Valentine's, diaper bags, and cartoons.

Valentine's Day came and went this year without too much fanfare. Levi and I are doing our best to save every dollar possible, so we agreed to just give each other cards this year (well, I gave him his favorite "Top Gear" magazine with his card and he gave me two giant Symphony chocolate bars with mine...the blue Symphony, of course, not the red.)
Levi has this natural ability to write the sweetest notes and cards of anyone I know. It's like he bottles up everything he's really feeling and pours it out on paper, which is just the opposite of me. I'll blab all day about nothing but then clam up when I need to write something important down. This year was no exception and Levi wrote a beautiful note inside my card about how we spent our first Valentine's day apart in 2005 and how he vows to not spend one day apart from me or our little girl for the rest of his life. Pretty darn sweet, if you ask me! The other great thing about this was the card itself. Check out how funny this thing is:


For dinner that night, Levi, Mom and I went to the local Mongolian BBQ place by our house and got take out. It was DEE-LICIOUS! I think the chefs thought I was lame because my meal was literally just noodles, meat and sauce, but that's the way I like it. It was fun watching people trying to fit as much food as possible in their bowl. Some people are creative with their packing, and my mom told me that my brother Scott is the king of packing a Mongolian BBQ bowl. We'll have to test him next time he comes up to Boise!


I got an awesome surprise this week when Heather dropped off my gorgeous new diaper bag. She has a friend who hand makes diaper bags and it is honestly my new favorite thing. I got to pick out my two fabrics and then she whipped up this beauty:

It has a bunch of pockets and is the perfect size for me (none of this wussy, small bag crap for me!)

I haven't been sleeping very well lately, which I know comes with the territory of the third trimester, but I'm usually such a deep sleeper and it's been hard. If it's not the massive amounts of heartburn keeping me up, it's the jimmy legs (restless/cramping legs, for all you non-Seinfeld people.) Also, rolling over isn't fun any more and requires me to grunt a lot and usually swear once or twice. All complaining aside, I wouldn't change any of this. I'm so glad to be able to feel any of these discomforts, I wouldn't give them up for anything. I'm going to miss being pregnant so much. I feel like I have this special little connection to our girl and I'm not sure I'm ready to share it with anyone else yet :) I'm sure by the time I'm completely swollen and dilated to 10 centimeters I'll be ready to share it with everyone, but not yet.

Also, this week I'm trying to find the best deal on a couple of DVDs. I want the Chip and Dale and the Donald Duck Classic Cartoon Favorites. I think Amazon probably has them cheapest. My little girl has to watch these classics like I did. Seriously, who doesn't remember Donald singing, "Mama's gonna make a little short'nin' bread."


This one was also a favorite of mine:

Valentine's Day Fun

I got this idea from the Today Show. You buy a giant size candy bar (literally, they're called "Giant Size" because the king size candy bars are no longer wrapped in tin foil) and you remove the wrapper and use fun paper to create your own wrapper. I did these for my co-managers at work.
It's fun to be able to take the time to do these kinds of projects. I'll miss this stuff when I have to return to work this spring :(

Utah Baby Shower!

Cream puffs AND eclairs?!?
What a great weekend!
Levi, my mom, and I drove down to Utah late Thursday evening for my Utah baby shower. We're so glad we came down that night because then we had all day Friday to hang out and enjoy our vacation. Friday was my nephew Ryan's 15th(!) birthday. To celebrate, Justin treated us all to Ruby River Steakhouse, which was absolutely delicious! Of course, Levi and I also had to make the obligatory trip to Ikea on Friday but it was even more fun this time because we got to buy BABY stuff!

Mom & Rachel at Ruby River.

Justin & Ryan and Ry's new ipod. Pooh Bear is 15!

We got to visit with my Grandma and Grandpa Allen at their home on Saturday and Sunday and we were delighted to see their cat Charlie was recently fed some humble pie.
This is what Charlie used to look like:

And here is what Charlie looks like now:



Ha! He had to be trimmed like this because of all the knots in his long fur. I love his little Ugg boots and his poofy tail. He seemed to be over the embarrassment while we were there, but I hear that his ego was bruised the first couple of days. Poor, poor Charlie!

