Baby Shower

WARNING: PHOTO OVERLOAD

Don't say I didn't warn you....enjoy!

So I had 2 baby showers, on the same day. One was with the ladies in my ward, and one was for my students!!! I'm not gonna lie, the one with my students was my favorite! It was so fun....take a look at the pictures...see for yourself! :)

One of my Young Women, McCall, is a Fantastically talented photographer, she just graduated from high school, and she already has a great business going! She took all these photos and edited them for me! Thanks McCall! (Check her out on Facebook: McCall Parrish)

Made this adorable banner, and I LOVE the colors, these are the colors I am using for his room :) CUTE!!!

The decorations :)

My little girls are like shadows, if I moved seats, they would all move to where I was sitting, and they ALL wanted to feel my belly!

LOL...my profile here is so funny!

Did you notice the martha tissue pom-poms??? Thanks Steph!

The boys....there were about 25 kids who came, and 5 of them were boys :) They are so cute! (The shirts they are wearing are our class t-shirts, I had them made..they have everyone's self portrait printed on them, we wear them every friday:)

Opening gifts, reading cards, trying to give everyone my undivided attention :)

Please ignore triple-chinny-face, notice the many pairs of hands on the belly...this was after I said "ooh, I think he's kicking me!"

Lot's of baby fun goodies :)

HUGS...can never have too many of these!!!

Is this not the CUTEST bunch of happy little girls, i LOVE these girlies!!!

John, he put it all together for/with me :) Such a prince!

I told my students that all I wanted was some advice on how to be a good mom, and i had them write it on a card and pin it up on the line...they were so cute! Some were practical, some were hysterical, one little girl said "If you want your kid to be a good kid, listen to him, teach him how to pray, and to always do the right things" ...too cute right??? And one boy wrote: "If you want to be the best mom in the world, give your kid lots of candy and video games...that's it." LOL....love it! I'm going to put them in the baby book :)

We played a baby food feeding game, it was so funny! I paired up students with their parents, and I had mom's sit down with their hands behind their backs, and the students behind them blindfolded, and feed their parents vanilla pudding with a baby spoon...LOL!!! On a whim I picked up some poncho's at the dollar store...good thing I did too, there was pudding everywhere!!! Click on the photo, so you can see their faces up close :)

For refreshments we had a seriously stellar ice cream bar, it was a huge hit (for BOTH showers :)) DELISH!!!

The activity for the ward ladies shower was to make an ABC book for the baby, there were baggies of all the supplies needed separated by letter...they turned out adorable!

As a party favor for the kids, I had these licorice ropes tied with matchy polka-dot fabric and a really CUTE poem my mom wrote (THANKS MOM!) In case you can't read it, it says: "Little Boys make lots of noise with cars and trucks and tinker toys, cowboy ropes and paper planes, choo choo tracks and wooden trains"

Cute no? She wrote that because I needed something cutesy to go with licorice ropes, I mean ahem, cowboy ropes, the kids LOVED them!

For the ladies, they got a bag of 2 brownie chocolately cookies, and a cute poem on the back...

Anyway, it was SO fun, and like I said that night, I feel SO sufficiently showered!!!

And John and I will be eating left-over ice cream for a couple months...YESSSSS!!!!

37 Weeks and Catching Up

Well, I have no rational excuse for disappearing from the blog front, other than exhaustion. I am tired! :) In the past six weeks since I last blogged, the rundown looks like this:

-teaching school

-sleeping

-resting my swollen feet

-trip to Las Vegas with family

-Baby shower

-Sleeping more

-Moving my classroom junk out

-watching season 3 of Burn Notice, a current obsession

-crafting a LOT for the baby:)

-ending a fantastic school year

-now resting more:)

So, it's not that I haven't had anything to blog about...I just haven't done it!

Here is my large belly, I can't believe how big it is, only 3 more weeks to go, and I'll get to meet our little man!

Stephanie took these pictures of me last Sunday...some friends gave me a gift certificate for maternity photo's from a really well known photographer in Salt Lake, but when I looked at the gallery online, I laughed out loud. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I don't see how posing naked, swaddled in some sheet or fancy fabric, laying down admiring your belly is appropriate, or naked just holding your boobs, or some other naked concoction to show the beauty of your belly. I couldn't bring myself to do it, I just couldn't! I can see maybe the bare belly, but the rest is just too much, I'll be using the gift certificate for when little man is out and a little older, maybe 6 months. (I have my wonderful SIL Jenny taking newborn photos already:)) SO, long story short, I did want to document my enormity, and I'm actually pleased with the way they turned out...it will be fun to have this documentation to look back on and show him a picture of me carrying him...at almost full term.

