The Turkey Ain't the Only Thing in the Oven

This week Justin and I shared with our families that we're expecting baby #3 in June. I sent my siblings a text this week while Justin created an elaborate "escape room" puzzle for his family to solve to share the news. But more on that later.

This has definitely been my hardest pregnancy to date. Looking back on Emmett and Logan's pregnancies I feel like I was completely spoiled. I mean, I was able to go to work every day for 8 hours and teach bratty 7th graders for my ENTIRE pregnancy with Emmett - there is NO WAY I would've been able to hold a job this time around. 

Both of my previous pregnancies have been pretty similar in that I would throw up first thing in the morning and then feel mostly fine all day minus fatigue...but that's nothing a nap while the toddler naps can't solve. This time my "morning sickness" has been all day nausea and then I would finally throw up at night. So I'd finally get relief from feeling like garbage just in time to go to bed.😜 The fatigue has been pretty much the same as before, except if I tried to do anything it would make me more nauseous. So for the last six weeks or so I've basically been laying on the couch trying not to throw up. I would have a few good days sprinkled here and there when I would try to get everything done, but then I would seriously pay for it the next day and be totally useless. 

My activities have included driving Emmett to and from Preschool and the occasional grocery store trip. That's IT! The bright side of that is my exposure to Covid is basically zero. 

This first trimester has felt extra long too because - well - it has been. I really wanted a May baby so we shot for that and got it. I actually ovulated the day I hiked Table Mountain in August with my girlfriends. I got pregnancy symptoms almost immediately - I started to feel the fatigue just three days later and I had nausea at four weeks. But I had an early miscarriage, so... no May baby. This muffed things up a bit because my parents 50th anniversary celebration is next June and I really don't want to miss it! Hence why I really wanted a May baby. But I definitely didn't want to wait another month-and-a-half, so we got pregnant just shy of two weeks after my miscarriage. Again, I started to feel symptoms right away - just two days after ovulating I felt the familiar fatigue hit, and two weeks later I got the positive test. So even though I'm 11 weeks along right now, it definitely feels much longer.

Thankfully right around the 10-week mark I started to feel noticeably better. I went a whole week without throwing up! But then had some nausea the night before Thanksgiving and threw up our pie pig out. 😂 Thankfully, I made it to my own house to do so.

I made lemon cream pie

Justin made coconut cream pie

Emmett helped me make my pie crust

**Sidenote: when Justin and I went out to dinner at Pickle's for his birthday, the food made me feel SO sick. We stopped at Mom and Dad's to pick up the kids and share some birthday pie and I threw up in her bushes! It was the worst...But the bright side was I felt fine after and was able to enjoy some birthday pie! **

I am so close to the 12 week mark and I really hope this goes away soon. I told Justin "No more kids after this! I can't do it again!" It has been HARD. But we all know how quickly we forget. I am suspicious of a girl. Boys don't do this to me! Both kids have been saying they want a sister. Emmett also says he wants to name it "Dino Trek" after his favorite dinosaur show so...who knows. Logan likes to give my belly hugs and kisses and tells the baby goodnight. Emmett marvels at how big my belly is and that it's going to "get bigger, and bigger, and BIGGER!" If we do have a girl, I don't know what she's going to do with these two crazy boys...if we have another boy I don't know what I'M going to do with all these boys!! Probably get another cat. 😂 Or maybe a bunch of chickens!

This Thanksgiving was one of my favorites ever. Trisha was able to come with her family which saved our holiday! Justin made a treasure hunt for us to do after the meal to give our stomachs a rest and make room for pie. Trisha's kids play really well with my kiddos, and we convinced her older teenage kids to play Pictionary with us. We watched a movie about the Mayflower and Trisha's family went back home. I was completely exhausted from violently throwing up the night before (just ask Justin) and getting up early with Logan at 4:30 that morning, so sitting and watching a movie was the perfect activity for me😁 Logan has had the WORST time with daylight savings. In the summer he got up at 6:00, which is fine...but he has not adjusted so he gets up every day at 5:00 and sometimes earlier. It's the worst - send help! I'm supposed to be getting sleep while I can before baby comes! But I've had bad insomnia anyway with this pregnancy...more girl suspicions...

this is as far as we got with our thankful turkey

They found the treasure!

