Oh hey third trimester. Wud up?

28 weeks/7 Months!
ps. I count my pregnancy on the 10 month cycle that most books and doctors use, instead of the 9 month one. 4 weeks = 1 month. I have had some people be confused so.. there ya have it! I just do whatever "What to Expect When You're Expecting" tells me to do.

Hello third trimester. Goodbye feet.

• Her movements are constant and consistent. None have hurt or bothered me yet. I am so used to them now they seem like just a normal part of my life!
• She had moved up so much higher. I feel her up in my ribs whereas I used to only feel her down in my belly.
• Peeing. Ohhhh peeing. I am always peeing. 4-5 times a night. Every hour during the day. Sometimes more. And I have been told it gets worse. Yay peeing!!!!
• Her and I play games. If she kicks me, I poke back and she will kick me in the exact same spot. It's probably just coincidence, but I like to pretend we are already BFF.
• She almost made me pee my pants in public. True story. I take a class every Tuesday night as many of you know. I am getting an endorsement to my degree. Anyways, I am sitting in class and I know I have to pee but it isn't that bad. I figure I can wait until our break and not interrupt the lecture. Then. BAM. Home girl kicks me with all her might right in the bladder. I seriously almost lost it. I gasped out loud and ran to the bathroom. My friends had fun with that one.
• Some nights sleeping is rough. I toss and turn and can't fall asleep or get woken up to pee 12 times or get woken up by my incredibly achy hips and back. Some nights sleeping is the bomb. I fall into a coma and never return unless she kicks my bladder or my alarm goes off. It's complete hit or miss.
• I can't do sitting or standing for any longer than about 45 minutes. I have to change positions. I have taken up residence as the weirdo who stands in the back of my night class half the time. The women get me but the men think I'm weak.
• I feel like I keep popping out more and more and more! I like it, but it still sometimes amazes me that my body is stretching.
• No swelling yet! Fingers are crossed but I am not keeping my hopes too high. I drink tons of water and exercise, so maybe it will stay at bay? Probably not.
• Still crave string cheese and cake donuts and multigrain cheerios.
• Rolling over, bending over, squatting down, reaching up, and twisting side-to-side are all very hard tasks for me and often involve pain.
• Now that I am showing so much my student's constantly have questions. They are usually just curious and excited for me. Although one girl asked me how I planned to deliver. That was weird.
• She's been squishing my lungs lately so if I sit for too long, she makes it very hard to breathe.
• Strangers offer to give up their seats for me. It's really sweet. I feel bad though because I usually prefer to stand. My legs fall asleep when I sit.
• Still getting a ton of bloody noses. One happened on my commute home. It was a gusher. Here, enjoy this picture I took to send to my family. We are over-sharers.
  
  
• She gets really active if I play music with a loud beat. I like to imagine her dancing.
• I've got the pregnancy congestion. Something I prayed wouldn't come to me but my mom said she had it every time she was pregnant. I hate being congested and thinking that I will probably be congested for the next 3 months really sucks. Every time little girl is sick in the future and complains about it, I'll just make sure she feels really guilty for making me congested for 3 months.
• Having super vivid dreams. Not necessarily incredibly weird ones. Just dreams that feel super real. They are usually stressful too.
• Road trips are A LOT harder than they used to be. I have been on 2 in the last 2 weeks and have 2 more planned before this little girl gets here.
• Yes we have picked out her name. No we don't call her that yet. No we aren't announcing. Only select family and a few friends know. It's the first question EVERYONE asks. Literally. But I don't want to get sick of the name and I think it makes it more special to wait until she is born. Plus, what if she comes out and doesn't look anything like the name we picked?
• While driving the other day, Nathan pointed out that there are less than 3 months until my due date and it was crazzzyy. I seriously cannot believe how fast time has gone!! I know towards the end it slows down, so I am loving this right now!
• Sometimes.. I waddle. 
• I sleep with 4 pillows every night. Two body pillows on either side of me to give my hips and stomach support and to keep me from rolling over on my back. I have one regular pillow under my head and  one regular one that floats around wherever I need it. We have a massive California King size bed, and Nathan is confined to one small corner. Sorry dear.
• I don't get the weepies as much as I used to. But I certainly still get the grumpies. Hormones are no fun.
• Third trimester?? Seriously?? It is still blowing my mind. I will start seeing my doctor every two weeks from here on out. Nuts!
• I signed us up for our labor and childcare class at the hospital. I am so excited!!!
• This is a really long list.
• Sometimes I feel like my bump changes sizes. Some days I feel huge. Yesterday my boss told me I didn't even look pregnant. My bump is magic.
• I really, really love being pregnant. This is such a fun time!!

