Fact.

Fact: Jesse and I have a word (or two) of the week usually every week.
Fact: About a week ago the word was bulbous.

Fact: My belly is becoming very bulbous.

Fact: We made pork chops with roasted asparagus (plus olive oil and kosher salt) for dinner last night at 9:00pm.
Fact: We both agreed it was a very delicious meal and needs to be made more often.

(Not our picture and not the recipe we used, but it looks very similar to what ours looked like. Fact.)

Fact: We made a very big decision last night.
Fact: One that will impact us for the next many years of our lives.
Fact: We are both very excited.
Fact: But, we both had trouble falling asleep.

Fact: We are taking a birthing class.
Fact: It is a four week class and we've already been to two weeks so far.
Fact: The teacher mentioned that in some cultures, people use the placenta as fertilizer in their garden.
Fact: I said that everybody could give all the placentas to Jesse and he would plant them at the Arboretum.
Fact: Jesse said he would not do that.
Fact: Somebody asked "if the placenta is planted does it grow a baby?"
Fact: Everybody laughed.

Fact: We talked about birthing helps in the class on Tuesday and forceps and vacuum were used as visual aids.
Fact: One of the class members put the vacuum on his forehead (of his own accord) and had another class member pull on it to see what it would feel like for the baby.
Fact: He was sitting there with a vacuum bopping around on his forehead.
Fact: We all laughed.
Fact: He had a red mark/bruise on his head for the rest of the night. (Post edit: And they said it stayed there for about the next 4 days!)

Fact: My shoes make my feet stink.
Fact: At lunch, I took my shoes off and wiped both my feet with a disinfecting wipe.
Fact: I think I need to get rid of those shoes.

Fact: Jesse is at the temple tonight helping with baptisms.
Fact: He won't be home till late.
Fact: I miss him.

Fact: Baby Dahl kicks a lot.
Fact: I really like it!

Fact: It is Friday!

Happy Friday!!

Edit- Thanks to everybody that commented in the last post! You are all too kind!

On March 8th, 2012...

For our five-monthiversary, I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips on top.


I put a candle in one and we blew it out together on the count of three.


Happy five months (almost 6 months now!) to us! :)

On my mind

1. I was looking at my blog postings and realized that I wrote just three posts in January. That's sad. Really, really sad.

2. Valentine's day is a week away. I have a slight idea of what I'm doing for Jesse (and other family members) but I have to solidify it for sure.

3. I made two loaves of homemade bread on Saturday night with our Kitchen-aid. By Sunday afternoon they were both gone except for a little end piece. Jesse loves bread (homemade especially) and I must admit, it was pretty good.
I forgot to take a picture but I will definitely be using that recipe again.

4. In the space of 7 months there will have been (will be) three new babies born on Jesse's side of the family:
My brother and sister-in-law (Jesse's brother and his wife) had a baby in December.
My other brother and sister-in-law (Jesse's sister and her husband) are due with their fifth child in April.
And our baby is due in July.
That will put the number of grandchildren up to 7 over a period of 7 months! Crazy!

5. We went grocery shopping last night since we had basically no food in our apartment. The store was pretty empty since we went about 9:30pm. As we passed the cereal aisle Jesse commented that when wheat has been bad, its punishment is that it's made into Cream of Wheat. That comment made me laugh.
Jesse doesn't like Cream of Wheat, but I do- especially with brown sugar. It's comfort food.


6. I haven't been able to find any maternity clothes yet. The Old Navy here doesn't have a maternity section. I have maybe one or two other stores to look at and if I don't find anything I'm not sure what I'll do.

7. I finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban over the weekend. Yes, I'm just now reading the series for the first time. I have this theory about waiting until the hype dies down to read a book. This way I don't have to wait 15 years for the book to come at the library.

8. Jesse read two books this weekend. He is a very fast reader and once he starts a book he wants to finish it in one sitting. He'll usually start a book Friday night and then stay up until the wee hours on Saturday to finish. He read books 6 and 7 in The Last Apprentice series.

