So…Once upon a time, we thought that we were going to have a baby by now.  A week ago Wednesday (April 9), I went in for my routine check up and my doctor told me that I was 75% effaced and dilated to 3 cm.  She told me that I should make an appointment for the following week, but that she really didn’t expect to see me.  I was SO excited! I called the moms and told them that we were very likely to have a baby very soon!  So, Mother–whose time is limited because of her upcoming trip to India–came to Chapel Hill! She arrived late Thursday night, and we anticipated the baby coming that weekend!  Well, we STILL have no baby. But we are loving having Grandmother here (Fay especially)! Something that Fay has been anticipating for the past two months is her Grandmas coming and pushing her on the “baby swing”. Every time we go to the park, she talks about how they will come and push her “high”!  That was the first thing we did when she got here!

Another thing Fay has loved doing is reading with Grandmother.  Unlike Mommy (who can barely lay down in her own bed), Grandmother lays in bed with Fay before her naps and reads her stories!  That makes it even cooler than just regular stories!

On Tuesday of this past week, we went to Duke Gardens for a picnic dinner. After eating, we walked around the gardens (Fay actually mostly ran) and enjoyed all the spring colors! There are some stairs with a little ledge-y type thing on the side, which Mother said she helped many a toddler to climb. Fay had to be added to the list!It was basically adorable!  Sorry for the crazy light in this picture. This is Fay playing in the box from the Pack n Play. She requested that Grandmother join her, and of course they had a ton of fun!  I love this picture because they both have the exact same expression on their faces!

Josh and I have also been spoiled by Mother being here. We have gone on all sorts of dates and walks together! I got to go to the temple on Wednesday! And we are eating like royalty! We are still enjoying having Mother here and look forward to her staying until next Wednesday! We just hope that we have a baby before she has to go home.

As an update: this past Wednesday I went to my appointment and was still 75% effaced, but now dilated to 3.5 cm. I must confess I was very underwhelmed by that news.  I am trying with all my might to stay positive, and failing most of the time. I’m very grateful to Josh and Mother for their patience with me.

I am the type of person who needs a lot of sleep. I’ve been like that since I was a brand new baby. Mother tells me that I slept through the night from the day I came home from the hospital (I’m so good to her).  But nothing has changed over the past 23.7 years, and being pregnant makes me need even more sleep.  Fortunately for me (and Fay) I have the world’s most wonderful husband. Every morning when Fay wakes up (between 6:00 and 7:00), Josh gets up and closes the door to our room and plays with Fay until I wake up or 8:00 when he has to get ready to go to school. Sometimes I wake up to the sound of their playing; but usually I sleep like the rock I have always been.

The other morning was a load of fun!

When I came out of the bedroom, Fay was wearing and eating this fruit loop necklace that Josh helped her make. She was also wearing her Minnie Mouse tutu-dress over her Sophia tutu-pajamas with another t-shirt on top!  Oh yeah, and they had built a blanket fort over the table!

Fay has a good life! She can thank me for it because I made sure she has the world’s best daddy!

Just under 16 years ago (that is a long time!), I made my very first covenants! I promised Heavenly Father that I would take care of His children who needed help and love; I promised that I would always remember Him; and I promised to do my very best every single day to be like Him and His Son.

Just under 3 years ago, I made more covenants.  I promised again that I would take care of Heavenly Father’s children, but even to a greater degree; I promised that I would dress modestly all the time; I promised that I would do everything I could every single day to use the blessings that Heavenly Father has given me to further His work and build His Kingdom on the earth!  I also promised that I would love Josh forever and ever and be as good to him as I possibly could be. (Best Covenant Ever!!!!!)

I don’t know an eloquent way to say this, so I’m just going to say it straight.  I know that those covenants I have made are the most important things I have ever done in my life.  I know that because of them, and as I stay faithful to them, I can have Eternal, exquisite joy! And I know that “eternal” means today just as much as it means 16 million years from now.  If I keep the covenants that I have made with my Heavenly Father and my Savior with all my might, I can have the best possible life this earth has to offer me–because, after all, it is Heavenly Father who is in charge of what the earth offers me anyway.

