Saturday, November 21, 2015

I'm Done!...Oh, Wait: 36 Weeks Pregnant

Well I've made it to the final four weeks. It's a bit of a conundrum because I get this feeling of, "I made it, I'm done!"...but really I still have another month. Exciting and tedious. And did you know they switched full term from 37 weeks to 39? How dare they?!


The baby had another growth spurt. I could tell the last couple of weeks as I cringed every time he moved. He particularly likes to try to cram himself into the right side of my pelvic bone. I feel like I suddenly blew up like a balloon. The doctor confirmed the growth spurt as I had a huge weight jump and instead of measuring behind, the baby has caught up and I'm measuring right at 36 weeks. My face and rear end are rounding out quite nicely as well. I'd like to blame pregnancy, but it's probably due more to low self-control around Halloween candy and fall baking. My OB determined I'm dialated to one cm, but had a really hard time getting to my cervix (that was fun, and my cervix complained about it for the next couple of days). She said that his head is super low and in the way. I could have told her that.

Despite the shocking and sudden jabs, I've truly been enjoying feeling this baby move. When he wakes me up at night I don't mind, I just enjoy some quiet time laying there feeling the life inside of me. I like to picture what he'll be like and I pray that everything will go safely until I get to actually hold him. If he wiggles this much inside of me, I'm interested to see how he'll be with some space to move.


My mom's puppies like to sleep on laps when they nap, but it's a tight squeeze on mine since it's pretty much full already. When I looked down at these two, I was struck by the funny sight of a baby belly and two puppies trying to all fit.

Since I "can go any day now" as everyone keeps telling me, Brigham and I decided to take a mini babymoon before our world gets reconstructed. We stayed at a hotel in Bellevue, while my parents watched the kids, and tried to fit as much fun as possible into one night.

We went to dinner using a gift card Brigham won off the radio to a bar in Seattle, Taphouse Grill. They are famous for all their different beers. Then enters the pregnant Mormon, haha. We enjoyed using the gift card to buy food that we normally wouldn't be able to afford, and we were even able to get a dessert sampler to test out small servings of each of the desserts they serve.

Then we went back to the hotel and had the pool and hot tub to ourselves. It's amazing how fun it is to be able to move quickly and lightly in the water, although pregnant. I felt human again for a little while. After swimming we played one of our favorite games, Seasons, and then watched a couple shows...or that is Brigham did. I only made it through one episode before I was out. But really, midnight is pretty good for a pregnant lady.

The next day we slept in, enjoyed a pretty impressive continental breakfast, and then went out shopping at the mall before we went back to watch the BYU football game and pick up the kids. It was perfect to enjoy some freedom before a tiny human dictates our lives.

The only damper on the weekend was accidentally bumping into a car as we were backing out of the hotel parking garage. Barely tapped the car and the bumper crumples. Ugh!

I would go more into it, but basically it shouldn't have happened and I'm still upset about it. But that's what insurance is for right? :( :(

Moving on from that disaster.

I'm resigned to waiting for this baby to come so he can be as healthy as possible, but I'm waiting as impatiently as possible. The countdown is on. I guess I'd better call to set up the pediatrician!!


Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Tappana Times: Also in October

Just wanted to catch the last couple things that happened last month. Nothing too exciting, but still.

October starts with General Conference where we were able to hear the living prophets speak. It was wonderful. Homemade cinnamon rolls were a must, and we all got our sweet fix while listening.


Elder Holland's talk was excellent (of course) and it was hard for this pregnant mom to hold back the tears as he talked about motherhood.




I love when my kids play well together, and I snapped this moment when they both were using their lap trays, chatting and coloring.

Ammon has kept up his random sleeping places when he misses his nap. We went to our friends' babies' blessings (twins). And as Ammon was sitting so reverently with his eyes closed and arms folded, he lost the battle and started sliding sideways down the back of the chair so that he almost fell off. I hurried and grabbed him and let him lean on me throughout the rest of the blessings. Poor guy.



I received a box of older apples that had me peeling, slicing, and placing apple rings in our food dehydrator and drying loads of apples and making apple everything all month. Our favorite was this apple pie that I made. It was DELICIOUS. This recipe wasn't too hard to make it looked really pretty. I felt so domestic.


Besides baking, Ammon and I have been going over every Tuesday and Thursday to babysit my mom's new puppies while she works.  They have to be let out every hour and watched like a hawk until they are house trained.

Pepper and Pippin are stinkers, but SO cute that it's hard to stay mad at them. And the LOVE Ammon. They follow him around and constantly are jumping on him and trying to play.








Someday, when they're bigger and house trained, they'll come over to our house, but for now we're busy puppy-sitting at my parents' twice a week.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Halloween Pumpkins, Parties, and Sea Creatures

This year I tried to scale back for Halloween. Usually we go totally crazy, but with my being preggo and all, I wanted to cut back on the stress. However, it seemed to be just as crazy as usually, but just as fun as usual, as well.

Brigham and I hosted our annual Halloween party. Unfortunately, the picture taking didn't happen during since I was running the games, but I have some after pictures that are pretty terrible instead.

I made a witches brew for the drink that was a big hit (just some pineapple juice, sprite, lime juice, and lime sherbet, and don't forget the plastic eye-balls) and some mummy pizzas. I also made some Halloween cupcakes.


For the games we played a couple new ones including Sweets in the Dark, where you have to guess what candy you are eating when blindfolded. Only three people guessed five correct in a row. And we also played Nosey, where you have to guess whose nose is sticking through a slit in a curtain from the other team. I almost peed my pants playing that one, I was laughing so hard. I accidentally accused all the women of having Brigham's nose....whoops. It's actually really hard to tell! We played our classic Name Game, and though the numbers dropped due to babysitter demands, it was just as fun as ever. We sure missed our Utah friends, though.

