I am the blob and you have been partaken of!

The title of this blog is something Jared growled to Nathan when he covered him up with a huge blanket. I just thought it was kind of funny. =)

Shannon came out last weekend to stay at our house (although she left on... Thursday, I believe, to go to the family reunion with Adrien and Eric) while she's here for summer term. It's been nice having her here, although we haven't had a chance to hang out very much. We did on Wednesday, though, when she was looking for jobs and we had lunch. It'll probably just get harder to hang out when she starts working and volunteering at Adrien's museum, but we'll find the time. If she wasn't living here I'd probably never see her, so there's that at least! She's a very considerate guest... she even brought her own towels. I sort of laughed at her about that... sorry Shannon. =)

We finally painted our master bedroom! This is sort of a "before" picture... Jared's very good at getting the tape straight. We still haven't painted the trim, but we got the walls. I'll post a picture of that when I get new curtains. Just imagine the greenish curtains with pale turquoise walls... and you'll know why I refuse to put a picture up right now.

I got Nathan some sunglasses. He doesn't keep them on his face very often, but he's surprisingly patient when I want to take a picture (as long as I don't take more than one).Nathan loves his hats... he came downstairs in his ski cap one morning. What a weirdo... wonder where he gets that from?Well, I can't wait till I can hear about the reunion from some of you. I hope a couple of you remembered to video tape some of it! =)

You Are... Elinor Dashwood!

This picture is from Jared's phone so it's kind of fuzzy, but I wanted you to see it. It's not a bad picture for a cell phone camera, though.

Nathan can open his bedroom door now. He hasn't tried any other doors in the house yet, but I decided I'm not taking any chances. Well, I'm taking some chances. The front door is the only one with a cover on the knob so far. He could still technically get into the pantry if he tried hard enough. But the door knob is pretty stiff, so it will probably take a while. Most of our knobs are pretty stiff, actually.We bought blinds for the living room this week! I haven't taken a picture, but they're white faux-wood. I wanted a wood color that matched ... something... the cabinets, maybe? ...or even bamboo ones, but we figured white was cheaper and it matches the curtains, at least.

I made crepes this morning. I love crepes. The one on the left is powdered sugar and lemon and the one on the right has raspberries and a sauce made from sour cream mixed with brown sugar. The leftover raspberries are for when Nathan comes begging, which he inevitably does (I had to get more than three, by the way. And I'm not completely stingy. I let him have a few bites of the crepes, too).Oh, I bought Nathan one of those huge, cheap balls yesterday. He loves it. He wouldn't let go of it for nearly the entire car ride home.I took this "What Austen Heroine Are You?" quiz... it's not really the most well-written quiz nor the most enlightening, but it was kind of fun.

Father's Day... kind of long.

