Pregnant Brain Strikes Again!

I completely forgot to let the world know that Ryan passed his Praxis exam, and is now qualified to teach English in the state of Utah.  Congratulations, honey!  I'm proud of you.

Impatient

I had most of this week to myself, just hanging around the house, making a half hearted attempt to do research and work on homework.  Meh.  The Rockies are winning again, which makes me happy.  I like to watch their games in the evening while working on the quilt I'm making for Sammy.  I finished it a couple nights ago, woohoo!Many, many thanks to Lindsay Caldwell for guiding me along through my foray into quilting.  It was fun, and I may even have the confidence to do it again for the next baby!

We had another appointment with our baby doctor yesterday.  Here's hoping we don't have any more!  I am determined that this baby will not be born late.  Things are still looking good.  I told my doctor that I wanted to punch out the next person who says something like "The baby is due next week?  But he hasn't dropped yet!" and he laughed at me.  I think that means I have his permission to smack anyone who says that.  So watch out.  

Ryan drew this on our chalkboard in anticipation of Sammy's arrival.

I had the craziest experience grocery shopping this week.  When I got to Smith's, it was very dim inside.  A worker told me that an accident had knocked out power in the area, and they were on the emergency generators.  It was fun to shop in the half-lit store.  I was almost done when suddenly the lights went completely out.  I was in the back of the store, and it was pitch-black.  Scary!  Someone yelled out that everyone needed to come to the front of the store.  I left my cart and slowly walked up to the front.  One checkstand still had power.  Everyone was leaving, and I thought "Dang it, I want my groceries!"  So I went back to retrieve my cart.  Good thing I did, because I had left all my reusable bags in the cart (stupid pregnant brain!).  I was able to check out before the last checkstand lost power, and got home with my groceries safely.  It was awesome.  I hope the grocery store didn't lose all their perishables.  That would be sad.

Last night we went out to dinner with Rena, my mentor in the genetic counseling program.  We tried out the Rocky Mountain Pizza Co.  I had an excellent calzone.  The days of just going out to eat without serious planning are coming to an end... that will be so weird.  Not being able to do things spontaneously is going to be very different for us.  

Things I Am Excited to Do Again After the Baby is Born:

Run

Play sports (Ryan is going to teach me how to bat like Todd Helton)

Sleep on my back

Go more than an hour without peeing

Ride a bike

Walk up stairs without wanting to die

Eat whatever I feel like

Not be dependent on medicine to keep from vomiting

Wear my favorite shirt (the yellow one that says Reading is for Awesome People)

Squeeze through tight spaces

Roll over

Put on socks without it taking 2 minutes

Here's what I hope is the last belly picture on the blog.

Babies Everywhere!

One of our friends was induced on Thursday.  Another friend, whose due date was only the day before mine, had her baby yesterday.  When will little Sammy arrive?  He only has 2 more weeks to go!That's not a peace sign- that's me eagerly showing the number of weeks left til the baby comes!

We finished our lab rotation at ARUP on Tuesday.  It's nice to be done.  Ryan has been helping me come up with ideas for the papers I have to write for my online class.  I've never had school during the summer, this is all a novelty to me.  Which really means that it is hard to be motivated.

We babysat for our friends the Joys on Thursday.  Their little girls are so cute!  While we were watching Mary Poppins Sophie just slowly keeled over and was instantly asleep.  Regan did the same thing about 20 minutes later.  I was seriously amused.  

Ryan played Frisbee with me today.  That is quite a sacrifice for him; he really hates Frisbee.  Sadly Ultimate Frisbee is one of the few sports I am decently good at.  Not right now though, it is so hard to throw a Frisbee with any accuracy or speed when you have a huge belly!  Man!  Poor little Sammy was getting tossed around!  I say poor Sammy, but he probably liked it.  He's much more feisty when I'm sitting down, as if to say "Move around, Mommy!"  We ended up playing our own version of Frisbee golf in our apartment court- plenty of trees and barbeque grills to aim at.  It was nice of Ryan to play with me even though he hates it.  He's a good sport.

I am eating fruit snacks, are you jealous?

Don't lie to yourself- you wish you were eating fruit snacks too.

I have been watching the Rockies play almost every night this week.  It makes me so mad that they can't win more than one in a row.  Come on boys, prove me wrong!  

We had a ward barbeque last night, it was great.  I love hanging out with everyone.  The guys had a home run derby, which was definitely fun to watch.  Only one guy hit the ball over the fence before the bat broke.  

Ryan ran in the stake 5k this morning.  I had an excuse not to run (thank you, baby!), but I got up and cheered.  

Ryan and Rob before the start of the race.  Rob is our next door neighbor.Rob waves hi.

Ryan at the finish line.  Yay Ryan!  I had fun cheering for you!

Today was graduation for the School of Medicine at the U, which means that my class can now call ourselves the 2nd-years.  Crazy.  Who will help us with our homework, and give us advice for exams?  Our class is already planning our skit for next year's graduation party.  We were sorely disappointed that there was no entertainment tonight.