Justin's treasure map he printed for everyone

Justin burned the edges of one of the treasure maps to make it look extra-cool.

Like I mentioned earlier, Justin created an escape room puzzle for his entire family to solve to announce this pregnancy. Our WA visit in October gave him the idea because he got an escape room game for a birthday gift from Jon. He put his 3D printer to work (take pregnancy insomnia and pile on the "eeeeek-errrrr" sounds of the 3D printer going all night in the room next door....😖) and created an elaborate "Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs" puzzle. The idea was that the big bad wolf repented later in life and was hired as a detective to help find the three little pigs because they went missing. At the end when the family "found" the three little pigs, what they found were three pictures - Emmett, Logan, and the ultrasound picture. I normally don't do early ultrasounds but...I got a little paranoid that it might be twins (que pregnancy symptoms that seemed "twice" as hard, showing SUPER early and showing A LOT, more fertile after a miscarriage...) so I had one done to make sure there was just one! Thank goodness! HOW in the heck did mom have TWO sets of twins? Talk about a modern-day-friggin-miracle.

clues 1,2,3 and 4

getting ready to mail out everyone's puzzle

The final step of the puzzle - it took probably 2-3 weeks to print three of these.

Justin kept the "big bad wolf" theme going throughout

Justin shows how to open the last puzzle piece

Justin's family's reaction to the ultrasound pic

I did a "barges" activity with the kids when I was teaching them how the Jaredites came across the ocean. 

Emmett naming all his dinosaurs

I learned the "Thankful" song on the ukulele and did a sing along for my primary kids

We put the Christmas tree up early this year. I figured if I was going to be miserable we might as well have some early Christmas cheer! I love my tree this year - I got all the ornaments and flowers on mega sale in January this year. Score!

It was 17 degrees this morning. We bundled everyone up and went for a short walk with Teddy who is limping on his mending leg. We stopped short when we saw some cows on the loose.   

well hey there Ralphie

I love when I catch them playing nicely together. Usually it's fighting over things and making each other cry so these moments are precious.

Logan looks ready for nap time.

Emmett's thankful hat from preschool.

Do the Turkey-Pokey!

Emmett's plate before...

and after! 👏

Emmett lined up all his dinosaur cookie cutters

Notice how Emmett is bundled up for the cold weather and Logan...

Dinosaur Christmas cookies anyone?

First Trip to the E.R.

 It's about time for an update. 

At the beginning of this month I started a project for my church calling. I'm putting together a primary program video. Whether we end up watching it physically at church or individually in our homes is yet to be determined, but I'd like to have it done in the next week or so. I'm still waiting for some stragglers to get their parts to me, but I definitely have the majority of the kids' contributions so I can start editing. I've been going to families' homes and recording them with my phone. It's been really sweet to have siblings sing primary songs together, and for the kids to share what they've learned about the Book of Mormon this year. I think it's going to be great!

Justin had his birthday! We went out to dinner at Pickle's and I have to say...it was the worst food I think I've ever had hahaha! So dinner was not great, but Justin did buy himself a pie for his birthday so we enjoyed sharing that with Mom and Dad for dessert.😂 I have been really missing normal out-to-eat options lately...especially fast food! 

I've been debating what to do with my hair. It hasn't been cut into it's pixie since July. I've been debating cutting it short again or keeping it longer and getting bangs. After my hair appointment was delayed a week I decided to go with bangs. I haven't had these for 6 years! I can pull my hair into an itty-bitty ponytail if I want to. I may just cut it all off and go back to my pixie cut. I still don't know what I want to do with it. Ha!

