Year in Review--2012

It's the end of another year!  We had a wonderful Christmas, which I documented with approximately zero pictures, but I did steal this one from my mom's phone.

Our visit was way too short, but one fun thing was that we found out the gender of our baby the day before we went to Idaho.  We are having a girl.  I was so happy I may have cried in the ultrasound tech's office.  We would have loved a boy too, but I can't even wait for a cute little girl!  I'm not big on belly pictures.  I'm never particularly photogenic, and what no one tells you about pregnancy is besides a cute little baby bump you also get cute little muffin top, but yesterday marked the halfway point of my pregnancy, so I snapped a quick shot.  This is me at 20 weeks pregnant with our baby girl.

On to the actual point of this post-- 2012 in Review.  It was a big year for Erik and me.  This is what we have been up to during the last 12 months.

January:  In January I turned 22.  I love my birthday more than any adult should, and I'm lucky to be surrounded by people who put up with that.  My parents got me an Iphone so I could document my free birthday cookie.  My birthday is also the day that we went and saw our new house for the first time.

This is the birthday quilt.  You get to use it the week of your birthday.  My mom mailed it to me from Idaho

February:  In February I out-ate a bunch of NFL linemen.   Football season ended, which makes February one of my favorite months of the year.

March:  In March we were knee deep in the house buying process.  I also traveled with the cheerleaders for the state basketball tournament. I also ran over a rock in our driveway.  It was weird, I don't really want to talk about it.

April: In April my mom came to help us move across town.  We got a lot of great help from both our old ward and our new ward, and we worked my poor mother to exhaustion.  However we got all our boxes unpacked, all our furniture arranged, and most of our wall hangings up in a weekend, so that was great.

We also went on a cruise to Bahamas in April.  It was so fun.  Moving is really stressful and it was nice to get away from moving stuff as well as the cold weather for a week.  The food was yummy and plentiful, the weather was warm, and the karaoke was awful.  All in all, a pretty perfect trip. 

May: In May I had my Spring piano recital, finished up my year at Head Start, and completed my second semester in the MPA program.  My family came up the last weekend in May for a relaxing few days of yardwork and home improvement projects.  I loved having them, but I had to resort to having a baby to get them to come back.  Erik and his buddy Travis did a great job building and installing our home theater. 

June:  The business entered its busy season and I saw a little less of Erik.  I hosted my first Princess Camp and found my true calling in life.  Alex and Emily came to visit us.

July:  July was a really fun month.  My darling friend Heather came to visit us, and I went to Idaho for Emily's bridal shower and kept moving south to Utah for Alex and Emily's wedding openhouse.  While I was in Utah I saw Chris and Beez and Larissa and went to my mom's family's family reunion. Erik traveled to Denver on a business trip and got to see a lot of his college friends.  At the end of the month Erik and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary and Erik's 28th birthday.

August: In August Erik and I traveled to Virginia for my brother's wedding.  We hung out a couple days and spent some time in Washington DC.  We had a great time.

August is rodeo season in these parts.  For one week a year I get Cowboy Erik.  I love it.  This was the month that Erik won our trip to Mexico, so we started planning for that.  Fall season cheer started.  Erik judged a vintage car show, which he is in no way qualified to do.

September:  Erik went on a business trip to Vegas.  I painted our doors black. What's much more relevant is that this is the month that we found out we were expecting a baby.  I was five weeks along when I got the positive test, and enjoyed a week of knowing before the sickness set in.   I told Erik at McKenzie River Pizza, which is my favorite place ever to go.  Equally exciting (for Erik at least) is that we traded in our Subaru for a Jeep.

October:  Worst month ever.  I threw up the whole time, got out of bed only when absolutely necessary, ate a ton of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and watched Newsies like 8 times.  I did get to go to scrapbook weekend in Logan at the very beginning of the month, which was great.  Erik had a good month at the dealership though.  He dressed up like Clark Kent for Halloween.

November:  We had an amazing time in Mexico.   We also had a great Thanksgiving with Erik's family.


December:  I finished up my fourth semester.  Just one more left!  I had 90 people show up to the winter piano recital, and we had a great time at the business Christmas party.  On December 21st we found out we are having a girl and so far she's looking healthy.  I gave up on the idea of going off of Zofran during this pregnancy.  We drove 22 hours round trip to go spend Christmas in Boise and it was worth every minute.  We have big plans to eat dinner and watch a movie and try and stay up until midnight tonight, but more likely than not we'll celebrate the new years with the east coast and then go to bed.

