Days of Pelon
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
D.J.: Update
I can't believe my little man is already 3 1/2 weeks old! Or how much he has already changed! He is just so precious I can't get over it. Here are some updates.
1. The main one every one is asking about is his Oxygen, the Dr. has him off of it except at night and that is more of a precaution because no one is watching him then. He too an over night saturation test earlier this week and we are waiting for the results. Hopefully we get to take him off completely first thing after Christmas. It will be so nice not to have to worry about cords at all! It is amazing how easy he is to tote around without two or three machines hooked up to him all the time.
2. He has a talent! D.J. is very very good at blowing bubbles. This may not seem like much but we find it pretty entertaining (oh my, I am turning into one of 'those' parents who thinks all the mundane things there kid does is amazing... oh well, it try not to facebook update every single one how does that sound? lol)
3. We are on a FOUR HOUR schedule!! YEAH!!!!! This means that at night I get about four hours of sleep at a time before I am called to feed the chunkers. Muah hahah!! That is so much better than the 2 1/2 to 3 hour schedule we were on before (and in case you are wondering, yes that one hour of sleep at a time does make a huge difference.)
4. We had our first second and third baths! DJ loves to take baths. He splashes around in his tub happy as a clam. He does not like having his head scrubbed but other wise bath time may be one of the highlights of his day. He gets really ticked when I have to take him out. He is a water baby like his Mama!
Those are the major updates. We are so excited to be celebrating Christmas as a family! I can't believe how lucky I am to have such a sweet happy little boy for a son. He really is such an angel baby I could not have asked for better.
Merry Christmas from the Pelon Family!
1. The main one every one is asking about is his Oxygen, the Dr. has him off of it except at night and that is more of a precaution because no one is watching him then. He too an over night saturation test earlier this week and we are waiting for the results. Hopefully we get to take him off completely first thing after Christmas. It will be so nice not to have to worry about cords at all! It is amazing how easy he is to tote around without two or three machines hooked up to him all the time.
2. He has a talent! D.J. is very very good at blowing bubbles. This may not seem like much but we find it pretty entertaining (oh my, I am turning into one of 'those' parents who thinks all the mundane things there kid does is amazing... oh well, it try not to facebook update every single one how does that sound? lol)
If you look closely you can see him blowing bubbles... not the best example but the only picture I have.
3. We are on a FOUR HOUR schedule!! YEAH!!!!! This means that at night I get about four hours of sleep at a time before I am called to feed the chunkers. Muah hahah!! That is so much better than the 2 1/2 to 3 hour schedule we were on before (and in case you are wondering, yes that one hour of sleep at a time does make a huge difference.)
This kid conks out!!
4. We had our first second and third baths! DJ loves to take baths. He splashes around in his tub happy as a clam. He does not like having his head scrubbed but other wise bath time may be one of the highlights of his day. He gets really ticked when I have to take him out. He is a water baby like his Mama!
Those are the major updates. We are so excited to be celebrating Christmas as a family! I can't believe how lucky I am to have such a sweet happy little boy for a son. He really is such an angel baby I could not have asked for better.
Merry Christmas from the Pelon Family!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
D.J.: the birth and the first week of adventures
For those who may not know baby David Jeffrey Pelon (DJ) has joined our family! We love him so much and are so grateful to have him as a member of our family. Many people have been asking about his birth story so I thought I would share it here.
On Monday the 28th of November (the day after my due date) I had an appointment with my Doctor. The Doctor measured my belly and was very concerned that DJ was getting too big so he scheduled an ultrasound for that night. We went into the ultrasound office and got to see little man's chubby cheeks on the screen. The tech said that DJ was measuring around 8 lbs 9 oz and from that weight guesstimate decided that he would induce me on the 1st of December (that Thursday). We went to bed that night and I spent most of it tossing and turning with really painful contractions in my back, they were not consistent or anything so I just figured I was having another false alarm.