John sent me flowers. He's so dreamy. So, for those of you who don't know, John is at a military training right now, for three weeks, he left June 5, and he'll be back June 25th. I am Due July 1. :) Now he never would have gone without my blessing, and we both felt good about him going even though the baby is due so close to his return, and could come any day really. The doctor assured me at my last appointment I haven't even begun dilating, and often first babies come late more than early. Still I am prepared to give birth without him here if I have to, but I really don't feel like I will, I am totally calm about it, I just miss John. His training lasts three weeks, but I don't get to have any contact with him whatsoever...so that's tough especially if I do have the baby and he's gone, there's no way to contact him until he's done. But like I said, I really don't think the baby will come till he gets home. If you still think I'm crazy for letting him go, we decided it would be better to have him go now before the baby is here than have him leave in August when we have a six week old infant, and leave me alone then. ANYWAY, I'm really proud of him, and he totally sent me these gorgeous flowers, what a man!

So now that school is out, I am visiting Ben and Kris in Santaquinn for a week, and Amy and the kids are here visiting, then I'll have two weeks to get my craft on before baby comes, which is good, I have so much to do!!!

Master

I know this post and last post are kinda boring with no pics, BUT I have to share...

I'm DONE!!! I have my Master's Degree!!! My diploma is in the mail!!! I am SO relieved I am done :)

I'm not going to walk or have any kind of ceremony, so this is pretty much it, a hoop-lah on my blog. :) YAY for being done!

You know how in college some of your professors insisted on being called "Dr." so and so because they had their doctorate degree, I always thought that was so dumb and funny. What would you think if I requested to be called "Master Lance"? Lol. I think I'm funny.

(((I got it through Western Governors University, one of the rare accredited NCATE online universities, (if you are an educator, that means something ;) and I loved the WGU experience, if any of you teachers are considering online masters, ask me about it, I will tell you all about how great it is!)))

Pee'd my pants

Yep.

I pee'd my pants.

At School.

Everyone said it would happen, they were right.

I have become accustomed to crossing my legs TIGHT when I sneeze. Well today (LUCKILY before school started) I had a sneak attack sneeze. I wet my pants enough that I had to call John to bring me some new pants and undies. Nice. That was a fun conversation too..."Hi honey, um....I had an accident"

LOL...the JOY.

Tell me I'm not the only one!

Preggo update

Well, we got back from our California trip yesterday, and it was so delightful! I'll post more highlights later, and trust me, there are MANY :) But I wanted to log a few pregnancy details...

At 28 weeks, I am bigger than I feel like I should be...I nicknamed myself Shamu...it's amazing how much effort is required to do things like put my shoes on. LOL. I am amazed that there is this human growing inside me, he is getting more and more active, in fact he woke me up last night....weird. I hope that's not an indicator of future habits...

John is so good to me, he rubs my feet and loves to touch my belly and see if he can feel the baby. He's always telling me how cute I am, which I feel like I can't hear enough, I don't always feel cute.

My feet...holy smokes, I took some photo's to document how incredible they become. Not only do I have Cankles, but they are so swollen that if i press into them, my fingerprint stays... John calls it silly putty syndrome lol...it's actually called "pitting".

pressing my finger into the swollen cankle...

Leaving a nice fingerprint :)

In other news, camping while pregnant was no problem at all! I slept GREAT, in fact John and I were both worried about how well my body would fare on the ground, so he provided me with all the comforts I could imagine, I mean, who wouldn't sleep like a baby with this set up? All the comforts of home, minus the matress, but I did have a nice sleeping pad :) PS, camping without a sleeping bag rocks, I would choose sheets and blankets any day.

Well I went to the doctor today and had my glucose tested, I lucked out and had the "good phlebotomist" draw my blood, didn't feel a thing :) Baby is growing GREAT, and his heartbeat is strong, and I am measuring normal

I love being pregnant, even with the fatness and the swelling and the frequent pee stops (I'm pretty sure I tried every single potty in Disneyland in one day), it really is amazing! I'm so excited for the little one to make his grand entrance into our lives!

A funny sidenote, I am SO clumsy these days...when you go to the doc (mine anyway, it's probably standard procedure) you have to pee in a cup every time and dip this colored stick into it, and bring it out of the bathroom and show the nurse. Well since I had to fast before the glucose test, and only drink like eight ounces of this sugary junk, I didn't have to go that bad...so I'm sitting on the toilet...waiting...ready with my special pee cup, and as soon as I start to finally pee, I DROP the cup! CRAP! So I try super hard to stop the flow, and rather than rescue the drowned cup, I frantically grab a new one and stick it "down there" barely in time to catch the last few driplets of pee...whew. A close call.