Sorry I didn't post this earlier like I said I would... not that any of you were perched on the end of your seat biting your nails and wondering aloud, "What happened on Father's Day??". Although that would be pretty funny.
Anyway, Father's Day was pretty good. I made Jared waffles for breakfast (his meetings were canceled and he canceled the other meetings he was in charge of). Too bad I didn't get any pictures... oh well. Imagine golden, moist, warm waffles with lightly browned edges topped with strawberries and whipped cream. Okay. Anyway, so we had waffles and some melon for breakfast, then we went to church. Church was... good. We think. Sacrament meeting had some great speakers, but we didn't get to hear everything they said. Unfortunately, I started having contractions (again...) right before church at about 4 to 7 minutes apart. (Just so you know ahead of time - no, the baby hasn't been born yet) Probably didn't help that we were sitting in metal chairs (we were late and had to sit in the overflow). I felt bad, though, that Jared had to be the one to keep taking Nathan out and sitting with him in the foyer while he squirmed and had several small tantrums. Oh... to answer a question Marlyse asked once, the contractions didn't scare me very much. I mean, I was nervous, but I was mostly thinking about the whole NICU situation rather than the actual labor. Probably because for this pregnancy I've decided I'm going to either have an epidural or the labor will be really short like last time (although they did have time for an epidural last time... somehow). Either way... at least I'm not (hopefully!) going to be in a long, painful labor.
Anyway, after sacrament meeting they hadn't slowed down (it had been nearly an hour and a half by that point, I think) so I called my doctor. I had to leave a voicemail. That kind of made me worried... I wondered how long it would take for him to get back to me and if he was really the best doctor and if he was going to just let me give birth to a premature infant in the middle of nowhere... I guess I was more than kind of worried. I guess I was kind of hysterical. I mean, as if I didn't know how to get to the hospital. Seriously.
So the doctor called back less than 15 minutes later and asked me the routine questions and I told him what was going on. I felt kind of weird having to tell him everything that he already had in his charts, even though I know doctors have tons of patients and can't possibly remember details from them all. Anyway, so he told me to lie down and drink lots of water and if things still didn't slow down to go into labor and delivery. After that I told Jared what he said and we left class. I just stood in the hall near the nursery while Jared tried to find somebody to give his papers to. All of his counselors had disappeared mysteriously, but eventually he found someone to take care of things in his absence. While he was doing that a friend of mine came out of the class with her baby and asked if I was alright. I had already told her about Tuesday so I just said that it was happening again and we were probably going to go to the hospital. Her two girls were also born early (the second one later than the first). Anyway, Jared came back and we took Nathan out of nursery. He looked kind of dazed and we realized he was exhausted... probably from all the tantrums he'd been having! On the way home we called Adrien and Eric to ask if they could watch Nathan if we ended up going to the hospital.
After we got home I laid down (I hate using any tense of 'lie' or 'lay' because I'm never sure... so just hit me and tell me if I got that wrong) on the couch and drank a couple bottles of water. After half an hour I was getting anxious so I decided we should just go. I'd already packed bags for Nathan and myself because of earlier in the week so that made things easier (I'm always so proud of myself when I'm actually prepared ahead of time... haha =D).
We got to Adrien and Eric's house and set up the pack n' play for Nathan before leaving again. I felt bad that they were so tired (their ward meets very early), but I was also very grateful that they could watch him (they were third in line for backup because they're farther away... but the first two people who offered to watch Nathan were in our ward and we couldn't ask them to leave church!). Thanks guys!
Anyway so then we went over to the hospital. We checked in and all that. The contractions were coming less regularly by then, about 5 to 16 minutes apart. It was like two would come 5 minutes apart, then the next one would be 12 minutes later and then it would sort of repeat itself. Even so, they still weren't very painful. More like menstrual cramps, and not even as bad as the worst ones I've had. Still, they put me on the fetal monitor thing and took the necessary samples for the tests they wanted to do. One of those was for an infection, and one was for a hormone that means you will probably deliver within the next two weeks. It took a few hours for the results to come in, but I ended up being negative for both. They also took a urine sample to check for dehydration and to see if I had a UTI. Anyway, I didn't have a UTI but they did say I was a little bit dehydrated. I wondered how that could be when I'd been downing water like a camel for a long time (weeks?) now. Not because I was actually that thirsty, but because that's what they tell you to do to avoid preterm labor. Whatever. Anyway, they also ended up giving me a couple shots that were meant to slow down the contractions. For a while, they completely stopped (I think). The shots made me really jittery, though. It was kinda weird. I was kind of weird. Anyway, after a few hours they said that everything looked fine and that the baby was healthy so we could go home. We went to pick up Nathan (who loves Adrien and Eric's cats, btw... and loves their toys just as much, apparently) and then we went home! We had Jared's chicken salad for dinner (the dinner I was planning on making I made on Tuesday instead) and just kind of relaxed for the rest of the evening.
Oh yeah, and Jared's gifts for Father's Day were a card, a foot and scalp massage, and not having a baby (too early). The end!

Jared is weird. That's part of the reason I love him so much.

It's Father's Day. And how do I show my appreciation for the father of my child (soon to be children)? I tell you about how odd he is. Here's a sample conversation from this evening:

Me: something I can't remember... something to do with summer K-Mart weekly specials always being full of tents and deck chairs, possibly.
Jared: "I see... I see puppets wherever I go."
Me: (laughing) "What? Is that from something?" (Knowing full well that it probably isn't, but also knowing full well I have an extraordinarily limited knowledge of pop culture in general and that it could be from a movie everyone has heard of but me.)
Jared: "Me. I'm something... something pretty darn special." There's a small pause. "That could be your Indian name... 'Married-to-something-pretty-darn-special'."