Tuesday morning we got a call from the Doctor. He said that after examining the ultrasound pictures more closely and talking with the tech most of the night he was concerned that the babies head was already so cone shaped and his shoulders were so wide that if we tried to deliver vaginally the baby would be at risk for shoulder dystocia. Basically that means that the Doctor was worried that DJ's head would come out fine but that his shoulders would get stuck. Dr Nance said "Its one of the scariest things I deal with in delivery situations, because not only can it really hurt the mom but if even one thing goes the tiniest bit wrong the baby can end up with a dead arm or worse. Its up to you whether or not you want to deliver vaginally still or not but if you were my daughter I would tell you to do a C-Section cause this baby is making me nervous." Well when my Doctor who has over 25 years of experience tells me he is nervous that makes me terrified. I've never had strong feelings about vaginal delivery, I mean I would rather do it that way because you recover quicker and it leaves you more options for later babies. But I was not worried about any let down, I am no less of a woman because I didn't deliver vaginally. All I care about is that at the end of it all I have a healthy baby and I'm still around to take care of him. Any who (off my soap box) we decided to take his advice and schedule a C-section for Thursday morning.
Thinking I had a few days David and I went grocery shopping and pulled out all the Christmas stuff to begin decorating. Unfortunately the contractions I had been having all night continued to get stronger and stronger finally making it so that I had to just sit in my chair and cry. We called the Doctor who sent us to the hospital for a labor check. This was about 2 in the afternoon. We got the the hospital and were whisked into a room an run through triage. As the nurses were monitoring contractions it became apparent that I was having back labor... aka false (exceptionally painful) labor. However my doctor came in and said that we would just do the C-section that afternoon. By 4 pm I was in the operating room. The epidural was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, in fact I've had shots that were worse (though I was told that the epidural for C-sections do not hurt as much as the ones for vaginal deliveries). Mostly what I remember is being fascinated by the fact that it felt like my legs were still bent but I knew they were straight. Apparently I was a lot of fun, every time the doctor or nurse would give me an update I would say "whoot whoot paaarty!" the anesthesiologist told me after that if he was a drinking man he would definitely want to go out clubbing with me, since I must be a really fun drunk.
The delivery went really well and DJ was born at 4:43 pm on November 29th.
DJ and Dad went into the back and got cleaned up with I got sewn up.
Because DJ oxygen was not the greatest right of the bat, it took almost three hours before I was able to finally meet and feed my sweet little boy for the first time, but it was love at first sight. We both just sat and stared at each other for while until the nurse told me I should probably try and feed him. Breast feeding went much better than I expected and Dad was able to go home before too late. DJ and I spent several hours cuddling before the nurses had me send him back to the nursery so I could sleep some time around 11 pm.
Around 1 am a nurse came in and told me that DJ was having trouble breathing and that hey had put him on oxygen. Also that he was showing signs of an infection and they were starting IV antibiotics. That was a scary thing to be woken up too. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night. David had class early the next day and so had gone home and it was so late I didn't think I could call anyone. Those were probably some of the loneliest hours of my life, waiting for it to be late enough I could call David with out waking him up. Next time we saw our son he looked like this.
The Doctors said that DJ had fluid in his lungs (something very common with C-section babies) and that that fluid and caused a case of pneumonia. On top of that he was pretty jaundicy and so they put the poor kid under the lights for a few days so that he could clear up the jaundice.
Despite all of these sickies the kid had/has some serious personality. All of the nurses kept commenting on how big he was and how much 'personality' he had. Basically that means the kid knows what he wants and is not shy about letting you know. He also has a pretty good grabbing reflex, which meant that they nurses had to replace the stickers on his face and chest every few hours (they are suppose to last a few days).
I was discharged after four days but because our hospital is so small I was able to stay in my room for as long as DJ was in the NICU. So I took care of myself and made my way down to the nursery every few hours to feed the baby. I was so blessed to be at a hospital that would allow me to stay with my son and even provide a free room and food. It really was a huge blessing for us! It did get pretty lonely but I knew that I was where I needed to be as a mother and that Heavenly Father would help get us though.
Finally, after eight long days in the NICU the Doctor said that all of DJ's test scores were good and that the infection was all gone. All we were waiting on was for his lungs to heal up enough for him to breath with out oxygen. (With pneumonia the lungs get scared up pretty bad so DJ's lungs are kinda like a broken arm after the cast comes off, its all healed but it will need some extra work to get it as strong as it was before). So we got sent home with some oxygen and a monitor.
We have an appointment on Monday with DJ's pediatrician and are hoping he will give us a plan to ween little man off the Oxygen. Meanwhile we are tripping over cords in the Pelon house. That is the basic run down of DJ's birth story.
