Picture Update

This is me:

This is my baby:

This is my baby exposing himself:

Let me be shallow for a minute.

Well, ok, maybe not a minute. Maybe this entire blog has become the shallow ramblings of my pregnancy. But let's break it up and talk about something ELSE that makes me a silly girl I probably wouldn't want to know: Dinner.

Last night I made my mom's chicken enchilada recipe. It tasted just like my mom's, and there was mexican rice and shredded lettuce and fresh tomatoes to accompany the goodness. And I loved it. And Brit loved it (!). And it was just one more in a string- a STRING, I tell you!- of actual dinner-like dinners that I thought up and cooked myself. You probably don't understand the significance of this. Let me relate a typical night at the Christensen household: "What do you want for dinner?" "I dunno, what do you want?" "I dunno..." [an hour or so later] "Macaroni and cheese?" "Yeah sure." Our typical diet consists of mac & cheese, hamburgers, pancakes, and sometimes tortellini if we're feeling really crazy. So this is special, and it makes me feel a little more grown-up. Watch out for a cute picture of me in a sassy apron coming up! (Just kidding. I don't wear aprons. And I don't own a sassy one anyway.) (Am I a bad person if I kinda want to, now?)

Christmas in January!

Now that Christmas is thoroughly over and you've stopped seeing so many Christmas updates.... Here's another one! I'll keep it brief. I just wanted to post some of my favorite pictures, and some highlights of the week:

• Just being with my awesome in-laws
• Learning how to play the dice game
• Chess making a new best friend in my father-in-law
• Going to the dog park
• Setting up for an open house with my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law
• Watching Brit and his brothers struggle to put a marble tower together
• ... and then watching the kids destroy it in about 5 minutes Christmas morning
• Walking around the Broadmoor
• Watching little Matthew learn what happens to his food when he drops it off the highchair with the dog around
• Brit and his brothers learning how to fly the toy helicopters we got for Christmas
• Getting a baby toy and layettes as part of my Christmas presents
• Hiking at Garden of the Gods

I love my family! Enjoy the picture collages.

Random Memories

You ever have a random childhood memory that is probably completely insignificant but you remember in startling detail and comes to mind at random times?

I'm sure you do.

There's one that's been sticking in my mind lately for some reason. It does that every so often. When I was maybe 8 or so, I thought I had a Super Awesome Super Cool And Original Talent. I could rotate my elbow 180 degrees while my hand/wrist remained stationary. Grossed out everyone in my 2nd grade class. Aren't I special? The thing I really remember, though, is our primary lesson on talents. Our teacher asked what our talent was. I proudly demonstrated the powers of my radius. And my teacher proceeded to tell me that that was no talent at all, anybody could do that, and tried to show me through his long-sleeve shirt. (That didn't work very well... you can't see through a long-sleeve shirt. So I didn't really believe him. But it hurt a little. And I stopped telling people I could do it.)

I don't know why this keeps coming to mind. It's so silly. But I wanted to share. I do have talents, darn it. Good ones. I just need to figure out what they are...

My Lovely Baby Bump

These past two weeks, my belly has just exploded. I went from feeling rather pudgy as we left for Colorado, to feeling totally pregnant by the time we came back. Observe:

Me looking rather chubby with my sisters-in-law before Christmas:

Me looking rather pregnant today:

I'm pretty proud of my silly little bump. I walk around mentally shouting "Look at me! I'm with child!" The one damper in my high is realizing that every other woman in Utah has a similar bump. Especially going to a Utah family ward in a new development. Holy cow. I swear almost every woman I saw in the 2 hours I was at church Sunday was pregnant. That's what I get for having a due date in the popular month of June.

The baby is kicking much more regularly lately, and when he does it's obvious that it's the baby. Still anxiously awaiting the day when Brit can feel it, too. I still want to say it aloud every time I feel kicking..... but I'm pretty sure nobody else cares. Good thing I can still tell Brit. Like right now. There he goes.

Despite my prevalent use of the male pronoun, we still don't know the sex. I made the ultrasound appointment today. It made me REALLY mad, though.... my fabulous midwife tried to write the prescription to get the ultrasound in one week (I would be 19 weeks), but I have to go to the hospital to have it done because they don't have ultrasound equipment in the clinic. And the hospital is VERY strict about doing the appointment before 20 weeks EXACTLY. So now I have to wait almost three weeks (since I'm working so much that week) to find out what I'm having on January 22. Argh. I cried like a crazy pregnant lady. I got so hopeful that it would be done next week. I know, I know, it's not THAT far away, but trust me, it feels like forever. Every week feels like a lifetime lately. I'm really tempted to pay the money and have it done early, but Brit is putting his foot down and saying we can't afford it right now.

Sorry. That was a very long, probably very boring story.

In other completely unrelated news, Sadie is no longer part of our family. I don't really want to talk about it. It was a terrible, sucky decision, and I don't want to rehash any part of it.

Eventually I may recap Christmas, at least in pictures. I have a bazillion pictures. It was a lot of fun and a lot of chaos. I love my in-laws. We spent almost two weeks there, and I could have stayed longer.