It's All Down Hill from Here

This week marks the half-way point in my pregnancy! Yeah! I'm starting to feel little pulses/bubbles/flutters (whatever you call them :)), and Scott is feeling jealous. I think it's funny when he says it's not fair. What could be more fair than a pregnant women feeling her baby (lol)? Soon enough my dear.

Not much has been going on besides the fact that Scott started his job (that has room for growth) at Sherwin Williams, a paint shop. We are breathing a sigh of relief that we will soon be on our own again. As much as we love our parents, does it not pronounce in the good book for a man and women to cleave unto each other? We are very grateful for the support we have had from our families. They have been so kind and supportive during this hard time. We did hear back from another company that wants to further the interview process, but we are being careful not to take risks right now. Independence is the most important object in mind right now for us.

Because I am in what I like to call "the waiting period" (a time where I can't really get a job but am a bit bored with waiting for the baby to grow up already :)), I've been working on a few projects.

This is an afghan I made for my mom for mother's day. Mom Dyer got me started. It was pretty simple once I got the hang of it. The ruffle is my favorite part. I like it better than strands. You can see the purple color better in the close-up photo.

This is one of the humanitarian quilts I made for a RS project. I made one other that I didn't get a picture for. The reason they are so small is because they are for people who are grieving over babies they have lost at the hospital. The blankets are used to wrap the babies for the funeral procedures. This project was healing for me, having gone through a miscarriage myself. The whole package, along with the blankets, is a very thoughtful idea because many people are not prepared for such an experience.

I got this off of thechew.com. It is Martina McBride's Zucchini & Mozzarella Tart. It is delicious! Scott loved it. It has sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, and half-and-half. Go to my pinterest page under comfort food for the recipe, or just go to their website. It doesn't have any meat in it, but it is still undoubtedly a comfort food. Yum!

These cookie dough truffles are becoming a tradition for us. Scott absolutely loves them and asks me to make them any chance he gets. I made these for Rachel's baby shower this week. Little James Mark Keller will be Asher James Dyer's (we are almost certain that will be his name) playmate. Rachel says they will be James twins. How fun. Scott likes the name Asher, and I chose James in remembrance of James Michael, my stillborn brother. Anyway, these truffles are the best! I found them on theidearoom.net (thanks to Jessica Clark), and I also have them posted on my pinterest page. So fun!

Our Baby Boy

It's a boy! At 18 weeks, we finally know whether to use purple or green (not that Scott cares much for the decor, lol). It was so amazing to meet our little miracle for the first time. I felt the joy of having our baby increase today as the sadness from our first loss heals. I don't know if I will ever get rid of this silly paranoia that something will go wrong after our first experience. But after seeing our precious little boy, my heart is filled with gratitude for our many blessings. My head is reeling, "Wow, this is really real! All of this discomfort has been worth it! What a bundle of joy!"

The ultrasound tech kept referring to the baby as "he" when he first started measuring everything, and I asked him if that meant it was a boy. He was like, "Well, I don't want to call him an it, but I'll check if you like." Scott and I were thinking, "Well, yeah!" Later, I asked him how sure he was, and he made a point to show me our little one's "parts" very specifically so that I would not doubt him. I think he was a little offended at my dubious attitude, but I wanted to know how sure he was after hearing nightmare stories of buying clothes for the opposite gender.

I should also mention that I seem to have a case of ultrasound giggles. For my vaginal ultrasound at 7 weeks, I was landed with an oriental women with a thick accent and a total lack of social graces. She was a very serious soul, and I didn't feel very comfortable with her to say the least. Anyway, the clinic had me drink a ton of water, so that they could try to use the normal ultrasound. When she started using it, she said very frankly, "You're bladder is very big" in her thick accent. Once I got started, I couldn't stop laughing, and the situation was only made worse by her serious demeanor and stiff posture while telling me to calm down. This time the nurse, ultrasound tech, and doctor that attended me made me feel far more comfortable, but I still started laughing at a joke the tech said. As soon as I started giggling, I gasped, "Oh no!" I kept saying I'm sorry, but Scott made it worse because he couldn't stop laughing at me. Luckily, this whole scenario ended more quickly than the first time because the tech had a good attitude about it. Oh the woes of pregnancy! :)

