My Butt Hurts!

So I don't mean to be so blunt, but it does. Today I went to see the doctor for my monthly check up and I had to get my rhogam shot. Since I am rh - then I have to have a shot that will tell my body not to attack the baby's body during birth. I have always been so proud to be O negative since that is the blood type that can save everyone but at this moment in time I wish just once that I was O positive. Because my butt still hurts and it has been a few hours. I can't wear my purse on my right side because it hits my right butt cheek where my shot is. lol. Oh the pain. And I will have to have this butt pain for every child. Oh the love we have for our children.

Well after my appointment I was finally able to go to Betsy's for potluck lunch. I had such a great time I think I will make it a point to go every Thursday, but actually bring food for lunch. Since I wasn't sure what to do and I just remembered on the way home I didn't really have anything. I did have a can of pears but I felt odd bringing in a can of pears and saying good luck with that. So next Thursday I will plan better and bring something yummy. Since I just got home I haven't been very productive. I NEED to work on my taxes but right now I am hungry (go figure) so I think I will eat and then work. Blah! Oh well, we really want that tax return so I better get to it. Wish me luck.

A Weekend of Fun

We had a great weekend. Very busy but great. We helped hide easter eggs for the ward party on Saturday. My OCD got the best of me and I had to re-hide some of Jon's eggs and then calm down to allow the kids who were helping to just let them "hide" the eggs wherever they wanted even if it were 3 right in a row and 5 1 foot away. But the kids had a great time picking up all the eggs and I can't wait until next year when our little girl can walk around finding easter eggs. Of course she will probably be digging them out of the snow but hey it will be fun. Later we went to Mike and Stacie's for Clays birthday party. It was a lot fun and I was happy to see that they had invited some of Clays friends (which includes their parents). It was nice to see the Lundells again and it was a lot of fun seeing the Grundbergs. Being in primary doesn't give me the best opportunity to get to know people in the ward so it was nice to actually talk to Jenny outside of church. Sunday, brought Easter tidings and many cases of heartburn. I think it's starting to set in that I am 7 months along because I am definitely feeling it. Between the heartburn, constipation, fatigue, emotions, no more fitting into any type of clothing, etc. I am def pregnant. Not to mention it takes everything I have to bend over! lol. But I look forward to the day when we get to finally meet our precious little girl. Only 85 more days!
Anywho, Sunday evening we spent with Jon's family having family dinner fun and an Easter egg hunt. It's always a great time when the family is together, although no one broke out into song which is rather surprising. We then went home and watched The Burbs. It was nice to spend a short amount of time with Jon. Between school, work, and family we haven't seen much of each other lately but in less than two weeks we will get to spend 5 whole days together! I am so excited!

Home at Last!!

So I feel like I haven't been home all week, even though I was home on Wednesday. This week has just flown by! I need more time! I still have so much work to get done. I did get a lot of work done while I was at my parents but there just isn't enough time in the day. Besides Scentsy, taxes, the usual, my apartment is a MESS! And I am not exaggerating! That's tomorrows project. Why do today what you can do tomorrow. Anyways, my mom got her club taken off yesterday. The scar won't be too bad. The incision was only about an inch long with 6 stitches. I forgot to put the pic of her thumb on my computer so I guess you are spared to see the ugly nature of it. It's still very tender and throbs if she uses her hand too much but now she is only wrapped in a small gauze bandage so she can use her fingers now. I am glad that she is healing well and that I was able to help her out. It was a lot of fun hanging out with her this week.

As far as baby Melissa is concerned, she is doing well. I am 7 months pregnant! Holy cow! I have all of my showers planned and for the most part we are ready to go...I just need to clean and do last minute organizing. You can't tell by the look of my apartment but I have become an organizational freak (although you did see my pantry). I just want everything in order for when Melissa comes but also for when we move. I will have less than 2 months after she is born to pack up and leave and I want everything to be as simple as possible to pack, move, and unpack. Which reminds me...we only have 2 weeks before we take our weekend trip to North Dakota! I am so excited! I can't wait to see where we will actually be moving to and finally see our long lost friends, the Butlers! We miss you guys! See you soon! *By the way-is there enough room in that shower for me and my belly. lol! I can't wait!

