1 Month!

We made it one whole month! It is weird to have so much change so fast. Every week is different, every day seems different, and I swear I can do the exact same thing every three hours and get different results. But we are getting along nicely. Thank goodness Brian is flexible and can come home if I need him. It gives me peace of mind knowing that he is just a call away if I go crazy.

It just so happened that I had my camera out for his first roll over, so we have the before and after shots. Clearly he is pleased with himself. However it hasn't happened again. Brad doesn't really like tummy time. In fact he hates it and howls every time I put him on his belly, so I have to choose my tummy times wisely. I got lucky this time I think.

Before


After

Before we even attempted tummy time we had a little model session. The sweater, hat and booties were made by Brian's Aunt Roberta. They are soooo cute. The hat fits perfect right now, and I think the other two will fit well in another month or two. If his feet keep growing like they are the booties will fit next week I swear.

Clearly he likes his hat. Thanks Aunt Roberta!!

Hopefully we'll have another good morning soon and can model Grandma Saponas' booties!

More photos at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027529&id=1026071036&l=7b877756a8

Highlights of the Last Two Weeks

I always used to wonder what happened to people after they had a baby.
As an online looker I would wait and wait for weeks for pictures and updates to be posted about my friend's babies after they were born. I swore that I would be different. I would surely find time to post, facebook, and blog all the adorable photos I would take and let everyone know how things are going. (Because I know you all are on the edge of your seat in anticipation of my updates ;-)

Then I had a baby. And I realized that even if you do have enough energy to be awake when the baby is napping your time is not spent blogging. It is spent calling people, or cleaning or giving cleaning instructions (as I am lucky enough to still have my mom here to help), or planning meals, or hey showering or taking a bath, or eating. Definitely not blogging or posting the pics that I have yet to take.

Sometime around the beginning of the second week I found time to take some adorable pics and post them on facebook. I thought it would only take a few minutes more to post them on my blog. Several days later I found a few more minutes. Yesterday I spent my extra minutes talking on the phone, today I spend them posting. I have no idea when I will have a few extra minutes again, but I think that is part of the fun of having a crazy schedule.


So here's the update:

Being a mom- awesome.
Being an eternal family- rocks my world.
Sleeping in 1-2 hour segments for the last two weeks- hard but not impossible.
I am thankful for husbands who let you cry for no apparent reason, boppy pillows, grandmas and grandpas, fiber pop-tarts, ipods, and sleeping on my slightly smaller belly.
I cannot even begin to describe Bradley. He is happy to sit and look around for hours. Pretty good at sleeping for 2ish hours at a time, and the best snuggler I have ever met. He also likes to make dinosaur sounds. He does a great pterodactyl and t-rex impression.

One week old!

Brian eyes!

Snuggling with Dad.

Home for the first time.

First bath! I couldn't honestly say Brad enjoyed it.

I am so happy I'm not 9 months pregnant any more.

Bradley Video

Courtesy of Grandma Lou (if you were curious whose voice this is).

Bradley Brian Saponas is Here!

He is 7 pounds 4 ounces and 19 inches tall. Enjoy the pictures and feel free to pass them on!

Mom and Baby are Okay

Brian told me that when ever you have some unexpected medical news, you have to start your conversation with the current status. So last night he called both of our parents and began the conversation with "Mom and baby are okay..."
Now if that was the first thing you heard, where would your head go? Delivery? Some dramatic line of events that lead to a successful c-section?

Let me start my post with: Mom is still uncomfortably plump and baby is happily kicking away in-utero.

I hate when they give me an OB appointment in the afternoon. I nearly never remember it. Thus, I took extra care to remember my 3 pm appointment yesterday. My morning/afternoon ended up rather busy so by the time I was on my way to the OB I had the dog in the car with me. My normal appointments are hardly even 20 min long, which is not great but a reasonable amount of time for the dog to wait in the car. (Yes the windows were cracked and it was not hot outside. I even changed parking spots twice to make sure she was in the shade.) But we got there a few minutes late, so I ended up waiting 20 min in the waiting room anyway. When they took me I kept my mouth shut because southern people love to chat, and I only asked two well planned questions, as to make my appointment as short as possible.

note- the next part may be a TMI moment if you are squeamish or a guy.

