Lately

Sterling and I have been thoroughly enjoying the break from school. We spent a day at Antelope Island (which started out as just being a walk at a park, so I didn't bring my camera) and it was the first time I have ever been there. It was fun, but chilly. We saw an antelope, a fox, TONS of buffalo, and had a delicious lunch there. The next day we headed up to Logan to go to the temple. Because this beloved temple is closed for remodeling: We had a great time beforehand grabbing a dinner at my brother Wyatt's house---he treated us to steak off his new grill, red potatoes, fresh strawberries, and other delicious foods. He has a new thing with lemons on his steak, and it is DIVINE!

It was our first time back to the Logan temple since we got married, so that was neat. Except I seriously thought I was going to die pretty much the entire session. I haven't been getting leg cramps with my pregnancy, but my legs get this really antsy feeling(I seriously feel like I have ADD or something) and I just can't sit STILL for the life of me! I felt bad for the two ladies sitting next to me because I kept switching positions. Then, I got a wave of nausea, which staved off the antsy feeling, but it was because it was so HOT in that room. And then the rest of the session I focused on breathing and not passing out. Seriously--they need to have special sessions for pregnant women that BLOW COLD AIR the ENTIRE TIME! My sister Andrea said she feels the same way, and I thought that since I'm usually freezing, it wouldn't ever be a big deal for me. I felt so sick by the end of the session, just because of the waves of heat. Anyway, I survived, and it felt beautiful outside.

**On Saturday we spent the day at Cindy's playing with Sterling's family and coloring with chalk, dyeing easter eggs, and generally having a good time.This is Ethan's portrayal of the family. If you look closely, I am the person on the far right, and I have a rather large belly...it's awesome. I have no idea why Sterling and I are so much taller than Marlowe and Jenny...but there you have it.Dyeing easter eggs.Blowing bubbles. This was to keep the twins occupied while Cindy set up an easter egg hunt in the back yard (we were in the front).

This was my awesome Haws egg. Green is Sterling's favorite color. I let it sit in the dye for a LONG time to get it that dark!
This is Sterling's killer bunny drawing.
And my world with lots of tiny people.

***I made our first ever ROAST on Sunday!!!!!! It turned out delicious, although a little overdone on the outside pieces. I was a little worried about that because I had it in for four hours (we have choir practice before church) and it wasn't a very big roast. But still very tasty. But we have a lot of leftovers...even with it being small. Which is why we've never made one until now. Then I made dad's chocolate pudding later that night, which turned out delish-except it was really rich. I'm not used to using Hershey's cocoa, but its what we have right now, and I think I shouldn't have used the normal amount. Oh well.

Almost there...

• Sterling took an Organic Chemistry final today (he'll find out the score tomorrow hopefully...) and a Microbiology final today (he got a 94% on that one...which is actually a big joke, because a few tests ago he was all mad that he couldn't seem to score higher than 94, so he said that that time he would...he studied hard, poor boy, but still got a 94! Haahaa...so that's pretty much been his test score for that class the entire semester). And what does all of this mean?


• That he only has ONE FINAL LEFT and he is taking it TOMORROW!


• And what exactly does that mean?


• I AM GOING TO HAVE A HUSBAND AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!


• I think it feels especially good today, because the sun came out. I hear its only for a brief moment, but hey, at least we got the moment. I am SO SICK of the rain!


• I bought red potatoes on my last shopping trip as a splurge, and eating them makes me really wonder why I ever feel money-conscious and buy white potatoes. Red potatoes are HEAVENLY! (I got the urge to eat them when I heard Wyatt and Lindsay Ann talking about cooking them...I should've invited myself over to dinner, but we had to be at my sister Megan's ward at that time)


• Which reminds me of the crazy time at my sister Megan's ward. I was accompanying four numbers in YW for an easter lesson for her. One of which that Sterling was singing, and of course, he sang like an angel. Another of which was/is a member of MoTab, and we went over it once thirty minutes before showtime, and of course, he just said "it sounds like you know how to follow, I'll do the verses whatever tempo I like, and you just follow me" and we went splendidly from there. The third person....turns out we had different versions of the same song!!!! No worries, thats why my specialty is sight-reading, right???? Until she realizes SHE HAS NO LAST PAGE! Just as I was blithely saying "If my mom was here, she could probably whip some chords up" IN WALKS MY MOTHER! JOY OF JOYS! And guess what? She does! And it all turned out fabulously. Makes me think that I should learn chording--my mom remembers it all from when she played the guitar. My husband is useless because he taught himself guitar. I will probably continue to be useless because...well, my mother will ALWAYS be around, right!?!?!?!?!


