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Oh hey there, new tiny human!

Oh how the time flies! I don't even know where to start with all that has happened since the last post.  I've taken several hundred pictures with my phone, so I'll use those to help me remember everything!

I woke up to contractions at 6:30am two days after my due date.  

Just checked in and slightly freaking out! I spent the 17 hours of labour reading and playing games on my Kindle and wishing that I had brought in more food. 

Eleanor was born late on December 21st.  She didn't cry at all-- just opened her eyes and looked around.  Plenty of crying has come since then, though ;)  She was 6lbs 2oz and 19.5" long.

My parents were here for a bit too, which was fun!

Zoe has been pretty great with her!  The first several days she was just super curious and wound up, but she has calmed down a lot and just sniffs and tries to lick her.  I think they'll be extra good friends once Eleanor is throwing food on the ground.

...when there's "no room", she makes room.  Zoe takes advantage of my lap when there isn't a baby in it! 

Right after Christmas Sam's side of the family all came up to visit, too! We had a little baby shower (thanks girls!) and just hung out for a few days. (You guys need to come back! It went by too fast!)

Eleanor will only sleep if you hold her, so we've taken up residence on the couch most of the time.  

She's pretty small still, and even newborn size clothes are a bit baggy.  She's too long for preemie clothes, so she just swims in them a bit.

Here she is making up for not crying when she was born...

Looking glamourous with the carrier wrap. It keeps her happy while I make (futile) attempts to get chores done.

Jennifer also came for a visit!  I got to gather some wisdom from her experience with her own kids. 

Eleanor kept us entertained with her funny faces.

This picture kind of captures the gong show that sometimes occurs in the middle of the night.  Since the newborn pjs were too big, she kept getting her foot stuck in the crotch and choking herself when she kicked-- so here she is screaming, half naked, diaper falling off.  We're so competent!

Another favourite face-- so serious!

We sure love our curious, strong, snuggly, wonderful baby!

Hairy baby!

We're coming in on the homestretch with baby girl!  There are 5 weeks until the due date, which feels pretty unbelievable!  My fundal height was measuring small, so I went in for an extra ultrasound this week.  Great White shark baby is on the small side, but no reason to worry! Both Sam and I were/are small too, and all of the other stats are really good.  It was also fun to see that she already has hair on her head-- I LOVE newborn baby hair! I wasn't surprised, considering how much hair I had:

Sam was pretty hairy too!

Since she's small, I'm wondering if this means that she might come later than the due date in order to grow a bit more.  While I'm obviously excited to meet her, I'm in no hurry, really-- she's safe and cozy in there, and I have soooo much to do still.  We haven't even purchased a car seat yet!  Not to mention that I have a ton of things that I want to sew and crochet for her.  And not to gloat, but I've had a crazy easy pregnancy so far.  I can handle several more weeks.  I just hope that simplicity carries on through delivery and her temperament :)

(People have been asking if we're registered anywhere for baby stuff.  There's a link in the sidebar to the registry list!)

September in Pictures

First day of law school! 

Gross Fabulous bathroom shot after a run.  I get Braxton Hicks contractions on every run now. Very distracting!

Miss Zoe looooves playing in the water!

27 weeks- when my parents came to visit!

Playing with some friends at the new dog park right behind our apartment!

Annnnd please don't judge me, but I was testing out my crochet skills on a dog sweater and hat.  Zoe was a good sport and let us dress her up.  Don't worry, we're not actually going to make her wear it ;)

Mom and Dad White and Anya came to visit, along with Oreo and Bandit.  I was very impressed with how nice Zoe was with the little dogs. She's a bit clumsy and walked right over them a few times-- but she didn't react or flinch at all to getting bit and yapped at. She seriously has the best temperament!

My dogchild.

I was on Skype with my family last week, and I realized how much I was just going on and on about Zoe.  She's like our dogchild.  So I'm sorry if you don't care for dogs, or pets in general, and if my overload of Instagram pictures and status updates about our pooch are just super boring to you!  Hey, if human babies are more your thing, I'm sure there will be a buttload of those coming up, too.