That’s all.

 

Also, Fay. I realized a few days ago (probably for the 38th time) that everything I ever wanted in a toddler girl is personified in Fay!  She is beautiful, smart, happy, and hilarious! (She’s just like her daddy!)  Here are some little gems from this past week!

This is Fay playing with some playdough type stuff she got from Grandma.  Look at that face!!!!!!!!  She loves it and calls it “snowman” because she knows we can build snowmen out of it.  She also really likes it when I make her a little Minnie Mouse out of it.

From Grandmother, Fay got some Sophia the First pajamas. She loves them! When I got them out of the dryer this week, she grabbed them and tried to put them on. That was as far as the tutu made it. 🙂

This happened just this morning!  Fay and I came in from playing outside, and I asked her to put her sweater in her drawer (she has a small chest of drawers in her closet).  Perhaps it was because she couldn’t get her closet open, or perhaps it was because these are the first drawers that she saw; but I came into her room to find her sweater stuffed into her little play drawers.  She is such a good girl; and I am so proud of her!

Incidentally, I’m also 37 weeks pregnant today.  I am officially giving Baby Kid permission to come whenever he likes… I may or may not be okay with today. 🙂

A few weeks ago, UNC held its annual internship/career fair. Josh handed out something like 15 resumes, and has been getting lots of interviews!  We are excited by the prospect of a summer internship that could possibly lead to a job come graduation next year!  Thus far, he has interviewed with four companies that I can think of (he should probably be writing this post, because he obviously knows more about all this than I do) and currently has one job offer. He is waiting to her back from two other places before he makes a decision.

It is fun for me to hear about the interviews because I love hearing about anyone else who realizes that Josh is the greatest ever!

The other day at snack time, I was explaining to Fay that Daddy didn’t go on the bus that morning because he went to an interview. I told her a little bit about what an interview is, and why Josh was having so many, and then I asked her if she wanted to have an interview too. She said that she did!

 

Lest any of you are unaware, you should all know that Elisabeth Monson loves St. Patrick’s Day! There isn’t really any particular reason. I just do. And as such, we celebrate it with all our might!  Allow me to show you!

So, basically, this St. Patrick’s season, all the credit goes to Josh.  He thought of all the super fun stuff and made it happen! About a week and a half before St. Patrick’s Day, Josh surprised Fay and me with gifts!Fay received green nail polish, as she loves painting nails; and both of us girls profited thereby!  I got this clover necklace that is the perfect blend of festivity and classiness! Josh also found the fabulous book “The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day” that was the gift to the whole family!

And that’s not all, either!  A few nights later he carried on the tradition of making “conversation shamrocks.” When Kathryn and I were living in Provo (my freshman year of college), we had a discussion about conversation hearts. I expressed the sentiment that it was a shame that there weren’t any other “conversation” items for other holidays.  Kathryn was like “what would there be? conversation shamrocks?” Yes!  I loved the idea! But then she said “What would they say on them? “Text a Leprechaun” or something? Yes again! We got together at her apartment that March and made cookies which we then wrote phrases on!Though I am clearly no food photographer, here is a picture of some of the shamrocks we made this year! I know that leprechaun is spelled incorrectly on the cookie, and it isn’t because I don’t know how to spell it; it is because I ran out of space.This is Josh working on his cookies. I don’t know if you can tell; but the cookie in the lower right corner of the pan says “txt a pot o’ gold.” That cookie kind of made my life!

The day before St. Patrick’s Day was Sunday this year, and so I felt the need to dress green for church! I was so tempted to tape a piece of paper that said “leprechauns” over the word “fairies” on Fay’s shirt. But since it was church, I opted against it.