Saturday was the day of the shower and what a great shower it was! My aunt Barbara has an awesome clubhouse at her condo and it was totally perfect for the shower. Laurie and Bonnie did such a great job with decorations and food and it was just a nice event. We played a couple of games and then I got to open all of the baby's awesome presents. She is going to be one well-dressed kid, let me tell you! The women in my family know exactly what looks cute on a baby and I cannot wait to start taking pictures of her in these adorable outfits. We also got a great umbrella stroller (thanks Whitney & Bekah!) some adorable stuffed animals and a bunch of cuddly blankets, amongst many, many other great things. I am so grateful for everything everyone did. I especially want to thank everyone who helped Grandma Allen be there. I know it was really hard for her but it was so wonderful having her there. Her spirit makes everything better and I am so thankful I got to sit next to her and enjoy her company for a little while. Plus, she wore her adorable cat sweater which is a total bonus!

I am so sorry I didn't get very many good photos of the shower. I am missing lots of people in these pictures, but I will blame it on the fact that I hired two seven year old twins to be my photographers and the balloons and candy proved too tempting :)




We were super sad to pack up and leave on Sunday, but hopefully we'll be down a couple of months after the baby is born. I miss you all so much and I hope everyone knows how much I appreciate everything.
Love you!!

Too early for spring cleaning?

My sister Heather has been on an organizing kick and recently took all her dvds and condensed them into one zip-up CD case, rather than dealing with all the space the dvd cases took up. I told her that I could never do that because I love to look at the dvd cases whenever we watch a movie, but once she showed me the space she saved by doing it I was sold. We had eleven ikea boxes, each measuring about 11" wide, 15" long and about 9" high, filled to the brim with dvds. I think our final count, not counting box sets, which we'll keep in their original cases, we had about 280 movies.
I had a great time going through all the boxes, alphabetizing and purging movies we'll never watch again. We ended up taking about fifteen movies to the Hastings down the road from us (for my Utah readers, pray that you get a Hastings one day. It is a most excellent place to kill time) and trading them in for $35 store credit. I'm stoked! At first I was sad to lose the dvd cases, but the amount of space that we opened up in our dvd closet is incredible! I couldn't just stop after the dvds and ended up going through everything in that closet, finding great pictures and other trinkets that we had forgotten about, as well as throwing out lots and lots of crap that surprisingly made it through our last move. Sometimes I look at old crap in my house and think, "How could this survive a move? At no point was I motivated to throw it out? I actually boxed it up and moved it with us??"

The final product. 3 neat, tidy cases filled with our many movies. Thanks for the inspiration, Heather!

Louie helped oversee the organizing.

Louie and Levi relaxing after their big day of cleaning.

Also this week, I found out Kid to Kid was having a massive 75% off sale. It was mostly winter stuff, they are making room for all their spring clothes, and I found some amazing deals. Heather and my mom helped me wade through the piles of clothes and I found all these great items for only $15 total!! Talk about a great deal!


I am getting so excited to come down to Utah next weekend. We're leaving late Thursday so we can have all day Friday and Saturday before we come home Sunday afternoon. Can't wait!
Finally, I had to post this cute picture of my niece Eliza. She recently got bangs and I think she looks great. Such a grown-up girl! I love when she comes over to our house and hangs out. She always has great stories and is such a blast.

Happy Birthday...Everyone :)

This part of the year is filled with lots of birthdays in my family, so I'm going to do a mass birthday shout-out.

Happy Birthday, Whitney! My darling niece Whitney turned eleven years old on January 6th. I cannot believe she's this grown up already! I love you and miss you so much!


Happy Birthday, Carlie Paige! My niece C.P. turns *gasp* thirteen years old today! Welcome to the teenage years Carlie...I'm sure they'll be good to you!


