Happy Birthday Robert!

Today is Robert's birthday so I dedicate this post as an ode to Robert. I am so in love with him and it's hard sometimes not to just take for granted all his great qualities. Sentimental posts are not my strong point, so I'm just going to go through our day yesterday and express how grateful I am for some of the qualities he exhibited yesterday.

Robert is very supportive and caring. He has been to almost every one of my doctor's appointments. Yesterday morning we had our second appointment this week (more on that later) and despite being in the middle of busy season Robert still went. We were there for more than two hours, so it was nice to have Robert there cracking jokes and talking to me while we had to wait for an hour, be seen, and then wait again.

After the doctor's appointment we went out to lunch. Once again, it's was just nice to be with him. How can anyone not enjoy being around him? He's cheerful and smart and he makes me get that milkshake when I'm debating about it and not feel guilty for spending too much.

Robert is smart, thorough, and hardworking. We have been thinking of getting our 1950's windows replaced on our house, and I am so glad that I have Robert leading the way on this decision. Its a big decision to decide who we want to go with to replace our windows and which window to get, but I have full confidence in Robert to find us the best company to go with. He has been busy checking out the backgrounds of all the seven company's we have been thinking about and doing research on all the different kinds of windows. He has spent a lot of time on that, and still working and doing everything else he does. This is so typical Robert though. I feel like I can trust him to make good, informed decisions (not that I have no say, but he just lays the information right out for me, I don't have to do much)

Also, on how he is hard working, yesterday morning our front lawn was a huge tract of dead grass. As of yesterday afternoon it is a huge tract of dirt, and hopefully soon it will be seeded with new grass and we will have a nice front lawn. Robert racked up the entire lawn, with some help from new "friends" from the parking lot of Home Depot. I also think Robert is very brave to walk up to strangers at the hardware store like that. One reason why I could never get a long without Robert.

Robert is also very funny, sometimes when he doesn't realize it. After spending all afternoon outside digging up the old lawn, and most of the evening driving around looking at window installation jobs, he was exhausted when we finally sat down to watch "The Office". He fell asleep halfway through it, on the floor because I kicked him off the couch so I could lie down because my back was hurting (see how sweet he is). After I got him up to bed I was just looking at him sleep and he said from his sleep, "stop breathing on me." I responded that he was just so cute I just wanted to watch him sleep, to which he responded by rolling over so he was facing away from me and saying "take that. hmm." Okay, so maybe you had to be there for that one, but I thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, I'm so grateful to have Robert in my life for one more year and hopefully many more years to come. Happy Birthday Robert!

Jason Aldean

On St. Patricks Day, Robert, Matt H.(one of Robert's friends from work) and I went to a Jason Aldean* concert at the House of Blues in Hollywood. We didn't get any good photos, so my visuals are courtesy of Google. I loved that this concert was at the House of Blues because it is such a small venue. We were right up by the stage so we could actually see Jason Aldean. We could see his facial expressions and it kind of felt like he could see you since there aren't all that many people there (it's a packed room, but def. not like being in a concert at a stadium). And really, who wasn't looking at the pregnant lady? (I felt a little conspicuous) It was a fun way to celebrate St. Patricks day and my last week of work.

Yup, yesterday was my last day of work. My co-workers threw a surprise baby shower for me, which was very sweet of them. I totally should have figured it out but I was so focused on getting all my work wrapped up I didn't even notice what was going on until someone came and got me for an "emergency staff meeting," and it still took me a couple seconds to suspect anything. After work when I got on the bus lugging two bags of baby stuff I realized I had misplaced my keys somewhere, so I had to call Robert to come home ASAP so I wouldn't be stuck at the Park & Ride(he usually stays a couple hours longer than I do). Then my phone went dead so I had to just trust he was coming for me. And he did. He's so sweet to just pack up and leave in the middle of his work. My keys, btw, were sitting on the front seat of our car at the Park & Ride. Oops. At least the car was locked and there was a guard at the Park & Ride. It reminds me of my very first day of work when our car died twice and I had to get it jumped by someone in our apartment parking lot, and then by a coworker.