Another thing that Josh does for me every year (seriously, he is the best ever!) is give me flowers on St. Patrick’s Day. When we were dating, we talked about how ridiculous the price of flowers is at Valentine’s Day. Josh said he was more than happy to buy me flowers if that is what I wanted, but that if it was all the same to me, he would buy them on a day when they were at least somewhat decently priced.  I told him that I love St. Patrick’s Day, not Valentine’s Day anyway. So, he is the best husband in the whole world and gets me beautiful flowers for my favorite holiday!He was super sneaky about it too! I woke up on Monday morning and found this gorgeous bouquet on the table (along with the little shamrocks)! He had taken Fay early to the store and had them all ready before he woke me up!

St. Patrick’s Day evening, we had the sister missionaries over! We had to go all out for them, of course!  I wanted the meal to be festive, but also healthy. So, the main dish was a vegetable soup (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and spinach) which was made very green by the spinach!  Then we had a fruit salad and rolls, AND we had something I remember having growing up, which was lime sherbet and sprite floats!  They are tasty and ever so green!  Plus! Josh’s family has the fabulous tradition of putting coins in the food! (I washed them and wrapped them in aluminum foil first.) We mostly just put the coins in the missionaries food, because Fay probably would have eaten them, and well, they were Josh’s and my coins to begin with. 🙂  I’m sorry that I don’t have pictures of the dinner or our lovely Sisters, but I was running late when they got here.

And after all that, can anybody really wonder why I love this holiday so much?!

I have been fantasizing about spring break ever since March of 2009–my first Winter semester at BYU. Since we knew we would be doing grad school not at BYU, I have had this plan to go somewhere really cool and see lots of really cool things! Afterall, that’s what spring break is all aobut! I had this same plan all the way up until about November of this past year, when it dawned on me that I would be WAY pregnant over spring break and that I can’t be trusted to stay as pregnant as I should be, and that I have to go to the hospital weekly for a shot anyway.  Suffice it to say, we did not take an epic vacation this spring break. However! We decided that this would be the perfect opportunity for us to see the things around us that we haven’t yet. Hence, “staycation”!

Monday

We decided that one of the best things about vacation is that you get all your favorite treats for the road–you know, the ones you love, but never have a really good reason to buy most of the time.  So, we did that!  We started out by going to Rise in Durham for cronuts and biscuits! Their biscuits should probably be illegal or something, because they are SO GOOD!  Then we took Fay to the park, and then we went to Aldi and got a jillion snacks!   We still had some time before lunch and Fay’s nap, so we decided we would go work in our little garden plot (Baity Hill has a bunch of plots that residents can enter a lottery for, and we got one!).

Fay helped out by playing with rocks! She also ate a mouthful of dirt!

After naps (I took one too!), we headed out for a place that is very near and dear to my parents’ hearts: West Point on the Eno.  Fay loved the waterfall, and throwing rocks into the water.(This is just a picture of Fay being adorable in the car)

Tuesday

This was the nicest day we have had thus far this year!  It was warm enough at 9:00 in the morning when we headed out that we didn’t need jackets!  Later in the day it was even hot! Perfect day for the zoo!  We did the park in the morning because Josh had a phone interview at 11:00 that turned out not to be until 2:00. And then we headed out to Asheboro to go to the North Carolina Zoological Park! Josh ended up just finding as quiet a place as he could to talk at the zoo. While he was doing that, Fay and I just saw a few more animals than he did.

Waiting for the tram to take us to Africa!

So, this little girl saw Fay and just NEEDED to be best friends with her. It was pretty much adorable to watch her try to explain everything, and Fay just happily went along with it! Also, don’t Fay’s shorts just kill you?! I love them! She will probably wear them about 77% of warm days until she grows out of them.

Fay loved the gorillas! One even came right up to the glass and stared at her!

This is the worst picture ever, but I just had to prove that I was there!

Wednesday

Our activity for the morning was swimming! Fay LOVES playing in the water! This pool was much more accustomed to having a little kid playing in the water than the last pool we tried. (If you want to hear an amusing story, ask me about the first pool we went to in Chapel Hill.)Fay got a new swimming suit for this season! She is adorable in it, of course!