Watch out for the Club!

So I have been living in Greenville the past few days. I am home now but will be making the trip back there tomorrow. My mom had surgery on her thumb on Monday. She had some kind of tendon cysts that wouldn't stop growing so they had to remove them. Her thumb's nickname had become Thumbinstein and at that point she new she really needed to have them removed. So, I drove out Sunday night because she had to be at Baylor Dallas at 6 am in the morning! Needless to say that was a long tiring day but she came out of surgery in less than an hour and many laughs were had! It's not very often you get to see your mother high on pain medication. I stayed through Wednesday morning to help her with my brothers and sisters and really everything else. She has to keep her arm elevated almost above her head at all times and with the bandage she has it weighs like 10-15 pounds. Tomorrow, I will drive back out there to take her to the doctor. She will finally get the club off and maybe go into a smaller bandage. This picture is right after she got out of surgery so she has that drug induced smile.

Belly Movements

So I finally caught some movement on video. The quality isn't the best but I did what I could. She is SOOO active but very camera shy. I think she actually knows exactly when I go to pick up the camera because she will completely stop moving. It can be very frustrating. Anywho, I don't have a video editor on this comp so the first part is me moving around and then after about 1 minute you can stop watching it. Pay close attention and you can see the movement.

I've Been Tagged!

1.YOUR ROCK STAR NAME (first pet, current car): Anna Shadow
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe): Cookie Dough Flip Flops
3. YOUR NATIVE AMERICAN NAME (favorite color, favorite animal): Pink Panda
4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, city where you were born): Mae Omaha
5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 of your first name): Eldsh
6. SUPERHERO NAME (2nd favorite color, favorite drink): Green Root Beer (that's my favorite drink right night. Ask me two months ago and you would have gotten lemonade. I hated both of these drinks before I got pregnant. lol go figure).
7. NASCAR NAME (the first names of your grandfathers): Gary Allen (Of course I do have 4 grandpas so I could have come up with some great names but for todays sake I will keep it to one name.)
8. STRIPPER NAME (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent,favorite candy):
Happy Snickers (It used to be M&Ms but my baby girl loves snickers..oh and tootsie rolls...mmm.)
9. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME (your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): Shaw Shanghai (I had 5 different teachers in the 5th grade and it's really sad because I can only remember one of their names.)
10. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower): Spring Yellow Rose
11. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing rightnow) Peach Jeans
12. HIPPIE NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree): Cheerio Walnut

I tag: Jon, Anna & Vanessa (now you both will have to actually post!)

Organizational Freak!

So for those of you that don't know, I love to organize. Most of the time you can't tell because my apt never seems to be clean (although I do have a husband and a dog who don't always pick up after themselves), but inside all of my cupboards it's organization time! My poor husband! I can't stand it when he puts things away, because he never puts them in the spot that I want him to. Of course I let him put stuff away but I come behind later and put everything in the right spot. I know I'm horrible! But in my life full of chaos I just like to know where everything is at. So, to get to the point, I went grocery shopping on Tuesday. I do the whole sale and coupons kind of shopping and it was by far the very best grocery day ever! So many things were on sale and I had a coupon for almost everything! Not to brag, of course, but I saved over $200 on my groceries! Plus I came home and organized them all. I don't think we have ever had this much food all at one time before! So I took some pictures because I was able to reorganize all of the cupboards.
This is our food pantry. This is the whole reason we live in this apartment! It really is a dream pantry! Look at how beautiful the food looks!

