Car Seat Cover

My mom so kindly bought the material for this car seat cover. My Grandma Ruth so lovingly sewed the car seat cover. She just whipped this up like it was nothing. No pattern or anything. Thanks so much to both of you!

I think the fabric is so pretty. (My mom and I went together to pick out the material. My mom found this fabric, pointed it out to me, and I loved it. I must say that I think my mom has great taste. She always finds the cutest clothes, fabric, purses, or whatever.)

And the border and underside is a striped material. Cute!

These car seat covers are sold at Quilted Bear for 50 bucks ... the material for this one cost $15. Hmmm, kind of a no brainer, right? Thanks again, Mom and Grandma. I really love it! Now we just need a baby to put in the car seat ...

She's Late

April 2, 2010 will be over in a few hours. Baby Girl isn't here yet. She's late. The good news is she's still doing very well. I'm finally dilated to a whopping ONE. Maybe a two. So, it could be any time now. Otherwise Baby Girl will receive her eviction notice next week.

Mitch and I realized that today is the last Friday we will ever spend together without kids. How weird. So, we went to an I-max movie and ate at the Bombay House (and decided that we like Taste of India more). It was a good last date night before Baby comes.

We're both so excited for our little girl! I hope we're ready for this crazy adventure we're about to embark on ... we're as ready as we'll ever be, I guess. I also hope that everything goes well, with no complications, and that we have a healthy baby above all else ...

Hurry Up and Wait

I can't stand waiting anymore. Too bad I don't have a choice. I keep lecturing Baby Girl everyday and telling her, "You need to come out now ..." Too bad she doesn't listen. I'm usually a pretty patient person. Kind of. Okay, it depends on what I'm waiting for. I definitely am running out of patience right now. (Maybe this is Heavenly Father's way of teaching me patience. Or maybe it's just me complaining because my back hurts and I'm tired and I'm SO ready to not be pregnant anymore.) The worse part is that I've got everything done already: I washed her clothes, blankets, and bedding, and our house is super clean. So now not only do I have to wait, but I have nothing to do while I wait. Maybe I should have procrastinated. Yeah right; that would have drove me nuts too.

Last Friday I spent the day shopping with my friend Nicole. She had a genius idea to walk around and shop all day to induce my labor. (It was a great idea except that it didn't do the trick. And I probably spent too much. Sorry, Hubby! I did have a really fun time though.) Mitch and I went to the doctor after I got back from shopping, super excited to hear that Baby Girl might be on her way ... and ... guess what ... Nothing. Not dilated. Doctor Disappointment's exact words were, "I don't think you'll be having the baby this week." How depressing.

We go back to the doctor tomorrow. He better be Doctor Good News tomorrow. Or I really will cry this time.

Happy Birthday Mitch!!!

It was Mitch's birthday this weekend. The big 2-9. We celebrated by eating way too much. I made him a big breakfast that morning. We had scrambled eggs, toast, orange juice, and hashbrowns. Later that night we ate at his favorite place, Tepanyaki. It did not disappoint. After that we had Coldstone ice cream and watched "The Invention of Lying". (I know that renting a movie is not that exciting for a birthday celebration. But let's be honest, there aren't many fun things you can do for your birthday when your wife is 9 months pregnant. We'll have to make up for it next year. We'll party for the big 30.) Anyways, I'm pretty certain we both got our fair share of calories for Hubby's birthday. I gave Mitch a GPS running watch. He loved it. I was so glad I was finally able to surprise him with a gift. Usually I have no idea what to get him and I end up asking him what he wants. He's kind of hard to shop for because everything he wants costs thousands of dollars. Ha,ha. But this year I finally thought of something and he was so excited. Anyways, it's pretty sweet. You can plug it in to the computer and download your times, distances, etc. It has a heart monitor and it will track all sorts of things. I'm sure he'll get a lot of use out of it. We're going to celebrate with his fam tomorrow and my fam next week.

I hope you had a great birthday, Mitch! I love you very much and I am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Baby Showers and Baby's Room

Baby Girl is very spoiled as evidenced by this post. We had two more awesome showers last week. My SIL and MIL, Katie and Kathy, threw us a great shower. Everything was decorated in pink at the shower and it was really cute. They even had some super cool fruit kebabs. Practically everyone we invited was able to come, which is so nice. I was really overwhelmed with everyone's generosity and thoughtfulness. We got a lot of nice gifts and ended up with a lot of things we really needed, which is so helpful. My only worry is that Baby Girl won't come join us until after Easter and then the Easter outfit that Kathy and Kevin gave us that says, "Baby's First Easter" on it won't get used. Not to mention how upset I'll be if I have to be pregnant that much longer. Ha,ha. Thanks Kathy and Katie for the great shower. I really enjoyed it! Thanks for all the work you put into making the shower so nice!!!

My good friends in the ward also threw me a shower. They had the house decorated just like Baby Girl's nursery, in butterflies, flowers, and pinks and greens. It was super cute. The best part was that they served the two things I've been craving the most: cottage cheese and hard boiled eggs. (Not together, I eat them separately.) Ha,ha. I hope everyone wasn't too grossed out. I thought it was great. Don't worry, they had other good things to eat too, like fruit and cake and punch. We played some fun games as well. I had a good time and appreciate all the time and work they put into it.

