The Fabulous Ultrasound

After having an awful 20 week ultrasound experience, where I barely got to see the baby 15 seconds, I paid to get one of those fancy 4d ultrasounds. My mom was visiting her sister in Central Virginia so I scheduled it down there so that she could go with me. It was amazing!! And the results are in....

It's another little princess!

Housekeeper for Hire

I'm feeling desperate lately. But for nothing specific. Its feels like an aching that I've lost something, only I haven't. Aurora is beautiful. Brady's been pitching in. I haven't had harsh words with anyone. Everything is normal. It doesn't make logical sense for bad feelings to come from nowhere and yet they do.
 I've been down for a couple weeks probably. I think it started the day my ultrasound didn't reach my expectations. But its more than that because I've moved on, made plans for a new one, and I still feel like someone stole the light from inside me. I feel like just doing the bare minimum to get by around the house, and so I do. I try to have something planned in the mornings that will take me and Aurora out of the house to distract me from my feelings and distract her from noticing anything different about me.  When I get Aurora down for a nap, I plan to take a quick breather before accomplishing something and then I can't get back up. I get lost in unsatisfying browsing by tv or iPhone.  I dread getting her up because I have no idea what I am going to do with her till bedtime. I feel like I just want to sit there forever.
Its a disease, right? Or am I selfish and lazy.

SAHM Duty Rocks!

This picture has nothing to do with the post other than to introduce where all our money went and how my epiphany came about. And I am not good at including photos so its always good to get one in when you can.
Last month Brady and I went on a vacation alone. We rented a Mercedes. We went to Niagara Falls. Stayed in the nicest hotel with the best view of the falls from our window and a jacuzzi. We went to Palmyra, NY to see the LDS sights and stayed in probably the only hotel but got the suite, and we went to Lake Placid and stayed in another suite that had a back door opening out to Mirror Lake. That all should have had its own post but that time has passed now. Moving on.
So yea we got broke for a minute there and Brady started to worry that maybe we needed to make some changes to the way we spend money or that I might want to start thinking about putting the kids in child care and going back to work once the new baby is old enough. I panicked! Partly because I have no valuable skills. But mostly because of the idea of someone else raising my kids! Preposterous! Me and only me is good enough to raise my kids!
I often complain about how draining it can be to stay home with children every single day and to do all the housework. But the truth is I would not rather be doing anything else. I have the opportunity to know every piece of my daughter. As soon as any change happens, I notice it. When she spends time with a sitter or goes to nursery at church I notice the new things that she has picked up. Because I know everything that was there before. I know my daughter so well that I notice the small growth that happens in her. If I were to give a large chunk of caring for her to someone else I wouldn't notice the small things. There is nothing more exciting to me than watching my independent little person form from such a helpless infant. All parents get to see that but not quite the way a stay at home parent does. I will gladly pinch pennies and endure the monotony of never ending housework as long as I get to be here and see each developing leaf and petal emerge. What a great job being a stay at home mom to young children is!
(Feel free to slap me now if your having an an awful day with your kids. I do not feel this thankful for my job every day and I might want to kick my own butt tomorrow.)

The Lucky Mouse

When Brady told me that he had seen a mouse in our kitchen a few weeks ago I only slightly believed him. That is why I did nothing besides a casual google/amazon search. I had not seen a mouse and believing him would mean a lot work and worry for me. I'll do something about it when it is real to me I said to myself.  
Wednesday night things got real. As I sat reclined watching whatever it was I was watching, a little grey mouse appeared. He flittered out from the side of the couch by the wall and started to search through Aurora's fallen crumbs. He must have heard my mind shriek a bit because he went back to the side of the couch almost immediately. I quietly went and yelled down the stairs to Brady that I saw his mouse and then went back to my rocking chair. The mouse came out from the couch again a few inches and then went back in. I texted Brady that the mouse was with me and he should bring a bucket. Brady brought a bucket, but I decided we might need something bigger and so we switched to a big plastic bin. Brady pulled back the couch and there he was looking confused at where his ceiling had went. He scampered back to the part of the couch touching the ground and climbed in. We put the couch back down and after a couple minutes gave it another go. This time when we pulled back the couch he sat stunned long enough for me to plop the bin down over him. Trapped! HAHA got ya!
Anyone who thinks they know anything about catching mice will tell you that if you have mice the best solution is to get a cat. Well let me tell you, my cat had no idea that we had mice. I called Cabello over to let him know and he was totally surprised. He locked his eyes on that cute little guy and it took a moment for him to even register it as a living thing. But when he did he was on! He was ready to attack and made it clear that he would be delighted to have a go. I told him he'd had his chance but now it was time to let the humans handle it.