• That's about all the news from our little neck-of-the-woods! Have a fabulous day! (and I know my sister Amy never reads this, but just in case she does, my co-worker Zully thought our conversation at lunch was HI-larious! --what can I say, you do talk a little loud!?!)


• Oh, and just in case you were wondering, my computer mutates separate paragraphs into one long post when I post things, so I decided to use bullet points so that there was some sort of separation between thoughts!

LOVE

I LOVE STERLING SO VERY VERY MUCH! Today at work, my boss was stressing over one of the people in his singles ward, who was making a very big decision (thats about all I know) and so I said very cheerfully "At least you can always know that Sterling and I are VERY happily married!" He laughed and asked if we could come speak in his ward to convince his young adults that it can happen! Haaahaa. Then at lunch we were teasing my co-worker about this guy she's been dating, and that she just kissed for the first time. She said something about me being a newlywed, so I probably kissed way more than her, to which I said "Whatever, Sterling and I haven't even gone to bed together for something like three weeks..." to which they all started laughing SO HARD for about twenty minutes!!!!! I was going to finish my statement by saying "because he stays up so late studying, so I fall asleep on my own." but never really managed to say it. I was bright red. And then they were trying to tell me how to say it better and I said "I don't think 'sleep' sounds any better than 'bed'" and they all laughed again for another twenty minutes. At least they got their laughs for the day. Then another co-worker said "And you told Dr. F just this morning that you were HAPPILY married!!!!' and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM told me as I was leaving tonight that I had better "let my poor husband, Sterling sleep with me tonight"!!!! And yes, I was red, all over again. Trust me, we are VERY happily married. Plus, he brought home dinner tonight, and it was delish, and there's enough for my lunch tomorrow! YAY! See why I love this man?!?!

Eggs

• Sometime during my childhood, my little brother Ethan -who often thought of conniving ideas to get what he wanted- convinced my parents that we should get one food to pick that we never had to eat. My parents are strong supporters of the "eat everything off your plate without complaining" (to the point that when my older brother Wyatt threw up some green beans, my dad made him eat a couple more). My mom decided this was a good idea, and so my brother Wyatt chose green beans, obviously, and I chose eggs. My little brother Ethan, on the other hand, picked something new every other week for the rest of his life and mom never seemed to mind.

• I hated eggs, especially soft ones. I didn't like pepper that much either, and I was not a big fan of big slimey onions and green peppers. But eggs trumped them all, and it was the one food I would not eat. Sometimes mom made me German Pancakes in the morning just because it made her feel better that I was getting mostly eggs from that (I think that that breakfast is mostly powdered sugar, but I liked the idea that she thought I was getting something nutritious from it). I especially hated when we had poached eggs on toast for dinner, which luckily, wasn't very often. Those were the slimiest, worst tasting eggs, and I was very grateful once the one-food-rule was instituted.

• Lately, I have found myself changing my mind about eggs. They say your tastebuds change every seven years, right??? I still don't love scrambled eggs...but I'm getting more used to the idea of soft eggs. In fact, I've had several of them this week. Sterling has made a few noises about how much we've had hashbrowns lately, and when its not hashbrowns its rice. All I can say is, I think my dad warned him about that at their little talk before we got married, and again at our reception!!!! Besides, when a starving, pregnant wife comes home from work completely FAMISHED he should be thankful she takes the fifteen minutes to put together a quick meal, instead of bringing home Pizza Hut Breadsticks every day, which is what I feel like doing, right???? (Not that I can REALLY complain, since he made tacos this week, and puts my cream of wheat on to boil every morning)

• Back to the original subject matter: To spice up our hashbrowns, I've been trying to make more things to go with them...sausage, eggs, toast, mangoes...whatever happens to be in the fridge really. And this means we've gone through a lot of eggs lately. I make bread, and brownies, and other things that use eggs pretty regularly, but beyond that-since I never ate them plain-we didn't use eggs a whole lot. Today I came home from church, and since Sterling is at work anyway, and can't complain, and I was STARVING, I quickly made some hashbrowns. And an egg. It was our last one. And it tasted especially good. But now I can't make the brownies I wanted to tonight. Sigh. Although I think we have all the ingredients for chex muddy buddies...so I might live.

