Taking a Stand Against Abortion

I can't believe how long its been since I wrote a blog post! I've had a hard time thinking of anything to write and even when I do think of something, it doesn't seem important enough to sit down and type out.

Until now.

So during our country's recent election, I was curious about the reasons people liked the Democratic Party/President Obama. I personally identify most with the Republican Party because of a few key platform items and I wanted to see their point of view.

I had a very nice friend that told me she liked Obama because of 3 top reasons:
1. Universal Health Insurance
2. Pro-Gay Marriage
3. Pro-Choice/Pro-Abortion

When thinking about these reasons I wanted to do a bit of soul searching to determine where I personally stand on each issue. and when discussing how I feel about abortion, I really felt the desire to share my feelings with you.

My argument AGAINST Pro-Choice/Pro-Abortion

I'd always thought that I agreed with the LDS Church's stand that in the case of rape, incest, or life-threatening problems to the mother, an abortion was an option. When talking to the Hubs about when I would abort a baby, I had an eye-opening experience. I've determined that I COULD NOT live with myself knowing that I'd killed a human baby. I know everyone is different, but this is personally how I see it:
Incest- I don't understand how babies are affected in cases of incest. The whole situation sickens me but if they are able to be born without problems, I would have the baby and give it up for adoption. But that is one I don't understand so I can't talk about it much.
Rape- this is the most horrific thing I can image happening to a woman. Not only going through a traumatic experience such as rape, but finding you have conceived a child from it is beyond my comprehension. However, I would never want to add to my emotional distress by aborting the baby. You would know forever that you had killed that child. I think I could get through the following 9 months and give it up for adoption easier than finding forgiveness for myself for stopping the baby's life.
Health Problems-this one is sketchy. If there was absolutely 0% chance of my baby surviving whatever was effecting me, I would abort it so that I could get healthy and have other children. However, if there was any chance that we would be okay, I'd go for it. I figure that if I passed away, it must be my time to go.

I'd also like to touch on the phrase "pro-choice". Lets look at the "choices" that these people have:
1. The choice to have sex. If you don't have sex, you won't get pregnant. Pretty simple. Unless you're a little lady about 2,000 years ago named Mary....
2. The choice to use protection. Everyone should use birth control if they don't want a baby and still want to have sex. Although I would never do it, I'd even be okay with people taking the morning after pill if their contraceptive had broken or something.

If anyone is still thinking that abortion is okay (maybe not for themselves but an okay choice for others) I urge you to watch these next few movies about early term abortion and a partial-delivery abortion. I was particularly disturbed by the last movie with the doctor explaining a partial birth abortion, so keep a tissue handy.


Just explains a developing fetus. Good to watch if you don't understand how quickly a baby develops.

This man demonstrates an early-term abortion procedure.

This last one was the most difficult for me to watch. Especially when he was showing how the baby would be moving and everything. For those of you that are mothers and fathers, you might find this extra disturbing. This is what people call a "partial-birth abortion" and is performed when a baby is in the 2nd or 3rd trimester.

Now I know that many people are going to disagree with me. There are many statistics that show that when abortion rates go up, crime rates go down and etc. Let me ask you this: when do we use killing babies as a "fix" for the crime in our area? I don't think that lowering crime rates is justification of killing. The ends really don't justify the means.

Also, babies aren't convenient! They aren't convenient for 17 year old unwed teenagers and they aren't convenient for 29 year old stay-at-home moms! Being pregnant is hard and having a baby that relies 100% on you is even harder. But loving someone is never convenient or easy and that is what make it so beautiful. What are we teaching our youth when they have such an easy way out of their choices? Society is not made better when no one is made responsible for their actions. Abortion will not help that young person become better. It might just show them that there is a sneaky, backwards way out of every messy situation.

So this is me....taking a stand.

I'M AGAINST ABORTION. ARE YOU?

New Table for Our New House

Tonight Ryan walked into the kitchen just as I was finishing up this little project:

I saw a picture of a vintage looking flag in Martha Stewart Living (the magazine) and I really loved it so I decided I could make a dupe version out of linen and some acrylic paint. I think it looks really good!

However, I had a little surprise for Ryan. When he came into the kitchen I asked, "Can we get a new kitchen table when we move into our new house and I can have this table as my craft table? Cuz I kind of turned it into a permanent craft table today...."

See??

 

Oops!

I actually got a little bit off of the table, but we have these little "wood ridges" in the surface and I can't seem to scrub it all out. We now have an American flag painted into our kitchen table:) Ha ha!

 This is how our house is coming. We are getting pretty close and I'm so EXCITED!!! I've picked up our flooring and cabinets so we just need to get the trim finished and quickly paint so we can get them all put in and installed. After that it will be carpeting and light fixtures and then we'll be MOVING IN!!! Yay!

Every time I drive through Vernal I see this sign and I think of the saying "You get what you pay for...."



I always have to wonder what kind of person wants to risk taking online scuba lessons....

And that's the last thing on my mind today:)

Cooking Extraveganza!

Yesterday I got my Betty Crocker on.

There is a girl in my ward that just had a baby and I was asked if I would bring her dinner last night. I said yes. I love to bring people dinner.

We also have a neighbor that just had surgery yesterday, so I offered to bring them dinner tonight. Again, I love to bring people dinner.

