Heaven Help Us

There is a strong possibility that Josh and I will not survive the naming of this baby boy. He loves it, I hate it. I love it, he hates it. Somehow we both came out alive when we named Charlie.....but just barely.

Also, I started feeling the baby flopping around. It is a huge relief because as much as I don't want to think this way - I am always a little bit certain that he isn't going to be healthy and live. I know. I know. There are absolutely no signs of this. Everything is going great. It's just my post traumatic stress disorder.

Please feel free to leave baby boy names. I don't like weird spellings. Josh doesn't like anything. Those are the parameters.  :o)

The Madster Is All Grown Up

The Independent Madster flew alone up to Utah to be with her cousins for their spring break. She had a happy and big welcoming party waiting for her at the airport.

Her sister-cousin turned 7, so Maddie could NOT have missed this party or her life would surely have been over.

The fun never stops in Midway, Utah!

 Josh and I drove up on Friday to spend the weekend there too and to pick up our completely exhausted Maddie girl from her week of cousin fun. Angus came too, on his very first road trip. He gets an A+ for behavior, and a D- for being smelly. I can't even begin to count how many times I have done that trip and said, "I will never drive this again. I only fly."

Here is a picture of our Baby Boy at 11 weeks. I am now 13 weeks, which means I'm officially in my second trimester. Yeah for me! I love this picture because his forehead looks just like mine.  :o)

Maddie is so excited for her baby brother, she just can't stand it. She already talks to him in my tummy at least twice a day, and has already named him. Josh and I are wondering if we still have the naming rights or if Maddie just sort of took that responsibility away from us?  Anyway, when she prays or makes a wish, it is always, "Please let my baby brother grow up like me, and not die." If anything else, for the sake of my desperate-to-be-a-big-sister daughter, I really hope that is exactly what happens. She will be such a wonderful, helping big sister. Here, she is practicing with her new baby girl cousin.

I did it!!!

I bought a baby outfit at Target!!! Wow. That's a big step! How was I going to pass up this outfit? The frog's tongue is out just like Josh when he plays his drums.

See?   :o)

London & Scotland 2012

We decided to spend Spring Break this year in London and Scotland. London because I love it and Scotland because Maddie studied all about it last year in school. It was so much fun showing Maddie all around the city that Josh and I love. First thing we did was go on the London Eye.

And search for Peter Pan around Big Ben.

We then went to the Tower of London to explore.

Maddie loved the Crown Jewels....

....And hated the crows.

I love this city so much because I did a BYU study abroad program here in college. Maddie wanted to see where I used to live.

3rd floor window on the left, top bunk bed. It was the coolest thing I ever did.

Josh came over to visit me while I was studying there and that is where he proposed. It's so strange that 11 years later we went back with our daughter and took a picture at the very spot he got on his knee....

Because it is where he proposed, we named daughter Miss Madeline London Harris. She loves hearing the story about how she got her middle name because it is where her dad asked her mom to be his wife. :o)

Classic London photos

We got to see some theater shows while we were there. Maddie was VERY into the Lion King. She didn't seem to notice that we were in the second to last row because she had her trusty binoculars.

We also got to see Shrek.

Maddie rolled down the grassy hill at Kensington Palace. Just for fun.

When you travel with a kid, it changes your whole plan of how to tour a big city. I never would have known that the Princess Diana Memorial Children's Park in Hyde Park was so awesome. Can you find Maddie on this big ship?

We then went to Scotland. Maddie knew ALL about the bagpipes.

And I knew ALL about William Wallace.

When I went to Edinburgh all those years ago, the only thing I remembered about it was that it was FREEZING and WET. Well, it is still freezing and wet. So freezing, in fact, that Maddie cried. She learned her lesson that when Mom says to wear her big warm coat, she needs to listen to me instead of fight me. :o)

Then we went even further north, to where it is even colder and wetter, so we could try to find the Loch Ness Monster. We stayed in a castle lodge that didn't have heaters or hot water. I felt like I was camping, and we all know how I feel about camping. :o(

Maddie is absolutely terrified of Nessie.

When we were on the boat, she kept her eyes on the water the entire time. Bug eyed. She swears she saw Nessie not once, but two times!

On the insanely long plane ride home I asked her what her favorite things about London were. She said the Underground (subway system in London), which happens to be one of my favorite things too. She became an absolute pro at the end of the trip and could have gotten around perfectly fine without her mom and dad, I'm sure of it.

Good thing my mom taught me how to keep kids busy with lots of little things. If it had just been Josh and I, we would have slept on the trains and in the airplanes and at the airports. But Maddie was never tired. So we did lots of puzzles....

....And played never ending games of Uno....

....And sewed.

It sure was a great family vacation.

In like a lion....Out like a lamb....

Well, I guess there really is a baby in my stomach. He seems to be growing perfectly and everything looks good. That's what the doctor had to tell me three or four times. Because I didn't believe him and I kept waiting for the "But....." I think my fertility doctor was a little let down by my reaction. I basically sat and stared at him and blinked a few times. It has taken me 2 weeks to believe him, and now I can wear maternity clothes since I am not in denial anymore.

