21 Weeks

Well, this pregnancy is officially half way done. I guess it was last week, since I intend on being induced at 39 weeks. Being induced is just how I cope with pregnancy. I was overdue 9 days with Joseph and that was terrible. Having an end in sight is wonderful. So, if all goes according to plan, September 19th will be the day we meet this new little boy.

I've been doing pretty good. I still long for the good ol' days of Hyrum's pregnancy. That was my best one, weight gain wise. I exercised everyday and was on the ball with my Marilu lifestyle that had helped me finally lose weight after 3 quick pregnancies. It might have helped to not have any kids in school back then, thus my mornings belonged to me. I got derailed from that when we moved to BYU for Business school in '04 and have never quite been able to get back on. (Plus part of me thinks it's wrong to not be able to eat fruit and nuts together, cause really - dates and pecans?! Walnuts and raisins?! Those two foods taste so good together, they just have to have been meant to be eaten together! So that is where I fall off the mental tracks with that lifestyle...) And this pregnancy is pretty close to Owen's - they'll be 14 months apart. Not a lot of time for my body to bounce back. I didn't lose my plethora of pregnancy pounds after his birth - which I blame on 1) his not nursing and drinking all these pounds off of me (my colicky/starving baby wasn't happy with my milk production and ditched me for the bottle) and 2) on his not sleeping through the night (still not regular with that), which left me pretty tired and energy drained which contributed to me not having a desire to exercise and craving carbs. I guess I also blame it on the lack of morning sickness in Owen's and this pregnancy - that always helped me lose 10 pounds. But the magnesium miracle was necessary - so no 10 pound drop in weight but I was able to function. It's a fair trade. It would be perfect if I could just get my hormones and cravings under control.

I recently got the book "It Starts With Food" and am slowly reading that. I'm hoping knowing the WHY and HOW behind my sugar dragon and how sugary carbs mess with my brain will help me be mentally on the ball and be determined with the WHAT I need to DO. I already weigh what I did when I delivered Hyrum (like I said, that was my best pregnancy) but I still have another 18 weeks go to. Hoping to not gain 20 pounds, but also want to not let the scale determine how I feel, something else Whole30 can help me with if I let it. I have put away the scale and don't weigh myself everyday like I used to. Anyway. I think carbs also leave me with a cotton mouth, which I didn't have for the few weeks of Whole30 but which I do have again and it's particularly bad after eating bread or cereal or treats. I really want to see if eating Whole30 can fix it, so hopefully I'll get mentally centered and will be able to do a little experiment with myself and see if I can keep my tongue happy.

Family Pictures 2016

Here they are! Huge thank you to Rochelle at Pointe Digital Photography who has done our family photos the past few years - 2012, 2014. She does such a great job! She messaged me around 11 pm last night that they were done, and then I was late going to bed cause I just had to see them. They all look great! Here are a few of the group shots:

I admit I was trying to hide my pregnant tummy in most of the pictures if I could. "Come here, kid, someone get in front of me!" Although since I have spent over 10 years of my life expecting, perhaps it is appropriate for it to be recorded for posterity.

And here are my favorite of the individual shots - if I were to try to narrow it down to one picture each. We'll start with little Owen!

Ok, I couldn't narrow his down. He was an unhappy camper most of the time, but we got lucky for a few seconds and luckily the camera was ready, isn't he adorable? I love baby smiles

Natalie is just a beautiful little girl! 

Sweet Sophia 

 Lily!

Abigail, growing up!

Wesley, good looking kid

 Hyrum, fine young man

Ethan

 Melodie

 Joseph

My pretty girls ~

And with their dad - how it should be. Do you like Natalie's heels? She was a pretty good rock climber in those!

My handsome boys

And a few of all the kids together

My little ducks, all in a row. (Owen was sad) 

 Love these kids!

