Going on vacation!

You guys, I'm so excited to take a little break! This weekend, Cody and I are headed down to Nevada for a relaxing couple of days. We really wanted to go to California with a group of friends, but I'm already struggling with walking for long distances (hello, hip pain!) and I didn't want to be a burden. Plus, this week is Spring Break for UVU so Cody doesn't have to miss any class! We are taking work off on Friday and heading down early in the morning to get the most out of our day as possible!

Honeymoon to Mexico

We booked our hotel through hotwire.com and got a great deal on a hotel about 30 minutes away from the strip, which is nice because we really just want to enjoy the nice weather, but we are going to walk around the strip for a little while, but then we'll get to leave the hustle and bustle and go back to peace and quiet.

Cody's birthday is also this weekend, so it's serving as a birthday trip as well as a little babymoon! I wish it could be longer, but hey.. I'll take what I can get! And, it's supposed to be in the high 70s and even in the 80s when we're there, so that definitely doesn't hurt!

Anyways, I'm excited. Even if it was poopy weather and we don't end up doing anything, we'll at least get to relax, which is totally worth it all for me!

Because I Often Wonder If I'm Growing,

(which I hope is a normal thing for pregnant women.. if not, well.. I'm just strange I guess) I decided to put all of the belly pictures together that I've taken into one easily viewable image. And guess what?! I've grown a lot since my first "15 week" picture! (Duh, obviously.)

So if you were ever curious to see how my belly has grown over the last several weeks/months, here you go.

It's funny to think that I got upset when people said I didn't really look pregnant when I was as big as I was in the top row of pictures. It's much different when it's your body and you're used to seeing it every day of your life. So when you see a bump that wasn't there, and that it's HUGELY different than it was the week before, you expect everyone else to see it. But alas, you must wait a month or two for it to be noticeable. It wasn't until I was about 23 weeks when I had someone come up to me at church and say, "This is the first time that I've even been able to tell that you're pregnant! Congratulations!" and then last week we went to Burger Supreme and the cashier asked if I was having a boy or a girl... and she didn't even know me! I will admit, it took me WAY off guard, but it was cool to know that I'm far enough along that she didn't need to hesitate to ask if I was pregnant.

So my advice to you first time pregnant women, if you're wondering why people aren't recognizing your most exciting new body change, it's because there really hasn't been any noteworthy change, in their eyes. But don't worry, it will happen.

Also, this is crazy. It's no secret that I feel as though this pregnancy is moving slower than a dead slug, but I just looked on my pregnancy app on my phone, and it gave me this little reminder:

85 days to go! I have been trying to forget about time lately, and we're already less than 100 days! I'm pretty excited, but also freaking terrified. Giving birth?!? BREASTFEEDING!? My golly, I need to buck up.

PLT - Remember these?!

I'm so happy to say that I'm making some progress with my Project Life album! I did about 3 pages while I was in Washington over Thanksgiving break, and then NOTHING until this past week or two. So now more than ever, it feels so good to be back! Last time I played catch up, it was painful. I was doing so many spreads a day just to get caught up and I wasn't really enjoying the process. But I'm taking it much slower this time around and it's working out a lot better already!

I'll just start sharing from the beginning of my album, since I'm pretty sure I haven't put these on here yet.

Say hello to my title page! I decided to start my new album in August because my first album covered 2 years from July-July, so I put pictures from my birthday last year, and then a few cards that fit really well together. I'm still in love with this page, and I did this one 5 months ago. 

These two pages were all about my family being here for my birthday! I tend to make a full spread (or two) of one event if it was particularly special to me rather than just choosing one or two pictures. (I did two whole spreads for August 2012 when Cody and I went to Washington for a week, and then again for December 2012 when we were in WA for Christmas!) We had so much fun celebrating together, and I'm still so glad that they were willing to come out and spend so much time with us!

I'll have a few more spreads up next week, plus a handy little trick that I've found out works really well for me! Happy project lifing!

Life Update

27 weeks and 2 days

Right now, life is pretty great! I'm still working as a preschool teacher down in Springville, and while I don't love taking that drive twice a day, it's been really good for me. I'm really getting antsy to leave though, so it's getting pretty difficult to want to go to work every morning. I'm just ready to have my baby!!!

Cody started his new job this week, and so far he's really liking it! It's his first office job, and he says that he just keeps comparing everything to "The Office" (the show) because that's the only knowledge of office life that he knows about so far. He's working at an HR company which is perfect, because he wanted to get into a more "technology" centered career field, and this is it! We're just really happy that he can be there rather than doing more manual labor (bleh!).

Baby is doing just fine! I took the glucose test last week, and thankfully, I don't have gestational diabetes! Phew! We heard his heartbeat last week which was sounding just great, according to the doctors! I'm able to see my belly move when he's awake and kicking/moving around, and Cody feels him on a pretty regular basis. Speaking of baby kicking, he does it ALL THE TIME now! It's super cool to feel and know that he's just dancing around in there! I'm still able to sleep through the night, except for waking up once in the early morning because I'm blazing hot. But then a few minutes later I'm pretty cold, so I get back under the covers and fall asleep until my alarm goes off. I do have to pee pretty dang bad when I finally wake up though, so I can see that becoming an issue in the near (hopefully distant) future.

The weather has been so beautiful lately!