Anyway, I'll write about how father's day went tomorrow.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame...

On Thursday, I participated in a charity softball game. It was a fundraising event for the Utah Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross and Action Target donated some money, so we got to send 5 people to play in the game and I was one of them. They told us it was going to be a baseball game, so I was looking forward to that but at the last minute they changed it to softball. However, we were playing at the Utah Valley University Stadium so we were still playing on a regular size baseball diamond, which meant the bases were 90’ apart and not 60’. They had 5 former major leaguers on hand: Vern Law (1960 Cy Young Award winner for the Pittsburgh Pirates), Vance Law (1988 All Star for the Chicago Cubs), Scott Nielson (Pitched 4 years in the majors with the Yankees and White Sox), Dane Iorg (he had the walk-off game winning hit in Games 6 of the 1985 World Series for the Kansas City Royals – the Royals went on to win the Series in Game 7), and Gary Cooper (broke into the major with the Houston Astros in 1991, but played very little – was once named the Outstanding Player of the Pacific Coast League and was a AAA All Star).

Let the game begin…

Dane Iorg was our team’s coach/player while Scott Nielson was our team’s pitcher. Since they didn’t know where anybody played, they just kind of randomly assigned us to play different positions. I got put in centerfield, which at the time was kind of a bummer, I would have preferred to play shortstop and get more action. In the first, our shortstop made 2 or 3 errors and the opposing team scored 2 runs. We got a couple of guys on base in the home half of the first but the guy hitting in front of me made the 3^rd out before I got a chance to hit. So it was a pretty boring start to the game…but my fortune was about to change…

Former Houston Astro Gary Cooper led off the inning. Out of respect for the former AAA All Star (and at the recommendation of Scott Nielson), I backed up in centerfield. Although I had backed up, this was still softball so I wasn’t that deep considering I was playing on a field where the centerfield wall was 427’ from home plate (I as maybe 275’ deep). Nielson’s first pitch to Cooper was hammered into straightaway centerfield. I began sprinting backward as everyone on the team was shouting, “Back! Back! Back!” About 8 steps into my run I was realizing that Cooper’s ball was going to sail over my head and back towards the wall for what would surly be an inside-the-park home run (I came to find out later that everyone else thought the ball was way over my head too). As I continued to sprint back while looking over my shoulder, the ball kept sailing and stayed in the air longer than I expected. Just as the ball was passing over my head I decided that I’d at least try and make a play on the ball (even though it was surely out of my reach). So I stretched out my arm and glove as far as I could without diving, all the while looking over my shoulder at the ball. And just when I was sure the ball was in fact out of my range…Thud... I caught it (as much to my surprise as to everyone else’s surprise in the stadium)! I instantly started to hear cheers and congratulatory remarks coming from the stands and all over the field. I couldn’t help but grin. At that moment, I was grateful that on this evening I was a centerfielder and not a shortstop.

I only got to field one more ball in centerfield the rest of the game (and that was a groundball hit by Vance Law), but I got the chance to make the play of the night (according to the rest of the players and former major leaguers), probably the best outfield catch I’ve ever made in my life, and rob a former major leaguer of an extra base hit (if not a home run)!

But the game didn’t stop there. I led off the bottom of the 2^nd hitting against former Cy Young award winner Vern Law (Dan Iorg made it a point to yell up to the announcer that I was the guy who made the catch in centerfield and the announcer mentioned it as he announced me nex to bat) and hit a ball in the hole between 3^rd base and shortstop. Former major leaguer Vance Law was playing shortstop, so I knew I had to hustle. He came up with the ball, but I was able to beat the throw to first. As I crossed the first base bag, I saw Vance’s through get by the first baseman so I took off to second. I eventually scored our team’s first run to cut the lead to 2-1. That’s right I got a single and scored off of a former Cy Young award winner, nevermind that the man in now in his 70’s and was pitching slow pitch softball, those are just details.

