Tuesday, March 30, 2010

A very merry (un)birthday!

Of course I didn't take any pictures of Matt's birthday. Oops. But we celebrated with a yummy dinner at Tucanos (gotta love their free meal birthday club!) and some delicious nanaimo bar birthday cake. (We had nanaimo bars on our honeymoon in Victoria and they were delicious and I persuaded the only bakery I know that makes them to make them on Monday for his birthday.)

Anyway, although Matt denies having a birthday, I hope he had a wonderful one because I love him so much and am so happy that I get to grow old with him. Happy birthday honey, I love you!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Festival of Colors

This weekend we finally made it to the Festival of Colors at the Hare Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. Matt had been once before, but I had never been and I have always wanted to go. It's this big Indian festival where you throw colored powder all over everyone. I think it's made out of cornstarch and flour. And it smells delicious!

They also have music and dancing and chanting and there were tons of people there! We decided to ride our bikes to avoid any parking and traffic issues and it turned out to be a great idea.

We were toward the back of the mob, but it was still impossible to move with all the people around us.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun.



Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Roller coaster

Last week we found out that my dad had a tumor on his kidney that had an 85% chance of being the bad kind of cancer. This week, he had the tumor removed. Yesterday we found out that the tumor was benign and had not spread anywhere else. Yay for the 15% chance!

What a roller coaster!

I am so grateful that he is ok. I am not ready to lose my dad to cancer. They removed about 1/3 of his kidney, but the cool thing is that his kidney will still function normally after it heals. And it was a good thing they removed the tumor even though it was benign because it would have kept growing and would have eventually overtaken his kidney or ruptured and caused internal bleeding. No good. Anyway, he is recovering pretty well and should be able to come home from the hospital today.

I love you Dad!

Choices

With my upcoming graduation and this baby on the way I have some choices to make. Mostly about my job/career. Although BYU is a great place to work in some aspects, it's not so great in others. Namely, valuing their employees. I feel like they have the attitude that you should think it's such a privilege to work there that they shouldn't have to do anything to show their appreciation or make any efforts to retain their employees. The things I'm most bugged about right now are maternity leave and education or merit-based raises.

They do not give maternity leave. So any time you take off to have a baby has to be taken from your vacation time. Luckily I do have quite a bit of vacation saved up so I will be able to take a decent leave, but it still bugs me. Also, when I graduate with my masters next month I will not get a raise. No matter what I do I will never get a raise. If I do a good job or a bad job, I will always get the same 2.5-3% inflation increase every year. That just doesn't seem right to me.

Anyway, back to the choices. I feel like I have 4 choices right now.

1. Stay at my job until Matt graduates and deal with the unappreciation.

2. Try to find a new job where I can work from home.

3. Try to find a new job that will appreciate my education and hard work.

4. Quit my job and stay home with my baby and go into debt.

The ones I am really considering right now are #1 and #2. Matt will graduate next summer and so I would only have to work for one year after the baby comes. I just don't feel ok about going into debt and even if we cut back to the bare minimum, we could not survive without me working. I know that education is an ok thing to go into debt for and I know there are a lot of families who somehow can work it out so that the dad still goes to school and the mom stays home, but for some reason I just don't feel quite right about that.

I also feel like it's not really worth it to get a new job at another institution for just one year unless I can work from home. Even if they paid me better and showed their appreciation more. But I am still struggling with this. I feel like no matter what we do, we are going against the counsel of our leaders. We either go into debt or our baby has a working mom.

Sometimes I feel guilty for thinking about being a working mom, like I'm a terrible mother. I do have a wonderful sister who has volunteered to help us out a lot by watching our baby most of the time. And I know that if we decide to go that direction, our baby will be in good hands with her auntie. But I also feel guilty about going into debt and staying home when I have a perfectly good opportunity to avoid that situation.

I don't even know if I could get a job where I could work from home. Or if I would even like it. It would probably be easiest just to stay at my current job rather than having to learn a whole new one. And there are a lot of things that I do love about my current job. And even though I'm upset about the whole raise thing, I do make plenty of money for us to live on.

We also feel that Matt needs to be in school full-time right now. We felt very guided and directed in this decision when he got laid off last year. And it was a miracle how everything fell into place for him to do this. We really feel like he should just go full time and get done as soon as he can. We also felt like it was right for us to start our family now instead of waiting until he was finished.

Anyway, we're still struggling to decide what will be best for our family. I know it's different for everyone and we need to figure out what is best for us. What is/was best for you might not be best for us. And no one knows what is best for our family except for the Lord and so we just need to rely on Him to guide us into making the best decision.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Celebration

To celebrate St. Paddy's Day and the passing of my thesis we decided to have a traditional Irish feast at the local pub. It was pretty good but not the best Irish food I've ever had. But we had a great time!

These are my boxtys. Apparently they are a traditional Irish dish. And Matt got me some flowers. They were so bright and cheery. I'm so glad I passed. That is such a relief!

We also celebrated Matt's birthday with his family this weekend. It's a little early, but apparently it was the only weekend they could do it. He got his Costco cake and his mom gave him a cute little dress for our baby girl. I think he was kind of surprised to get a dress for his birthday! I still have to figure out what I'm going to get him for his birthday.

