Pedicure

I have this wonderful, awesome friend Stephanie who as a "baby" present sent me cash to get a pedicure. So that while I am in the hospital I can at least have cute feet. I don't really know when the baby is coming but decided that this week was probably the best to get it done. I went yesterday to a little nail salon. It was great! Relaxing and completely different from anything I had ever experienced before. - My first pedicure. I'm not going to put a picture of my feet on the site. While, they look better than they did, I am not really a foot person and don't find them attractive by themselves. Anyway, a big
THANKS
to Stephanie, you're the best!

Still Waiting

Perhaps many of my faithful readers were hoping that this long absence between posts was not vindicative of my boring life, but rather because I had been laid up in the hospital for two days enjoying the birth of our next child. So was I.

However we are still waiting for our next son to be born. (I say that with 99% positivity, until he is born there is a chance that it could be a girl.) Its not like I am past my due date, September 2nd: 8 days to go. I am just ready to have the baby here, have my stomach not stick out 3 extra feet and be able to move a little quicker and with better balance.

I've already bought some newborn diapers, got all of our baby clothes out and ready to be used. I'm not quite finished packing the hospital bag. Lots of the things I need to take are things I'm still using. So I have to figure out how to make sure I remember it all when the time finally does come. Of course, if this labor is anything like last time I will have most of the day to wait for the contractions to get close enough that the hospital will admit me.

So right now my goal is to have patience. I don't want to be spending the next week plus just wishing that I were in the hospital having the baby and wondering if every time I get uncomfortable or am in a little pain if it is the start of my contractions. This post is sort of my good-bye to anxiety over when the baby is coming. The only thing I am not really sure how I will deal with is if the baby is late. My labor with Eli started exactly on my due date and he was born 30 minutes after the "date" was over. Technically you could say he was right on time. What I am going to do, or feel if Cochise is not quite so precise, I just don't know. I guess even then I'll just have to pray for patience.

High Speed Resignation

We haven't had too much going on these past few days. The most exciting thing luckily had nothing to do with us. A few days a go we heard sirens and the sound of tires squeeling. I was in the living room and saw a white car go speeding down the road with a police car following shortly thereafter. Morgan thinks that they had to be going at least 55mph. We found out from a nearby neighbor that they crashed not to much farther by running into a fire hydrant. The car had been stolen and the passenger was arrested for having a weapon on her. Craziness, craziness!

I have also decided/realized that I don't really like my haircut. The bob is just not for me. I told Morgan that it makes me feel sort of like Ramona Quimby (if you remember the books - she never looked very good on the cover.) I am almost tempted to go have it cut shorter but I don't think I will. Hopefully my hair won't take too long to grow out and it won't look quite like this for very long. Plus I'm not sure how I could have it cut so that it would look good without doing a lot of layers which will just make it take even longer to grow out again. I am resigned.

We are getting to know our ward better, or at least Morgan is. Several weeks ago an announcement was made in Elders Quorum asking for people to volunteer ideas and expertise for Young Men ideas. Once the Bar Exam was finished Morgan told them he could take them disc golfing. They set up the activity for this last Tuesday. It was a combined activity and Morgan said they had a lot of fun. (They picked up trash while they played to make it also a service activity.) I was happy to hear from Morgan that the girls played better than the boys. They paid attention and tried to get the form correct rather than just relying on brute strength and were able to out throw the boys and get some good distance.

Today Morgan is with the Young Men/Scouts again. When he was talking with the leaders on Tuesday they mentioned that they needed another adult to come with them today to Minneapolis for an activity at an amusement park. Morgan was already planning on doing some cleaning and help people move with the Elders Quorum. The Young Men called him the next day and told him they couldn't find anyone else and asked if he would come.

The funny thing is, is that Morgan probably would have rather stayed here. They left at 6am and don't expect to get back until 11pm. He was asked to drive since our van gets good gas mileage (so no sleeping during the travel). And he doesn't really care for amusement/water parks. If he had stayed he would have done some work, but he also probably would have gone disc golfing. I'm sure that he will have had fun and gotten to know the young men and their leaders better.

Well I need to go, the banana bread is beeping and it won't go off until I push the button.

