2 Months 2 Go

Welp, I have two months left of pregnancy! Thank goodness because 10 months is really too long. (Let's be honest, pregnancy is 10 months. 40 weeks = 10 months.) Anyway, really 10 months is too long just because I want to have this baby girl in my arms. I want to see her sweet face and feel her tiny fingers wrapped around mine. I want to take her home and cry tears of joy for my beautiful family of three. Ugh. I can't wait to be a mom.

I have been so lucky as far as my pregnancy has gone so far. Granted, over the summer, there were times when I felt pretty miserable. But ever since school started at the end of August, it has been pretty smooth sailing. Other than the extreme ligament pain I feel on a daily/nightly basis, life is pretty great. :) Thank goodness for Tylenol. I read on the internet that I should have relief from this "round ligament" thing as soon I have the baby.

I still get the chance to coach soccer every once in a while. I am not an official coach, but I get calls every once in a while from the club coaches when they want my help running practice or bringing in some new ideas or killing the kids at some conditioning drills. I feel kinda funny coaching soccer at 7 months pregnant when I am as big as I am, but it is empowering to me when I do go coach. Other than my slight balance issues, this mamma has still got some skills!

Here is a photo I snapped from my perspective before practice started on Saturday morning. Baby E loves soccer, too. :)

53 days until due date!

One Month Later

Sorry about the month long hiatus from blogging. I wish I had a good excuse but I don't. Other than, in my mind, I am SUPER busy. Work has just kept me super busy, especially since I REALLY want my maternity leave to run smoothly... it is just taking a LOT of my extra time. And when I am not working on school stuff, I am cooking or cleaning or getting stuff ready for Baby E. And when I am not doing all those things... I am watching Netflix... AKA I am sleeping (because sleeping and watching TV are the same thing to me.)

Anyway. I am not going to promise that I will get better about blogging... I really wish I had more time or that I could make more time, because I love blogging. But, alas, life is busy!

Introducing the Mistletoes!

Okay. Sometimes when you are working with kids, you experience delightfully hilarious moments that you just wish, more than anything, that you had your video camera out. Here was one experience yesterday. It won't be as funny to any of you, because you weren't there, but I want to remember it. :)

*Names have been changed for student privacy.*

Jake: Hey Mrs. Call. So me and Cole and Rachel and Jessica just barely formed a new singing group. We are called the Mistletoes. We are hoping, with your permission, that we can sing to the class at the end of the day. So can we?

Me: (with a little bit of snickering in my response)..... Uhm, sure... what will you be singing?

Jake: We will start out with "Over the River and Through the Woods." And since it is Dan's birthday, we will then have a special arrangement of "Happy Birthday," followed by a Louis Armstrong style solo done by Cole.

*He was completely serious.*

Me: Haha. Okay. I can't wait. How long have you been practicing together?

Jake: Well we haven't, yet. But we will practice at recess.

Me: Awesome. This will be so great.

I waited in anticipation for the rest of the day to see what they came up with. When the time came (the last 5 minutes of class) for them to sing, they had it all set up. They had 2 girls in the class be the MC's, and they were so hilarious. They used whiteboard markers as microphones, and they were complete naturals. They even provided entertainment for when the Mistletoes needed a few seconds to regroup with each other.

As for the Mistletoes, they were incredible. They even got a standing ovation from the class when they finished. The Louis Armstrong style "Happy Birthday" solo was a showstopper.

The whole experience was priceless. Why the heck did I not get out my cell phone and video it????

Third Trimester!

Maybe I am just not very smart, but I keep trying to Google when the 3rd trimester of pregnancy starts.... and I can't seem to figure it out because pretty much every where says something different.

But doesn't it make sense to say that when you have 3 months until the end of your pregnancy, that you are in your third trimester? Well today is December 8th, and since baby girl is due on March 8th, I am officially saying I am in my 3rd trimester :)

Here is an update on pregnancy stuff. Baby E is getting big and I can feel it. Apparently by now, she is 15 inches long and weighs 2 pounds. She loves to do somersaults and sit on my bladder, and she gets hiccups about 10 times a day.  She also likes to play with daddy. Bryce will poke my stomach, and she will kick back. It's so fun. :) 

As far as mom-to-be goes, everything has been great! Other than... my hormones. Everything makes me cry. Happy things. Sad things. Everything. Seeing all of Baby E's cute things she already has. Bryce doing the dishes. Watching the Santa Clause 2. You name it. I will cry. But other than that, life is grand! 

I can't wait for these next 3 months to speed by! This little girl already has our hearts. 

24 Weeks

I am 24 weeks! 

Not a ton has changed in the last few weeks as far as my pregnancy goes, other than I am bigger now. I guess that's just what happens when you are pregnant. You just keep getting bigger and bigger. Who knew? 

Baby E loves spicy food. At least I say she does because I love to eat spicy food. But then again, I have always loved to eat spicy food. Who knows if it is a pregnancy thing or not. But I could seriously live off of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and food drenched in Sriracha sauce. The other day I went to Taco Bell (I promise I haven't gone nearly as much in the second trimester as I did in the first...) But I went to Taco Bell and ordered one Beefy 5 Layer Burrito - my favorite thing on the menu for the past 5 months of my life. Along with my one beefy 5 layer, I used 7 fire sauce packets. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'll say it is because of the pregnancy, but everyone who knows me well knows that I almost love condiments more than I love food... hopefully the 7 to 1 ratio won't continue after the pregnancy, though. 

