News of Late

All my little preggo friends had their baby this week. My friend Aleesha had her baby on Tuesday, and Sterling and I drove there after work to see little Liam--pretty cute!! Then my friend from my ward had her baby on Friday, and then my friend Chantelle was induced Saturday morning! Now I feel like I should be having a baby, but...I still have four weeks! Oh well. We have got a TON of baby-readying stuff finished this weekend:
-We got a high chair for 5 dollars at a garage sale. We were babysitting Megan's kids yesterday and we stopped at a garage sale on our way home from the park, since Megan already had a 2-kid stroller in the back of her suburban, the high chair didn't fit that well, so we opened up the back window and had Lynnaea, Kiersten, and Anders(and Anders' awesome teddy bear) hold onto it for the rest of the drive home. They were awesome troopers!!!
-Last week at a garage sale we got a jogging stroller but it had two flat tires, so yesterday we took it in to the Schwinn store and got new tubes put on. YAY!
-Yesterday my sister Megan also gave us her jolly jumper thingy because Devaney doesn't use it anymore--she's too mobile to be happy in one spot--and so we took that as well.
-To top it all off, on Tuesday when we drove down to Provo to see Aleesha's new baby, we stopped at Ikea and got a dresser for Sterling and me, which means my little white dresser (handed down from my nieces Hailey and Cassidy) now can be Ruthie's dresser, and Sterling's dresser (also from Wyatt and Lindsay Ann) was thrown in the garbage because a third drawer had fallen apart on us. So we(ahem, Sterling) set up our new dresser on Saturday morning, and I put all our little baby clothes in Ruthie's little dresser. Now the bassinet is actually empty of clothes so she can sleep in it when she comes!!!

I was telling Danica how we have everything and are ready for the baby to come, except for a few little things. Like diapers, and wipes, and baby wash...and she looks at me and goes "So you have everything but the essentials???" HAAHAA! I still have a baby shower and am crossing my fingers to get those things there. If not, before I have my baby we should have plenty of time.

Yesterday I also jumped on the tramp with the sprinkler underneath with my nieces and nephews...I only lasted a few minutes. It is super tiring to jump with a big pregnant belly!!! Plus, they decided the spray of water was gunfire, and so every time the water crossed the tramp, everyone would jump to "save" Ruthie, only I think it made it much more difficult for me to stand up and not get wet!!! So, I moved to dry ground and played with Devaney on a towel. Then they set the sprinkler to spray the slide, and I took some AWESOME action shots---but its on my sister Megan's camera, so hopefully she posts them for you!

Have a happy Sunday!

33 weeks and a beautiful hike

This is me, at 33 weeks. Which means, only 4 more weeks until I am full term! (It also means 6 weeks until my due date...but I'm focusing on the full term date, so that my mom will be here, because she is forsaking me during the week of my due date). I can't believe only four more weeks until we'll have a teeny, tiny baby in our house! This weekend Sterling and I had some fun garage sale-ing, and we found a jogging stroller for $35!!!! It'll probably cost a little more for us to get the wheels pumped up and everything...but it is so nice, and brand-new looking material! YAy!

This is my hair band that I thought looked super cute the other night...I never do my hair, so it is hair bands or flowers that make it look cute lately.

We went with our friends Chantelle and Jeremy (she is due any day) to the aquarium on Friday and we had so much fun petting the string rays!

This is Sterling enjoying a ride on the sweet froggy.

I also went on a hike this week with my sister Andrea and her children...look at all the beautiful wildflowers that we saw along the way!

Safety Anyone?

Macey's (my all-time favorite store) had a free car seat check this afternoon. I got a free car seat and base from my sis-in-law, and she gave us two, because she had twins, and thought it might be nice for us to have two around. But my friend still needed one, so we gave the second one to her, and she told me that she had a hard time trying to fit it into her car, it was really loose. She couldn't make it to the check, so I went (we both have Chevy Impala's...which made it really nice because then I was going with the same car and same car seat) to figure out what was wrong. Come to find out, there was a recall on our base (and, actually, they expire in October, but I'm not too worried about that. If they were safe last year, they're going to be safe for another year, trust me.) and we'll get a brand-new one for free!!! I love free stuff. They did say its safe to use without the base, and showed me precisely how to put it in with a seat belt and no base.

