Jicama

This is how my 32nd week pregnancy email started out:

How your baby's growing: By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus.

I don't understand why these pregnancy update emails come up with the strangest, most exotic fruits and veggies to compare to my baby's size. I mean, I had to google jimaca to even know what it is. For any of you who don't, here is picture (I got the one with other well-known foods so that you could see the actual size - it's the large white thing on the left) :
Has anyone ever head of a jimaca or eaten it? Just curious.

Word of the Week: lugubrious

lugubrious /adj./ mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner. crestfallen. disconsolate. glum. woebegone.

lugubrious /adj./ 1. I just like the sound of this word although the sound of it makes me laugh rather than making me lugubrious.

lugubrious /adj./ 2. There was a lack of lugubrious toddlers when I had Savannah and Aidan yesterday afternoon until dinnertime. They had, of course, heard of the passing away of President Hinckley and decided to have a primary lesson about it with them as the teachers. I was in the other room and it was quite interesting, let me tell you.

I kept hearing (in matter-of-fact tones): "Now, President Hinckley died on the fourteenth of May. Can anyone tell me who the new prophet is? Yes, you're right, it's President Monson -- it can be confusin' " and this exchange would repeat over and over again.

Then they started getting bored with that and had to embellish his death a little so it became: "President Hinckley died on the fourteenth of May and was resurrected" then "President Hinckley died on the fourteenth of May and he died for us."

I was no longer amused and knew I had to go straighten a few things up as they were definitely a tad bit confused. After explaining in the most simplified way I could that President Hinckley would not be resurrected for a while and that nobody died for us but Jesus, I think they were ok and then went on to another game of forming a rock band. Kids. I thought the news might make them a little lugubrious, but apparently I was wrong. And I have no idea where the fourteenth of May came from.

lugubrious /adj./ 3. Savannah's constipation issues have just come back since I've been writing this post and she is beyond lugubrious about it. She's in there praying that she can go and while I'm glad that she has faith, I keep telling her she needs to drink and drink and drink before anything could happen. I hope this doesn't turn into a repeat of last week or I just might become lugubrious myself.

52 Blessings

Week 4: President Hinckley

When Amy called me last night to inform me of President Hinckley's death, I couldn't help but feel happy for him. He has been an amazing prophet, but everyone has felt his sadness at being alone since his wife died and I was just grateful that he's finally reunited with her again. Yes, I do feel sad at how much I will miss him and his funny comments and how dang cute he is. I don't think any prophet has ever been called "cute" more times than this man. He has worked tirelessly for the church and effected so many lives and I'm just grateful that I got to be alive and old enough to see and remember his work as prophet.

I remember when I was in high school and he became prophet after President Hunter.

I remember going to a youth fireside in Denver and being amazed at him. Then a fireside for single adults that same weekend in Colorado Springs -- feeling very lucky to be "in-between" the two -- already 18 yet still in high school. He wowed me and inspired me.

I remember hearing him in the Marriott Center at BYU.

But by far, the most amazing memory I have of him happened on my mission. I already knew and had a testimony that he was a true prophet of God, but this experience just cemented the deal. I had only been there for a month and we heard he was coming to visit the people of Chile. Excitement ensued.

The morning dawned cloudy and rainy as we headed to a large auditorium where he would address the missionaries from the Santiago and Vina del mar missions. I remember just tearing up when he walked in the room and throughout the whole thing. It was a different man than I had previously heard. A bit harsh, but speaking the Lord's words nonetheless -- as we all know from the scriptures, the Lord can be harsh when reprimanding is necessary. Every word he said felt vitally important to me as a new missionary starting out in the field and because he was being "real" with us and not sugar-coating our work or our duties, it was a new view of him and a new admiration and testimony of his calling came to me.

Then we were off to the roofless Colo-Colo Soccor or Futbol Stadium where thousands and thousands of Chileans had gathered to hear President Hinckley. He changed. He was back to the people's prophet with words of love, encouragement and joy. It was fabulous. I don't know exactly where my notes are right now, but one thing that stands out to me that he said was this (paraphrasing): "do you love your children? are they yours? do you want them forever? then go to the temple and be sealed." As a mother now it makes me grateful to know that my own children are indeed sealed to me forever.

