Shepherds

Primary at church is so fun if you can just think of the right Thing to do. Today was one of those good days. I teach Jay's class, the CTR 4 class, and Jeff unofficially joins us every week for moral support. Normally we have 4 or 5 kids in our class, but today there were only 3. The lesson was about shepherds, and it was one of the few in the manual that actually has good ideas (pardon my opinion on the 50 year old lesson manual). Normally I have to really think hard to make the lesson work/ be interesting for the kids, and I am not very creative when I'm pregnant, so it's been a challenge lately. But today it only took a little extra umph to get things rolling.

 

 

Instead of merely looking at a picture of a shepherd, I had Jeff dress up and tell about how we used to take care of muddy little George and Penny the sheep back at the Boone Home in Missouri.

 

Instead of pretending to be shepherds while looking for a sheep in our classroom, we dressed up as shepherds and went outside to look for a sheep (which was hidden in the bushes).

 

Instead of coloring our pictures of lambs, we stuck cotton balls all over them (the lesson book suggested this idea)

I am not one to make intense time-consuming preparations for lessons. I like to spice things up as simply as possible. Today it just worked, and it was great! All I had to do was throw a few towels, headbands, and cotton balls in a bag. Easy. I love it when that happens.

Primary is the best!

 

 

 

 

 

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Shainupdate

It’s been at least a week or two since I last moaned—I mean updated—about this pregnancy, right? I have not been in the mood to write about it lately because I already feel so darn selfish in normal life, and a blog post about my newfound selfish ways seemed to be the pinnacle of self-ivity (made-up word alert). But I guess I should let you favorite few who actually read this blog know what’s going on every now and then. I promise I’ll try not to be too negative!

Caveat: this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyways because I’m in charge of this blog and saying it makes me feel better about complaining. I am SO grateful to be pregnant. I know it is a huge blessing and I want this baby so badly. I love her already! None of that gratitude and love is marred by the discomforts of pregnancy. The baby-joy is in one mental box, and the preg-agony is in another. They do not interfere with each other. Just because I hate food, it doesn’t mean I hate babies! There, just in case you were wondering. Time for a little good-natured complaining…

Pregnancy makes me so self centered! Three examples:

1. I usually get mySELF food before my kids at mealtimes. I’m just too scared of what happens when I get too hungry (nausea, shakiness, and possible gagging). So I feed myself first and often feel like a slime ball while doing it. Then I deal with the two little mouths that circle around me begging for bites when I don’t get them food first. I have to remind myself multiple times every day that I’m not taking care of myself before my kids; I’m taking care of my baby before my older, less-helpless kids. I tell Jay and Rose that my third breakfast is for Amber, so no, they can’t have a third breakfast with me. It actually helps them understand why I have to eat when I do, thankfully, because normally if one of us eats, all of us have to eat. So I let Jay and Rose each have one snack between breakfast and lunch, and one snack between lunch and dinner. The rest of my in-between snacks are just for Amber.

2. I have to sit and rest in my chair before helping Jay with something in the basement. Normally if I felt tired or achy or ill, I’d quickly go help Jay and then relax, but I can’t even do that right now. It’s all about keeping my body as stable as possible, which requires the kids to wait for me a lot. A certain amount of begging, questioning, and badgering does result from all their waiting, but I’m getting rather adept at noncommittal responses, which allow me the time I need.

3. I choose to use what energy I am granted in a day to do housework instead of be sociable—there’s rarely energy enough for both. This is the first time since college that I’ve lived anywhere long enough to have friends, and I miss them! I do still go to our book club, but that’s only once a month, and not everyone comes. Church is a very limited social scene, especially for us Primary teachers. Ah well. It’s just weird to feel so disconnected. I use Facebook a lot to compensate. It’s not the same.

Other Pregnant Perceptions:

There are so many more positives than negatives right now! I just have to remember that when I start feeling yucky for the twelfth time in a day. Even my yucky spells are so much less yucky than they used to be! But feeling yucky is still yucky, no matter the magnitude of the yuck.

I have not puked since that Tuesday of Doom almost four weeks ago. My medicine is effective, and I’m not messing with it.

