Arkansas!

See that little red bit in the corner?  That's where we are!

 After an hour drive to Layton to drop off a car and pick up a sister-in-law, then a 30 minute drive to the airport, a two hour flight to Tulsa, Oklahoma, a two hour drive into Arkansas, and lots of standing/sitting and waiting in between, we have finally made it to our destination!!  It was KILLER on my back (felt like I was sitting against a bunch of rocks the whole time), but worth it!  Only been here a day, but it's awesome to be able to visit the Smith side of the family in their superly awesome new Arkansas-ian home!

On another note, we've been to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri in the last two days!  Lots of traveling!!

Times like these I need a fairy godmother...

Ack!!! So much to get done today!  We're leaving tomorrow for Arkansas, and I've got so much to get done (yeah, I procrastinated a lot of things).  Anyway, times like these I really wish I had a fairy godmother to magically make my dirty dishes turn into clean ones and pack all my bags with all the necessary items that I will ultimately forget in my rush...  I'd also accept a house elf... Not really picky at this point...

Crafty Mamma

I've ALWAYS wanted to be one of those super cute, crafty moms who does all kinds of cute things and makes all kinds of cute things.  Unfortunately, I think I'm a little bit craftily challenged.  I don't sew more than a straight line (ok, let's face it, even my lines aren't straight), I don't crochet more than a chain stitch (I can however, make an awesome hat with one of those looms!), and I'm really just not up with all the cute, trendy, scrapbooky, bow making, craftiness that EVERYBODY is into these days!  However, now that my time until motherhood is swiftly running out, I thought I'd better start somewhere!

Something I've been meaning to do forever is scrapbooking.  I've gone out and bought random supplies so many times before, I can't even count!  And what do I have to show for it?  A box of pictures, papers, and embellishments, buried in my closet.  I'd pretty much given up at this point, but I was reading on a message board the other day and someone suggested digital scrapbooking, and I decided to give it a try!  I don't have photoshop (which would be ideal, if I were going to get into this hardcore), but I downloaded a free trial of a program and a bunch of free scrapbook paper/lettering/embellishments from the internet, and went to town!

I was actually really surprised and impressed with my results!  They aren't superly amazing, compared to the things I've seen other people do, but compared to all my previous attempts, I'm incredibly happy!

My pages so far:

 

Can't take all the credit for this one, got the template from cottagearts.net

I have so many pages I want to do (so many pics, so little time), I'm so excited!!  Glad I found this BEFORE school started!

Halfway There!

As of yesterday, baby and I are halfway to our big day!  I'm so excited and happy right now, I feel like I'm driving everyone crazy!!  Anyway, in honor of this momentous day, I thought I would just recap what's been happening so far this pregnancy.

April 1st, I took a pregnancy test because I wasn't feeling quite right and I was a day late... and nothing... That was incredibly disappointing, but I think my body was trying to be funny and play an April fool's joke on me, because three days later, I got a positive test!!  I was so excited to see those two lines, I can't even describe it!!!

Finally POSITIVE!!

Fast forward a couple weeks... Morning sickness sets in!  I have to admit that my first trimester was the worst :(  I could smell EVERYTHING and the smell of EVERYTHING made me superly sick!  I couldn't eat anything, and at one point I couldn't even drink much with out feeling soooo sick.  On top of that I was incredibly exhausted.  I felt like I couldn't get out of bed for weeks!  When Karl and I first talked about how many kids we wanted (oh so many years ago!), we decided that five would be good, but it was about this time in my pregnancy when I really wondered if I ever wanted to do this ever again!!

Luckily, that didn't last forever, I've been feeling better and better since about 12 weeks!  Now that I can finally eat again, and have a good chunk of my energy back, and am not too huge, I'm loving being pregnant, and back to thinking five might be ok, haha.  Anyway, I managed to lose six pounds in my first trimester, and I'm just now getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight (yeeeah, I know I don't really look it... but it's true!)

Our first camping trip!!

This trimester has been really good so far (especially in comparison to the last one!!).  I have way more energy, I'm starting to like food again (and have recently developed an unseemly appetite!), and I'm starting to look a little less fat and a little more pregnant!  My only real complaints at this point are that I have heartburn every time I eat (bleh, but not a totally new thing for me), I have to pee constantly, and I get back cramps like crazy (I can't sit for more than a little bit at a time, or else...)!

