Bird watching

Ethan has this obsession with birds. He will watch for them everywhere and scream "bird!" like a broken record until you repeat "bird!" back to him. Because of this obsession, Mart has taken to bird watching while in our backyard.

Normally all we can see in our backyard are the average Utah birds that you always see around here. Orange stomachs black backs and wings. This year, we have seen quite a few really bright pretty yellow birds. At first we wondered if they had escaped from somewhere, but we've seen quite a few of them and in a few other cities as well. We are now thinking that maybe we got lucky when the birds migrated back to the valley and we got some really pretty ones in the mix this year.

While watching them yesterday, Mart decided to take pictures of the yellow birds.

This one turned out pretty good, thanks to my super zoom lens!

Garden

After a lot of strange weather, stomach pains, sickness and even more strange weather ... my garden is finally in! I know I can't be too far behind (even though it is June) because my super gardener neighbor was planting his at the exact same time. It's really late to get a garden in, but with this super funky weather, I think it's right on time.





My box with herbs in it.


This box has my pepper plants in it.



I loved watching my garden grow last year. It seemed like it went much faster than my old garden. I also love how much easier it is to maintain. It took a fraction of the time to weed and to plant, especially considering how many seeds I planted! It always shocks me to see how many plants I will end up with.

I'm glad it's finally in.

Switch-a-roo

Ethan loves to watch movies. When he can't be outside running non-stop, he likes to watch movies.

For Easter, his Aunt Ber gave him a Toy Story couch. He loved sitting on it while he watched movies and loved that it was his own.


He also liked that it would fold out into a bed of sorts. When he first got it, he would just stand there and switch it back and forth.


When he watched movies his favorite position to be in was on his folded out couch, with two pillows and a blanket. He always looked so comfy!


Recently, his preference has changed.

We had a lot of company over and didn't have enough chairs, so Mart found a camping chair and brought it into the house. Ethan has now claimed this chair as his!

Here is his new favorite movie watching chair:



What a goof.

Jumping Bean

As soon as Ethan discovered his legs, he's pretty much been non-stop ever since. He learned how to jump in his crib by holding onto the sides and he got really good at bending his knees at the jump so he could continue instead of just locking them and falling! It's quite impressive. Anyway, he loves to jump now and will just randomly start jumping to music or clapping, etc. We have looked into getting him a trampoline, but they are huge, tall and expensive. Because he's such a boy, I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before he fell off and hurt himself, meaning...we would have to purchase the enclosure as well.

My mom has a mini trampoline. It's not one of those workout mini trampolines, but a miniature version of a normal trampoline, only it's about 2 1/2 feet off the ground and the mat is held onto the frame by elastic, not springs. It's probably about 6-7 feet in diameter, so it's still a decent jumping size. With half of her grand kids now in the Orem area, it doesn't get used all that often. Ethan will run and jump on it just about every time he goes to her house. She decided she'd rather it get used than go to waste just sitting there and sent it to our house!

Ethan LOVES having it in our backyard!







One of my favorite parts is, because it's so low to the ground, he can climb on and off safely by himself. I don't have to worry about a ladder or anything.

"You!"

Ethan is getting so big, I think some days when I look at him he looks like a 4 year old instead of a 2 1/2 year old. He's beyond sweet and I'm so blessed to have him in my life.




On my computer when we haven't been on it for a while, our screen saver comes on with a slide show of all the pictures on our computer (which is a ton!). Ethan likes to just sit and watch the pictures and tell us who he recognizes. This is what we hear ... "Dad! ... Mama! ... Dad! ... Kace! ... Baby! ... You! ... Baby You! ..." We started to get confused so we'd watch the slide show with him to see who he was talking about. A picture of Ethan comes up and Ethan will yell "You!". We started to laugh and realized that when we looked at pictures with him a while ago, we would look at him and go, "That's you!". Apparently he thinks his name in the pictures is You. It's really funny and he does it every time he sees a picture of himself. We've tried to get him to say Ethan but it doesn't work. I guess that's something we'll have to keep working on, but in the meantime Ethan has a new name ... "You!".

Zeros Continued ...

Traves came over tonight and took a look at my zeros (under a magnifying glass) and according to the dot at the bottom of the zero on the right hand side he said I was having a boy. He was right!
It's a boy!

