Baby bump and more

I never did post how I told my parents and sisters that Paul and I were expecting. It was my parents anniversary and they were driving through Twin on their way back from Salt Lake. They stopped and I gave them a card with a copy of the ultrasound in it (the 8 week one) and said that they might not be able to see the family resemblance yet, but in September they might! Then I had them open the gifts, and take the ones home for Brittney and Summer.

Summer's says "World's Coolest Aunt, "Dad's says "Grandpa in Training," Mom's says "Grandma...coming soon," and Brittney's says "Aunt- the only job I need!"

I haven't been good at taking the weekly pictures like I wanted. I've been wearing loose shirts to cover up what looks like a large Thanksgiving meal, so it was hard to find a day where the shirt actually showed what was going on. When I went in at 12 weeks the doctor said he wouldn't be surprised if I went another 6 weeks without needing maternity pants and so far he's right (I'm 17 weeks, so I plan to pass his 6 week expectation.) I may just be carrying too high to really need new pants yet.

This is me at 14 weeks...

This is me at 17 weeks... (it's not a great picture- can you tell I haven't been tanning?!)

Today 2 of my students came up and gave me a gift bag. It's not teacher appreciation day so I assumed it was for the baby and I was right. I peaked in the bag before school started and saw fabric, I thought maybe some cute sheets. But when I opened it during recess (while they were there) it was a quilt! They had made it together. It's so darling and so sweet of them. Those 2 are great girls! :-)

Paul and I are really excited to start this new part in our life. I'm excited to not have to get up with an alarm anymore (I realize a baby is an alarm of it's own kind, but it's different!) I told Paul yesterday that I had been feeling the baby, on the inside, and he said, "WHAT!? Why didn't you tell me sooner!" But I really hadn't been sure that's what it was... I'm still not positive because everyone describes it as a flutter and that's not how I would describe it. I'm pretty sure I've been feeling the baby move for about a week now.

My next appointment and ultrasound is May 5, and then we'll get to see if it's a girl or a boy! Naturally, I'm hoping it's a girl and Paul hopes it's a boy. But it'll be loved just the same, no matter what!

Monday & Tuesday in the Big Apple

I forgot to mention that Sunday after dinner we walked around Times Square a bit. We went into the world's largest Toys R Us and a 4 story Forever 21. Brittney and I are in the top windows, I'm on the right and she's on the left. I love Barbie... (well I used to.)

Monday was rainy and not pleasant weather. We started the day by hopping on the double decker red bus at Times Square and doing the south loop. We drove past the Empire State Building, Chinatown and Little Italy. We stopped to do a little shopping at Union Square and ate lunch at a Whole Foods. We got back on the bus and drove by Ground 0, Battery Park (but it was too foggy to see the Statue of Liberty).

That night we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant called Beco. Mom, Brittney, and I went to "Phantom of the Opera" and Annie and Mary Ann went to "Catch Me If You Can." Phantom was so good! It was like the movie, but on stage. I was very impressed with their effects and backdrops.

Tuesday the weather was much better! We went to the Top of the Rock and had a great view of NYC.

We took a taxi to Lincoln Square and saw the temple, which is hard to distinguish from other buildings except for the angel on the top! Hannah, Paul's cousin, met us for lunch and we did some exploring. We went to Central Park and saw the Belvedere Castle, which used to be a meteorological look out. There was an exhibit going on but guess what? It was only open Wednesday-Saturday! Bummer, but it was still a neat view.

After Central Park we took our 1st subway ride! Hannah had to be at a rehearsal so the other 5 of us got off at Battery Park to see Lady Liberty. We didn't go all the way out there because it takes a few hours and there were lots of sights to see! We left Battery Park, hopped on the subway, and headed back north towards our hotel. We made it to the Grand Central Station stop and then tried to make it to Times Square. Opps... we got on the subway headed the wrong way. We ended up in Queens. If you look at a map, you'll see that Queens isn't even on the right island!!

