Some things that are getting me through my last trimester

READING

Some days I just want to rest, but I feel so unproductive on the couch. I don't know what I would do on the slow days if I couldn't read a good story or self-improvement book. Some are books I've read many times before, and others are books that I'm reading for the first time, but it makes me feel a thousand times better than just watching television.

IRON SUPPLEMENTS

Apparently, not only was I borderline anemic with my last pregnancy, but according to my blood tests, I'm also borderline anemic during this pregnancy as well. I don't know why, I take my prenatal pills every day and I feel like I eat a lot. When I asked my doc why, and she said that some peoples bodies are better at keeping iron in them than others, and that my body is just that way. So by doctors orders, I take some "Slow fe" in the morning every day along with a glass of orange juice to help it settle in my stomach. It helps keep my energy up, which makes me a happier pregnant lady. I was given a list of other foods to eat, but like I said I eat pretty well. Something I didn't know was that prune juice is loaded with iron, but just trying one cup the other day was too much for me (if you know what I mean)...I don't think I can do that again.

YOGA

All I can say is why oh why didn't I do this during my last pregnancy! It's not like I've never done yoga before, but for some reason I didn't exercise much during my last pregnancy except for walking. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't get up early in the morning and do my yoga. It gives me motivation to face my big fat pregnant day, it improves my breathing which can be pretty short when the baby is taking up lung room, it improves my blood circulation and makes me feel happy and relaxed at the same time. Without doing yoga I think I'd have some serious anxiety issues with how my pregnant hormones can be. I'm much more of a patient person when I do this exercise. It also makes me feel less like a tired old lady (which is how I describe what being pregnant feels like) and more like a healthy vibrant mom.

A MATERNITY BELT

Coming into these last couple of months is where this one is coming more in handy. Needless to say, it makes the weight of what feels like a moving bowling ball, feel more bearable, and keeps me from wearing out too soon. It also helps my back. It's a great little gadget to wear around the house especially when I do my daily cleaning.

A LITTLE SUNSHINE

I get depressed when I don't see the sun after a while. I'm so glad that I'm going to give birth in a sunnier time of year. Just feeling it on my face for a couple of minutes makes all the difference in the world to me. I'm so glad that I have my own car to drive when my husbands at work so I can take my daughter out to the park whenever the sun is out and just enjoy the weather. Hopefully it won't keep SNOWING! Which is what happened yesterday. I hate snow.

TYLENOL

It may not do much, but sometimes those darn headaches just won't go away no matter what I do. I'm thankful that there's something safe I can use in this day and age that can help on those days when you just have to be in some pain because your pregnant.

TURKEY, BACON, AND AVOCADO SANDWICHES

This is one of the new loves of my life. I could eat one of these everyday (as long as their fresh). It seems that every restaurant I go to has one or at least something similar, which I order every time. They're the best with fresh tomatoes and lettuce, and I swear they're actually releasing endorphins every time I eat one. I don't eat them every day, but I think I probably would if I could.

GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP

This is important for anyone, but it's a concept that's taken me a long time to get the hang of. When I was single I would go off of 2 or 3 hours of sleep a lot of the time, which now I think was insane. No wonder I caught every cold that came into town! Since I got married 3 years ago, I've done much much better...even though I'm still more of a night person than a morning person, and probably always will be. Being pregnant makes me require more sleep than usual, but I've learned over time, that it's not bad to rest when you need it, and nobody is so tough that they don't need an occasional nap. Pretty basic logic, but it helps me a lot.

Last but certainly not least...

MY HUSBAND AND DAUGHTER

Everyday I'm amazed at the support and love that come from both of them. Scott helps me around the house when he's home even though he already works so hard with long hours every day including Saturdays, He still takes time to change a diaper or make me a meal, which makes me the luckiest girl alive. Crystal is great company to have at home. She does her best to help me clean the house and always looks for garbage to help throw away. Last week for no reason at all she was sitting with me on the couch and looked at me and smiled and said enthusiastically, "I love you because you're mommy!" What a wonderful thing to say right when I needed it! I have so many things to be thankful for during this pregnancy, but Scott and Crystal take the cake.

Easter Sunday / Month of March

My daughter is pretty spoiled. She got a bunch of new clothes with her Easter basket this year:








The white and yellow dress was hand made by her Grandma deHoyos.
