The whole program and all the speakers were amazing, but there was an air of anxiety throughout as we watched the black sky above our heads and prayed that it would not rain on us. Not a drop fell from that black, black sky. Then, after the closing prayer, President Hinckley jumped up to the microphone and said "Now it can rain." No sooner did he say that than the clouds broke open and it poured on us as we left the stadium.

It was not necessary for him to get up and say that, but I think he did it to strengthen some testimonies there as it certainly did mine. I know he sees miracles everyday but I believe he wanted the Chilean people (and us missionaries) to have our own obviously pointed out miracle that day. That was the first of many miracles I saw on my mission.

I know that he was a true prophet of the Lord and that he could move a mountain or part the seas if necessary just as he commanded the elements that April day in Chile because he is a prophet just like all the prophets from the Old Testament and other scriptures. And now I'm happy that he is able to rest from all the hard work he did here. He has truly been a blessing and an inspiration to me in my life.

Arts and Craps

A few months ago, Amy took Savannah through the Chick-fil-a drive-thru and in her kids meal she got a booklet with arts and crafts for kids. When I picked Savy up, she informed me that she had a book that taught her how to make arts and craps and could she please make some arts and craps.

I have never claimed to be crafty. In fact, I envy those people who do such cute things -- and believe me, I've seen some crafty women who are so talented since I started blogging. So my idea of arts and crafts probably seems silly to some of those talented people, but it's the best I've got.

Amy planned a few great crafts for us to do with JoDee in town last week. We decided that instead of getting frustrated about how many littles we had and how difficult it was to go out, that we'd plan some crafts to keep us occupied and at home instead of rounding up 8 kids to go to the mall or Target every day.

Crap . . . I mean craft #1 was a Valentine's Day door hanger. We set out with high hopes for this project, but as it progressed we got more and more frightened of it. Finally, it pulled together in the end and I like the final result and am even thinking about putting it in my baby room since it's pink and brown and those are the colors I want to paint/decorate with -- we'll see. Nate's not a fan of the door hanger. His response upon seeing it was: "So, are we the love house?" I replied that yes, we were and didn't he think that there was lots of love in our house???? Men.

Craft #2 was some homemade birthday and thank you cards which made me very excited not only because they are darling, but also because I think they will help me be more on top of that kind of thing this year (hopefully). It's always nice to just have those things on-hand so that it's not another thing on your to-do list that you'll probably not do anyway. Amy thought of the cute stitching and I love it although it took some time (and I'm still not done yet), but at least whoever gets one of these will know the love that went into that stitching (ha! ha!).

So those are my attempts at being crafty -- thanks to Amy's ideas and prodding. I've also finished up the girls' room and am hoping to get pictures posted early next week. It's come together nicely and I absolutely LOVE their names on the wall . . . but you'll just have to wait until I can get the camera from Nate and download them.

Word of the Week: deportment

deportment /n./ a manner of personal conduct; behavior. actions. bearing. mannerism. mien. air or appearance. demeanor.

deportment /n./ 1. This child's deportment has driven me batty for the past week. I don't know if it's the impending intrusion of a new baby into her little life or a lack of napping or an overdose of holidays and family and staying up late or if it's just a stage in her third year of life. I wish I knew. I am really beginning to wonder what I have done wrong in parenting this child because she has been a monster recently.

Doesn't she look sweet in this picture? Amy took it as we waited outside Colossal Cave for our tour to begin last Friday. You would never know what angst her deportment has caused me recently, would you?

Okay, so I started this post two days ago and you can feel my anguish and then the past two days, London's deportment has taken a 180 turn. I think it was her daddy's "talk" with her the other night. I really think he was tired of coming home from a long day at work to have a wife at her wits end with the children so he took charge and did better than I am capable of lately and what do you know . . . daddy has the magic touch of changing deportment! Go Nate!

deportment /n./ 2. On the other hand, Savannah's deportment has been pathetic these last few days. I swear she is a hypochondriac. She's been having constipation problems since Sunday night and although she has been a lot better today (this was written Tuesday), there is still a lot of drama in the house and most of it is psychological on her part. She spends the mornings and evenings just groaning and moaning while sitting on the toilet. Yeah, during the day does a couple times, but it's mostly at bedtime when the drama awakens. Okay, child -- I mean it's not that I'm not sympathetic or heck, even empathetic (pregnancy causes these problems also), but my gosh, child, get a grip! I'm only hoping that it will end soon and she can get off the toilet and back to real life.