23

Week 23 in my pregnancy... means that the car salesman that sold us our car told me "Isn't it awkward when you just look fat but you aren't big enough to actually look pregnanct?" Yes. Thank you. Remind me to never wear a t-shirt and jeans again, even if they are comfortable. And one of my good friends last night, upon first walking in the door, said "You can definitely tell you're getting more pregnant, your face looks fatter." What is this? And I think I have PLENTY enough of a belly to look pregnant, and not just fat. Thanks very much.

Picture of the Car...As Promised

Basically, you can't tell the color that well because it was under the carport, and I didn't want to move it because it was raining, and I didn't want to take pictures in the rain. Sterling did not want to cooperate in smiling for the camera...so he pulled down his pants and did his gangster pose. I was laughing so hard about the whole incident that the picture is pretty blurry...Really, however blurry it may be, I had to do a close-up of this gangster face. REALLY??? HAHA!!!!!Aw...there's my sweet Sterling!

This Monday's Top Ten

1. ...WE BOUGHT A CAR! I will post pictures soon, hopefully tonight Sterling and I will take a picture of ourselves beside it...if we do, indeed get it tonight, which might not happen. Its in the shop. Nothing to worry about...they are just fixing a little noise caused by a rattling shield over the exhaust (at least, the guy at trusty Cliff's Chevron that knows my dad really well said thats what it was, so the dealer's said they'd fix it before we took it home, and all of the above assured me it wasn't a big deal). It also has snow tires on it right now, so we have to pay to switch the tires out...but dad's hoping we can just switch it out with our old car's, cause we just put new tires on our car, and then sell our car with the snow tires on it. Reasons for buying a car:our cars transmission is dying. Sad. You can really tell when you're going inbetween 30-40 mph. Also, it turns off sometimes when you go below 20 mph. Usually just in parking lots, but one time it did it to me when I was pulling into the bank, and it was scary! Also, the odometer doesn't work, the gas gauge is a little iffy, the check engine and low tire lights are permanently on, and the doors kinda come apart when you open and close them. Hahaa...so we'll retire this car...and get a new and improved one! We're getting a 2007 Chevy Impala. My dad LOVES to look/buy new cars. My mom told me a week or so ago that I had given dad a new mission in life by asking him to help us look for a car. After looking over a few dealerships, looking extensively on eBay motors, and other online sites, we found one in Woods Cross at Auto Source. 36,000 miles on it and 8,500!!! We were very excited. Dad was a little more excited about a Buick Lucerne he found...and tried to convince us to buy it...but it was just out of our price range. So he bought it instead. Haahaa!

That was a big #1 for Monday's top ten. So we'll make the next ones much shorter.

2: General Conference this weekend was AWESOME!

3: My hubby spent a TON of time this weekend with me, watching General Conference and buying a car...it was so fun to see him!

4: I think week 22 is 6 months...which means I'm getting closer and closer to having a baby!

5: I got my hair trimmed on Saturday and the world is just a rosier place!

6: I also bought maternity capris and one maternity shirt and it is so much fun to have some new clothes that really fit! Thats probably all I will buy for myself...I've gotten a lot of hand-me-downs, and still can make most of my normal clothes fit.

7: I also bought my husband a summer-ish shirt that was on sale...and he is dang good-lookin'!

8: Sterling only has THREE more weeks of this semester!

9: My Aunt Melodie and Uncle Montey visited my parents this weekend, so we got some delicious dutch-oven potatoes, and I got to hear the song Aunt Melodie wrote and it is so pretty!

10: Hopefully the weather continues to get warmer...I"m done with snow and rain every other day! Okay, thats not really a top ten. But the beautiful weather days we have had is definitely good!