Our family is so grateful for the love, support and prayers we received during the time we were in the hospital. I never understood what people meant when they said that they could 'feel' the prayers of others on their behalf but now I do. At the hardest times when I felt so alone and scared for my baby I felt the warmth and love, not only of my Heavenly Father, but of all those who were keeping us in their prayers. Thank you so much for that. This whole experience has taught me a lot of things but mostly about the love that others have for our little family. We are truly blessed people.
On Monday the 28th of November (the day after my due date) I had an appointment with my Doctor. The Doctor measured my belly and was very concerned that DJ was getting too big so he scheduled an ultrasound for that night. We went into the ultrasound office and got to see little man's chubby cheeks on the screen. The tech said that DJ was measuring around 8 lbs 9 oz and from that weight guesstimate decided that he would induce me on the 1st of December (that Thursday). We went to bed that night and I spent most of it tossing and turning with really painful contractions in my back, they were not consistent or anything so I just figured I was having another false alarm.
Tuesday morning we got a call from the Doctor. He said that after examining the ultrasound pictures more closely and talking with the tech most of the night he was concerned that the babies head was already so cone shaped and his shoulders were so wide that if we tried to deliver vaginally the baby would be at risk for shoulder dystocia. Basically that means that the Doctor was worried that DJ's head would come out fine but that his shoulders would get stuck. Dr Nance said "Its one of the scariest things I deal with in delivery situations, because not only can it really hurt the mom but if even one thing goes the tiniest bit wrong the baby can end up with a dead arm or worse. Its up to you whether or not you want to deliver vaginally still or not but if you were my daughter I would tell you to do a C-Section cause this baby is making me nervous." Well when my Doctor who has over 25 years of experience tells me he is nervous that makes me terrified. I've never had strong feelings about vaginal delivery, I mean I would rather do it that way because you recover quicker and it leaves you more options for later babies. But I was not worried about any let down, I am no less of a woman because I didn't deliver vaginally. All I care about is that at the end of it all I have a healthy baby and I'm still around to take care of him. Any who (off my soap box) we decided to take his advice and schedule a C-section for Thursday morning.
Thinking I had a few days David and I went grocery shopping and pulled out all the Christmas stuff to begin decorating. Unfortunately the contractions I had been having all night continued to get stronger and stronger finally making it so that I had to just sit in my chair and cry. We called the Doctor who sent us to the hospital for a labor check. This was about 2 in the afternoon. We got the the hospital and were whisked into a room an run through triage. As the nurses were monitoring contractions it became apparent that I was having back labor... aka false (exceptionally painful) labor. However my doctor came in and said that we would just do the C-section that afternoon. By 4 pm I was in the operating room. The epidural was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, in fact I've had shots that were worse (though I was told that the epidural for C-sections do not hurt as much as the ones for vaginal deliveries). Mostly what I remember is being fascinated by the fact that it felt like my legs were still bent but I knew they were straight. Apparently I was a lot of fun, every time the doctor or nurse would give me an update I would say "whoot whoot paaarty!" the anesthesiologist told me after that if he was a drinking man he would definitely want to go out clubbing with me, since I must be a really fun drunk.
The delivery went really well and DJ was born at 4:43 pm on November 29th.
DJ and Dad went into the back and got cleaned up with I got sewn up.
Because DJ oxygen was not the greatest right of the bat, it took almost three hours before I was able to finally meet and feed my sweet little boy for the first time, but it was love at first sight. We both just sat and stared at each other for while until the nurse told me I should probably try and feed him. Breast feeding went much better than I expected and Dad was able to go home before too late. DJ and I spent several hours cuddling before the nurses had me send him back to the nursery so I could sleep some time around 11 pm.
Around 1 am a nurse came in and told me that DJ was having trouble breathing and that hey had put him on oxygen. Also that he was showing signs of an infection and they were starting IV antibiotics. That was a scary thing to be woken up too. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night. David had class early the next day and so had gone home and it was so late I didn't think I could call anyone. Those were probably some of the loneliest hours of my life, waiting for it to be late enough I could call David with out waking him up. Next time we saw our son he looked like this.
The Doctors said that DJ had fluid in his lungs (something very common with C-section babies) and that that fluid and caused a case of pneumonia. On top of that he was pretty jaundicy and so they put the poor kid under the lights for a few days so that he could clear up the jaundice.
Despite all of these sickies the kid had/has some serious personality. All of the nurses kept commenting on how big he was and how much 'personality' he had. Basically that means the kid knows what he wants and is not shy about letting you know. He also has a pretty good grabbing reflex, which meant that they nurses had to replace the stickers on his face and chest every few hours (they are suppose to last a few days).