As for the prizes, the night before the party, my friend Brittany came over and we had a girls night making super fancy caramel apples drizzled with chocolate, peanut butter, nuts, chocolate chips...you name it. Mmm, I love caramel apples and we had a blast together. Big thanks to Brigham for watching all six of our kids by himself so we could have some fun together, kids-free.

Those that won prizes got to pick from the apples, or candy, or Halloween hand sanitizer. I tied for best costume with another gentleman that came as Chicago Bears coach, Mike Ditka.

Speaking of costumes, I tried to make super simple ones this year, AND use my pregnant belly to my advantage...so after much pinterest research we became a family of sea creatures.


My belly became an octopus head, Lydia transformed to a jelly fish, Ammon demanded to be a sea turtle, and Brigham was our friendly shark.

The costumes weren't too hard. I tried to convince Ammon to be the shark, but he wanted nothing to do with. I'm glad he insisted on the turtle, considering I used most of his old Pascal costume from our Tangled year, just added a turtle shell that I found at DI for a dollar. And his personality worked so well with the turtle that it was hilarious.

Some felt  was needed for my costume, and it was easy enough to turn a gray hoodie into a shark ensemble, although I did break my first sewing needle ever while sewing it (apparently needles can't sew through metal...who knew :)).



Lydia's jellyfish costume is probably my proudest ingenious moment. I wanted her to be something that could still be cute and girly, that she would enjoy, while still being a sea creature. All the jellyfish costumes online were done using umbrellas, or other head-wear and I just wasn't impressed. I saw one of her skirts and suddenly the idea just came to me. I tied lots of pink, gold, and white ribbon (Lydia got to pick the colors) from my ribbon scrap box that I already had, to one of Lydia's belts. Strapped that to her chest, and then put the poofy skirt over  her shoulders. Boom. Instant, adorable jellyfish. She even won cutest costume at the high school Halloween carnival. She was thrilled. Heck, so was I.

It was fun to be seen all together at our ward Halloween party, and Kayleen joined us as Snow White.

Earlier that week we prepared for Halloween with our annual carving pumpkins night.

I said we were only going to carve two this year to keep the stress and mess down to a minimum. However, Kayleen and Ryan joined us since they have never carved pumpkins before (yes, you should all gasp now. It's appalling) and Ammon had his pumpkin left over from his preschool field trip. So two turned into our normal four. And guess who usually does all the hard-core scraping once the kids have measly attempted to clean out the insides...me.

It was a blast. Lydia wanted a girl pumpkin with eye-lashes and kissy-lips. Brigham did his best helping her cut it out. She was upset that the eyes looked angry, and drew on earrings with a pen.

Ammon just wanted to hammer the bat-shaped pumpkin cutter that we have, so we gave his pumpkin two bat ears and he told me what kind of mouth and eyes he wanted.

I got to design "baby Kendrick's pumpkin" and made a goofy, smiley little guy. My kids thought the nose was terrible. I like it.




Basically, it was the pumpkin carving night everyone hoped for.

Halloween day Brigham and I spent the morning at the temple, went out to lunch, and then we returned home for some Halloween fun with the kiddos.

We played a giant game of Halloween memory that filled our whole living room.


It was nice to pass the time playing something together as a family, and it kept the kids from getting too stir crazy waiting for it to be time to go trick-or-treating.

Trick-or-treating this year was an adventure. It POURED.

I guess our ocean costumes inspired the wet, because the kids and Brigham were soaking. I used an umbrella. Ha! Brigham could have shared with me, but he refused. Ironically, when we went to go home, after going through the candy at my mom's house, the stars were shining with not a cloud in the sky.

Despite the rain, and checking repeatedly with the kids to see if they were tired of trick-or-treating, we stayed out for two.and.a.half HOURS. Whew. I was exhausted by time we were done. Ammon was so excited he would run right past porches/driveways/walkways and we'd have to steer him back to the doors so he could get his candy. And with each piece he accumulated, he'd get left behind because he was too busy holding up and excitedly proclaiming what he just was given. "Dad! Dad! I got another Skittles!" We'd have to usher him along to put it in his sack and catch up to the girls, who he'd then run right by at the next porch because he was too excited to pay attention to where he was going. Like I said, his turtle costume was very appropriate and it was true entertainment watching him.

The kids got so much candy, their bags broke and many tears were shed because of it. As years past, the kids got to keep all their full-size candy bars, which was quite a lot this year, and fill a bag full of the candy they wanted to keep for themselves in their room. The rest I packed up for Santa to use for Christmas and for other future holidays, and of course we put some in a parent bowl for Brigham and I to enjoy.

It was a fabulous holiday. Better than I expected. But as much as I enjoyed it, I enjoyed checking it off my list more. Because that means we're just that much closer to Christmas and this baby!

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Pumpkin Preschool Field Trip

Fall is in the air and we started October out with an early field trip to the pumpkin patch and family farm with Ammon's preschool.


It was a beautiful and sunny day. In the shade you needed a jacket, while it warmed up quite nicely while in the sun.

Ammon's best friend, Hyrum, is in his preschool class and they stuck together throughout the day.


The boys enjoyed the corn pit,


A hay ride,


AND tractor ride,


and everyone was able to pick out a pumpkin from the pumpkin field.


I convinced Ammon to take a picture with his other best friend....me. 


Or we can pretend it's me anyway :)

We had a great time playing on the playground, eating a picnic lunch, and enjoying the beautiful fall weather. For Ammon's first field trip, I'd say it was wonderful.