Quadruple baby shower!

My friends, Lisa Foster and Robyn held a quadruple baby shower for us all during the same weeks Scott's family were in town for his commencement ceremony. It was a really busy week, but lots of fun! Marilee (who was in town this week) had a handsome little boy named Collin, and Danielle just had a beautiful little girl named Reagan. Kathleen is due a couple weeks before I am with a little girl who's going to be named Eva. Not only that, but after we opened presents Robyn announced that she's almost 12 weeks pregnant as well! So congrats to Robyn! It was fun to see everyone and share in our "pregnancy woes" together.

Thank you Lisa F. and Robyn for making this little get together happen.

Commencement

We had so much fun with our family this last week. Everyone came in town from Philadelphia to celebrate everyone's graduation commencement. Even though Scott graduated last December, he also celebrated his commencement along with his brother Rob, and his cousin J.D.

We were able to celebrate with lots of hanging out with a dinner at our house, then a brunch the next day after Rob and Scott walked (JD walked at two). Then a bunch of the boys got together to watch the NFL draft the following day, and we had another dinner at aunt Cathy's that night. It was so great to see everyone!

A week less to hang in there.

So instead of 7 weeks 3 days, it's now 6 weeks 4 days left because I'm getting induced a week early...hurray! So after looking at dates with my doctor, we decided that June 9th would be a great birthday for the little guy. I'm actually pretty relieved to know that he'll come sooner rather than later. My short little body doesn't like being pregnant very much.
However, we tried the same thing with Crystal (trying to induce a week early) and it didn't work cause she came 2 weeks early instead of one. Once again, my body couldn't handle waiting, so we'll see.
In the meantime I'm just hangin.

"The joy of motherhood comes in moments" -Elder M. Russell Ballard

Probably just like every other young LDS mother, Elder Ballard's conference talk mentioning motherhood as a daughter of God was in my top three favorites.
Crystal threw a horrible tantrum yesterday, probably the worst I've seen in months and months, and yet today all is forgotten.
Here she is sleeping on the couch yesterday just minutes after her gigantic tantrum...how can anyone stay frustrated with that little sleeping beauty?


Today she decided to go all the way upstairs and find a cardboard box that she knew I kept in the office, and haul it down with her clumsy, two year old body, then go upstairs to her room to take today's favorite toys from her toy box, and crawl in the box with her toys and blanket so she could watch Disney's Toy Story exactly the way she wanted to: All cuddled up in a box like a house cat. She must have had this idea all planned out in her head as she seemed never to hesitate in any moment as to exactly what she was doing.
I can't believe that this little person who's only been on the earth for two years, with so much creativity came out of me. I can't believe I took part in bringing someone so precious and wonderful to this world. Every day she makes me laugh. Everyday I look at her and see so many of the Christlike qualities that I want to have.
All the cute and sweet moments really do create true joy in my life. When I took this picture I was laughing and said "I love you!" and she looked up with the smile in the picture saying "You love me?" How could I not?

Kids everywhere

I went to my friend Lisa Foster's house on Monday morning to see some of my high school pals. We all brought our kids. I brought Crystal, Lisa had her three kids, Kathleen had her two boys and Liz had her two boys as well. It was great to see Liz, who was visiting from Cali. All our little munchkins looked so cute running around together and sitting together on the couch. If you want better details of the experience, go see Lisa Foster's blog on my link list. I borrowed this picture from her blog because I forgot my camera. Aren't all our kids so cute?