Here is the cupboard in bathroom. We have so much toilet paper! It's so awesome! It's just so nice to be able to see what we have!
This is under the kitchen sink. I think we have a 2 year supply of dishwasher detergent but it was such a great price!
So now that I told my neurotic secrets I just feel so much better. lol I don't mind when others aren't organized but I just get frustrated with myself when I am not. I spend so much time doing the things I want to do instead of spending time on trying to find what it is I want to do. My brother is OCD so maybe it runs in the family...

Road Trip!

So, we are registered and ready to go up for the Transfer Student Orientation Weekend in North Dakota! We are so excited! We leave for Grand Forks on April 2. We will stop by my grandparents home in Omaha and then continue our journey to Dusty and Anna's home where we will shower in the half bath and maybe play in the snow. We haven't decided if we will take Maggie but I am pretty confident that we will. I want to have a practice run before we move up there with our baby in the back seat. She did well on the drive out to Greenville but that was only 2 hours versus the 18 it will take to get to North Dakota. Anyways, we love going on road trips and haven't been on one in awhile, especially one this long, so this should be a lot of fun.

This reminds me of the joy that my daughter has found at using my bladder as a toy. Hopefully, I won't slow us down by having to pee every 5 minutes. In fact my belly is shaking like a bowl full of jelly right now. I have been trying to capture the movement on video but whenever I get it out she stops moving. Maybe someday I will be able to post a video on here. It was really sweet last night. Jon was getting ready to go to bed and he came to tell me goodnight and he said "I love you, goodnight" and then he put his hand on my belly and said "I love you too...you little alien baby." It was the sweetest thing ever! He calls her an alien because that's what it looks like when my belly is moving around. It can look a little creepy, but sweet knowing it's your baby. Sometimes I wish we had a camera in there to see what she is doing. At this point, she can open her eyes and she can hear outside noises. Also, during your 24 and 28th week they really get moving around and I have noticed a difference in how even more active she has become. We were sitting in sacrament meeting on Sunday and you can see her moving through my 3 layers of clothing. It was funny to watch. She especially gets moving when I have any type of pressure on my stomach like the elastic from my pants. As soon as I move it she usually slows down. Jon chased her (some body part) around the other day. He would poke at her until she moved and then he would find her again and do the same thing. It will be so neat to watch her grow and see her personality once she is born. I can already feel some of her personality but to see her in front of me will be so amazing!

P.S. I must put a disclaimer out about the lodge. You have to spend the night in order to play at the park. My family spent the weekend there and you can get a few guest passes for friends or family so we were able to go up for the day because of that. But if you think about it (which I have in depth ;-) It's not a bad price to pay for a nice family oriented hotel and admission to the park for your entire family. Plus, you can go back to your room nap, eat, etc. and go back and play without worrying that you can't leave the park because you will have to repay to enter. And it's really only families that go so everyone is nice and there for the same reason.

Wet and Wild!!!

This weekend started out slow. Friday we just sat around like lumps on a log. I think I may have cleaned but it was really uneventful. Saturday was a very busy day. I went to the Relief Society birthday luncheon at church. It was really neat! I was impressed at the program they put on and had a lot of fun with Shanah and Cassie(we all carpooled together). Then, I met Jon at his parents and we went on the hunt for candy bars for a shower that I was helping out with that afternoon. We have since figured out that they just don't make some of the same candy or gum like they used to. Anywho, I went to my friend Andrea's baby shower. It was a lot of fun seeing her family again and we were able to see pictures of her new baby boy Zion. He's such a cutie! He comes home on the 18th. I can't wait to meet him in person. He came out with more hair than I could grow in my first 4 years of life. They already have to give him a haircut before he comes home. After I came home from the shower, we put our swimming suits on and headed to the water park. But this isn't any normal water park...it's the indoor water park at the Great Wolf Lodge! It was really odd putting your swim suit on when it was 40 degrees outside but inside they keep it at a nice 85 degrees, although the water is much colder than that.
We took a few pictures on the camera phone but will post more later when I get the pics from mom's camera. This you can see the kiddie area to your right and in the back center is the wave pool. The kiddie area only gets to maybe 3 feet deep and has slides and fake dolphins to ride on. It's really designed for children. It also has a kiddie hot tub which with the adult hot tub on the other side of the park.
This is just to the left of the kiddie area. (By the way we are standing at a huge floor to ceiling glass window in the lobby. It's neat to be able to watch all the people running around having fun. This is like a playground but full of places to get wet. At the top is a bucket that will eventully fill up and topple over getting everyone down below very wet! Behind the playground is the lazy river, the deeper adult swimming area, the cyclone tube which is like the one at Hurricane Harbor but inside, The Vortex, you go down a tube into this huge green circle thing where you are stuck to the side going around on your tube until you eventually make it to the middle and go down the tube, and then you have the regular yellow tube that is like most tubing events at a waterpark. I didn't ride any of these due to pregnancy and the million steps it takes to get to the top but Jon did and he had a great time!

