Catching Up

So Sunday was the series finale of Lost and I'm sad that it's come to an end. I won't post any spoilers for those who may not have watched it yet. Just know that there better be some kind of tell all special that reveals all the little interconnections and "easter eggs" (as I like to call them). It would be nice to get a little more back story on some characters like Libby since we never really found out why she was in the mental hospital or if she was actually a clinical psychologist (I kind of always felt like maybe she was lying about that as part of her crazy). Anyway, I'll be rewatching the whole thing now and taking copious notes to find all the easter eggs. Here's a little tidbit for you: did you realize how many times the number 23 popped up? In season 6 we discover what 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 means (sort of) and that 23 is Jack's number. One of the times it popped up was the gate number flight 815 departed from. Coincidence? There's no such thing on this show. If you decide you want to be crazy like me and rewatch the whole series, pay attention to stuff like that and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Now back to reality...we've been kind of busy (hence the lack of recent posts).

Our truck was stolen from Leland's work parking lot at the end of April. The most common response to our telling people this was, "AGAIN?!?" Yes, again. For those of you who don't know, Leland's truck was stolen from his school parking lot 2 years ago; we'd had it for 5 months. A few weeks ago Pima County Sherrifs recovered it on the outskirts of Tucson. The scratches/dents to the exterior, a huge dent in the top of the cab, all the electronics stolen, and a broken/cracked heater core brought the damages total to over $10,000. Needless to say they are going to be paying us the blue book value and we'll be buying a new one.

Not only was there the damage, but the thieves put around 1200 miles on it in the week or so that they had it. It also had Mexican money and cookies inside when it was found. I guess we'll never really be sure how many times it crossed the border, but I think we can safely say that it did without presuming too much.

On to some happier business, our little guy, Carter, is growing like crazy. He was 16 lbs at his 4 month checkup and at 5 months and 1 week I could no longer button the bottoms of his 6-9 month outfits. That's right, my 5 month old child is wearing 12 months clothes. I don't put too much stock in the age portion of the sizing, but he does seem to fit right into the weight/length bracket they put on the labels.

He's also eating real food now. He struggled at first with how liquidy the cereal had to be, but he's got the hang of it now and he really enjoys eating his apples, peaches, and pears with a little cereal mixed in. He's such a good eater and not very messy anymore. That first try was SO messy.

Cutest smile ever!

Here's a video of him I took when I was trying to have us take a nap together. We never did get that nap.

Song of the Week

This post was inspired by Emily...She's been posting songs and other little things that have been sticking with her and inspiring her, which inspired me.  (Do you think I could use the word "inspired" one more time?  Ha!  Just did.)

Anyway, the first time I heard this song was at our friends', Terri and Dave's, house.  Their daughter, Corinne, did her senior pictures at the temple and the photographer put together an AWESOME slideshow/collage/video (I'm not quite sure what to call it 'cause it was so cool!) and used this song.

And over the past couple of weeks it's just kept popping up.  On a radio station I don't normally listen to and on my cousin's blog playlist.  I think it would normally be a little too much pop for me, but something about it reminds of that feeling you get when you're watching a fireworks show at Disneyland or something.  Like magic is real and anything is possible.

So without any further ado...Here's Owl City with Fireflies.

A Crazy Couple of Weeks

We've been so busy lately, and I'm finding it hard to stay awake (unless of course I'm in bed where it's been fairly difficult to fall asleep, guh!).  At least Carter is sleeping longer at night.  He's always been great and slept for at least 6 hours, but in the last week I've been trying to cut out his middle-of-the-night feeding and just let him sooth back to sleep with his pacifier.  It's been working almost every night.  So hopefully soon he'll be used to it and sleeping 8-9 hours without my help.

So here's a recap of my busy last couple of weeks:

Two weeks ago we had Carter's baby blessing and I just want to say how grateful I am for the priesthood and for my husband.  The blessing Leland gave Carter was so beautiful.  My mom looked at me afterward and said, "All right, no tears!" to which I replied, "No, I totally cried," and she said, "Not you, the baby."  Our little man was so handsome in his little white outfit.  We were able to transcribe most of the blessing so I'm putting that into his baby book.  I hope one day he'll look at it and realize what a special blessing it is to have the priesthood in our home.  Lawanna was able to have a family member do Leland's blessing in shorthand and then transcribe it; it is really great to be able to read that now and feel the strength of the priesthood and that blessing.

After the blessing we went back to David and Lawanna's house for a lunch/family gathering.  Thanks to Lawanna for opening up her home to not only her family, but mine as well.  And thanks to all those who helped me with food for the lunch.

We didn't have much the week after the blessing.  Sam's 14th birthday was the following Sunday.  Goodness, how time flies.  I still remember when my mom and dad got the call from our social worker at LDS Family Services letting us know we were going to be getting another brother.  And not just any brother, but a full blood brother for Daniel (I don't know that it's common knowledge, but my brothers are each others' biological siblings.  They have the same birthparents.).  Sam is our resident goofball and I love him so much.

