"Kolaches"

On Tuesday we made our best version of kolaches that we could. Basically we just made pigs in a blanket dough and then rolled up sausage instead of hot dogs.

Luke helped us make the dough. He poured ingredients into the bowl and then helped throw flour on the flour while Amber and I took turns kneading.

He also licked the kitchen drain. Gross!

The three chefs

After the dough had risen and we were ready to roll the sausage, we split the dough into 2 parts. We used the first half to make regular dough, and I added diced jalepenos to the second half of the dough. It made the dough really sticky, but when I added more flour, the dough went around the sausage just fine.

Jared liked the jalepeno kolaches.

Jamestown

Yesterday Amber and I met up with 2 of my friends: Amber Larsen (with her daughter Sophie) and Erica Snow (with her three boys: Andrew, Isaac, and Sam). Luke absolutely loves Isaac. He talks about him often, loves the nursery page in his Gospel ABC book with Isaac's picture, and calls every boy with a buzz Isaac.

Number 1 attraction: yucky garbage

Number 2: rocks!!!

This is my big belly at 18 weeks. I hope it's not an indication that I will keep growing at this rate. I won't be able to balance by week 30 if I do. I was so glad that Amber was with us at Jamestown because Luke would take off running and I just can't follow him fast enough. I'm not THAT big, but it still makes running at any decent speed difficult. And a side note: I'm starting to feel the baby move.

I pried Luke away from throwing rocks to take a picture with Amber. He was NOT happy about it. AT ALL.

Anniversary

Yesterday Jared and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. Our lives are so intertwined now that it's hard to remember what it was like not to have each other. But the time has flown by. And here we are-- having gone through 2 years of teaching (me), Luke, a move, a new school career (Jared), and a horrible recent first trimester later and we're more committed to each other than ever. Jared was the best choice I ever made.

Good News

Today is the first day I didn't throw up! Maybe I'm done being so sick???

Getting Ready for Amber

I am so excited for Amber to come on Saturday! She will stay and play with us until the middle of June. We've been getting ready for her arrival. Truth be told, we've been getting ready for over a month. Step one was ordering a bed, dresser, and mattress. My mom slept on the bed, Amber will use it, and finally it will become Luke's big boy bed. My mom was here when the furniture came, so she (and not me!) helped Jared assemble it. Luke was a big helper too.

Putting the dresser together

This weekend we tried to organize the closet in Luke's room to make room for Amber's clothes. The keyword is tried. After moving lots of boxes and putting some things into the empty dresser, the closet still looks as full as it did before I hauled everything out. Hopefully I did some good. Today (while the Jetta is in the shop AGAIN and we are stranded at home) I started some deep cleaning.

Can't wait to see you, Amber.

Leave It To Luke

Luke has done some really annoying/ funny things lately that I want to remember.

1. 2 weeks ago I took Luke to CW for the first time in over 2 months. He was running from yucky garbage to yucky garbage much like always except that either he is faster than I remembered or else I am much slower. It's probably some of both. Anyway, he was a few feet in front of me charging up to a garbage can, and I see a huge chunk of lime green gum stuck to the outside of it. I screamed out, "Wait! NO!" right as his right hand smashed down onto the wad. He pulled his hand back and a huge string of gum connected him to the can. In a panic he tried to wipe it off with his left hand. This did nothing except create a string of gum between his two hands. Then he really panicked. He started wiping his hands on everything yelling "Get Off!" The gum was up both arms and all over his shirt all the while I am frantically trying to get the baby wipes out of the diaper bag. I finally succeeded and got the gum mostly off his hands and arms (it really didn't come off his shirt) and then rushed him off to find a bathroom with some soap and hot water. Grrrr... I hate his trash can obession.

2. This is also about trash cans. The other day (Tuesday to be exact) Luke asked me to go to the swings. I told him we could go to the swings after we went to the bank. We got in the car and when we didn't go directly to the swings he started to cry. You'd think he really wanted to swing, right? Wrong. When we got to the park, Luke spent the ENTIRE time running from trash can to trash can. And since I was starting to feel extremely sick I was even more annoyed than normal. I did not risk my own health to look at garbage cans. I risked getting really sick to give my kid a ride on the swings. But at least he had fun, right? I'm really not sure why I want to remember this except that one day I'm sure I'll bring it up to one of his dates and embarrass him.

3. Luke continues to love the washing machine. I usually do one load a day. That way the laundry never completely overwhelms me and I have time to forget about the clothes in the dryer without creating an emergency in my house. Plus Luke always asks to turn on the water in the washer, so once a day he gets his washer high. We're both happy. The only down side is that Luke likes to "help" with the laundry. He wants to be the one to put in the soap. He usually gets it all in the washer but sometimes he kind of flings the soap and then I have to scrub down the sides of the washer. Plus he wants to pour bleach into every load regardless of the color. He's never actually put bleach in a colored load. He just gets mad when I don't put it in. I know this doesn't sound all that annoying at all, but just wait. I'm not done. On Wednesday I took the clothes out of the dryer that I had forgotten from the day before and folded all the clothes. They were still sitting in piles to be put away when I started the next load. Luke heard the water start and while I was in my bedroom gathering whites Luke picked up the FOLDED, CLEAN laundry and started putting it in the washing machine. When I walked back out to put in the whites he looked up at me and said, "Thank you Luke." At least he felt some sense of accomplishment. I, on the other hands, got to do TWO loads of laundry.