 Oh! And I had a funny doctor's appointment yesterday I want to tell you about. I have 4 doctors... 2 men and 2 women, so I don't always see the same one every time. Dr. Allred (one of the men) will be the one to deliver Baby E unless there is an emergency and/or things happen so quickly that he can't get there. But I see the other doctors a lot of the time when I go in for the routine visits. Yesterday I had one of the female doctors. This was part of our conversation we had:

Dr: "How are you doing?"

Me: "I am doing well."

Dr. "How is your baby doing? Have you felt her move?"

Me: (Thinking that is a silly question; of course I have felt her move. She is ALWAYS kicking me) "Yes. Definitely."

Dr.: "Do you feel her pretty regularly, then?"

Me: "Yes. Pretty much all the time."

Dr. "So she is pretty active, you would say?"

Me: "Um, I think so. I don't really have anything to compare to, but I think she is pretty active."

So we had that conversation. And then she took out her little ultrasound doppler tool thingy and tried to listen for her heart beat. She started the ultrasound right in the lower middle of my belly, and picked up the heart beat right away. However, she could only listen for a couple seconds, because Baby E had moved. So for the next several minutes, my doctor "chased" Baby E ALL over my belly. 

From the lower middle 

to the far right

to the upper middle

back down to the lower middle

to the far left

to the lower far left

Every time she picked up a heart beat, Baby E would decide to move somewhere else. Finally my doctor pretty much pinned her down, got the heart beat, and said, "Yes. You are right. You definitely have a very active little girl in there!" We then had a good laugh together about how crazy active Baby E was. It was fun :) 

Anyway, here is a picture from today. Not the best picture, but yah! Getting bigger! 

Please Don't Think We're Crazy

SO I have hesitated posting this in the last couple days because it is kind of embarrassing. But here it goes.

A few months ago, we moved into this BEAUTIFUL, BIG, NICE, FANCY apartment. We thought it would be fun to live here because we only had one year left in Rexburg, we had some "vacation money" to splurge a little with, and Bryce needed a room or two for his office. Well, ever since Bryce's company moved out of our apartment last week, our apartment has just felt too big and too excessive.

So we called our managers and asked if we could possibly down size (saving us money and helping us live a little simpler.. we just don't need a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment). Initially they said that if we wanted to do that, we would have had to live here for 6 months, which would mean that we wouldn't move until February. Since that will be pretty close to baby time, we decided that was out of the question. An hour or so later, we got another phone call from our managers saying that there is a family that really wants to move into a 3-bedroom apartment, but that they didn't have any 3 bedroom apartments left. So they told us that they would make an exception for us, and that we could move into a new 2 bedroom apartment in a couple weeks.

We thought about it for a bit. We realized it would save us a bunch of money to downsize. We also found out that the apartment we would move in to was on sale. And it was brand new - no one has lived in it yet. And we would only have to climb one set of stairs instead of two - (which I love, especially as I am getting bigger and bigger and I seriously hate making multiple trips up all those stairs with groceries.) But here was the main selling point for Bryce - our new apartment has a fireplace. He REALLY wanted the fireplace.

Anyway. So I am a little embarrassed that we are moving again. After only 3 months. Especially when we had so many people help us move in the first time. Luckily, we have significantly fewer things to move now that Bryce has moved his office out. We literally have 2 empty bedrooms at the moment. And luckily, we are only moving a stairwell over. And we can move over one room at a time and get everything nice and unpacked.

Anyway. Don't think we are crazy. I just hope we can get everything moved over and ready so that we can still come home for Thanksgiving!

Maura Software Update

So some BIG things have happened recently with Bryce's business. I can't really go in to all the details because some things are still in progress... but its big. Basically Maura Software is partnering with a pretty big marketing company in the Rexburg/Idaho Falls area. I won't say the name of the business right now just to keep the suspense in the air until things are finalized.  But Bryce is moving our business out of our apartment and moving into a new office space tomorrow because their partnering business has offered them a place for free until they actually start making consistent money. Basically, the business they are partnering with has a bunch of clients who need mobile apps developed for them, which is what Maura Software does. Pretty cool. I have never really seen my husband so excited, so that's pretty awesome.

Bryce's feelings: Excited and thrilled

My feelings: Excited and nervous

Bryce would love to have a company of his own. He finds it much more fulfilling than any other option. If he could get Maura Software to a point that it could support our family, he would probably do that over HP. He has really enjoyed working for HP and will continue to do so, and definitely still plans on working for them after he graduates. He just isn't 100% sure he wants to work on printers for the rest of his career. Bryce says that in 10 years, he hopes to have a super successful business of his own, or go work for Google, or maybe HP labs. We will see what happens 10 years from now. But for now, I am happy for my husband. Whether this is short term or long term, it is good to see him follow his dreams.

Disclaimer: Even though it makes me nervous, I will definitely support Bryce in his career endeavors. I have definitely put in my two cents in regards to wanting him to have a steady, stable job, whatever it is. And he knows my concerns. But ultimately, I know everything is going to work out just as it should. If nothing else, Maura software has given Bryce a TON of incredible experience as a software developer, which will be important in whatever company he ends up working for. Any company would be lucky to have Bryce as an employee... and Maura Software is obviously lucky to have Bryce as the Founder/CEO/Head Honcho Developer :)

Oh and in the meantime, I am excited to have our two extra rooms back (which were being used as office space for Bryce and all his co-workers). I am excited to have a storage room and now I can even start to get Baby E's room ready for her! Yay!