Happy Birthday, Scott! My amazing big brother Scott's birthday is tomorrow and I wish we could be in Utah to celebrate it with him! Love you, Scott!!


Happy Birthday, Laurie! My gorgeous sister Laurie's birthday is on January 28th. I hope it's an awesome day for you, Laurie, and I hope Justin spoils you rotten! You deserve it!


Happy Birthday, Ryan! My stud nephew Ryan turns 15 years old on February 4th (or as he used to say when he was little, "Feathermerry 4th") Ryan, only one more year until you can date and drive...where did the time go??


I look at all these pictures and I can't believe how lucky I am to have such an amazing family. I love you all so much and wish you the best of birthdays! Now go eat some BT Cake!

My enemy, the door stopper.

Lately I haven't been getting the best sleep in the world. It's a combination of things: frequently having to pee, heartburn like I've never felt before, stress and worry about the upcoming months, not being able to sleep on my stomach any more, etc. I'm actually grateful to be getting less sleep because then it won't be such a shock when the baby comes and I'm awakened several times throughout the night. I'll be a seasoned pro!
Anyway, when sleep does finally come, I'm often startled out of my sleep by the new bane of my existence:

The door stopper!
Louie the cat has found that batting at this with his paw makes a loud, pleasurable "BOIIIINNNNGGG" sound, but he's not interested in making that sound at say, three o'clock in the afternoon. No, he finds it to be a great sound at three o'clock...in the morning. And it's not just that he bats at it softly and it makes a quiet "Boing" sound. He pulls it ALL the way back and then releases it like a slingshot. It is so loud! There is nothing quite like finally drifting off to sleep at 2:30am, only to wake up with a heart attack at 3:30 at the springy sound of the door stopper. Louie can't figure out why he keeps getting pillows thrown at him. I'm going to be proactive tonight and cover the thing up, which will hopefully break Louie's habit of it, because if he does that when the baby is sleeping in her cradle I'm going to throw him out on the streets.

Anywho...
I had a moment of clarity today that broke through my otherwise cloudy pregnancy brain. Right now, Levi's clothes are stacked in cubes in the baby's future closet. We've been trying to find an inexpensive dresser to put in our bedroom so the baby will have the closet to herself. We've been unable to find anything and finally decided to fork out $150 while in Utah in February to get an Ikea dresser. Then it hit me: I already have my dresser inside my closet in our bedroom. I can pull that out, put it where we were going to put the NEW dresser and stack Levi's cubes in our closet. DUH!!! How had nobody thought of this before!? We seriously almost spent a bunch of money on something that was totally unnecessary. We just needed to think outside the (dresser) box. Unbelievable. It will be nice to have all (or at least some) of my intelligence back.

Levi is spending another Saturday helping his dad Brad and stepmom Julie with their new rental property. Brad has been delving into the property world and has been quite successful so far. The newest place needed quite a bit of work and Levi has been more than happy helping him with all the projects on the weekends. I like it because Levi is learning some great home improvement things, I just feel bad when he comes home all tired and he has to actually fix things that are broken at our house. Recent and future projects at our house include a leaky kitchen sink, a rain gutter that blew off the house in a windstorm last summer, a garage roof that needs to be re-tarred (ha ha...sounds like retard), a broken garage door, some loose hardwood boards and a few other things. It's never ending, but it's also really fun to take pride in your own home.

Well, I better get back to organizing our bedroom. Reorganizing is fun, except when you get distracted going through all the stuff. I've hung on to so many photos and letters and it's fun to reread all of them. Focus Carly! Focus!
(Also, it's kind of nice not being able to do any of the heavy lifting, so I get to do all the sorting and planning and then Levi does all the moving. I feel like a queen!)

She's Jammin'

Levi recently got a new iPod Touch (which is AWESOME) and now that he has something that can play music out loud he has been putting it on random and playing music for the baby when we're in bed. He sets the iPod on top of my belly and it's been fun to see which music she responds to.
So far we've learned that she loves old school ska/reggae. Whenever we play Toots and the Maytals she moves around like crazy. This is her favorite.