I feel baby swirls and twirls so often that I’m used to them now. When I do notice a particularly strong jab, I feel a mixture of “this is so weird!” and “yay! She’s alive!”

I like bread again. This is big. It was a long 4 months without the staple of my LIFE, but now we’ve been reunited and I can finally stomach toast with apricot jam once more. The word “yum” may not describe any food to me right now, but at least I can get it in and keep it there. Less and less of my private pre-meal prayers include the phrase “please let it stay down.” I count that as a victory.

Actually, fruit pizza is approaching yum-status, as is fresh corn on the cob. In fact, I’ve had just those two, with bread, for dinner a few nights recently. Progress. It about killed me to make this beauty of a pizza (it’s a lot of work), but for an almost-yum, it was worth my while.

I still hate chocolate. Well, Amber seems to dislike it. I don’t even feel the slightest bit tempted by anything chocolaty. Shudder.

I worked on this list--“Food that sounds good” --all day. Fail.

On a good week, I cook dinner two nights. Often less. We’ve been eating a lot of breakfast burritos and sandwiches for dinner. Jeff valiantly takes over mealtime when he sees a certain lost look on my face. But dinner variety is nonexistent in our house right now. I don’t like anything enough to spend the time cooking it, and the act of cooking often makes me end up despising whatever I made. The exception is sandwiches. I can do sandwiches. Usually.

In spite of my eating issues, I have managed to finally put on some weight and at my last doctor appointment a week ago, I was TWO POUNDS more than my starting pre-pregnancy weight! Woot. It’s amazing what a few weeks without barfing will do.

20 weeks!

My stomach is expanding. I’m at the stage now where I feel enormous but I know I’m nowhere near as big as I’m going to get by the end. That’s not the most encouraging thought, ha ha.

Wardrobe woes: I finally surrendered to maternity clothes this past week. How on earth do I only have 3 maternity shirts leftover from last time? And they aren’t even very cute! The rest of the clothes in my pregnancy box were ones that kind of worked but were pretty awful anyways. Blah. In the 4 years since I was pregnant with Rose, styles have changed a lot. I held my old maternity shirts up to my beloved, cheap size tall Old Navy t-shirts, and guess which one was longer by about 4 inches? Yep, the non-maternity shirt. Crazy. Thankfully, a select few new styles of baby-belly shirts are nice and lengthy for my long-bellied body, and I discovered them on an exhausting shopping trip over the weekend. I am trying to be frugal with my maternity clothing purchases, but it’s hard to feel frugal when maternity clothes are so expensive. I don’t mind investing in quality clothing, but I’m not going to ever need maternity clothes again after November. That makes it hard to justify many purchases.

I wonder why maternity shirts these days insist on having such deep plunging necklines. I am so not a layer-er! Just make the neck normal, please. Or not.

I got a maternity bathing suit this week, and eew.

I discovered the joys of made-for-bellies maternity waistbands, and I can hardly believe I survived two other pregnancies without them! I can never buy maternity pants because they are all too short, but this is my first summer pregnancy, so bring on the capris! It’s shocking how almost-comfortable I feel in the correct waistband. The LDS store has also come out with an incredibly comfortable option and I could sing every time I don’t feel restrictive waistbands squeezing Amber’s shoulder into my intestines.

20.5 week belly. Can you believe this dress came from Target of all places? I never fit the clothes there. I like it a lot except that at church today, Jay and Rose kept making it slide up to expose my thighs. Slips are slippery when kids’ elbows and knees are involved. It was rather stressful, and reminded me why I usually wear long skirts to church.

The BEST news of all: Baby Amber is halfway done!! The magical twenty week mark was this past Wednesday. I have started daydreaming about her regularly. Now I have less days left than I’ve already survived. That is an encouraging thought.

