Whatever I Could Think of

We've been pretty boring recently, but in an effort to keep our blog updated with some recent content, I'll try to think of something to write about.

The past couple weekends we have drifted a little from our normal anti-social routine (we're not anti-social on purpose, but we do tend to keep to ourselves a lot...) and have actually hung out with friends! Two weekends in a row even! Two Saturday's ago we went out to dinner with the Haskins, some friends that live here in Claremont that we have known since we first moved to L.A. We went to a Benihana style restaurant and then went to their house to play Rock Band. It was Robert and I's first experience with Rock Band and we both enjoyed it but I don't think we're going to be investing in a band of our own anytime soon.

This last weekend we had some friends from West L.A., the Mcdowell's, over to our house. I think this was the first time that we actually had friends over to our house (that weren't helping us move furniture or do house repairs). Yay for friends! Their two little girls helped us out by showing us what needed to be kid proofed around the house. I don't know how but they seemed to find all kinds of horrifying stuff outside like rusty nails, screws, and broken sprinklers. Yikes! Luckily they managed to leave our house unscathed and we all had fun seeing each other again and playing games.

In other news, Saturday we also went and took the maternity orientation tour of the hospital. I'm so excited for labor and delivery now! Actually seeing where it was all going to happen got me all pumped up and ready for this to happen. But since I still have two and a half months to go I guess I will just have to contain my excitement for now. I was starting to feel a little bit apprehensive about it all for the first time recently but seeing the hospital and knowing what was going to happen and where we have to go etc. etc. really helped me out. I'm sure I'll start getting nervous again as the time gets closer, but right now my attitude is "All right, let's do this!" Actually, I'm more scared about after the hospital, when they send us home with a newborn baby that is all our responsibility. That's pretty freaky.

Our Baby

Wait, no way we have a blonde baby! I never ever thought I would have a blonde baby until I remembered that Robert and his siblings were actually blonde when they were little, and then my mom had a dream that I had a little blonde baby (her family is a strong believer in the prophetic power of dreams). Hmm, stranger things have happened...

But of course, the pictured baby is not really our baby, it's just my baby(doll). I picked up a bunch of my old toys when I was home for Christmas since my parents were cleaning out their attic. I've had that doll as long as I can remember, ahh memories. I also brought back a lot of my old books and I am so excited to read them again (books like Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie.) They are for older kids but I'm sure Julia will appreciate them someday. The cosleeper really is ours, it was given to us by one of Robert's bosses. Yay! So now the real Julia has a place to sleep, the other baby is just saving Julia's spot until she gets here.

Some Pictures of the House

I realize it has been months since we moved into our house and you may have all forgotten what the house used to look like (or even forgot we moved into a house at all), so finally, here are our after pictures. To view what the rooms used to look like and more pictures of what it looks like now you can visit the web album below.

Claremont House

Front Room

Kitchen

Downstairs bathroom

T.V. Room
Office
Upstairs bathroom
Bedroom
Not pictured:
Nursery- in the middle of being repainted and moving furniture in (this weekend!)
The "middle" room on the first floor- currently it is full of boxes of Christmas decorations waiting to be put in the garage and normally it has..well, literally nothing. We're thinking of moving the TV into the very large kitchen area (TV over the fireplace) and making our empty middle room a dining room and the TV room a guest/bedroom. The office and TV are eventually going to become bedrooms anyway once we start needing them for that.

2 Ups and 2 Downs

Our first post of the year! And the month is already half way over, oops. I guess its been a while since our last post.

Robert got me a new ipod for Christmas and I was really excited about it because I could load some audio books and listen on the way to work. I used to read a book on the bus, but when my morning sickness started I just could not read on the bus without getting more sick, and even though I have been feeling good the last couple months I still haven't been able to read on the bus again. So last week I sat down to load some audio books and instead discovered the podcast.
I love podcasts because they are all pretty recent stuff and its all free. It's like listening to a radio show and there are podcasts about every topic imaginable. So of course my favorite topic is pregnancy and parenting.