Ya mon! Hopefully she'll be nice and mellow!

Growing up.

Having a child obviously means some growing up on the parents' part has to be done. This has been most clear this week as we prepare the baby's nursery. We've picked out the paint color, have a general theme in mind, and have spent many hours discussing what the baby might need vs. what the magazines of the world lead you to believe you need. Amidst all of these decisions, we've had to say goodbye to some of our past.

Goodbye pinup girl art and Social Distortion poster. You have served us well. I had the Social D. poster when Levi and I first met, so it's a somewhat sentimental item for me. (The green on the wall is the color we're going with. It's called 'Marsh Fern'.)

Goodbye Johnny-Cash-Flipping-The-Bird-Poster (which has moved with me to nearly every place I've ever lived.) Goodbye Red Sox Dunkin' Donuts Posters. We'll miss you.

Goodbye Nekromantix poster and creepy grim reaper light switch cover. (When my seven year old niece Sydney learned we were having a baby, she looked into the future nursery and said, "Do you think some of this stuff will scare the baby?" The answer is yes, and that's why it's being put away in the shed. LOL!) I bought Levi the Nekromantix poster after we had been together a few months. They're one of our favorite bands and I was so excited to give it to him. Funny how decor taste changes, isn't it?


Speaking of paint colors, we've decided to get rid of the awful teal color in our bedroom (I hated it the minute we put it on the wall, but it's taken a year and a half to get the motivation to change it.) The decision has come down to the top color called 'Twig Basket' and the bottom color called 'Mocha Accent.'
Yes, they are different colors and I'm going with 'Mocha Accent', which sounds delicious.


And for good measure (as well as motivation to start a diet the DAY this child is born) here is a 26 week picture of moi. It's fun having a belly, but the cats are discovering their lap space is slowly diminishing.

Name dilemma.

Levi and I FINALLY came up with a name we both love, a name that is cute for a little girl and mature enough for a grown woman, etc. etc.
Alice.
I LOVE the name. That is until my mom reminded me that it's a Twilight name. UGGHHH!!
I need some advice. Do all of you out there truly and honestly think of Twilight when you hear that name. I won't be upset if you say yes, I just need to know how much of a Twilight name it is. I know it's not Bella or Edward, but is it still in that vein or is it classic enough that I won't have to worry about people asking me if I love those books?
Also, how popular is that name in Utah County?
Please, please, please. Any input is greatly appreciated!!

Nursery opinion needed.

I love the idea of vinyl stickers....they're cheap, easy to put on, can be removed easy, etc.
So, I think I've narrowed it down to two stickers for the baby's room. Which one do you like?

A. (I would be choosing different colors for the cage and the bird, since our wall color will not look like this)


or

B. (There are two different ways to display it, I'll show both.)

Twenty Eleven

I find that, when talking about the new year, I tend to say, "Two Thousand Eleven" and not, "Twenty Eleven." Saying it the second way sounds all futuristic, and since I still don't have a flying car, I don't think we've reached "the future" just yet :)
Levi and I had a great New Year's Eve. We went over to Chris and Avery's house and played games with them and Sevy and watched the countdown to the new year.
How time flies!!
I was looking up my blog posting from January 1st of last year and I can't believe how fast the time has flown. I get 2010 and 2009 mixed up all the time (like how I keep thinking that we went to Seattle this past summer to see the Sox play, but that was actually 2009 and 2008) and yet so much has actually happened in the past year that should separate it from it's predecessors.
The biggest thing, of course, was finding out we'd be having a little baby in 2011. The other big event was having my mom move in with us, which ended up being so seamless, it wasn't a big event at all!

