Tatum's Angels

My sister-in-law Zeffie had her adorable baby boy, Tatum on Friday. He was born with some serious health problems.Tatum was lifelighted up to Primary Childrens shortly after he was born with Brandon, his dad. Zeffie got to join them up there the next day.  I'm not the greatest at explaining his conditions so you can go to the blog they have set up to keep friends and family informed, by either clicking on the button on the left of my blog or just click here. 
I don't know the medical terminology for his conditions yet, but I know he's currently in surgery to fix his esophagus so he can eat and keep things down. He also has a heart condition that hopefully they'll be able to fix. They won't know too many details on this until after the surgery today. If all goes well he should be having his first surgery for his heart later this week.
Family is doing good and trying to keep their spirits high. Any prayers on their behalf would be greatly appreciated.
We will be having a benefit garage sale to help the family with the financial costs along with a few other ways for anyone to donate and help them out. I'll make sure to post the information when we have more details. There is also a facebook page for Tatum. I'm not to familiar with facebook but it's called Tatum's Angels. This should be updated daily as well as the blog so either location should keep you well informed.

Induction into parenthood complete

This past weekend we stayed at Brandon and Zeffie's house after they had their new baby (post coming soon about baby Tatum) to watch their 3 other kids.
- Fun play time...check
- Refusal to go to bed...check
- Peace and quite once they did finally go to bed...check
- crying baby missing her mom in the middle of the night...check
- toddler throwing up over everything...check
- screaming baby and toddler all night...check
- husband who couldn't go anywhere near the throw up or its smell...check
- sleeping on the floor (9 months pregnant)so the sick child wouldn't wake up crying...check
- max 3 hours of sleep...check

And last but not least, the relief when JoLee got there in the morning to relieve us of our duties (since by this time I was now feeling sick myself). I know this part isn't a normal part of parenthood, but starting out with 3 kids is def a handful. I'm glad we're only having one and can ease our way into more kids.

Even through it all, we still can't wait to meet our little guy. :)

Pregnancy Update

- I'm 36 weeks (picture in post below).

- I think we're pretty close to having everything we need (thank for all the gifts from the baby showers). I just need to make the bumper, buy the crib sheet, and get a few more blankets.

- I'm finally, kind of getting into the nesting faze. It's taken me quite a while but I'm getting there :)

- My hands are still numb and tingeling all the time. I can't wait till I get the feeling back in the tips of my fingers. It's amazing how many things are hard to do when you can't feel very well.

- I'm officially down to weekly appointments with the midwife. Hopefully my iron levels will go up each week. Any suggestions for raising Iron levels other than eating leafy greens? I'm trying to do that, but it's harder than it looks. And I've heard taking an Iron supplement will make me sick, so i prefer not to do that.

- Its getting so close that it's starting to get scary. We went shopping for our remaining items the other day and it really freaked Jon out. It's starting to become more of a reality.

- Of course I get asked a bunch of times a day how much longer I have and when I tell people 4-6 weeks (since my family has a history of going about 2 weeks late on their firsts) They don't seem to believe me. They all say "Oh I'm sure you'll only go about 4 more weeks" haha if only that were true. We're still planning for the end of April sometime, hopefully atleast before May! :)

- We only have 1 more Bradley class. Wow these past few months have gone by so fast I almost can't believe it.

- The past few days Jon hasn't been feeling very well. His back, hips, knees etc have been really hurting him. So he came up to me and said "Man, I feel like an old man" and my response was "Well, I feel like a whale" and he says... "Yeah but I don't look like an old man" Me: "So you're saying that I actually look like a whale?! HUMPH You're totally calling me fat aren't you (in a joking voice)?" typical man. Not thinking before he speaks, haha. It's only funny cuz it's true. He doesn't look like an old man but I'm looking more and more like a whale.

- I'm not really having too big of a problem with him being up in my rib cage or making it hard for me to breathe (knock on wood). I'm guessing its cuz I have a long torso, so even though I'm carrying high, he still has plenty of room and is staying away from my lungs/ribs. Thank you son!

- I'm totally craving watermelon. I finally caved and made Jon buy me one of the small ones even though they aren't in season. It was so yummy! I can't wait for actual watermelon season to hit. Although eating watermelon hasn't helped my constant need to go to the bathroom.

- I'm still sleeping pretty good. (well as good as can be expected) I only wake up 1-2 times a night to go to the bathroom. I do wake up and need to change positions ALL THE TIME, but I can easily fall back asleep so it's not too bad...yet.

- I'm getting really excited for this little man to get here! Just yesterday Jon put together the strolller and car set combo (mainly cuz I couldn't stand for it to just sit in the box any longer. Oh did I mention that we got it on saturday, so it had only been in the box for less than 24 hours. haha) and pushed it around the house saying "Oh it's just me and my son walking around" It was so cute! He's going to be such a great dad!!