I was discharged after four days but because our hospital is so small I was able to stay in my room for as long as DJ was in the NICU. So I took care of myself and made my way down to the nursery every few hours to feed the baby. I was so blessed to be at a hospital that would allow me to stay with my son and even provide a free room and food. It really was a huge blessing for us! It did get pretty lonely but I knew that I was where I needed to be as a mother and that Heavenly Father would help get us though.
Finally, after eight long days in the NICU the Doctor said that all of DJ's test scores were good and that the infection was all gone. All we were waiting on was for his lungs to heal up enough for him to breath with out oxygen. (With pneumonia the lungs get scared up pretty bad so DJ's lungs are kinda like a broken arm after the cast comes off, its all healed but it will need some extra work to get it as strong as it was before). So we got sent home with some oxygen and a monitor.
We have an appointment on Monday with DJ's pediatrician and are hoping he will give us a plan to ween little man off the Oxygen. Meanwhile we are tripping over cords in the Pelon house. That is the basic run down of DJ's birth story.
Our family is so grateful for the love, support and prayers we received during the time we were in the hospital. I never understood what people meant when they said that they could 'feel' the prayers of others on their behalf but now I do. At the hardest times when I felt so alone and scared for my baby I felt the warmth and love, not only of my Heavenly Father, but of all those who were keeping us in their prayers. Thank you so much for that. This whole experience has taught me a lot of things but mostly about the love that others have for our little family. We are truly blessed people.
Friday, October 28, 2011
David's Birthday!
So yesterday was David's birthday! Yeah! We had a pretty good day. David woke up sick with a sore throat and wasn't feeling very well so he missed a few of his classes. I was sad that he was sick but it was nice to spend the day together in our P.J.'s relaxing. I got him the movie "The King's Speech" for his birthday so we opened and watched it. He did go to his nutrition class which gave me the chance to get his cake decorated! I have this really nice cake decorating kit, but I have never used it and I want to be able to make our kids birthday cakes. So I asked David what kinda cake he wanted. He asked for a Tigger cake. I was a little intimidated but I managed it! Hahaha I rock!! Later we went to Outback Steak House for dinner. Then David was able to go up to American Fork to the Haunted Forest there. Our friend was able to get discount tickets for that night so David went up with a bunch of friends. They had a lot of fun and best of all I didn't have to go. Hehe! Any who over all a pretty good day! Yeah!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
My thoughts and testimony... after Conference
A little over a week ago I had the opportunity with other members of my faith to listen to the leaders of our church at General Conference. The talks were amazing, the spirit felt was spectacular and I came away feeling spiritually rejuvenated. My favorites were President Uchtdorf's talk to the Relief Society, Elder Anderson's talk on children, Elder Carl Cook's talk on looking up, Sister Dalton's talk to fathers, Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita's talk to missionaries, and Elder Oaks' talk on Christ. These messages especially touched my soul as I listened with the intent of preparing to welcome D.J. into our home.
As I listened to the talks I became more and more aware of the task that David and I are entering into. Perhaps it was because of all the talks about missionary work and missionaries, or maybe it was the message that the Lord wished me to receive, but I realized (not for the first time but in a much more powerful way than ever before) that God is sending us one of his choice sons. That God will be relying on us to teach that sweet little boy the gospel and prepare him to be a valiant priesthood holder, an obedient missionary, and a caring husband and father. I'll admit the one that I was/am really focused on is preparing my son to serve a mission and instilling in him that righteous desire. I know, I know, the poor kid isn't even born yet (we have to make sure he survives infancy first right) but I felt for the first time how short our time to prepare him will be. Nineteen years seems today like forever, yet I feel the need to start today to make our home ready for a child (not just by plugging up plugs or moving up breakables) by inviting an added measure of the Spirit into our home and practicing the habits (FHE, scripture study, prayer) that even a small child will notice and understand that Mom and Dad believe and trust in Christ and in his prophets here on the earth.
I know that each person is a child of God and that as parents, teachers, aunts, uncles, and friends we have a divine calling to prepare these little ones for their future lives. I am so humbled that the Lord is sending us one of His sweet spirits, and I will strive to live up to that calling.