This year definitely brought the most changes for Erik and me.  A year ago we were living in a different house, I was still working at Head Start, and Erik had to watch the Seahawks on a small screen.  This year we (I) have a belly and a mortgage, and are expecting a new family member in the Spring.  We can hardly wait to see what next year brings for us.   Hopefully lots of visits!

New Years Resolutions Report Card

I love new years resolutions in that I love planning 15 wonderful things I'm going to accomplish/change and then following through on maybe two of them.  In an effort to avoid doing that, for 2012 we set fewer goals, and taped them up on our dresser mirror where they stared at me every day while I looked for zits.  Since I am now technically in the 18th grade, I only know how to relate to success in terms of grades, so I've compiled the following report card based on our/my completion of our 2012 goals.

Goal #1 Category: Health---Try at least 2 new healthy recipes a month
                    I did pretty well at this, with the exception of October, which is the Month We Shall Not Speak Of.  I made up for it by trying several new recipes a month over the summer, when I had no life.  Last night I made Brazilian black bean burritos, recipe courtesy of my friend Beez.  They were a pretty big hit around these parts.  Last week I tried a crock-pot Hawaiian meatball recipe from pinterest that garnered a "thanks for trying" response.  You win some, you lose some.  I give myself an A on this goal.

Goal #2 Category: Financial--- Save $X amount each month
           Erik and I had a goal to save a certain amount of money each month.  I thought it would be tacky to say the amount on my blog.  Anyways, in April we also switched to a commission plan at the dealership, which made this goal much more interesting.  We saved a little more or a little less some months, but overall we've exceeded our savings goal for the year.  It was a group effort.  Erik rocked it at the dealership and I got too sick to go shopping.  Way to go team.  A on this one.

Goal #3 Category: Social:  Make more girlfriends
            Is it pathetic that this was one my goals?  Ummm kind of.  But it took me a long time to feel integrated after we moved here.  I was pretty busy last year and didn't really put myself out there to make friends, and it was a little lonely.  I didn't want that this year, I wanted girlfriends to have lunch dates with and to borrow cans of chicken broth from.  I lucked out because I made some great friends this year.  Last year Erik would insist I had friends when I whined about how I didn't, so I came up with this criteria for determining friend vs. acquaintance:  A friend is someone you feel comfortable calling up to do something that same day and who you feel comfortable borrowing/asking favors from.  Under this definition I have 5 good friends in the neighborhood.  I'll take it.  A on this one too.

Goal #4 Category: Spiritual-- Go to the temple 4 times, read the Book of Mormon with Erik, have 100% visiting teaching
                 And......the party ends here.  We went to the temple twice.  The temple is about 2.5 hours from here, so it's kind of an all day thing.  We were planning on going a lot in the fall because it's a rough drive during the winter and during the summer we selfishly spent all our time at the lake.  Unfortunately I was sick all fall, and now I don't think I could make it through a whole session without having to pee....so we failed at this one.  Erik and I started out reading the Book of Mormon together, then decided we would read the same amount of chapters each week and talk about them on Sunday, and then just decided to read it individually.  So yes I read it, but not with Erik.  However I was pretty good about scripture reading overall this year, so B--.  I did pretty well with visiting teaching, but even though I visited every month I don't feel like I was a huge service to any of my sisters, so i give myself a B+ on that one.  Overall my spiritual GPA:  76%, C

Goal #5 Category:  Work/School-- Finish 21 credits toward MPA
                    Not a lot to say about this one.  I did it.  I have two classes left next semester and then I'm done.  A.

Goal #6 Category:  Family-- Two goals here:  1) make Erik lunch twice a week, 2) Get pregnant
                       Goal 1. was a fail.  While it's healthier and cheaper for me to make Erik lunches, turns out I cannot compete with the local BBQ shack, and this goal pretty much fizzled.  I have been pinning healthy and creative packed lunches and may or may not try for this goal again next year.  F
                       Goal 2.  We accomplished.  Of course now we are questioning the wisdom of that decision, but technically we met our goal.  A.  Average for family goals: C

Two C's and 4 A's.  Brings my GPA to 88.3 for the year.  Not amazing, but I really did think having our goals posted on the mirror helped me work harder and keep them in mind this year.  We are going to discuss next year's goals on the drive back from Boise (the drive to Boise is reserved for talking about baby names and creating a plan for buying all the baby stuff we need.  I love road trips.  Erik does not). 