Lastly, I have a friend that is in the hospital because she just barely had her little baby. I haven't offered to bring them dinner (yet...) but I did want to stop by with a little dessert. I had a friend do this while I was in the hospital and her cookies were absolutely fabulous! I think they were the reason that I only lost 4 ounces after birthing an 8 lb 6 oz baby....

Anyways.....I also love to bring people treats so this is right up my alley.

Sadly, I don't do all these dinners and treats because it is service. I don't even do it because I like to help people or because I know how nice it is to have someone bring you food when you aren't able to cook yourself.

These reasons are much too noble.

It is because of very vain and selfish reasons. I'm really hoping that someday, somewhere, someone will tell me I'm a good cook.

That's it....that's the only reason I cook. Because I'm fishing for attention and compliments:) I'm hoping that in this case, the end justifies the means. It's the thought that counts, right?

That is what I tell myself.


So on to my cooking adventures!

So I'm thinking that with 2 dinners and a dessert to make, I should just do them all at the same time. I made a chicken pot pie casserole for the dinners (because the one for today could be frozen till it was time to cook) and then I got ambitious and decided to make these S'more cupcakes for the desserts. Oh....and these cookies. And because Ryan and I had already had this chicken casserole early in the week, I decided to make these chicken enchiladas.

I've got the dinners all put together and I'm working on these cupcakes like my life depends on it. They were a little intense. The recipe also makes enough for 24 cupcakes but I only have 1 pan that holds 12, so I'd do half the batch up to a certain point, then pull them all out of the pan and do the rest of the batch. It really made things go much slower than I anticipated....

Then, at 5:00 I put my casserole in the oven and wait for it to cook the necessary 30 minutes.

30 minutes later, my casserole is not done! The bisquick top is not even set up a little bit and at this point it should be golden brown and crusty. I'm panicking. Dinner is suppose to be at their house at 5:30 and my casserole isn't working. I fire up the oven temperate and put it back in for 5 minutes.

Nothing.

5 MORE minutes....

Slightly more than nothing, but just barely.

10 MORE minutes.....

Barely showing signs that it is being cooked within an inch of its miserable life.

At this point, I had nothing left. I had to go. So I take it out of the oven, drive it over the lady and with these words, "Ya'll should probably just call Pizza Hut....." I hand her the casserole.

I don't think she'll be telling me what a good cook I am.....

So today I'm a little nervous making this second casserole. Hopefully it turns out better than yesterday!

Anyway....
The good part of my day was when I did this:

Boo-ya! NAILED IT!!!
What you are seeing is an all-day muffin job consisting of a graham cracker bottom crust, cake, chocolate glaze and a whipped meringue top that has been broiled in the oven till it resembles a golden marshmallow.

Watch out Betty C.....there's a new sheriff in town.

The the cookies and enchiladas were pretty spectacular too:)

So I have a question for all of you. Would anyone like to have a recipe swap party with me every so often? Maybe once a month or once every 2 months? My idea is that we could all get together for lunch and bring one dish that we had made with enough recipe cards for everyone to take one. That way we could eat, hang out, try the recipes and have the recipe to take home with us. WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

Tales to Tell

I haven't posted pictures of anything in a long time. Stratton keeps me pretty busy so I don't have a lot of time to blog and so I've got a lot to show you guys:)

Most importantly....Stratton! He is now 7 months old and turning into a holy terror. He's been army crawling around since about 6 months so nothing is safe.

Hey Mom! Whatcha doing???

Is that a camera?! I wanna see! Can I taste it?

Mine? Mine? Mine? Let me just lick it...

He also has been working on doing a real crawl with his belly off the floor. He takes a step or two and then gets too excited/impatient, drops to his belly, and scoots across the floor.

Last night he pulled himself up to a standing position so I'm thinking he might just skip regular crawling and go right to walking.

We have already introduced a sippy cup because he was so interested in our water. He absolutely loves water in a sippy. We only had to show him once how to use it:)

Ryan let him try his orange soda.

He also crawls over things and, in this case, on top of things. He wanted something sitting on top of those storage boxes in the left of the picture, so he just crawled onto this hiking backpack to get it:)

A few last things about Stratton without the pictures:

• He went swimming for the first time on Saturday! He seemed to really love it. Except when Ryan tried dunking him. Then he seemed a bit put out by everything. We tried taking a camera but the batteries were dead....
• He is happy ALL THE TIME. It is pretty cool that he just seems really pleased with life.
• He has had all of his shots up unto this point so we don't have to do any more until he is 12 months! Woot!
• He has 2 teeth that have broken through and are coming up on the bottom. Ryan swears he can see the top ones coming in, but I'm hoping that's his imagination. If he gets a lot of teeth in I think our breastfeeding days will be over.
• He is obsessed with my hair. Mostly he just wants to pull it. There have been days that we've done battle because I won't let him pull all my hair out.
• He loves his Aunt Katie and his cousins Michael, Brandon, Roman and Karlee. Katie babysits him a lot so he is really comfortable with her. His cousins are also very entertaining so he loves that. He has other cousins, but the younger ones don't hold as much interest for him and he doesn't know the ones that live far away that well.
• He is, as usual, pretty big for his age. At his 6 month appointment the nurse told us he was 19 lbs and 25 inches. His weight sounded correct to me, but the height would have put him in the 25% percentile for his range and that didn't seem right. He didn't seem short and fat to me, so I went home and measured myself. The nurse had missed 3.5 inches! He is almost 29 inches long, so he is going to show a shocking growth spurt at his 9 month appointment:)
• He is terrible at sleeping. I know that this is because I've given him bad habits and I don't stick to a sleeping schedule. He use to be good, but then he got sick. He wanted to be nursed at night and I felt sorry for him, so I would. BAD IDEA! We have been trying to break him of this habit for the last couple nights and it is pretty rough. I think we are getting there though. Anyway...that is just at night. He isn't a very good sleeper during the day either. I try to watch for his "sleepy signs" and put him to bed before he is exhausted, but I don't think its working. He screams for a long time before he will take a nap and then if I am lucky I will get 45 min-1hour out of him. Usually less though. It's bad. I'm currently reading this book 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' and it seems really good, but I wish someone had like a condensed version of it. The book looks like it's about 1200 pages and I'm just not sure I'm ever going to get through it.

