As If We Needed One More Thing.

Our computer has jumped ship. It's got a hard drive problem or something.
Ugh. Doesn't God know we're having a baby this year? Why so many expensive things???

So be prepared for a bit of a blogging hiatus while we figure stuff out. Though I can blog from work--hence this post. But no pictures, like from our family trip to Randolph for Mikey's birthday.

Sigh. Sometimes stuff just sucks.

Stretched

Two nights ago, I made a terrible discovery: Stretch marks.

Up until now I thought I was stretch mark free. That is, on my belly. There are some little ones on my thighs. But the bathroom at work shows low enough that as I was putting myself together (scrubs and baby belly's are hard to make cooperate) I noticed the dreadful things spreading all across under my abdomen. and it was like something broke.

All the sudden, those stretch marks marked the end. It's over. I have completely sacrificed my body for this baby. For whatever reason, it made me feel that way. And made me start to worry--is it all worth it?

What if I hate being a mom?
What if I'm too selfish?
I can't even handle a few stretch marks, what happens when I'm really making sacrifices?

And then the inevitable guilt about feeling this way. About feeling like if this baby came today, I don't know that I'd like him very much.



Then I went swimming. Mostly because I'd read that it can help reduce ankle swelling. (Totally works! I'm about to be permanently scented like chlorine.) Somewhere between lap #1 and lap #6 a random memory popped into my head:

After hiking buckskin gulch with my dad, Laura, and Jordan, we went to Lake Powell and spent our last night of the trip on the beach. We were lacking a boat or any real floaties besides our blow-up thermarests, so we just swam in the warm water. We swam swam--like breast stroke and front crawl. I remember marveling then what great swimmers we had all become. That if we really had wanted to, we could probably all swim to that big rock island waaaaay out there. Even after 3 days of hiking the Paria and Buckskin canyons.
And here I was, 31 weeks pregnant, and swimming laps. Now I'm no olympian, and I do have to take breaths twice as many times as I usually do--But I'm still a strong swimmer. And why?

Because my dad taught me. Yes we had swimming lessons, but my dad taught me that swimming was fun. That becoming a strong swimmer was valuable. I wondered how it would be to be my dad on that day at Lake Powell watching his three fishes powering through the water up and down the beach. And I knew.

I knew that I was being a total idiot.
I am going to love this child. I'm going to love being a mom--at least most of the time. I'm going to love to teach my children and see them grow.

And who am I kidding-- no one sees my abdomen anyway!






I was made even better that night when I was telling Ryan about my stretch mark woes. We were talking about the results of my most recent appointment--that is, that this kid is measuring at 34 weeks and I'm only 31!
Ryan decided our chosen name was inappropriate for the inevitable future NBA star we've been cultivating and was making suggestions for replacements.
Try these on for size:

Larry Bird Green
Jason Green ("lots of good basketball players are named Jason!" "But your uncle's name is Jason Green" "We can pretend we named him after him, but his middle name can be Kidd")
Dirk Nowitzki Green
Ryan Nowitzki Green
Dirk Larry Green
Kyle Korver Green
Korver Green
Star Green("oh! or something like Magic... Star!")
Rock Star Green

Though Ryan decided the name we had picked was good enough for a football player and so he has plans that our son will be 230 Lbs and 6'6'' and play quarterback. If that's the case, we don't have to change his name. We'll see how it goes.

Oh how that man makes me laugh.

Trouble Comes in Threes

Once upon a time, we picked up my car after having it's transmission completely overhauled.

($3000. Ouch.)

Then a day later, I went to a training class for work at LDS hospital cuz my hospital was all full.

I sometimes am in dire need of an apple fritter.
DIRE need.
This is not a joke.
Apple fritters are, like, soul saving.

I had to stop on my way home from said class at Smith's downtown for one.
Went into the store.
5 minutes later came out of the store.
2 seconds later--the newly overhauled car will not start. Not even a click.

boo.

So.... 20 min later Ry and I are de-corroding the battery and trying all the tricks we know to start the car.
1 hr later I'm riding (In dead silence--such friendly truck drivers in the towing business, eh?) in a tow truck to the transmission place. An hour after that I've got a new battery and parking in my garage and think... "I'll just try to turn it over, just to make sure."