I was reading my new year's resolutions from last year and I thought I'd see how I did:
1st up: Lose 20 lbs. I actually DID do this, losing 25 lbs over the summer, but, alas, it has all come back with this little baby inside of me! I'm excited to get back on the regimen and take control of my weight once the baby is born. At least I know it's possible!
2nd: Read more "classics". Ummmmm, yeah. This didn't really happen. There's a new film version of Jane Eyre coming out soon, so my goal is to knock that one out before we go see the movie. We shall see. I have a comfort level with my fiction and it's hard to branch out of it, even working in a bookstore hasn't cured me of this.
3rd: Keep a clean home. This became easy around, say, September when my mom moved in :) She is a clean freak and our house has never sparkled like it does now. Thanks Mom!!
4th: Appreciate what I have. I definitely did this throughout 2010. I've never been more grateful and more aware of blessings we have than this past year. To see the love and support we got when going though all our fertility treatments was overwhelming and I'll never forget just how lucky we are to be in the place we are. I don't take anything for granted and I hope I can teach that lesson to my daughter someday. We are so lucky and our lives are so good right now. I can't wait to see what 2011 brings!

So here are a couple of my 2011 resolutions:
1. Enjoy my time with Levi before the baby comes.
We've been going on more dates and I hope to get a lot of time in with him before April. He is my best friend and I love every second I get to be with him. This year I'll also focus on making sure he understands how much I appreciate him, rather than bogging him down with a honey-do list everytime I see him.
2. Healthier eating.
Now that I'll be responsible for another life, nutrition is going to be even more important than ever. No more sabotaging myself with chocolate and soda! It is now all about water and oranges!
3. Take time to enjoy the little things.
If I continue to go at the rate I'm used to going, it will be 2050 before I know it and I'll realize that I was working with my head down the entire time. I need to slow down, take deep breaths, and enjoy all the beauty around me.

Well, I hope you all had a magnificent New Year's Eve/Day and here's to a happy, healthy and wealthy New Year!
Cheers!

April, please get here quick.

Since Thursday of last week, I have been having a miserable time with this pregnancy. It started with cramps and pain in my pelvis and got worse and worse until it reached my kidneys and made it impossible to bend, lift or pick anything up. It was the worst on Monday night so I got in to see my doctor yesterday and they ran lots of tests. Everything looks okay (cervix is not dilated, baby's heart rate is fine, etc.) but I was put in the predicament of not knowing what to do about work. Since 85% of my job is physical, I was stressed out about how I was going to be able to do my job without getting in everyone's way. Also, the pain has been so great I didn't want to be at work when I had to double over and take deep breaths until the cramps subsided. I'm sure the customers would find that greatly amusing. I really didn't want to go into labor at seven months in the middle of the Fiction aisle.
Luckily, my work offers short term disability for bed rest and my doctor approved me for it for the remainder of the pregnancy. This is a good and a bad thing. The good thing is that I now feel like my baby is safe and will grow without threat of preterm labor, and I can also enjoy these last few months of being pregnant and grow closer to her little spirit. The bad thing is the imminent boredom and the feeling that I'm letting my work team down. Post-Christmas at a retailer as big as mine can be a nightmare and we had a strong plan in place to get the store back to where it should be. I know the team isn't mad at me, but I still feel like I'll need to bring them cookies when I return to work after my maternity leave.
So now, day 1 of bed rest, I'm thinking of a list of things I can do to stay busy. Since I was 16 years old, I've never gone two weeks without working. I've always had a job, and usually a full time one at that. I'm not the type of person that wants to lay around all day (sure, it sounds good but when I go to do it I get bored and agitated quickly.) I've been on some websites that recommend ways to keep your sanity throughout the bed rest. They recommend coming up with a regimen and sticking to it so my day isn't spent floundering and wandering in and out of the kitchen snacking. I'm also lucky because I don't have to stay laying down 24 hours a day, I just can't do anything too strenuous. So since I'm not completely restricted, I have more possibilities of staying entertained.
Today I've made a list of books I want to read, pulled out some puzzles and have reconfigured my Netflix queue. I think one of the hardest things will be getting motivated enough to do my hair and makeup, but I will commit now to not let myself fall apart!
I'm sure I'll be updating this blog more frequently too....so all of you get to enjoy my boredom with me :)

