The Lion King

So Brandon's Christmas present to me was to go see the Lion King in theater. I had heard ads for it on the radio and was so excited that he picked up on my hints!

The play was FANTASTIC. The actors were so talented, Brandon said the older Simba sounded like Bruno Mars (he kind of did). It followed the movie pretty closely, although they did throw in a scene where Scar wants to make Nala his queen. That would have been way too dark for Disney.

But now that I know Brandon CAN like musicals, I am on to my next conquest- Wicked in March! We'll see if I can convince him.

We just love that we can do these things without driving for hours on end, like we would have had to in Idaho.

Baby liked it too, she was dancing the whole time.

15 weeks to go.

I've made it to 25 weeks.
Fortunately things are getting less "less dignified". I haven't gotten sick in over a month hallelujah!

I'm definitely getting nervous about everything we need to get done and buy before the baby comes. She could be born any time in the next 15 weeks, which is an alarming thought!

We've been buying some clothes and books for her, but I don't have any idea of what else I need to do.

I've finally gained back all the weight I lost in the first trimester. I'm trying to tell myself that it's GOOD to watch my weight climb on the scale. I've cut out candy (for now), which has helped me to not gain a ton. Also, since my belly has popped out, I wish I had counted how many people have congratulated me on my pregnancy or said "I didn't even know! Are you 3 months?" Nope, just 6.

(I feel like my face looks super bloated here, but Brandon assured me it was the wind blowing my hair around. Note the cruise ship in the background of the grainy sunset picture.)

Some signs of where I'm at in pregnancy-

I'm pretty sure I could be a dragon right now. Heartburn is killer! I feel like I should smell like smoke, because I feel like I'm on fire every night when I go to bed.

I've had some hip pain while sleeping. By hip pain, I mean it feels like my hips have broken off. That will be fun for the next few months.

But, my favorite thing is feeling this little girl dance all day every day.

And all night. This is our theme song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hgz-q76KtQ

In fact, when I pulled that song up she stopped dancing to listen (I'm guessing). I guess we have a KISS fan on our hands!

When I lay down to sleep at night, she will start dancing. The other night, I felt her kicking the mattress on my left side. I rolled to my other side, and felt some movement before she started kicking the mattress on my right side. This happened 5 or 6 times. What the heck are we going to do when she's actually here?!

Whenever I sit down to read a book, she goes the craziest. So I just end up watching her ripple across my stomach and headbutt me. She will still get shy when I want Brandon to feel her kicking, but he has been able to see her moving a lot. It's still the most incredible thing to watch.

Beginning of Semester 2

Well, since Brandon's back at school (wahhhh!), I thought I'd do exactly what he told me not to do and brag talk about how well he did last semester.

We have been told since he got accepted into PA school that the first semester would be the hardest. We are still hoping that is true. Because after last semester, you would think he could do anything but we are having a baby right before his finals week! So the adventures never stop.

But when I found out I was pregnant just as his semester was starting, I had no idea that meant I would be basically out of the running for an entire semester. This semester, I've made a resolve to be much better about being productive and contributing to this household. But Brandon picked up the slack, and as hard as I knew it was for him he really did not blame me.

In addition to my being sick, Brandon was called as the Ward Mission Leader in our ward. I found out yesterday that they've never called a grad student to be the WML because it is such a time consuming calling. Naturally. But he really has never complained about it. He hasn't been able to do 100% of his calling, because there aren't enough hours in the day to do that and be a balanced student, but he has stretched himself to make sure he can get done what needs to get done.

I think that because he has taken on all this without putting anyone else at fault, and with a positive attitude, he did as well as he did. Because he got a 4.0! Thank goodness. He is the epitome of "Be prepared and ye shall not fear". From day 1 he made sure to set aside a few hours a day to study, and by the time finals came around he wasn't cramming to make sure he got the absolute best grade possible because his final grade depended on it. No, he went in with a clear conscience knowing that he needed to get above a B (or C, or D, whatever) to get an A in the class. Granted, he got A's on all his finals but he was not overly stressed out about it. He had already built up such a padding that he didn't need to pull any all nighters to make sure he was ok. 

I'm proud of how hard he has worked so far, and I know he will work hard this semester too. He did say that he will have a harder time studying for finals this semester, because he'll just be thinking about the baby coming. I'll keep pushing him to study, but I'll secretly enjoy that.