The nice people were VERY concerned about safety, and I realized that...I may be a first-time mom, but I have a lot of experience with kids, and some of the stuff they said, I realized I will never do. Not because I don't want my child to be safe, but because I think its a bunch of balogna. For instance, I had a nice, new toy snapped into place around the handle of the car seat--the kind that you pull on, and it makes noise as it jiggles back up. My nieces and nephews have had tons of variations of these toys, and it keeps them occupied every once in a while. They told me that it was unsafe to have any toys hooked to the handle because they have not been checked with the specific car seat and in the event of an accident, they could become a flying projectile. I am sorry, but I think I'll take my chances of a soft, squishy toy hitting my child's face and doing them zero permanent damage, and let them have a toy to keep them occupied. Thanks, but no thanks. They also were really upset about the fact that I had an extra little padding sitting inside the car seat, which my older sister Megan thoughtfully handed down to me. They think its safer to roll up blankets and put it around my child...because then I can tell that the straps are tight enough and not loose. I don't quite understand, because padding is padding, and I already know I'm not going to take the time to wrap blankets into little balls and smoosh them around my child EVERY TIME I put her in a car seat. And I think that the padding is small enough I can move it around and still make sure the straps are tight and where they should be around my baby. It's not like its a big huge balloon or anything. Haahaa.

So maybe I should be a little more cautious--the people helping me definitely thought so. What with the recall, and the toy and the padding, they thought I was a first-time mom that needed some SERIOUS help. At the end of all this, they asked me if I was used to having kids in my car at all, or if I had previously installed a car seat into my vehicle...I told them I have 34 nieces and nephews, and that I put my niece Devaney's car seat in my car on about a weekly basis. Their faces were absolutely PRICELESS!!!!!!! Yeah, 34 is kind of a big number. For Megan's reassurance though, they did say I put the car seat in very thoroughly and at a good angle. So at least I knew how to put it in right!

I did learn something cool about my seat belts though-they lock in a nifty way once the car seat is in, something I can use for my niece Devaney-and when I do get the base, I have these special little latches that come out of my seats so I can attach that instead of using a seat belt. And with the car I have, I can put my child safely in any of the three seats in the back. Good to know. Anyway---I have a feeling these poor people wouldn't approve of the crib that we just set up (we are very happy it is free though, and I consider it in very good shape) because my sister bought it off ksl, and gave it to us for free, so who KNOWS when it expires?? Probably similar things with a lot of the items we have. I'm concerned about safety....but not that concerned. Haahaa

17 Miracles

Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous movie that is in theaters right now for only a week, about the LDS Martin Handcart Company. It combines the last two handcart companies journals...but every single miracle they experienced really happened. It was a very inspiring film. It had one lady who was dying and she said that it would all be worth it if her posterity kept the faith--it was SO profound. My very favorite actor was a crippled man who wanted so badly to make it to Zion--he was AMAZING! The whole story was amazing, I bawled through the entire thing, and the acting was actually pretty good for an LDS film. Definitely going to buy it when it comes out. Go and see it!

Politics

When I was in high school I got really excited about politics for awhile. I went to a one-week camp (which later gave me something like 8 credit hours for college and it was awesome!) after eleventh grade called Girls State, and we spent the ENTIRE week in a skirt (bless my mother, who bought me a pair of skechers that were cute and could be worn with a skirt and still look nice...every other girl had blisters by the second day)learning about the government. It was extremely educational, extremely fun and exhilarating, and I ran and was voted in mayor of my city (basically the group of girls living in one apartment for the week) and got to hold councils, meetings, determine offices, and...my personal favorite...put people in jail when they were late to my meetings. So we goofed off a bit, but for the most part, everything was run as the government really is run. We also spent a LONG LONG time discussing current government bills and policies that had recently passed, were in the process of being passed, or were simply issues at the time. I felt really up-to-snuff on my government, and I felt like a responsible US citizen.