To avoid a pictureless blog post I'm sticking in this picture of my cheerleaders from their Christmas routine.  Due to last minute injuries we had to make some adjustments to the pyramid, but I was proud of how well the new girls handled it.  It was a decently tricky pyramid sequence. Cheer in this area is kind of weird, we have tryouts for football season and then again for basketball season, so several of these girls have only been cheerleaders for like 3 weeks.  They were adorable.

Oh Christmas Tree

When I got home from cheerleading yesterday this was waiting for me--

It's not decorated yet.  I'll work on it this week.  I got a killer deal on a huge tree this year, but I had to order it online and wait for it to come.  People who are jealous of my ginormous Christmas tree Some people say you can't put a price or height on Christmas spirit.  I've got 12 feet of woodland beauty in my family room that says otherwise.

November

Overall November was a really good month for us.  We had a wonderful Halloween, trip to Mexico, and Thanksgiving.  Just this week I'm finally starting to feel less nauseated, and it's been so exciting to re-enter the world of the living.  As we speak we're having maintenance done on our fireplaces, and I'm looking forward to putting up our new Christmas tree while drinking hot chocolate next to a roaring fire while listening to the Neil Diamond Christmas album tomorrow.  Come on by.

Going through our month chronologically, here is Erik on Halloween (technically October, I know).  He was Clark Kent and he was adorable.  The lower picture was taken at the business, where everyone was supposed to dress up.  I still hold that if you dress up like a hunter in the Northwest that's not technically dressing up...

Halloween was also my last doctor's appointment.  Our little kumquat had grown so much!  Everything was looking good, and we couldn't even get that clear of a picture because the little gummy bear was bouncing around so much.  I also got to hear the baby's heartbeat, which was pretty cool.

The baby is still looking like Smeagol from Lord of the Rings, but we're hoping he/she outgrows that.  I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow, and then one two weeks after that to find out the gender.

Mid-November Erik and I went to Cabo.  Erik won a competition, so it was all-inclusive, all expense paid.  They even sent us a prepaid card to cover our luggage fees.  It was awesome.  The plane rides weren't great for me.  They were either really early in the morning or really late at night, which was not exactly my best time, especially 3 weeks ago.  However it was well worth it.  I slept and slept and ate enough to gain back some of my first-trimester weight loss, and ordered room service as much as I wanted. We swam with the dolphins (ours was named Ariel and she liked me best), went on a sunset cruise, shopped, played in the ocean, and laid by the pool.  It was a week in Heaven.  It was probably my favorite trip Erik and I have gone on together, and I'm glad we got to spend that time just the two of us.

Coconut Creme Brulee.  I think I would eat anything brulee-ed.

Enjoying room service breakfast. I crave egg mcmuffins and they actually had them on the room service menu, actually called egg mcmuffins, so that was good

Sexy beach hunk

Sunset cruise past the arch.  What looks like a baby bump there is most likely actually an egg mcmuffin bump

Early morning sunbathing while Erik waited for breakfast

It was amazing.  I want to go back and never leave.  I drank diet cokes and strawberry daiquiris brought to my beach chair by cute cabana boys all day long.

We had another great Thanksgiving.  I brought cinnamon rolls and fudge and particularly enjoyed mashed potatoes and green beans.  Don did a great job carving the turkey, and Debbie did a great job spending roughly 14 zillion hours doing everything else.  Erik and I have so much to be grateful for this year.

I'm looking forward to a busy December with Christmas cheer performances, piano recitals, finding out the gender of our baby, and traveling to Boise Mary-and-Joseph style for Christmas.  We are currently accepting any and all holiday baked goods. 

The Upside

I was really whiny in my last post.  Yeah I feel like death,but turns out that's par-for-the-course, and I'd rather be sick and pregnant than feeling good and not pregnant.  And turns out there is an unexpected upside to all of this.  I honestly have never felt better about my relationship with Erik.

I've always been a scorekeeper, and while I've tried to curb that tendency since I've been married, it's been hard.  I've always felt pressure to "keep up" with Erik.  If he worked a 14-hour day, when he got home I wanted enough to show to prove that I worked a 14-hour day too.  As he's been more successful at the dealership I've tried to up my game and do better with my own work and also in wifey stuff.  Turns out the competition's over.  Final score: Erik--8,432,687, Shanna-- well she's growing a baby and that's good too.

