Welcome, Little One!

Insult + Injury

I am such an idiot. Friday night, we had a Chamberlain family BBQ in celebration of four May birthdays that fall in his family this month, Marshall's being one of them on the 25th. (Please, oh please, let there be another one added to the list very soon! I can't last until June!) Anyways, Marshall and Drew and a bunch of the other boy cousins were playing a nice mellow game of touch football; it was a nice kiddie game, so I thought it would be a brilliant idea for me to jump in and play for a bit, too! After all, if two year olds were playing, I should be able to play too, right? WRONG!! For the first little bit, it went great; I was assigned to block Marshall's 70 year-old mom, so not too terribly threatening. Then, it happened- I caught the most perfect and beautiful interception of the entire game. 9 months pregnant or not; I was going to run that ball in for a touchdown!! Have you ever heard of anyone pulling both of their groin muscles running 12 steps at about 3 miles per hour? Well now you have. My moment of glory was very short-lived, and I am now paying the very high price. As if I weren't waddling enough as it was! Now it's more like a waddle-limp. How pathetic. There is a very specific reason that pregnant women don't play football. It's just too bad I had to prove this to myself the hard way.

Happy Valley

Today, I went to yet another one of my weekly OB appointments to get "checked." (If you have had a baby, you know what this means! If you haven't, you can probably guess.) Anyways, I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs that I am trying to avoid having a caesarean this time around, and so I am really hoping my body will cooperate and go into labor on its own. Anyway, with my due date only 3 days away things aren't exactly "blooming" like I would like them to be, and today I was discussing my discouragement with my doctor. http://www.exponentii.org/issuesonline/v23n3/v23n3drmom.html (This link is kinda outdated, I think it was written when she was in med school.) Let me just tell you a little about her, because she is amazing. First of all, she is a mother of 6! Which is an amazing feat in and of itself. She even has a place for her kids to hang out in the basement of her practice, they range in ages from about 18 down to 3 years. But then you add to that the fact that she is a Dr. who not only does OB stuff, she also does family medicine. Add to that she has been the Young Women's president in her ward for the past 4 years. On top of everything else, she is so cool, you feel like you are just chatting with a friend when you are in her office (makes sitting there wearing nothing but a giant paper towel over your nether region not feel quite so uncomfortable!) So today we were discussing my options, and she is really supportive of my desire to avoid the c-section, too. Then she goes "I will pray for you." (It was one of those comments where you are kinda kidding, but also kinda not- you know what I mean?) But I really think she meant it! My point of telling this story is that I just get such a kick out of living here sometimes. The church is true no matter where you go, and there are good people in all corners of the world, but it just made me feel so comforted to know that I am trusting my most precious and important and vulnerable things to someone who loves the Lord and seeks His guidance. It made me feel like no matter what the outcome, everything will be okay. And I really needed to feel that today.

The Loves of my Life...

Ok, well Mel chided me for not updating my blog, so here goes...it's like I told her, I really have nothing to write about besides baby stuff, and I don't intend to bore anyone by constantly blabbing on and on about pregnancy-related stuff, but that is pretty much all I have on my mind these days. So that's why I haven't been writing this past week. I know talking about that stuff can get old after a while. Not to mention the fact that I really don't think anyone reads these anyway. But I don't want to keep Mel on the edge of her seat, so I will find something to blog about! Oh, I know, I will post some recent pictures of random stuff and write about them...

This is me, a few weeks ago on our anniversary posing with the "first" love of my life...an enormous Dr. Pepper. I only list this as my first love because I have been drinking it since I was like 9 years old. (I wonder if my mom knew about that? I would never let my kid drink that crap...!) If I had to choose only one food to subsist on for the rest of my life, DP would be it. (Yes, I consider it food!!)

Ok, so here is the REAL love of my life...For our anniversary, Marshall surprised me by taking me to the place where we wound up on our first date. Thank goodness for the DP because the food was crap. I ordered some monstrous burger without asking exactly what was on it first...big mistake! It tasted like how a campfire smells...eek. My sweet husband, ever the gentleman, traded me for his grilled chicken sandwich with no mayo or anything- yuck. Needless to say, M ate both sandwiches, and I settled for some lukewarm fries and 2 refills of my DP.

If you think this looks awkward- you are right...it was! Another part of our first date was mini-golfing, and for the anniversary date my sweetheart took me back to the same place where we went back then. I didn't want to be a spoil sport, so we went for it. It was actually quite fun. The best part was watching all the other people there on dates and chuckling to each other how much we thought the dating scene sucked. It was also funny watching them flirt and take FOREVER at every hole. We thought it was funny how things have changed so much for us now, we had a kid with a babysitter to get home to, so we had a little bit of a time constraint. Some people saw us waiting behind them and were nice enough to let us play through, and apologetically one of the guys said "Sorry, we are having a little too much fun..," to which I teasingly replied "oh, just wait until you get married, and then you won't have to worry about that anymore." Of course, I kid. Marriage is the best! (Oh, and did I mention?? I beat M by 6 points- don't tell him I told...lol)

My next love...and HIS love. This is the famous stuffed BYU Cougar he got for his 2nd b-day from Nana. "Cat" is what Drew named him. (Original, I know.) I rue the day that we ever lose that thing, I don't know what he would do. I really should put a chip in it or something. Or maybe just our name and phone number would be good. The other day we get to church and realized we forgot it and he started to cry, right during sacrament meeting. Oh brother.