Here's where things start to pick up a little bit.  Mom and I have been slowly working at the grandparents' house in preparation for the young women in the ward to do a service project at their house.  They're going to be coming in tonight with some Relief Society ladies to do some deep cleaning.  Mom and I have spent our last few Saturdays over at the house clearing stuff (ok, I'll say it, JUNK) so that it can actually be cleaned.  Last night, Aunt Linda joined us and really dove in.  She took the bull by the horns and we got so much more done (Thanks, Aunt Linda!).  There was so much stuff that should never have moved from California (and that was 15 years ago).  I'm not kidding, we found a coupon with an expiration of 1984!!!  I wasn't even alive when that coupon was printed.  In addition to battling the clutter, we had to battle the mighty will of Rudy.  He seems to think that we shouldn't throw away Fuller Brush cleansers that are 60 years old.  Really, Rudy?!?!  If you haven't used it in 60 years, do you really think you're going to use it now?  Not that it would even work if you tried using it.  You might just give yourself cancer from all the crap that's in those things that we didn't know about in the 1950s.

I've also had quite a few appointments/activities to make it to in the past week.  Here goes it:

• Last Thursday - Leland kept Carter at home so I could go to our ward's Relief Society Royalty Dinner.  The theme of the dinner was to remind us that we are children of our Heavenly Father and what that should mean to us as we go about our lives.  It was so lovely.
• Last Friday - Initial visit with dentist & optometrist appointment
• Saturday - Grandparents' house
• Sunday - semi-restful, you don't really get to veg all day when you have a baby
• Monday - Back to the dentist for a cleaning.  My mouth hurt the whole rest of the day (but that's my fault for not having gone for so long.  I won't make that mistake again.)  And then the chiropractor, I'll be going back next Monday and probably a lot of Mondays after that because I'm so tense and I keep whacking it out carrying around a giant car seat and baby.
• Monday night - Leland helped my dad and Daniel lay laminate wood flooring in Dan's room.  The contents of Dan's room have been in the living room for 2 weeks.  After we'd worked on that for awhile, we headed over to Dairy Queen for a little break and to support Angie's family in their March of Dimes/March for Babies fundraiser.  Here's the link to their family's fundraising site.
• Tuesday night - Back to my parents' house for more flooring.  The men got the room finished and moved all of Dan's stuff back into his room.  Yay for reclaiming the living room!  Mom and I were at the grandparents' house with Aunt Linda working our butt's off.
• Wednesday (today) - First thing this morning I was at the dentist for a filling.  At some point, I need to go by the optometrist's office to pick up my new contact lenses.  I think I might also have to meet someone to sell some baby gear that I posted on Craigslist.  Later today I will head over to help my mom in the last efforts of preparing for the service project at the grandparents' house.  Grandpa will be taking grandma to dinner so that she isn't frantic with all of those people in the house.  Leland is one of the Webelos (Cub Scout) leaders in our ward so his Wednesdays are spoken for.
• Friday - My coworker is having a Cookie Lee jewelry party.  I don't know if I'll buy anything, but I haven't seen her new house so I think I'll go and take the baby so everybody can see him.

Also coming up in the next 2 weeks: my annual checkup, Carter's 4 month checkup, and a consultation with an oral surgeon about having my wisdom teeth removed.  I guess this was just meant to be the month of many doctor's appointments.

Thought for the day:  Now I know how moms get everything done; they cut out the crap that doesn't matter, take care of the necessities, and spread as much love as they can while doing it.

Our First Family Photo

A few weeks ago we got with our wedding photographer (who I love) to do some baby/family photos. They turned out AMAZING! Really, it's hit or miss with babies and some of them are not good because you can't really tell a baby to look a certain direction or well, not cry. After an hour of photos he started crying and was just done with the whole thing. A week later we were able to see the proofs.

I really do love this photographer. See his website here. And don't be surprised if you see some photos of me and Leland in his galleries. Anyway, why do I love this photographer?

• He's personable and really easy-going.
• He doesn't mind doing a location shoot.
• His studio is in a really nice office complex for doing some outdoor photos.
• He has some really good ideas for different poses.
• His prices are reasonable, especially since he ends up giving you a disk of all your photos and doesn't make you pay for proofs as long as you do an order.
• He does everything with digital which means he takes WAY more photos so your chances of getting good photos and not just okay photos is increased. (We got a disk of over 900 photos from our wedding. With that many, I actually had trouble picking out the ones I wanted.)

So here are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

These were great, he looked right at me and I think it totally made the shot.

I love this little man's smile!

Identical to our engagement photo: stairs, jeans, black shirts.

Growing so fast...

My little man keeps growing so fast. Here he is with his new bear. I noticed he was starting to grab and hug my arm/hand whenever I would try to comfort him or give him his pacifier. So I replaced my arm with this Pooh Bear and *magic* he grabbed onto it and spent the next hour content and quiet while snuggling his bear. Later in the evening (when I was taking these pictures) he decided he might like to taste his bear. He started wrestling it with his two little fists and putting the ears in his mouth. So cute! I love watching his little mind and personality grow. He's so amazing to me.

