Four Great Years!

Last week was our fourth anniversary and I have to say, it feels amazing.

We had a great time celebrating by going to see Phantom of the Opera at Gammage. Leland's first and only encounter with Phantom was the movie so he was excited to see it in person. He said he actually preferred it to the movie. I hadn't seen it in so long it was great to reexperience the magic of it all on stage. The flash of light and loud bang at the beginning of the overture startled me (and Carter) and got my eyes watering a little. Leland thought I was crying (maybe I was, a little). All in all it was a fantastic night and we had a wonderful evening together.

(Of course I don't have a picture of us at Phantom because I'm totally lame. Note to self: stop being lame and take more pictures.)

I've been contemplating the last four years of our lives and it feels pretty great! Of course we've had the little ups and downs, but never anything major. And then getting sealed in the Mesa Temple two years ago. Many struggles were placed in front of us as we made our journey towards the temple, but we overcame them all with each other and the Lord's help. There have been a few health scares (Leland's dirtbiking accidents, my heart condition and the procedures for that) but we've always come through.



Then our big surprise this year, a baby. I can't say enough how grateful I am that our prayers were answered regarding my heart condition before I got pregnant. That was biggest reason we pursued the most aggressive treatment option, so that it would never be an issue during a pregnancy. And so, even though we weren't making any baby plans, the Lord was watching out for us and taking care of things before we even knew we would need them. Not six months after my third and last procedure to stop the electrical "short circuits" in my heart, we were pregnant, and not of our own choosing. The Lord certainly does do things in his own time.

We're also excited to be buying our first home (hopefully to be closed on next Monday, the 23rd). This is a huge event for us and we're very grateful to be blessed with the opportunity and ability to do this, especially since our family is growing by one.

I'm starting to get a little teary eyed writing this (dang hormones!) but I just want to wrap it all up with how amazing my husband is. He is my rock and I can't imagine what my life would be without him. I'm so proud of all he's done for our family by finishing his Associate's program at ITT Tech last year and becoming an elder as we were preparing to go to the temple. I know he's going to be an amazing father to our son (and any other children we have). I'm so blessed to have him as my eternal companion and I'm excited for what our future will bring.

Quit Touching Me...

I'm aware this isn't a new subject for a pregnant woman to have an issue with, but bear with me because I need to vent my frustrations. Anyone reading this should know ahead of time, if we are close enough that you know about and read my blog, I'm not talking about you in this post.
I have never been incredibly comfortable with touching other people or having them touch me. Hugging, for example, is one of these touching scenarios. I only do the "side hug" with male friends because I'm of the opinion that, as a married woman, I shouldn't be pressing myself against a man that isn't my husband. This doesn't apply to all men; I have no problem with normal hugs with male family members who I'm close with (i.e. my dad, brothers, cousins).

Another example is the pat on the arm/back vs. the rub on the arm/back. If we are friends, I don't have a problem with a pat on the arm and a, "How are ya'?" But don't come up to me and start rubbing your arm up and down my back and ask me, "Are you doing okay?" Friction of any kind should be kept out of platonic touching. I certainly would not want my husband doing this with another woman or a married woman for that matter.

And now for my belly. I have not had one woman touch my stomach without asking or me offering. This is because women understand that, though there is another person occupying my abdomen, it is still MY personal space. While my female coworkers (and even my mother-in-law) have all asked if I'm okay with them touching me, a few of my MALE coworkers have assumed that it's fair game and have repeatedly touched my belly without permission. Granted, I am on good terms and friendly with everyone who has done this AND I really don't mind a small pat or brief touch. But in what part of our culture, is it appropriate for a male, non-relative to attempt to rub another man's wife's pregnant belly? When I say "rub" I mean in circles over and over. Some of these guys are married; I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even want my husband touching another woman's pregnant belly, let alone rubbing it. I'm not a freakin' Treasure Troll! And some people are getting kind of offended that I'm telling them to stop, like I have a problem with something that's totally normal. It's not normal! And I'm the one who gets to be upset, okay?

Example (and not the only one I have): I went to the movies with my mom last and as she and I were leaving the theater we ran into a male friend of mine from work with his sister going in to see a movie. During our brief conversation, he went to touch my belly and started to rub in a circle. AWKWARD! I said, "Dude, don't go rubbing on it." He responded by laughing and reaching for my stomach AGAIN. I had to wrap my arms around my belly and turn away to get him to stop. Even his sister said, "You can't just go rubbing on pregnant women like that."