9. Most of my friends who are pregnant are having girls. I'm now excited to find out whether our baby will be a boy or a girl...

10. I checked out a book from the library called The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. When my sister saw the title she laughed. When Jesse read various chapters of the book he said that I shouldn't check out anymore pregnancy/breastfeeding books from the library since he now knows more about female bodies (i.e. my body) than he ever really wanted to know!

Have a good Tuesday!

P.S. The package that I talked about in this post still hasn't arrived. Except in my imagination.

odds and ends

There was a fire in my sister's apartment this past Thursday.

She came home from work to a missed call from her manager and a friend from the YSA branch who heard about it on the news and had also called her.
She came and asked Jesse and I to go over with her and when we got there her manager was standing outside waiting for her.

All her belongings were covered in soot (the apartment was black) and smelled like smoke.
The apartment is unlivable now thanks to the damage from the smoke/soot and the front windows being knocked down by the firemen.
Thankfully she wasn't home when it happened.
It could have been way worse.

She has been staying with Jesse and I while things calm down
and she can decide what she wants to do.
I'm glad we live in the same town so she can stay with us during this time.
If you have a moment, include her in your prayers. They would be much appreciated.

***
On our second month anniversary we bought a kitchen-aid! An industrial size one! We received some money as a wedding gift, two gift cards, and had a coupon for the store.

We opened it this weekend! (I wanted to open it earlier, but our apartment is so little).

On Thursday we made chocolate sour cream bundt cake. It was so moist thanks to the sour cream.
(Doesn't saying it remind you of this? Bad quality, but you get the idea)

Then on Friday we made peach and raspberry crumble. Delicious as always!

And then last night we made white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

We all thoroughly enjoyed them.

***

Over the holidays my mom and I went to the thrift store and she bought us some
adorable, adorable baby clothes. This was our first gift.
We received our second baby gift this weekend.
A friend of mine is due with her baby (girl) around the beginning of February and she had an extra baby thermometer which she gifted to us.

***

I have another doctor's appointment at the end of next week. We can find out the sex of our baby in about 5 weeks!

My mom sent me this video which might be helpful for my friends who are having babies.



So interesting. After watching it I could definitely remember babies crying like that. I'm excited to put this to use once our little one comes.

Hunger

Thank you all for your comments on the last post!
(Long post...fair warning).

(Did you read about our secret?)

This seems like the story of my life.

Since I've been pregnant some people have asked me how I've felt and my response is:
"Mostly I just feel hungry and nauseous at the same time".

The problem is, when I'm hungry, I'm crabby.
It used to be really, really bad when I was younger.
And my parents started noticing the signs that I needed food.
They would encourage me to eat, but usually by that time it was too late.
Since then I've gotten a lot better about realizing when I need to eat.
But...sometimes I still don't eat in time.

And then I have to control the hunger monster that wants to come out and attack everybody.

Even though Jesse is a great cook, when we got married, I think he was excited for me to cook dinners (and I was too since I like to cook).

Then we found out I was pregnant and then morning (oops, I mean all day) sickness set in.
And then I didn't feel like cooking, let alone eating, even though I was really hungry almost all the time.

Jesse has been so patient and so willing to cook dinner on those days when I just don't feel like doing it and just want to go take a nap.

So yesterday after we got home from church
Jesse made chicken noodle soup (a recipe he's perfected)
and I made grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it.

Then we took a nap.
When we woke up we went for a drive to look for a farm to buy.

Since I had been feeling like a bad wife,
when we got back from the drive, I made tapioca pudding from scratch (because we both like it)
and then I made Jesse two more grilled cheese sandwiches
in the new cast iron skillet I received for Christmas.
He really liked them.

I'm 14 weeks pregnant this week and I thought morning sickness was gone
but then Thursday I got sick twice and ended up staying home from work on Friday.
I'm hoping this week it gets better and disappears for good.
Because mostly? I'm just sick and tired of throwing up.
Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Once the nausea disappears, I just have to come up with and make some good dinner recipes!