Of course the basket was her favorite.


Here she is in her Easter dress:











It was such a nice day! After church we walked around the Timp temple and took pictures there:




After that we went to Grandmas to have an Easter Egg hunt. Crystal found all 24 eggs!





We also had Easter dinner at Grandmas house. While we were at it, we busted out a cake and sang happy birthday to everybody in the family who had a birthday this month. Lisa's brother Matt turned 18 on the fifth, Mike turned 25 on the 17th, Scott's birthday was last Saturday, and Jared's birthday is today. So we sang a big happy birthday to everybody.

Easter is so much fun while you have a family to share it with!


Anyway...

I think this is the last of the excitement for a really busy month. Like I said, Everybody's birthday was this month. Scott and I dropped Crystal off with the grandparents last Saturday so that we could spend his birthday alone together. It was wonderful. We went to fuddruckers for lunch, then went shopping for his present together, then went to see Vantage point at the movies, and then ate dinner at Black Angus. It was nice to have an all day date with just the two of us.

I'm happy that this pregnancy is almost over. My hair is thinning already. (With Crystal it didn't start thinning until she was born.) Even though it grows back, it drives me insane to have hair falling out. I'm going to have to take a few trips to the salon before this pregnancy is over, I may be forking out some money for some extensions to make my hair look nice and thick until my hair goes back to behaving itself.
I also hate this part because it's when I get really big. Until about now the belly is somewhat manageable, but from now until June I start to retain water, and it's already starting. Ugh. On the plus side, I'm looking forward to having a little man added to the household. As you can see, Crystal is pretty spoiled with all the attention being the only child and the only grandchild on both sides of the family. She needs to share the spotlight before her character starts to get affected. lol. I don't know though, she's still going to be the only girl and I can't help but love getting her girly clothes to wear! In the meantime, I try to keep myself busy with cleaning, reading, and going out with family and friends.
So that's what we've been up to this month. Hope you all had a fabulous Easter!

Happy Easter

How Crystal expands her vocabulary

She does this all day long! She finds an object, asks about it and keeps going. I guess it's as good a way as any to learn about the world around you.

Bedtime

Sometime last week Crystal was in a bad mood at bedtime and insisted on being sung to and stayed with all night until she fell asleep. (The problem is since mommy is the one who tucks her in, mommy, being tired, pregnant, and slightly low on patience these days, can only deal with it for so long before she gives up and just lets her whine in her crib/room and goes to bed.)
Anyway like I mentioned, last week she was being particularly insistent, and when Mommy left to go to bed for herself, Crystal started screaming. After listening to her whine for about five minutes in her room, it finally quieted down and we figured she'd fallen asleep. However, no more than thirty seconds later, we heard a huge THUD, followed by the sound of the doorknob to her room.
I jumped up and opened her door to see her standing innocently with her blanket in hand and a big smile on her face yelling "I did it! I did it!"
The moment I've been dreading since she was just an infant had arrived. She had learned to vault her body over the crib. To her credit, she's very talented. She looks like she had military training with the way she can launch herself over those bars.
So we went to Walmart a couple of days later to pick out a toddler bed, and we let her pick out her own bedding set to go with it. All her favorites were displayed in the bedding sets to choose from. Her three favorites in the display were Disney princesses, Micky mouse, and Elmo. We held all three out to her and asked her to make a choice. She deliberated for at least five minutes,(I'm not exaggerating) and after changing her mind a couple of times, went with Elmo. The smile on her face was ear to ear.
I wish you people could see her dancing and squealing around the room as she watched us set up her bed and Elmo bedding to go with it. These are the moments that make having kids so awesome. She was so happy. I wish I felt like dancing every time a little thing like new bedding came into my life. Here she is on her new Elmo bed with all her Elmo dolls piled on top of it....(her hair is in a ponytail, it's longer than that, I promise)

Yes...those Elmo dolls are all hers. It was no surprise that she settled for the Elmo bedding to match her obsession.

Since the switch she's actually done really well. We have to put a plastic safety knob on the door to keep her from coming out of her room after bedtime, but she only tried to come out once. It's been over a week now and we're all sleeping better than we thought we would. I thought the conversion would be much more scary than this, and I'm glad to say that she's been handling it wonderfully.