Both teams went scoreless in the third. The guy hitting in front of me led off the bottom of the 4^th with a triple and went for the inside-the-park home run and was thrown out easily at home. I then came up and laced a single past third and into leftfield (so much for my RBI opportunity). I would later score our team’s second run and tie the game at 2-2.

Both teams went scoreless in the fifth. I led off the bottom of the sixth and doubled over the outfielders’ heads into right centerfield. I then scored our team’s third run and put us ahead at 3-2. Both teams continued scoreless in the 7^th. In the eighth I doubled over the outfielders’ heads (I guess they just didn’t learn their lesson – ha!) into left centerfield and went on to score our 4^th run to put us up 4-2. My team added 2 more runs in the eighth to lead 6-2.

The game finished off with the opposing team getting one more run in the top of the 9^th and we won the game 6-3. I finished up 4-4 with 2 singles, 2 doubles, and 4 runs scored. However, the highlight on the night was getting to rob Gary Cooper of an extra-base hit. That catch earned me kudos from Dane Iorg and Scott Nielson as well as the rest of my teammates. Later Gary Cooper thanked me for catching ball because it “saved [him] from having to run all that way.” My colleagues from work mentioned that my catch would have earned me a spot on ESPN’s Top 10 Plays of the Day.

I know this sounds like I’m bragging and I probably am, but it was a fun night for me. I couldn’t stop grinning with the success I had. It was fun to meet these former major leaguers (Vance Law was the only one I can actually remember watching as a kid) and be complemented by them, even if it was just a charity softball game.

We finished the night off by getting some autographs and chatting. As I was leaving the ballpark with Megan and Nathan, Dane Iorg was joking around with Gary Cooper, telling him that he had Gary played perfectly all night. Dane started saying something about the catch in centerfield as I was walking by. He noticed me walking by and said, “Hey it was this guy right here.” Then he said to me again, “Hey that was a great catch.” I grinned, said thanks, and walked with my family out of the stadium. It was a fun night!

The rest of our week...

So I thought I'd write about how the rest of our week went. There is one thing, however, that Jared wants to tell you about in more detail; and since he's more qualified to do that, anyway, I'll let him tell you about that.

Right after I wrote the last blog, I realized that my Braxton-Hicks contractions weren't so Braxton-Hicksy. They were kind of hurting (but not badly) and coming really close together. I started timing them (they were coming at 4 to 7 minutes apart) and decided that if they were still coming this close together after an hour, that we'd call the doctor. Fortunately, after nearly an hour, they started slowing down again to 15 minutes apart, and then 20 minutes, and then back down to normal. Oh, and they stopped hurting, too. They came back painfully a couple of times around midnight or one in the morning, but then there was nothing else after that. Anyway, so it was a false alarm, fortunately. I just thought it was kind of ironic that I wrote "so far so good" in the blog and then had that happen. Not that I'm superstitious. Still, it freaked me out just enough to make me pack a bag for the hospital and a bag for Nathan for when he goes to someone's house in the middle of the night. We have three people who have offered to watch him at any time, so that's really nice.

Anyway, on to better things. I think Nathan is one of the few toddlers that starts his sandwich with the crust. Or is it just a myth that kids hate the crust?Nathan and I went to the park on Wednesday for playgroup and for almost half an hour, we were the only ones there. It was a little cloudy and windy which made it pretty cool, so I guess I don't blame anybody, but it was fine as long as you kept moving. Anyway, after a while our neighbors showed up. They live on our street and their son is a couple months older than Nathan so it's kind of fun having them play together. They sort of egg each other on. For example, Nathan only wanted to climb on this high equipment after the other kid did, and then the neighbor kid wanted to go down the slide on his stomach after he saw Nathan do it. It was pretty funny. I guess peer pressure is usually pretty funny when it doesn't involve illicit substances... Anyway, I don't have any pictures of that because I only took a few on my phone and I haven't gotten around to reading my manual or even seeing if I have an adapter cable thing for the computer.

Thursday evening Jared played in a softball game for charity and Nathan and I went to watch. He had a lot of fun and I think he played really well. That's what his blog is going to be about. =) Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera to that game. I'll be kicking myself for that one for a while... I took a few pictures on my phone but I'm not sure if they're worth saving because I can't zoom in with my camera phone. I don't know why. The option is there on the screen, but with a red line through it. It's as though my phone is saying, "This is what you could have had if you weren't such a cheapskate!".

