Only happy stuff in this post!

My last couple of entries have been kind of negative, what with all the stuff happening. But there is still plenty to be happy about, so I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Matt and the kids finally went to the Childrens Museum yesterday. (I stayed home because I had a couple of tuoring sessions. Oh yeah, and I needed a nap.) Actually we had a playgroup from church over in the morning and Porter refused to go in the basement with all the other kids, he only wanted to go to the "Childrens Buseum." So. They finally went after lunch and saw the long-awaited Curious George exhibit.

Porter really enjoyed the hat. He's actually wearing it in about half the pictures. I forget the name of the doorman on the show but I think Porter didn't realize that's who it was supposed to be: he probably thought it was a fireman.
This is the point at which most people's kids would be smiling. Not mine, though. But hey, at least the monkey looks happy!
This is my favorite: Betsy as a scientist. The kids got to wear lab coats and goggles and dunk things in a bucket of water to see what would float (which seems more David Letterman than Serious Scientist to me, but who's keeping track) and apparently she really, really liked it. I told her we could do some more floating/sinking today. Yes, my kid is some kind of genius.

We had a crazy storm last night: wind, hail, lightning, you name it. I got to go around saying "What the hail!" which really never gets old. We almost got blown off the road driving home from Betsy's dance lesson. She told me the rain sounded like the noise when we were in the carwash. And at 11 p.m. last night (we were up watching Copying Beethoven, which I thought was just okay) our neighbor got home from work and came over to tell us that our table was in her front yard. I'm pretty impressed because even though our patio furniture is of the really cheap lightweight plastic variety, it had to make to right-angle turns to end up where it did. Now that's some wind.

My belly button hasn't popped to an outie yet but it's getting close. Right now (I know you've been sitting by the computer waiting for an update on my navel) it's flat at the bottom and kind of pulled over at the top. Like it's wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Yes, people, my belly button is the Unabomber.

Even though I'm not buying any scrap stuff right now, I'm getting a kick out of the sneak peeks. Mo's posted a bunch of them here; check out the Crate Paper! It's so gorgeous! And the Cosmo Cricket with the little robot guy... And there's a bunch of new stuff from American Crafts. I am such a sucker for their letters (okay, and the ribbon too). It definitely puts me in the mood to scrap... which is lucky, because I'm having a scrappy getaway this weekend. One of my friends is hosting a weekend crop at the Marriott Suites (which, by the way, have the most comfortable beds ever) so I get to spend Friday night and all of Saturday scrapping my little heart out. I have a lot of unfinished pages so this will be a good kick in the pants to get things done. And the best part is, we had a scrapping night at the church last Friday... so all of my stuff is already packed!

yikes!

Matt and I are always playing "what it." I think it's something that everyone does when they get bored enough. And the answer to the question "What if Matt loses his job?" has always been "We can handle it somehow."

Now it's time to find out if we planned things as well as we thought. Matt found out yesterday that he won't have a job after Feb. 19. Apparently the subprime mortgage something did blah blah to the student loan industry, and they have to stop consolidating loans. (Matt tried to explain it to me like three or four times. Hello, science major here?) So his department is basically being eliminated.

Now, the timing is less than stellar. See, our contingency plan has always been that I would work if Matt was temporarily unemployed. I mean, I do have that chemistry degree that I've been basically sitting on for the last 5 years. But I'm also kind of having a baby very soon. Matt should be getting enough severance from his company to cover us for the next couple months and then if he's not working I can get a job after Cutie Pie is born and Matt can deal with the kids instead. (That actually sounds kind of tempting, doesn't it? Matt insists that going to work every day isn't all that great but when was the last time he's had to change one of his co-worker's diapers?) Also, we have to figure out the insurance thing because again, baby coming out of me very soon.

On the other hand, Matt's actually had some good leads for a job. The last time he was job hunting the opportunities were few and far between but it seems like right now, everybody and their grandma needs a call center manager. (Except for the student loan industry, of course. The bigger companies have already had massive layoffs so I guess we've been lucky so far.) So, we are praying right now that Matt finds another job soon. And in the meantime, hey, he gets to spend more time with the kids!

a fond farewell

My mother-in-law called us last night with the news - they live in Utah so they heard about it before we did.