The update to that paragraph would be that her deportment got worse and without being too detailed (I'm sparing you), let's just say that I never thought I'd be cleaning up two #2 incidents (once again -- daddy rocks with cleaning up for a gagging mom for the first incident at least) and even 2 #1 incidents for my 5-year old. The thing that changed her deportment yesterday finally????? I made her wear a stinking' diaper and humiliated the drama out of her and yesterday afternoon and today she's been fine.

deportment /n./ 3. Parenting. . . you never know what will work, I'm just glad I was able to control my deportment and not just give up and let my pregnancy hormones take over while I just cried.

52 Blessings

Week 3: FAMILY

I love it when family comes in town -- that's why family is my blessing for this week. My sister, JoDee, and her four children came down from Utah to visit this last week and I just love it because it is as if the world stops and you can escape for just a while from real life. We just spent day after day hanging out, doing crafts, shopping, dropping the toddlers off at preschool (Aidan and Savy's teacher took Baylee on for two days which was lovely), and just having fun.

Hence, my house, my dinners, my blog, my reading of your blogs, and many other things were ignored for a week. This week reality has set in and I've finally got laundry done, a clean house, bills paid, emails/spam cleaned out and now I'm blogging -- and it's only Tuesday! Yahoo! And I do have a lot of catching up to do. For now, I'll begin with our trip to Tucson last Friday when we visited Colossal Cave and the SCI (Safari Club International) Natural History Museum.

The morning started out like this:

This is the "girl car." Baylee and Savy in the back and London and Madalyn in the middle. I also love when JoDee comes because she's the only sibling of mine that has reproduced girls! Actually, she's the only one that has reproduced two different sexes come to think of it -- everyone else only has boys. So my girls LOVE spending time with girl cousins for a change. On Nate's side all the girl cousins live far away and only the boys live near. JoDee and I had fun going back to the 80's with Madonna and Wham! -- maybe it was preparing us to rock the 80's on karaoke night.

Grandma with all the little lovelies - Davyn, Aidan, Baylee, Savy, London and Madalyn. Andersyn is, of course, the typical teenager who wouldn't get in the picture. We decided to go to this smaller cave instead of the larger, more famous Kartchner Caverns and boy am I glad of that. The tour inside the cave lasted only about 45 minutes and I was beat afterwards! Besides, I don't think we could have kept our kids quiet during any longer of a tour. I was quite impressed with Savannah though when she informed me that night at dinner that we needed to take daddy back to the caves in July to see the bats -- she actually listened during the tour when the guide told us to come back in July-August to see bats. Who knew the four-year-old was listening?

London looking out over our Arizona desert.

Cousins. Madalyn has to be the favorite because she will occasionally get into play-mode and actually play with the toddlers. I don't know how many times we would be downstairs crafting and Madee would run and hide in some corner and then Aidan would quickly follow, calling her name; he was especially enamored of her and wanted her attention constantly. London has renamed her little Webkins dog from Sara to Madalyn since they left.

The SCI Natural History Museum was awesome for many reasons:
1. tons of animals in cool poses
2. it was very small and easy to get through within an hour
3. very toddler friendly with lots of the animals that they could touch

Savannah and her lion.

This lion is one of those that can be touched, so you can tell it's been through some wear and tear. London wanted desperately to get a picture with him, but refused to stand anywhere near his head. I don't know about the folded arms. . . maybe she's protecting herself.

This full-size giraffe grabbed Savy's attention and she pulled me over for this picture, informing me that giraffes are now her favorite animal. Can't you see the love?

Yes, it was fun for them to be able to touch some of the animals. Savy's trying to look scared and Davyn just thinks she's crazy.

This picture took a long time to get set up with that many children after a long day. Everyone was always looking or moving a different way, but I finally got them all half-way decent. So here's to the end of a long, but very fun day. I really think I need to take more time to explore our own state since I've lived here mostly my whole life and there are so many things I haven't seen. Sometimes I think Nate's seen more (and knows more) than me and he's only lived here since he got home from his mission!

