishes in the dishwasher.

Halloween and a Birthday!

This is a little late, but we've been pretty busy since Halloween.

We had a great Halloween this year. In the morning/early afternoon, we went to a birthday party for a nephew and had lots of fun with family and Ella had a blast playing with her cousins on her daddy's side. She's such a little social butterfly and it's so cute watching her play with other kids/babies. Total opposite of me, thank goodness!

That night, we went over to my sister's house and went trick-or-treating with them. We didn't collect any candy for Ella because we think she's still a little too young (next year, Ella), but we dressed her up and watched Matthew and Grace rake in the goods! We dressed Ella up as a bear this year. So cute! It's the same as last year, but we didn't get pictures last year, it still fit her this year, and money was very tight to get her a new costume. So it all worked out! We had lots of fun all day, and Ella was completely exhausted by the end of the night!

She did not enjoy getting dressed in her costume!

Yesterday was Craig's birthday. He is so old now! Just kidding! He turned 32, but I don't see him at that age. He seems to be more like 28 to me. And he says he feels 25, so that's all that counts. It doesn't matter how old he is. All that matters is that he's a wonderful person, husband, and father. He does so much for our family and makes so many sacrifices for us! Ella and I love him SO much! And our little boy will too, when he is born.

The Big Ultrasound

Yesterday we found out if this little baby is a boy or a girl. Craig and I both came out of the appointment very excited. This baby is VERY active. I mean, it looked like he/she had just downed about five Dr. Peppers. Because of that, it was hard for the U/S tech to tell what the baby was. However, after a few tries, she, and we, could definitely tell what it was. The baby was also in the breech position (meaning feet down) so she really couldn't get a true profile view (the little stinker!).

The baby is very cute, if I might say so myself. The baby was pushing on me extending both arms and legs and then bringing them back in. It was very funny to see live! It reminded me of how Ella is. Everything looks good, and the measurements are right on with my due date, so things are going perfectly!

Pushing the arms and legs against me

Oh yeah, I guess you would like to know what this baby is! Well, it's a......

BOY!

The Month of October

October is going to be one busy month! But, most of everything that's happening is very exciting!

This week isn't too bad. I'm just very busy with scouting. I wish I could love this calling. Our ward finally got a cub master, and holy smokes he wants us to do a lot. I almost feel that we have to use all our den meetings to get ready for pack meeting. Yeah. So this morning, I have been throwing out email after email getting ready for tonight (den meeting) so we can get ready for pack meeting in two weeks. So, I am stressed to say the least. Oh. Have I mentioned I know NOTHING about scouts? Yeah. My brother is almost 10 years older than me, so he was almost out of cub scouts when I was born!

Then a week from Friday (the 9th), Craig has a half day and we're going over to California for my niece Sophia's baptism. She is my brother's second (and middle) child and I can't believe she's turning 8 on Friday. I am so excited for that! I love going over there!

Then, two days (the 13th) after we get back from CA, Craig has a whole day off and we will be finding out whether the baby is a boy or girl. I'll be happy with either, but is it bad that I really want another girl so I can use Ella's old clothes again? We got so many from others and they are all very cute. Besides that, it will save us a lot of money and since Ella and this baby will only be 21 months apart, it would be nice for her to have a little sister close to her. Obviously I can't do anything about it, but I can hope. Knowing my family and Craig's family, our chances for a girl are pretty high. Between our parents, they have about 13 grand kids plus two on the way (mine and my sister's), and only about four are boys. We still don't know what my sister's baby is either. She's a few weeks behind me. But, if it's a boy, we will still be very happy.

Anyway, now that you know our family genetics, the next weekend (the 16th), we're going camping with Craig's family! I'm always excited about camping, but I can't help but worry about the temperature. We're going up north, in the middle of October. To me, that screams COLD! I hate being cold. that's why I could never live anywhere else. 50 degrees is freezing for me. I will just have to bundle myself up and hope it's nice during the day. And not rainy. It rained the last two out of three times Craig and I have gone camping.

So that's about it. Busy, but exciting!

Ella's New/Old PJ's

Ella got some new pajamas yesterday. They are special pajamas, and not so new. I used to wear them when I was a little girl, so my mom gave them to her! She is so cute in them, and a bonus is that she loves Sesame Street! I let her watch about 15 or so minutes of it sometimes, and it makes her very happy. Thanks Mom!

Oh! I have some good news! First of all, it's officially been one week since I have had morning sickness! Yay! I was miserable for about 9 weeks. Yuck. The second piece of good news is that in three weeks (Oct. 13th), we get to have the "big" ultrasound to find out if Ella will have a little brother or little sister! Then, if the baby cooperates, I must start thinking about names. I hate doing that because I'm way too picky. Ella is very lucky she has a name!

Labor Day

This year for Labor Day, we decided at the last minute to go on a day trip up north somewhere. We haven't really gone anywhere for a while by ourselves, so we thought it would be perfect. At first, Craig wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, but I really didn't feel like driving that far in one day. So we decided to go to the Petrified Forest instead. It's a bit closer, and I have never been there. Well, I have never been to the Grand Canyon either, but I did not want to drive that far. Anyway, the trip up was pretty quick once we got out of town, and it was pleasant. Ella even fell asleep for a little bit.

When we got there, I didn't except it to be as beautiful and awesome as it is! We drove through the park and stopped at almost all of the points of interest and was were just awestruck at how beautiful it was. A little over half way through the park, Ella had a meltdown because she was so exhausted and would not fall asleep, so we were not able to take too many stops. We decided that maybe it would help to let her out and walk around. We stopped at an outlook in the Painted Desert where nobody else was, and let her go free. She was as happy as a clam.

It was getting late by that time, so we decided to head home. And guess what? Ella went right to sleep and slept for almost two hours until she got hungry. At this point, we were stuck in terrible traffic (as in it took an hour to go about three miles). We put our GPS, Flo (yes, we named it), to work and found ourselves a detour and probably saved ourselves 30 minutes. The traffic put us an hour behind as is was, and it took almost five hours to get home. But, it was worth it!

Here are some pictures.