Hey! We went to Idaho and here's a million pictures from my phone!

The title pretty much says it all.

We took a somewhat last minute trip up to Idaho to see the Merkley's!

We also happened to escape snow for the second weekend in a row which was awesome. We don't like snow. We are glad the Merkley's live on the side of Idaho where the weather is actually nice. Thanks for that, guys.

We spent a lot of time playing around and enjoying the break. We also went bowling and BBQed.

Now here's those pictures you've been waiting for!

Miss Zoey. I love this puppy. Even though she's not a puppy an is actually really old. I love that she likes to just sit on my lap.

We love the sun!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best friends.

Nathan makes fun of the way I bowl. But that looks like the bowling stance of a professional to me.

Bowling brothers!

Me, Nathan, Jaden

Idaho sunset. No inversion!!!

Half the weekend was spent flying this little helicopter..

.. and landing it in weird places.

"Oh my gosh! I look so huge next to you! Stop that."

Marching across the yard.

I don't blame Zoey for being scared.

Going down the banister! It was sad how scared she was. How come all my pictures are of Zoey?

Jaden reading to us from his book, "How to Annoy Your Friends."

It was a lovely weekend!

Moving day!

When we got married, we found the nicest place we could find in dirty, old down-town Salt Lake that didn't cost a billion dollars. Let me tell you, it was hard. But we finally found citifront which were new apartments for reasonable rent. We got the cheapest apartment they had!

Our apartment was small. Like seriously you guys, SMALL. We didn't need a ton of room and we loved that little place. But it was tiny. TINY! Very little room for anything more than we already had. So when we started purchasing stuff for the baby, our tiny apartment filled up quickly.

We knew all along we were going to move so little lady could have her own room and we could have some breathing space. We talked a lot about leaving down town and living where rent wasn't so high and neither was the homeless population. But we felt right about staying close to Nathan's school and work. It's super convenient that he can walk or take the trax most days. Plus, we do love this dirty little city.

We ended up realizing the cheapest and nicest 2-bedrooms around were in our complex! So we asked if were any opening up in the next month or so. Oh, there was one opening up. The apartment DIRECTLY across from ours. Not down the hall. Not next door. DIRECTLY ACROSS. Like.. 8 feet. Our peep holes lined up (That sounded dirty). So all we had to do was shove our stuff across the hall. It was amazing!!!!

So last night was finally moving night. We signed the contract transfer at 5 and started moving. We were done by 7:30. Now when I say done, I just mean we got all our crap into the new apartment. The organizing is a whole different story that may take me many moons to tell.

We are IN LOVE with our new place! It's still nothing massive. (City rent is redonkulous). But it's SO MUCH BIGGER than what we crammed into before. I have counter space!! And drawers in my bathroom! And a full sized bathroom mirror! And we have a full-sized washed and dryer. Not the tiny stack-able ones! We have lots of windows and lots of space. We have a room for our baby and a guest bathroom. Our bedroom is a bit bigger and we have our own bathroom! It is absolutely perfect.

Hanging out with baby M in her new room! She was pleased.

View from the front door. Kitchen is off to the left as well as the guest bathroom. Baby's room is on the left, balcony in the middle, and our room on the right.

DO YOU SEE THE COUNTER SPACE?!!? THERE IS SPACE TO PUT STUFF ON THE COUNTERS!!! I HAVEN'T HAD THAT IN A YEAR!!! I literally had to mix bowls in the sink when cooking and baking in the old apartment. Also, washer and dryer in the kitchen is kinda weird but I can manage.

Here's half of our room. Taking pictures of bedrooms is hard. Our closet looked super small at first and it scared me but it actually is super deep and long. I was impressed.

Here's the view from the front door as of this morning. Told you there will be a lot of organizing done. You should see the baby's room. I think half of our apartment got thrown in there just so we could shut the door and not look at the mess.

If you'll notice the sink, you will see that I simply transferred the dirty dished from one apartment's sink to the other. It was lovely. Also, there's my breakfast in the left corner.

When all is said and done, I've gotta say the best part about this new place is no more poopie balcony! Those same dang pigeons from last summer had already started to build a nest on our balcony again, no matter how many times we destroyed it! Our new porch is a beautiful, crap-free zone.