Mel’s Graduation

My youngest sister Melody graduated from Newport High School this week. Sniff. We joined the family in Bellevue for the festivities. It was an enjoyable weekend of quality conversation and Mom’s fancy food with some of my favorite family folks: Mom, Dad, Grama and Grampa Gwynn, and Mel (and us). The Christensens (my aunt, uncle, and cousin) came to the graduation so I saw them briefly too. Score! We were missing plenty of other family members, but it was nice to spend time with the ones who were there. We all thought Mel was a gorgeous, intelligent, talented graduate. I mean, she was in the top 5% of her class! GO Mel GO. It was a pleasure to be there for her Day.

Now I’m going to post all of the pictures we took. Well, Jeff took most of them. He set up his tripod and went to town. The photo shoot was all finished in about 10 minutes, right before we left for the graduation on Monday night. That lush green backdrop is just part of the average summer view in the Seattle area. It was restful for my desert-burned eyes to look upon for three whole days.

Proud parentals on the verge of an empty nest. Ahh!

 

Grama and Grampa

Three generations of wonderful women

Sisters. With high heels and a square hat, she’s almost as tall as me, ha ha.

a quick flashback with my sibs, 10 years ago…

Yep, a whole decade. Woah.

BTW: I found an easy-to-use collage making website! At last. It’s called picmonkey.com, and it’s way better (for me) than impossible Picasa.

Time to leave! Jeff nobly stayed home to put Jay and Rose to bed while the rest of us went to the graduation. As a high school teacher freshly released on summer break, he wasn’t all too sad to miss out on a high school event, if you can believe it.

The graduation was held at the University of Washington’s giant gym. We sat up high in the steep seats. Mel is walking up the middle of the aisle in this picture.

Almost to her seat…

…and [an hour or so later] going up for her diploma. This was the most efficient graduation I’ve ever been to. They had over 400 graduates, but it was super speedy. The kids practically had to run to keep up with the diploma passing pace. They had kids come up on both sides of the stage and leave down the middle. It was, like I said, efficient. We were in and out of there in 1 hour and 34 minutes flat, from pomp-and circumstance parade in to hat-tossing departure. The band played the Star Wars Imperial March as the graduates exited. Awesome.

She’s the golden-haired one in the line. Check out her cute high-heeled bootlets! One thing about Mel is: the girl’s got style. That gene seems to skip around in our family. :)

Things went out of focus when she had to start walking faster…my camera at full zoom sans-flash is a tad fuzzy.

I call this one triumphant diploma walk, in the blur.

The whole class, all diploma’d up.

 
Hat throw!

Mel is going to BYU-Provo this fall to join the education program. College is the BEST. I’m so excited for her.

And that was our weekend.

A.K.W.

Amber Kay White. She’s on my mind. And in my tummy. I was tempted to keep her name to myself, because it seems so special to share. There’s always a chance of her turning out to be a him, but we already refer to her as Amber, so I’ll tell you too. She’ll be Amber because we like it and Kay because it’s family-friendly on the Argyle side via grandmas. She’s been named for years, and now we know that we actually get to hug her in five months (or less!). It’s strange to think that we won’t have any of the other kids on our names list. Jeff and I have had six kids named names ever since we were married, more or less. Nevertheless, we’re all getting pretty excited about little Amber Kay!

I’ve been feeling her squirm around inside me for a while now—I was surprised to first notice her poking me around 15 weeks. It was so fun to sneak a peek at her this week. We actually got to see her move on the screen, and it was so cool! Even in her grainy black and white image, she looked pretty cute to me.

We took a poll beforehand, and Rose was the only one who held out for a boy. The rest of us guessed girl (obviously). I thought it was sweet that Jay hoped for another sister. He’s such a good big brother. I’m so glad that Rose gets a sister. This was her only chance, and she won! There’s nothing like sisters. The bond! The friendship! The matching dresses! Rose still insists that she wants it to be a boy with orange hair, named David, but I think she’s coming around to the idea of a sister. I got out her old baby dresses and showed her how tiny and pretty they are, and it helped some. I also told her that since she and Jay were born with orange peach fuzz, it’s very possible the girl will have orange hair too, so she’s somewhat mollified.