President Gordon B. Hinckley - the man that some 13 million of us sustained as the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - died last night at the age of 97. Matt tried to get onto the Deseret News website last night after his mother called and couldn't even get on the homepage. (I have this mental image of their servers, like, bursting into flame. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media carried the story as well so he got the story from CNN.com, I think.)

Today I skipped my regular lesson (Old Testament: David Vs. Saul, Round 3) and talked with the seminary students about this event. For them, President Hinckley is the only prophet they've ever known since most of them were knee high to a grasshopper in 1995. (I was in high school myself, actually.) We discussed what President Hinckley will be most remembered for, and I think there are a lot of things. For me, the thing I will most remember is the thing with the temples. He announced a goal to have 100 operating temples by the end of 2000 (in 1997, there were about 50). All that year, it seemed like a new temple was being dedicated every couple of weeks. 2000 was also the year that I met, dated, and eventually married my husband. (Ask me sometime about the trip we took to the Louisville temple open house.) Now, one of the purposes of an LDS temple is to seal families together forever, including by the covenant of eternal marriage. So I guess that year I had temples and marriage on my mind a lot and it just seemed appropriate, somehow.

Aside from being pretty much the most adorable nonagenarian ever, President Hinckley led the church with grace, humility, and a witty sense of humor. While our church will have a new president again very shortly, and while we are all happy he gets to be reunited with his belived wife Marjorie (they were married for sixty-seven years! can you imagine?) he will definitely be missed.

Easily amused

We were looking at the sheet of discharge instructions that the Hospital gave Matt last night. It's more or less the standard stuff:

"You may be lightheaded after receiving sedation or anesthesia. DO NOT operate a motor vehicle (automobile, bicycle, motorcycle, or power tools), make any important decisions, or drink alcoholic beverages for 24 hours."

That's right, making important decisions is just as dangerous as, say, operating a front end loader when you are loopy. We had a pretty good time speculating what sort of decisions Matt should not be making in his condition. But this was my favorite part:

"A responsible person should be with you for the next 24 hours."

Meaning me. Matt laughed so hard at that one, I think he almost busted a stitch.

Well, that was exciting!

We were all set to go to the Children's Museum today. They just opened a Curious George exhibit that my kids have been excited about for weeks.

But, it sort of didn't happen. Instead, we took Matt to the hospital and he got his appendix out!

He's doing all right now (although I think the Vicodin helped). We caught it early, so it was a very simple operation, and he can go back to work on Tuesday.

So, it was anything but a normal day. The kids aren't complaining. They got to eat at Chick-Fil-A and play at a friend's house!

The Gap

Guess whose wobbly tooth fell out last night?

The kids were having their dinner last night and Betsy goes, "MY TOOF! My tooth fell out!" and sure enough, there it was in the palm of her hand. (They were having macaroni & cheese and applesauce for dinner so I don't think the food knocked it out, I think it came out while she was wobbling it. She's been doing that a lot lately.) And then Betsy started doing her bouncing-around-happy-dance which is SO cute, I wish you all could see it. "My tooth fell out! My wobbly tooth fell out!" We called Daddy and then Grammie and then Grandma so she could share the exciting news. I put her tooth in a ziploc baggie so it wouldn't get lost and the tooth fairy had to pry it out of her sleeping hands last night (thank heaven Betsy is a heavy sleeper).

Today Betsy is happy to show off her gappy grin (she looks so much like a BIG KID it's scaring me), except of course when the camera is around. Have I ever mentioned that getting a good photo of my kids is like pulling teeth?

As promised: Pictures!

Just in case you ever wondered what the doors in my house look like, now's your chance to find out!

First up, the maternity dress:

Honestly, I feel kind of 'meh' about this one. I went by the measurements and sewed a Medium and it ended up kind of tenty and sacky. Also, the zipper looks horrible which means I can never wear it when Mom is around. On the plus side, it's a maternity dress so there's a limited amount of time I can actually wear it, and then I'll pass it on to someone else without any guilt.