So thank you all for letting me rant (not that you had a choice, I'm posting this whether you end up reading it or not).

Our Fishies

So one of the big issues with our moving in with David and Lawanna's house was what to do with our fish tank. One of our fish has been pregnant and releasing babies as they get big enough to survive on their own, but we were concerned that during transport some of the little guys would be hurt or eaten since there wasn't anywhere for them to hide. We ended up separating the momma fish and the babies in one of Bryan's extra tanks and then we set up the rest of the big fish in another small tank. We're going to wait until we get into our house (or wherever we're going) to set up our big tank again.

Here's some video of the momma and babies. She just released five more little ones (they're schooling at the top of the tank) and the few that survived our big tank and the move are all down at the bottom. You can see the momma still has some incubating in her mouth because of how puffy the underside of her mouth is.

This is the rest of our fish or at least the ones not hiding behind all the rocks at the time I took the video.

Great time at the Baby Shower

My girlfriends, Tina, Kelly, and Anna, did a baby shower for me today at work. It was so fun and lunch was really yummy. I got all kinds of cute PJs and things for the baby.

It was great that Lawanna and my mom were able to come spend some time at the shower. My friend, Tina, got me a tiara that said "New Mom To Be" so I had to wear it for a little while.

As for the "Guess Lauren's Belly Size" game, everybody OVERestimated except for my boss, who won with a perfect match on the ribbon length. Here Tina and I are measuring my belly to check everyone's guesses against.

Just one of the many cute outfits and PJ sets. Mom gave me this one with the fire truck on it, very appropriate. She also managed to find one with little weiner dogs all over it. So adorable!

Moving is a lot of work

We moved in with David and Lawanna over the weekend. Friday night was our last night sleeping in the apartment. I'm still getting used to being in a house with other people. I've had four years of just me and Leland so I never had to worry about being so quiet in the morning or late at night.

The apartment is pretty much empty now. I have a few last things to get into a "miscellaneous" box but it's down to bare bones. It's been really great that David and Lawanna were willing to clean our their gym room and let us invade their house. My parents volunteered to have us stay with them but it ended up being less of an intrusion to be at the Daniel home since they just have one left at home (Bryan) and my parents have three.

Also yesterday I worked our annual Fire Prevention Week Kick-off which was fun, but tiring. At least I earn time and a half and I can save it up for my maternity leave. Here I am eating a popscicle trying to keep cool. The weather was great but it got warm a few times when the wind died down.

Here's our fire chief in the dunk tank to raise money for a local charity. He was such a good sport; the two firefighter clowns that were running around the event decided to shovel a ton of ice into the dunk tank when it was announced that Chief Campbell was going into the tank.

The House Hunt

Here's the skinny on what's going on with our house hunt. We haven't been too vocal about the fact that we were looking because we weren't sure how successful we would be.

So, the lease on our apartment is up on October 13th. We had been contemplating what kind of move to make with the baby coming in December since we would need a little more room than our current 2 bed/2 bath apartment has. I know that sounds like plenty of bedrooms, but with Leland's work in IT and all the "stuff" we had stored in our office closet, there really wasn't room for a baby since we need a dedicated space for an office.

Leland was really pushing to buy a house because of the market and because he doesn't want to keep moving around. I had been fighting this because I am still wary of home buying ever since our bad experience two years ago. We had gone through the process of building a home from start to finish and ended up walking away from it. We lost our earnest money ($1500) but it's a good thing because we probably would have lost our house when the market collapsed. Anyway, we talked about renting a house because the rent on quite a few homes was the same as our current rent, but Leland kept coming back to buying. Long story short (or maybe not) we currently have offers in on two houses in Leland's parents' and the Gallachers' neighborhood.

The first offer is on a short sale and has been accepted by the seller. We are waiting for their lender to approve it, which shouldn't be an issue since they had a previous buyer fall through after this purchase price was approved by the lender. Now it's just a matter of waiting for their official response. This house has 4 bedrooms, which Leland likes because our office will always have a dedicated space even if we have more kids.

The second offer went in late last week and we are hoping for a response sometime today or tomorrow. This one is a bank-owned home and is a smidge bigger than the first. It has 3 bedrooms and a larger living room than the first house, which I like because I want to be able to have people over without feeling crowded and have lots of room for our kid(s) to play where we can see them.