After lunch and naps, we went to Carrboro and visited a cool little toy store there. There were a lot of really fun things, and we all had a good time!  After that, we went to dinner at this restaurant that we had a recommendation for. I won’t mention its name, because I don’t want anybody to hate it just because of us. But we did not have a positive experience there. The food was very expensive and not what we were hoping for.  Oh well. I still didn’t have to cook that night!

Thursday

We had been quite busy the first half of the week, and we decided it was time for a morning of relaxing.  Josh worked on his robot car (he’ll have to do a post on that soon, because it is way cooler than I can describe!) and I worked on some sewing projects. We did this while sort of tag teaming playing with Fay, and during her nap.

In the afternoon, we went to UNC campus! We have been wanting to see the art museum forever, and we needed to get some UNC something for our baby (that was my compromise with Josh after I bought a Duke sleeper for Kid at a consignment sale). So, we took the bus (Fay was very pleased) and went to the museum first. It was smaller than I expected, but there were quite a few impressive pieces. Josh specifically noted the Durer prints!  After the museum, we walked around campus (it was a little different to see it so empty) and saw the Old Well!  Then we went to the student store and got  a really cute onesie for Kid (I don’t have a picture of it; you’ll have to wait til he tries it on!)

 At the well!At the student store!

Friday

This day went quite differently than we were anticipating.  We had planned to go to Raleigh and play at Marbles (a kids museum type place) and then we had dinner plans with friends that evening.  However, on Thursday, we noticed a crazy rash thing developing on Fay’s face. By Friday morning it was out of control, so we took her to the doctor (we were just there last week for nursemaid’s elbow, but oh well). It turns out that somehow she got exposed to the “hand, foot, and mouth” virus. The doctor said that she was in the early stages of it, and we have seen that to be accurate.  By Friday night, it was getting worse on her face, and showing up more on her hands and in her diaper area. Saturday, she was blistering all over. Fortunately, the blisters don’t really hurt or itch. But Fay does have a tendency to pick at them which then causes pain because she has open wounds on her face.This picture is actually from Saturday, but it shows the blisters really well.

Had that been all, Friday might have gone smoothly. But I also added to the drama by waking up with contractions.  Before we even went home from Fay’s appointment, we went to the women’s hospital and I stayed in triage for about 4 hours. I was having regular contractions, but fortunately never dilated. And after a bunch of water and an IV, the contractions slowed down and we are still pregnant!  This is me looking like death in the hospital. I’m not really sure why I put it in…

I got home around 2:30, and we spent the rest of the day at home. We opted against our dinner plans because there was a baby going to be there and hand, foot and mouth disease is apparently very contagious. Our fabulous next door neighbors, the Paces, brought us dinner, because when Josh asked them to watch Fay (at our house, so that she wouldn’t get their little boy sick) so he could come to the hospital to be with me, they decided that we had had enough for one day, and didn’t need to worry about dinner.  We are SO grateful for them!

Saturday

We mostly spent the day at home in an effort to avoid spreading Fay’s rash to others. But it was just such a nice day, and Fay was getting stir crazy, so we took her to the park.  We let her swing on the swings for a while, but other than that, we tried to do more exploring than playground-ing.  She started doing the cutest thing: hugging rocks!

 

After the park, we went to dinner at a place on Franklin Street called “Buns.” It is a hamburger place that we’ve heard about and was really good!  We are no longer afraid to go to new restaurants! 🙂

This weekend was our stake conference. Josh let me go to the Saturday evening session while he stayed home and put Fay to bed, and did all the dishes! (He’s way too good to me!)

We have loved Spring Break, and we are getting more and more excited for summer!

So, I’ve been getting requests from quite a few people to shed some light on how things are going with this pregnancy, as well as one request for how I am dressing this pregnancy.  So, here you go.