I've been wearing my glasses a lot more lately because my contact lenses have been giving me problems. I've read that it can happen during pregnancy but it's never happened to me before. Yes, being pregnant can actually change the shape of your eyeball (as if the freakishly distended uterus wasn't humiliation enough). There's no excuse for why I'm not wearing any tights, though, except that maternity pantyhose are the devil's tool.

The art on the wall behind me is a Porter original (he goes by one name professionally, kind of like Christo and equally hard to clean up after).

Here is the second dress, which is only about 80% completed. I messed up the ties (Hey! Those pattern markings are there for a reason!) but I can't wait to wear it.

Mainly because I can't wait to be a normal shape again.

I've been doing a lot of scrapbooking lately (and not putting away my supplies in between, which is why there are Hermafix tabs all over the front of the dishwasher) so here are just a few pages to share. I couldn't fit all of the journaling onto the same layout as the photos so I did a separate no-photo page. I should probably do that more often. (Click on the second one if you want to see it... the image got all funky when I resized it.)
Do you not love the patterned paper? It's from K and Company's Wild Saffron line (which, for some reason, does not show on their website). I see that and I think, Vintage apron. I wish it was fabric. (Half the time, I see fabric and I think, I wish that was scrapbook paper. The other half of the time it's the other way around. This is a serious problem.) I stalked Michaels for about two months before they finally restocked the matching felt flowers, and I got the last pack. Bwahahaaa.

Last but not least, here is my linen closet Before:
And here is the After.
It's not exactly something out of Martha Stewart Living but I've finally created a sense of order, and more importantly, all of the games have a home. Have I ever mentioned how much I love those Sterilite storage baskets? They are like two bucks at Target. I keep practically everything in my house in one of those (I need to go and get some more actually). If you come to my house after the baby's born and you find her sleeping in one, that's when you'll know I've gone too far.

Again with the not posting.

Perhaps I should set a New Year's Resolution that I will actually update my blog more often than hardly-ever? I am truly a loser, and thanks for continuing to read if my flakiness hasn't driven you away.

Anyway, Happy 2008! Matt and I had big exciting plans for New Year's Eve... we put the kids to bed early, grilled up some steaks (did I mention the almost embarrassingly large box of steaks that Matt's boss sent us for Christmas? They are delicious) and popped open some bubbly (Meijer brand sparkling lemonade) and watched The Bourne Ultimatum on DVD. Actually, now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time we've seen a movie in the theaters. I'd rather just sit around in my pajamas on the couch than actually hire a babysitter and go out. Plus, there are special features!

The Bourne Ultimatum was awesome. I think that's my favorite trilogy since The Lord of the Rings.

And now Christmas is officially over. *sob* The tree went back into the basement today, and most but not all of the cookies in the freezer have been eaten. Of course there is still scrapbooking to do...

Also, I'm now in my third trimester. I realized this on January 2nd when I had my doctor's appointment and had to do the blood glucose test, which is usually around 28 weeks. Sad, that I had to be poked in the elbow with a needle to realize how far along I am. Hooray! I don't have gestational diabetes. I'd be in big trouble otherwise because I've been going to town on the Christmas cookies and I don't have a particularly burning desire to give birth to a baby the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.

I've been keeping myself really busy this week because seminary doesn't start until Tuesday. I have the maternity dress almost finished - I'll do the hem while we are watching The Painted Veil tonight (thank you, Netflix!) and then I can wear it to church tomorrow. The wrap dress is actually almost done too, which is goofy because it will be ages and ages before I can wear it. But it's coming together really easily so I think I'll go ahead and finish it. (Fortunately I'm carrying kind of low, so I was able to fit the bodice. As long as the bodice fits, the whole thing should fit, right?) I also did some scrapbooking; in fact I've got 5 or 6 pages that are ready and just waiting for me to stop being lazy and scan them. (It's a long story but I have to hook up the extra printer and use the scanner on that one... and the second printer is on a shelf in our closet and that would mean I'd actually have to go in there and get it.) And yesterday I organized the linen closet, which has been bothering me for a long time actually. The kids got a lot of games for Christmas and we really needed a place to put them besides "shove them on the shelf in between the air mattress that works and the air mattress that doesn't work." (We got rid of the broken one, by the way.) It looks fabulous, even if it doesn't stay that way for long.

Will put up pictures of said projects soon. Me lazy.