And for the best pregnancy "symptom" I've had so far, I finally started feeling my baby move!!  It was really funny, last Friday I was playing around on my computer and I REALLY had to pee, but I was too lazy to get up and go, when I suddenly felt a little "blip" on my bladder that almost felt like a spasm.  I wasn't entirely sure if it was baby, but it was definitely different from anything I've ever felt before!  Then, on Monday, we found out that baby is feet down, VERY wiggly, and apparently doesn't like the invasion of space that happens when my bladder is full!!

Speaking of Monday....

Baby!!!

We got to see our baby for the first time!!  We found out that we have a very energetic, very acrobatic child (definitely takes after Daddy, Auntie Preah, and Uncle Jojo)!!  Baby was measuring great and looked healthy from everything they could see! Annnnnd.....

She's a GIRL!!!!

Yay for the bum pic!

We are so incredibly happy!  It was the most amazing experience in the world as we got to sit there, hand in hand, and see our little girl (I love calling her that!) moving around in there!  Everything just feels so much more real now.  I know we have a long way to go still, but it's going by so much more quickly than I expected!  I can't wait to meet our little one face to face!

Isn't she cute?  Chilling with her hands behind her head :)

My little alien baby!!!

Here she is curled up with her foot by her mouth, her arms by her head, and looking like an alien!

Blue or Pink???

I would just like to say that I'm glad such a monumental decision is completely and totally out of my hands!  Tomorrow, if everything goes according to plan, we will know if Baby Smith will be a boy or a girl!!  I don't know what to think!  People have been asking me for AGES what my mommy intuition has to say about baby's gender... And I've been feeling like the dumbest mom ever, because I have no idea!  The last week or so I've been thinking maybe a girl, but I guess we'll find out!

So EXCITED!

New Hair!

Yay! New hair!  I was getting really bored and really lazy with my hair, so I decided it was time for something new!  It's pretty short and I've actually never lightened my hair before, so the highlights are definitely a first.  I think I'm liking it so far, it's just more work to dry and style :/ (ok, I'm superly lazy when it comes to this stuff!). 

Pregnancy Brain...

What is pregnancy brain?

Pregnancy brain is the phenomena where an intelligent woman loses her capacity to think while she's pregnant because her baby is sucking out all her brain power (yes, that is the scientific definition). 

Let's just say you know have pregnancy brain when you try to spell the word "laughing" with a "ph", then think to yourself, "that's ridiculous" and proceed to try to spell it with an "f"  (yeah, this totally just happened to me, I feel like an idiot.)  

Other symptoms include, but are not limited to: putting dishes and other random objects in the refrigerator, not being able to remember half the words in half the sentences you're trying to speak, and forgetting why you are where you are and what you were supposed to be doing there.  

In conclusion, I cannot be held responsible for my words or actions at this point.



 

"I can see yours BABY!"

So, I've been looking up all kinds of info on pregnancy on the interweb, and when I was reading about week 14 I ran across this picture...

 ...which, made me feel terrible, because there is no way I look like that!  Baby may be that size, but I'm definitely NOT!  I've just been feeling a little bad because I was really hoping to not show so soon since this is my first baby.  A girl I know recently posted in her facebook status about being concerned that she's not showing at 20 weeks, and here I am already "popping" at 13 weeks!  Luckily with a little more research I found this picture...

...much closer to what I'm looking like, lol.  I think I'm getting used to the idea now, it's been hard not to just feel fat, but I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of loving my pregnant belly :)

And now for a cute story:

I walked into my parent's house the other day, and my three year old sister ran up to me, patted my belly and shouted, "I can see yours small baby!!!" It was super cute.  She's been confused because people kept telling her there's a baby in my tummy, but I still looked the same so she was really excited that she could finally "see" the baby. Lol!

(Bad pic, I'll have to get Karl to help me take a better one!)

6/20 Update: Had a check-up today and my midwife said I'm measuring a couple weeks, big, so I'm NOT just fat!  Lol

Housework is AWESOME!