The only note to self is for me to get the anti-glare on the kid's glasses next time. We're due for glasses after school is out, so not too far out, I should be able to remember. :)

Little Eyes

One of my favorite moments of the day is when I go to check on Owen to see if he's woken up from his nap. The "favorite" part comes when he is awake and I get to see his little eyes looking upside down at me through the slats ~

For a 9 month old, I don't feel that Owen moves around that much. When he wakes up, for example, he doesn't struggle or roll around or try to free himself from the crib. He just stays on his back and waits until someone comes for him. He kicks his legs or plays with his toes, looking up and upside down toward the door for someone to come in. When I see him and he sees me, although I can't see the smile cause of his binky, his eyes tell me he's got a grin ~ Yay! It's mommy here for me!

Those nap pics were from a few days ago, here his his happy upside down face for me this morning, super excited to start the day!

So again, he's not moving around too much yet, but he's starting. Two weeks ago on April 29, Owen surprised us all with his first good go at moving himself along the floor. I guess all he needed was the right motivation... and he found it in the bright colors and chinkly sounds of the Blokus game pieces. Check out these moves!

We were all so proud. Ethan said "I didn't think he'd ever figure it out!!" So, not really a "crawl" more of a "drag" but we are all still very happy with the progress he's made. Good job little man!

Coming Soon

We went and had a family photo shoot tonight. The kids looked great. My only complaint from the picture prep was that Natalie refused to wear a bow in her hair. Other than that everything went very smoothly (and took most all day!) Baths, hair curling, finding the socks and shoes I had gathered, clothes, ties, don't get food on it! Once you are dressed there is no eating until after we're done!

We met up with my friend Rochelle on time (Point Digital Photography) and headed to the Temple Quarry Trail for pictures. Corey took some pictures on his phone, I'll get them from him. I didn't bring a camera, I was in charge of Owen and his Puffs and the car keys and that was about all I could handle. Will post the pictures soon.

In other news, I was very happy this past week to find a memory card with Brazil pictures that I lost last year - and found out that I lost it shortly after Owen was born (since newborn picture of him were the last photos on it) It was in a cluttered drawer in my bedroom. Hooray for the Life changing Magic of Tidying up for helping me locate it! I didn't think I'd find the card, but wasn't too sad about it, because I had uploaded the majority of important photos to the blog here. But I was glad to find it and see the hidden treasures on it. Like the little face hiding in this photo~

That was from our last day in Brazil last year before heading home. Natalie, you are so cute, and how have you grown up so much?

You and your baby, I love it. These days she's in love with my little ponies, particularly "Pinkie Pie". She can also quote whole scenes of Rapunzel that make us all laugh "What do you want with my hair? To cut it, sell it?" "Wait, wait, you don't want my hair? Hm!" "No can do" and a new part "That is my deal." I love Natalie so much. I've been wondering how she got so cute. I think maybe you have to get to the 9th edition for them to be this adorable (no offence to Joseph and the earlier editions of Corey Wride's kid, you guys are pretty good too)

But there is just something about this toddler that makes my heart full of joy and thankfulness, I love you Natalie. And another cute thing about my little girls ~ Sophi is quite a talker too. He particularly likes to ask us "WhyWhyWhy?" (making sure to get a good chunk of "why"s in her questioning sentence before giving us a moment to answer the first "why". Today as we walked home from a study group at the church, we waved to the cars driving by, and Sophi asked me "Why does everybody love me?" and before I knew what she was really thinking about she asked again "Why does all the people love me and be happy to me, why?" I was able to figure it out~ All the people that we waved to in cars that passed by or people that walked by with their dogs - when you gave my Sophi a smile she new you loved her. And she'd like to know why you are so happy at her. I told her it's cause she's such a cute and sweet little girl, That is why. Love you Soph.

Bike Rodeo

Last Thursday was Lily's Bike rodeo. It had been postponed a week because of rain. She was excited when the day finally came. She was able to take a scooter ~ we'll teach her to ride a bike this summer.

Lily is a cute little girl. It's cute how excited they are for mom or dad to come to school. Corey went on a field trip with her class to the Aquarium last Tuesday (May 3rd) and boy was she excited.