I think that is everything happening with Stratton. Now on the the rest of the family!

Ryan and I went skiing for our 2 year anniversary. I'm a much better skier than snowboarder. It was my first time and I only fell down a couple times. However, one was pretty huge and hilarious. I'd decided to let Ryan take a difficult trail and I'd just make my way down the easy trail as usual. Well at one point there are 2 arrows on this easy trail. One says, "Easy" and the other says "Easier" pointing you down 2 different parts of the trail. I'd been going down the "Easier" way the entire day, but decided I was ready for the "Easy" trail (ha ha! I'm so bad-a!)

Things were going great until I got to the hill. For some reason, they had this double-black diamond hill in the middle of my easy trail! I'm snowplowing and going back and forth (I'm talented so I can do them both at the same time...ha ha!) and suddenly, I fall. Even though I was employing all my 'slowing down' skills, I still ate it pretty hard. Hard enough I lost one of my skis. Trudging back up the hill to the initial crash site, I locate my ski. I'm thinking to myself, "Just put it down on an angle to the hill, clip in, and get your butt out of the middle of the trail!"

Sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

It was like IMPOSSIBLE to get clipped in while standing in the snow on a hill! After trying for what seemed like 3/4 of my life, I gave up, picked up the ski and what was left of my dignity and half walked/skied to the side of the trail where I continued to try and put on my ski.

Not a pretty sight people.

But I sure did enjoy myself:)

Ryan and I got started on our house! This is just the footers for the foundation. At this point we actually have the entire foundation done, the electric box hooked up, dirt has been brough in to back-fill and the lumber arrived yesterday! Ryan and his guys will begin framing tomorrow and then things are just going to fly! I'm so excited!

Sorry about this sideways picture. I was too lazy to switch it and then re-upload it. This is the boys at jeep safari. Its a bit blurry, but those are both little faux-hawks in their hair with red hair dye down the middle. They looked pretty awesome:)

This is Ryan's jeep on an obstacle. This year I went out for the first 2 days with Stratton and then stayed home for the last day. Stratton really loved the rocking motion of the jeep on the obstacles. He definitely took better naps while we were out rock crawiling than he does at home!

And that is pretty much it! Thanks for reading my long catch-up post!

At Least I Tried

I've lost all of my baby weight and to celebrate I decided that I would take a little trip over the mountain and buy myself a new outfit in Provo. I had this master plan to get to the city pretty early, shop my way through the mall, grab desperately needed supplies from the hair stores, and then run up to see my neighbor and her newly born twin babies at the IHC in Murray.

It was such a good plan! I even had this little list of the specific clothing items I wanted for my new outfit. I really had high expectations in my head.

So we get to the mall and Stratton and I run into the food court and grab something to eat. He eats, I eat, we are all happy:)

We then start around the mall looking for these clothing items: mint green colored skinny jeans, white and navy blue striped shirt, colorful boyfriend cardigan, and a long necklace. Do you think I can find them? No. Very depressing. And everything that I look at seems to be a throwback to the ugliest part of the 80s. All the shirts were short, fat, and boxy. They even look terrible on the models and let me tell ya people....that is a HUGE red-flag. If a 103 lb model can't make that shirt look good, what chance do you think you have? Just sayin....

About one store into our mall expedition, Stratton starts to whine. Then he really starts to complain. By the time we are done with our first store, he is pretty much to full-on meltdown. This significantly shortens our shopping experience. I tell myself, "You haven't bought yourself anything so how about you skip on down to the MAC counter in Nordstrom's and by yourself that StudioFix pressed powder you've been missing for the past 1.5 years. It'll make your shopping trip worth it:)"

So I do. Except I don't. Nordstrom's is no longer in the Orem Mall. It pretty much crushed my little spirit.

But at least I tried:)

On to better things:
While there I ran to see my neighbors little babies! They are so tiny! She delivered them at 33 weeks so they will be in the NICU for quite awhile, but they are doing really well. They were fraternal twin girls. One weighed around 3 lbs 12 oz and the other was 4 lbs 1 oz. Can you believe that? Both of her little babies didn't even weigh as much as Stratton! Just seeing them so little and adorable made me want to cry. How amazing is it that we have the technology to save them when they are that young and small?! We are just so blessed:)

Definition of Insanity

 My car's dashboard is a magnet for junk. Everything gets thrown up there from mail to jewelry. This causes a problem when cornering. Everytime I speed around a little corner I'm trying to catch something. I then return it to it's proper spot on the dashboard and continue on with my journey. Ryan tells me that this is the definition of insanity. He says that I "keep doing the same thing, over and over, expecting different results."