As far as my body goes though, it's getting more abuse. I can't stand/walk around for very long anymore or else my hips and inner thighs start killing! I understand more why pregnant women walk funny.. it's painful! Also, I've been taking Dexter on walks around our block, and I get cramps in my belly! I'm used to getting side cramps if I ate/drank before a walk, but now it happens every time and I end up having to go super slow for the rest of the walk. Not ideal, especially for Dexter (he gets crazy hyper when we get home), but I'm still trying to do that on a regular basis regardless.

I'm still terrible at cooking, but I did make dinner on Monday (and I'm hoping to get something going pretty soon for tonight's dinner)! We had sweet meatballs, rice, and green beans. It was freaking delicious! I have to share the recipe though, because it's just that good. This is on the back of a "Chili Sauce" bottle, which is usually located near the BBQ sauces in grocery stores.

I definitely just use a pound of hamburger meat and smoosh it into little meatballs instead of using pre-made meatballs, but this recipe couldn't be easier! You can make it on the stove or in the crock pot, but I tend to not plan ahead enough to do crock pot recipes lately, and you can make it on the stove in about 20 minutes.

I follow this blog and she just posted about monthly meal planning. I've kinda done this once, but it definitely works better for me than weekly planning, because whenever I have something planned for the day, it doesn't sound good. So this way, I'll have plenty of meals to choose from, as long as I have the ingredients. I really need to find some good freezer meal recipes so I can spend less time in the kitchen standing up every night.

Anyways, that's about all! I'll have a post about my Project Life spreads that I've been working on lately up here tomorrow!

Happy March!

I'm so happy that it's March!! I love that it's one day closer to spring, and now I'm only 2 month away from having my baby!! (Give or take a couple weeks, cause yanno, babies don't always like to be precise). One thing that I've been thinking a lot about is pictures. I've been getting back into Project Life, and trying to play catch up again... (remember when I said I wouldn't let myself get 6 months behind ever again? Well, I let myself.)

I'm actually loving that I took a little time off. I really feel like that time that I took off from it got me super amped up to get working again, and since I wanted to work on it a few months ago but didn't have picture printed, it got me even more excited! So now I'm stoked about it! I absolutely love anytime that I have an extra half hour to dedicate to PL. But I'm realizing that I haven't been taking the best pictures. I realize that that's not the biggest of deals, but I'm liking my pages less and less when the pictures are dark and terrible quality. But when I get those few that are super well lit and just great overall photos, I'm so excited to get them in and use cute 3x4 cards to accentuate them!

So my goal for this month of March is to be more intentional when taking pictures. I will still probably take crappy-lit photos for those moments where I won't have time to adjust the lighting or even where I'm at, but I want to really try to find the best light, the best part of the day, the best part of our house/outside.. so I can get really meaningful, beautiful pictures. And I need to remember to take out my big camera more often and not just use my phone!

So there we have it. March's goal.

PS. Speaking of goals, I don't like the goals I set at the beginning of the year. They're too broad, and I can't cross them off as soon as I finished because I chose many that would have to happen over the course of months. So, I might still do a few of them, but I'm not keeping that as my strict rules.

PPS. Happy 27 weeks of cooking, baby boy! Stay in there for a few more months, okay?

Cody is strange sometimes.

You all know the unwritten rule that you break the kit-kat in two before you eat it, right? Well Cody chooses not to follow it. AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY! He's been doing this almost the whole time we've known each other, but he also does it with the pull apart twizzlers and string cheese. I feel like we get along really well, we avoid fighting, and we're pretty easy going, but this honestly boils my blood. But I guess if that's the only thing that bothers me about him, we're doing pretty good. But my goodness, I can't stand it for some reason!

On a completely different note, I had to take the glucose test today to see if I have gestational diabetes. I won't get the results until tomorrow or maybe Friday, but I actually didn't hate the drink! It just tasted like an off brand of orange soda! Although after I drank it I started feeling funny. I don't think baby liked it though because he found the first uncomfortable (for me) spot to be in... under my right ribcage.  At first I thought my ribs were just randomly hurting, but then I felt his punches out kicks right in that same spot. I guess it's fine though because it's giving me better posture!

Also, I have strep throat. It was the worst this weekend, but now I'm feeling just great! I took the day off work on Tuesday because I suspected I had strep throat (by having Cody look down my throat and seeing white spots on Monday) just so I wouldn't expose anyone, and then the doctor told me not to go in today. It was nice to have some time off to spend with Cody! Especially since he starts bis new job on Monday and I'll be seeing him a lot less than I'm used to!

That's pretty much all of our updates right now, and we're doing just fine!

Confessions of a wife that never makes dinner.

You guys, I've gotten so bad at making dinner! I used to say I'd gotten bad at making dinner on a regular basis, but now I just don't make dinner! And it's not like I don't try... well, sorta. It's just that planning ahead with food while pregnant just doesn't work for me. If I get something prepared the day before, or morning of, there's a dang good chance that it will NOT sound good to me when it's time for dinner. And then I'm starving, it's dinner time, and I don't want to spend the time to cook something because it will take too long.

I really just need to prepare a few meals, freeze them, and then pick which one sounds best.

But that would mean I'd have to make something, and we've already figured out that that just isn't happening right now.

What an awful wife I am. Good thing that's one of the goals that I'm determined to accomplish before my 24th birthday!