I've been dying to get a dog for a long time.  Having grown up with dogs, I really missed being around them when I went away to university!  The entire time I've lived in Utah I've tried to find dog-friendly apartments, but I never could.  But when we decided to move to Washington, I was pretty thrilled to discover how dog-friendly it is!

Last month it was finally time to pick out a new friend!  I looked online for a few specific dogs that I wanted to meet, and we headed to the animal shelter to take a look around  There we found Zoe-- and boy, am I glad we did!  She makes for great company when Sam is gone all day/working and studying all night.  I feel a lot safer having her here, too.  She loves to come on runs and hikes with me, which is exactly what I have been hoping for!  She can be super goofy when we play (and is a really messy eater!) and a perfect snuggle buddy, too.  Love this dog!  She's a total sweetheart, and a lot of fun!

This is the picture the shelter put online.  That cute tongue stood out to me! She loves the water, but is still learning how to swim when she can't touch the ground!

Such a happy dog! 

She loves to watch people out the window.

We take her swimming at the lake. She plays (and sleeps) hard! She has a lot of dreams when she sleeps- growling, barking, moving her legs like she's running, snoring...

We've had a few thunderstorms, and she likes to watch out the window!  She just plops down in our laps when she gets the chance! Doesn't mind thunder... But scared of garbage bags! 

We've got a kicker!

I've been feeling Great White Shark Baby kicking for just a little over a week now, and holy smokes, this kid is active! I first felt it when I poked my stomach to see if GWSB would poke back, and they did!  If I have my laptop on my lap, I'm leaning against the counter, or leaning forward in my chair, GWSB gets especially aggressive and gives a bunch of jabs to get some space back.  There's also some activity throughout the day and when I first get in bed. It feels kind of creepy, but I love it.

In case anyone is wondering, I call it GWSB because fetuses look like baby sharks early on, and I really dislike the usual fetus nicknames.  Shark baby is way cooler.

Today I had the first Dr. appointment up here in Washington, and once again, it was a little hard to get a good heart rate reading because GWSB would start kicking the doppler and swimming away whenever we got close. Then later today I got to go back for an anatomy scan (FINALLY!).  It was so weird to both feel and see the kicking, punching,  and stretching (and flipping off)!  We got to see a 3D image, too-- of the face smushed as far into a corner as it would go.  Silly baby.  Everything looks great physically (thankfully!) and I'm measuring right on schedule for December 19th still.  Halfway there!

Patience and Timing

I'm not a very patient person, while Sam is extremely patient.  It's almost agonizing for me sometimes when he is so easy-going, while I'm hardly able to sit still.  He's more about letting things come naturally, while if I want something, I go do it myself now- and not always when the timing is best :) Our differences make us stronger together, since we end up balancing each other out! He helps me slow down a bit, while I give him a kick in the pants once in a while!

Sam and I started trying to have kids a long time ago-- while I was still finishing up school.  It was exciting, and I kind of assumed that it would just happen right away.  This was because we had both felt a confirmation that it was the next step for us.  It was the right thing to do.

Months passed with nothing happening.  No worries-- it can take up to a year for a healthy couple to conceive.  When nine months hit, I  couldn't help but think about how I would have had a baby already if it had just happened right away.  At one point I had a cycle that lasted over 90 days (which was over three times longer than it "should" have been), but all urine tests were negative.  Eventually I went to the doctor for a blood test, but a few days later the nurse let me know that it had been negative as well.  What the heck was going on?

One of the hardest aspects of waiting was seeing other people seemingly easily get what I could have had already.  People who had gotten married after we had started trying already had their babies- or were even pregnant with their second!  I felt so guilty for feeling any sort of hurt or jealousy over the fortune of others.  It's not like because they had a baby it was keeping me from having my own.