One of my favorite podcasts is called Pregtastic. They usually have a guest speaker (like a labor and delivery nurse-actually very interesting to hear her perspective- or author of a book) and a group of pregnant women to ask them questions and share their own perspectives. The women always start out by doing "two ups and two downs" about their pregnancy at the moment. So in honor of my new obsession, here are my "two ups and two downs!"

Up number one is that baby moves so much and I absolutely love it. She's not strong enough to ever kick hard enough to make me uncomfortable, so it is all good stuff. I could just sit for hours and feel her move and watch her poke at my belly. It makes me think, hey, there's really a baby in there.

Up number two other people may not consider an up, but I think I do consider this an up. I actually look pregnant now (and I mean really, there is no denying it, look pregnant)! It has been interesting the responses I get. My co-workers and ward members say "your finally showing!" My clients have just started to notice and say, "are you pregnant?" "when are you due" "do you know what you're having." It has become a favorite topic of conversation with them. It's kind of sweet how people respond. All kinds of people like babies, even the junkie homeless ladies and old single men. Even though I have been pregnant now for seven months I am just getting used to having the whole world know it too. But it also means I'm getting closer to the end and my baby is getting bigger and stronger, yay!

So now for my downs. I'm wrapping up the end of my second trimester and I've been feeling great, so I really don't have too much to complain about, but my first down is back pain. I have been getting back pain since November when I sit for too long, and of course it's not comfortable to stand for too long either. So I have to always be switching standing and sitting to stay comfortable. And besides just back pain I also get really sore like in my tailbone area when I sit for too long. I talked to my doctor about it and she made me take a test to make sure I didn't have an infection, but everything was fine. So unless I come down with a fever, its just another part of a healthy pregnancy.

Second down makes me feel kind of silly. I burp all the time! Who knew burping was a symptom of pregnancy. It's not like I have been letting out these huge belches, but more like lots of little tiny burps. It's annoying the way hiccups are annoying, so really not too much to complain about. And with those two complaints that's almost all the downs in my pregnancy right now, so things are going very well.

Here is me at 28 weeks, in our newly painted nursery

(I wore this dress because it is the same thing I wore for my last belly shot, but it is way too tight to wear to church anymore! It shows a little too much now.)

Oh, and Robert and I are now Uncle Robert and Aunt Melarie for the first time! Congrats to Robert's brother David and his wife Jen on the birth of their new baby last week.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Robert and I have left sunny southern California (although its been pretty rainy recently) for the blizzard conditions of Utah. We had a very white Christmas in at my parents house in Magna. It has hardly stopped snowing since we got here. Luckily we travelled before the storm so we had perfect weather driving up. I'm so glad now we get the next week and a half to sit around and veg! Hope everyone else is enjoying their holidays.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas Eve party on my mom's side of the family

The "inside" half for La Posada singing to us (the outside half) that there is no room (the family splits in half and reenacts through song the journey of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem as they try to find a place to sleep)Robert and I as Joseph and Mary for La Posada (after they let us in)

Joseph is also quite handy at hanging up the pinata.

All the granddaughters. (above)

Robert and I with Santa Claus aka my Dad (shh, don't tell any of the little kids (below)

Three and a Half Hours

Three and a half hours. That's how long it took me to get home from work today because this accident shut down all but one lane of the freeway my bus takes to get home. Three hours on the bus! There has got to be a bright side to this right? Oh yeah, after an hour and a half the bus decided to get off the freeway and take surface streets, so I got to see a whole lot of Christmas lights! Robert was smart enough to work from home today, so he completely missed it all. Lucky. He must be psychic.

In the Air There's a Feeling of Christmas

We have a Christmas tree! I'm so happy to finally have this key holiday decoration after three years of not having one. Having a tree is very exciting because this will only be the second time in the five Christmases Robert and I have spent together that we have had a Christmas tree. The last time was the year we had our first wedding anniversary (not to be confused with our first Christmas together, that was three days after our wedding) when my cousin lent us his artificial tree. We've always spent Christmases away from home, so it wasn't too big of a deal, but I always missed not having a tree in the days leading up to Christmas.

P.S. I'm also very glad to have Robert back after he was in Georgia for a week for training. Having him gone really made me realize how happy I am to have him around everyday.