Maddie had a crazy hair day at school again, so we re-used a hairstyle we used years ago in preschool. It stood up all by itself and every person who saw the hairstyle that day was in awe. I didn't realize until later, when someone pointed it out to me, that it looks like a certain male body part. Crappy crap. Why didn't someone tell me that BEFORE I sent my sweet little girl out into the world looking like that?

Maddie and Josh hiked to the top of Lone Mountain on a Saturday while I took a nap. (I am CRAZY sleepy lately.) I don't know if you noticed that Maddie suddenly has bangs. She cut them herself, and I did my best to make them look decent. She said she just wanted to look like me, so I guess I can't be that mad.

I am so lucky I haven't hardly been nauseous at all. Just small waves of it. But my main complaints are insane sleepiness, insane starving feeling all the time no matter how much I eat, hot flashes from the hormone supplements, and an increased sense of smell. Suddenly this adorable little fluffy ball of cuteness smells disgusting. I smell him all the time no matter where we are.

On the plus side, he graduated from puppy training school and is now (mostly) potty trained. Yeah Angus!

Maddie has also been performing in acting classes. She was the lead in the last play that she was in, and I was so very proud of her. It's super weird to me how much she loves performing on stage. I have always hated it and would only do it when completely forced by my mom. Now I have a daughter that is always begging me to be in acting, singing, guitar and piano lessons. I'm very proud of how well she does, but I have to admit this was unexpected. Apparently I am now a "Stage Mom" and didn't even know it!

Yup. Definitely pregnant.

Well, I'm officially pregnant. Official enough that I am announcing it. Yesterday, we saw a little tiny heartbeat on our Zombie baby. I already knew for sure that I was pregnant, but I had to wait to confirm medically that there really is a little guy with a heartbeat in there.

I am incredibly, abnormally sleepy. I take two hour naps in the middle of the day without planning it. I just wake up with a pile of drool in my law books.

My stomach feels nauseous. But it's half "I'm about to throw up" and half "I am starving and need to eat everything right now."

My pants and skirts have gotten tighter despite my weight not going up much. I'm one of those cursed women who get big soon and then get massive at the end.

I cry a lot. I am emotional. Disney movies make me sob.

Yup. I'm pregnant. Oh boy. No matter how much I want a little guy and how hard I worked to get pregnant, I can still say that being pregnant sucks. Sucks really bad! I hate it. It's bittersweet. :o)

This is so true and hilarious. :o)

Start Spreading the News......I'm Leaving Today.....I want to Be a Part of It....New York! New York!

My sister, Jamie, and I went to New York City together this last week. Just for fun and to celebrate her birthday. It was super-duper fun and super-duper cold. Please promise me you won't zoom in on my face because you will likely see snot running down my nose. It was THAT cold.

I love, love, love big cities. In my secret life fantasy I live in a big city. I love traveling with Jamie because she is a picture-taking-freak. She is also a history nerd like myself, so we did the full audio tours everywhere we went. She also carried a backpack, so after the first day I was able to ditch my fanny pack and just be free. She can travel with me anytime! :o)

Here are some classic New York City pictures: Times Square

Statue of Liberty

City Skyline

The day before Jamie got there I went and toured the UN Headquarters. This was HUGE for me, and VERY inspiring. I always said my dream job would be Secretary General of the United Nations. I got a picture with the "actual" Secretary General of the United Nations.

We also toured the studios at Rockefeller Center where we learned that basically everything you see on TV is fake.

Something that we both loved was touring the Grand Central Station. I love old buildings with great histories and delicious food. (Sorry my eyes are closed. Actually, one is closed and the other is almost closed.)

We also did the historical audio tour of Ellis Island. I loved it. But I do NOT recommend doing it while pregnant or on pregnancy hormones. I cried at least ten times. I don't believe any of our relatives came through here because they came long before this building existed. But it was still very touching to see what people went through to get here. I hope coming here fulfilled all of their dreams that they sacrificed so much for.

We also ate great food. This is an Italian restaurant called Barbettas. It is one of Hillary Clinton's favorites, so I just had to try it. Nobody told us how "fancy" it was and I quickly regretted looking like a bag lady. But they were very nice and the food and experience was great.

I saw a show every night I was there. I LOVE live theater. When I lived in London, I would save all my money that was supposed to be for food and travel and shopping and go to shows all by myself almost every night. This one, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", was a definite two thumbs up.

The down side of traveling with Jamie is that she can sometimes get TOO carried away with pictures. She will take them of very stupid things and I am forced to be Vannah White. Here I am showing the stupid brass swan faucet in the bathroom at the fancy restaurant. I love seeing what people in the "olden days" thought was fancy and thought would made them appear to be rich.

We also ate at a delicious sushi restaurant. (Once again, severely underdressed. NYC is much more formal than the west coast.) But this picture was actually supposed to show my nails that I got done. It was so freaking nasty bitter cold that we were desperately thinking of things we could do indoors. We found a nail salon that was open all night, and it looked nice and warm inside. We got everything done that we could get done so that we could stay inside as long as possible. We also had too much time after our Sushi dinner and before our theater show, so we walked down the street to another restaurant and ordered a second dinner just so we could stay indoors.

Next time I go back I want to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and order pizza. I still haven't done it. We had planned on doing it, but I will now only go to NYC when it is above 60 degrees and isn't snowing. That's the plan.