On pregnancy.

Ten thoughts on this pregnancy:

1—It is zooming by and I’m just barely starting to feel the panic of not being prepared.  My to-do list is very long!  The bulk of the list is getting Elna’s big girl room ready.  We were going to just keep her in the crib and put the baby in the other room in a pack-n-play, but Elna climbed out of her crib today for the first time, so we will be making the move sooner than we thought we would.  Any suggestions for transitioning toddlers to a bed?

2—I haven’t taken as many pictures of my prego belly this time as I did with Elna’s pregnancy.  I hope that isn’t a reflection of how many pictures I will take of this next child.  I’ve tried to make up for it this week by taking pictures every time I actually get ready.

3—My legs are retaining water just like they have in my other pregnancies.  Why oh why?

4—My hips are not hurting when I sleep nearly as much as they have with other pregnancies.  Yay!

5—I also have had no migraines! 

6—I (the baby?) mostly want carbs and sugar—oatmeal, bread, bagels, desserts always sound good.  Savory, specifically tomato soup, salsa, guacamole, Chipotle (shocker!)—not so much.  

7—I am running out of clothes to wear—especially on Sundays to church. 

8—We are really really hoping this little one is born early for two big reasons.  One—Elna was over 10 lbs. and only 2 days late.  I really wouldn’t mind a more average-sized baby and having it early would surely help with that.  Two—the baby is due March 19th and my mom can’t come until April 1st.  Brian’s parents are in Hawaii from the 21st until April, so having the baby between March 21 and April would mean we would be on our own for a few weeks.  I’m most worried about Elna during that time—specifically when we are at the hospital.  I think the transition for Elna would be smoothest if she was with her Grandma and Papa while we are at the hospital, rather than being shipped to someone else’s house.  March 10, 11, 12th…any time around there would be great!  Any ideas for inducing labor that actually work?

9—Is it normal to be more terrified of labor/delivery the second/third time around than the first?  With Elna I was all psyched thinking I would breathe her out (remember how I thought that would happen…) and feel minimal amounts of pain.  That didn’t happen—I hurt more than I knew I could hurt!  So, now that I know what’s coming my way in less than 6 weeks (hopefully!) I’m panicking just a bit. 

10—What I will miss about being pregnant:

-feeling the baby move around—this is my very favorite part of pregnancy—love it!  And sometimes I miss it after even though I have a baby to hold.  It is magical to me!

-my rock hard (though huge) tummy.  I do not look forward to the squish that comes after.

-nesting—I’m obsessed with organizing, cleaning, and creating.  I’m sure that will go away after the baby is born, as well as the time and ability to do it.

-the anticipation—I can hardly wait to meet this new little person and have him/her be part of our little family.  What will he/she look like?  How will Elna react to the new addition? 

We are beyond excited for this baby to arrive in 6 weeks!  Or 4 weeks if I get my way!

And a bonus with cute Elna in it!

On goals.

I realized something about myself, and that is that I only keep one goal a year.  Two years ago I flossed every day for an entire year.  Last year (and I won’t even link to it, because I don’t want to remind myself or anyone else of all of the goals I made and didn’t keep) I made 12 or 13 goals feeling all confident in my ability to keep my goal the year before.  I’m relatively certain I only kept one---to not play spider solitaire for an entire year.  For an entire year I didn’t play it—yay! 

This year, I made fewer goals (which I won’t post on here because it doesn’t seem to help with accountability anyway).  I think I made about 6 or 7 goals.  It’s only January 27th and I’ve already broken all but one, which leads me to the conclusion that I am only able to keep one goal a year.

So far this year I have had 72 ounces of water every day. 

Next year maybe I should make that one goal something life-changing…like reading my scriptures every day or doing my visiting teaching every month.  

In the kitchen.

Making tortillas with the tortilla press I got for Christmas from Brian’s brother, Nate.  We’ve made several varieties of soft tacos since.  Love this thing!  Thank you Nate!

What is happening here is pretty hilarious—Elna would not eat her dinner, but when Brian made of a game of it and acted like he was going to eat her food, she quickly shoved each pasta noodle into her mouth, and then laughed her head off like in the picture below.  She ended up eating the whole bowl.

Elna spends a lot of time on her stool—she usually stands on it while I am making dinner and either eats, plays in flour and eats flour, or eats dough out of whatever bowl I give her.

Elna’s face after trying to eat the last of the flour out of some bowl.

Pancake batter

Playing with uncooked pinto beans—these kept her occupied for a long time while I was making dinner.

A friend gave us a bag of clothes and Elna immediately insisted on wearing as many of them (at once) as she could.  I think she had 4 pairs of pants on here.

Saying “beep beep” with her hands on her cute little hips.

Eating tortilla dough—doesn’t that sound yummy?  masa and water…hmm.  This girl loves dough!  Notice the dough in her hair—probably because she ends up with the bowl on her head to get every last bit.

Making bread with mom.

These are 90% of the pictures I took this month—it looks like all we do is make food at our house.  I think I just take a lot of pictures of Elna in the kitchen because she is really happy scraping my bowls clean and the pictures of her doing it are just too hard to resist.

Elna’s Christmas dress.

I didn’t get a picture of Elna in her Christmas dress this year, so I took these the next time she wore it.  She looked pretty cute!

Daddy putting her coat on.

These boots are made for walkin!

Grandma & Papa gave Elna these boots for Christmas—she pretty thrilled with them!  (This first set of pictures was taken first thing in the morning before we had changed her diaper…in case you were wondering about the saggy diaper…)

Why wear pants when you can be just as cute in only a raincoat and boots?

Loving those tippy toes!

She loves the large nativity set on our neighbors lawn—we usually drive by it so she can say hi to baby Jesus—the other day she decided to walk on over to say hi I guess.

Love the tongue in the picture on the right—her little tongue has been cute little appearances more and more lately.

This is quite possibly my very favorite picture of Elna—it represents her little spirit so well—so full of enthusiasm!