This is to the left of the playground where you can see the yellow tube and the green & white vortex behind it and the adult hot tub. The white tents are places you can have set aside for parties. Inside the lodge is like living in a small city. They have 3 restaurants, a cafe, starbucks, an arcade, a gift shop to purchase clothing or meds, and they have a MagiQuest for the kids. The MagiQuest you purchase a wand (like in Harry Potter) and when they are not swimming or in the arcade they can go around the entire hotel (8 floors) and find the pictures and stuff that they can point their wand at find clues to the next picture or treasure chest, etc. They also have a spa and a Starbucks. What more could you need! Well I could go on for days about how neat and fun it is but I suppose I will stop here. But it really is neat and worth the money.

Revenge of the Rash

It's BACK!! The rash has returned but this time I know what caused it. Apparently, I will have to live with stretch marks because the cocoa butter formula that is used to prevent them, I just happen to be allergic too. Now, I don't know if it's just during pregnancy or all the time, that we will have to find out later. So, I am back to being itchy but hopefully now it won't get as bad as it was the first time around.

Do the Wave!

So last night I was lying on the couch watching TV with Jon. I don't even remember what we were watching at the time because I was so preoccupied with watching my stomach move. Melissa becomes even more noticeable when I am lying on my side, and last night was no different. I swear she was having a swimming party in there because not only the feel but the look of my stomach was so hysterical. She'll be still for a few seconds and then my tummy will turn into this wave pool where it's moving non-stop. It's kind of creepy but so funny to watch. It creeps Jon out a bit and I don't blame him. If you didn't know you had a baby in there you'd think you had some type of alien presence. It's such an amazing experience to feel them moving around, especially as they get better you can tell where her head or foot or hand is. She also does this thing when I bend over too much, like picking up around the house, she hunkers down into the depths of my pelvis and won't budge. Everyone says I am tiny for being 6 months pregnant but I just say it's because she likes to hide amongst my organs. It's like she is trying to cuddle up and all she has are my intestines. It will be neat to see if she is the same way when she comes out. She can also officially hear noise and if it's a loud noise she might even blink. Our little peanut is all growed up!

I still feel like I have so much to do before she gets here but slowly I am getting it all done. Jon was so excited the other day that he wanted to put the crib up. Unfortunately we aren't using the crib until we move to North Dakota because it would have been so much fun to set up the crib and put the bedding in and make it look so cute! We only have 15 weeks left to go so here soon we will be putting the rest of her wall together and making it ready for her to arrive. I so looked forward to meeting her in person! It's true that you have a love for your kids that you never thought you could have...and I haven't even seen her yet. I can't even imagine how much my love will grow when I can hold her for the first time. It's like when you get married and you never thought you could love your husband more than you did at that moment but day after day, year after year your love grows so much and you just don't think it could get any stronger but yet somehow it does. I can't for Jon and I to share that moment where we can see our daughter for the first time and know that she is ours and through our love we created her.