Oh yeah. Nothing. Not even a click.

Booooooooo.

So I call the shop and turns out my car will turn on in neutral but not in park. It needs some "minor adjustments" and so now it's back in the shop. again.

boooooooooooooooooo.

Sometimes cars suck.

30 Weeks

Holy Moly! in the 30's already????

(whew, this photo had much poorer lighting than my other "belly shots".
It was raining and cloudy.)

I can't believe I have only 10 weeks left! and yet, 10 weeks seems like soooo long.
Especially after long 12 hour shifts on my feet. I've been pretty close to dying of foot pain at least 3 times this week. Seriously. Death by Plantar Faciitis. I'm convinced it could happen.

I really don't feel too bad until I go to work. Then it's the long hours, the pushing and pulling and tugging at people twice my size and unconscious. But even more than the physical labor, it's also the only place I get this:
"You don't have that long left do you?----What?! 10 weeks? are you sure?"
"Woah! You've just become all pregnant all the sudden!"
"Oh, you're the same nurse from yesterday. My mom said it would be the one that looks like she's ready to pop."
"How far along are you now? REALLY? Only 30 weeks?"

I recommend all women who become pregnant to quit working by 20 weeks. People don't see you for a while and you look HUGE to them.

I've also gotten some nice compliments lately though. One of my co-workers said I'd be a good "boy mom" when I told him I was having a boy. And at Laura's wedding my mom said I was one of the most energetic pregnant women she's seen. And we all know my mom sees a lot of them, you know, it being her living and all. It made me feel better because I feel like such a slug. I wish I could be more active but my feet just kill. It's nice to know that I'm not as bad as I could be though.

He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, still seems to be doing well. He moves constantly and it's so fun! I love to sit and watch my belly morph as he sticks some appendage out. Sometimes I forget he's there, then he sends me a little 'hello!' in the form of a big kick or jab in the bladder or ribs.
I try to keep focused on the happy parts of pregnancy rather than constantly thinking about when I'll be able to sit down next. :)

As things have been going lately, I'm becoming more nervous about a few things:
Finances (blame the stupid car for that one)
Who's gonna watch my kid when I got back to work?
Losing the weight (I'm up to 170!!!!!! holy crap!)
Breast feeding

and More excited about these:
Finding out what our little dude looks like
Ryan being a daddy

Overall, I still have a positive outlook about pregnancy. I still don't love being pregnant, but I like it. It could always be worse. :)

Most Expensive Year Yet

I know last year we bought a house, though it's less buying a house and more amassing 30 years worth of debt. But this year is about to become our most expensive yet.

• New windows.


• We're currently in the middle of installing central A/C.


• We're going to have a baby--so baby supplies + hospital bills + Ashley drops to part time work.


• And now, what? A brand spankin new transmission for my favoritest Subaru ever.

Sigh.

I know this is why we've been putting money away--You know, for a rainy day. And the A/C, windows, and baby were all planned for. But the transmission is stealing money from the other stuff! Sigh. again.

Lottery ticket anyone?

Baby Things

Our baby's room is pretty much put together. Just waiting to be filled with things. So without further a-do, here it is:

We went with yellow and green and an owl theme. I loved the green and it was always going to be green, then we got the idea of doing yellow on top from a random poster we saw while eating at Red Robin. I don't love yellow. It's my least favorite color, and sometimes I don't like it in the room. But adding the curtains and the owls made me okay with it.
The curtains are from Ikea, and mimicked the colors in the owls. They are also not completely "baby" or completely "boy". I figure we'll probably pair the next little Green in with their big brother, (our other bedrooms are in the basement so the older child would need to be pretty old and independent) so going with neutral colors and a somewhat neutral theme would work best. (Though my girl's room idea was super awesome. Hopefully I can still use it someday.)
The random leaf in the corner is also from Ikea, if you've been there in the child's department, you've seen them. We still need to hang it up.

Here's a close up of the owls. Yup, I painted them myself.

See my mess?

I'm as messy a crafter/painter as I am a cook. Actually, I'm just messy. Sometimes not being a perfectionist is awesome.

And messy.


Here's me painting!

Ugh, that double chin is just so painful to look at in pictures!
There, that's better. Check out my behind instead.

Speaking of crafty, I made these too!

