Reflections on the 1st Trimester

If you haven't heard already... we are expecting a baby January 15, 2013! We are very excited/nervous, and I am counting down the weeks 'til we get to find out the gender.

I have been very lucky/blessed to have had very few symptoms and side effects that the first trimester usually brings. I'm very impressed with women who aren't so fortunate and who spend their first 3 months (or longer) throwing up, nauseous, bloated and everything else unimaginable. If I had experienced any other those for more than a week I think I would have had to quite my job and become a permanent fixture on our couch... so big, big kudos to those who stick it out while working full-time jobs, be it at-home mommies or in the workplace. I told Eric the other night after having a migraine (my one and only "lie down and leave me alone" sickness I've had) that I can not imagine how hard it would be to be pregnant with a kid or more in tow.

Even after all the blogs, websites and books I've read I was unprepared for some of the symptoms. Or maybe the first time for everyone the symptoms come as a shock.

Sore chest: Everything I've read just says your chest will be sore or tender. Um, can we say a gross understatement. They did not say that they would hurt so bad that if I so much as lightly brushed my chest, that I would wince. No, for the record, they do not do this justice.

Tired: I knew that I would be tired, but I was not prepared mentally for how handicapping this fatigue would be. I would come home from work and the gym, lie down on the couch and be unable to get back up to fix dinner, finish my many crafts or clean. Luckily Eric was a good sport and picked up the slack, so we don't subsist on only sandwiches and the house was saved from disaster. After taking a 2 hour nap on Saturday AND Sunday... I'm really looking forward to the second trimester!

Taking my blood at OB appointments: Um, anyone who knows me, knows that I have an intense fear of needles and will go to great lengths to avoid getting shots of any kind and after trying and failing once to give blood (I was barely 18 and thought it would be a bragging point to say I had given blood...) I have vowed off ever giving blood or having blood drawn from me for any reason. Hence you can only imagine what took place in that office when they decided they needed to draw blood....

Lack of Menstruation: I cannot explain how truly liberated I feel to not have to worry about that time of the month. It's one of pregnancies highlights to be sure.

Appetite: I am hungry, often. When I wake up in the morning I can barely wait to shower to have my bowl of cereal. I am starving in the morning, and unless I have some sort of evening snack, I go to bed starving like I had been fasting for 24 hours. And I can barely last three hours at church without a snack, in fact I usually sneak something into the bathroom stall and eat something... However, I think I've done pretty well with only eating a little bit extra, and NOT eating for two.

Going to the bathroom: Going to the bathroom has become my new enemy. For some odd reason the only reason I ever start feeling like I need to throw up and get nauseous is when I go to the bathroom. I won't go into detail, but it is truly evil, and I prolong it as long as possible.

Baby Bump?: I feel like I'm in transition mode. I look like I've gained weight (which I have, but it looks more like 10 pounds instead of the 2.5 pounds I have actually gained), but not enough to have a defined baby bump and I feel fat... ugh.

Emotions: Sad movies have been outlawed for the next 6 months. We watched Hatchi at Grandma Andrus's house when Eric's little sister Annie was in town, and boy did I bawl, and bawl, and bawl. I could not get a grip on myself and to make matters worse, crying gave me a headache which developed into a migraine... not fun. Even before getting pregnant I hardly ever opted for a sad movie, because I don't like crying, even though I always end up liking the movie. But now, no sad movies, period.

Exercise: Thanks to the Melaleuca gym that is free as long as I go twice a week, I have been pretty faithful, and have exercised about 3-4 times a week, and never less than twice a week. I've really enjoyed working out but it really takes the mickey out of me, as if I haven't been tired enough. I don't have as much stamina as I did before, and have to take more breaks.

Dreams: Um, ok. Dreams have been my plague since I was tiny. I used to always have dreams of witches, captain Hook, butcher's chasing me with knives... every nightmare imaginable... and never any good dreams. I used to think and repeat "rainbows and bunnies" as I was going to sleep to ward off the nightmares and it worked most of the time. When I was on my mission, dreams were my bane because dreaming makes me tired, tiredness as a missionary is unacceptable and miserable. So I started praying that the dreams would stop so I could get a restful night's sleep. I think I dreamed maybe 3 times my whole mission.