This is where I learned that Brady and I have varying levels of humanity. In every scenario I could think of this mouse needed to die. I thought we should drown it or Brady should whack it with a shovel. Brady, I learned, has a tender heart for pests. He thought maybe we could get it a cage and make it a pet. My problem with that was all the poop it would excrete before we got the cage and what would happen when we needed to add its brother or sisters to the cage. After much discussion, I agreed that he could take it down to the park field and release it. So along with a baggy of cordon bleu leftovers and a flashlight Brady took the lucky mouse on a trip to the park.
The next day, I pulled out the stove and found a few hundred tiny pieces of mouse poop. I swept and vacuumed all the crap up (which I now know is not the correct cleanup technique due to the possibility of airborne disease particles) and used some Lysol wipes on the floor and then headed to the hardware store for traps.
Snap Traps! They work. I caught a mouse Thursday. I caught a mouse Friday. But Brady's poor heart is breaking for the little guys and he is the one who needs to dispose of their lifeless bodies because of my pregnancy. I can't deny it. I am inhumane. They are cute but I want them dead. I don't want to risk them multiplying or coming back and leaving their diseased bodily functions in my kitchen. Hopefully its all over soon and maybe three was all there were living here. I don't delight in causing pain to animals but I am a mama bear who will do what needs to be done to keep her little ones safe.
How do you feel about killing mice?

Durecho

Friday night,the 29th, Brady and I returned home from our glorious babymoon to Niagara Falls/Palmyra/Lake Placid, New York. It was an extremely hot and humid evening, especially compared to the lovely high 70 degree weather we had been enjoying on vacation. As I got out of the shower the lights started to flicker rapidly and then we lost power. Perplexed I went to the front window to check things out as I couldn't remember it looking like it was going to storm and what I saw was quite exciting. The trees were being blown about as though they were balls of fluff. The trees here are massive and old and imagine very heavy so the wind was have been pretty extreme. The sound was quite terrifying. People say that when I tornado comes it sounds like a train and that's where the sounds of things were heading. I told Brady I thought a tornado was coming, but couldn't quite decide if I should run and save Aurora or keep watching the storm unfold. So I kept watching because that was easier and I was hypnotized. It began to rain very hard and the lightening was constant and all over the sky blinking like strobe lights. Where I live you don't really see the actual lightning bolts very often just the light through the clouds. I watched for about half an hour and then tried to sleep as best I could with the flashing light coming in through the windows.
In the morning the power was still off. My phone battery had died on the way home from New York so I had to pull out my contest winnings from the Department of Homeland Security contest, a nice crank radio/flashlight, to see if their was any news on the conditions of the outside world. Millions were without power and they predicted it would be for at least 48 hours. We took a drive to view the state of things around us and were amazed at the destruction. It looked a crap load worse than the hurricane we had last fall. Trees limbs were everywhere and some trees were uprooted. Trees had fallen on houses and cars. Trees blocked roads. Traffic lights were out. A lot of people were just driving through intersection without treating them like four way stops. Some intersections had police in the 100 degree weather directing traffic. It was chaos.
Life without power is very interesting in record breaking summer temperatures in a hugely populated area. To quote a counsel man from the newspaper "People are pissed." It seems that for a long time the power companies were just assessing the damage and waiting for trees to be moved before they did anything. Plus it was just too dang hot for people to be out working. Unfortunately it is also too hot to be anywhere other than a basement when you don't have power. Luckily we have one of those, but unfortunately a lot of the housing here is mega high apartment buildings. So the best thing anyone could think to do was to head to the Montgomery Mall. We also headed there in search of food that wasn't crackers and unrefrigerated junk food. They were running off generators and all of Maryland was there juicing up their phones, shopping, eating, or just sitting somewhere where it wasn't burning hot. With that many people it was still kinda hot, but better than sitting at an un-airconditioned home.  People were fairly well behaved, just understandably irritable given the circumstances and the crowd.
Sunday I was able to go to church, which had power, and charge my cell phone. For some reason we weren't getting service at the house so we were able to make calls from church too. 
After two nights of sleeping and living in the basement and the food in our fridge beginning to grow mold we decided to start looking for a generator. This seemed especially desirable as Pepco was predicting power would not be restored until Friday night, and we were only on Monday. All places near to us were sold out and Home Depot was running on emergency power and had no access to their computers to check inventory in other stores. So I called my uncle 2 1/2 hours away to have him find one for us. I got down there to pick up the generator around 8pm and just as I was pulling into his neighborhood Brady called to let me know that our power had turned back on! I bought the generator from my uncle anyway because next time we are going to be prepared.
We were lucky because other friends of mine still didn't have power for days after me and Pepco was right, some didn't get power till Friday or Saturday. Gas stations did not have credit card machines working so gas could only be bought with cash and stores were out of cash. So that is a good reason to keep some cash stored for an emergency.The Safeway close to us estimated a million dollar loss and was throwing all the wasted food into garbage bins.
The storm is being called a Durecho and now this word which no one had ever heard of is common knowledge around here. Like a tornado, it involves wind, but unlike a tornado it is straight wind, not curved. Happens like once every 40 years or something. It was a very amazing storm and I'm glad to have seen it, especially now everything is all better around here. How are things in your neck of the woods?