IF you're the crazy enthusiastic woman in this picture:

  

Personally, I'm feeling much more like this lovely lady:

 

I've come to the point where I really need to start putting my life back together again!  After school ended I basically just gave up on pretty much all house related activities (cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, business/errands, etc.).  I've just been so incredibly miserable and tired that I haven't been able to do much of anything!  Poor Karl!!  Now that I'm SLOWLY getting my energy back (and feeling SLIGHTLY less sick) I need to start getting back on top of things.  It's just so much easier to be lazy and do nothing, haha!! 

I don't know how everyone else deals with housework, but what I'm currently trying to do is have routines. For everyday of the week I have certain tasks that I want to accomplish for that day (ie. Moday = clean/get kitchen in order, Tuesday = laundry, etc.).  I think with my awesomely distract-able personality, this is what I really need to keep me on track. I feel a little lost when I'm not in school because I don't have any kind of schedule!  My days seem to slip away with out me really accomplishing much when I'm not careful!

Anyway, I think this is going to be an interesting undertaking (since all my old routines need to be revamped!), but I really want to get all my "routines" in place before baby comes, since I'm sure everything is going to get thrown into disarray once that happens!

The great outdoors!

I went for a walk today! I am so very proud of myself. I've actually been meaning to for days (such good weather!) but I haven't been feeling well so I've convinced myself not to :(  Anyway, I was about to consign myself to another day of being miserable on the couch, but, through some miracle, I put on my tennis shoes and walked out the door.  It was really nice!  I love feeling the sunshine (and the shade, lol), and smelling all the pretty spring smells.  Fresh air is sooooo wonderful!!  I just feel better when I'm being physically active, as hard as it is to convince myself to get moving in the first place, I always feel better once I get going!  I think that's definitely my biggest obstacle when it comes to being active, I love moving and exercising (usually), but it just takes so much effort to get started, I usually just give up!

Anyhow, here are some pictures I took with my crummy cell phone camera.
I just love spring time!! Wish my pics could do such a beautiful day justice!

School is OUT!!

          I'm just soooo happy school is out!!!  I really should be taking classes during the summer (I'm getting so close to being done... 2 semesters-ish!), but honestly, I'm worn out.  This last semester was terrible because I just didn't want to be there, I could barely force myself to go to 50% of my classes, and I even turned a major paper in an entire class late (for the first time since about 9th grade, I believe)!  I'm thinking I just want some time for me this summer, some time to get sleep and take care of myself.  This may mean that school takes me three semesters instead of two, but I really don't know when I'll have another chance to just worry about me!  

          I just want to spend some time relaxing with my hubby (been hard to catch him since his work has been so crazy!), I want to go somewhere that's not here, and I just want to have some fun for a change!!!!

Migraine, pt. II

So, today I had my second migraine in as many days.  What did I learn?  Tylenol is about as effective during a migraine as a rowboat in the desert...  Also, for what little energy I expend while I'm having a migraine, it's exhausting!!!!  I think I've spent more time asleep in the last two days than I've spent awake!

And One Dr.Pepper-Tylenol Cocktail Later...

Random Pictures... Or are they????

Happy Easter everyone! I must admit that I didn't really have anything fun/spiritual/festive planned for today, but I'm pretty sure anything would have been better than what I actually ended up doing! I had my third migraine in the last four weeks today, and I was pretty grumpy about it!! Luckily, by some happy accident, Karl was actually home today (he always works the Sunday afternoon shift)!! I would have probably just cried the whole afternoon if I'd been here myself, so I'm superly grateful he was here! Anyway, my head hurt really bad (I would describe it as someone trying to hammer an ice pick through the top of my skull and out one of my eye sockets). I finally got some tylenol and some Dr. Pepper (courtesy of Karl) and promptly passed out... and had the weirdest, most realistic dream I've ever had in my life.

The first part I can remember, I was in a hotel room with a bunch of my friends (yeah, I have no idea who they were) and we were all dressed in fancy dresses and we got drunk (yeeeeah, I've never even tried alcohol before... ever). It was pretty interesting being drunk though, I was all disoriented and couldn't stand up straight. Anyway, I finally got un-drunk enough to make it down to the hotel lobby where I was informed that I was beaten at the science fair by Sam Puckett (annoying girl from iCarly, see pic above) and her summery of "Johnathin K. Jonathan's theory on valence shells" (yes, my brain totally made that ALL up). I was mad because her presentation was awful, she wrote with yellow marker on a yellow board, and in one place she even added the number of electrons in one of her valence shells wrong! My project, which got third, was a historical overview of how Chinese brides were forced to be sex workers in the 1600's (my brain also made this up, although I did at one point do some research about Japanese sex workers during WWII, so I think that's where I got it)....