All week long I had been looking forward to seeing if I was making any progress towards labor...

So she "checked" me to see if my cervix was dilated. She happily announced I was 1 centimeter, then she took her hand out and I felt an odd sensation of other fluid come along with her hand. Did she break my water? No. That would have been awesome.
Apparently in the check she had poked or scratched or something a little too hard, and rather suddenly I began to in her words hemorrhage blood. Fun. Now I'm bleeding, a lot, and have people opening and closing the door with my legs spread eagle while they run to get more supplies to suture the tiny tare causing the problem. And my poor dog is in the car.

The wonderful part was, I did not have to ride in an ambulance to the hospital like my OB wanted, because for some reason Brian came home from work early. So he was able to come and take me and take care of the dog.

After a super fun night of observation in the hospital, I stopped bleeding, did not go into labor, and had a low but survivable blood pressure. So they released me this morning.

What have I learned from this situation? Bring lots of pillows when you have to go to the hospital, don't take your dog to doctor's appointments, and you must begin all phone conversations with your current medical status.

Sadly, after all the craziness all I can think is "Dang it! We were so close!!"
Maybe at next week's appointment she will break my water instead of poking holes next to my cervix. ;-)

Happily Brian learned that hospitals are boring and he gave me my thanks for carrying my child gift early... I am now the proud owner of a sweet iTouch. I love you honey.

Shower!

Last night I got an odd call from Brian. He was at a mutual activity with the Priests so I expected that he needed something he forgot at home. Our conversation went something like this:

Brian - Are you respectable?
Me- What?
Brian- Are you wearing respectable clothes?
Me- I guess. Why.
Brian- Something to do with the Young Women. I think they are coming over.

Luckily I had cleaned earlier that day so I wasn't worried, but I was wearing basketball shorts and a shirt that didn't entirely cover my belly. So I went upstairs and changed and by the time I was ready a Young Women, Kelcie, was at my door with Sister Walsh. They had a totally convincing story about how I needed to come to the church. So sneaky. So I willingly went.

In the car another young woman, Madison, was waiting and looked annoyed to be there. She gave us a story about how some guy friend punched her that day. I was quite alarmed about the whole situation but no one else in the car seemed to think it was a big deal. This too was a fake story, however I totally fell for it.

Finally we entered the church and wouldn't you know it, nearly every single young women and their moms! were waiting to throw me a surprise baby shower in the relief society room which had balloons and all sorts of decorations. This was truly a surprise. I can't believe they kept it a secret! 20 plus young women and half their mothers all managed not to say anything about it for apparently at least the last month or so! Kudos to you girls. I would have never thought you were all capable of holding a secret for so long.

So here is some of the gear that I took away from the night. I combined all the gifts into a few pics.

Special thanks to the Mia Maids for planning it!

Amazingly enough, there were no repeats of lotions or shampoos!

Thank you Beehives for my baby tub and goodies!!!
Thank you Beehives for all the sweet painted toys! I am using them as Christmas ornaments!

The Laurels did an awesome job with the diaper cake (I've always wanted a diaper cake ever since I saw my mom make them for her friends. It has been a life long dream really.)

All the cute clothes!!!

Paint Trials

I have a few goals to get through before the baby comes. Brian and I had a very productive weekend in terms of these goals. We painted our bathroom and the baby's room. Bathroom- looks great, a much needed improvement to the previously bland yellow walls. Baby's room- umm better, but not great. It is no longer a dark green cave. I would say it is now a neon green cave with one beautifully brown wall.

We have now painted the family room, living room, kitchen, stairwell/hallway, master bedroom, master bathroom, and baby's room. We have used three different brands of paint, painted six rooms, and only used four basic colors: green, brown, blue, and orange. Aside from re-painting the baby's neon room, I think I am content with the rest of the colors in the house. Though the downstairs bathroom is a nice color, it is an old paint job and may need to be fixed soon!