Teuscher Family Reunion (Memorial Day Weekend)

For memorial day weekend, Scott and I went down to Reedsport, Oregon with Scott's parents for the Teuscher (from Mom Dyer's side of Scott's family) reunion. We stayed in a deluxe yurt (which is kind of like a mix between a cabin and a tent), played in the dunes, went crabbing, and savored a viewpoint with tons of sea lions and seals.

 This beautiful lily pond was on our short hike to the dunes.

 All our little nieces and nephews were so excited to make the climb!

I snapped this shot when we went crabbing off the dock. While everyone else was pursuing crabs, I was running around trying to get glimpses of four or five sea lions swimming around. Scott was laughing at how excited I was, not having grown up near the coast.

Five Pregnancy Side Effects

1. Weird Dreams/Dreams Period

I never have dreams. People always talk about these amazing dreams they have, and I rarely wake up remembering a dream if I have them at all. Lately, I've been waking up to the most random dreams ever. In one, a neighbor had a pet leopard who wouldn't take it's claws off of me. The neighbor said it was harmless. The leopard just kept it's claws on my head without tearing into me, lol. Scott wasn't very happy that he was in the dream standing by doing nothing when he would rather be an amazing ninja or something. Today, I was crafting with my cousins and lending them materials. Random!


2. Pregnant Zits

I never really struggled with acne very much as a teenager. This must be karma! I hope the dermatologist can help me next week!


3. Going Number 1 is my number one priority

You know how you can usually hold yourself pretty long usually. Not so! I'm physically in pain if I try to do that. I'm not loving being at the beck and call of my bladder and my stomach, lol.


4. Not Loving Cooking

I've always enjoyed cooking nice meals for my family, but it really doesn't appeal to me right now. I guess I'll chalk it up to the overwhelming smells of the kitchen and the fatigue. My poor husband misses the old me.

5. Tired Tired Tired

I'm not throwing up, and I'm not really that nauseous besides having a sensitivity to smells. But I am really fatigued all the time. Just like with the bladder thing, I can't just ward off sleepiness. It is an unyielding force that whomps me every time. Sleeping is no longer a choice. I could doze off at the super market :).

Time for an Update

Well, I haven't really felt like writing anything lately because not much has been going on. Yesterday, I organized all of my photos on my computer because I don't want them to be in a tangled mess twenty years from now. It's best to keep things labeled and organized as we go along. I realized that I have kept a better record of Alan's birthdays than our birthdays, lol.

So from now on, I'm going to make sure that I record what we did and take a few more pictures. On my 23rd birthday this year, April 12th, we went to Leonardo's Pizzeria, where Scott used to work, and we saw The Vow, an extremely good chick flick. Scott gave me a dozen roses, a romantic card, and a gift card for a nook book from Barnes and Noble. Also, Rachel bought me some really pretty, pink flowers. Even though I'm really not getting that much older, my mind is still thinking that I'm 21 or 22. Next year, I'll be 24! Weird :).

Baby is coming along. The due date keeps getting switched on us though, which has been a bit frustrating. Last week, we went in for our first doctor's appointment, and she said that I was eleven weeks instead of thirteen. I guess the secretary who sent me the letter made a typo. That news hit me a bit harder than the doctor seemed to understand. It's really only 10 days difference, but for me it meant so much more than that to get past the first trimester after having had a miscarriage. I've been going through one long first trimester between getting to eleven weeks before, miscarrying on Dec. 5th, and now doing the whole process all over again. So yeah, my hormones are a little whacked. To know that our baby is going to be okay is so important to us. On a better note, we got to hear the heartbeat, which was so exciting. It sounded so strong and clear, and it was really freaky to hear a heartbeat from my abdomen. It's also kind of cool to see the beginnings of a little bump forming. I'm really excited for the baby to grow more, as funny as that may sound, because I will get to feel more physically the vigorous life kicking around down there. My due date is now October 29th, and I'm 12 weeks along. I'm hoping for a November baby because I'm not sure about Halloween birthdays.