Now, it's a whole new ball park. The dreams come EVERY night, and of course, they are always nightmares or stressful dreams. So far I've accidentally killed my baby, had a miscarriage, Eric became a fisherman under David Hasselhoff, possessed demons, my reoccurring "Witches" by Roald Dahl dream (had the dream probably 20 times in my life... I hate that movie), and many others.  Gah! I hate it, I think I need to start praying that they stop again...

So besides the funny symptoms --- which in a weird way make me happy, knowing that that means that we have a baby in progress --- we are doing great and are super excited! And I repeat, I cannot imagine how pregnancy would be if I had been sick.

Moving On

I find it ironic and symbolic that my last day at Star Moose was exactly the same day as my first day exactly one year ago--April 20th. Yes, that's right after working exactly 1 year... and 1 day, I bid adieu to Star Moose and moved on to the next step in my career. Say hello to Melaleuca!

It was a great year at Star Moose, and I learned a ton. It was a nice transition from school to a "real" job. I still remember feeling overwhelmed and singing,"I don't wanna grow up, I just wanna be a kid..." in my head, when they started asking me if I wanted benefits... haha I felt so old!

Well, about the end of March, I was contacted by a Melaleuca recruiter who found me on LinkedIn--- crazy right! I know that is the point of having a LinkedIn account, but it still surprised me that it happened in Idaho of all places-- you expect something like this from big cities, but Idaho falls? Yeah, I was surprised and flattered.

Well, long story short, I landed a job at Melaleuca as an MIT (Manager in Training) in their Business Development department. As an MIT I went through 3 weeks of grueling business development training and after much stress passed my panel (huge test on everything we learned in those 3 weeks). As an MIT I could cross-train in multiple departments until eventually finding my niche in the company. The MIT program is set to groom Melaleuca's future managers, supervisors and leaders. Just when I was about to start cross-training in different departments I was hired on as a writer! I had initally interviewed for a writing position, but had been hired as an MIT and told that when another writing position came up I would be a shoe-in, and they were right! On Friday, June 8th, I was grabbed for a quick interview and hired on the spot!

Heather's Little Man is On His Way

My older sister Heather is pregnant with her second baby, and the first boy to be born in our family for quite some time. So needless to say, we are all more than a little bit excited. Everything in our family of three sisters has been about girls, so it came as quite a surprise to find out that little boy stuff can be pretty cute too (and ever since this realization I've been pinning cute baby boy things on Pinterest for Heather's sake and for our own future little men.)

Heather had her first baby in Arkansas, and while I was able to go visit her and Aleksa a few weeks after she was born, I didn't get to throw her a baby shower or even go to go to one. So there was no way I was going to miss out this time around. So, my little sister Tori and I got busy planning her the cutest little man shower since I don't know when.

We fell in love with the mustache theme and thanks to Pinterest we were able to find everything we needed. It took a lot more work than we had anticipated, but it was well worth the oohs and ahhs from everybody at the shower.

Heather and all her sisters sporting their mustaches. The best part is Aleksa in the back.

She finally posed for us with her mustache.

The only people who ended up coming to the shower were family, but it ended up being a blast of a family party. Sometimes there aren't enough reasons to get together with extended family, I love family parties. And despite the smallish number of people attending Heather and her little man were "showered" with lots of gifts, mostly adorable baby clothes that had us all wishing he were here now.

4 Months and 3 Callings

Yes my dear friends and family, in the four whole months that Eric and I have been married and living in our married student ward, I have had no less than three callings. Count 'em, one, two, three!

It is common in student wards to change callings every three months, but at three within 4 months we wonder if this is a record or something.

My first calling--relief society chorister--was nice, relaxing, and really low-key. I was fine and happy with that, besides I got an intense right arm workout for 5 minutes every Sunday.

About a month later Eric and I were confused why we had been asked to come in and meet with the counselor again when we both already had callings and a volunteer calling that isn't really a calling (going to do sealings once a month with other couples from the ward). When low and behold I was called to be a nursery leader... joy.

I like kids, but do I like them enough to replace Sunday School and Relief Society, nope. And I don't think anyone else does either. I struggled with my significantly less spiritually uplifting Sundays. Even when I taught primary I didn't feel this spiritually neglected. At least in primary there were plenty of lessons and songs, and the kids are at an age where they actually can pay attention for more than 15 seconds and sometimes say some pretty profound things that pull at your heartstrings.