During the last few months of painting experiments I have learned:
1. Always use a drop cloth
2. If you are picky about a precise shade, get the little tester cans and see what a big swatch looks like.
3. Tape everything off you can and press the tape down hard with your nail.
4. Buy a tester of trim colored paint so you can fix ceiling and trim bumps with the roller.
5. Paints with a glossy appearance may look nice, but they are the hardest to roll and you can ALWAYS see where you touched up the paint. The flatest/cheapest paints may look cool and modern but they marks the easiest and the marks will not come off. Go for an in between. All touch ups blend in very nicely on semi flat or eggshell finishes.
6. Finishes vary brand to brand, so look at the samples and get the finish down from what you think you want. The samples are less shiny in the store and way more shiny on your walls.

Behr Paint in Satin (Master Bath blues) - thick, shiny, harder to roll, shows brush strokes veeery well, good thick coverage but paint is so thick you have to be careful to get down in the grooves.
Glidden Paint in Satin (Baby's room brown & green) - thinner, semi shiny, easy to roll, easy to paint with a brush, good coverage goes on smooth, beware of drips.
Valspar Satin, Eggshell, and Flat (Master bedroom blues & grays) - My fave is the "flat" finish which is on all but the stripped wall is not fully "flat" in finish, medium thickness, medium easiness in rolling, easy to paint with a brush, great coverage.

In the end I will get Glidden for any future jobs because I think it is a little cheaper than Valspar.

But as I am hugely cheap, I am using the left over neon green paint and mixing it with other left over brown paints to make a darker color for the baby's room. I'm sure that professional painters would be horrified a the thought. But the Glidden paint covered so quickly without a second coat that I have plenty of paint left over for another round!

If it is successful... pictures will follow.

Goodbye Grandpas

September thus far has been a very very busy month for me. Sadly, Brian and I each have had a Grandpa pass away this month. Both grandparents were in poor heath and so it wasn't un-expected. But that doesn't take away the sadness from missing them.
I'm sure my sister will read this and laugh. I have a way of attending funerals and not crying through the whole thing, whereas I'm sure Heidi could attend a complete stranger's funeral and use a whole box of tissues. But just because I can get through two funerals with the use of one tissue doesn't mean I'm not sad and don't miss them. ;-) I think that having an eternal perspective helps me not be super super sad because I know. I know that families can be together forever. Though it is sad that I cannot see and talk to my grandpas (Brian and I have no more living grandpas!), I have so much more joy with the knowledge that I can see them again and spend the rest of eternity with them as a family. What is sad about that!

On the plus side, I got to see both my families!! For the last few months I've been feeling like Georgia is on the other side of the world from Oregon, and I had such a big desire to see my family again one more time before the baby comes. I don't know why. I just wanted to see them. I am so lucky that I was able to attend both funerals and even get to see all of Brian's extended family. I find such comfort in having family around, and feeling the love that is present when everyone gets together. Both sides of my family have this quality about them. Even though I was only able to stay a day in Colorado, visiting with Brian's whole family, the love and support that is there feels exactly like it does in my own family. I am so lucky.

This is my Grandpa Earl Asmussen last Christmas

This is Brian's Grandpa Pony Saponas a few years ago.
(I stole this from Scott's website, I don't have any pics of him on this computer.)

And this is me, two weeks ago. 8 weeks to go.

Nothing Really

I know I haven't posted in a while. When this happens it is usually because I'm too busy, or nothing interesting is happening. I feel like both have been the case.

On the too busy side, my Grandpa Asmussen passed away a few weeks ago and so I went to Oregon for little while. It was a little hectic organizing all the dog stuff and travel stuff, but it was fine in the end. I have great friends and family.

Then there is the rest of the month where I spent my time growing a baby and fixing up the house.

I have entered the third trimester and am officially pregnant. Every month I can't imagine myself getting more pregnant. Then after that month has passed I can't imagine what it was like to be any less pregnant. This month we have progressed to the "uncomfortable" stage. Where there are no comfy positions, and the baby's new fave place to hang out is under my ribs. (I'm super looking forward to riding in the car for our next trip to visit my sister in Pennsylvania.)

The only other exciting happening is Brian's new calling as Young Men's President. Which, as most callings go, means that I get to be very involved in his busy-ness. I think it is so much fun though, he is doing a great job.