I love the finding-out part of pregnancy. I always joke that it’s the only part I like about being pregnant, and it really is. I felt so neutral about the boy/girl question (I already have one of each!) that I felt amazingly calm and unsurprised when the ultrasound lady told me it’s a girl. It’s so weird to know at last. It feels like I’ve been pregnant forEVER already, wondering who’s in there, and now that I know, I feel slightly dazed. I’ve been processing the news for a few days now, and I’m getting used to the idea at last.

Facing front, with two little paws up by her face.

Apparently that means it’s a girl.

Spine shot

Profile facing up. Doesn’t she have such a cute little nose and chin? I think so. I love looking at this picture.

The lady said that the ultrasound machine was pretty new, and I could tell. Look at the difference between Jay, Rose, and Amber:

      

Jay’s profile, face down                  Rose’s profile, face up                   Amber’s profile, face up

Can you see any family resemblance? Me neither. It’s amazing what 6 years will do for image quality. At least we know they all have heads.

And here’s what it looks like from the outside at 18 weeks along. Wow, I look almost as tired as I feel.

And of course, a little comparison…it looks like the third child gets the most space:

                 Jay: 18 weeks                         Rose: 18 weeks                        Amber: 18 weeks

 

 

My view.

I love babies.

Come on, November!

The Next White Thing:

We had The Ultrasound today. Yay!

Now back to surviving…

An Impromptu Outing

About mid-morning yesterday at snack time, I found myself looking at half a loaf of stale banana bread and sighing deeply. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew it was not stale banana bread. I felt bearably yucky but as usual, nothing sounded good. Then I had a revelation: GO GET SOME FOOD! Ha, that sounds so obvious, but I have been extremely nervous about leaving Grandview because:

1. the nearest place with the good stuff is 40 minutes away
and
2. last time I made that trip I wore myself out too much and a few days later I was puking my eyeballs out and getting stuck full of needles.

I have been very careful since that last “episode” and not overstretched myself at all. Rest between chores. Take a nap. Take the medicine. Etc. But our pantry was suffering. It had been over 3 months since our last trip to Costco, and most of my carefully stocked reserves were severely depleted. We have Safeway and El Mercado here in town, but they’re no Costco. While no food really tastes good right now, I do still need to eat. Since I wasn’t feeling dangerously queasy, I snacked down a few pieces of that stale banana bread, packed up the kids, and we drove to the Tri Cities!

It was liberating! I didn’t over-think it and talk myself out of it. We got there right at lunchtime and got the kids to a rare treat—McDonald’s cheeseburgers and yogurt parfaits. We took those over to the new Five Guys burger place where I got a juicy well-pickled, mushroom-layered burger with a pile of signature fries. It wasn’t exactly nirvana to my pregotongue, but it was a far cry better than anything else I’d eaten this week! I ate the whole burger. [Side note—why do they call the single patty burger a “little burger” while the double patty is a regular? I had to ask, and I’m glad I did because there’s no way my baby would have been ok with a double dose of beef. The “little” was grande enough for us.] Jay and Rose adored their yogurt. It had strawberries and blueberries in it!

I did feel kind of guilty for bringing McDonald’s into Five Guys—it seemed like treachery—but oh well. They didn’t throw us out, even when I shared my pile ‘o fries with Rose.

After that filling, useful lunch, we headed over to Costco. On the way we saw the angel Moroni peeking up over the housetops and decided to take a detour to see the temple. It was a good choice. I have to ration my energy carefully, but this expenditure was worthwhile. We walked around the outside of the temple and admired the white walls and gorgeous flowerbeds. We paused at the stair-step waterfall fountain on the far side and listened to it rushing along. Then Rose had to go potty so we left.

I love how we can feel the peace of the temple even by walking around it on the outside. I have been craving that feeling. Aha! A craving! At last!

Costco was heavy going with that double wide cart loaded with everything, but we made it out in one piece and somehow I loaded those heavy things into the trunk (I love van trunks) and we drove home to the Piano Guys and some spunky David Archuletta (a guilty pleasure, hee hee). Oh, and good news! Our Costco carries Jif peanut butter again! It’s been 2 years of small grocery store jars for us, (because we’re 100% devoted to Jif) but now we’re back to the massive 3 pounders. I can’t wait to like peanut butter again.

