34 Weeks, Among Other Things

We'll start with the all-exciting day of Chuck E. Cheese. Where a kid can be a kid. And an adult can lose her mind.  I generally try to avoid the place.  I am hoping it will not be a large part of my future as a consequence of having children.  But I will allow my children to have a childhood.  Even at the cost of Chuck E. Cheese.  Sigh.  Anyway, so what was I doing at Chuck E. Cheese?  Well, I happen to have a couple nieces who were invited to the birthday party of a little girl they knew from church.  And since they go to church with us, that means Christina has no clue who these people are.  And so, not wanting to leave them out of the fun stuff -- and not wanting the little girl who was celebrating her birthday to not have some friends there due to such a technicality...  I picked up Desiree and Emily and took them to Chuck E. Cheese.  Here they are, at pizza time.  It's funny.  Desiree totally understands the tokens and tickets concept.  Emily... Not so much.  She would have been completely content, I believe, to play in the completely free tunnels (gotta love a kid like that!).  Or, on the other hand...  If she's going to use a token, she wants to know if it's going to be in a ride that "moves."  Haha.  You know, the ones that don't offer tickets up for being awesome.  And that would all be fine and dandy if, at the end, there wasn't the all-important opportunity to pick out your Oriental Trading-quality prize!  So, I usually use a few of Emily's tokens to win her some tickets, just so she can "buy" a prize.  Yes, it would be a good lesson on choice and consequence ("Well, Emily, you chose to use your tokens in things that moved, but didn't give you tickets, so now you don't have tickets to get a prize.").  But this mommy-to-be was exhausted after 3 hours at Chuck E. Cheese, and didn't want to have to deal with that life lesson.  So, she had enough points to buy a little purple plastic wand with a star on top.  Totally worth it.  Anyway, they are cute, and I love them.

We got a surprise package from Pottery Barn kids via UPS the other day!  Thank you Stefanie (and Brady)!  Very cute bunny crib sheet (which we definitely were needing one of those!) and a cute soft stuffed bunny that Baby can one day snuggle :). 

And this is a knitted blanket a lady from church gave us.  The same lady who is teaching me to knit and who made the other knitted things.  Sweet lady.  There is a pair of knitted booties she gave us as well.  I'm tickled to have such precious items to welcome our baby with.

This past weekend was Conference weekend.  We usually drive to the church and watch it on the satellite there -- mostly to keep us in that "church" mood of things.  Because I have noticed that, in years past when I'd watch it at home with my mom, I'd be unloading dishes, etc -- and then I missed a lot of stuff.  So we decided we would go to the church until we have kiddos who won't enjoy that all that much.  But, when we showed up at the church building for Saturday morning session, we were met with the news that the satellite wasn't working.  So we could choose to go to one of two other sort of nearby church buildings, or just come home and watch it online.  We totally opted for the home choice.  Back into jammies and onto the couch and snuggling under the blanket while we watched Conference.  It was nice and relaxing.  I think we took naps both days after both sessions were done, too.  Haha...  I enjoyed Conference, as I usually do.  Appreciated the reminder to let our children have a childhood.  And that I need to be a little more patient and forgiving with the weaknesses of others (because I certainly have my load of my own weaknesses that I hope others will be patient and forgiving of).  And yes, I loved what Elder Perry said about how obedience to law is liberty.

The other thing I got excited about this Conference is that we totally achieved our 72 hour kit goal!!!  I didn't want to unpack all of my stuff, but here is my backpack full of my stuff.  Jeremy has one too.  I have 7 different categories (food, clothing, kitchen/cooking, hygiene/toiletries, miscellaneous, survival, and another I can't remember right now) and each category gets its own gallon-size bag.  While we hope to never have to use them, we are happy that we are prepared in case we ever need to.  And I'm happy to finally have that goal crossed off my list (and our family goal list).  Now it's a matter of maintaining the kit -- rotating out the food and other things that expire, like headache medicine).  When Baby is born, I'll make a kit for Baby as well.  And then, every 6 months, at Conference, we'll get into our kits, eat all the food that weekend, and replace with new food :).  And try to get an idea of how practical our kits really are.  We bought a couple of wind-up items that use our strength to keep them going (one is just a flashlight, and the other is a flashlight/emergency radio combo).  So yeah, the initial outlay is a little spendy -- depending on what you put in there.  But it's done. 

