22

So my birthday was last Saturday. Here are the highlights:
-Joleen and the kids came and kidnapped me and took me to Ihop for breakfast. I haven't got to hang out with them for awhile and I loved it.
-Anna took me to see Eclipse (for the second time-don't judge us) on Friday afternoon and it was wonderful again!
-I called and talked to my dad (we share a bday) on Friday which was his Saturday. He loved his present and it was just good to talk to him. We haven't really missed celebrating our birthday together since I was born.
-Steven and I stayed up until it was 12:01 AM and I opened the package from my mom and the card from my in-laws.
-My sister Talia was the first to text to say Happy Birthday and Steven only beat her to it by half a second.
-Baby D let me sleep in for 2 extra hours (minus bathroom trips). It was awesome!
-Steven showed up to the house with flowers after his flight.
-We tried to go to a clay center that we thought was a paint-your-own pottery place. It was more like a non-profit place with a small exhibit in the front. But, the guy gave us the background and the whole tour of everything.
-Steven and I ran errands and he bought me a storage ottoman that I've been wanting.
-Anna and Sam came to visit and brought me pink flowers and chocolates!
-Steven made me dinner.
-We installed the AC unit in our bedroom. (Steven also slammed his finger in the window in the process)
-My mother in law called and I got to talk to her.
-Steven took me to see the Eclipse movie again.
-Steven made me birthday cupcakes and we ate all but one by ourselves.
-My phone stopped working at noon on my bday so if you text me or called me, I didn't get it but thanks anyways!
-Joleen & Mike and Sarah all threw me a combined FHE birthday party the following Monday. Sarah picked up a sweet pinata and Joleen made a wonderful ice cream cake. It was fun to celebrate with so many good friends. And, I didn't even know it was a bday party until we got there. Here's some pictures from that because I didn't feel like having any other pictures taken that weekend :)







PS Steven said he was going to post 22 things he loves about me...we'll see what happens!

4th of July

We celebrated the fourth all weekend long.
We started by having breakfast at Ihop. Growing up pancake breakfast was a July 4th tradition. They don't do that here, so we had our own.
We also bought some new flip flops at Old Navy for $1...we bought some for Baby D for next summer too!

Basically, it was about 95 degrees on the July 3rd. We had just moved and didn't have AC units. Thankfully, we have some now thanks to a couple in our ward. It was so hot inside that we were basically stripped down to our underwear and trying not to touch anything and stick to it.
Just before the ward BBQ, we decided to brave the heat and made these Rice Krispy treat flags (idea stolen from my sister).


The BBQ was pretty fun and the weather was very much improved (breeze and only 90 degrees). We enjoyed socializing, watching other people's kids (and then giving them back), LOTS of good food, and Steven even got to play a round of horseshoes.
After the BBQ, I came home and tried to cool off and Steven drove to go shooting and light off some fireworks (as a preview) with two of our friends.

The next day, we went to church as usual. I used my pipe chimes for our primary music time. I had fun hopefully the kids did too! After having a nap and finishing up some homework, it was the most anticipated event of the weekend: FIREWORKS!
Steven was ecstatic to be able to light his own fireworks. We were rather deprived of that as kids in AZ. He had a budget and I let him go pick out fireworks alone earlier in the week. Such.A.Bad.Idea. These fireworks stores are bigger than Costco and filled with fireworks...and he went to 2 of them! He came back with all of this:


I took the lighter away and held onto it until it was time. We planned our evening with the Hanson family. Anna & Sam tried to join us at first too, but Sam did not like the fireworks. She was shaking and trying to go 'bye bye' the whole time so they had to leave. We started lighting off fireworks right behind the university apartments...well as Amy predicted, the University Police showed up. He just rolled down the window and said "NO. Take them outside of city limits". Luckily he didn't just give us the ticket that costs $101. We were trying to figure out where to go outside of city limits and we decided to stay in town and watch the city fireworks first. After a pretty good city display, we were on the hunt for a new location. We drove about 2 miles south (it's a small city) and were out of the limits. We pulled up to a house that is still being built and had a large dirt driveway to light off fireworks in. Steven & Gary preceded to light off their fireworks for the next 2 hours. There were a few close calls when they weren't sure which way the firework took off, but we all returned home safely.

Steven has a list of the fireworks he's going to buy for next year. I can't wait. I hope our baby likes the fireworks. I love the fourth of July.

Things not to say to a pregnant person

There are a few things I've decided just shouldn't be said to a pregnant person.
I don't think that I am a typically overly emotional person, but being pregnant changes things. Here are a few adjectives most pregnant women do not appreciate:
-Hippo
-Baby Whale
-Extra round
-More to love (emphasis on the 'more')
-Many others--feel free to add in the comments.

We also don't want to hear about how our clothes are tight, our skin is oily, or we look like we waddle.

Most of all, we don't want to be called "Chunk" when you're taking a picture of us.

Steven learned that the hard way after taking these pictures:




June 27th: 23 weeks 2 days

Don't worry. We've had a talk about what not to say to your pregnant wife.