Christmas 2010

What a fantastic Christmas! It was fun, it was exciting, it was perfect. On the 23rd I started to have some cramping and tightening in my pelvis while I was at work, so I called the doctor's office and was told to stay off my feet for two days. It was not easy to do, as I get bored easily, but it ended up being a good thing. I didn't move around much for the rest of the 23rd and most of the 24th until we went to the annual Gates' party at Uncle Kevin and Aunt June's house.
While we were at the party we found out Levi's cousin Enancia is expecting two months after me, which makes me SO happy. Cousins are so important and I hope our little girl and Enancia's baby will be friends. I don't know what I would have done without all my cousins. They're built-in best friends and you get to see them and stay in touch with them your whole life! Now I just need to convince Avery and Chris to start the baby-making process so our girl has another cousin to be best friends with :)
After the first party we headed over to Brad's house to open presents. I love this tradition and it's fun to stay up late with his family while we all open our presents from each other. I had Heather make awesome aprons for Julie, Sevy, Avery, and Levi's mom Maria. We also put together a "Grandpa Toolbox" for Brad and I think he loved it. It was filled with things like bottles, diapers, binkies, backup clothes, baby powder and shampoo, etc.
We left Brad's house after midnight and crashed in bed as soon as we got home. Christmas morning was great! We slept in until 8:30 and woke up my mom to go open presents, just like being a kid again! My mom made her amazing Christmas morning egg and sausage casserole and we opened all our gifts. We all made out like bandits and I'm so grateful to be part of such an amazing family. We got lots of cute stuff for the baby (Levi even got her this Ugly Doll, which I love!)
That afternoon Levi and I had lunch with his sisters at his mom's house and then came home to lounge around for a while. We also went over to Heather's house to see them and the kids. Wilson and Eliza were still on a Christmas High and were excited to show us all their awesome gifts. Later that night my mom made a delicious turkey and we sat around the table telling stories. It was great.
Well, I hope you all had a great holiday and I hope the new year is a time for happiness and prosperity for us all.
Love you!
Carly
Christmas 2010





PS For the record, I tried to put a picture of my mom from Christmas morning on here and was overruled. My mom is gorgeous but doesn't like any pictures of herself. What a shame!!

Bad Cats Part 2

Sometimes when Levi and I go upstairs to go to bed, we notice the room is unusually cold. It feels like the heater isn't working in our room. We've scratched our heads and tried to figure it out until a couple of days ago when we stumbled upon the source of the chilliness. Oliver the cat.

Oliver over the vent:

Oliver ON the vent:

I love how pleased he looks with himself. What a heat miser!
Also, since the cats don't like being in the bassinet at the same time, they've compromised and come up with a great solution: The bunk bed.


But how can I stay mad at these kitties? They are so funny and have made our lives so enjoyable all these years. Just look at Louie sleeping with Levi. He's like a living, breathing stuffed animal!

Ooohh this looks good!

I need to get as many date nights in with Levi as I can! (Actually, Papa Brad will probably be more than happy to watch the little girl while we sneak away for a movie a couple of times a year :))

Bad Cats

My sister Heather served a mission to Winnipeg Manitoba in the 90s and she has stayed best friends with one of her mission companions named Melissa. Melissa is such an amazing person and over the years I've been able to become friends with her too and I'm so glad for this. Melissa was kind enough to donate TONS of baby stuff to us, now that she is done (most likely!) having kids. One of the items we got is a beautiful bassinet. It looks so great in our room and I'm so excited to have a baby in there this spring.
In the meantime, we knew the cats might be interested in it, so we filled it with blankets so any cat hair that did get into it would get caught on the blankets. Good thing we did that because here's what we come home to every day:


Bad Cats!!
They're in for a rude awakening if they try getting in there when the baby is there! (For the record, I don't think they'll try. During the night one of them was in it and the other tried to join him which resulted some hissing. I think having a baby in it will cause them to be completely disinterested. Hopefully!)
Also, Louie has found a new favorite spot to lay. Anyone who sits in the new Ikea chair is treated to some snuggling from that black furball.