52 Blessings

Weeks 1 & 2: A Father in Heaven who hears and answers prayers AND having my immunization records.

I'm going to do two blessings this week because I want to be on the same week as Amy so I can easily keep track by looking at her blog when I get behind! (maybe she can keep me on track.)

I loved Amy's introduction to her starting the 52-week blessing posts. It inspired me to go back and re-read Elder Eyring's General Conference talk. On Sunday I did so and I became really excited to record some of the many blessings that I have. As I pondered, I realized there have really been some amazing things that have happened to Nate and I this past year that need to be recorded for our memory and for our children (and us) to know (and remember) just how much our Father in Heaven looks after and loves us and our family. So I plan to do that on my 52 Blessings as well as a gratitude journal I've started.

President Eyring's advice was to sit down every night and ask the question: "Did God send a message that was just for me? Did I see His hand in my life or the lives of my children?"

In closing he testified that Heavenly Father "loves us and blesses us, more than most of us have yet recognized." I hope that by doing my journal and the 52 Blessings on my blog, that I can learn to see His hand more in my life so that I can give Him the proper thanks (even though that's probably not possible) for all He does for me.

Enough blabbing . . . onto the blessing for the week!

Every mother knows what this is a picture of . . . the dreaded immunization record. Shots are the bane of motherhood because you never know just how hysterical your child will be (or not be) and then there's the pressure of keeping it in a safe place for their whole childhood; hence, the beginning of my story.

Savannah is only four (well, almost five), but her shot record looks like it's a lifetime old. I don't care what it looks like, I'm just grateful to have it.

In December, I planned to get the girls updated on shots. Trying to be prepared, I found the records and had them out on my desk. The day for shots got changed and the records stayed on the desk.

Then the day came and I went to grab the records which were nowhere to be found. Ugh! I had no other copies of their records and Savy starts kindergarten next year and has to have her shots caught up and proof of the fact. I searched and searched. Then I prayed and prayed. The minute I prayed, I knew they were out in my garbage can.

I hate clutter and I clean our desk quite often, but I am usually careful because Nate likes little scraps of paper for writing down phone numbers and important info. So I like to think I'm careful about not throwing away just anything - especially shot records! Preposterous that they would be in the garbage I thought, I'm much too careful for that. Can we all say "pride." So I searched everywhere one last time and I still knew they were in the garbage.

So out to the garbage can I went. Two garbage bags and a puddle of rain water is what I found upon opening the lid. I quickly discovered, of course, that the one from the office was on the bottom in the rain water. Taking it onto the back porch, I started the job of going through the garbage and quickly found them right there at the bottom, wet and dirty. Immediately I thought how quickly my prayers were answered (if I had just listened sooner) and how blessed I was because it hadn't been a garbage day (and we have two each week) when my shot records would have been gone forever to a dump.

After a session of lysol disinfectant spray and then a good blow-dry, we were off to get shots. I'm kind of glad they look so trashed because now every time I go for shots, I can remember how blessed I am and how Heavenly Father really does listen to our prayers and cares about our problems and is willing to help.

Undisturbed Sleep

I figured out why I am always tired.

#1 The child inside me.

#2 The children outside me that came from inside me.

Both cause me to never attain that elusive undisturbed sleep. Doesn't your body need that in order to get REAL rest? Two hour increments of sleep just don't do it for my, I'm afraid. For example:

Saturday night

10:00 pm went to bed

11:45 pm bathroom

2:00 am

I wake up (for the bathroom break) and see that the girls have their door open and light on. I jump up quickly thinking that London had gotten up to use the bathroom and is confused and I need to get that light off before Savannah gets woken up. I walk passed the bathroom. . .no London. Into their room . . . no little girls. Into their little walk-in closet where the light was on and they sometimes play . . . no children. Then it hits me and I go into the extra room that's a cross between a playroom and new baby room that's not organized yet. Sure enough the door is shut and the light is on. I walk in and there they are on the floor playing.

Did you notice the time? Yes, it was 2 in the morning! I don't know what the heck they were thinking, but there were no protests when I marched them both into their beds and told them to go back to sleep.

5:45 am -- bathroom

6:30 am -- girls are up and playing (not-so-quietly) in their room.

7:30 am -- I finally get up because I can't seem to sleep when they are awake and playing so loudly. I know they're not getting into anything and their door is shut in their room, but I guess I need complete silence to sleep.