WOW!!!! Thank you EVERYONE for your advice! Holy smokes, I am SO set!!! I feel kind of like I just had a girly sleepover where ladies tell all their secrets and dish the latest scopp about...baby stuff :) THANKS!

A few more questions today...

Nursing bras....what's the best?

Also, I LOVE wearing dresses, especially now that I'm huge, and they are so comfortable...how do you nurse when you're wearing a dress, like a long dress...or do you?

I'm swollen, I put my feet up every day at lunch in the teachers lounge, they hurt so bad when the school day is over...I know avoid salty foods, any other tricks?

And, to leave you with a laugh...kids are so funny:

Maggie: (looking at me with her head cocked to one side, contemplative... standing in the lunch line staring at me) "mrs. Lance, your baby gives you a lot of baby fat huh?"

Me: (looking down at my big belly) "Yes Maggie, he does..."

Maggie: "Yeah...like a lot of baby fat huh?

Me: "um, yeah :)"

Then in Reading class, we are de-coding words...

"okay we just decoded the word enormous, how many syllables does enormous have, lets clap it out together, okay e (clap) nor (clap) mous (clap) three, that's right it had three syllables, who can use the word enormous in a sentence?

Jenny: (ALWAYS uses the requested words in a sentence that is a question because one time I praised her for using a question...) "Are you enormous?"

Me: (looking down at my belly) "Yes. I am."

Today in the morning, kids are filing into the classroom, taking attendance, beginning their seat work, and Diane says "Wow Mrs. lance, you just keep on getting bigger and bigger...........like every day, just bigger and bigger! :)"

This weekend, with my niece Kaci:

Me: "Kaci, lets put these chips away, you're going to eat the entire bag honey! :)"

Kaci: "Good idea, let's put them away, if I keep eating them I'll be big and fat like you!"

Me: "KACI! I did NOT get fat like this from eating too many potato chips!!! I have a BABY inside me (thankyouverymuch!)"

Kids are so...honest :)

Don't worry though, for every kid that tells me I'm huge in a sweet and innocent way, there are like two dozen people who tell me that I look cute, so don't pity me, I just wanted to share my humorous life :) I don't have a fat complex or anything :)

Have a great week!

I'm off to do more homework (my Oral Defense for my Masters is Friday at 1, I could use your prayers!) and right after that, I am leaving for 11 days to the WARMTH of California!!! YEAH!

Advice

So...I've been trying to do some homework about some baby stuff, but when it comes down to it, all the research and reviews are full of it, how do I know who I can trust??? SO, I'm asking you... those of you with a wealth of knowledge, please tell me...

What diapers do you prefer? I hear Pampers swaddlers are good for newborns, but not good for older, I hear huggies are good, I hear lots of things, but do you get what you pay for? Are huggies the ultimate poop soaking dry bum keepers, or does it matter? What about Costco's Kirkland brand? And what about store brands like Target and Walmart? Any bad experiences? Exceptionally good ones??? I'm super thrifty as you know, and I don't want to spend money on something I don't need, but I also don't want to waste money buying junk that I get frustrated with...so tell me, what are your preferred diaper brands?

Same for Wipes...one's to stay away from? Are they all created equal???

What about bottles and nipples? My SIL loves and swears by hers- the kind you insert the plastic baggie thing into because you don't have to clean out the bottle-just the nipple, you can squeeze out the air bubbles, and the baby doesn't have to tip the thing totally upside down to get milk. (BTW, I am going to Nurse, but you know later on when bottles are needed or if I need to pump etc...) BUT my other SIL swears by hers that are "Advent" I think... What do YOU swear by?

Next: swaddlers and burpies...how many should you have? I mean how many burp cloths do you go through, how often do you do laundry? What about bibs?

Do your babies wear socks?

Shoes?

Do you have an awesome monitor? Is the expensive one worth it?

Same with the car seat, do you prefer one kind of handle to another?

Do you do the sling, the baby Bjorn, the mobi wrap or what???

What kind of diaper bag do you use? Is it a "diaper bag" or a snazzy bag you keep diapers in? How big is it?

What do you keep in your diaper bag, I mean beside the obvious, what might I forget to put in that I would be real glad I had???

What did you think you NEEDED before your baby came, but turns out you didn't?

What do you wish you had from day one, but didn't?

What ELSE??? I am counting on you, let me glean your very best advice on these things! I know I'll have more questions, but this is all I can think of right now...DON't LET ME DOWN!!! :)

Thanks guys!