Here is our much-anticipated next love. This picture was taken a week or so ago...she looks so peaceful, doesn't she? (Don't get too comfortable in there sweetheart!!--You got another thing coming really soon! 5 days until my E.D.D...not that I'm counting.)

And finally...my boys enjoying some Oreos together. You know how they have those Oreo commercials where the father teaches the child how to eat an Oreo? That is these two. M eats his with a fork. Weird, huh? He says it is so he can get it evenly soaked with milk without having to stick his fingers in the milk...to each his own, I guess. Love those two!!

"It's (still) a Girl!!"

So today, my Dr. had me go in for an ultrasound to make sure the baby was vertex (head down) position. There is always a small chance of the baby being breech, and we needed to be sure she was in the right position before we proceed with the VBAC. This was good news for me; I really do not want to endure another cesarean if I can possibly help it. Other good news: baby is still a girl. (Duh, right?) But the thought did occur to me the other day, as I was putting the finishing touches on the baby's (VERY feminine) nursery, "what if the technician was wrong, and this baby turns out to be a boy?" (I actually know of 2 people in my ward alone that this happened to!! So much for not being surprised.) Also, I looked at that Chinese Gender predictor thingie (here is a link if you don't know what I am talking about) http://www.thelaboroflove.com/chart/cal.html and, according to this, this baby is supposed to be a boy. It claims to be 99% accurate, and I have never seen it to be wrong until now. Guess we must be among that 1%. But I saw it for myself on the screen this morning, it is definitely a girl! Good thing...I have already taken all the tags off all of her clothes and washed them and everything (and I must say, they are some pretty dang cute clothes!) Too bad they grow out of them in 5 minutes. Oh well...

Remember! The camera adds 40 lbs...

Check this out if you want: http://www.emilyutleyphotography.com/krista/. We have a photographer friend that took some maternity pictures of me a month or so ago; we thought they were kinda fun!

Happily Ever After...

Four years ago from this very moment we were driving away from the temple, as husband and wife. That was such a great day, a day that we planned and prepared for, argued about, (not me and Marshall, me and his mom- like Marshall gave a rats' about wedding stuff...!!) stressed about, and looked forward to. We knew had so much ahead of us... so many hopes and dreams and possibilities...of course we had plans, but who ever knows where life will really take them? I was thinking these things over in my head this afternoon while I was making tuna fish sandwiches for Drew and I, standing in my kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, (I apologize for the cliche, I am only using it because it's entirely true) as Drew happily played with his toys wearing his grubbiest Elmo t-shirt. I was chuckling to myself at how, just 4 years later, our lives have become so ordinary and mundane. A day that was such an ordeal, such a holiday only 4 years ago (while certainly still a very special day for Marshall and I, with cause to reflect and celebrate!) but nonetheless, still just a Wednesday; my husband went to work, and I am plugging away at the laundry, running errands, and going around cleaning up messes. (Sounds glamorous and exciting, I know!) But you know what?? There isn't one thing I would change about any of it...I have everything I have ever dreamed of, and I couldn't possibly ask for anything more.

Oh, crap!!

You're probably thinking, "What on earth can this blog title and these pictures possibly have in common?" Well I will tell you. I just realized that tomorrow is our 4th anniversary, and I had totally forgotten about it! I have seen this sort of thing happen on sitcoms, and I would always roll my eyes and say "What kind of idiot forgets their own anniversary?" Well, now I know what kind. How sad is that? What am I going to do? We discussed taking a getaway trip for our next anniversary months ago, but decided it probably wouldn't be worth it because it probably wouldn't be much fun being so big, and I can be uncomfortable at home for free. Wait a minute, this year we decided was his turn to plan things, so I guess I am off the hook. "Hapnaversary to you," honey! (Inside joke.)

Be careful what you wish for...

Ok, so since when do we have July weather in April in Utah? I have grown so accustomed to cold, windy, snowy, stormy and otherwise crappy weather in the spring, now that we have this burst of summertime so early, I'm not quite sure I am ready for it yet! But I know I would be complaining if it were not warm, so...I guess I should just make the best of it. It just seemed to happen so suddenly! I didn't get used to the idea of having to water stuff and trying to stay cool. Marshall doesn't seem to mind it as much as me, and he is usually the one who hates the heat, so it must have something to do with being 38 weeks pregnant...lol duh, right? Last time I was at this point, it was November in NYC, so it was nice and cool. Oh well, only a few more weeks to go! Yesterday, Drew had some of his little friends over to play in our backyard. They had such fun. I used to love running through the sprinklers as a kid. Funny-back then, I never thought about how much the water was going to cost. Oh, to be a kid again...