I thought I was just being too lazy to clean my car.....

So I think about this 'definition' all the time. There is a girl at the gym that needs to hear these little words of wisdom.

I think she is paying $40 a month to read magazines. I don't know why I care, but it absolutely drives me crazy! She comes into the gym at about the same time that I do each morning. She fills up her water bottle, grabs a magazine and then heads for the awkward looking stair stepper thing. From there she BARELY moves on the stair stepper while DEVOURING her magazine. She also keeps her jaw completely slack so she looks pretty funny. I know I shouldn't make fun of people, but if you saw her as a cartoon drawing, you would also think it was hilarious.

only I think my drawing might have more life in her expression. This girl looks like the Scarlett Pimpernel when he sneaks the prince out of the tower....


Okay...that might be a little too far. She is somewhere inbetween. Seriously.

Enough making fun of her slack-jaw reading face. Back to my point.

Anyway....I've been going to the gym 5 times a week  for the past month. I feel like I've made noticeable changes with my body. I don't know how long this girl had been coming before I started, but she also has been in quite a bit, and I can't tell that she has changed in the least.

Wouldn't you get frustrated and stop coming? Or maybe try something new?

By golly, If I am going to go to the gym, I want RESULTS!

Last thing:
If anyone wants a good laugh in the morning, come on down to the gym. I'm determined to do a pull up and this morning you could have watched me hanging from the pull up bar while I DESPERATELY tried to get my puny weakling arms to pull me up.

I looked kind of like this but without the door frame. It was awesome:)

This is NOT a happy post (and it's political) but it gets better......

We just finished our taxes.

And now you know why this is not a happy post.

I'm not super savvy on all this taxing stuff so maybe someone can explain these things to me:
1-We are technically in the 15% tax bracket. How do they end up with 30% of our total income?
2-We made a lot less money this past year and we had a baby, so why are we getting a smaller return?
3-Ryan got a dividend (income) from his company that when entered into the tax software took a HUGE chunk out of our return. Then when entering in the money that we paid toward interest on our mortgage, this supposed "write-off" did not make us get anything more back.
4-They want you to declare any money that you have in off shore accounts. After items 1-3 happened I would NOT be declaring any money I had off shore. Now I'm looking into acquiring an off-shore bank account. Thank you Turbo Tax for the wonderful idea.
5-Ryan has an employee that is Native American. He doesn't have to pay anything in taxes, social security, FICA, etc., etc.. His Gross pay check is the exact same as his Net pay. He also files federal and state taxes. He just told Ryan on Monday that he will be getting back $7000 from a system that he doesn't even have to pay into.

I'M SO MAD RIGHT NOW!!

Between business taxes and personal taxes I'm starting to believe that the government really wants to see our family on unemployement.

Why can't everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) just pay the same percentage of their income and just forget about all these deductions, write-offs, and refunds?

It seems to be working for the Church just fine.....

Sorry about this awesome post. I know these money things are always a little awkward to read (at least for me) but I was just so mad that I needed to tell someone.

Whew. Deep breaths. On to more excited news!

I'm totally kicking butt in our little "get back into shape" competition being held between Ryan and myself. Three weeks ago my goals were this:
1-be able to run for 30 minutes without stopping
2-weigh 140 lbs.

I've now decided to add a few things:
3-compete in the "Diva Dash" in Boulder, Colorado with the fabulous ladies in my family!
4-run my way through a pair of running shoes
5-finish the Neola 4th of July 1/2 marathon
6-I also want to run a mile a lot faster than I do right now

When I first started running at the gym it was the most pitiful thing ever! I was BARELY able to jog for a full three minutes. I thought I might throw up at the end. Yesterday, I ran the full 30 minutes and finished it with a minute of sprinting before cooling down! I've never been a runner but I understand how it could get addicting.
I've also listed that we are doing the "Diva Dash" this summer. It is an obstacle course and the best time wins. I'm under no illusion that I will win, but I do want to be able to finish every obstacle so I'm working on getting actual muscles. Pull-ups baby!

And that is pretty much all that is going on with me. Stratton is still awesome. He is rolling over each direction now and is starting to rotate around. I'm thinking he will start to crawl soon! We are trying to start him on some rice cereal because he doesn't stay full very long on just milk. I'm hoping it will help him stay asleep a little bit longer at night. Lastly I think he is almost done with all his physical therapy. He is looking both directions now and seems to use both sides of his body equally well so hopefully we won't have to do it anymore! Yay!

And I'm feeling a bit cooled down from my political rant earlier. Ahhh....thank you internet.

I'm Such a Stalker!

Ryan and I are trying to get everything in order so that we can build a new home this spring. Even though it is a little uncertain whether everything will work out or not, I can't help but dream of our new home. I have spent endless hours looking at the internet, books, magazines and even driving around Roosevelt. I'm kind of becoming a "Stalker of Homes" if you will. I've driven past these four houses close to 7 billion times and the other day I decided to just take a picture. I'm sure it will save me tons of gas money.
 Let me show you my favorites from around the Basin (and no...I don't have permission to share these, so don't tell the owners! ha ha!):

As you can tell, I absolutely love the Craftsman style homes.

