It's been a busy week

There will be random pictures throughout this post and a lot of random little things to tell about, so I'm sorry if it's not cohesive in any way. It is also a LONG post so beware.

This week has been event filled, fun, and very exhausting.

Sunday I hit 32 weeks. Not anything too exciting here, but I have a picture so I thought I would mention this.



Monday was a long math day and the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week so, while it was long, I got to spend the first hour of work eating breakfast while my room mom did a project with the kids. It was really nice.

Tuesday was the best of the week! Jared and Tracee moved their family back from Australia and surprised us all. We knew they were probably going to come back sometime this year, but we never thought it would be this early. No-one knew except for my sister Eliza because she was getting married. It was such a great surprise to go down to my parent's house and see them there. I finally got to see my ADORABLE new nephew. Thanks for the great surprise Jared and Tracee! So that night was obviously a lot of fun.

Wednesday I had another ultrasound and I got to see our beautiful baby girl. She is still looking just as adorable as ever and I got a lot of new cute pictures of her. She is healthy but VERY large. I have to admit that I'm nervous for delivery. :)

Thursday was my acutal doctor appointment and it went over very well. I no loner am measuring big, and I don't have extra amniotic fluid anymore so I don't have to take non stress tests. Yay! There was one thing of concern and that was my iron. It dropped even lower so I have to start taking iron supplements twice a day, drink prune juice, and eat prunes. It's going to be interesting, but I only have a few weeks left of pregnancy and I'll do anything to keep our baby healthy. Oh and because my daughter is so big Dr. Cloward thought about moving my due date, but decided not to because we already moved it once. I'm just hoping the ultrasound is off on the weight as they told me they tend to overestimate on it.

Friday was Eliza's wedding. It was freezing cold, but she looked beautiful and incredibly happy. It was a fun day in all and the wedding was beautiful. I'll post pictures of that day when I get some from family members. I'm really happy for Eliza and Josh and proud of them for making it to the temple to be sealed eternally. This picture is of Micah and I at the wedding...



We were exhausted by the end from having been on our feet all day, and we got home really late about 11:30 which is late for me. Especially for what I was going to do the next morning.

This morning I participated in a 5k at my elementary school. I got to the school at 7:30 to warm-up and it was cold, but when the sun would peek out from behind the clouds it wasn't bad. Being 8 months pregnant, many of the teachers were concerned, but I wasn't planning on running it so I wasn't worried. I did power walk most of it, at least a power walk for a pregnant lady, and I felt really good after. I'm really happy I did it even if it took me 55 minutes. Sad time I know, but I'm just happy I finished in under an hour. We had a great turn out and were able to raise quite a bit of money for our music lab so I'm excited. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed spending time with some of the teachers outside of work. I also have to tell you that the guy that had the fastest time ran it in 16 minutes. 16 minutes! He could have finished it four times before I even finished it once. Haha! He is my inspiration. Here are a couple of pictures from that great adventure.




Finally, as I said before, it was Teacher Appreciation Week at our school and I got lots of sweet notes and yummy treats from my class. Then on Thursday I received a few outfits for my baby girl. Because I missed school on Friday I wanted to look over the substitute's notes after the 5k so I went into my classroom. On my desk was a beautiful basket filled with baby items for me. My favorite thing was that the basket was actually a baby tub with suction cups to stick to our tub. I'm so excited to have these items to help me out and am so grateful for the love of all my students and their parents.

As you can see I've had what I feel was an eventful week and so many wonderful things are happening right now. I feel truly blessed and am grateful for these times. The last thing I'll be doing this week is going to Sweet Home Chicago Pizza tonight for my sister's birthday. I haven't had it before, but I hear it is really good and I think it will be a great way to end such a week.

I may have missed some things so if I remember anything and feel it is really important to mention, I will be adding things. ;)

I cried...

I'm sure many of you will think that I am lame for this. I'm not sure if it was the hormones or if it was just me. To be honest it was probably just me... I cry every time I watch the last episode of Friends... Anyway, I cried watching The Office tonight. I loved their song at the end. It was so sweet and I really am going to miss Michael Scott. I can't wait until next week and I can only imagine the emotional mess I will be.

What are things you have cried at that are kind of embarrassing?