Our Valentine's trip according to my iPhone

Our little weekend getaway was so much fun! Here's what it would look like if you were my iPhone.

My favorite flower :) He gets them for me every year!

Oh you know, just taking awkward mirror pictures when we got to our hotel.

I wanted to buy these for Katie so bad. Mini wiener dog jewelry boxes with bedazzled ears!!!

Driving around Cedar City

iHop breakfast!

Oh you know.. SIXTY DEGREES!!!!!!

Chilli's for dinner. This picture makes me laugh. I like the beam of light on his face.

Banana and Nutella time!

My Valentine's presents! (Besides all the candy). Nathan did GOOOOOD. He was so proud of that purse. He picked it out all on his own and it's exactly what I wanted!

Instead of the temperature, check out the mileage. My little red baby hit 100,000 miles!!! She is only a few years old, but has been a commuter car since the moment I got her. Such a trooper. I was glad we were having an adventure when we hit 100k. Made it more exciting and less depressing about my car getting older and going down in value.

Another one bites the dust

 Well.. biting the dust isn't exactly the right way to say it. But another cousin if off to serve the Lord! Dallen will be serving in the California, San Bernardino mission and speaking Spanish. So excited for him! He is going to be amazing.

Great camera-eye-contact, Jessica.

Lots of cousins!

Proud grandparents!

It was another great night filled with food and family. And then it ended with this picture. The end!

Valentine's Weekend

Nathan and I decided last year that we would always switch off planning Valentine's and Anniversary each year. Last year he had Valentine's so I took it this year! I thought a lot about how this was our last Valentine's day without babies and I wanted to do something that would be hard to do next year. So I decided to plan a little weekend trip! I didn't want to go far since Nathan had to be back to work on Monday and I didn't want to spend the whole weekend driving. I also needed to go somewhere warm. Like.. bad. So I decided on Cedar City. I had never been there before this past summer when we visited Amanda and Brad there for the 4th of July. They were only there for a few weeks and I am glad we visited because we fell in love with that cute little town and I am so glad we went there this weekend! 

I wanted to completely surprise Nathan so I packed up all our stuff and hid it in the trunk before he got off work. Then we just got on the road and started driving. It was so funny to watch him try to figure it out. We stopped for dinner in Provo and I finally spilled the beans. He was so excited! He works so hard and he really deserved a weekend away. He is very good at relaxing.

 We loved our hotel room! Besides the bedspread, it was so cute. Big and clean. I was worried because I had gotten such a good deal, but it was great. We ate lots of Nutella that night (it's a vacation tradition) and watched Independence Day. Seriously, we did. It was on TV and we started watching it as a joke and 2 hours later we were celebrating Will Smith's victory!

The next day we slept through the free hotel breakfast and headed to iHop before exploring Main Street. It is so adorable!!! So many cute little antique, handmade, and vintage shops. We spent forever just exploring and playing around. And maybe buying a few presents for ourselves. The weather was GORGEOUS. Sun shining, not a cloud in the sky, 60 degrees. We walked around with no coats and could not be happier.

Then we got ice cream at the old-fashioned ice cream and candy shop. It was so cute I wanted to cry. The workers probably thought I was a weirdo.

Then we went out on a nice, long drive with the windows down. (THE WINDOWS DOWN!! AHHH!) Nathan and I are weird in how much we love going on drives. It was refreshing to drive around Cedar City because there was so many new areas to explore. When you have lived in down town Salt Lake forever, you run out of places to explore. This was wonderful. And we finally got to play with our camera again. When we bought it this summer, we took so many pictures! When life started up again in the Fall, we have started slacking big time. It was fun to experiment again. Even if we are incredibly amateur. We don't mind :)

I was so content to just stand outside in the sun. It felt like medicine.

We wanted little lady to be in on the action. She was on the trip too! (Believe me, I felt her in my ribs).

 We went back to the Hotel so Nathan could do a little "homework" and I could take a nap. We headed to Chili's for our fancy dinner. Guys, Chili's is my favorite place in the world. I don't even know why I love it so much. We went back to the hotel for dessert and endlesss hour of Friends watching while Nathan ate the rest of his hot wings appetizer in bed. Gross.

We headed back Sunday morning and got back to Salt Lake in the afternoon. It was gloomy and cold and looked like this.

We were sad.

But it was a wonderful weekend! Such a great break from real life. We got to enjoy the sunshine and just be together. We talked about how fun it is to just do nothing together. I hope that never changes. So glad to be married to my best friend! Happy Valentine's day sweetie!