4 Seasons of North Dakota

The four seasons of ND you should know about:
1. Winter- and lots of it. Typically lasts October-March
2. Flooding. Lasts through April.
3. Mosquitos. Lasts May-August? September?
4. TORNADO. Lasts June-July-August? TBD

June 17th was our very first experience with tornado warnings.
We were headed to run errands but realized we forgot the Red Box we needed to return. We decided to go grab it and then run the errands. Upon crossing the bridge to our apt, we heard sirens...we thought it was the trains at first.
We got home and turned on the radio..."Severe weather and tornado warnings for Grand Forks County". I'll admit I panicked a little...I thought tornado season was a joke here. Not to mention I had no idea what you're supposed to do in a tornado warning (go in the basement if you have one or stay in a room with no windows). All in all, things were ok. We stayed inside (well Steven explored a little) and everything ended up being just fine. There was a mini storm that hit first, followed by a torrential downpour. Then, it was time for the huge part of the storm to pass through. This brought on more rain than I've ever experienced before, hail almost as big as golf-balls...and then sunshine.
Here are my crappy BB pictures because our cameras were both dead.

The hail:


Later that same day:


In less than 2 hours, it came, got worse, and then left. There were a few touchdowns and a lot of funnel cloud sightings. Our city was ok, but there is a small town out by the air force base that got hit and a town in MN just across the border. This town got the worst of it...a gas station was destroyed as well as some homes and a few fatalities. I tried finding the article on our city web page, but they archive them after a week. I think the two that actually touched down in MN were considered E-4.

What really amazed me was all the idiots who were outside watching the funnel clouds and then calling into the radio station. Seriously I think in the 2 hours I was listening to the radio station, the DJs probably had to say something like "Make sure you're safe first and then call in with information" over a hundred times.

We were supposed to have a huge storm with tornado warnings last week, but that didn't happen. Maybe June 17 will be our only way to experience tornado season.

Pink or Blue Day

Here's me the week before Pink or Blue day at 19 1/2 weeks:

June 4th was pink or blue day. It was much anticipated by not only us but most of our family and friends too. We started the morning off by waking up early and me downing 32 oz of water in 30 minutes...if you've never done that, well don't unless you have too. Then we had breakfast and I had some juice so the baby was very wiggly by the time we got to the hospital.
We finally got to the ultrasound room and I thought my bladder would explode. The technician started using the probe (what is that thing called anyways?) to see the baby. Baby was very wiggly and uncooperative and kept going lower and lower and she kept making me lower my pants and the blanket down so she could find the baby. After checking the heart and the organs, she let me go to the bathroom. When I came back, it was more measuring. Every time she would get a good measure on one leg, baby would completely move around and she would lose the other leg she was trying to measure...This happened a lot.
Finally it was time to go look for the gender...Well baby wasn't having any of that so baby decided to wrap the umbilical cord between the legs. The tech was brought to laughing at this point because baby was wiggly and uninterested in making her job any easier. She went back to trying to measure bones and then went for the second time to look for gender...NOPE. Baby still wasn't interested and moved to the opposite end of me and she lost her view. This is about the point where Steven realized that baby really is as wiggly as I say, even if you can't feel all the moving!
Back to measuring...really I think she was just stalling so we could try a third time to see the gender. So, while stalling, we got to see tiny little feet:


The face from the top...kind of scary looking for us at first because all you see are the giant eye sockets.


A profile picture:

The blur is because baby was trying to eat his/her hands. Well, little ones are rather uncoordinated at this point and before the hands got into the mouth, they smacked the face a few times...but baby finally got those hands in there to suck on. No thumb sucker for us, but that's ok by me.

Finally, she told us she would go look at the gender the third time. She assured us if she couldn't find it, she would have her manager come and try before they officially gave up.
And...





It's a BOY which officially makes this day BLUE day. Third time looking is the charm I guess.

He was really wiggly (ya that happens with juice we've learned) so most of our pictures are hard to decipher in person, let alone the scanned images.

He was measuring right at 20 weeks and 0 days (which is exactly where we were). He has all his pieces. His 4 different heart sections are all developing (that is so neat to know his little heart already has valves opening and shutting at 20 weeks!). All in all, he's right on schedule. I can't remember the weight she guessed but it was whatever it should be right at 20 weeks.
After, we talked to my doctor and she checked on me and the baby's pictures and everything is fine there too.

We called my mom to tell her first...well right when we were about to tell her "It's a..." my dad called from Australia. Sorry mom, dad's calling long distance. He was using a calling card so I had to answer his call. So, my dad was the first to know...and he called at 3 am AU time to find out. Then we called my mom back...she was happy to finally know. Then we called Steven's house- no answer. Steven's dad's work phone- He answered and got to find out while he was buying a boat. Then, we finally got a hold of Steven's mom on her cell phone. She was in the doctor's office with Andrew and she was giddy to find out pink or blue. We only got to talk to her for about a minute and then she called later and got the full scoop.

So, it's a boy! We are pretty excited about that! We were worried at first because of our lack of boy name ideas. But, we've been working on it and it's getting better. More than anything, we're just excited to know one way or the other and happy to pick out blue things for the nursery (pictures to follow)!!