Good Mothers Play Mozart

I am perfectly aware that I am the only person on Earth that still likes boybands. I also know that a normal person would be embarrassed to even admit that, and although it's not something I tell people often, it is not something I'm ashamed of. In fact, boybands are one of my favorite things in life! 

Having put that out there, everyone knows that when you have something you really love you need to share it with others. Therefore, my -10 week old daughter is getting an early dose of Big Time Rush and Nsync as we speak. I know, good mothers who care about their child's development play things like Mozart because supposedly it will make them smarter. If that's the case I am probably setting my child up to be held back a few years in school.

Oh and there's more. I left out that the other kind of music that brings joy to my soul is Country. Could there be a more terrible combination? The two things most people think no one should like... I guess I'm corrupting my daughter from the beginning. Hopefully she's very resilient and can bounce back from the horrible things I'm putting her through.

But just to make it clear that this isn't completely my fault, my love for country music comes from my mom who played things like Garth Brooks and John Michael Montgomery from the time I was very young. In fact the earliest memory I have of having a favorite song was "The Thunder Rolls". I realized a couple years ago how messed up it is for a preschooler to have a song about a woman finding out her husband is cheating on her, so she goes and shoots him, as her favorite song. So really a lot of this comes from my own mom, not me. So maybe it's not that bad... 

Baby Update!!

Last Tuesday morning we had another ultrasound, and it was a good one. First I noticed how much bigger she looks. It's so cool seeing her go from that tiny little thing that barely showed in the first ultrasound, to seeing her take up the whole screen. As we were looking at her the doctor said that she was being very photogenic! He got some good pictures of her. He did them in 3D so when we were done with the appointment we got a pretty good look at her. The first feature I noticed was that her little nose is sort of pointed up. You know who else's nose is pointed up? Hint: not Daddy's :) But then we noticed the lips. They look huge! That's another thing she didn't get from her Daddy and especially not her Mommy...

But this is just an ultrasound. We'll just have to wait and see... I hate when people try to determine how a baby will look from ultrasound pictures....or even from the first couple months of life. Maybe my feelings will change when I actually see her. (Obviously I was open to analyzing these pictures, so I must not be as anti as I think I am).

Also, In my second ultrasound I was told she has some attitude. I fully believe this after months of her kicking and beating me from the inside, until someone else wants to feel her kick, and then she suddenly decides she's too tired to move... Well anyway, now that I have been told my baby has attitude, is photogenic, and has a stuck up nose, should I be a little worried?? That might not be the most delightful combination.... What did I get myself into? I'm just joking, I'm sure my baby will be wonderful!! And I am so excited to have her!

How to not be a bum, and four things I love!

Lately I've been kind of a bum. My life is filled with things to be grateful for, yet I've ignored them and been, like I said, a bum. I've felt my heart closing off to other people, I don't think of what's going on in other people's lives, and I've felt pretty ugly. I've been selfish, and lazy when it comes to the gospel.

Noticing that I am not being the way I want to be, tonight at work when I was the only one there I decided to watch a video I remembered one of my friends had posted on facebook.



Watching this helped soften my heart a little bit, and made me look for more things to lift me up. I went to Mormon.org and watched about an hour's worth of the "I'm a Mormon" videos. I had never watched one of those before and now I think they might be the coolest videos ever. It was so inspiring to hear simple stories from all different types of people who all have the same beliefs as I do. It was amazing, and was really what I needed at that time.

On my walk to my car I thought "If nothing else, being a Latter Day Saint lifts you up when you are down. It really does make me happier!" and I noticed I smiled more. Then as I was driving I thought of a few things I really love, without even meaning to! As I was thinking about these things more just kept coming to me, and  when I got home I thought of even more. It is amazing how once your heart is open to feel God's love, it seems to pour into your life.

Here are four things I am grateful for today.

1. While I was driving home the smell of the air in the canyon was coming through the vents and I could smell it almost the entire way home. This smell is one of my very favorite scents! In case you don't know what the canyon air smells like, it's clean, pure, and smells like the most amazing mix of moutain trees and plants. The wind blows it though Logan canyon in the mornings as I walk across campus and I love it!  The real reason I love it is because it's the smell of girls camp (Oakcrest really), and Prineville, OR in the summer. 

2. Every day I get to drive past Mantua Lake. Although I pretend to hate everything about Mantua, there are a lot of things I LOVE about it. When I first started college my favorite part of driving home was coming around that curve where the canyon opens to Mantua and you see the first part of the lake. It's gorgeous! I love seeing that lake as I drive. It is one of my very favorite sites and I get it everytime I go to and from work.

3. I love that as I am writing this, John called me and asked me to bring something to him that he forgot when he left for work. Since he's been working nights, and I'm doing days I have felt very lonely, and today I wouldn't have gotten to see him at all if it weren't for him forgetting that. Every time so far that I've thought I won't get to see him at all, something has come up and I've gotten to be with him for a couple minutes. It's a small, but wonderful blessing!

4. Walking down the hall into my bedroom is the funnest thing I get to do right now. (I know exactly how sad that sounds, but just wait). It's great because I get a glimpse of the basically empty room next to mine and John's. All this other room has in it is a huge box, some ugly shelves, and an empty crib. I love seeing this because I know in just a couple of months that room won't be so empty! Seeing the crib gets me so excited! I am so excited for my baby to be here, but I don't want to rush it. I want to treasure this time while I get ready for her. That is why I love seeing that empty crib.

