Utah with Mom

Have you ever been on a road trip with this lady?

I highly, highly recommend it.

A few weeks ago, one of my best friends Kevin Patterson (K-Swizzle, K Fat, Mr. Fatterson) was having his mission fairwell in Utah and I decided I had to give him one last bone-crushing, tear-inducing bear hug before he left. So I planned the trip and called my mom to tell her all about it and that's when she said that she WANTED TO COME WITH ME. Best. News. Ever. Mom decided to fly to Scottsdale and spend the night with Jirski and I in our little apartment and then drive with me to Utah the next day.

I was so excited to show off our apartment and our dog and the places we love to go to her for the first time. Our first out-of-town overnight guest! (Lolo holds claim to our very first overnight guest over Christmas break- we even dragged her mattress into our bedroom and made JR tell us stories until we fell asleep.) I picked my mom up at the airport in the afternoon and I was like "do you want to go back to my apartment and rest? Are you tired from traveling?". Ha. Hahaha I had forgotten who I was with. Mom has more energy than fourteen chihuahuas put together. Just as small too. We drove directly to Fashion Square Mall where we hit Anthropologie, Gap, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn Kids and Janie and Jack. We found some clothes for the grandkids, some maternity clothes for me because I have been exploding out of my regular ones, some purple checkered crib sheets for Lady Baby and also this little beauty:

I did not realize the importance of a Petunia Picklebottom diaper bag, but I have since learned. They are an essential for new moms. And this one came in my favorite colors! Remember, our wedding colors were gray and yellow?

After the mall we met Jirski back at our apartment. It was really fun to show my mom how we had arranged everything and hung up pictures and to have her be a guest in my house instead of vice versa for once. It almost made me feel grown up (sike, still a kid). Plus she got to see Theodore for the first time since he was a puppy and who doesn't just love this little face?

Although if you don't watch out he will for sure stick his tongue up your nostril which is never as pleasant as it might seem.

We went to Sauce for dinner, which is a really good gourmet pizza and salad restaurant that JR's family introduced me to. Then we headed over to Sprinkles, which is arguably the most famous cupcakery in the world (they're opening a store up in Dubai!).

We ordered a red velvet, black and white, raspberry chocolate chip and milk chocolate and shared all of them. Red velvet was my easy favorite, but Mom and Jirski love the raspberry chocolate chip.

We went home afterward and talked on the couch for a long time and then went to bed so we could get an early start.

We hit the road the next morning armed with pretzels and chocolate and an ice chest full of havarti cheese, apple slices, yogurts, water bottles and peanut butter. What could be better. After a few hours of driving we saw some American Indian stands and pulled over to inspect their artwork. Mom found me this:

It is an authentic Native American piece and all those dark lines are burned horsehair. Weird and awesome. It now resides in my living room.

A little farther along we got a call from my uncle Chip, Mom's brother. If you tell Chip where you are, anywhere in the world, he will have tips for where to go and what to see. He told us we had to take this little hike right off the freeway to see something called Horseshoe Bend so we decided to go for it. We found the little dirt road turn-off and made the twenty minute trek through sand. I ditched my shoes, it was perfect weather and it wasn't too rocky. We were rewarded with this:

It was so quiet and peaceful and cool and perfect. We loved every minute of it. Then I started getting antsy and throwing rocks off the cliff and Mom made me stop. Sorry Mom.

Maybe my real favorite part, though, was this sign

BEWARE.

Anyway, we drove the rest of the way and reached Aunt Tami's house in time for her spectacular homemade pizza. Delicious. We also had time that night to make an appearance at The Choco, my old stomping grounds, and Macaroni Grill where Sabrina and Jared were busy working. Not too busy for me to interrupt though. That's my job as a little sister.

The next day we woke up to SNOW. Beautiful, icy cold, white, quiet snow. My favorite thing. Only I didn't pack anything for snow because there hadn't been any in a while and it wasn't in the forecast, so Mom and I made an emergency Sunday morning trip to Target. That's how you know it's special, Mom never shops on Sunday. We found a maternity church outfit for me, complete with zebra-print rubber boots which is seriously one of my favorite purchases ever. We went to Kevin's fairwell and it was packed. The ward is usually made up of 160 people and that day there were 340 people squeezed in the room to see Kevin off. He is one popular kid. It was so good to see him and give him a giant hug. He even played the Good Friend and pretended I didn't look pregnant. Oh, hilarious. He gave an incredible talk and maybe I wiped a tear away, I can't remember. There were far too many people there to be able to get a picture of just he and I, so here is a picture from his Facebook so you guys can see what he looks like