Baby Showers

First off, I want to thank everyone who came to either one of my baby showers. I really appreciate it. Also thank you Natalie H, Becky, Stephanie and Kristel for throwing them. They were both great!
These are in opposite order. It was taking to long to switch them around. So my first shower is at the end of the post.

The 2nd shower was this past weekend. This one was for my family mingled with a few friends. This one wasn't a traditional baby shower. It was a chocolate tasting. We are doing a John Deere themed nursey so my sisters decided to tie that into the shower as well. Everything turned out so cute. Here's so pictures of how creative my sisters are. I never would have thought to do anything like this.

Oh and heres me at 36 weeks.

My cute Nephew Hudsen playing with one of the balloons

Olivia :)

John Deere colors - Lemons and Limes for the water
Andrea, Natalie, Julie w/ Hudsen (my bro in laws mom and also my dads girlfriend :) ) my grandma W, Kimi and Me

Delecta, Zeffie (who is about a week ahead of me) mil JaRene with avaree and Kristel

Chocolate covered potatoe chips, apples and oranges

Chocolate donuts with tire tracks

Chocolate covered strawberries some stuffed with cream cheese. yum yum

The only thing I haven't mentioned yes is the chocolate covered jalapenos... yeah there wasn't too many people who tried those. I know I didn't!

The center pieces. Everyone also had to drink out of bottles. So cute

My first one was thrown by my good friend Natalie and her mom Becky. This one was intended to be for my friends. There wasn't too many people that showed up, but thanks for all the work you guys put into making it a great shower :) I was always under the impression that if you went to someones bridal/baby shower they were more likely to show up to your bridal/baby shower. I dunno, maybe it has always just been me that thought that way...but apparently I have been wrong all these years. I think I'm done going to showers unless they are for family members or select few friends. Heres some pics. I was 34 almost 35 weeks along. (8 months)

A few of the people that came
Katie, Alison and Natalie N(who just had her baby girl a month or so before who is totally adorable.) These girls are coworkers of mine, or in Natalie's case ex coworker but I love her the same :) Oh and this is not the same Natalie that threw the party.

The cutest cupcakes that Becky made.

Finally...

FYI... Forthcoming info may be a little too personal for some

My belly is FINALLY bigger than my boobs! haha Well actually it has been for a little while, but not it's actually noticable. I've had a lot of people tell me that I don't look how far along I am. For instance, when I was 30 weeks I had a couple different tell me that I didn't look 30 weeks along. At first I was a little worried/let down, then I talked to Jon and my sister Kristel and came up with this conclusion: because my boobs are rather large, it makes my belly look smaller. If I had small (or atleast some what smaller) boobs then my belly would look bigger! I even did a little test in the mirror to see if this theory was right by doing some smooshing and low and behold we were right!! Man the pains of large breasted women!! :)

Here's a pic of me at 33 weeks and 6 days (7 1/2 months) I can't seem to remember to take any flattering pics so I'm stuck with the unflattering bathroom shots that make my arms look GINORMOUS!!! Maybe that'll be insentive to take more pics huh?...Maybe.

- I'm retaining water, UGH! Not too bad tho so I just hope it stays that way. (my wedding ring hasn't fit for a few weeks already. I'm having to wear it around my neck)

- To Jon's dismay, I MUST sleep with a pillow on both sides of me.

- His kicks are starting to hurt. Not all of them, but every once in a while he'll kick some major organ and man does it not feel good.

- I don't feel like I've really gotten into the so called nesting faze. We have his crib up, and clothes up away, but thats about it...whoops. Maybe I'll kick my butt into gear after the baby showers.

- I'm starting to feel the uncomfortable-ness that everybody always talks about. Oh and the back pain.

- I have poor circulation in my hands. My right hand is worse than my left. It tingles ALL DAY LONG! (this is how I know he's not just sitting on a nerve) I have to keep my hand in the same position all night long (in a loose fist) or my muscle freaks out. But then when I wake up in the morning, I can't move it or use it...period.

Oh and we got more snow! Man am I sick of it. Probably about a foot total.

Our SLC adventure

My dad bought some trucks from the military and last week we took the trip up north to pick them up. My dad, me, Jon, Stacie, Kristel and Eric all squished into a truck and off we went. The ride up was fun (a little tight. 6 adults don't fit into one truck very easily). We stayed at Jan and Paulines for a night and the next morning headed off to pick up all the vehicles we would be driving home. Jon drove the duece and a half (which is now his new favorite thing. When we got home, he made me go with him down the road to throw away the trash just so he could drive the duece again...silly boy). Everyone else drove either Blazers or a truck.