A year of trying came and went.  I was so confused, because I knew that it was what we were supposed to be doing.  My impatience was getting harder to fight.  My patriarchal blessing makes it clear that I would have children in this life, but now I was wondering if that would need to be many years in the future when we could afford expensive infertility treatment or adoption.  Doubts arose about if I was doing something wrong that was preventing this blessing from coming.  Then I figured it was my fault that it wasn't happening because I was being so impatient, or for other weaknesses I have.  Fortunately, while Sam was also concerned about what might be going on, he was so faithful that things would work out.  He reminded me that the Lord doesn't expect us to be perfect as a precursor for blessings.

People started hinting (not very subtly) that they were "wondering where those babies were" and "what we were waiting for".  Oh, how I wish I had an answer to that myself.  Sometimes I felt like yelling, "you know what, we're doing our best, get off of my back!".  Little did they know how much time I had spent crying, praying, and poring over books and articles.  I don't blame them-- people are just curious-- but I was thinking about "where those babies were" enough myself without being reminded by other people.

I finally got in with my doctor to try to get to the bottom of what was going on.  Long story short, it was because of something physically wrong with me, and he had me start some medication that was likely to help.  If it didn't, we could try more extreme methods.

While in the midst of receiving treatment was when I first started mentioning to people the challenge having a baby was turning out to be.  Mere days later, I finally got that positive pregnancy test!  It felt like how when you're having computer troubles and you complain about it, the second somebody comes to take a look it starts working again.  I swear it wasn't working a minute ago!

Because it took so dang long (in my impatient eyes) to get pregnant in the first place, I've been hyper paranoid about something going wrong.  Every ultrasound makes me anxious, even though there is no real reason to worry at this point.  It still doesn't feel completely real.  I guess I'm just not completely convinced that there's actually going to be a baby around here, come December!  Once it does hit, it will probably be like a ton of (happy) bricks!

While all of this was a struggle, the most important thing that I've been reminded of is that the Lord has a WAY better sense of timing than I do.  I can make all of the plans I want, but He knows what is truly best for my family!  Regardless of what other trials are to come, God knows what will make us the strongest we can be, and the best tools in His hands.

We're not going to be homeless!

Before I get to the main topic of this post-- I had a prenatal appointment today.  We just did a doppler to check the heart beat, but it was interesting still.  It took a while to find the heartbeat, because the sharkbaby kept swimming around to avoid the microphone, and giving it a few good kicks every time the doctor got close!  We've got a mover.  I might be in for some sore ribs once I can actually feel it happening, haha.

When we went up to Washington in March, we checked out a lot of apartments.  On our first day in Spokane, we found several really nice apartments for pretty good prices.  A manager at one of the complexes recommended that we check out a place in southern Spokane, so we decided to go take a look right before going to see the temple and heading back to Utah.  I put the address, and noticed that it looked pretty close to the temple!  We soon realized that it was literally right across the street!    How lucky is that?

We went in to talk to a manager, and she showed us around the complex.  It. Was. Amazing.  Brand new, great layouts, nice fitness center/tanning/pool, movie theatre, 54 acres of private hiking trails, barbeque and fire pit, and working on building the largest dog park in the northwest...  Plus, right across the street from the temple.

The price at this place was a lot higher than other complexes, but it was also a heck of a lot more awesome than anywhere else we saw.  The manager said that the prices change all the time, and to watch the rates.  The weird thing about housing up there is that you have to wait until like a couple of weeks before moving to actually reserve anywhere.  Very different from Provo!  So now that we're three weeks from moving, and the rates have been pretty low, we've locked in a place!

I'm pretty stoked.  The apartment is even on the ground floor, so I can probably do furniture projects right outside my door, and not have to climb stairs with a baby+dog+groceries+stroller+who knows what else.

Meanwhile, I have about two weeks to finish the many projects that I have started.  There's just so much that I want to do!! Building and painting and sewing is just so much more fun than packing :)  Once everything is in place in the new apartment, I'll post better pictures of the new pad!

Seattle, here we come!!

Sam got accepted to Seattle University today!  I was also the first one to find out, due to a convenient order of events.