I have known K-Swizzle for two years, ever since he started working at the Chocolate, and I know him I think as well as anyone can know him. He always wears that green hat, he was even holding it in his hand when he gave his talk (you aren't supposed to wear hats in church). He is the loudest person I have ever met and has the most contagious laugh of anyone I know. I got pretty good at mimicking it but it takes all of the lung power I possess.  I have seen him with green hair and I have also seen him walk through fiery coals at a bonfire. We saw each other at our worst, he was there for me when I had to make the toughest decision of my entire life. We swapped secrets in the bakery at four in the morning and I've never felt more sad than when he moved away to Texas for the summer and MISSED MY WEDDING. No really, it's fine. He is going to make a killer missionary, he has the best heart of anyone I know and I wish him the best of luck. He will always be one of my besties and I hope he looks me up when he gets home.

Anyway, back to Mom. The next day was a shopping day with Sabster, she had the day off. We hit so many stores and stumbled across this great find at the Downeast Outlet:

My very own changing table! Isn't it BEAUTIFUL? Oh, I love it. We continued shopping and if you have ever shopped with Mom than you know it is serious business. We ended the day at the Distribution Center and in my weak pregnant state I burst into tears trying to make a simple decision. Mom sent me to the car with a water bottle and finished the shopping for me. Thanks Mom. Tuesday we helped Jared hang some pictures in their freshly painted apartment and met Sabi for lunch since she had to work the whole day. It was Valentine's Day and since Sabi and Jared work in a restaurant there was no chance that we would get to see them that night. Aunt Tami's parents invited us to go with them to the Provo Country Club for dinner and it was the most delicious buffet. Highlight food of the night: delicious breaded fish that was salmon and white fish put together and ohmigosh I could have gone back a hundred times but I was trying super hard to be polite and not let my pregnancy eyes take over my brain.

The next morning we made our way back to Scottsdale going the Las Vegas route so we could stop in St. George and see my mom's other brother Todd and his family. We met them at Olive Garden (love me some OG bread sticks) and had a really good visit with them, it's always good to see family and it is especially awesome/hilarious to hear my mom swap stories with her brothers from their childhood.

We made it home safe and Mom had one more night with me before she flew back to Sacramento. We had such a good time together, she turned a quick trip to see a friend into the biggest adventure just like she always does. I'm not kidding when I tell you that if you have to go on a road trip somewhere, try to finagle Cindy Sumsion into going with you. She makes everything so awesome and gets so much done in an impossible amount of time. Thanks mom, for the best trip ever. Come back to my little apartment and visit me and my dog anytime. We will welcome you with Special K and Dove chocolates.

24 Weeks

And feeling quite large. Like super large.

Nothing really new on the pregnancy front. Except that I went and saw my doctor this week and he said we are "due for a big baby". Yikes. Looking forward to it?

We're Having a Lady Baby!

Welp, we had our big half-way-through ultrasound and guess what? We are having a girl! I was SURE we were having a boy, because I hate all boy names and have a long list of girl names and that is the golden rule. I am so glad I was wrong because I can't wait to have a little girl buddy to play with and bond over purple and Disney and Harry Potter.

Anyway, here is the proof:

JR thought it would be highly inappropriate to put this baby picture up on the blog, but I still think the ultrasound pictures look like blobbies, so. Too bad.

And now I am nineteen weeks into this pregnancy business and it's going pretty well.

Stuff to remember:

• Sleep has become the least fun. So uncomfortable in all my bones. 
• Still a glass of apple juice everyday. Mmmmm applejuice
• I have purchased maternity pants but I have not worn them because they make me feel soggy-floppy. Not sure how else to describe that
• My sister told me I would get "nesty" and I'm starting to feel it. So far we have a high chair, stroller, car seat and some baby clothes but I am on constant Craigslist search for a crib, changing table, and nursery equipment
• Can't eat chicken. Nope.

Aaaand just for your viewing pleasure- JR got a little jealous when he was taking pictures of just me with the ultrasound so we switched places. I thought he was gonna pick up the picture and get cute, but instead he did this:

I can't wait to meet this little baby in five short months, I like to imagine that she will look a lot like JR when he was a baby, with white-blonde curly hair. Knowing JR, she will have him so wrapped around her teeny tiny little pinky finger and it will be so fun to watch him be so protective and sweet. Just please don't feed her Diet Coke, Jirski. Caffeine = not for babies.