And so the next goal is to get all of our food storage.  We do pretty well, and I think we'd survive 6 months easily on what we have in the house.  But our canned goods could be improved upon.  And to do that, we are finding it necessary to get one of those food rotation systems.  Jeremy would rather design and build one, but there just isn't enough time in the day for all the things he'd like to design and build.  And since we want this goal achieved within the next few months, we'll just go the route of buying one.  If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about...  Go to the soup aisle at the grocery store.  The way they have all the soups now is what I'm talking about.  It will help me use the oldest stuff first and will be so much better organized than what I have going now!  We could potentially store up to 400 cans!  Anyway...  So that's our next biggie.  But that'll be another preparedness goal checked off our list.  

In less "preparedness" category, but still "goal" category...  I've started cross-stitching Christmas ornaments.  Here it is April and I hadn't begun.  I didn't want a repeat of last year where I was trying to get them all done starting in October (and I failed, by the way).  So, I now have one done (just have to turn it into an ornament) and only 12 more to go.  I'm almost done with the 2nd one.  That's definitely a benefit of being an at-home-wife... I have time to sit and do these things, even amongst the other day-to-day chores and to-dos.  I want to get several of them done before munchkin arrives....  Because my time will be used slightly different then.

Here I am today at 34 weeks.  Baby wiggles a lot and I watch my stomach move a lot.  The other night when I went to bed, Jeremy rolled to face me, put his hand between my stomach and the bed, and the baby kicked him.  It was funny.  I'm pretty much a side-sleeper these days.  With a pillow tucked between my legs.  There have officially been a couple nights where I have seriously considered coming out to sleep on the couch, simply because the couch cushions are softer and therefore more enveloping, and I was thinking maybe I could get comfortable faster.  Because when I can't get comfy, it takes me about an hour and a half to fall asleep.  Nothing infuriates me more.  Haha...  If I do make the mistake of having "too much tummy" on the bed (not enough on my side), I pay the price when I start to move.  It's like the baby settles or something, and I'm lugging this huge weight.  It's been amazing, this pregnancy experience.  In so many ways so different than I anticipated.  But an amazing miracle in all ways.  A true blessing.

 

Jeremy and I are officially planning our Alabama trip.  We're looking at the end of October, mostly in the interest of cooler temperatures down that way.  Plus, by then, Baby will be around 5 months old.  It's funny, because we actually have to remember that we will have a baby in tow.  I think it may change our mode of travel significantly.  When he and I went down to visit in 2011, we took the light rail in Seattle to the airport.  This, plus the ferry ride at 4:15 in the morning, tacked on extra time to our travel.  I don't think if we're going to want to do that again or not -- with an infant.  It might be worth the $35 each to get the airporter...  Who knows.  It will be an adventure.  We'll probably have to go ahead and suck it up and check luggage (and pay for it -- boo!) for the first time since they started charging to do so.  Because I just don't think everything we'd need would fit into our allotted number of carry-ons.  And we'd still need to take the car seat.  So yeah, we are already thinking ahead.  But I'm excited.  I need a vacation :).  And probably some Mikata.  Because we will be there around my birthday, after all :).  And I'll probably also need some chick-fil-a and some O'Charley's potato soup.  Because those are must-haves, you see.  Maybe some Italian Express too.  Mmmmm...  I should stop now ;).

On a foodie note (as if the last few sentences weren't enough):  I had a dream I was at a fair of some sort, and I was horrified that none of the food booths sold nachos.  I actually said in the dream, "What kind of a fair doesn't have nachos!?!"  I've never gotten nachos at the fair, so I'm not really sure why I was so indignant.  I think almost every dream I can remember has me involved with food in some way, shape, or form (it's best when I'm eating it ;)).  Is this abnormal?  Haha...