Zeros

A friend of mine is super interested in handwriting analysis and studies it all the time. He has people write out a random paragraph of nonsense in cursive and then sits down and evaluates your character by how you write your letters. Randomly he will be like "that person has lying "o's" so you can't really trust what they say" and then just continue on like nothing ever happened. It's pretty funny. Mart has made a big joke about it and will out of nowhere look at him and say something like "Well my handwriting says I'm angry!" or something like that and we all start laughing.

Since he evaluated my handwriting he's been telling me that when I get pregnant, he wants to look at my handwriting again because you can supposedly tell what I'm having by my zeros. He's been super anxious to try it out. When I first was pregnant he was super excited, but had to research and find out that he couldn't tell until I was 4-5 months along. He's been reminding both Mart and myself not to tell him when we find out because he wants to attempt to read my handwriting first. When we found out early last Tuesday, he's been going crazy because he hasn't had time to look at my handwriting, and I'm not even as far along as I technically should be to try it out. He doesn't care anymore, he just wants to know what I'm having so he had me write out a list with zeros. Today he will come over for his weekly visit and he will evaluate my zeros. I will let you know what conclusion he comes to, and then MAYBE at that point ... I will let you all in on what my baby is!

The results are in...

I went to the doctor today. I talked to her about my lump and she did an ultrasound on my abdomen to see if she could see anything, and she found out that I have a hernia. The hole is a good size, maybe just smaller than a quarter. I'm relieved to finally know what is causing all that pain. I am scheduled to talk to a general surgeon next week to see what we need to do. If we can avoid it, we don't want to have me in for surgery until after the baby is born, but if it came to an emergency then right now is the best time to have it. We'll see what the surgeon says next week.

She also looked at my cute baby and it was really really mellow compared to Ethan and didn't move a whole lot but it did move a little. She said it looks perfect, the spine is perfect, the head is perfect and we are good to go! Because I went so much later than the normal first appointment, we also were able to see what it was!

My official ultrasound isn't for 5 more weeks, but here are some pictures from today's mini 14 week ultrasound (supposed to be at 12 weeks):

I call it ... "Lump"

My body has been acting a little strange lately, and it's getting to the point where it's a concern. I haven't been to my doctor yet due to insurance issues, but now that that's squared away I can finally go. It's only 5 weeks later than she likes to see people for the first time. I hate first visit appointments for all the not so fun stuff that goes on, but I'm relieved that I'll finally get to see her and find out what's been growing in my abdomen.

About a year after Ethan was born every now and again, I would get a small lump above my belly button about the size of a golf ball. It would get rock hard and hurt like crazy and then the next day it'd be gone and wouldn't come back for months so I'd forget about it. When I got pregnant, it started to visit me more frequently bringing weird stomach pains that would go away when the "lump" went away. The last month or so it's been getting bigger, and the last two weeks or so it's gotten huge and won't go away. I've been having shooting pains up my sides and my lump hurts something fierce. It's so big and hard now (because it rarely goes away) that I look like I'm 6-7 months pregnant and it could be the babies head or bum sticking out. The last week it's gotten so bad I have had a hard time functioning. Some days it's so bad I can't do anything unless I take some tylenol.

Tomorrow, I finally go to the doctor. I'm nervous for all the not fun stuff, but I'm relieved to finally know what's going on with me and hope that she can solve the problem quickly and maybe this pregnancy won't be so bad. The queasiness has mostly gone away and I'm not nearly as sick as I was, although I am still sick ... but without weirdo stomach pains, it would be much more manageable. I worry about what it might be, I've had dozens of theories and ideas shooting through my head sifting through possible scenarios, surgery, needles sticking out of my stomach draining some funky cyst ... to who knows what.

All I can do is hope for the best and hopefully she'll know what it is and how we can solve the problem. I pray it's nothing life threatening for either the baby or myself.

Other than that, nothing else is new. Because of stomach pains, aches and frequent visitations to the toilet to relieve my poor stomach, I am still spending most of my time on my couch. I hope that I can get out and about and enjoy the nice weather when it finally gets here.

Right now I am 14 weeks along and the baby is the size of a lemon. Moving right along! I am officially in the 2nd trimester and will find out what I am having soon!

I did it!

It's not much, but I did it! I accomplished something. Even though I was sick and couldn't complete my program at school, my instructor felt that I had gone far enough to be given the beginners certificate. It's better than walking away with nothing and I was excited about that!

June 17 is graduation and I had been debating whether I would go or not. They told me I needed to because I would be recognized for when I was student of the month. After I received my certificate, I was told I would get a cover for it at graduation. I guess I'll be going. :)