Oh, You Little Beauty.

Sometimes Husband surprises me with one of these when he gets home from work:

Diet cherry limeade. He also always double checks that they use the diet cherry syrup. Best ever.

17 Weeks and also Pregnancy, Thus Far

I almost titled this blog "Why Your Husband will Never be a Successful Photographer". I will explain.

My sister Micci has always complained about her husband Jazz's picture-taking skills and I never really understood until I got married and then pregnant and suddenly needed my immediate counterpart to document my belly growth. NOW I KNOW.

Here I am at 17 Weeks

After JR took this picture he said he didn't like it because "You're not doing a very good job of making yourself look pregnant!". I'm not even sure what that means, but just for kicks we moved my hand position very slightly and took another picture.

I know it looks like the same picture but it's not. Look at the hands. An then JR said "I think it's missing something. Pick up the dog"

I saw this picture and laughed so hard and then I told JR that he was not allowed to direct my pictures anymore.

I asked Micci how she gets Jazz to take good pictures of her now and she told me that she props the camera up on Harry Potter books and uses the timer. Next time.

Anyway, I thought it was high time to document what being pregnant has been like so far. It's been pretty good! The first trimester wasn't my favorite. Here are things that I want to remember- well maybe not want, but am forcing myself to remember:

• I was really, really nauseous starting at 5 weeks and ending at 14 weeks
• Anything even remotely sweet was incredibly repulsive to me
• Very few foods ever sounded good to me, but some that did were mushroom rice, asparagus, macaroni and cheese and the occasional nachos
• I lived off of popsicles, which JR would run out and get for me at any time of day. Thanks Jirski, you are my popsicle hero
• I could not sleep enough. I would sleep an eight hour night and STILL take a nap immediately after work

And now that we are up to 17 weeks, here's my new list:

• Sweet things are tasting okay, but I rarely crave them
• I want warm delicious homey foods! Moooooom come make all your good food for meeeee
• I have not yet bought maternity pants
• I am still sleepy all the time
• My favorite and most happy pastime is taking bubble baths. Not entirely sure if that's pregnancy-related 
• I have mad heartburn alllllll day long. I did not know what this sensation was when it first started. I would always say to JR "I feel like my esophagus is... like... firey?". Finally my sister said "dude. You have heartburn." Ohhhhhhh. Silly me.
• And I can't go a single day without a big glass of ice cold apple juice

So all in all, pregnancy has been pretty good so far! Of course I hear it gets a little harder, what with the baby getting really huge and kicking you and getting hiccups in the middle of the night and then there's the whole delivery part... I will let you know.

The Epic Return

So many things. So. Many. Things. It's been a busy few months!

Here's what happened:

1. We went to Disneyland for Halloween! Yep, I'm blogging about Halloween in January. Permission to judge.

You can find this same gangsta picture of my mom and I on almost every trip we've ever been on.

My favorite part of this picture is the guy in the Chevron shirt in perfect Bigfoot pose.

Love this kid.

My favorite food in the world, tied only with Disneyland corndogs

I can't remember why this was going down

Rachel, Sean and Jakob looking like a Hallmark card

This little sleepy face kills me

Tickle attack from Uncle Jirski!

In line for our favorite Toy Story ride. We are all a little competitive, even the newlyweds. P.s. How much longer do we get to call ourselves newlyweds?

2. We moved! We found a little apartment in Scottsdale and moved all our stuff in early November, probably with a huge sigh of relief from JR's parents. During the time that they so graciously let us live in the guest house we broke the air conditioner twice, broke the dishwasher, moved all their stuff around, and made a cozy home for some giant rats (I killed one! All by myself! With my own trap and cheese bait!). Anyway, we decided to move out to give the poor house and our parents/in-laws a break from our constant abuse.

I have no pictures of the experience, except for this one of the high-tech trap covering that our rat-trapper guy made. Brought me joy everyday

He wrote "please" first, but then went back and corrected it with "pleace". I also love that the e's look like tiny breast cancer ribbons.

 Now for the reason I haven't blogged since October. During the move, we packed up my old trusty computer and made way for JR's recently custom-built (by him) fancy internally-lit computer. Which did not have a built-in card reader for my camera card, and everyone knows that you can't blog without pictures. Anyway, it took us a while to figure that out and then the holidays came and yadda yadda. Long story short, we got the card reader last week. More blogging!