Corey and I are trying to make sure we invest time in the lives of the younger children. We got the older group up and running, but now they take so much time, we've really got to work to make sure they don't take too much and that it's balanced out with the younger kids. It's helped having Joseph be a driver.

Corey reads to Abi every night. But I think we gotta get Wes and Abi and Lily involved in music or sports or dance. Wes has started trumpet, Abi isn't good at practicing flute, we gotta follow up with her a bit more. What do you want to do, little Lily? We can talk about it during the summer during our bike riding practices. Right after we drag ourselves across the finish line of this school year! Only another month to go, looking forward to summer!!

Holding Hands

We were going to get family pictures taken today, but the unpredictable spring weather made it so we had to reschedule. Hyrum was kinda bummed, cause that meant he had to go to band. He's not liking it very much right now. I drove him down. I figured it would give me another chance to run by the thrift store and Kid to Kid for a few more clothing options for pictures. We rescheduled for Wednesday, and weather forecast is good so hopefully it will really happen. As we drove, Natalie called out to me "Owen hold my hand!" and Hyrum took this picture for me.

You sweeties are gonna melt my heart. 

Storms of Life

This morning Melodie went to check on her guinea pigs and Medusa wasn't moving. Mel had to leave for school, so she woke up Wesley to further asses the situation and see if Medusa was lethargic or if it was something worse. Wes called Mel 10 minutes later as we were close to school and said Medusa was dead. We got Medusa in 2012. Our first impressions were a little rough, but she's been a good pig and we will miss her. Mel stayed in the car for a while to try and calm down her tears before going into school. But her friends could tell she was sad, and Ethan told her friends what had happened ~ Mel's pet guinea pig had died. Then the kind friends wanted to give a surprise for Melodie to cheer her up. The surprise was a new baby guinea pig. Ethan called to get approval, and I said okay (I wish I wasn't such a softy...) Mel came home from school and went to her room to continue to let her feelings heal, and her friends arrived shortly thereafter and knocked on the door. They hid around a corner, leaving a little bundle of fur in a box on the doorstep. I knew it was them and asked Mel to go answer it.

So, Medusa was gone, and Mel was sad, but now we have Vanilla, and she's happy again. Medusa, I'm not sure if it is mean to you for us to spend so little time mourning your departure, or if it's actually a compliment and shows you just how much we loved you that we couldn't even live 24 hours with you gone and had to fill in that missing gap immediately. So, yeah, sadness turned into joy by Mel's compassionate friends and sibling (and her friend's older brother who footed the bill and did the driving to the pet store). Everyone was excited about our new arrival ~ neighbor kids came over, all the kids were in the backyard playing with Vanilla, they made a new home for her and tried to introduce Hamlet and Vanilla to each other.

Then Mel took a break to come with me and my dad as we went to the Tulip Festival again, as we had planned before Vanilla arrived. We left Vanilla in the good care of her many babysitters. The weather forecast said it was going to rain, and the gray clouds seemed to confirm the truth of that, but we figured we'd bring umbrellas and take our chances getting wet just to have a chance of seeing the beauty of the flowers again. My dad hadn't been down to the tulip festival for a few years. Fortunately we go there right after the storm had passed and did not get wet at all. Unfortunately, the storm that hit the gardens was a brutal hail storm. It hailed, and hailed hard. The tulips were toast.

It was sad to see them all destroyed and form gone, but the colors were still there, even it was just on the ground. The second photo in yesterday's post is a before, here one of the afters:

Tulips that were new and hadn't fully blossomed weathered the hail well.

Ones that were shielded by trees did okay too. The ones that were out in the open got pretty hammered. They looked like they feel how Corey does after work these days, just beat up.

Look at these two cuties! I love Owen and Natalie!

And I thought this was a cute shot - my dad pushing Owen and Natalie in the stroller, Mel walking beside him. I was able to enjoy a nice stroll as my dad pushed the stroller most of the time.

It looked like half of the tree blossoms on this purple tree were hit to the ground during the storm making a nice purple ground covering - can't totally see it here, but you get the idea.