Some of the ties duplicate since they're on bigger sized onsies.

It's fun to do a little "nesting" here and there. It makes things seem a bit more real. Though there's lots we still need. I've debated whether to register or not. Most everyone I've talked to said that no one buys them anything off their registry. I thought about maybe posting things I like on the blog and just directing people there. Would that be totally tacky? I'll title the blog post: Here! Buy me stuff for my kid! It could be helpful? Could be lame?
What do you think?

Laura and Andrew 5/6/11

Laura and Andrew's marriage started as all marriages should, Here:

At the temple.
The Draper temple to be exact.

It was such a good day. Just perfect. Perfect weather, and such a lovely wedding.
The sealing was a little long for my taste, but the sealer said some really nice things. It was fun to once again be in the temple with so many of my family members. It was fun to see all of us in the double mirrors of the sealing room and know that that's how it really is. All of us together for ever and ever. Even Andrew's family is now connected to mine.

For the whole wedding festivities I pretty much just tried to document who all was there. Of my family anyway, I didn't take pictures of many of Andrew's family. I won't remember who they are when I look back at these pictures anyway except the immediate ones I'll see more often at Andrew and Laura's baby blessings and such.

So who was there?
These guys:

Jordan and MiQuelle being so mushy. I guess they've only been married for about a year, we'll let it slide. :)

Waiting for the bride and groom to come out, almost time!

Introducing, Mr and Mrs Titensor:

After the usual greetings and picture taking, we (mom and dad and all my siblings) ran to the gas station for some caffeine. The poor caffeine addicts were not doing so well this late in the day. :)
Then it was the luncheon:

It was at a country club just down the street from the Draper Temple.
The food and the view were fantastic!

I once again only took pictures of the people I'm related to.

The newlyweds arrive:
After the luncheon Ry and I, Jordan, MiQuelle, Brenna, Mikey, and Bridget went to Ikea.
Look at my cute little niece with this cute little chair and table and tea set:

My feet have decided that now that it's warm, they'd like to get really huge, so we headed to our house to put them up. Jordan and Kell came later too.

Laura had her reception at the same place I had mine. Though since her's was in May it was mainly outside, while mine was indoors.

Here's the lovely bride getting ready for the reception:

Sara was a particularly awesome Maid of Honor. Really. She was so helpful and came with stock piles of supplies in case of emergencies. Everyone should have such a Maid of Honor.


*aw....*

Sisters!

(I got most of the decor. I missed the flowers on the inside tables.)

See that cutie back there? What a stud.

Then there was lots of hanging around waiting for our turn for pictures.

Sheesh guys--again? Get a room! :)

We're almost as cute. Just a little less mushy.

(oh the double chin.... ugh.)

(in the middle of this next one is DeNae and Matt. Matt is Andrew's brother. They get married in one month!)

Look! All my Dad's siblings together! Fun!

We ran pretty close with pictures. We were just finishing as the first early comers arrived to be "received" at the reception.

After we were free to leave, we escaped to here:

Yum!

We got back in time for all the fun stuff.
Like cake cutting!

and Bouquet throwing!

(Check out the totally awesome action shot I got of the girls)

Sarah caught it and immediately threw it to the ground!
It was funny.

And of course garter tossing. Andrew had to do it three times before it really went anywhere.

His groomsmen were pretty uninterested in the garter as well.
Sheesh. No one wants to get married right now?

Sadly, it was shortly after this that my battery pooped out. Boo. :(

I should have saved it for the dancing! Though taking pictures of people dancing is really hard. Dad and Laura did a Bolero. Mom and Dad Tangoed. Laura and Andrew did a salsa. Then Dad and Laura and *Surprise!*--Andrew did hip hop. It was awesome. Then there was dancing for everyone, and sparklers for the final good bye.

It really was a wonderful, lovely, romantical, spiritual, fantabulous day. I woke up the next morning and was so happy thinking about it I forgot about my friend's baby blessing! :( boo again.
But it was that good, it lingered in my heart. I cried way to much.
I love weddings. It's the last one of any of me and Ryan's families, so it was a nice final farewell to long wedding days (you know, where you go to ALL of it).

And as a final photo, here are my poor poor swollen feeties.

Feel free to cringe. And then buy me a gift certificate for a pedicure. :)