After we picked the vehicles up, we all met at IKEA to eat dinner. Yum Yum. The boys left to pick up some trailers and us girls stayed and shopped around a little. When we were done we just headed home. (Little did we know, that probably wasn't the smartest idea. We should have waited for the men). We stopped in Nephi for a bit (Kristel was freezing since she hadn't figured out how to work her heater yet and Stacie needed to clean off her windows so she could see since her back window was blocked by a camper shell) Once we got back on the road we made it about 10-15 minutes outside of Nephi and Stacie's truck sputtered a little bit, had some white smoke puff out of it then it just died. By this time it was almost 8 pm. We called my dad, since we had no idea what could be the problem, and he told us to wait for them to get there. Waiting doesn't seem to be so bad now does it... Well I forgot to mention that they were just passing through SLC and the duece only goes a max of 50 MPH! Eric was a little closer than my dad and Jon so he stopped to get some gas to see if that could be the problem. He showed up a little after 10. Was he our night in shining armor? Did he fix the truck and off we went? HA.. I WISH! The truck still wouldn't start. So we sat around until almost 11 waiting for my dad and Jon. Once they got there they took one look at it and told us that it had blown up. We were going to have to leave it on the side of the freeway.

So me Kristel and Stacie had sat on the side of the road for 3 HOURS for absolutely no reason! We could have been home in that time. So while we were sitting there waiting we got a little bored. Plus, can you even imagine 3 girls in 3 camo colored vehicles sitting on the side of the road in the middle of no where in the dark?! Yeah it was little scary there. Oh and did I mention that not one cop stopped to help or see if everything was ok! Isn't that their job? Well here's some pics of us while we waited. (Oh and no worries, we didn't get home till 2 am. To keep myself awake can you guess what I did since there was no radio to blast?.... I sang newsies songs at the top of my lungs. haha good thing I was alone, it wasn't pretty)

Stacie's truck just sitting there... totally useless.

Me Stacie and Kristel...Can you tell we were a little bored?

Here's the 3 of us again.
We figured we needed a decent picture to document the night.

30 Weeks

10 more weeks! It's getting closer. I can't believe how fast it's going. I know I've said that before, but it's crazy that I'm already 30 weeks. It feels like just a month ago that I was having my first midwife appointment at 8 weeks. crazy crazy. I'm still feeling really good. I'm not extremely uncomfortable yet... thank heavens :)

Total cheesey picture of me. haha oh well.

We got our porta crib set up... isn't it just so cute. I'm so excited!

The other day Jon got the ice out of the freezer and was completely fascinated with it. He had never seen anything like this before. I on the other hand, have seen it a few times so I thought his fascination was rather entertaining.

This past weekend Jon went to a Jeep rock crawling event in Hurricane with some of his friends. This is just one of the many pictures that he took (he was in total heaven watching this).

Since they saw such fun crazy things, of course they decided that they needed to go out and have a little fun of their own. Luckily nothing happened to any of them or the truck. (good thing I wasn't there. I probably would have had a heart attack, this picture doesn't look bad but knowing my husband it got much worse than this. This is not so much my favorite thing. Good thing he has some friends that he can go out with instead of trying to drag me along :) )

I'M SO EXCITED!!

I just got this in the mail...
and I can't wait to get home to set it up! I know I know, we won't be using it for a while, but since we won't be getting his crib for another month or so I need to have something up to make me feel like it's the nursery and not just another room in the house :)

28 Weeks

Here I am at 28 weeks pregnant.

This isn't a very good picture of me, but it'll do.

I'm getting more and more excited for him to arrive, especially since it means that he'll be out of me :) I haven't been a huge fan of being pregnant. I use to love to feel him kick and move around, but now since he does it so often and it can kinda hurt, I'm not so much a fan anymore. It is very comforting to know that he's active and ok in there though.

I'm starting to have some trouble sleeping (which I know is only going to get worse). I've been sleeping with a pillow for the past few weeks and there have been a few times when I've woken up and I can't seem to find it. It's not on the floor...not by my feet...where else could it be you might ask...Oh no worries, Jon has stolen it from me! haha. One night he even tried to be sneaky about it. He put his arm around me (and the pillow since I was facing him), then his leg up on the pillow next to mine, then all of a sudden he pushes me away and snatches the pillow! Mind you he's sleeping the whole time and he doesn't remember doing any of this. haha. We both got a pretty good kick out of it when I told him about it in the morning. I've learned I can only keep the pillow on my left side so he can't "secretly" try to steal it from me.

We've started taking Bradley classes. Our first one was yesterday and we both really liked it. I'm excited for all the things we're gonna learn, but I'm really excited for the envolvement that Jon's going to have during labor because of these classes. Can't wait!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my amazing husband! I love you so so much! I know you're going to be such an amazing dad. Thanks for all the many things you do for me.

I LOVE YOU!!!

This picture isn't the best one of us, I had to take atleast one of him on his special day. I'll try to take more tonight and post them soon.