As of today, I am 33 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Fay was born at 33 weeks and 5 days. We are not ready to have a baby in 3 days, so this little feller better stay where he’s at! 🙂 I am feeling mostly good. I am having more and more trouble doing things that were still easy 6 weeks ago. For example: I have a hard time getting comfortable sitting and especially laying down. I am definitely worse at bending over than I have been in a very long time. And I am short of breath a lot of the time.  I am aware that these things are just par for the pregnancy course, but it doesn’t make them fun.  I saw something on facebook recently that said it all very well. My friend (who is also pregnant right now) posted a quote: “Pregnancy is the happiest reason ever for feeling like crap.”  I absolutely agree!

(By the way, I am putting random pictures of Fay, because I know I am way more likely to read a blog post if there are lots of pictures!)

For those of you who don’t know (aka: those who I have been neglecting–please do forgive me!), because of Fay’s premature birth, I am being watched a little more closely than mothers who have no history of problems, and I have the great privilege of getting a weekly shot of progesterone–a hormone the body creates naturally, but apparently makes less of when preparing to go into labor. This shot, called 17 P, is administered weekly from weeks 18 to 36 and has been shown to be highly effective in preventing preterm labor in mothers who have a history of spontaneous preterm labor (like me!). So, I only have a few more shots to go! According to my limited research, it is fairly normal for women to go into labor somewhere in the vicinity of 10 days after their last injection. I must confess, I wouldn’t mind if he came at 37 weeks! (Especially if he was really ready to come!)

Other information about the pregnancy includes: I have gained roughly 22 pounds over the past 33 weeks (normal, I hear). My nails grow super fast, and my leg hair grows super slow! Baby Kid (his name in utero) is very active! Today he kept kicking me in the exact same spot and kicking me HARD! But, he likes to pretend to be shy when either Josh or Fay try to feel his kicks.  Fay has felt him kick, and I feel like she is getting a better idea all the time that we are going to have a baby at our house.  I am very interested and excited to see how she responds to him. 🙂

As for the maternity style request, allow me to give a disclaimer. Though I will admit that I have the capacity to be a fairly well dressed pregnant woman (I was given a great wardrobe from a fantastic sister in our ward who is done having kids), I must be the very least photogenic pregnant woman in the whole world. I promise that all of these outfits looked WAY better in the mirror.  Maybe it’s the lighting in our house. Maybe it’s just me. I don’t know. But here you go, Lacey.

The first picture is me at 32 weeks 0 days. We went to a play that night (Our neighbors took our baby monitor and listened while Fay slept. You’ve got to love living in an apartment building!) so of course I had to dress up for my hot date! The second two pictures are more of my every day sort of look. In the middle picture I had gone out on errands and such, in the final picture (taken at 33 weeks 0 days) I was just home with Fay. I had to take that picture myself which is why my head is cut off.

People keep telling me that I barely look pregnant. People told me that last time too. I was always so confused as to why, and this time I was expecting to get way bigger because apparently you get bigger faster with subsequent pregnancies. But no. Still little (according to the people around me).  But, one of my OBs told me that I show less than some simply because I have a long torso. Who knew?! I always thought that you had to be tall to have a long torso! I was so wrong!

 

I’m sorry if you get tired of hearing about Fay. She is my whole life, and she is REALLY cute!  If you don’t want anymore Fay, check out a different blog. 🙂