Our Ultrasound Visit

I wrote this more so I could remember our experience, but you're welcome to read the following about our ultrasound visit if it looks interesting to you.

We had our ultrasound on Thursday, a little later than we had thought. At the last doctor’s appointment the doctor told us that our next appointment they would do the ultra-sound and measure the baby etc. So we showed up on Monday thinking that we were having our ultrasound, but all the doctor did was test the heart beat and tell me that my back aches and dizzy spells were normal. Apparently you have to schedule ultra-sound visits separately from regular checkups. But when your doctor says, “at your next appointment we will do the ultrasound” you assume it will be that day, not go and schedule it that day for a different day!

So we went back three days later for our ultrasound visit. They told me to drink four cups of water one hour before. So I drank what I felt like was the right amount, 4 glasses of water, before I left work about and hour and a half before the appointment. By the time we got to the doctors office I had to go to the bathroom, but couldn't. Then we had to sit in the waiting room for an hour. All the while I just couldn’t wait to get it over with so I could finally use the restroom. After a while I couldn’t even concentrate on anything but not peeing my pants. I kept thinking that any second I was going to have to go up and ask to use the restroom so I could pee a little, but I never did, hoping that they would just call us finally.

Finally they called us. The room was all dark and there were three other people in there, which I thought was odd. Turns out one was the ultrasound technician, the other two were there for training. The technician said he would just take all his measurements of the baby first, then I could go to the bathroom and they would look at the baby some more. He saw my bladder was extremely full from the ultrasound pictures and was quick doing the measurements. I was so relieved! He told Robert when I went to the bathroom that I must have drank much too much water. I thought I drank what they asked me to! Before I went to the bathroom the technician said he was able to see what we were having, and said he could tell us after I got back from the bathroom.

I was much more comfortable when I came back from the bathroom. The technician looked at the baby some more, and said, “yup, definitely know what you’re having,” but didn’t tell us what it was. I thought, “He’s so confident, it must be a boy.” Then the other two technicians in training both did the same measurements while the technician watched. While one of them was measuring the head Robert said, “He has a head!” The student said, “Yeah, he has everything! Or she does.” So then I thought, “is it a girl, or is she just saying that to throw us off?”

Turns out it really was a girl! The technician asked the students if they could tell what it was and they said yes. It was a girl! I was so surprised! I thought for sure with the Wheat gene’s I was going to have a boy first. They asked if she had a name and I said right away, “Julia.” When the students were done with their measurements the technician looked at the baby again and showed us baby Julia. He showed us that she was developing girl parts. Then he took a picture of the “It’s a Girl” shot and told Robert he could have that one on the house.

Baby Julia was moving all around the entire time. The technician said she was trying to make his job harder, because every time she moved he had to reevaluate where all her parts were that he had been trying to measure. I thought she did a good job though so he could definitely see that she was a girl. Good job Julia. He also got a really good view of her foot, and decided to show the technicians how to do it in 3D. So we got a 3D picture of her crossing her little feet.

Afterwards, even though I was happy to have a girl, I was a little sad that I wasn’t going to have a Baby Micah. I had thought of the baby as Baby Micah for so long that I felt like I had had two babies now. I was gaining a Baby Julia, but also losing a Baby Micah. Robert was quick to tell me that I never had a Baby Micah, it was always Baby Julia. Now I’m used to the idea that I have a baby girl! The next couple days I just kept thinking, “we’re having a girl! A girl!”

So Baby Julia looks healthy and is measuring for an April 10^th due date. Haha, it just keeps getting earlier and earlier from April 15.

Introducing...

Baby Julia! It's a girl!

P.S. Robert did find out. His response, "Uncle George, I'm going to need the shotgun."

And here are some of the ultrasounds pictures. They're not very good quality because we couldn't get them to scan, so these are photos of the pictures.

Baby Julia profileBaby Julia's little 3D feet. (This is the only 3D shot they did, I think the technician was just showing off for the two other people who were there training that day) She is crossing her legs, but don't worry she moved around plenty and the technician was sure she was a girl.