We have a lot to be grateful for in our lives. We've earned college degrees without accruing hardly any debt. We have a great marriage, and we have a baby on the way. Even though the miscarriage was very hard on us, I'm grateful for the fact that we are able to conceive quickly. Despite all that we have to be grateful for, since December, the last few months have been the most challenging of our marriage. This isn't meant to be a dramatic statement, but it's true. I think it's mainly due to the face of the compounding of many things at once (miscarriage, not getting into master's programs, trying to find employment, living with our parents and not having our own home (as much as we love them), depression/hormone issues etc.). I think the last time I went through this much was when my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It has been the first real trial period of our marriage, but it has definitely made us stronger. We have learned a lot from these experiences. But things look like they are going to turn around for us very soon, so keep your fingers crossed.

Love to all,


Clarissa

Moving Time

So the latest update is that Scott and I are moving to Vancouver, WA near his family. We will start our twenty-hour drive on Tuesday, stop by a hotel in Boise, and finish our drive on Wednesday this next week. We will be staying with his parents during March and part of April while we snag a job and get an apartment. Our stuff is still in Rexburg, so Scott and his Dad will be driving there and back once we get settled into an apartment. Before we head out, we are going to celebrate my Mom's birthday early while we are here. We are also celebrating with our friends, the Robinsons, for Aaron's birthday.

Things that Scott has been doing:

-applying for jobs in Vancouver, WA

-enjoying his enormous new monitor

-enjoying his expensive/free mouse and keyboard that he got from reviewing on Gamesplash

-working for Jon

-chasing after our little sunbeam, Eli, who we suspect might have adhd

(and yes, Scott's list is a lot more succinct than mine, lol)

Things that I've been doing:

-Every Sunday, I work with Brielle, a little three-year-old girl in our sunbeam class who has autism. I've really enjoyed working with her, and I feel like I've learned a lot. It's almost made me consider going into special ed. Working with her came naturally for me, and it feels good to help her cope with the outside world. I will be sad to leave her.

-I went to a late Valentine luncheon and learned how to make gourmet Cuban flan. It's a very delicate process. The caramel is made by cooking sugar in a pan, but the sugar can not be stirred until the bottom of the sugar has reached a perfect golden brown. The pans must be warmed in the oven before coating them with home-made sugar caramel because the caramel will harden too quickly otherwise. Instead of putting the flan straight in the oven in the bread pans, you have to fill a cookie sheet with water and then put the bread pans filled with flan on that. This creates a sort of double boiler effect. Anyway, that was fun.

-I've become addicted to shutterfly, which my friend Janae introduced me to. I'm making a book covering the British Literary Tour I went on for a month before I was married. It's really hard to cram it all into one book. There are so many random pictures I want to put on there like candy bars and signs etc. I'm ending up having a lot of collages as I slap pages together. I figure I can go back, delete, and refine later.

-I'm pregnant again. Oh yeah. I'm about six weeks along (I think). Lol. Feel shocked? I just figured it would be easier to tell everybody this way. We're going to get a kick out of who finds this little tidbit first. Rick visited Colorado for the past few days. Scott was having such a hard time not telling him. We did get pregnant again quickly after our miscarriage in December. I initially wanted to wait longer, but it just felt right. And who can argue with the spirit? I have to admit that there is a certain disillusionment that you feel after having had a miscarriage. We no longer feel invincible. There's sort of a scary excitement to trying again. I wonder if we will struggle with more miscarriages, or if our first will be our only time. I'm attempting to not think too much about how far along I am so that we can get past the first trimester without too much worry, but we are happy and hopeful.

Crocheting for the Girls Continued

Here are the girls wearing the hats. So cute!