Speaking of Baby Girl, here's some pics of her nursery. I love the way it turned out and I'm really happy with it. It's a lot more pink that I originally intended, but that's okay.

Baby Girl is doing great. On Thursday she weighed in at a whopping 5 pounds 14 ounces. I keep telling her she should be born this weekend so I don't have to go to work on Monday. Ha,ha. But seeing as how it's Saturday evening and there's no sign of her coming yet, I guess I'll be in the office on Monday morning. She'll come when she's ready I'm sure.

On another note, I just wanted to jot down how my pregnancy has gone:

1st Trimester: Positive pregnancy test on fast Sunday in August (I think it was August 5th?) Even though we were trying to get pregnant, I still cried and said, "I'm too young to have a baby." Ha,ha. I think I was just a little shocked that our lives would be changing so drastically. But, after a few minutes I calmed down and we were both really excited. During the first trimester I was almost constantly nauseas, but never threw up. I ate constantly. I craved hard boiled eggs. I was incredibly, ridiculously tired all the time. We went to San Diego. I felt AWFUL on the plane rides. I stopped feeling sick at about week 13 or so.

2nd Trimester: By far the best! I wasn't sick at all. I was tired but not too bad. Had a lot of bloody noses; about two a day, every day, for one month. Cured by Usana fish oil pills and Vaseline. I had to stop running and switch to the elliptical or walking. We found out that she is a girl. We went to Europe and that was the best trip of my life and I felt great considering I was 3 months along. I started feeling the baby move and Mitch as well. Really no complaints about the second trimester besides the bloody noses.

3rd Trimester: By far the hardest! I think since I missed out on vomiting, swollen ankles/feet, heartburn, etc. my body decided to make it up to me in the form of back aches, horrible hip pain, ridiculously dry skin, and congestion. I really can't sit for longer than 20 minutes in one position. I dread sitting for long periods of time like at work, church, to watch a movie, etc. I found that walking on the treadmill helps my back pain and I walk about 20 to 30 minutes per day, six days a week. My skin is so dry! I put lotion on constantly. I get really hot very quickly and that makes me lightheaded. This is especially true in sacrament meeting. Holy cow it gets SO hot in the chapel I can hardly stand it. I seriously don't even want to go to church tomorrow because I know I'll be hot and I'll have to sit for 3 hours. Blah. (Don't worry, I'll be there.) I crave cottage cheese and I eat a bowl (or two) of cereal almost every night at about 9:00. If I don't have my nightly bowl of cereal, I wake up at about 4 a.m. STARVING!

While these last few months have been the hardest, I am excited to know it's the end. She really could be here any day now. We're all ready; clothes and blankets are washed, we received/bought everything we'll need (at least for now), and the hospital bag is packed. Now we just wait. I'm really hoping she'll decide that this is her week!

Books

I haven't updated my latest readings. I read Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. Can't remember if I posted about that or not. I liked it. Very deep and thought invoking. I just finished The Call of the Wild, by Jack London. The second half of the book includes White Fang, also by Jack London. I won't be reading it anytime soon. I feel that after reading Call of the Wild, I can pretty much guess what White Fang will be like. I think London is one of those authors that is very true to his writing style, which in his case bores me. I thought it was weird to have the entire book based around a dog's thoughts. I'm pretty sure dogs don't think exactly the same way as humans do. That's why they are dogs and we are humans. I didn't like giving such human characteristics to the dogs. I'm sure dogs don't really think that way. Don't get me wrong; I think animals have feelings, but I don't think they are to the extent that ours are. Anyways, it wasn't my favorite book, but I didn't hate it.

Now I am reading my Everest: War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. Yes, I plan to read all 1010 pages of it. It will be the longest book I have ever read unless I actually finish the Old Testament this year, which is one of my goals. If I read both then I will have read two VERY long literary pieces this year. We'll see how that goes. I love Tolstoy's writings though so I'm really excited about the book.

Miles Baby Shower

My mom and SIL, Natalie, threw me an awesome baby shower last weekend! Thanks so much you guys! The theme was ladybugs and it turned out super cute. My grandma even made really cute ladybug sugar cookies. (I do wish I had a pic of them.) My mom found red balloons with black dots on them to go with the theme as well. As always it was so nice to see so many family members. We really don't see each other often enough (mostly due to the fact that we all live far away from one another, and my dad's side of the fam is HUGE and spread all over the country, so I enjoy the few times when at least some of us can get together). It was also nice to see some friends whom I haven't seen in a long time. And I was glad Mitch's mom and sis could make it too. Thanks for coming everyone!

Here's Natalie preparing the drinks.

Here's the adorable diaper cake and party favors my mom made.

Here's me in all my baby hugeness and my mom who got caught not looking at the camera. :)

I am always overwhelmed at people's generosity. Everyone was so kind and giving and we received a lot of nice/needed/useful gifts for Baby Girl. Now we are even more excited for her to come (though I really, really want her to wait until after our next showers and Mitch's birthday. I'm cool with it anytime after that. Not that I really have a say in it, right?). Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed the shower. I really just like visiting with everyone and having a reason to get together. It's always a good time. Thanks everyone for coming to the shower and for the wonderful gifts! Baby Girl is so, so loved already!!! And thanks, Mom and Natalie, for the great shower!