As I listened to the talks I became more and more aware of the task that David and I are entering into. Perhaps it was because of all the talks about missionary work and missionaries, or maybe it was the message that the Lord wished me to receive, but I realized (not for the first time but in a much more powerful way than ever before) that God is sending us one of his choice sons. That God will be relying on us to teach that sweet little boy the gospel and prepare him to be a valiant priesthood holder, an obedient missionary, and a caring husband and father. I'll admit the one that I was/am really focused on is preparing my son to serve a mission and instilling in him that righteous desire. I know, I know, the poor kid isn't even born yet (we have to make sure he survives infancy first right) but I felt for the first time how short our time to prepare him will be. Nineteen years seems today like forever, yet I feel the need to start today to make our home ready for a child (not just by plugging up plugs or moving up breakables) by inviting an added measure of the Spirit into our home and practicing the habits (FHE, scripture study, prayer) that even a small child will notice and understand that Mom and Dad believe and trust in Christ and in his prophets here on the earth.
I know that each person is a child of God and that as parents, teachers, aunts, uncles, and friends we have a divine calling to prepare these little ones for their future lives. I am so humbled that the Lord is sending us one of His sweet spirits, and I will strive to live up to that calling.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
30 weeks and still so much to do!!!
D.J. and I hit 30 weeks! Yeah!! 10 weeks left till my due date (and 7 weeks left till I start doing everything possible to make him come). I'll admit, up till now I was feeling super prepared. Now I'm starting to realize that I have so much to do! Here is the list of things to get done before D.J. comes (the crossed out ones I have done).
Buy and set up crib and bassinetMake room in baby's room for a baby- Organized and deep clean baby's room
- Wash and organize baby clothes (I didn't know until a few days ago you are suppose to wash all the new baby clothes before they wear them)
- Clean the stroller (its been living on my balcony for 4 months)
- Deep clean our bedroom
Get 'Mama's Chair'- Pack up a hospital bag
- Find a baby bath tub
- Decorate baby's room
- Diapers
- Finish D.J.'s quilt
- Finish Christmas gifts
- Decorate for Christmas
- Get house ready for people who will visit after baby comes
Blessing outfits done- Double check the insurance for baby
Pick a pediatrician- Read a book on breast feeding
- Convince David to try putting a diaper on a stuffed animal or something... just for practice :)
- Find a car seat (still trying to decide whether we want an infant or a transition... any suggestions?)
Oh goodness... I'm in trouble. And I'm not even worrying about getting the house baby proofed the way I had originally planned to. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good breastfeeding book? I'm a little intimidated by that whole thing and want to have an idea of what to expect.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Blessing Outfit Update
I am so excited to present some pictures of the blessing outfits I had made out of my wedding dress. I am so grateful to Pauline for the amazing job she did! They are beautiful and so much better than I could have imagined. I wont put up pictures of the little boy's outfit (we'll wait for D.J. to model it for us). But for your enjoyment I'm putting up a picture of the little girl dress. Also, Pauline was able to preserve the bodice of my dress so that if I have a daughter who really wants to she can still wear my dress (though I hope any daughter of mine will be much smaller when she gets married than I was). I'm really excited!
Bodice of my wedding dress
Girl's blessing dress
The top of the dress
The skirt of the dress.
Isn't it beautiful! You will have to wait to see how cute the little boy's outfit is. Sometime in January!
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Yes I'm blogging about food... get over it!!
So I got this amazing recipe from my mother and I love it! not only do I love it but so does David so I am blogging about it! Yeah life!
Crock pot Salisbury Steaks
Ingredients
- 2 pounds lean ground beef
- 1 (1 ounce) envelope dry onion soup mix
- 1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
- 1 (1 ounce) packet dry au jus mix
- 3/4 cup water
Directions
- In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, onion soup mix, bread crumbs, and milk using your hands. Shape into 8 patties.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Dredge the patties in flour just to coat, and quickly brown on both sides in the hot skillet. Place browned patties into the slow cooker stacking alternately like a pyramid. In a medium bowl, mix together the cream of chicken soup, au jus mix, and water. Pour over the meat. Cook on the Low setting for 4 or 5 hours, until ground beef is well done. Serve over egg noodles.
The Zucchini side is just a green zucchini chopped into long pieces. I tossed the pieces in olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and basil. Then I put them in a skillet and fried them up. When I took them out of the pan I sprinkled them with Parmesan cheese.
I would definitely check this recipe out! It is amazing!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Birthday, Baby, and Pictures!!!