Grandfather's Day Surprise

5x7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

This is the front of the card I sent to my dad and I sent a similar one to Brady's dad. But the best part was on the inside. The number one reason I listed was that they are going to be awesome grandpas to another grandchild!

Reminiscing on the Summer of 1996

This weekend was the perfect beginning to a new summer. Its going to be an awesome one unlike any other. My daughter is at a wonderful age of imagination and excitement. At her request, we found her a train ride. They have a fairly long mini train ride through the forest at Wheaton Park not far from where we live. It is so magical to see something through a child's eyes. I am so glad to get a second glimpse into the simple joys in life that I have shrugged off. To remember how it used to feel to run through the spray of a running hose. To rediscover that there is nothing wrong with only eating your favorite part of chocolate glazed brownie and wear it on your face.

Summer gets me nostalgic for my childhood. The summer in particular that I miss most often took place in Syracuse, Utah around age 12.

I just graduated elementary school and was on top of the world. Not a little kid anymore but not quite needing a real bra ( : My "neighborhood" consisted of two parallel culdesacs with a street above and below each all filled with families with kids. To the west were spooky corn fields and a big pit we rode our bikes down. To the north were new houses being constructed that we used as playhouses and jungle gyms. To the south were our schools and a tiny grocery store named Hamblin's where we would buy dime candy and potato logs. That summer I wore nothing but short shorts, t-shirts, and Nike basketball shoes. I spent every day trying to prove my equality on the basketball court with the neighborhood boys. I never got more satisfaction than when my skills, and his lack, started to frustrate Aaron Callister. I was no longer in the talent league of his little brother and was a real competitor at Horse. I would get those boys and occasionally some girls to play horse my way where instead of getting a letter when you missed a shot you would have to complete a humiliating task (such as lick the pavement or switch hats with me for a week). When we played actual basketball games, most of the neighborhood boys joined, young and old. My brother included. I miss that. Having that in common with him. Miraculously, I didn't feel like a girl during the games. I got hurt along with the rest of them, but we just kept playing. Well sometimes some of the younger boys would cry and go home. I am grateful that I was accepted as a dude and actually have been able to replicate that in several friend groups, with varying success, since then. Being a guy is very relaxing and carefree. Girls are great friends too, but just different because they are always thinking about seemingly serious things. 
The best part of the summer happened in the dark. Night games! For some reason, time or dead brain cells, I cannot recall the exact rules of our favorite night game. What I remember is all of us cool kids hid all over the culdesac my house was in. No yard or window well was off limits. Well maybe the Loves because they were ornery kid-less freaks. Obviously someone had to be the one to find the hiders. We would get up and move to different hiding spots. Sometimes sticking together and other times taking it solo. I have no idea how or when the game was won. I just remember everyone having the time of their lives... or me! Eventually the littlest kids or the kids with strict parents had to go in to bed, but the rest of us would hang around outside and talk  and explore the darkness till like 11 pm. And that was soo dang late!
Wouldn't it be fun to go back for a day? What was your favorite summer?