It hasn't quite sunk in yet that on Monday I won't have to get up early and make the commute into L.A. and I will finally have time to get things done. Bring on the deep cleaning nesting.

And finally, here's what Robert's looking like these days.

My stipulation for him growing out his beard was as long as he shaved it all before the baby comes, even if it means taking an extra 20 minutes for Robert to shave before we go to the hospital. Thankfully he's not going to wait that long. He's slowly getting it shaved.

*For those of you who have no idea who Jason Aldean is, he is a country singer and you can hear some of his songs on our blog playlist. Also note that it was Robert who just had to get tickets to this concert when he heard about it. Surprisingly, he and Matt are both really big country fans.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

From your friendly Wheat leprechaun.

Robert has been growing out his beard for a couple weeks and decided to shave it "leprechaun" style in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Happy St. Patricks Day!

Random Entertainment

One Month and Counting

Yesterday was one month before my due date! Looking back on the last month it went by so quickly, it amazes me that in that short amount of time in the future we will have our baby! Here are some progressive pictures of my pregnancy.18 weeks- I didn't even have a belly!28 weeks

Today- 36 weeks

On another note, this week we surpassed our record for most people to spend the night at our house. I think the previous record was five when Robert's brother and his wife and his dad were visiting us. This week we shot up to eight! My cousin Kamille and five of her friends came down from Cache Valley to do a little SoCal sightseeing and I invited them to stay at our house for the three days they were in the area. They were are all very nice and Robert and I enjoyed chatting with them until very late at night.

P.S. This is also our 200th post!

Dream Time

It’s dream time again! In a recent dream I was at one of my doctor’s visits and the doctor told me very sadly, “I’m sorry Melarie, but your baby has a vampire disease called quid pro quo and won’t be able to live for more than a day after she is born.” It was a very distressing revelation of course, although kind of funny now that I am awake and know it was all a dream. A vampire disease? Probably from reading Twilight and thinking of Bella’s pregnancy. Called quid pro quo? I have no idea where that one came from. In my dream it sounded like a perfectly logical name for a disease, but in waking naturally I know it’s Latin for “something for something,” and refers to giving and receiving something of equal value. (Yeah right, I had to look it up). I think dreams are a person’s way of sorting things out in their mind, so I do believe that dreams have meaning, but I don’t know where I was going with the quid pro quo thing. Hmm, that could get deep.

So in my dream I am very devastated. All my plans for watching my baby grow up and having this perfect little family with her are dashed. I’ll just get one day with her. At first I don’t know what to think, but after a few minutes I can recognize that I am devastated not to get a lifetime with her. My dream self thinks that I should be feeling like carrying this baby for another month is useless because she is just going to be dying anyways. But my dream self also realizes that’s not how I feel, that I still want to nurture her until it is time for her to be born. At least I will be able to meet her and spend a little time with her before she dies. And I will love her in spite of her vampireness. The doctor asks me if I was still going to name her Julia, and I tell her yes, of course, her name is Julia. I ask if there were any symptoms earlier of the disease, and the Dr. said yes, and showed me a paper with all the possible symptoms in pregnancy for the disease. The symptoms I had were highlighted, like back pain. They just hadn't put it all together until today. After that I start thinking of how I am going to tell Robert and then I woke from my dream, very relieved that it was just a dream.

So the dream got me thinking a little. I never expressed it in the dream, but probably the reason I was not completely hopeless after hearing the horrible news was because of the eternal perspective I have as a Latter-Day Saint. No, I wasn’t going to get a lifetime with her, but I was going to get an eternity with her. She wasn’t going to stop being my baby after she died. So that made it okay for me to want to nurture her as long as I could. Also, I love her already, so no matter what she looked like she would still be the same baby that I have been feeling inside of me for months and I would still love her.

Anyway, I'm about 35 weeks now and the time seems so short until we really do get to meet our baby. I have two more weeks of work, so hopefully the last little while without work will let me get some stuff done around the house and finish getting ready for baby. I'm really excited to stop working because by the end of the day my back is killing me from sitting at a desk (and on a bus) for so long and I am exhausted from not getting enough (deep) sleep.