Friday, March 19, 2010

The 1/2 mile holdup

So there I was at the gym. On the treadmill. Now that I have my energy back and can breathe almost normally again I wanted to get running again before my belly gets too big. Only I had to stop and go to the bathroom every half mile! What the...? There has got to be a remedy for that! I make it through my other types of exercise just fine. By the way, I want to get a running stoller...does anyone have any recommendations?

P.S. I just got the good news....MY THESIS PASSED!!!!!! I'm going to be a master!!!

Monday, March 15, 2010

Happy Pi(e) Day!

Hope you all had a great Pi(e) Day on 3.14! My apple-cranberry pie turned out delicious!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

More trouble

I have been wanting to decorate the baby's room for awhile now, but I obviously had to wait til we knew the gender. But since we found out, I've been looking at tons of different bedroom sets and stuff and I found THIS and fell in love with it...

The only problem was that all the stuff was kind of expensive. So I've done a lot of searching and I found a website that had the crib bedding set and some of the accessories for a HUGE discount + no sales tax + free shipping! Sweet! So I got the crib bedding, which comes with the quilt, sheet, bumper, diaper stacker, dust ruffle, and curtains. And I splurged and got these wall decal things to match (which are not featured in this picture but are darling!)

Anyway, I kind of still want to get the mobile, lamp, and the hamper but that will have to wait. And I am going to make my own wall hangings and pillow. And I have some other projects in mind to add to it that will involve some painting and restoring of some things from my old room! I am really excited to have this project to work on and for our baby's super cute nursery.

We got a really great tax refund this year, which was kind of a surprise because when we were doing our taxes we were about to break even until we added our education expenses and then...boom...all of a sudden a huge refund. What a blessing! Especially since baby stuff is so expensive! Cribs and carseats and strollers...holy cow!

I finally broke down and bought some maternity clothes today. I can still fit into most of my pants, but most of them aren't very comfortable. And I needed some stuff for work because I was down to one pair of work pants that I could stand wearing all day. Anyway, I was reluctant to go to one of those maternity stores because I was afraid they would be really expensive, but I went and it wasn't too bad. But the best part is that they treat you like royalty in there. It was great!

I find out next week if my thesis passed or not. Pray for me!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

I'm gonna be in trouble

Ever since we found out I was pregnant I have been wanting a baby book. You know, to record all the stuff about the pregnancy and our family tree, etc. But in my baby book search over the past couple of months I found that there weren't really any decent gender-neutral books out there. So I had to wait til we found out the gender. So this weekend I set out to find one. I got one and I'm so excited to start writing in it.

But of course I also had to look at all the other baby stuff (at 2 different stores) and I just couldn't resist getting our little girl her first outfit!

They just had so many cute little summer dresses and a million other things that I wanted to get for her. So I restrained myself and only picked out one thing. I just love the little polka-dotted bloomers that go underneath this stinkin' cute dress. Anyway, I have got to keep myself away from the baby sections or I'm gonna be in serious trouble! But it's just too much fun to resist.

I also looked at nursery decorations and I think I've decided to decorate her room in a green, pink, and (maybe) brown pastel color scheme. There were so many cute things that would fit with that. I can hardly wait...July seems like forever away!

I've also got some serious senioritis going on. After I submitted my thesis, I have had absolutely zero desire to finish up my other two classes I'm taking this semester. But somehow I'm getting by and hopefully the next two months will fly by and I'll pass my classes and my thesis, and then I'll be DONE once and for all!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The chocolates tell all

Today at the doctors office after the ultrasound they gave us some chocolates...

So apparently we're having a girl! I am really excited. I don't think Matt knows quite what to think. He was so adamant that it was going to be a boy that I don't think he really considered any other options. He says he doesn't know what to do with a girl. But I know he will be a great daddy to our little girl. Luckily there weren't triplets in there! (I had a dream the other night that we went in for the ultrasound and they told us there were 3!)

Anyway, she looks very healthy. We could see everything except her little face. I guess she is shy. Seriously, they poked and prodded and jiggled to try and get her to turn over, but she just wouldn't do it. I guess she was sleeping and didn't want to be bothered. :) But here's her head with her arm scratching her forehead.

We saw her heart and the 4 chambers in it and the two sides of her brain and her arms and legs and her girl parts. It was kinda cool to see her little bones. She was kind of in a very strange position with her head and arms all curled up but with her legs all stretched out. Here's her foot. When this image came up on the screen, Matt said, "Honey, she's a bigfoot!"

Anyway, it was pretty amazing all the stuff we could see. And I'm happy to know that everything is looking the way it should. And here's me at 20 weeks. (Please disregard the bikes and stuff.) I feel like I don't really look pregnant...just like I've gained 10 pounds. Luckily I can still wear my normal clothes. Well, some of them.

We're halfway there!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

It's a......

....mystery still. Ugggh! We were scheduled to find out the gender of our baby today and I get a call this morning from the nurse telling me they have to reschedule our ultrasound appointment for later in the week. Dumb doctor! I was so excited about finding out if we're getting a little Matt or a little Christy today and now I have to wait a few more days. I am so sad. :(