Good Fortune For John...

Today John and I went to a Chinese buffet with his family. At the end of dinner the cute little waitress brought out a big pile of fortune cookies. I took one and was very excited by my upcoming luck. It said "You will move to a wonderful new home within the year." How cool is that?! Not that I can complain about where we live now, but unless you already live in your dream house then that is exciting no matter who you are. Filled with my joy I excitedly asked John what his said. He read "A thrilling time is in store for you." I thought that was exciting too, but apparently he didn't. I can't remember what he said about it, but he was less than thrilled about the thrilling time that awaits him. So he decided that particular fortune wasn't good enough and had us pull another one from the pile for him. This is where the beauty of Chinese fortune cookies comes. The second one said "If you don't enjoy what you have, how could you be happier with more?" Um, can you say perfect? Hopefully next time he won't try to push his fortune cookie fate.

So Many Blessings

As I've been reminded many times over the past 6 months, it has been a long time since I last blogged. Well I finally have some new inspiration. I have some awesome news to share, but I will get to that in a minute. My real inspiration came during conference last week. President Uchtdorf said "use your hands” to blog and text message the gospel to all the world!". "with the blessings of modern technology, we can express gratitude and joy about God’s great plan for His children in a way that can be heard not only around our workplace but around the world. Sometimes a single phrase of testimony can set events in motion that affect someone’s life for eternity." When I heard this I thought of all the blogs I have read that express gratitude and beautiful testimonies of all that our Heavenly Father has given them, and I thought, "I can (and need to) do that!" I don't think I have anything truly profound to say, and I doubt it will get any further than Utah, but here it is anyway. 

Over the past year (and my entire life) I have been blessed with so much! First of all I was blessed to be married to the true love of my life in the Temple, my highest goal in this life. John is a wonderful man, and an amazing husband! He loves me so much and he lets me know it everyday! And having the blessings of the Temple in our home brings the most incredible comfort to my life! Being able to go there brings so much peace, even when times are hard. 

So many people talk about the first year of marriage being hard, and although I wouldn't say it's the easiest thing I've ever done, it really hasn't been that hard for us! We have been blessed with a great place to live, two cars that work, jobs that pay for our needs, support from our amazing family members, great neighbors, good health, food, clothes, I could go on for hours! And now on top of everything else we have a sweet baby girl on the way!!! We are so excited! Yesterday I got to have an ultrasound that was specifically set to check her anatomy. It was so cool to see everything from her fingers and toes to the four chambers of her heart beating. So far she is healthy and growing! We even did a 3D ultrasound so I could see her better. While we did that her hands were up by her face and she kept moving her fingers just like she was waving at me! It was adorable! I can't wait to see her for real and be able to hold her and take care of her! 

Although there have been a lot of worries that have come over the past few months about jobs and medical bills, and how everything is going to work out now that we have our baby to care for, things keep moving along. As much as I get discouraged sometimes, things still seem to work out. Heavenly Father's plan is amazing, and I know that whatever is best for us is exactly what is going to happen. And that is just one more thing I have to be so grateful for!

This might be one of my best posts ever. Please read.

Saturday evening I participated (as the photographer) in a de-horning. Yes, that's right, a de-horning, and no, I don't know if that's a word. John, his brothers, and his dad all worked together to take the horns off a calf. First his dad lassoed (I didn't know people other than cowboys did that) the calf so they could take him away from his massive, fully grown steer friend. While they did this John got caught in the rope and almost lost his leg. Then they pulled him with the four wheeler into some little thingy that would hold him in one place (not John, the cow). After that they took their nifty cow de-horner tool and chopped his horns off! (I have been told that the blood can shoot up to 10 feet when they do this. Thankfully for my stomach it didn't squirt this time) All the while the calf is mooing and we (my sister-in-law and I) had to make sure the big cow (with BIG horns) didn't decide to be a good friend and come take us out. After they chopped the little suckers off we had to wait for him to stop bleeding. While we waited, the dreadful time came and the big cow did start acting like he was coming to help his buddy out. We got pretty scared and had to start chucking the babies over the barbed wire fence so they would be safe. (Not really, we carefully helped all the little kids over). But in the end we didn't have to worry because John got the gate closed so the large bovine couldn't get to us, the calf was released with his newly hornless head, and everyone was happy. I got a lot of pictures, for posterity, as my mother-in-law requested, my nephew Hyrum got a new toy (one of the recently removed pieces of cow head), and John got out with both his legs. What a good day.

the wii.

So John and I have been talking about someday getting a Wii since we were engaged, but we've never really been ready to actually buy one. Until like two weeks ago when he decided that he could no longer go on living without owning a Wii. I tried to push it off as long as I could but when he started making comments to other people like "Yeah we don't want to waste the money on a Wii right now. We think it would be a lot better to save the money." I knew things were getting out of hand. Because what he was actually saying was "KRISTI doesn't want a Wii. SHE thinks we should be boring and never spend money. KRISTI IS EVIL." I can't have that. So one night he said maybe tonight we should go buy our Wii. So we did. And it's a good thing too because look how much fun he's having with it.