****************

Here are some other thoughts I've had about food:

Do you you feel sorry for regular oranges now that Cuties clementines are so popular?? I do!
It seems that nobody wants to eat an orange you actually have to take time to peel.
I mean, I can't really talk too much since I eat Cuties much more often than oranges and they're so much easier than peeling/eating an orange, but I try to eat oranges every now and then so they don't feel quite so bad about themselves anymore. I don't want them to feel completely sad and rejected.

Some foods that I can no longer eat because morning sickness makes my stomach reject them:
-Hamburgers
-Tacos with ground meat (oh, the smell!)
-Anything with ground meat and onions together (I can eat onions separately but not with the meat)
-Chicken nuggets
-French fries
-Sprite
-BBQ sauce
-Ribs
-Certain kinds of soup
-Rice krispies cereal

Foods my stomach is still okay with:
-Quesadillas made in our George Foreman grill
-Saltines
-Bananas! (almost the one food that I basically lived on for a week)
-Tapioca pudding
-Pita bread
-Most fruit
-Milk
-Grilled cheese
-Toast (sometimes with butter and jam)
-Mint chocolate chip ice cream
-Ice chips (not really a food, but regular water doesn't stay down too well)
-Frost Glacier Freeze (and Glacier Freeze) Gatorade

***************

P.S. If you've been pregnant where do you buy maternity clothes?
I've been using a belly band, which helps with my pants,
but my shirts are getting too short...

P.P.S. Jesse talks to our baby every day.
Sometimes he will say things like,
"Kick mom in the bladder so she has to get up during the night to go to the bathroom."
And I usually laugh and give him a frowny face.
But usually, when we're both home from work, he'll wrap his arms around my belly,
get down on his knees and say,
"Hi baby, I've missed you. Did you have a good day? I hope you didn't make mama too sick today. I love you."
It usually makes me cry.

I really, truly love my husband. To the moon and back. He is going to be a great dad.

Help for Africa

I don't normally post about things like this on my blog, but during lunch I was reading the news (briefly) and came across this slideshow and story on msnbc.com about the famine in Eastern Africa.

As I was looking at the slideshow the pictures drew me in. I must be living under a rock because I had no idea that a famine was happening. I started crying and feeling really guilty for being so stressed over my wedding preparations when there are children and families dying of hunger. I am really blessed.

View the complete slideshow here
And ways you can help here

Move Over TCBY

...there's a new frozen yogurt place in town!

Last week after our presidency meeting, one of my counselors, S. (who is also a friend) and I went to Orange Leaf- a new pay-by-the-ounce yogurt place here.

She had been before but I hadn't, so I was more than willing to go (and I needed some girl talk). They have about 16 flavors to choose from and you can get swirls for each flavor combo or just mix and match flavors. They also have a bunch of toppings to choose and you can sample as many yogurt flavors as you want before you buy.

I couldn't narrow which ones I wanted so I tried a combo of every flavor (minus the coffee). I really like the chocolate/peanut butter, mint chocolate, and their red velvet cake. I put Little Debbie oatmeal creme pie pieces on top of mine. What's not to like about that? They also have a fun topping called popping boba candy in mango flavor. So yummy!

And one of the best parts...These little spovels (spoon+shovel - I don't know what their real name is, but that's what they look like) to eat your yogurt with. Aren't they adorable?

I have a feeling I'll be eating a lot more Orange Leaf in my future. Which makes me think to my self "Orange you glad it's fro-yo?" :)

Have you been to Orange Leaf? What is your favorite flavor?

Pie maker

I'm a little slow in the blogging department. Not a lot is going on so I don't have a lot to blog about.

But, I have been doing some Halloween-ish/Autumn-ish things!

Pumpkin carving

Pie baking

(It was my first attempt at making the crust...don't judge too harshly!)

And...

Pumpkin seed roasting

I guess I have enough for a blog post after all!

What have Halloween-ish/Autumn-ish things have you been up to?