Yeah... I really don't have a point here...

Anyway... I just woke up and realized that it was ten o clock at night, and I have a final tomorrow and I haven't studied all day...

In some actually useful news, check out this video, it shows what a migraine aura looks like. I always get these starting about 20-30 minutes before my migraine actually starts. Pretty cool (uh, the video I mean, not the migraine).

"Were you trying?"

My Spanish class my first semester at BYU was a very close group; we were a small group, and in small groups--as in small towns--your business is everyone else's business...

Anyway, one of the girls in the class got pregnant during the semester and it happened to come up in several conversations. Another girl asked her: "So, were you guys, like, trying?" and the pregnant girl's response was: "well, my husband and I like sex and we have a lot of it, so... it happens" (she was a very blunt person).  

The girl who asked was, of course, a cute, single BYU student whose parents probably never even mentioned the word "sex" to her and she was shocked and terribly offended. She just could not believe that some one would say something so vulgar. 

At the time I guess thought it was a bit of an odd response, but I didn't dwell on the situation much.

I remembered this story because recently one of my sisters said to me "when are you guys going to have a baby???" and I said, "we're working on it!" and my OTHER sister said, "EEEEWWW! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THAT!!". I thought it was terribly funny that my 15 year old sister was so grossed out by me simply saying that we were "working on it", but it also made me realize how personal questions like that are.

Back to the girl in my Spanish class...

When she asked "were you trying?", that was actually an incredibly personal question. It's almost like saying "so did you guys use a condom last time you had sex, or what?" or, "were you and your spouse having unprotected sex on a regular basis?"

Now, I'm sure most people don't mean it that way or even realize what they're asking, they're just curious and making small talk about the "joyous news". I also think it could be an appropriate question, depending on your relationship with the person being questioned.

I could be totally wrong about this, but I just think you need to know what you're asking... And maybe NOT ask the question unless you can handle the answer ;)

Nutrition Kitchen

If you want some good recipe ideas for healthy food, check out my new blog!  It's actually a project that my mother-in-law and I (well, hopefully more me when finals are finally over) are working on.  The idea is that we are trying to post one healthy meal per week with pictures and a recipe.  It's really cool!  Check it out!

http://smithskitchen.blogspot.com/

My cell phone - it's a gift and a curse.

 

I cannot imagine living without a cell phone. There are so many times when I'm at school or at the store (or let's face it, even driving) when a thought pops into my head and I need to tell someone immediately. If I don't have my cell phone within reach and I can't send out a text right that second, I've got to admit I feel almost a sense of anxiety. My cell phone is basically an extension of my being at this point. However, despite being so immediately connected to every contact in my phone, I've been feeling very disconnected from the people closest to me lately. So far I've managed to narrow down my cell phone issues to three areas:

1. For Karl's job he has to use his phone A LOT; he is a manager and everyone from his employees to his boss need him to be available basically every moment of every day. The texting thing really didn't seem like that big of a problem until Karl got this job. I see his phone about fifty times a day, people expect him to respond immediately so he texts a lot! And this is when he's at home! Because of the wonderful invention of cell phones, my husband has to be working even when he's not working! There is no way for him to ever really be away from his job because someone always needs something and they know he's just a text away!

2. I feel awfully guilty about this second one, and I want to apologize to anyone I've done this to. I admit that I have texted too much while I'm with friends. Whether I was out to lunch with a friend, or hanging out or playing games with friends, I admit that I am guilty of texting while I should have been "present". I've done this, and I've had friends who have done this to me. I've been around people who were checking twitter and facebook and texts in the middle of a conversation with me. It made me feel like I wasn't important, like my friends would rather be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else. Not a very good feeling, and I'm sorry to say that I have been on that end of things.