So we had to hurry up and down the other side to get to Times Square. Brittney and Annie wanted to get ready and the rest of us just needed to change. We let Annie, Brittney, and Mary Ann to take the first cab. Mom and I took the second (some taxi drivers would take all 5, but not when we needed them to most!) Mom and I beat them by about 2 minutes because our cabie was CRAZY! Mom had to close her eyes and remind herself to breathe. I think he went 40 down Broadway, which involved a great amount of weaving.

For dinner that night we went to Club 21. The play that night was Wicked. All other plays start at 8. But guess what?! Not Wicked on Tuesday nights!! So we got there at 7:35 and the play had started at 7. Needless to say, no one was happy. Why didn't we look at our tickets? I do not know. Anyways, the play was awesome!

NEW YORK CITY! Sunday

For my spring break I went with my mom, Brittney, Paul's mom and Annie (Paul's youngest sister) to NYC! We were there for 5 nights so I'll break it down into days. This is more for my own record cuz it's going to be an overloaded blog!

Saturday- Flew out of Boise, layover in Denver, on to La Guardia. We got there at about 8 and had to get a taxi (not as scary as I thought it was going to be!) That night we ate at the Park Cafe (just the restaurant at the hotel) and hit the sack. We had to use 2 fans to cover the noise of the sirens and traffic below!

Sunday- We didn't get out early because that wouldn't be like the Williams family, now would it?!

We started the day by walking through Central Park.

We walked past the ice rink and the Balto statue and found our way to the zoo (home of Alex the Lion).

We ventured further north to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the steps fromHitch. The museum is huge so we didn't go through all of it. We visited the Greek & Roman wing, the Egyptian wing, and wandered through the Medieval wing.
In that wing there was an old piece of a church. It divided where the choir was from where the congregation was. I can't remember the year but it was around 1700. It was HUGE! It went up 5 or 6 stories. This is us looking imprisoned by it.

After the museum we caught a cab back to the hotel to grab more layers before our night tour on the Double Decker Red Bus. We went on an 1 1/2 hour tour of the city, crossing over to Brooklyn to see the skyline. I learned some very interesting facts about the history of the city such as where the name SoHo comes from and things about the original Macy's. Mary Ann and Annie joined us that night and we went to Roxie's at Times Square for dinner. More days to come!..

What would it mean if I had a fetus in me?

I am almost 11 weeks pregnant (will be 11 on Friday) and am due September 23. We told our parents on Valentine's day and it has been trickling to family and friends since then. Today, however, I told my students. I delayed for a couple of reasons, mainly the possibility of miscarriages. This rate goes down significantly after the heartbeat is seen; we saw it at the 8 week ultrasound. Also, in science we're studying reproduction. We don't discuss how the egg gets fertilized but we do talk about a sperm fertilizing an egg and then it's a zygote, then an embryo, and then a fetus. So today during our discussion I asked, "What would it mean if I had a fetus in me?" A silence followed... then one little girl waved and wiggled almost out of her seat saying, "I KNOW!" so I asked her what it meant and she said, "That you're pregnant!"
Correct she was! This receiving an applause from my entire class :-) Cute kids. Later a student told me my face got really red while they were clapping!
This announcement was followed by a 10 minute Q & A as well as some sound advice. Here were some of the things they asked or said:

• Do you know you're not supposed to drink while you're pregnant?
• Would you like a natural birth or a C-section?
• Will you name him after me if it's a boy?
• "How long have you known?" "about 7 weeks" "You kept this from us for 7 weeks!?" To which I explained a bit of the chances of miscarriage and that I wanted to wait a while. They forgave me.
• I can make great baby blankets, maybe I'll make your baby one.
• My mom craved whoopers while she was pregnant.
• Tell your husband you're going to have mood swings and he's going to wonder how this happened! (I particularly liked this one!)
• Can I tell my parents?

So it's in the open now. No one in my ward knew before today, but I have some students in my ward so now their parents will know. All is going well. I don't have morning sickness-Thank goodness! I've been blessed to not be sick because I have no idea how I could teach if I needed to throw up!