Music soothes the savage beast...or in this case rock music eases the pregnant lady

So even though I'm nearly 8 months pregnant, my wonderful husband and I decided that we still couldn't pass up an opportunity to see Jimmy Eat World perform with Paramore last night at the McKay event center in Orem.
Obviously, we were in seats since my stomach is so far out I can't see my toes. I half expected the security guards to frisk my tummy and make sure I wasn't smuggling stuff in, but it was just the same basic frisk they always do on the way into a concert.
Anyway like I was saying, we were in seats, but Scott got the hookups to the best seats in the house and we ended up being closer to the stage than the people in the mosh pits which was great.
The opening bands did a good job. The first was "Dear and the Headlights" who were much better than I expected them to be. The second was "Paramore" who Scott and I were both familiar with, so we liked watching them, and then we fulfilled our tradition as a married couple and watched Jimmy Eat world for the forth time together.


We couldn't pass up the opportunity because we've been going to their concerts ever since we were engaged, and even though sometimes we listen to lots of different music, this awesome little band from Arizona is our official band as a couple. We may not have a "special song" that most couples have, just a special band.

What a great night! Thank you Scott for taking me to this. I really needed it. I don't know what it is with watching live shows, but I've been addicted to watching bands perform since I was 14 and saw Weezer, and it was really nice to be able to do something I could still do while I was a teenager even though my body, age, and being more grown up and "mature" has set other limitations on what was fun (or what I've called fun) in the past.

Opinionated

I took this fun survey that I found on my friend Liz's blog. According to the results I'm just like Lizzie Bennet. That probably explains why she's always been my all time favorite character out of all of Jane Austen's characters. Makes sense since my one of the things that attracted my husband to me when we started dating was that I had my own opinion about everything. Also our story about how we fell in love has a lot of similarities, to the book, which is also why I love the story so much.

Take the Quiz here!

Thanks for the fun idea Liz! If anyone else wants a go you can go ahead and click and see who you're most like. (:

Passed out

Here's Crystal taking a nap on the couch with her ugly blanket that she's incredibly attached to no matter what we do.
Crystal likes to have a water bottle at her side at all times like her mom, so that's why she's sleeping with a water bottle next to her mouth looking like a little drunk.




It's so funny how toddlers can fall asleep in weird places and positions. She's the best. Everything she does entertains us, and even though they call it the "terrible two's," her laugh, logic, conversation, playfulness, and beautiful spirit are ten times more wonderful than the meltdowns can be terrible. In the case of our little girl, the glass is more than half full regarding her age.

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.

A dinosaur egg!!

Crystal likes the first ten minutes of the movie Dinosaur, by Disney. During those first ten minutes you follow this baby dinosaur egg that gets tossed around and finally hatches.
Last night she found an avocado I'd left out on the kitchen table and started screaming that there was a dinosaur egg on the table.
I tried to explain that it was a fruit that we eat with chips and tacos here at home, but she wouldn't have any of it. In her heart, she knew she had found her very own dinosaur egg.
She lugged it around with all her toys all day long, and the only way I could get it away from her is when she fell asleep.
On the plus side, she was very gentle with it, which gives me hopes that she'll be good with her little brother when he comes.
I love my little monkey.

Good Times and Great Oldies

Okay, so it's been nearly an entire week, but I've finally gotten around to making this post.
Last Saturday I got together with two of my posse from the old days at UVSC. Paula and Leigh. Paula and I see each other every once in a while, but it had been around seven years since I'd seen Leigh. It was so much fun!

It made me miss some of the fun times, the food, folks, fun, dances, going to all night diners at the crack of dawn, break dancing, thinking we were the coolest people there, and of course, hanging out in the hall of flags and people watching. So here's a toast to the days when we were younger and much more careless:

As silly as we would get when we were together sometimes, our friendship went beyond the weekends, dances, and parties. The fact that we had just as much fun last week as we did back in the year 2000-2001, proves that we're still true pals!
This makes me want to get together with all of our girl clan...Happy, Kathy, and Natalie, I wish you were there! Maybe some time when we're all in town we can have a bigger reunion!

Thanks Leigh and Paula for a great afternoon!


Love these gals:

P.S. Leigh, I do have a picture with the three of us that Todd didn't come in and block. As soon as I can get my scanner working again I'll send it to you and Paula okay?