Do get me wrong the nursery kids were truly darling most of the time, I just missed Relief Society and the chance to mingle with other sisters, and going to Sunday School with my husband.

Enter my third calling, which came as a relief and an escape. After almost 2 months in nursery Eric and I got another call from the counselor, this time we were really confused, but joked that I would be getting another calling. And funnily enough that is just what happened. I was called to be the Relief Society Secretary. The whole time the counselor was extending the calling to me I had to stop myself from grinning like a kid on Christmas. I didn't care what the calling was as long as I could go back to Relief Society and Sunday School with Eric.

I haven't really done anything for my calling yet, but I think it will be a good one. Definitely more time consuming but at least I get my weekly dose of Relief Society.

And I'm hoping I'll keep this calling for awhile...

Eric's Fun {tache} tic Birthday

Eric was pretty bummed that his birthday fell on Saturday, which only happens once every 7 years, and it happened to be on a drill weekend so we couldn't go to Lava Hot Springs that weekend like we had been planning. We decided to go to following week, but I still wanted to make his birthday special, especially after spending all day at drill. 

I decided to go all out and had a lot of fun planning Eric's birthday. Since we all know how much he loves mustaches, seeing as he had one for a whole year in Iraq, I thought a mustache themed birthday would be fun. Eric didn't want to go out to dinner since we planned to go to Lava Hot Springs the next week to celebrate, I bought some steaks and made him a nice meal at home. We had steaks, twice-baked potatoes, drop biscuits, and IBC rootbeer. 

The whole mustache inspiriation come from a cake I saw on Pinterest, and then I saw the mustache sticks (I don't know what to call them) and I just had to do it. 

We had Willy, Eric's little brother who is going to school here, over for cake and icecream and presents.

I made my very first cake from scratch for his cake. It wasn't hard, and it tasted good, but didn't taste very chocoaltey--oh well there is next year. 

Happy Birthday Eric! Now he's "old" like his wife :)

Ice Skating with Robert Redford

The day after Christmas Eric and I went skating with Tori at the Midway outdoor ice-skating rink. We almost went a few days earlier, but chickened out because it was really cold. I'm glad we did, because we had the most beautiful weather when we did finally go. The sun was shining, and the air was crisp, but not too cold.

So while we were waiting in line to pay, all of a sudden Eric stopped and stared intently at someone, and then turned to me and said, "I think that's Robert Redford." Now I know that he is an actor, but not one that I really know or pay attention to, but Eric informed me that Robert Redford plays the notorious Jeremiah Johnson in the movie of the same name. Then I instantly knew why Eric was so interested, you see Eric LOVES Jeremiah Johnson, in fact he wishes that he could be Jeremiah Johnson.

So Eric spent the next 30 minutes following him around the ice rink trying to verify that he was indeed Mr. Redford. He even took a stalker picture from across the rink. Evidence:

This is the guy that Eric stalked, and his creepy paparazzi picture he took :)

 After observing the man at a close distance Eric decided that wasn't really Robert Redford, just a close, younger look a like. Later when Eric pointed him out to me and I got a good look, I realized that it was none other than Brother Stone, the father of some kids I used to babysit. Oh we had some good laughs about that.

This is the real Robert Redford. I must say I can't really blame Eric, they do look similar.

Anywhoo back to ice skating...

We had a blast ice-skating, I've always wanted to go ice-skating with someone I could hold hands with. We definitely got our share of that in along with trying out some moves that Tori taught us.

Eric trying out some moves, and Tori laughing in the background.

While we were there we also ran into our friends Felicia and Kevin, their baby Evelyn, Kevin's sisters, and Felicia's sister Anna and her kids. I was hoping to see them over Christmas, so it was a happy coincidence when we ran into them ice-skating.

The night before we spent several hours watching some old family home videos, so we thought it only appropriate to add to the collection. This one's a keeper.

Santa Came to Town

Christmas Morning is always more fun with a kid around. It was so much fun to watch Aleksa when she found her stocking and the presents that Santa left for her. 

We were all quite spoiled and had too much fun. It was nice that church was later so we had time to open all our presents, get dressed, eat breakfast and go to church. It was nice to go to church to celebrate Christmas, how fitting. 

Here are some pictures of the mornings events. 

Aleksa playing with her new dress up clothes.

Aleksa tired from all the opening and taking a break atop her new dress up chest.

Tori sporting her pjs and leopard scarf.