Update

This picture is actually closer to me being between 29-30 weeks. I know I'm getting behind, but I look pretty similar still. :)



I had another doctor's appointment today. I'm only updating everyone on this as this one went much better than the last. I am now measuring only very slightly bigger than what I am at. I am currently at 30w4d and I was measuring 31 cm so much closer to where I'm supposed to be. (And according to my last ultrasound Lila was 4 days further than my due date, so maybe I'm pretty right on ;)). This made the appointment less stressful and my doctor happy to be delivering good news. I still have another ultrasound set in 2 weeks just in case and I will start nonstress tests soon, but I felt much better leaving the appointment. I also have to start taking an iron supplement as I was still low, but I figure it's just another pill to take along with my many others. Another good thing is that my weight gain has slowed down. I'm not over where I need to be, but the previous two appointments I gained more than a pound a week and I was beginning to worry about the trend. This time was better and I feel like I will be able to stay within the healthy parameters. Don't worry... I really do care more about the health of my baby than how much weight I gain, but that is part of her health so I pay attention to it.

My only complaint... HEARTBURN!!!

We got a new car... well, new to us!

Micah and I have been discussing getting a second vehicle for some time now. We wanted to make certain that we could afford it as we have never been in any kind of debt before. Anyway, we started looking into cars a couple weeks ago, then the past few days we've really worked hard on it. There were times that were more discouraging than others, but we knew it was smart to look around. After several, and I do mean a lot, exhausting hours of searching we went up to the South Towne AutoMall in Sandy. I had looked up cars online the previous night and we saw a few prospects. Monday had not been encouraging so we weren't too enthusiastic today, but we knew we couldn't give up yet.

So we showed up at the car dealership and they showed us two cars. The first one did not smell good, but it wasn't what we wanted anyway. The second one met all of our criteria. It's a 2005 Chevy Aveo. They offered us the car at 6,990 but Micah being so calm and having done research was able to talk them all the way down to 5,777. I was really so proud of him! We were both a little nervous as we had never bought a car before or gotten a loan, but everything worked out perfectly. In the end, not only was Micah able to talk them down, but we were able to qualify for a loan with an interest rate of only 3.49%, which is crazy for first time loans. We were offered only anywhere from 10.5-12% initially because of our lack of credit history, but they saw that we were responsible, had never made any late payments, and we actually both have a really good credit score. The dealership was absolutely shocked that our credit union gave us that rate, but we were ecstatic!

To make my already long story a little bit shorter, we walked away with the car at a closing cost of 7,006 after tax, title, and other fees. We felt we had done a good job of talking the price down and also getting a good loan. Micah and I truly feel really blessed right now. We wanted to be smart about this decision and stay within our means and in the end I believe our diligence paid off. This is definitely something that we can afford and are honestly happy about. I also feel so much better having a car rather than just the truck to drive our baby around in. I'm so grateful that everything worked out for us.

The Lamb of God

Last night Micah and I were able to go up to Salt Lake to see an Easter production of the "Lamb of God" by Rob Gardner with my family. I love Rob Gardner's music, so even though this was his newest production and therefore I didn't know anything of it, I knew I would love it. Two of my sisters and another girl who is basically my sister were in it so we went up to support them, but what an amazing night it turned out to be. If you have known me for awhile or if you knew me before college you know how musical my family is. Micah always tells me that he has never met any family that is so involved in music as my family so that tells you just how much we do with it. Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm trying to get at is that I love a huge variety of music, but I can honestly say that no music touches my heart like orchestral and inspirational music. There is something about the lyrics and the way that the instruments tell the story. I think this is why I love Rob Gardner's music so much. He centers so much of his best work on the Savior and His life. What better music can I fill my life with? I know that inspirational/church music is not for everyone, but I know that it has been a big part of building my testimony in my life. If you have any chance to listen to some of Rob's music, I would encourage it.

Like I said before it was such a beautiful production. While I don't need to go to a concert to feel the spirit, it is great to have a place to go outside of the norm. It's great to have a place to go with your family that you can really enjoy. It felt like such a great way to really look forward to the Easter holiday and focus on the real meaning behind it. Being a second grade teacher sometimes the worldly side of holidays stand out to me, but moments and evenings like this help to remind me of Jesus Christ. I truly hope that I can remember this experience and think about this time as a renewal.

There were a couple of scriptures that stood out to me last night that were incorporated into the concert. It just reminds me of the life of Christ and His sacrifice, but also of the happy message of Him living again. I know that my Savior lives!

Isaiah 53:4-5 "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him: and with his stripes we are healed."

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Hospital Bag

I know I have 11 weeks to go, but just in case I go early or anything happens I would like to start getting my hospital bag items together. The problem is I'm not exactly sure what should go in this bag that I take with me. Any suggestions? What were things you took that were necessary and some that you took that you didn't end up using.

Also, how many of you actually used a different kind of detergent for your baby's clothing?

Finally, any other items that you think I definitely need BEFORE the baby gets here because I'll be using them right from the beginning. All this information would be helpful. Thanks everyone for always helping me out!