But otherwise, still not busy, and still pregnant.

Oh, I finally made a friend in my neighborhood. She knows my name and everything.

Fresh Paint

Ever since we moved in and started changing the house to fit our style I find it very hard to actually make decisions. Partly because really cool stuff is expensive and I know that when I do purchase something it will be a while before I can purchase something else. Which is why we have chosen to do lots of things our self.
For instance, a month or so after we moved in we purchased a king size mattress with the idea that we would make the bed frame and headboard our self. While this did save us lots of money, I think we spent under $100 total, it took lots of time and many iterations. But I must say the final product is beautiful and worth it.
Painting is another thing we like to do ourselves. We like color and lots of it. Those who lived here before us like the same yellow color for pretty much everything. So we feel the need to paint most everything. So far we have the kitchen, family room, living room, stairway, hallway and now master bedroom done! I only have the bathroom and baby's room left on my "must finish before baby comes" list.

I found this pic online and liked the idea. Cool huh. I think our bedroom turned out very well.

Inspiration Pic

My secret to super crisp lines... Acrylic Gel Medium. You put on the edges of the tape and it seals in the cracks. It is cheap, and literally guarantees crisp lines.

Done! We have a bed frame! We have a headboard! And we have stripes on the wall!! Brian did a great job with the bed frame and headboard. I did the stripes on the wall, but he helped me finish painting the rest of the room. I only have the bathroom and baby's room to go before the baby comes. Then my nesting will be complete. I don't really think it is nesting though, just procrastination till now. Now I just need window treatments, nice lamps, and some artwork for the walls. Oh and I may re-furnish the furniture not in the picture.

Baby-Moon

Let me start by saying that blogger has to have the absolute worst GUI for uploading images. Please enjoy the pictures, because they took me a better part of a half hour to upload.

In the past months, Steph and I have been told literally 100's of times, "Make sure you take a vacation, because you'll never get to again after the baby comes." While I'm confident that Steph and I will find a way to take vacations post-baby (since we love getting away), it will be a long time before we can enjoy a private couples get away again. Certainly, our days of eating in nice resturants and swimming far into the ocean together are numbered for a while.

So... we took a trip the Florida panhandle. We started our trip in Pensacola. Really, the only reason we went to Pensacola was so I could go to the Nationa Naval Avation Air Museum. It was trully amazing. One of the best air museums I've ever been to.

Me in front of the F-18 on a stick in front of the museum.

Us in front of an old Blue Angle A-4

While on the Navy base, we also climbed around the old Spanish fort, Barrancas.

We also drove out Pensacola beach and enjoyed the beautiful water.

To our surprise, the Blue Angles were practicing the upcoming airshow out on the beach. So we sat back on the beach, had some lunch, and watched F-18's scream overhead.

Fat Albert, the C-130 that travels with Blue's kicked things off.

F-18's are so cool!

After a couple of nights in Pensacola, we set off down the coast to Destin for some fun on the beach.

We went to the local aquirum, which had some fun Sea Lion and Dolfin shows.

We ate a lot of good seafood next to the ocean!

Our pretty hotel. We stayed in the uglier building not shown in this picture. :-)

Oh, and we visited one more air museum! The air force's armament museum at Eglin Air Force base. I have a very patient wife.

Fourth Weekend!

Apparently we live really close to this huge lake. The map makes it look deceivingly far away, like at least 30 min or so. And I guess it is such a big lake that you could take awhile getting around to the other side.... or you could drive up the road, turn right, turn left and just go play in the lake.

So, on the third, we packed lunch, took the dog and some towels, and drove the under 10 min drive to go play in the lake for a few hours. It was so much fun!
Portland is a big wimp though, and wouldn't venture in very deep. Brian had to pick her up and walk her out to the deep water so we could see her swim. She was not happy about this the first or second time it happened. Otherwise, Brian and I had fun swimming in the warm lake, eating our picnic, and taking a walk around the little park.