4. On Monday night my friend Hayley came over to loan me some of her maternity clothes. Luke kept taking her keys, so I gave him Jared's keys to substitute for Hayley's. It was a dumb idea, I know. Anyway the next morning Jared couldn't find his keys anywhere. I admitted (with a shamed face) that I let Luke play with them. We tore the house apart looking for them but to no avail. Jared left with his spare key and I kept looking. I called Hayley to see if she'd picked up Jared's keys by mistake. She hadn't, but she helped me think of places to look. Luckily Smart Hayley had her thinking cap on. She asked me if I'd checked the washer. I went and looked-- sure enough, there they were.

5. Luke really likes Blue's Clues. He pretends to get letters and wants us to sing the mail and letter songs. He holds a book and moves it back and forth in front of his chest humming the tune. We sing the song and then Luke turns the book around and says, "Oh look!" Then we have to say, "It's a letter from our friends." And then Luke says, "Bye Joe!" He also climbs into one of our camping chairs and puts both hands under his chin and sings, "Think." All that is very adorable. I find it soooo adorable.

BUT... Jared bought some Luvs diapers for Luke, and they have Blue's Clues characters on them. Luke is constantly taking his pants off so he can see the character. He can't quite see them with just his pants off though, so he pulls on them until either a) his penis is sticking up out of the diaper-- this is not the goal it just happens as he pulls on the diaper trying to see Blue) or b) he gets the diaper off. In addition, I had to move his diaper basket to a dresser inside his closet because at least twice a day he would empty it and sort all the diapers into 2 piles: those with Blue and those with other characters. While I believe his ability to organize so well points to a high intelligence, having to continually pick up his diapers was kind of annoying. So lesson learned. We are NEVER buying Luvs again.

My Least Favorite Luke Hobby

I would watch this video with the sound turned off. The units are loud. Pretty much I just wanted to post this so that you could see how Luke and I spend at least 20 minutes of every day. I really don't see the allurement, but Luke sees many things that I can't.

How I'm Doing

I'm surprised at how well I'm doing. This pregnancy was definitely worse than my first for the first long haul, but I'm over the worst now. I still have to take medicine, and I still throw up once a day, but apart from 30 min-1 hour a day, I feel fine. I was 16 weeks on Friday, so I'm better much faster than I was with Luke. I think with him I was sick for about 24 weeks. I'm sure there are many factors, but I think the biggest has been all the help I have received. My mom let me take it easy for a month, and then the Relief Society helped out so much too. I think being able to lie down and rest made it possible to get better much sooner than I expected. Whatever the reason is I AM GRATEFUL! Last week I was walking out to the dumpster just grinning. I was so happy to be in the sunshine and happy that I could take out the trash. I felt like shouting "Look at me world. I'm walking!"

I can do all my own cleaning and shopping, and I've been able to take Luke outside to CW almost every day. The downside is that since I've started feeling better I'm starving. I had lost over 10 pounds, but in the past 2 weeks have made it back to my starting weight. Um...I think I need to take it easy. The first time I went to the grocery store I came home with (among other things) pop tarts, donuts, oreos, and 3 kinds of cream cheese! I guess after eating pretty much nothing but dry bread for 2 1/2 months everything tastes so good that it's hard to resist. I don't think it's all my eating though. At least I hope not. The past two weeks have also seen a big pop of my tummy. I'm really showing already.

There is no way for me to thank everyone who helped me in a way that could adequately show my gratitude. But thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who kept me alive, Luke entertained, and my house in functioning order. I hope someday I can do something for you.

Train

Luke seems to have a different favorite toy each week. Last week it was his train set.

He only likes the straight pieces. I think they're easier for him to link together. The thing is that in the Ikea set, there aren't very many straight ones. Luke doesn't seem to mind. He sets them up with the tunnel at the end. He puts the train at the top of the tunnel and says, "On mark, get set, Goooooo!" and then watches it run down the track and fall off onto the floor.

Oops. This picture is out of order. (Luke setting up the starting line)

"So funny!"

Easter

A few days before Easter, I felt a big improvement. In the mornings I felt relatively well and even made it to the grocery store for the first time. I was only lay down/ throw up sick for a few hours in the late afternoon and early evening.

We hadn't planned anything for Easter, but our apartment complex put on an egg hunt for the little kiddies, and we decided to take Luke.

Waiting for the hunt to start

Ready, Set, Go...

We were excited that Luke understood the hunt this year. He looked around for the eggs and knew that he was supposed to put the eggs in his bucket. Dada had to hold the bucket.

The eggs were gone pretty fast, and as soon as they were Luke was ready to move on to bigger and better things... like the A/C. If you were wondering, it was off. I'm positive of this because Luke told us at least 10 times.

Smelling the "popcorn" on the way home

Later that day Luke was playing with his eggs and he got one of them open. There were M&Ms inside. Luke LOVES M&Ms! After that he hurriedly opened the rest of his eggs looking for "siminininims."

Sunday was a rough day for me. Since we were home all day, I didn't take any drugs and apparently I still need them. So we didn't do any traditional Eastery things that day (like eat a big ham dinner). We watched conference though, and that's pretty Eastery. And Luke got a new Blue's Clues movie from the Easter Bunny.

But on Monday we dyed our Easter eggs after our FHE lesson. With Luke's help it took about one minute to dye all 12 eggs.

He hogged all the eggs.

Loading the cups

Admiring his handy work

And done!

The finished result. How beautiful.

Spring Break

My mom had originally just planned to come during her Spring Break from work, and my dad was going to join us for a few days. As you already know, my mom came for a lot longer. My dad came as planned, but unfortunately we didn't get to do all that we planned to do. Friends watched Luke a few times so they could go to Jamestown and Yorktown. Hopefully next time they come we can do the picnics at Wallermill, the day at CW, and everything else. My parents are such good sports though. They reassured me that they came to see my family more than Williamsburg and that they were happy with the trip. Whether or not that's really true I don't know, but I do know that Luke enjoyed their visit. He misses his Mima and Papa!