So it was great to be able to go to the festival again, love the Thanksgiving Point gardens - what a treasure and gift to our community. I love it.

Tulip Festival

Usually Joseph takes my car to school. This Monday, however, I had the car for a doctor appointment. Since I had it we took advantage of it and I took the girls to Thanksgiving Point. Sophi wanted to go to the "dinosaur place" so that is where we went. I was surprised as a big banner outside the museum though, that said the tulip festival went through May 7th... cause that is this weekend! I thought I had more time than that, doh! I didn't want to let another spring slip away without going to the gorgeous gardens. I texted my dad letting him know it was ending this weekend if he wanted to try and go with me. This afternoon he called saying he's been swamped at work and asked if I had gone yet. I said not yet, but his call made me resolve to do it now. The older kids were gone at a school concert, but I had a car, so off we went, yay! Making it happen. It was 6:30 pm, good lighting for taking pictures. Owen was a sweetheart the whole time, just chilling in his stroller throne. Abi was a good helper and they liked the flowers. At first they asked what we were going to do there. "Just walk around and look at flowers. You might think it's boring, but it is beautiful!" They were ready to not have a good time, but I think were pleasantly surprised by just how many flowers there were to look at. We aren't just walking around the neighborhood looking at people's yards - THIS is a feast for the eyes!!

It is seriously paradise - heaven on earth, the garden of Eden!! It is amazing, totally filled my cup.

 So beautiful.

Abi and Lily and their friend Jules played on the hill by the waterfall amphitheater while I walked around with Owen and took pictures.  Petals from the white tree blossoms layed like a thin layer of snowflakes on the grass.

Heaven!

I was so glad we were able to go. We were at the furthest part of the gardens when a man on a golf cart came by to tell us that is was almost 8:00 and the gardens were closing and to proceed toward the exit. So we were there for an hour but I could have stayed longer... might have to go back again tomorrow. After we got to the car, I couldn't find my keys. It was dark and everything was closed, but after going back to the main garden center and pounding on the doors they opened for us and we were able to ask if any keys had been turned in, "Are you Tiffanie?" Yes! Thank you! The kids felt we had a good chance of being stuck for the night. I was worried I'd left the keys in the car, but then remembered I had them at the admission desk. So, that made us 30 minutes late, but we were on our way at 9, and yes, weather permitting (slight chance of rain in the forecast) we'll be back tomorrow!

What I Can Focus On

So, it appears that Trump is on his path to becoming the Republican nominee. I think it is a very very bad thing, but I do not find that I am totally terrified or worried about it, which I am grateful for. I can't control where our nation goes, so I'm focusing on what I can control, things that I can do, and places where I can make a difference. And that place is here in my home and in my family. (...Although with Trumps inevitable nomination, I did decide today to finally answer the phone with caller ID "Washington DC" that I've been ignoring for weeks. As assumed, it was someone asking for donations for the election. It was the RNC. I was able to tell them that we will no longer support or contribute to the RNC at all. With Trump at the standard bearer, we are out. I'm disappointed that voters have chosen him, and I do not believe he represent conservative values. We'll look for and support conservative candidate on our own, but will not support the Republican Party. Sorry folks!)

So, since I have been spending less time on social media and reading news the past month, I have been using my time to get reacquainted with family history on FamilySearch.org and Ancestry. I just so happened to major in Family History at BYU 16 years ago, but things have changed a lot since then. Luckily it's changes for the better and easier! And guess what - last night, for the first time ever, I printed up my first card to take to the temple to do temple work for one of my direct ancestors! It's a sealing ordinance to seal one of my 5th great grandmothers to her parents. I'm hoping to take it and do the work on Saturday. :) Yay!