Day 1: The 30 Day Shred

As you all know, I just had a baby. And though I tried to be active and not let my eating and weight gain get out of control, it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Around the time I hit my last trimester, I lost all my energy. So even though I felt great, I didn't have the energy to keep up the walking, etc. I also let my cravings get the better of me and had a few too many desserts and french fries (my ridiculously stretch marked thighs and bum will testify to that).

So I was browsing some different movies and tv shows on my AppleTV the other day and came across the Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred. For those of you who don't know, Jillian Michaels is one of the trainers on the tv show, The Biggest Loser. I decided to read some of the reviews and saw that almost everyone who had commented had at least moderate success. So for $8.99 I purchased the 3 different workout levels.

My friend, Ashley, asked me to blog about my workout experiences; so here I am, humoring her. I agree, I think it will be good to be able to look back and track my success. Every week I'll weigh and measure myself to gauge my progress.

Here are my starting measurements:
Weight: 151 lbs. I gained 51 lbs. during my pregnancy. I went from 132 lbs. to 183 lbs. Two weeks after I had the baby, I weighed in at 155 lbs. Not bad for having a 9 lb. baby. Eleven weeks later I am still in the 150s so I know I'm going to have to do this with exercise, not just eating better.
Upper arms: 12 in.
Waist: 32.5 in.
Hips (or what I like to call, my big fat bum): 43 in.
Thighs: 25 in.
Calves: 16 in.

Let me tell you, for a 30 minute workout, this is hard. Especially for someone as out of shape as I am. The workout consists of a warm- up, three six-minute segments beginning with 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and finishing with 1 minute of abs, and ends with a cool-down stretch.

The Warm-Up: I was totally winded by the end up the warm-up. Who would have thought that jumping jacks could get you so tired.

Three 6-minute segments: I wanted to quit so many times but Jillian keeps reminding you through the whole thing that it's only a 30 minute exercise and you have to keep at it if you want results. And I want results.

The Cool-Down: This was great because after all that work, some of my muscles were starting to cramp from all that time not being used.

I have confidence that after 30 days I will feel like a new person. I'm putting it out there for everyone to see that I'm committing to do this at least 3 days a week for a month. Please ask me about this if/when you see me. I want to be accountable to everyone reading my blog so that I'll have the motivation to keep doing this. I wanted to quit a couple of times in the middle of the video but I know that if people are going to ask me about it, I'll keep going. Wish me luck!

My Little Man

So here's my new little sweetheart...Carter Owen Daniel...born December 10, 2009 at 4:28am after 14 hours of induced labor. I went into the doctor on my due date, December 8, and I was dilated to 4 cm without being in any kind of active labor. So we decided to induce because I didn't want to wait anymore for my little guy; we were scheduled to go in at 10 am the next morning to be induced. By 2pm we were finally getting started with the pitocin and things started moving along. The doctor broke my water, at which point the contractions became unbearable and we called for the epidural, right away! By the time I was dilated to 10 cm I was too numb to push at all so they slowed my epidural down and we got to pushing. The doctor was called and at 4:28am we had our new little man. He weighed in at 9 pounds 3 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.


I feel so lucky that I was able to have all the people I wanted in the room with me and they all did a great job of coaching and cheering me on. Leland (of course) was right by my side and he was a huge help and support for the hardest part of my pushing. Helping hold my legs for the pushing were both my moms, Lisa (mom) and Lawanna (Leland's mom) and they were so great rubbing my hands and feet between contractions and giving me ice. On the sidelines watching and cheering were my Aunt Linda (mom's sister), Ashley (Leland's sister), and Ashley (my best friend, she drove from CA to be here, what a pal!). Everyone was so awesome and I wouldn't change a bit of it, I loved having everyone there. Sorry to all of them for having to see me all naked, but I'm sure they don't remember much of it, it was probably knocked out of their minds once the baby arrived.


Mixed in with all the commotion of giving birth was closing on our house. We actually closed escrow on December 9 while I was being induced. While I was still in the hospital a bunch of friends and family went to our house and got stuff cleaned up and some painting done so that things were more ready for us to move from David and Lawanna's house. We're pretty settled now and we love our little house. It's so nice to have our own space and really be able to do what we want with it. We've been making lots of plans and we're excited to move forward with them.


So here are some of my thoughts on my little man and on being a mom:
1. I absolutely love snuggling him. His little head is so soft and I'm always rubbing my cheeks on him and kissing his head and cheeks.
2. I love to watch Leland with him. He's so sweet and he really loves his new little dude.
3. Sometimes I love his cries. About half the time his cry is this pitiful, whimpering cry that is so incredibly adorable.
4. Sometimes I just sit and stare at him sleep. I can't help it.
5. I feel really lucky that he almost always sleeps from midnight until 6am. He doesn't go that long between feedings during the day, but almost every night he lets me sleep for almost 6 uninterrupted hours.
6. It's weird being a mom. Because I'm a mom forever now, and every once in awhile I look at him and think, "Holy crap, that's my kid."
7. I love his smile and the noises he makes when he gets excited and happy. Leland and I have a lot of fun getting him to smile.