When I got home from work I decided to play a trick on Sam.  I took a screenshot of his desktop, set it to the background, then hid all of his icons and task bar.  Thus, it would seem like nothing he clicked on would work. Sneaky sneaky!  But, he has a double monitor, so I had to have something open on the one screen so that it didn't look weird, etc, etc... Long story short, I opened up Chrome, and I saw that he had an email from Seattle University.

Um, yeah, sue me for not being able to wait to open that one.

I was so excited that I literally started jumping up and down; "Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!!!".  Then I went and grabbed a roll of blue streamers-- the only celebratory item we had on hand-- and strung it up around the door.  I went to grab my phone, since I couldn't wait to talk to Sam, but it had randomly turned off (which is does all the time. Piece of crap!) and takes like 5 minutes to turn on.  It finally turned on, and I had a missed called from him.  I got scared that he had already seen, because I really wanted to see his reaction when he got the news.  But he was just wondering if I was coming to get him.

Oh, yeah... I forgot about how I was supposed to pick him up. Which meant that I wouldn't actually be able to get outside because of all the streamers.  Bad call on my part!

I was going to wait until we got home to get him to check the email, but I blurted it out that he needed to look now.  

So now we're pretty happy campers around here!  We're still waiting to hear back from the University of Washington and Gonzaga.  To be honest, Gonzaga is very much a back-up school, and even though UW is the highest ranked of the three, SU is the one I like the most in terms of environment/location/fit...  But I'm not the one who has to take classes, so we don't know for sure yet.  But it's really great to know that we for sure are going to end up in Seattle very soon!

Glassesface, who are all these people, and exciting news!

I very rarely wear glasses.  It's very hard for me to find glasses that don't look funny on my face.  Nothing against my face-- but that's just the way it is.  I do have a pair that are ok, but they are so old that they have the wrong prescription in them, and they've been bent so out of shape that I can't fix them. Also I'm pretty sure one of my ears is much lower than the other, because even when I got them straightened out at the optometrist office, they looked wonky.

Since it has been so long since I've tried wearing glasses, I decided to venture out and try to find some that didn't make me look crazy, drunk, etc.  What I did was go to a bunch of expensive stores and try on their fancy designer glasses, and then wrote down the product codes so that I could find them online and see if I could get them cheaper. The ones I liked were still WAY expensive online, but some glasses-connoisseurs I know recommended Zenni Optical.  Jackpot! Pretty much I just found the frames most like the ones I had tried on and liked, and then order them for $10-20 instead of $$$$$.  Out of the three I bought, I actually love two of them, which I was quite amazed by.

Anyway, here is my favourite pair.  I took these pictures in my bathroom (FOR SHAME!). 

I'm still pretty sure my ears are crooked.

I don't wear bright red lipstick on a regular basis (hence I made a dumb face in the picture since I felt silly), but tonight was Young Women in Excellence so I figured I'd try to be fancy even though my hair was up in a nanny-bun.  I wish that I had better/more pictures of the room, because the ladies who decorated it did SO WELL.  Never has a Primary room looked so good.  I hope somebody else got some good shots of it! I missed the lanterns, chandeliers, fancy banquet table, and all the neatest stuff! Here's the only picture I got:

Look at all those girls! And that's not even all of them!  I'm still not even close to keeping all of them straight D:  I need to creep around and get picture of all of them so that I can study or something.

On to the MOST EXCITING NEWS OF ALL!!! I guess that only those who stuck through bathroom shots and random girls they don't know get to find out ;D 

..........................................

Sam is heading to grad school! Law school, to be precise. But wait! There's more! He has been studying his butt off for the LSAT, which is the test you have to take to get into law school. This whole time he has been hoping and trying for a 165, but wasn't super confident that he would be able to get it.  Well, thanks to hard work and some prayers, and after a stupid month of just waiting around to get the results, he got a 167, which is the 94th percentile.  All was happy around our house when we got those results.