3. If you know me, you know that I love my sleep, and you also know that it's very difficult for me to get my sleep. Now, I know people on many different sleep schedules and in many different time zones, and as a result of this, I've found that my sleep gets interrupted a lot by people who want to talk to me a random times. I love hearing from almost everyone who texts/calls me (by that I mean I hate getting promotional texts and calls from computers), but I really need to be able to sleep! Back before cell phones would a normal person have considered calling someone's house at 3 in the morning? I'm going to say probably not, but now that we have cell phones the rules seem to have changed drastically.

All right, the point is, I suppose, that I'm grateful for the technology that allows me to be connected to so many people that I care about, but I need to set some limits so that I can live in harmony with my cell phone :) So, I am making it a goal to not text while I should be "present" with friends/family (if you see me texting you have permission to gently remind me of my goal, haha). Secondly, I'm going to be going "technology-free" between the hours of 11pm and 11am (i.e. my phone will be off). Because of this new plan I may not respond to people very quickly, but I don't want to feel guilty about this! Anyway, that's the deal, this is the plan, and we'll see how this goes!

How NOT to Expect to be Expecting

As my mother very wisely taught me at a young age: Life sucks. And then you die. I'm actually not quite that pessimistic (and neither is my mom), but that saying just sums up my feelings today. I don't mean to offend anyone or make anyone feel bad, which is why I haven't really talked about this before, but I'm going crazy and I feel like I need to get it out there.

It's so hard living in a community where so many people are having babies and not being able to have one yourself. I've wanted a baby since we first got married two years, five months, 3 weeks, and one day ago. I've been hoping and praying to be able to get pregnant for a long time, and I feel kind of like a failure. It's so hard to congratulate friend after friend after friend, see the happy statuses on facebook, and see the pictures of ultrasounds and newborns all over the place. I have 37 friends on facebook that are around my age, got married either around the time I did or more recently, and have had at least one baby at this point (many are starting to announce the second round of baby making). There are about a dozen more that I'm just waiting for.

Anyway, yesterday I got another negative result on a pregnancy test and today I just feel like I can't handle things anymore. So, yeah, if I don't seem that excited about life, I'm sorry, I'm trying, but I'm having a hard time right now. If you recently got pregnant I am excited for you, although I may not be showing it very well, I promise I am excited and happy for you.


In other news, I've decided that I need to discover the secret to patiently waiting for a baby to come. When I find it I'm going to write a book and it's going to look something like this:

I'm sure there's some kind of copyright infringement here, but I'm not in the mood to care

Pancakes

Just have to say how awesome my hubby is :) This morning he had to get up early to pick up Christer from work, and instead of coming home and just crawling back into bed and sleeping til he had to get up for his shift, he stayed up and made me pancakes for breakfast. The cutest part about it was that he had to wait two hours for me to finally wake up, and he did so rather patiently :) He knows that the one thing in the world I love almost as much as I love him is my sleep, haha.

I'm happy that he worked so hard to make my day a good one, I really needed it. It's been a little rough lately. My health is not making things very easy in any aspect of my life or his. I'm feeling fat, tired, unmotivated to do anything (not good during a school semester), and crazy. There's so much I want to say, but so many things that are going on right now are either private or sensitive and it's driving me crazy! Anyway, I'm just grateful for pancakes tonight.

Bloody...

 

Yeah, I mean bloody quite literally, lol.  So my day today... I went to get my blood drawn by myself since Karl was working. Now, I've been getting my blood drawn on a fairly regular basis since I was 10 years old, so this was not a big deal for me, but it turned out to be more of an adventure than I planned.  I got my poke, filled my vials of blood, got taped up and the guy ushered me out the door.  I had to carry my jacket, my purse, and a book AND I was all by myself, so I couldn't keep pressure on my "wound", but I THOUGHT it was done bleeding so I went on my merry way.  When I got out to the car I realized I was bleeding all over and my puncture site was still like spurting :/ I was a little freaked out and thought about going back in to the clinic, but I felt dumb being all bloody and it was awkward because my hands were full and covered in blood.  So instead I just took pictures and sent them to Karl to freak him out too, haha.  It did stop pretty soon after I realized it, so it really wasn't a big deal, just messy.  I did get a pretty good reaction out of Karl though ;P

Pictures of the Past

"Aww. Check it out. Who would've thought, that this little baby would be marrying that little baby."

Just found these pictures recently and decided to play with them... Then I thought it was cute and I needed to share them with somebody ;)