Although I must say that her family is a mess - Ellen is married to Joseph Barlow, and Joseph is also married to a Helen (no last name) but I think Helen and Ellen are the same person, but they are in two families with some of the same and some different children, so gotta go try and sort that all out. But Helen didn't have any parents, so hopefully this work for Ellen/Helen really is something that needs to be done. I'm still getting my feet wet and trying to figure out places to research and stuff. But I like doing family history, it makes me feel good. And even if I spend 3 hours on it, I don't feel like I'm wasting or idling away my time, like I tend to feel like when I read the news or link to different facebook videos or such. That being said, I really love some of the stuff I see on facebook and enjoy sharing them with my children, like this video.

We live in a wonderful world. Lots of wonderful people from wonderful and amazing lands and countries, most of which probably have had their share of corrupt and horrible leaders. So whether the US gets stuck with Hillary or Drumpf, I have hope that life will go on and all can be well with me and my family as we focus on following Christ and serving others.

Sunday Desserts

I'm attempting to reduce the sugar intake around our home. One way is by only having bagged junk cereals on Sunday (for the kids who do their work during the week). And another way is that we don't have desserts during the week, but do have a special dessert on Sunday that the kids take turns planning for and preparing for everyone. This past Sunday was Lily's turn. The Sunday before, we looked through a recipe book and she picked out a Strawberry shortcake Parfait. She was looking forward to it all week! On Sunday after church, we had our late lunch/early dinner meal, and then Lily and I went to work. First layer at the bottom of each glass cup was a scoop of tapioca pudding. Next - cubes of yellow pound cake that Lily cut. 3rd layer - sliced strawberries. Followed by vanilla ice cream, a bit more cake, then whipped cream, red sprinkles, and a vanilla oreo cookie. Her older siblings were very happy that she had chosen such a scrumptious dessert, especially for them to enjoy after fast Sunday. Good job Lil.

I like idea of having desserts on Sundays - it's another way to make Sunday special and different from the rest of the week. Plus I like having them take turns choosing and making it together with me. Also, I hope the anticipation makes them enjoy and savor the dessert more, rather than having their taste buds dead to the sweetness of food from the default sugar overload that they've usually had.

Eating Scriptures

Here is the sequence of events:
1) Owen woke up and had a messy diaper.
2) I change his diaper and his clothes.
3) I search for a shirt that I like from my bag that I took to church yesterday.
4) I get my scriptures out of my bag to more easily find the shirt
5) I get Owen dressed and leave him on the floor by my bag and... my... scriptures...
6) Owen eats and rips up my scriptures.

I hurried and took them away to assess the damage, then gave them to him again so we could take a picture. Can't have something important destroyed without documenting it's demise... He loved it, and was waving his arms cause this is just so fun! Such crinkly noises! This is the third Quad that children have ruined. Joseph was the first - as a baby he nibbled on a few pages...

That pic there is taken from one of the ol' scrapbook volumes from when I used to scrapbook. That was Corey's scriptures, just a few pages were ruined - June 7, 2000

Then 6 month old Abi ruined a Book of Mormon that I left on the bed in Feb 2008 - I read while I nursed her to sleep. I left it there on the bed, and when she was done with her nap, she woke up and had a snack.

Lily in 2011 was not a baby eating paper, just a 2 year old doing what 2 year olds do. I was upset that time, cause those were my scriptures that I got when I was 13 that had seminary and institute notes and that I took on my mission an everything. I usually don't use those to read anymore, they are just preserved with old journals on the shelf now. And today Owen joins the rank of children who enjoy feasting on the word.

Just a few chapters from the New Testament, so again, most of the scriptures are still usable, but sigh. Owen ate footnotes and ripped off the sides of pages from 1st Corinthians through 2nd Timothy, and also felt that both epistles to the Thessalonians should be entirely removed. Sorry Paul. And thus is the life of a mother. And thus is also why I buy most things 2nd hand - from clothes to furniture to scriptures. I found this quad at the thrift store. I'll start checking for another one maybe, but until I find one I'll keep using this, and add it to my collection of quads that I can use part of. I'll buy a brand new one someday when all the babies and toddlers are grown. Although by then maybe I'll have grandchildren that will come ruin them? I'll just have to keep my perfect pair up high and my already children-ized scriptures on the table.