We have a set of plans that we like, but the outside is not a Craftsman style and I would prefer that. We are thinking of taking them to a local engineer and having him slightly modify the plans so that the outside can have a nice front porch and a few columns.


The best part is the little extra space in the garage. If we use these plans we will be turning that spot into a salon and I will be able to do hair at my own house! Yay!

Here is the downside of looking at all this house stuff: It's got me dreaming. I sit around all day thinking about the nice new things in my new house. My imagination is getting a little too big for my pocketbook. I start to think about tile bathrooms, custom cabinets, hardwood closets, granite countertops, new washer and dryer, and beautiful furniture.

And a new wardrobe for my fabulous closet. Of course.

So I came up with a solution this morning. I'm going to make a list (probably with pictures) of everything that my "dream house" would have. Then as we build and sell and move up in the world of my dreams, Ryan can start putting in the things that we can afford and leave off the rest.

Ahhh....I'm so glad I thought of it! Ha ha!

And I'm really hoping that Ryan doesn't care what our house looks like. I've already pictured it fabulous and he'll just have to deal with it:) Kidding:) Ryan and I like a lot of the same things, styles and colors, so we can pick everything out together. Cute!

Halloween, Baby Blessing, and 2 Month Check-Up

This is kind of a blogging "mash up" if you will. I was too lazy to do seperate posts:)

We shall start with Halloween. We went as Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Woodsman. People seemed confused by Ryan as the Woodsman. I guess they all forgot that he cuts the wolf open and saves them. So yes....he is in the story.

Ryan isn't wearing his belt or leather wrist band things. Without them he just looks like a guy in church clothes holding an axe.

The Big Bad Wolf! Stratton hated getting his nose painted. He acted like we were beating him. Pretty traumatic.

Later that night I swaddled up the boys and put them to bed.

Our next exciting event was Stratton's baby blessing. We did it this last Sunday on November 6th. Ryan blessed him and it was such a beautiful blessing! I'm so thankful for the opportunity to raise our little boy. He has such wonderful things to look forward to.

Here is our little family all dressed up after the blessing

Look at this little stud!

 I didn't want to do the traditional white suit and I liked the look of this little pin striped outfit. My Aunt Betty thinks I may have broken the white suit tradition and started a new tradition with this outfit.

And we got Stratton's pictures back from his photo shoot with Amy Timothy from Amy Loo Photography. She did such a good job! I highly recommend her.

Now on to our 2 month check-up.

I took Stratton in yesterday for a doctor's visit. He has been sick and we wanted to see if they could do anything for his nose. Unfortunetly they couldn't, but while we were there we decided to do his 2 month wellness check up. Stratton is about a week shy of being 2 months old, so it was a little early, but I didn't want to have to make another appointment. Anyway.

So they measured him and compared to other 2 month olds (keep in mind that he still as a week to go) he is in the 95th percentile for weight, the 90th percentile for height, and the 75th percentile for head circumfrance. The doctor just kept saying things like, "He is such a big baby!" or "Look at this huge tummy!"

I'm pretty proud.

He is weighing in at 13 lbs 8 oz and is 24 inches long.

So now the bad news. I'm a real slacker when it comes to tummy time. I hate listening to him scream and I feel even worse now that he has a stuffy nose. So we don't really do tummy time. Also, Stratton always looks to the right. He hardly ever looks to the left. Because of this his head is slightly flattening out on one side. So our doctor sat me down and told me that I have to get tougher. I'm suppose to do tummy time about 5 times a day for around 20-30 minutes a time. I also have to stimulate him to the left and possibly manually hold his head to the left. We have to prop him to the side when he sleeps so he gets those neck muscles stretched out to the left side. If I don't do these things, the doctor said he will need to refer Stratton to physical therapy.

Soooo......

We did tummy time yesterday.

The Role I Was Born to Play

Have you guys seen 'Les Miserables?' It is my favorite musical. I listen to it from beginning to end almost once a week. AND it makes me cry every time.

Within this totally awesome production is the role I would love to play. Nay, was BORN to play.

It isn't Eponine.....

It isn't Fantine.....

And it certainly isn't Cosette.....



It's Madame Thenardier!!!

Someday, when my life takes a turn for the unexpectedly awesome (as opposed to the per-usual awesome), I want to play Madame Thenardier in this musical. She is the stunning creature in the picture above. She's brassy, foul-mouthed, sounds terrible when she sings, is a bit of an over-stated beauty, and she is one of the few characters in the musical that gets a little humor thrown in with her parts. This really is my dream role. I'm not even kidding.

If you asked most girls what role they would want to play in a musical (for those of us wierdos that actually want to be in a musical....) I would imagine they would usually pick the beautiful role. Their eyes would get that far away look as they picture themselves in a stunning costume, hair and makeup beautifully done, singing as though they were an angel from heaven. I picture myself stomping out on to the stage tragically overweight with frizzy hair, nasty moles and teeth, and belting out profanities in a very nasally, screechy voice. Wanna know the best part? The people still love me! Ha ha!

So if anyone has an "in" with the Uintah Basin Arts Council, could you please ask them to put on a production of 'Les Miserables?'

I'll be first in line to audition for the coolest part.