3. We found out that I am pregnant! Well, we found out in like October to be a little more accurate. Anyway, I'm due June 17th, which means I am four months along right now. We find out if it is a boy or a girl two weeks from today, so tune in. 

Here I am at 13 weeks

And here is a picture of the baby cupcakes we took to Disneyland at Halloween to tell my family

Get it? "Baby" cupcakes?" Oh, too cute if I do say so myself. We brought home a tiny Mickey Mouse onesie to JR's family to give them the good news. 

I will go into further detail of my pregnancy so far in my next blog post, I promise.

4. I had a kidney stone! I woke up one Monday morning with crazy pain in my lower right side and I was like "JR, I am dying I KNOW it", so he got an appointment with my doctor's nurse and we ran over there. She said it could be appendicitis and scheduled an ultrasound for me that afternoon, to make sure the little fetus was all safe inside there. We returned home and JR left for work since it was noon and there was nothing more he could do for me. I started getting ready to make the forty minute trek to the ultrasound place and then all of a sudden I was on the floor in my hallway and that's when I thought to myself "I don't think I can drive all that way or also even get to my front door", so I called my doctor again and they basically said uh please hang up immediately and go to the emergency room. So I did. I don't know how I got there, I have no idea how I even got to my car let alone found my way to the hospital. But I did it, and I called JR who left work immediately to meet me. 

Anyway, two hits of morphine, an hour-long ultrasound with the creepiest nurse I've ever met, an MRI and then a hit of something stronger than morphine that I can't pronounce and I was fine! There was no definitive evidence that I had a kidney stone, but JR's mom has had several and knew exactly what was going on from the very beginning. She should have been my doctor because they didn't even think of it. When one of us mentioned it they were like "oh yeah, that would make sense". Go back to school! Just kidding, they were really nice. 

People say that passing a kidney stone is way more painful than giving birth. I will let you know in about six months. 

5. Christmas came! And it was FANTASTIC. 

First, we had Fake Christmas at JR's parents house. It was the best Fake Christmas I have ever had. We started the night off with the best Mexican food in the world at Manuel's. Then we went on to open one bajillion presents, the floor looked like Times Square after New Year's Eve. Among some really fabulous gifts, JR's parents got us a red Peg Perego stroller. It is the fanciest! It comes with a carseat, a basonnet, and some other extra goodies. I have since learned that it is one of the safest brands on the market and also my sister Micci covets their strollers. And if it's on Micci's Want List, then you KNOW it's good. Best Fake Christmas ever! They spoiled us like crazy.

Two days later, we traveled on over to Redding where we spent four days in perfect Christmas bliss. I love it when JR doesn't have to work and he can just hang out with me all day. Best ever. We spent the vacation playing Scum, Hand and Foot, watching all the cousins running around on the new trampoline, watching Disney movies, and eating tons of good food. 

This is the only Christmas picture I have. We went to see a really cute production of a Christmas Carol right before Christmas

I was going to go into more detail about Christmas and then talk about New Year's Eve, but I am tired of blogging which means you are definitely tired of reading. So, that's it, now you are pretty much up to date!

Also, as I was writing this post some random words hyperlinked themselves. I have no idea how to fix it, if anyone has any ideas then tell meeee.

Enchanted to Meet You

For my birthday this year, JR's mom gave me tickets to see Taylor Swift in concert. How amazing is that? I get the vote for coolest in-laws in the world.

The concert was Saturday night and after a series of unfortunate events, JR was unable to go. He had surgery on two of his teeth last week and it has been really painful, and then on top of that he has had the flu. He told me that I had to go to the concert without him ("no, no I can stay here with you... oh, okay, if you make me then I guess I will go..."). I called my new friend Sarah from work and she was IN. It was perfect because I already knew that she knew every word to every Taylor Swift song too.

The seats were AMAZING, we were just to the left of the stage and a few rows up.

I didn't take a ton of pictures on account of I was enjoying the show a little too much.

But she looked amazing.

 

Jimmy Eat World made a guest appearance and rocked "The Middle" with Taylor. The crowd sing-along factor went down drastically for this song, since most of the girls there were under the age of 15 and definitely missed this phase of music. But I was right there: "IT JUST TAKES SOME TIME LITTLE GIRL YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RIDE". Oh it was wonderful.

Sometimes there is absolutely nothing in the world better than singing your face off for a solid three hours.