I loved going on an outing with my sweet kids! I find myself cherishing everything that just the three of us do together these days because I know that in a few months everything will change when Jay starts school and then again when I have a baby. So yesterday was golden. We didn’t do the million other errands that need to be done “in town,” but we had such a nice time together.

There’s something to be said for taking it slow and easy.

Insurance

Remember that week I spent in the hospital?

 

 

Good thing we've got a bearable deductible! It was maxed out weeks and weeks ago.

They may not pile the money on teachers' paychecks, but there are other perks.

I'm so thankful for insurance.

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Last Week

The better I feel, the more pictures I take. Or maybe it’s the excitement of early summer fun combined with energetic cute kids. Or all of the above! Here’s the week in pictures:

SATURDAY, MAY 24TH
Memorial Day weekend! Rose and I went shopping in the Tri Cities together. We went to Goodwill and Target. Gasp, I know—so adventurous. It was my first big outing without Jeff, and it wore me OUT! (it’s a 40 minute drive to the Tri Cities). But we found some cute summer clothes for Rose who has been wearing her too-small winter wardrobe for about two months too long. I came home and passed out asleep for a few hours, woke up to eat, and then went to bed around 8pm.

Playing Jay’s birthday game, Boom Boom Balloon. It’s awesome and ends with a POP.

 
Party animal on her way to shop.

It’s sunglasses season! I love having a little girl to take clothes shopping. It defies reason that someone who despises clothes shopping as much as I do can love to take a little daughter shopping as much as I also do.

Showing off the outfit she picked out. She loves that shirt so much.

 

SUNDAY, MAY 25TH
I went to church for all 3 hours for the first time in 3 months! I taught my primary class and everything! It was exhausting. I came home ready for another long nap but decided to do a blog post about Jay’s birthday instead. Then Rose snuggled up and took a snooze of her own, but by then I had to eat something so I eased out from the recliner and left my warm little girl bundle snuggled up. After dinner, we brought Jay’s birthday stomp rocket out to the field behind our house. Those things are so much fun.

 
 

 

Jeff really got in to it.

I always have Jay change out of his Sunday khaki pants right away to avoid holes, but I’m not as strict with making him change his shirt, so that explains the bowtie with jeans look.

 

MONDAY, MAY 26TH
Happy Memorial Day! Sadly, we didn’t do anything patriotic. We just stayed home and enjoyed our first taste of the coming summer when Daddy will be home home HOME for two months! I felt amazing enough to—wait for it—not take my nausea medicine! And Jeff blew up the pool Rose and I picked up from Target. That thing turned out to be ENORMOUS. I mean being 6 feet tall, I know that 72 inches is big, but 72 inches of puffy blow-up pool is giant. It took a while for crazy Jeff to blow it up with his lungpower. He wanted the challenge, even though 4 houses down, his parents have an air compressor. I left him to it and an hour or two later, the kids went swimming. Layne came over to swim too. The hose water was frigid and it wasn’t very hot outside, so mostly they stood in the pool and splashed around a little. Rose’s new swimsuit turned out to be saggy-baggy and huge on her! The bottom part wouldn’t even stay on her little hips so I tried attacking it with my sewing machine. That helped a little, but the butt was still baggy and the top sagged halfway down her chest. We’ll be saving that one for next year!

I also made some smooth, beautiful bread that day. It rarely looks this pretty, so I took a picture of it. Oddly enough, I still have a major aversion to bread, even homemade. So the fresh, warm smell of this bread baking was actually rather nauseating. Bummer for me, but the smell of store bread is even grosser, so I chose the lesser of two evils and baked some.