The fourth was full with exhausting social events. I say exhausting because it literally took me till Tuesday to recover my energy after all the fun.
We spent the majority of the day doing chores around the house- Brian cleaned the fridge!!!! Later that night we went to a BBQ with friends of approximately our age. In any other ward I would consider most of the people there "older" than me only because there would in fact be other young couples equal to my age. But since no other such couple exists in this ward, the people we hang out with are close to our age, but beat us by two kids. It was fun to talk and watch the kids run around like monkeys.

Our second social event was Fireworks at the Depew Farm. This was also a fun event, but with less talking and more explosions. Someone threw down for some pretty impressive, slightly illegal, fireworks. It was fun, it has been a few years since we have experience fireworks first hand.

The last part of our Fourth weekend was spent preparing a Family Home Evening lesson.
Normally yes, you just have FHE on Monday night with your own family. Scripture reading, lesson, games, dessert, and what have-you are all done with your own family. But our ward has put together a few groups of Family FHE's both so we can get to know the other families in the ward, and so that investigators can come and see what real weirdos mormons are. Who gets together every monday night, learns a "lesson," sings songs and plays a game? Mormons, duh. Now we have lots of families in one small room, with the Sister Missionaries and an investigator or two who is either highly amused by the antics, or still confused about why they are there. Either way, it is entertaining.

This was the first FHE lesson that Brian and I were in charge of. So we had to take most of sunday planning our game. Who cares about the lesson, we all know the game determines how awesome or lame an FHE is. If you didn't know it, Brian is really good at teaching. So he came up with a lesson on Temples and making our homes more like temples. Half taken from the lesson he taught in Sunday School that day.

I pretty much think this is the coolest game ever. "The Game of Life Mormon Style" is shockingly similar to the game, "The Game of Life." But instead of going to college or choosing a career, you choose to go on a mission or get married. You collect mini Books of Mormon along the way when you land on yellow squares, blue squares and every kid you collect (12 possible) is also worth a BOM. Person with the most BOMs wins! Pretty much the best game ever.


Okay so this happened two weeks ago, but Brian won "Best Nut Pie" in our ward's pie contest: So You Think You Can Bake. I'm so proud, he is the best.

Swimsuits Don't Lie

As a first-time pregnant person, the advice I hear most often is to take one last vacation as a couple before we have a baby. When we lived in California, Brian and I were never one to stray away from a spur of the moment trip to Disneyland. But since moving to Georgia and getting a dog, we have only taken four trips this last year. (Which is pathetic because we used to visit Disneyland at least four times a year, and then we always had a special trip to San Francisco, and of course trips home to Oregon and Utah to visit family.) Our four trips in the last year consisted of:
1. Trip to Savannah to pick up the dog.
2. Trip to Florida.
3. Trip to Vegas.
4. Trip to Oregon for Christmas.

I guess I should have expected a decline in big and mini vacations because family is now SO far away. But I didn't realize having a dog would completely take away our spur of the moment trips. If we do leave for an overnight anything, we have to call the dog kennel to see if there is an opening, pre-measure her food, re-label all her dog stuff, and drive the 1 hr 30 min round trip to drop her off. Ugg.

My days of "spur of the moment" are over.

So for the last week Brian and I have been planning a little getaway to Destin, Florida. I am so excited!! White-sand beaches, snorkeling, air museum, aquarium, new resturants!

I have never been to a Florida beach, and it has been a year since I have seen the ocean. I miss it.

I suppose it is good that I am so excited, because I couldn't resist trying on my barely used Hawaii swimsuit. I shouldn't have been shocked when I put it on and looked in the mirror. I shouldn't have been mortified at what I saw.

I don't know what I was thinking. Of course it wouldn't fit anymore.. my stomach HAS grown a few inches. But I was convinced that the suit would just stretch to accommodate my slightly larger midsection. And actually, it did. But surely the rest of me would still fit the same, right?

Sadly, even my second and third swimsuit revealed the depressing truth... the rest of my upper body has grown too. Sure I knew my boobs were bigger - one of the only true perks of pregnancy. I thought this change would just fill my loosely fitting top section. But I really really really didn't think ANYTHING ELSE had changed.
My memory of how I looked in my swimsuit last year was very clear. But my reflection in the mirror clearly stated that the suit I was wearing at least one size too small.
Equally depressing, I need new board-shorts too.