"Mom" and "Baby" Items I Recommend

These aren't anything mind blowing, but for those following after me, I thought I should share these little tidbits to all the moms and potential moms around:

1-The nursing pads from the hospital are far superior to anything you can find in the store. However, the hospital doesn't sell them. Boo! To save anyone the trouble of looking through trial and error, just go straight to the NUK nursing pads by GERBER. They are pretty good. Shun the nursing pads made by playtex. They feel like sandpaper and don't hold a teaspoon of liquid.

2- Never buy Pamper's diapers. They are absolutely fabulous, but absolutely too expensive for a dead-broke couple with a new baby! Once you have used them, everything else will just seem terrible. Start out with the cheap diapers from Costco that you have to buy in pallets. That is what you can afford and will end up buying anyway.

3-Wait for Costco to send out a coupon for their diapers and wipes and then load up. Makes a cheap item even cheaper!

4-Purchase a fabulous diaper wipes holder. We have one from Huggies that I LOVE:) It has a button pop-open top and then a soft plastic opening that seperates the wipes as you pull them up. You don't have to use two hands to get a handle on your wipes.

5-If trying to get your baby to take a bottle, try the "Breastflow" bottle from The First Years. They have these cool bottle nipples that mimic a real breast. Stratton took one without questioning it and didn't have any trouble switching back to me. It is nice to know that if I can't be there, someone else can feed him.

6-Night time nursing bras are wwwaaayyy too expensive for what you are really getting. Just buy a really soft sports bra in a couple sizes up. Much cheaper and they will do the same job.

7-To me, Baby Magic lotion is the smell of babies. I don't really like Johnson's or other brands because they just don't smell like a sweet little baby.

8-Desitin "Creamy" doesn't work on diaper rash. I don't know why, but you have to use the Original Paste. Better yet, don't buy Desitin. Buy Boudreoux's Butt Paste. It smells better, is easier to use, and I think it works much faster.

9-Infant Gas Drops. Love them!

10-Anything that makes having a baby and being a mom a little easier. Being a mom is tough. Don't be scared or feel guilty using the things that might make your stress level come down a tiny bit. Hate breastfeeding and resent your child every time it cries to be fed? Maybe you should just switch to formula. Cracked nipples? Use a nipple shield until they heal. Stressed out and depressed? Get a prozac prescription. Baby won't stop crying? Shake it. JUST KIDDING! Oh my word....I shouldn't even write that. So bad......

But seriously, don't let others guilt you into doing something that you don't want to do. It's your baby, you are the mom, and ultimately you should make the decisions.

And really, when they are all grown up, the other kids aren't going to know if your baby used a nipple shield, pacifier, or was (GASP) fed a formula bottle instead of a breast.

Halloween Horrors!

Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday! As such, I decided that I should really decorate to the fullest extent of my abilites and checkbook:) Now I don't really have any natural crafty ability, so I have to turn to the internet and magazines for inspiration.....and this pretty much means copying everything that Martha Stewart has ever done! Yay!

So this is what I found, liked, and tried to duplicate:

This one failed miserably.
I spent 3 days layering paper-mache onto a carefully sculpted balloon. After drying fully, per the directions, I pop the balloon and watch as my creation shrivels up into a unrecognizeable lump. LAME!!! I am now looking for a different way to make my lighted skull....


I took Christmas flowers and spray painted them black and gray. They look pretty creepy and awesome.


I've been collecting bottles for the last year and printed out creepy labels for them. These in the picture are specifically for drink bottles, but my labels are for things like petrified butterflies and snake serum.


I used an old Heber J. Grant book to make my witch's spell book. Ryan thought that it might be a small sin to use a church book like that. Ha ha!


Made a few window covering like this....

Stole a mirror from a lady's cart at the D.I. and then painted it black. Still waiting for Ryan to bring me a few screws from work so I can hang it in our front room.

And finally I printed off Halloween related words or pictures ("Dracula," "13," "The Witching Hour," etc) and put them up in all our personal picture frames.

I'm so excited to be almost ready for Halloween! There are still a few things that I want to do, but I feel pretty good about what I have accomplished so far!

Now I just need ya'll to stop by to visit and see all my decorations!

People Like Screaming Kids, Right?

Stratton is now 4 weeks old! Can you believe it? Time is flying....

Few little updates about him:
He is doing really good with his weight gain. I was worried that the nipple shields I have to use would hinder his ability to eat and grow, but I weighed him today and he is sitting at exactly 11 lbs so he is doing just fine in the chunky department. We have also decided that since he is growing so good that I probably don't have to get up 3 times each night to feed him. We are going to try and cut back to once a night and see how that goes. Any tips?
He cries a lot during the day. Our usual day schedule is something like this:
Stratton cries, so I feed him.
Stratton settles down during feeding.
After eating, he starts to cry because he needs to burp. I can't EVER get him to burp. It doesn't matter what position we are in, he will not burp!
We change his diaper while he is crying and then rock him for a little while to get him to stop crying.
He falls asleep and I put him down while I go do a few household chores.
Sleeps for about 20 minutes and starts to cry again.
He cries more because he has gas/has to poop.
And then we start all over again. It really makes the days really long! I also feel bad because I don't get anything done during the day. I'm really accomplishing something to make the bed and maybe do the dishes or something. It is terrible. I feel like such a slacker.
However, he is really good at night. After eating he goes right back to sleep. I hope I haven't just jinxed myself.
Anyway......