We did have one nice week before it started snowing

you can guess who is in the other bins😂

I wasn't feeling well one night so Emmett made me a "present" with his legos to make me feel better 😭

The kids LOVE my canned peaches. I'll have to do about triple the amount for next year

Granny making a fort with the kids while babysitting

watching Jurassic World together and sharing Ben and Jerry's

I took a nap and woke up to Emmett napping next to me 😍

farmers moving their cows around

new bangs!

Teddy has been getting into trouble lately. He kept wandering over to the neighbors to play with their dogs, and the people let him into their house a couple of times so - hello - no wonder he likes to go over there. So Justin finally got him a nice long leash and had been keeping him tied up. After a couple of weeks of that, he decided to let him off-leash and see if he'd stay home. On the second day of this experiment he went missing all day. Justin went to the neighbors to see if he was there with no luck and ended up driving all around the block looking for him. We decided if he wasn't home by morning then we would worry. Well at 7:00-ish that night I hear Justin in the kitchen say, "Oh my heck!" and there was Teddy looking at us through the glass back door with a broken leg!

I called the emergency vet in Idaho Falls to ask their opinion what to do. I start these conversations out with, "We live in Arco...." so in other words, is this an EMERGENCY-emergency, or can is it a it-can-wait-til-morning-emergency...? She said if he wasn't putting any weight on it at all then he was in a lot of pain so we needed to get some meds for him at the very least until his leg got set. 

The Arco vet had an after-hours number that we called, but he wasn't willing to give us any meds to get Teddy through the night. He also said he doesn't do any orthopedics. That pretty much left us with two options: let him suffer all night (and potentially do further damage to his leg) and drive over in the morning to set his leg, or drive to Idaho Falls that night and have the leg set by the emergency vet people. Our humanity decided we better take care of it ASAP, so Justin drove Teddy to Idaho Falls that night. They were able to get his leg x-rayed and a cast within about an hour after Justin arrived and they were headed home with some pain/anxiety medication and some specific instructions for how to care for his leg. They suggested we also book him for surgery to ensure his leg "heals completely" for $2,000 over in Emmett, ID and to book that in the next few days....yeah, no thanks. He can have a gimp for two-grand! His cast isn't allowed to get wet, so we've kept him inside and put a garbage bag around his leg for potty breaks. This lasted for a couple days... but then the meds had caught up with him. Shortly after a morning potty break I smelled a most alarming poop smell to find he had defecated on the carpet - gross, dog-has-been-on-meds runny, smelly, damn-it-to-hell poops that made me want to call Dad to bring the .22 and put the dog down after all. It is hard to fully describe the personal hell it was to clean this up mostly by myself because Justin had a call. He's been sentenced to the shed for the foreseeable future, single-digit temperatures and all.

The cats waiting patiently for dinner

playing hot lava

Justin turned on a star wars video game of someone playing and the kids held the controllers and acted like they were the ones playing😂 They thought they were pretty good! Emmett: "Where are all the bad guys?" Logan: "I dunno Emmett."😂

He thinks he found a comfy spot😒 don't worry he was moved promptly after finding him here

That's the big happenings at our house for the last little bit. I've been doing a "thankful turkey" with the kids when we remember to do it which has not been much of a success. Emmett just wants to say he's thankful for dinosaurs every day, and Logan wants to say he's thankful for cars. But after some pressing, I did get them to admit they were thankful for Granny and Gramps so...progress. We went sledding behind the four-wheeler yesterday and I did my first virtual primary singing time for my ward. I had about three moms text me that their kids watched it, so as long as someone is getting use out of the videos I will call it a success. I'm wishing Thanksgiving was this week - I'm ready for some turkey and mashed potatoes.

all cute for at-home church

Justin informed me there were only eight barges, with 16 stones... two stones/barge. Woops I must've skimmed that detail😅 we had 16 stones hiding around the house that the kids found to put on the barges. We taught about how Jesus has a body and Heavenly Father answers our prayers. Then Lost River ward had a speaker that we watched over zoom.