Friday morning I went into Nathan's room and I couldn't find him! So I looked behind the rocking chair, then under the bed... and there he was. Pretty far under there, too.Oh, and here are a few pictures from when I gave him a bath yesterday. He's so funny when he's cold. I mean, it's sad. But funny. He says "brrr" except with less of an "rr" sound. He loves the water, though. If the water stayed warm and I let him, he'd probably wouldn't come out for hours. Nathan has that Alexander-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day (did I get that right?) look on his face because I think the flash caught him by surprise... or maybe he just didn't want me to take pictures of him in the bathtub, I dunno.All I had to do for this next one was say, "Boo!". Today Nathan, Adrien and I went to Ikea on a semi-fruitless search for things for Nathan and the baby girl (we have really got to pick a name already...). All I ended up getting was a rug for their bathroom (it's supposed to match this faux-vintage alphabet poster I have). And I'm not even sure I'll keep it... Anyway, if anyone knows of a place with cheap but cute fabric (to make a straight [as in, not gathered or flouncy] crib skirt) online or baby bedding (cheap! and I mean cheap... but cute... oh why am I so picky when I can't afford to be??) just let me know.

Anyway, after that we dropped Adrien off and went home for a few minutes before leaving again. This time Jared came with us and we went to the town fair that's going on this week. We mostly just wandered around at first, looking at all the over-priced food and the rides. Then after a while we got ourselves some dinner and some tickets for the merry-go-round. Jared and I both took turns taking Nathan on the merry-go-round while the other took pictures (sorry that the best one I took of them has Nathan blinking).After the merry-go-round we decided to go home because Nathan was looking pretty tired (and there wasn't really anything else to do without spending more money). Now he's in bed and Jared's making his awesome and yummy chicken salad to have in the fridge for later. And tomorrow's Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, everyone!

I just realized Nathan has a lot of striped shirts...

Nathan and I like to dance to To My Boy. Nathan is a better dancer than I am. This shouldn't come as a surprise... =)

So a little over a week ago we went to a barbecue at Adrien and Eric's. You can see some (better) pictures on their blog. It was pretty fun and I love their blanket from Mexico. I should have gotten a blanket like that instead of the dress I bought and have never worn...Last week we took Aubrie (Jared's sister) to the MTC. That was so surreal - I can't believe we won't see her for a year and a half!Also last week we got Nathan a toddler bed. He's taken to it pretty well, I think. He looks kind of displeased here because he had just woken up and I hadn't changed his diaper yet.Anyway, because he's got this newfound freedom, sometimes he sleeps somewhere else in the bedroom. Just for kicks.Last week (everything happened last week!) after we dropped off Aubrie, I went and picked up my friends Sara and Kathleen from Salt Lake. They stayed with us for a few days and just kind of hung out. We went to a couple of bookstores and ate out a couple of times, but mostly we just stayed at home relaxing and catching up. We even looked at my year book from our senior year... that was kind of weird. Anyway, I don't have any new pictures of them so here's one from when Nathan and I went to California for Adrien's and Eric's open house a year and a half ago (Sara's on the right, Kathleen's on the left)... they never have to know I put it here. Hehe. They're just a little camera shy, like I am.
Anyway, on Sunday Jared gave a talk which I didn't get to hear very much of since Nathan was busy doing rude and obnoxious things to innocent bystanders (like throwing books at a kind stranger, eating the ends of said kind stranger's pretzels before putting them back in the bag...) and I was busy trying to stop him.

And yesterday Jared, Nathan and I went to buy paint for Nathan's and our bedrooms. Nothing for the baby's room yet... I still have to figure out what's going on with her bedding or if I'm going to make stuff with fabric I have yet to find... It's a complicated process. =P I probably make it more so than it needs to be.

Today Nathan and I went to the OB/GYN and learned about more things to look for (For instance, apparently a UTI can cause contractions. I didn't know that!) but so far everything still appears fine. We've made it to 31 1/2 weeks at least!