He really likes riding in the car and his stroller. It must be the vibrations and such. On one hand I am grateful that he is good in his carseat, but on the other hand I hope I'm not creating one of those kids that won't go to sleep unless they are moving. Yikes!
We have a photo session scheduled for Monday. I decided to cut his hair before we had his pictures taken. I'm glad I did. It was getting pretty long and nasty. Especially in the back.
Now a few updates about mommy:

I'm still healing and that isn't any fun. I really want to get back to exercising but that isn't going to be happening for a while still.

Speaking of exercising.....I really need to finish losing the baby weight. I do want to get back to my pre-pregnancy size for vanity reasons, but I also need to lose it for practical reasons too! I don't have any clothes to wear! All of my maternity clothes were summer items like capris and layering tanks with short sleeve shirts. I can still wear these clothes, but I don't want to freeze to death! I literally have 1 pair of pants that I can wear, and they aren't even jeans so people are going to notice when I wear the same pair of green cargo pants everyday. And I am too cheap to buy interim clothing.

I got all the way through pregnancy without any stretchmarks on my stomach! Yay! I had a little tiny one show up about a week ago, but it is really light and about 3/4 of an inch long, so I'm thinking when it fades I won't even be able to remember where it is.
However, my boobs didn't get so lucky. They have a ton of stretchmarks now. I'm not too worried. I mostly just didn't want them on my stomach:)

My feet have finally returned to their normal size! I am still thinking that I should get new heels. Just for fun:)

I think most days I'm doing really well with all the adjustments. However, every once in awhile things get a little overwhelming. Yesterday was one of those days.
I'd been up with him a few different times at night. I don't usually mind, but when he wakes me up and then only eats for about 2 seconds before falling asleep, I get really frustrated. This frustration will grow exponetially if he poops or pee's on me while I am changing his diaper. He pooped on me once and pee'd on my twice. I was ticked. During the day things didn't get much better. It pretty much was non-stop screaming and eating all day. I am in a ton of pain with feedings lately. We are weaning him off the nipple shields and he has the tendency to jerk back after he has latched on and pretty much rip my nipple right off my body. Oh! Did I mention that becoming a mother has given me the tendency to scream profanities throughout the day? Feeding time is pretty bad. Moving on with the story.....
So we were doing this all day. I hadn't gotten anything done and I was tired and sore from holding him and feeding him. 3 o'clock rolled around and I was calling my mother. I let her know that I was ready for Stratton to go to Grandma's house without me. She came and picked him up at 5 o'clock. I got feeling pretty bad around 5:30. Typical.
And then we did it all over again today. Only it was his Aunt Katie that saved me today. I know that I am going to have to deal with it and I'm not doing myself any favors by passing him off onto family members when we have a rough day, but it seemed like the thing to do these past couple days. I will do better tomorrow.

That is pretty much it. I'm needing to go to bed now. Ryan is gone to a Scout camp and I am thinking that Stratton and I will have a little sleep over in Mom and Dad's bed tonight. How do you guys feel about co-sleeping with your babies (we don't have a bassinet. We just went straight to a crib....)? Any thoughts pro? Any thoughts con?

And here's to hoping that he only wakes up once tonight!

Nothing According to Plan

I kind of had a birth plan.....kind of. I remember the nurse at our birthing class told us that she literally cringes every time a pregnant mom comes into the hospital in labor and hands her a birth plan. She said it is an automatic jinx on their labor and delivery. Now I am not a particularly suspicious person, but I decided that I would not write down my birth plan. I was approaching it with the thought that I would have "birthing wishes" and just hoped that they would come true. Boy, was I wrong.

This was how I envisioned my labor and delivery going down:

I wake up on the weekend and around mid-morning, I start having contractions. I wait around getting things done until it is time to go to the hospital. I am showered, well fed, and have my hair and makeup done when arriving. My contractions are effective, but not overly painful. I can deal. After approximately 8 hours of labor and no epidural, I am completely dilated and ready to push. Fast forward 20 minutes and we have our beautiful baby boy via a natural birth.

The end.

This is how it really went:

On Thursday the 15th, Ryan and I came home from my parents house. We had decided to have a little party get-together with his brother and his wife on Saturday night to watch the BYU vs. U of U football game and were teasing that Stratton (our baby) couldn't come that weekend because it would mess up our entire plan. We get ready for bed and I lay down. And then I wet myself.

Or did I???

After much contemplation and debating, Ryan convinces me that my water has broken with a slow trickle and that we are going to have the baby soon. I don't want to go to the hospital because it is about 10:30 pm and I'm not even having contractions. Deferring to my judgement, Ryan and I go to bed. We then wake up at about 6 am and have breakfast. I'm still not wanting to go to the hospital, but this time I defer to Ryan's judgement and we decided to go in.

They take me back and take a swab to determine if my water really has broken or if I have lost control of my bladder. I would have felt so dumb if I had just wet myself! The lab comes back and it really is my water that has broken. Now this is a little interesting fact: Only about 10-15% of women actually have their amniotic fluids break on its own. Of that small percentage, only about 10% do not experience contractions with their fluids breaking. I am one of those 10% of the 10-15% of women. Crazy eh?

So they started me on pitocin at 9:30 am. Hour after hour passes while they slowly dial up the dose. I also had tested positive for Strep B so they had to give me antibiotics for that. I hated that part. The antibiotics made my mouth taste like metal. Gross.