 

TUESDAY, MAY 27TH
Tuesday was a day of doom for me. My Monday without nausea medicine really bit me in the belly HARD. I woke up heaving and didn’t really stop for the rest of the day. Jeff came home from work early and took me to the hospital outpatient clinic for a liter of fluids and liquid promethazene, but I was still puking when we left. Later that evening, Jeff and Dan gave me a blessing and then Jeff drove me to the ER around 9pm. They pumped me with two more liters and some liquid zofran, and miraculously my heaving stomach stopped heaving. We came home around 1am to a Grampa Dan snoozing on the floor (he babysat during the graveyard shift for us, blessed man). My arm was full of holes and kind of bruised because when I get that dehydrated, they can’t get needles into my collapsed veins. Eeew. My hazy memory of the day tallied up at least 14 separate barfs. Talk about backsliding! It was horrific. Lesson learned: take the medicine.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28TH
This was a recovery day, with small sips and little nibbles. Jeff stayed home from work to take care of me, five star husband that he is. The sky was glorious. I didn’t barf. After dinner, Jeff and the kids entertained me by playing Punch Out on the Wii. It is a goofy cartoony boxing game, and watching it made me laugh so hard that I felt the soreness from yesterday’s barf-a-thon in my diaphragm.

Rose carefully watched Jeff and Jay play, and when it was her turn, she DOMINATED Jay! It was awesome.

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I’m having issues with youtube letting me post my videos onto this blog, so here’s the link to the video in case that other one didn’t work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6gZoNo4p0A

 

THURSDAY, MAY 29TH
Another take it easy recovery day. With great effort, I managed to make myself the cinnamon rolls of my dreams. They’ve never ever turned out this well for me. Moist, melty-sugary-buttery with just the right amount of cinnamon, they did not even need any frosting. It was good to enjoy a food item after Tuesday.

    

FRIDAY, MAY 30TH
In the morning a bird flew in through our open front door! Jay had opened the door for some fresh air, and a cute little birdie flew right inside. I was feeling too feeble to get up and chase it around the house, so I called Grampa Dan to come rescue us. He came right over and shooed the bird out in no time. After that excitement and some breakfast, I organized the kids’ clothes and then my own closet, putting away winter clothes at last. It was hard to put away my running clothes, knowing that the next time I run it will practically be Christmas. But I did it. Then I gave Jay a much-needed haircut.

At 1:30pm, we went to our elementary school with a stack of important documents and registered Jay for kindergarten. I was surprised at the surge of emotion I felt when the lady came to take Jay away for his screening test. I felt ROBBED, like I wanted to tower from my height over the little lady and boom “who said you could take my boy away from me?” Instead I swallowed my sob, patted Jay’s back and told him to go with the nice lady for a test. He came back with a cookie and a sticker, so it must’ve been ok. My first experience with school. Sniff. After such an emotionally-fraught half hour in the school, we decided to go to the park next door to enjoy the shady trees and warm air. I showed Jay and Rose how to make little houses in the roots around the base of gnarly big trees, like I used to do when I was little. They built and furnished little root-houses for rock people for a long time. Then it was home to get ready for family movie night! We made pizza and watched the live-action Peter Pan, one of my all-time favorite movies.

Playing with sticks

Building root-houses

Playing with Daddy

 

SATURDAY, MAY 31ST
Grampa Dan cut some roses from his garden and let Rose bring me my favorite peace roses.

 

SUNDAY, JUNE 1ST
Happy birthday to Jeff! It was a low key birthday for him. We went to church. I gave him a small present—a card game called Guillotine—“the game where you win by getting a head!” His other present was that comfy desk chair Rose and I found at Goodwill, but we gave it to him a week early since it was too big to hide.

After church, Grampa Dan flew kites with Jay and Rose. They did a great job!

Sunday night, we had the family over for birthday dinner, which I actually cooked. Even more surprisingly, it turned out super pretty and tasty! We had sausage penne, corn on the cob, and cold watermelon. Jeff’s mom brought the brownies. Success! After the kids were in bed, we used our iPads to play a cross-country family game of Ticket to Ride with Brad and Dani (in Utah) and Jesse (in Missouri). Jeff won both games like a pro. Birthday victory is sweet.

Sausage penne birthday dinner. Even I ate some of it and liked it!

Jay and Rose had a “sleepover” on the floor of their room while we played Ticket to Ride.

And that brings us up to TODAY! Whew, I hope I can keep up better this week so I don’t have to do such a lengthy catch-up post again any time soon. Like most things are for me these days, it’s tiring!