I love shopping, but swimsuit shopping is always depressing. You must find just the right suit, that fits your body in just the right way to make it the least awkward looking and the most attractive.

I thanked the Lord when girl board-shorts were invented, they went a long way to hiding any butt/thy insecurities I had. But now they have these two-pieces that are like a tank top and board-shorts combined! I must look into these. I have a feeling it will be my best bet for a growing belly. I don't think I'm big enough for full-on preggo one-piece suits.

Comically, the Young Women have planned a pool party for their Wednesday activity. As the YW Secretary I don't have to go, but my President has expressed the desire to have me at the activities.. one more adult goes a long way when you have 30 or so girls running around a pool. So my swimsuit needs are even greater this week.

Wish me luck as I go shopping tomorrow.
(at least my surfer shirt used for snorkeling still fits.)

I Made It!

I survived. In fact I think it went rather well, some might call it fun even. Not that I didn't expect Girl's Camp to be fun, but I expected it to be more work than fun. The point I miscalculated, was that in this instance, there is fun oh yes, but the work too was enjoyable and satisfying... fun.

I loved leading the Friendship Games on our Certification rotation day; I loved helping cook and problem solve all the food issues that happened at nearly EVERY meal; I loved setting the tents up and taking them down; I loved watching Sister Tuck and Sister Walsh leading the girls in the crafts we had planned; I loved doing some activities with the Bishop. I even enjoyed it (afterward) when things went totally wrong and in the end turned out possibly better than I planned.

I did not love the severe thunderstorm we had to sleep through the first night.
No offense to those that donated tents for us to sleep in, but half of them were the kind that look really "cool"- with the pop-out sides, a dog door, space for extra leg room, and crazy angles- had really "cool" looking rainflys that went in all directions except to properly cover the tent. So needless to say we got a little wet. Most of the girls and leaders slept on inflatable mattresses, so they were kept off of the wet ground. But all the little "cool" extensions some of the tents had didn't hold up in the rain that first night. They maybe could have withstood a short Georgia cloud burst, but not a multiple hour severe thunderstorm.

Most of my assumptions were correct about how the majority of things would run. My only true disappointment was that campfire camp songs were kinda lame because there were sooooo many first years who didn't know the words and no one could figure out how to "teach" the words to any song but those where you repeat what the leader yells/sings.

I will have to work on this for next year. Camp songs are a key part of my love for Girl's Camp.

I also have to give my mom credit for passing on a love of Girl's Camp to me. She attended all the Girl's Camps I've ever attended (except this one) as a leader of some sort. And I never wished she wasn't there. In fact, as this was my first solo Girl's Camp, there did come a point where I wished she WAS there to help me figure out some problems. But luckily I had great leaders, especially Sister Toro, to help me when my pregnant brain simply could not comprehend what to do next. (Seriously, there would be times where I would stand there and I simply could not figure out what I should be doing.)

I'm so excited for next year. I know I'll have a seven-month-old boy, but I still really hope I can be the camp director. Luckily, I don't have to worry about that now, the Lord will know where to put me.

Mars Hill Ward!! (Just before tent assignments were given out.)

Sister Walsh braiding Britteny's hair.

Bishop's Night! Thank goodness Sister Bleak brought dessert up. It was soooooo good- Mint brownies and sweet biscuits with berries.

Bishop and his girls!

I nearly forgot the best part:
When I got home, Brian had cleaned the kitchen and family room, hung up the pictures I've been trying to hang up for months, put the crib together and had it waiting in our little boy's room, gone grocerie shopping, returned a pair of pants to the store and bought the correct size, and done most of the laundry!!!
Really, I married such a great man.

Later that day we went back to mall, and after much measuring and decision making, bought a new sectional sofa at Macy's One Day Sale. We knew we got a most excellent deal on the couch because we've been shoppping for 6 months for a sectional, but we were still skeptical of how good a deal we got. You always are after a big purchase right? So we checked the price online the next day and the price went up $500! And that was still their "sale" price!

Now I'm not saying that because I did such a great job at Girl's Camp that we were blessed to find a super sale. But I'm not not saying that they are totally unrelated. ;-)