At this point I am doing great. I keep thinking with each contraction, "Really? This is it? These contractions are a cake walk. I could keep this up all day....."

However, at about 3 pm, it was like I hit a wall. All of a sudden the contractions went from uncomfortable cramps to mind-boggling, breath stealing, body shaking pains. AND they were coupling contractions so instead of getting a contraction that lasted about a minute and then went back down to normal, I would have 2 contractions with 1 immediately following the other and they would last for about 2-3 minutes each. It was insane. Suddenly my thoughts of having a natural birth without an epidural flew right out the window. I asked for an epidural at about 3:30. I was then told that the anesthesiologist had just left but he was expected back in about 30-45 minutes. I seriously thought I might die before he returned. However, since I am typing this, I obviously survived. The anesthesiologist finally arrived and quickly gave me the epidural. I think he gave me a bit too much though because it completely knocked out all feeling from about my rib cage down to my toes. My legs would randomly flop off the bed and I wouldn't even know. I felt nothing.

After getting the epidural, Stratton's heart rate dropped and wouldn't come back up, so they took me off the pitocin and waited to see if my contractions would continue on their own. His heart rate recovered and although my contractions slowed down drastically, they continued, so we just started playing the waiting game.

At about 5 pm I convince my family that they should order pizza and that it is no big deal if they want to eat it in my room! I think I'm masochistic. Around 7 o'clock the smell of pizza has really started to get to me and I decide that I want to eat just a little piece of crust. While the nurses weren't looking my sister Katie was able to sneak me a couple bites. I was in heaven. However, later while I was pushing, I got really sick feeling and had to throw up. It was pretty awesome cuz as I am hurling into this little bucket, I'm frantically looking for pizza crust chunks and hoping that the nurse can't see them and get upset at me! Ha ha! Turns out it wasn't the last time I would throw up that evening...I know I threw up once after Stratton was born and I might have even thrown up one more time between. I can't remember. It was all a blur.
                                                                             
Okay...back to birthing.....
Finally at about 9:45 pm I was dilated to a 10 and the nurse told me that I was ready to push.

*Just a side note about my nurse*
She was fabulous. Absolutely loved her. She was very nice, patient, encouraging, and I actually felt like she knew what she was talking about. :)

It is now a little past 10 pm I am instructed to start pushing. Do ya'll remember that epidural that I mentioned earlier and how it knocked out all feeling from the ribcage on down? Well.....it made it very difficult to push when I couldn't even feel anything! I had think little spot right under my left rib the would kind of tingle when I was about to have a contraction. I'd tell the nurse and then she would look at the monitor and tell me to push when the contraction got going. Then the little nurse would tell me if I was actually pushing or if I was just holding my breath for nothing. It was quite difficult to be imagining what pushing would feel like if I COULD feel and then trying to do it. I think my lack of feeling really contributed to our long pushing time.

After about an hour of pushing with no results, the doctor decided that he needed to use the forecepts. Stratton was coming out face up (it works better if they are face down) and his head was kind of getting stuck on my pelvis bones, so the doctor wanted to help me out. I was pretty excited when he told me this. I'm totally thinking, "Bring it on! I push a little and the doctor pulls and we are going to have this kid here in no time!" That was before I saw the actual forecepts! Those suckers are pretty scary. I have no idea how they get them to fit inside of a person along with a baby and all the fun tubes that are already up there. So he gets the forecepts around Stratton's head and starts to pull with my contractions. I would have died if I didn't have the epidural at this point. I couldn't feel my contractions, but I could feel those forecepts!

So....the Doc pulled and pulled and I pushed and pushed, but the little pig just wouldn't come out. Sadly, the forecepts weren't doing much. Stratton was stuck pretty good and I was wearing out. At 11:30 the doctor turned to his nurse and said, "I'm going to take the forecepts out because they just aren't helping anything. We will give her 2 more contractions to push through and if he doesn't move with either of those, we are going to have to go back to the drawing board." I knew that this meant a c-section and I really didn't want that! Fear is a great motivator. I started to pray. I don't know why I hadn't done this before. I'm thinking that my pushing time might have only lasted a few minutes if I would have prayed first, but now I guess we will never know. So I'm praying and they take the forecepts out and tell me to start pushing and Stratton finally started to move!!! I was so excited! Fast forward 10 minutes and our little guy had arrived!

He was so funny when he came out. He never even cried, just did 3 little disgusted whimpers and then relaxed. I also was amazed that he knew the sound of my voice. The entire time that he was being cleaned up, he was looking past the nurses and just listening to me talk. So stinking adorable!

Ummm....what else can I tell you about our little hospital stay?

Here is an overshare: between the forecepts, Stratton's big head, and having him come face up instead of face down, I tore quite a bit. It took the doctor almost an hour to get all my internal and external tears stitched up. Sad, sad, sad.
Anyway....

His nasty little forecept bruise

Me back when I still though contractions were fun

My favorite picture of the night. I love that he is pouting and looking right at Ryan. I imagine he was thinking something like, "What the heck Dad!? That wasn't fun!"

Our baby!

We named him Stratton Ryan Stubbs. He was born on September 16th at 11:40 pm.

He weighed 8 lbs 6 oz and was 21 inches long