Anyway, Fay is growing up so fast, we hardly know what to do!  She is super smart and loves to share anything she observes with us!  For example, she is excellent at remembering the names of her friends and shouting them out every time she sees them (it makes Sacrament Meeting really exciting!) or whenever she thinks about them. This little boy is a friend from upstairs named Isaac. Fay LOVES Isaac and had a blast when he came to play for a few minutes the other morning. Periodically throughout the day Fay will declare “Isaac!!!” (in her own little Fay way) and then “Lena!” for Elena who is Isaac’s big sister.  She similarly declares the name of her best bud Auden, and one of her favorite babies Leila.  It’s more than slightly adorable! She’s also getting really good at feeding herself with a fork or spoon.  This is a picture of her eating yogurt in the kitchen on the day we had a tornado warning last week. (That is relevant info because we went into the kitchen to be more protected if a tornado did show up.) She ate a whole bowl all by herself without spilling! Fay is also taking her appearance more into her own hands. Anything she can get around her wrist is declared a “bracelet” and she LOVES them!  She found a bunch of baby links yesterday and insisted on fitting as many as possible onto one arm. If you try to put them on a different wrist than she wants, she will make sure you know that you’ve done wrong, and correct your mistake. 🙂 Today, Fay found the nail polish again (she does every couple of weeks) and wanted to get her toes painted.  The old polish had about worn off, so I was happy to help her. Up until today she has always just patiently watched me paint her toenails; but today half way through the first foot, she decided it was her turn!  Please notice the amount of polish on the toes of her left foot!

Another thing Fay has been doing recently is repeating anything we say that she finds interesting.  A couple days ago she dropped something at dinner and Josh said “uh-oh spaghettio.” She really liked that and has has “uh-oh bellio” or something like it each time something has dropped since then!

She really is so much fun, and we love her more than anything in the world…at least for a few more weeks!

Josh’s and my first Valentine’s Day as a married couple was on a weekday in the middle of midterm season. We gave each other sweet cards, and I heart attacked the door for him, but we didn’t really do much else. We declared that we would postpone it until a time when it was more convenient.  Well, it turned out that there never was a convenient time, so it got skipped altogether.

This year, Mother Nature blessed us with the “snowmageddon” only two days before Valentine’s Day, and as such, Josh had the entire weekend–from Thursday til Sunday–free to spend with Fay and me at home!  As such, we did quite a few fun things!

On Thursday evening, we made cookies to take to our neighbors and to Josh’s home-teaching families!

This is me looking goofy while displaying them!

On Valentine’s Day itself, we all dressed up in as much pink and red as we could find! Our next door neighbor was good enough to document it for us. 🙂

Fay also got a cake pop from the neighbors! It was the best looking cake-pop I’ve ever seen that somebody actually made, so I got all sorts of tips from Robin on how to do it. 🙂 Anyway, Fay really liked it! I don’t think she realized that it was cake inside, and she mostly just ate the sprinkles off of it. But it was adorable!

And, of course, we had to have a delicious dessert after our Valentine’s dinner! Fay gobbled up her strawberry short cake!

 

The day after Valentine’s Day we had our friends, the Burtons, over for dinner! We really like the Burtons and we have been wanting to have them over for quite some time. But the reason we wanted them over this weekend was because we had a hankering to make a fantastic Valentine’s Day cake, and we needed somebody to be impressed by it. 🙂  The Burtons were perfect cake subjects!

Told you they were perfect!

Anyway, we had a great Valentine’s Day weekend! Thanks to the snow for making it a party all the way through!

 

 

Josh and I have recently re-picked up some hobbies. Josh got (from me) some oil paints for Christmas 2012. He tinkered with them quite a bit last spring, but since we moved to North Carolina and school started again, he hasn’t had much of an opportunity to paint. But, now that we have 9:00 church and Fay takes a Sunday nap, he uses that time (I’m usually napping as well) to work on his painting! This is a recently finished work of his! It is beautiful and meaningful for this part of our life!

For those of you who don’t know, that is the well that is the icon of UNC.

 

As for me… My Aunt Martha taught me to crochet when I was about 12 (when Mother and Daddy went to pick Jordan up from his mission to Venezuela), but since high school I really haven’t done much until NOW! 

I’ve been a little baby happy (we are only 11 weeks away from baby Kid’s due date!) and the baby boy vest is the first article of clothing I’ve ever really made! AND it is the first pattern I have ever followed from written instructions!  The white project is the beginnings of a hat for Little Brother Monson. It was supposed to be newborn size, but I can’t really tell if it actually will be. Especially since my perception of baby is all skewed right now. We’ll see when he gets here!