Toddler Bed

With the new baby coming Morgan has wanted to get Eli a toddler bed. I think the reason that he has been so interested in this is so that the baby can have the crib and not have an excuse for him to be in our room in the basinet for very long.
This last Saturday we decided to check out the local garage sales. We had a list of things that we wouldn't mind buying if they were cheap - and yes the toddler bed was on that list. Everywhere we went was pretty disappointing. We did find some board books for Eli and a folding chair for Morgan to take disc golfing. And finally at the last place we stopped we saw a toddler bed.
The family had only had girls, and at first glance the bed does look like it belongs to a girl, but the price was right so we decided to buy it.
Morgan spent some time Saturday afternoon cleaning it off and then we set it up in Eli's bedroom and put his crib mattress in it. He slept great that night. When we went in the next morning to check on him he was just playing in his room.
Sunday's nap time didn't work so well. He stayed in his room but I don't know if he slept at all. We weren't too concerned about this because we try to put him down earlier than usual on Sundays because of our church time and he never really seems to do well. Sunday night he slept great again.
And now today....well its nap time and I think he might be sleeping. It took about 10 minutes of us telling him to go back into his room and lie down but I think Morgan finally convinced him to try to sleep. Hopefully this will be a smooth transition. Now that we are doing it I am glad that this is happening before the baby gets here - one less thing I have to do on less sleep.

New Couch

Ever since we moved to Iowa we wanted to get a nice full-size couch. We've got the room for it now in our new place and so we decided to keep our eyes open to the classifieds and garage sales. Last week Morgan was looking on CraigsList and found a full-size couch, and a recliner on sale. We made an appointment to check them out and while we were there the man selling them said he'd throw in another recliner as well. We took the bait and bought it. Our living room seems so much nicer now. For one thing, the couch is more comfortable than the loveseat we have and now we feel like we can entertain people and have somewhere for them to sit. Come on over!

Short Attention Span?

Growing up and learning about kids, being in nursery, and being a Mom everyone always seems to talk about how little kids have very short attention spans. They just fly from one thing to the next so you've got to be ready with a million things to divert or grab their attention. There is definitely some truth to this statement.
However I have learned that a short attention span does not mean a short memory - at least in Eli. The other day we bought some plastic stacking rings. Mostly for the new baby but thought that Eli would probably check them out as well. He desperately wanted to play with them that night, but it was bedtime so we told him he could play with them tomorrow. The next morning the first thing he says is Down, tomorrow and then runs to the rings and says - Open.
Things like this seem to happen all of the time. If he asks for candy at breakfast and we tell him he can have some after his nap - the first thing he does once he wakes up is run to the candy jar. Morgan told him that they would throw discs "later," we go busy Eli was exhausted so we were going to put him down to bed but he started saying, Disc, disc. So outside the boys went to throw some discs for a while. (We are trying to keep our promises to him, so we couldn't put it off another day.)
Anyway - the moral of this story is just because kids may have a short attention span that doesn't mean they won't remember you said they could go do something fun just because you've got them distracted for the moment.

Bob

I wanted to get my hair cut before this baby was born since I knew that afterwards my time would be a little more constricted...not to mention Morgan heading back to work full time. So today I decided just to hit the local Cost Cutters and get it done.
I was getting tired of layers so I decided to get my first bob in who knows how many years. It is nice to have it all one layer so it can grow out better. My current goal for my hair is to let it grow out to the length it was when Morgan and I were dating/got married. It will be a long process. I haven't really messed around with styling it yet but I think that this will be a nice change for me once I get used to the feel of it on my neck.

I'm a Slacker

The entire month of July I'm depressed because I can't update my website since it isn't working. I finally get a blog so I can do updates and all of the sudden I don't feel like I have anything to blog about. Nothing is really happening in my life. I am just waiting for this baby to come. Morgan is playing disc golf when he can. Eli is getting into things as usual.
We haven't really spent any time with anyone up here in Waterloo so it is just the three of us. We did invite a family over for dinner Sunday night, and that was nice. But there aren't any Relief Society activities scheduled for this month because people are getting ready for school to start so they don't want to add craziness to anyones' lives. I could use some craziness in my life right now.
We haven't been able to play games much so I have been playing Civilization II on the computer when I get a chance. It almost satisfies my craving for games but with the computer in the basement and Eli wanting to be all "up-ons" I don't play it too often (although a lot more than I used to.) I have also decided to read the entire series of Twilight books to give me something to do. I bought the 4th book but won't start it until I finish the other three. I'm already on book 2 and I've only been reading for a week or so.
Anyway - this post is mostly me spewing off what is in my mind, but I felt frustrated that I didn't have anything better to write about so there you have it.