I'm going to go back a week in time so that later info makes sense. I'm sorry for not keeping up on posts, it just means this is going to be a long one. So two weeks ago it was time for me to get my glucose screening test and my Rhogam shot. For those who may not know pregnant women are screened for gestational diabetes near the end of their second trimester. Also if you happen to have a negative blood type (like me!) they give you a shot so that if your baby is positive your body does not attack and kill the baby. Well the glucose test involves drinking this sugary drink (think 8oz of melted orange Popsicle) and then waiting for an hour so they can draw your blood, did I mention you have to be fasting in order for this to happen. For those who don't know I have veins that have literally made lab techs cry, so after the poor intern tried to stick me once the other tech came in an had to use a syringe (like the type they use to get blood from babies) in order to get the blood out. After that we got to wait another hour for the results of the Rhogam test so I could go get my shot. My dear, sweet, wonderful husband sat there with me the entire time and never complained. I love him so much. Any who, we finally we able to go up to the labor and delivery floor so I could get my shot. We were asked to wait in one of the empty birthing suits while the pharmacy sent up the shot. Oh my goodness!!! I had no idea those things were so nice! It was almost the size of our entire apartment, had all wood floors and cabinets, and a really really nice couch. Not to mention all the tech stuff you need to have a baby. Oh and did I mention that all this luxury is just for one mom at a time! The nurse was super nice and the shot didn't hurt at all, in fact the flu shot I got the next day hurt way worse.
So that catches you up on the important stuff that happened a few weeks ago... moving on to more recent events.
Happy late birthday to me!! YEAH!! I've decided that one of the ways we can stay young is to continue getting really excited about our birthdays... sounds backwards I know. So I very excitedly turned 22 this last week! Yeah me!
I actually spent the majority of my birthday teaching English at the local Juvenal Detention Center. It was a very interesting experience. I have never felt so safe in a school before. Probably the fact that I was never alone with the students helped but the atmosphere was actually a lot of fun to teach in. The kids behaved really well and since there were only about 6-8 in each class I was able to do a lot of one on one time and make sure they all understood the concept (commas) that we were covering. D.J. even behaved himself and waited to dance on my bladder until I had a break and could actually go to the bathroom without leaving my students. Thank you baby mommy appreciates it!
When I came home I found a really sweet surprise from the relief society:
As much fun as I had teaching it was still really nice to come home and have such a wonderful surprise waiting for me as a birthday up lift. Thank you ladies!
That night David took me out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. It is one of our favorite places to go and it was so delicious! Then we went and got my birthday present. I am so excited I love it so much! I am now the proud owner of a 'Mommy's chair,' yeah me! David even put it up for me that night!
I am one spoiled girl. I also got a wonderful package from my family (mostly my mom). It contained a party in a box, some cash, and two boxes of Coco Pops JUST FOR ME!! (David has this habit of eating all my cereal so that's why having two boxes I don't have to share is so exciting.) I used the cash to get me some new work shoes and we are going to use the rest to supplement my maternity wardrobe. Thank you family!!
The happiness ended the next day however. We went to the doctor's office where D.J. had a great check up (the Dr. says he is now about 2.5 lbs and has a good heartbeat). I however failed miserably! I had gained more weight than expected (I blame the Outback the night before and the fact I forgot to take my phone and keys out of my pockets). But the worst came when the Dr went and got my test results. If you score a 141 on the glucose tolerance test you probably have gestational diabetes and have to get more tests done... I scored a 140. So no more sugar for me! I will probably still eat my coco pops but only one small bowl a day. I am giving up soda, candy, cake, and ice cream for the remainder of my pregnancy. The thing that got me in real trouble though was that my iron had dropped 7 points putting me well in the anemic range. My Dr. was more that an little irked with me about that one. So back on the nasty, make me feel totally nauseous and gross, iron supplements I go. The combo of the bad check up and my pregnancy hormones led to a mild, okay more like medium, break down. To my credit I did hold it together long enough to get to the car and have a conversation with my mother. After that however, tears and drama. Luckily I am blessed with an amazing husband who got me through it and was so patient with me. He is such a blessing in my life! Though the crisis has passed I am still scared enough that I'm going to be very careful about what I eat in the next few months, and probably beyond that .
I did take a day off how ever and celebrate my birthday with friends. We invited a bunch of people over for dinner on Sunday and had a wonderful time. I put together a pasta bar and some desserts and managed to have enough food for everyone and some leftovers! Yeah me! I'm so blessed to have such great friends.