Bacon & the Bachelor

So our usual Mondays consist of dinner and watching the Bachelor. I guess you could say that's our FHE for the season. Anyways, it's something we do every Monday. Tonight I was going to make Hawaiian Haystacks but I didn't have Cream of Chicken Soup (how do I not have that?!) anyways, I wanted breakfast for dinner. Paul prefers crepes so I made the crepes and he cooked the bacon. We actually used 1 of the eggs from our chicken! Paul decided to name her Dorothy; he said she's the fattest one. Currently, Paul is making a "jamba," otherwise known as a smoothie while we paused the Bachelor so we don't have to watch commercials.

I know this isn't the most exciting post but considering I haven't posted anything else yet this year, I needed to add something. I also found the pictures we took on New Year's Eve after we swam at Paul's grandparents house. We have done that every New Year's Eve (4 years) since we've been together. That was our first weekend we spent together in Twin back when we started dating, so it became a tradition.

This year we left right before midnight and were pulled over at 11:50ish! Kenley was driving but the cop saw us coming out of the canyon and thought we might be partying and having some alcohol (we weren't). Kenley got back in the car at 11:59, just in time to give his wife a New Year's kiss; it was a close one!

Back tracking even more, Paul's grandma collects Nativity sets, so for Christmas Paul said we should make her one... (when he said we he meant me.) I made her one using containers from oatmeal, vitamins, and koolaid, with paint and fabric. They're a bit elementary but I think they were still pretty cute!

Christmas!

This was on our drive home. We headed out kind of early so Paul could get to his mom's and learn how to play with the tablet he got. The furry black spot behind us is Jack. Luckily he does well in the car for our 2 hour drive. (P.S. I took him to the vet and he's 60 pounds now!)

I haven't updated in a while, our computer at home has stopped working. The computer turns on but there must be a short with the screen, it's to the point now where it stays black. I hope I don't have anything too important saved on there.

I have 2 weeks off for Christmas break. I'm not sure what I've done this past week. Today is Saturday, Christmas and we're all playing with our new gadgets. We are at my parents house this year, we came over on Thursday and will leave tomorrow after church. I'm glad I have another week off; I have tests to grade and seats to rearrange.

Christmas is quite different at my parents house than at Paul's. We have a snacky dinner on Christmas Eve and went out to a Christmas program put on by my parent's friends, the Wards. Then this morning Summer woke up at 7 but Dad convinced her to wait until 8. By the time we started presents it was closer to 9. At 10:30 we went to Uncle Bruce's for the Williams family brunch. It's getting smaller now that most have grandkids and do stuff with their families.

We were both very spoiled this year for Christmas. Jack came with us but we didn't get him anything for Christmas. It's just another day for him. I got Paul tickets to a Jazz game but my dad topped me with a season ticket to the BSU games for next year. :-) Paul got me a Bosch, since I only have little hand beaters. I'm excited and now I can get ride of my blender and food processor since it has those too.

playing with our presents...

Snow, snow, snow

I have this week off of school for Thanksgiving Break, and guess what it did? SNOWED! It snowed a lot on Sunday and some more on Monday, but it wasn't too bad. I am very glad I have all-wheel drive this winter, but the roads were very doable. However, today (Tuesday) it was a blizzard! Literally! The news kept saying, "If you don't need to be somewhere, don't drive." So, I had to cancel lunch with my friend and schools were cancelled.

Jack and I were outside for a bit today. We didn't build a snowman but we did check the mail. I shoveled our front porch and attempted to shovel the steps. We don't have a side walk so I just smashed the 6"+ of snow to make a path through the snow. I shoveled the porch this morning at 9 then had to do it again at 12! It was completely covered again!
Jack LOVES the snow. He's definately a snow dog! Shadow, however, hates snow. Don't all cats?

My family is supposed to come up tomorrow night for Thanksgiving. That's could be a slow going drive. The turkey Paul got for work is in his office fridge. The road to his office was closed today! Hopefully we can get to his work before Turkey Day!