While all of the offers were going in and we discovered the second house, I was going through some really stressful emotions. We were concerned that we might lose our earnest money (since we've done that before, it's a little more of a big deal to us) if we had offers accepted on both homes, but we didn't want to put all of our eggs in one basket just in case something crazy happened with the offer on the first house. But after a little clarification from our realtor (I'm sure he thinks I am crazy because I've called him 10 times in one day and that's happened more that once) we are much more calm about everything because we won't lose our earnest money if we end up having to choose between two houses. I had myself so worked up and one point I was ready to withdraw our offer on the first house because I thought there were too many things I didn't like about it.

I realized I had to take all my stress and scared feelings about this and turn them over to the Lord. I asked for guidance in making the decisions regarding this and also asked for help in knowing that everything will work out the way it's supposed to. Since this I've felt a huge part of the burden lifted from me and I feel like I will be okay with either house. I am just feeling so blessed that we can even buy a house, it's such a blessing to be able to provide that security for your family and I needed to realize this and focus on it. I know that no house will be perfect and that we'll need to make adjustments for the little things we don't like and REALLY I should be grateful for my wonderful husband and the healthy baby we have coming and that we will be happy no matter where we live as long as we have the gospel and love each other.

In the meantime, we'll be moving in with Leland's parents until we can get through escrow with whichever house we end up buying. This is another blessing that I'm grateful for. This will allow us to save paying rent for the next month and a half (at the increased month-to-month rate) and that extra money will help us buy the baby's furniture as we move into our house.

My family came over to help us pack on Saturday and it was such a huge help. I'm not able to bend over or lift anything anymore since my ever-expanding belly is getting in the way. We got so much done and it was such a relief to come out of my room where I'd been packing my closet with Leland and my mom and see that dad had finished packing all my photos and decor items in my living room. We'll be moving our furniture and boxes to a storage unit over the next two weeks and moving our bed and clothes to David and Lawanna's house this Saturday. Thank you to everyone who has helped take parts of the stress of this away from me.

24 weeks and counting...

Today we have reached 24 weeks (16 to go) in the pregnancy. Man, does this little guy like to punch and kick his mommy. You can find Leland and I most evenings laying on the couch together which gives Leland lots of chances to feel our little guy moving around. My mom finally got to feel him. She actually felt a little one and then a couple minutes later happened to catch one of his big ones and boy, was she surprised how hard he kicks. It amazes me every time he gets on a roll and I have to stop whatever I'm doing and just look down at my belly. I even started seeing his kicks pop up all over my tummy, it's so fun to watch.

This past week has been fairly relaxed but mentally hectic. Allow me to elaborate...

I was able to spend some time with my coworkers at a Girls' Night get-together on Tuesday which was very fun. I don't usually see them outside of work though a few of us do regular lunch dates.

Thursday night was Beauty and the Beast at Hale Theatre which was enjoyed by all. Leland especially like LeFou (Gaston's lacky) and I enjoyed the music/singing. I've never heard any of the additional music that was added for the Broadway show so I had fun hearing all the new (to me) songs.

Friday night we watched Coraline with Tyler and Angie at their place. Definitely not a children's movie, but I really liked it. It's very Tim Burton, except for all the color (and no Johnny Depp). I think I'll be adding it to our movie library.

Saturday morning mom and I met and drove together to Kara's baby shower. One of the games was to cut a piece of string to guess the size of the mommy-to-be's belly. I looked at Kara, then looked at myself and decided to measure my own belly as my guess. My string was 3 inches longer than hers!!! And she's due in 3 weeks while I still have 16 to go. Someone explain this to me, please!

Saturday night was a spontaneous trip to the drive-in movie with Leland's sister, Ashley and her friends. We saw G.I. Joe and Transformers (I had trouble keeping my gaze from drifting over to the Time Traveler's Wife screen). I had a blast! Not only has it been forever since I've done a drive-in movie, but I've never been to one with Leland. I definitely want to make this a regular occurence, but we need camping chairs or something because my pregnant back was not appreciating sitting in the bed of the truck through two movies, even though I was sitting on much blanket and pillows.

Now for the mentally hectic week: We are moving in approximately 7-8 weeks and I haven't started packing or found us a house to rent. Everyone I call says I'm looking too early and they don't even want to show me their properties, but if they need 3-4 weeks to process my application than don't I need to be looking now??? It's very frustrating. Today's errands include going by Uhaul to get a few boxes and start the packing of the office. I just hope everything with this move works out smoothly because I can't handle any extra stress.