Yesterday the baby reached 37 weeks, which means he's now officially a full-termer.  If he was born tomorrow I wouldn't have to worry about him, and that feels really good.  I can't believe how soon he will be a real live person that I can play with!  (and change diapers, and clean up after him, yes I am aware it's not all fun and games!) We still haven't picked out a middle name for him yet though, so I would appreciate some comments with ideas on how to complete Samuel Reynolds.  Ryan is  championing Grayson, after a character from a book we both like, but I'm not sure about it yet.   

I know, my pj pants are AWESOME.

Feelin' HOT HOT HOT

I should be shunned from the blog circle for being 2 whole days late with my post.  A thousand apologies.  

Last week the Polynesian kids at Ryan's school put on a cultural performance with dances and costume from all the Polynesian islands.  It was neat to see the kids so excited about it.  They were great!  The Student Housing Association put on a big party for the end of the semester with pizza, ice cream, a petting zoo, a rock wall... it was huge!  We got to pet a baby camel!  That was cool.  Some of our friends did 4-way American Gladiator jousting; I was glad to have a ready excuse not to join in!  Lucky me.  Of course, my excuse meant I couldn't have a go at the rock wall, so that was a bummer.   I like these events Student Housing puts on.  They are always a good time.

My classmates and I have 5 more days of our rotation at ARUP.  In the Cytogenetics lab we got to look at our own chromosomes!  That was crazy.  They looked just like the pictures in textbooks; it was hard to identify with the chromosomes as "mine".  I still put the printout on the fridge :0)

Less than a month to go until the baby arrives.  I'm about 36.5 weeks along now.  We had an appointment with our doctor today.  He says that he's on Labor and Delivery in June, so as long as Sammy decides to come in the middle of the night, he should be around for it.  That would be great.  We really like our doctor.  He told us today that Sammy's head is down, which is good news.  Yay!  We have appointments every week now, hopefully only a few more!

Happy Mother's Day!

To all you moms out there, I hope you feel special and celebrated this Mother's Day.  I am excited to join your ranks in 5 short weeks!

The semester finally ended.  My neighbors and I threw a end of school/Cinco de Mayo BBQ out in the court.  It was fantastic to just hang out and not worry about going in to do homework!  Everyone brought food to share, and we played Catch Phrase until it got too dark.

Kristie tries her hot dog "Brazilian style" with crazy ridiculous toppings.  According to all my friends who served missions in Brazil, hot dogs taste great with mashed potatoes, peas, crispy onions, you name it!  I stuck to an onion burger.Terina with her amazing pavlova dessert.  It was quickly devoured.The crew, moving tables. Me and Jessica in our fancy cooking aprons.  Terina's pavlova is on our plates, waiting to be scarfed down.

On Wednesday 3 of my classmates and I began our laboratory rotation at ARUP Labs.  We will be there until May 26th, hanging out in different labs and practicing making a diagnosis from various lab tests.  I am learning a lot, and cementing a lot of the conditions we went over in our Biochemical Genetics class (because we've been in the Biochem lab the past 3 days).  I enjoy it, but it is definitely tiring.  We're there from about 9am-4pm every day.  There is free hot chocolate and water with the fancy ice, so that makes up for the long hours.

Ryan and I went to a breastfeeding class on Thursday.  He is being a good sport about going to childbirth classes with me, which I really appreciate.  Today we went to an all day childbirth prep class where we learned about labor and delivery.  We had to watch a video of a woman giving birth.  I was really freaked out, to be honest.  It was not pretty.  If I wasn't already pregnant, it would put me off having children.  By the end of the class I felt better, and I'm excited to use the relaxation techniques we learned.  Ryan is a great support, and as long as little Sammy doesn't arrive early, my mum will be there too.  I'll be in good hands.  I freak out about this every week, but he's almost here!  Holy cow! 

My dad's birthday is tomorrow.  Happy Birthday Dad!  See you soon!

My Name is Inigo Montoya...

I have to be quick with this  blog post because we are going to see the new X-Men movie tonight!  It is the second half of our date from last night.  We went to dinner at Olive Garden, and then we were going to see the movie right after, but it was sold out.  So we're going tonight!

Monday night was our last "hurrah" with our friends Joe and Claire before they moved to New Jersey.  We had Family Home Evening with them down in Provo.  Hopefully they have made it to the East Coast by now... good luck, guys!  On Wednesday we bought some flowers to put in our "flowerboxes".  The flowerboxes are these old dresser drawers that someone left on the curb to throw away.  We snatched them up, and Ryan decorated them to look cool.  He's good at stuff like that.

I love my gardening gloves.  I don't know why.  I just do.

I took my first exam on Friday.  I think it went alright.  The next one is Monday.  Then I have 2 presentations and a bunch of papers to write for Tuesday, and then I am done!

We got a big present for the baby on Friday.  Grandma and Grandpa Lauver sent Sammy a Pack and Play!  We put it together yesterday, and then I practiced taking it down and stuffing it back in the bag.  

Isn't it cute?  I wish we had a baby to put in it RIGHT NOW!  No, just kidding.  You've got 6 more weeks of growing, little one.  Stay put until your Grandma Huelin gets to Utah, please.Ryan's favorite food: Root beer floats!  He is a pro at making them.  If you ever come by to visit, ask him for one.