The 2 in the morning thing still seems a bit surreal, but I bet that would explain why they were both incredibly cranky yesterday and we even had problems during sacrament and Nate had to finally take London out. The funny thing is that that's the second time this has happened in the past year and I just don't get it -- has anyone else had this happen or are my girls just strangely obsessed with playing? I think they get confused because at 6:30 (their new wake-up time as of a couple weeks) it's still dark so maybe they just figured it was time to get up. As for me, I'll just be hanging out here waiting for some undisturbed sleep.

29 week update

Today my visit to the doctor consisted of a glucose test followed by an ultrasound and then news that Dr. D was in surgery and wouldn't arrive for another 1/2 hour. I asked the nurse if we could just say it's all good and I'll see him in two weeks (yeah - I'm now seeing him every two weeks!) since every thing's been fine and I didn't want to wait 1/2 hour+ to tell him that.

The ultrasound was to check and make sure my placenta has raised since it was so low last time. Let me tell you - ultrasounds are not nearly as fun when you're further along because the baby is so dang squished, you can't tell what is what. We barely got a face shot, but I love it because she looks like a real person now, not a skeleton -- so Megan and Rachel don't have to freak out at this pic!

Megan's been begging for a picture so here it is -- I suddenly popped out a ton last week and I only expect it to get bigger and bigger quickly because I've been pretty small so far. Megan is due the day before me so it's fun for us to compare - I'd say I'm definitely bigger than her.

29 week stats:

Baby weighs: 3 lbs
Mom's weight gain: 20 lbs
Baby due date: no change -- exact same to the day -- March 29
Placenta: moved up into normal place - yeah! no c-sections here!
Possible names: Kate, Sydney . . . I'm not good at choosing names!

Look at those cute chubby cheeks!

Word of the Week: lachrymose

lachrymose : /adj./ given to shedding tears easily. weeping or inclined to weep. overemotional. teary. soppy.

lachrymose /adj./ 1. You can't get more lachrymose than when you're pregnant!

lachrymose /adj./ 2. I used to never be lachrymose when I was younger and my friends would always comment that I never cried during movies. I don't know if it's due to getting older or the hormonal changes of becoming a mom, but I can tear up at the silliest things now (and not just when I'm pregnant). And Amy - I tear up at songs all the time, although I often hide it because it's so dumb.

lachrymose /adj./ 3. I had a lachrymose moment (or should I say hour) on Sunday as I watched my little London on the front row in Primary as a Sunbeam. The president had all the Sunbeams raise their hands and then stand in front to be sung to. She stood up there through the whole song, proudly holding her hand up high. Then she sat the whole time, mesmerized with her arms folded on that front row and then when her class was dismissed, she walked by me and gave me this smug look-how-old-I-am look. Yes, I teared up a few times!

ATTENTION

Nobody told me when I changed my template that I would lose all my links to friends and family. Dang!

Hence, I lost my two mission companion's blogs and as much as I google their names, I can't find their blogs.

So. . .

ATTENTION

adelante8 and Lillian

please email me your blog sites so I can check up on you guys.

Thanks!

(and I'll be prepared next time I change templates)

Bikers and Hidden Treasure

The day after Christmas we headed to the park near our house because the girls were dying to try out the new bikes. Well, Savy's wasn't exactly new, but it's been in the garage with flat tired for a long, long time so it was new to her. I must not be up on the bike thing because this is the first time they've been off the plastic big-wheel type bikes and onto "real bikes." The transition can be frustrating because they always want to pedal backwards which works on the big-wheels, but stops you on the real bikes. Nate did some awesome teaching and London was off! She's didn't need two teaching sessions. She just took off and has even crashed a few times because of her recklessness and speed. But Nate pep-talked her about how everyone falls and he did as a little boy and you just jump up and get back on. So, every time she falls, that's exactly what she does. No big deal. But like I said earlier, I'm getting a helmet for evil kenival next time I'm at Target!

Today I took them to the park and they did awesome.

London kept saying, "mom, I'm getting the hand of it!" (no, that's not a typo.) And so she is - she's learned to maneuver her body to balance out the bike so she can take turns at high speed and not crash. I saw it save her a few times today from major wipe-outs.