I have been so dependent on Erik these last few weeks.  He brings me cereal and a drink to take my pill in the morning before he leaves for work, he calls me during the day to check on me, has his own busy, stressful, and long day, and then comes home, makes me eat, and rubs my feet while we watch the Voice.  On my particularly bad days he has even been known to give me a piggy back ride up the stairs.  Today he had the day off and we wanted McDonald's breakfast.  He got an me an egg mcmuffin AND cinnamon melts because I insisted that's what I wanted, even though he knew full well I couldn't eat both.  And then when he was totally right he didn't even say "I told you so."  If that ain't love then I don't know what love is (name that song anyone??).

Early on in my sick-period I stressed a lot because in my mind I was falling behind and not keeping up with Erik. I actually worried how it would affect our relationship when I wasn't pulling my weight.  The funny part is I have never felt so secure in my marriage as I do right now.  It's really beautiful to me that I am at my absolute worst and Erik is making me feel more loved than I have ever felt.  It relieves a lot of my worries about impending motherhood--  How will I know what to do when I'm alone with the baby?  How will we adjust to me not having the same amount of time to dedicate to work and household stuff?  What if I gain a lot of weight?-- I feel like if I do my best that will be enough for Erik, and that makes it enough for me.  It also makes me feel good about who I picked to be the dad to my babies.  It will be a lot of learning and trial-and-error for both of us, but there's absolutely no one I would rather take this adventure with.  I always say this to my little sister, but I can't stress it enough-- Marry a winner. 

I still hate being sick and hate feeling limited in the things I can do each day.  I can't wait to be able to open the fridge without wanting to puke or go to the store without a baggy of pretzels in my purse.  But maybe being sick isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me if I not only get a baby at the end of it, but it helps me appreciate Erik more (and Erik gets some practice taking care of someone with roughly the same capabilities as an infant).  This last picture is the teddy bear Erik got for the baby that I commandeered to snuggle while he's at work.  His name is Beary and he's seen me throw up way more than any stuffed animal ought to have witnessed.

Come visit  us.  But not right now, unless you want to stay in bed and watch Newsies all day with me.

On Being Pregnant

Thank you everyone for your nice texts and comments.  We are so excited for our little gummy bear to join our family.  With that said, I am about to lay some truth on anyone out there without kids.  Being pregnant sucks.  Hardcore.  I have never felt so consistently terrible in my entire life, and I once had mono and pneumonia simultaneously.  I got sick right before I hit sit weeks, and promptly lost 9+ pounds in the next three weeks. In the middle of my ninth week we had our first doctor's appointment, and  the doctor prescribed me some Zofran, which has helped so much, but I still pretty much feel like I just got hit by a truck all the time, I'm just keeping food down better.  Also whoever said pregnant women glow was a liar.  I have never looked worse.  I'm breaking out all over my face, my skin is grey and nasty and my hair looks like a dead rat that wasn't even a cute rat when it was alive.  So Erik's been enjoying that.

The one upside to being so sick is that it's been incredibly touching to see how many people care about us and want to help.  I feel really blessed that I have such good friends and family who are so selfless with their time, who have their own to-do lists and stresses, but still find time to worry and check in on me.  It makes me feel a little guilty because I wonder if I would think to do those things for someone else.

As far as other pregnancy cliches go, I don't have any one big craving.  It's more like I want one thing and only one thing until I've thrown it up three or four times, and then I move on to something else.  Right now I'm digging Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  The weirdest craving I've had is for McDonald's water.  Some girls can't handle cooking or handling meat, and I'm fine with that, but I absolutely cannot do dishes. I'm not showing at all yet, but my lower stomach feels a little weird and squishy.  I seriously have no idea how some women handle pregnancy with other little kids at home.  I can't even handle taking care of just Erik and me.

Erik has been awesome.  He's a winner. He's been taking really good care of me and been very patient will my sudden dip in productivity.   He's having a pretty intense week or so at work, so it's especially impressive that he comes home and is so sweet to me.  The first thing out of his mouth when I told him I was pregnant was "Well we really need to start financially planning," so that was touching. 

So that's the deal. We're going on a trip in a few weeks and I'm really hoping to be feeling a little better by then.  Because I hate pictureless blog posts, I'll leave you with this darling image of what our little kumquat looks like at 11 weeks.  I think that head shape must come from Erik's side of the family...

Why Yes

We're having a baby

May 20, 2013

We are so happy