New Year's Resolutions- 2015

Time for resolutions again?

Well, my resolutions from last year kind of tanked. I didn't run much, I didn't attend the temple once a week, I didn't finish the Book of Mormon (I am so close though! Ether 7... I'm not giving up.)

But, we did have some successes. Mainly, we were able to budget and save enough to afford our entire move out by ourselves. We did read the Book of Mormon as a couple every day (And finished it for the second time since getting married!), and I did try my best to attend the temple.

So, here are some new ones for 2014:

- Make a real budget. We always have a budget that goes something like "Well, if we don't buy ____ then we can buy ____". And so far it's working fine, but we need to step up our game if we want to afford a baby. And along with that:

-Plan at least 3 meals a week. Planning meals are the bane of my existence right now. I just hate it, it's so boring. Standing in the kitchen either makes me nauseous or really hungry, so either way I need to eat while I'm cooking. Then I lose my desire to cook. I figure if I make 3 meals a week (crockpot, most likely), then we can have leftovers the other days. We are good about planning a Sunday meal, but other than that it's just kind of hit and miss.

-Log 200 miles this year. I don't care how it gets done. Walking, running, biking, whatever. I will go on long walks a lot, like 3 miles or so. Doing that a few times a week helps me feel better about not running. So I figure if I give myself a number, I can start working towards it. Starting with today.

-Bring 12 names to the temple. I want to do more, but I figure setting a low goal will help me feel better about myself if we meet it. As I said before, I will keep going while pregnant until it hurts too much to go. Hopefully I have a few more good sessions left in me! After that, Brandon and I said we would go separately, and the other will watch the baby. Again, who knows how that will go over but we want to take advantage of the temple being so close.

-Read 50 books. I keep reading Alyse's reading blog, and I'm jealous that she has the discipline to keep finding new books and reading them. So I decided to make something out of that. I already have at least 6 books in mind to start.

-Keep reading the Book of Mormon every day, together and separately. I am going to keep up with the "Book of Mormon 365" challenge, and I am working right now on finishing last year's reading.

I also told Brandon that I want to lose 20 pounds by the end of April... he didn't get it.

NYE 2014

We didn't have many plans for New Year's Eve. Let's be honest, it's kind of a boring holiday when you don't drink or party and whatnot. So we were just going to get Chinese food and watch a movie and call it good.

Brandon went to a baptism for an investigator (I had just gotten home from picking someone up at the airport, so I stayed home because of a headache), and on his way home heard an ad for the Orange Bowl. We hadn't realized it was just at the Dolphins stadium, which is 5 miles from our house. He came home and looked up tickets. THREE DOLLARS. He asked me if I wanted to go, and I said sure so we headed out. I wasn't expecting a ton on the location of our seats, but here we were:

11th row back, right behind Georgia Tech's end zone. It was fantastic. We ha someone take our picture to prove we were there.

Before the game they had parachuters come in with the flags, and the national anthem was sung by an up and coming artist, Christina Grimmie. She was really good.

The two marching bands performed before the game, and it was insane how big Mississippi State's band was!

The halftime show was by "Little Big Town", a country band. My favorite part was that amongst their huge group of backup dancers there was a girl who seemed to have a low functioning disability of some sort. It made me so happy to know that they included her, even though she didn't really participate. That is inclusion!

It was a pretty exciting game. Georgia Tech stomped on Mississippi State. Here you can see just how close we got.

I mean, I enjoyed it and I'm not even into football. Brandon was in hog heaven, jumping up and down and screaming. I was wearing my gold jacket so we ended up just rooting for Georgia. I'm glad we did, because they were really good!

We left with about 10 minutes to go, because Georgia was up 49-27 so we figured we wouldn't miss the comeback of the century. Right at we came over the Intercoastal Waterway the clock struck 12, and we saw tons of fireworks going off over the ocean. We parked in our parking lot and ran (yes, I ran. And only felt like I was going to explode a little.) to the Trump towers to watch the fireworks on the beach. We had Cherry 7Up because it was easier to open than Martinelli's, and drank some on the beach as all the rich tourists lit their fireworks.

And just like that it's 2015! I told Brandon it feels extra surreal this New Year, because we are having a baby in a few months. Now we are having a baby THIS year! What the heck.