The race.

London must have taken this picture, but it reminded me of something funny Savy said last week at the dinner table. She said, "mom, my hair is like treasure." It took me a minute to realize she was referring to her hair color being like golden treasure, but once it clicked I thought it was quite the clever insight.

Post Holiday Post

Catch-up time.

As usual, I'm behind on posting, but I have determined to be better in the new year and post things in a timely manner so that I can always remember even the little things that have happened in our lives. Like today, we left Nate's parents' house and London declared: "Grandma Norma is SOOO nice." London is sooo cute.

But on to documenting the holiday.

CHRISTMAS EVE EVE (SUNDAY)

Sunday night we went over to Nate's sister, Jill's house for a nice dinner with Nate's family.

Dallin is the ring-leader on this side of the family and always has a fun game for the littles to play.
Jill read the kids the Christmas story, but London was the only one completely enthralled (as you can see). Did I mention in any earlier posts how obsessed she's become with the story of Christ's birth? It's her favorite. Even this morning, she was playing with a Santa decoration and singing some made-up song about how it's not about the presents, it's about Jesus' birthday, etc. Her favorite song now is Away in a Manager and I'm quite impressed that she must have learned all the words in nursery because I don't go around the house singing it.

CHRISTMAS EVE

I have no pictures for Christmas Eve, but we had a fabulous dinner of prime rib, roasted potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and salad. Fabulous even though I prefer my prime rib more cooked than most everyone there, but it was still great.

CHRISTMAS

The girls didn't get up early -- luckily. And they were quite hesitant to go downstairs -- surprisingly. But once they came down, the excitement settled in.

A couple weeks ago we got a pump to fix Savy's bike and so that fueled London into wanting a "big girl bike." And Santa listened. She was very happy. She caught on very quickly and is a riding demon -- I didn't think they needed helmets but with this daredevil I think I'll have to get one next time I go out!

Savannah cracked us up. Every present she saw or opened required an excited squeal. She definitely enjoyed everything. . . even the orange in her stocking!

Who would have thought an orange would be so exciting? Well, I guess if it's an orange from the North Pole. . .

Nate's parents dropped by to see the loot and give the girls their presents. Ever since their cousin, Emma, came from Denver, they've talked about Webkins (little pets that you can register online). So they each got a dog and were ecstatic. Oh, and I was thrilled for two Where's Waldo books - I think they're so fun and so reminiscent of my childhood days. London's actually quite good at spotting Waldo.

Pat and Norma left to have their Christmas feast and our other guests arrived: Grandma and Grandpa Jones, Grandma Cyndee and Tyler and Gina and family.

I thought our Christmas table turned out gorgeous and it was very nice to have an intimate dinner with so few people. The food turned out great as was the company. The whole day was great - relaxed and unstressed. I loved it because I spent most of the day holding my new nephew, Ryder and my fabulous Nate even did the dishes.

Grandpa Jones and Wyatt. Wyatt definitely has his dad's curly, wild hair.

Grandma Jones and Ryder. He is the perfect baby. I don't think I heard him cry once and he laughs and smiles a ton and even babbles at you when he's in the mood. I think I took some video of it and we'll see if I can't get it on here sometime this week.

Tyler playing with Christmas toys.
Not the best picture of London, but Ryder looks darling! I took like five pictures of Savannah with him and she closed her eyes in every single one. I don't know what to do what to do with that girl!


Noah spent most of the day at the table eating treats. When we realized it, though, I think it was a little late and he didn't feel so hot.

Wyatt. Tyler calls him a little hobbit and I'd have to say the description fits him well. I think he was in a whole new world at my house because he's used to all boys and Baylee (who is a tom-boy if I ever saw one). So when he came down with princess stickers on his face and baby dolls in his hands, it was a new look. But then again, Savannah can get anyone to do anything I think - she's quite the leader.

I have no pictures of Wesley because he played Playstation the whole time. Nate never plays it, but it sure has come in handy for both Thanksgiving and Christmas with these elementary school little boys.

It was a great day, but I am now ready for the new year to begin. I love Christmas, but I also love cleaning it all up and starting a new year and getting back to normal. Back to preschool and real life. . . oh and it's time to get on the waiting list for Savy's kindergarten next year! I can't believe she's that old.