Right now he's working on applying to schools.  We want to end up in either Seattle or Spokane. Neither of us have even been to Washington, but it's where we feel we need to go.  From what I can tell, anyway, it seems like the ideal state.  The climate is just how we like it.  There are endless running and hiking trails in gorgeous Waterton-esque mountains.  There is fresh local food and art aplenty in the many farmers' markets.  They aren't dog-haters like Utah is and there are a TON of apartments that allow dogs (FIRST THING I'm doing when we move is going to a shelter and getting a big four-legged friend).  They also just legalized marijuana, apparently, so that's cool I guess.

We're planning on staying in Utah for several more months just trying to pay off all of our undergraduate student debt.  Then we're selling most of our furniture, packing up, and heading north!  Unfortunately, instead of being 12 hours from Alberta, we're going to be 12 hours from Alberta and Utah.

It's exciting to be moving on to a new stage of life-- or rather, the repeated stage of going to school... But at least it's in a new place! 

Broiled Parmesan Tilipia

Tilapia is my favourite fish.  It has fanastic flavour without being too fishy-- because we all know seafood tastes best when it doesn't taste like seafood, right? It's also a very quick and easy recipe, but tastes like you put a whole lot of work into it.

Broiled Parmesan Tilapia

• 1/4 c Parmesan cheese
• 2 T butter, softened
• 2 T mayonnaise
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1/8 t dried basil
• 1/8 t ground black pepper
• 1/4 t onion powder
• 2 6oz tilapia fillets

Place your oven rack in the highest position, and preheat to a broil. Grease a broiling pan.
Stir together the cheese, butter, mayonnaise, and lemon juice.  Add basil, pepper, and onion powder.
Place fillets in a single layer on the broiling pan.  Broil for 2 minutes.  Flip and broil for another 2 minutes.  Spoon mixture onto the fish and broil for another two minutes, or until fish flakes with a fork and topping is slightly browned. Do not overcook!

The happiest calling of all.

This last Sunday I got a new church calling in my ward!  I am now... The Young Women secretary!  For anyone who is wondering what the heck I'm talking about, that means that I have been asked to help with the 12-18 year old girls who are in my church congregation.  I'll be in charge of the record keeping items, as well as helping to organize mid-week activities and teach Sunday lessons now and then.

When I was asked if I would be willing to do this, I exclaimed quite enthusiastically and had a really dumb, happy look on my face.

Bishop: We would like to call you as the Young Women secretary.

Me: Oh, yeah! That's like my dream calling!
Bishop: ...so is that a yes?

I had an amazing experience in YW.  I credit that to an awesome group of girls, as well as absolutely fantastic leaders.  I lucked out and had a relatively small group of girls who also loved adventurous and outdoorsy things, were freaking hilarious, and got along pretty well (as far as I know!).  Our leaders were equally fun, adventurous, wise, and inspiring.

Because of this, I'm both excited and nervous.  I know how great YW can be, but also how crucial.  It's a really important time of life for those girls, and having a good example and companionship from those around them can make a big difference.  The other intimidating part is that there are 46 girls in my ward. That's HUGE compared to the, what, 15 that my ward had.  I'm also not very good with names and faces.  One time I took a university compiled facial recognition test and I failed miserably. The test told me that I might have an actual cognitive disability with recognizing faces. So there you go. It's going to be tough trying to keep up with everything and everyone, but thankfully I will have the Lord's help in discerning their needs and learning what I need to!

I hope that I can help give these girls a positive experience in YW. If I can do even half as well as my leaders did, I'll be satisfied.  Fortunately I was in there only 4 years ago, so maybe I can get my brain to flashback to those years and remember what it was I needed to hear back then, and share it with them.  Maybe I can also bring the joy of Screaming Ninjas and Snipe Hunting to these lovely girls.

I'm pretty sure one of them ran into a glass door shortly after this picture.

We were supposed to do something cultured. So we decided to wear togas and do art...

...but then this happened.

"...I'm peeing"

And running downhill made us laugh so hard Michelle totally bit it.

**If any of you are embarrassed by these pictures, too bad, because you should know that I have 10x worse on my old laptop but I'm too lazy to go find it.