Sadly, thats pretty much where it ended. I went to college, focused my life on anatomy books, had a random English teacher that took a really weird stance about Iraq and thats all the current events he ever talked about, and basically forgot about my citizenship just enough to pass through college (although I did start listening to some debates, and I did vote for my very first time, and listened enough to feel decent about my votes).

Now, I work for a doctor who has strong political views, and his assistant who has opposite, but also strong, political views. I get to hear their banter back and forth whenever I'm at work. And its made me aware enough to be sheepish about how much I don't know right now. Because a lot is happening.

Point of this post, though, is to beg the question: Do I really have to agree with a political change to take advantage of it? Cause really, if the laws already been passed, and there's nothing I can do about it...whether I think it's a good thing or not, I might as well take advantage of it...right????

Point in case, Obama's health care plan. Basically he's not helping anything. Thats the basics that I am led to understand because of the doctor's viewpoints that I hear, and the few articles that I have read...I cannot claim having a HUGE and EXTENSIVE knowledge about this. But, Sterling and I went without insurance for a year because, well, we plain can't afford it. And we both had access to the WSU clinic, and that was about all we needed. Now we qualify for medicaid, and I feel like I defend myself every time I bring that up. I will again, if need be. I have a bachelors degree, but I also believe it is my responsibility as a woman and as a wife to start a family, and it is also the highest pedestal in life that I could personally attain. If we waited to be financially able to afford a child, I would be well into my thirties, and the probability of my health handling having as many kids as I want, at that old of an age, would not be great. Plus, I've spent four years of my life gaining a bachelors degree, and I utilize it to help people on a part-time basis. Unfortunately, it will be years before Sterling is finished school. Fortunately, when he is, we will probably pay so much money just for his malpractice insurance, that I am sure the government will get back every little bit that they are giving us while we have this baby. While I'm young, healthy, and very able to have a baby.

Now though, Obama has made it so that I can be insured through my parents and Sterling can be insured through his parents. Since both of our parents still have some of our younger siblings on their insurance, it is no extra cost to them. And we are, thankfully, insured, after a year of not being insured. But just because I am utilizing it, doesn't mean I think it was this great idea. I am just very thankful that we have found a way to be insured for the time being. Not for very long, probably, because we'll have children of our own, and they might not be covered. Anyway, that is my story. I just heard someone get really heated today about how unfair it is, because she's been paying $400 a month for insurance since she was twenty for herself....and I agree that people need to act responsibly. But I also agree that opportunities should be seized. Now everyone can read this and hate me. And I will reread this and vow to seriously step up my understanding of current events.

Waterfall Canyon

On Wednesday Sterling and I both had the afternoon off and decided to hike the Waterfall trail. Its right above WSU off of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, and is a really popular hike. It was INCREDIBLE this time. I have never seen that much water coming down, and we didn't even stay at the top by the waterfall very long because there was so much spray it was FREEZING and we were getting wet. It's a pretty steep hike, and so we took it REALLY slow...I felt like an old lady huffing and puffing up the mountain (I blame it on my cold from last week and the need to blow my nose every thirty seconds) but it was totally worth it and so beautiful!

PS My husband is absolutely amazing and the best husband EVER! Yesterday we spent the day basically doing stuff I wanted to--he came to my prenatal appointment (he loves listening to the heartbeat as much as I do) and then he cleaned the bathroom and dusted the living room for me, and then we went and picked up a crib from my sister, and he helped me wipe it down(it had been in her shed for quite some time) and put it together (almost, we had to stop to go to Freedom Rider's) and then when he wanted pizza for dinner, he let me pick the spot for the kind of breadsticks I like. Can I just say he is absolutely AMAZING? I am going to be so sad when he goes back to school again. Not only school, but another semester of Organic Chemistry. Sigh.

PPS We got a camera for free (yes!) from a family member of Sterling's. I want to get a really nice camera that takes pictures in quick succession. This one isn't as quick as I would like, but it is faster than my old one, and it has more mega pixels than mine. Although,it doesn't have as good of a zoom. I'm excited to play with it though and SO excited because, remember, it was FREE!