Labor day we got the babies room ready! Well mostly, the shelves still need to be organized and so does the desk, but all the heavy lifting is done. I think we ended up taking like 10 or 12 bags of trash out to the dumpster but D.J. now has a room all his own (well he does have to share his closet with dad but still). We set up the playpen/crib and now all we have to do is wait for him to get here! I'm so excited!
Belly at 27 weeks
David wanted a picture for D.J. to see later that daddy was there too. Isn't he cute!
So that catches you up on the important stuff that happened a few weeks ago... moving on to more recent events.
Happy late birthday to me!! YEAH!! I've decided that one of the ways we can stay young is to continue getting really excited about our birthdays... sounds backwards I know. So I very excitedly turned 22 this last week! Yeah me!
I actually spent the majority of my birthday teaching English at the local Juvenal Detention Center. It was a very interesting experience. I have never felt so safe in a school before. Probably the fact that I was never alone with the students helped but the atmosphere was actually a lot of fun to teach in. The kids behaved really well and since there were only about 6-8 in each class I was able to do a lot of one on one time and make sure they all understood the concept (commas) that we were covering. D.J. even behaved himself and waited to dance on my bladder until I had a break and could actually go to the bathroom without leaving my students. Thank you baby mommy appreciates it!
When I came home I found a really sweet surprise from the relief society:
That night David took me out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. It is one of our favorite places to go and it was so delicious! Then we went and got my birthday present. I am so excited I love it so much! I am now the proud owner of a 'Mommy's chair,' yeah me! David even put it up for me that night!
The happiness ended the next day however. We went to the doctor's office where D.J. had a great check up (the Dr. says he is now about 2.5 lbs and has a good heartbeat). I however failed miserably! I had gained more weight than expected (I blame the Outback the night before and the fact I forgot to take my phone and keys out of my pockets). But the worst came when the Dr went and got my test results. If you score a 141 on the glucose tolerance test you probably have gestational diabetes and have to get more tests done... I scored a 140. So no more sugar for me! I will probably still eat my coco pops but only one small bowl a day. I am giving up soda, candy, cake, and ice cream for the remainder of my pregnancy. The thing that got me in real trouble though was that my iron had dropped 7 points putting me well in the anemic range. My Dr. was more that an little irked with me about that one. So back on the nasty, make me feel totally nauseous and gross, iron supplements I go. The combo of the bad check up and my pregnancy hormones led to a mild, okay more like medium, break down. To my credit I did hold it together long enough to get to the car and have a conversation with my mother. After that however, tears and drama. Luckily I am blessed with an amazing husband who got me through it and was so patient with me. He is such a blessing in my life! Though the crisis has passed I am still scared enough that I'm going to be very careful about what I eat in the next few months, and probably beyond that .
I did take a day off how ever and celebrate my birthday with friends. We invited a bunch of people over for dinner on Sunday and had a wonderful time. I put together a pasta bar and some desserts and managed to have enough food for everyone and some leftovers! Yeah me! I'm so blessed to have such great friends.
Labor day we got the babies room ready! Well mostly, the shelves still need to be organized and so does the desk, but all the heavy lifting is done. I think we ended up taking like 10 or 12 bags of trash out to the dumpster but D.J. now has a room all his own (well he does have to share his closet with dad but still). We set up the playpen/crib and now all we have to do is wait for him to get here! I'm so excited!
Well that's all. Life is good, God is great, and we are so blessed! Over and out!
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Grateful!
I've had a pretty hard week and have been very emotionally out of sorts. So I decided to follow the council of an old familiar song and "Count My Blessings". I am such a fortunate woman. And what was really interesting is that some of the things on the list are things I complain about all the time. So here is part of my list. I can't list them all but I am going to list quite a few.
1. My wonderful, sweet, compassionate, and patient husband.
2. Parents who love and respect me as I am while always helping me to grow stronger
3. A home of my own
4. My husband's job
5. Siblings who I not only love but consider some of my best friends
6. The opportunity to have a higher education.
7. Being a citizen of America
8. Living in a place where I can practice my faith and follow the Lord's council for me without being ridiculed.
9. The experience of living in a place where I was the minority and the compassion and open mindedness that gave me.
10. A healthy little boy growing inside of me.
11. The ability to go to a good doctor and hospital
12. The atonement of Jesus Christ
13. A Heavenly Father who gives me second chances, even when I am stubborn and try to get my own way.
14. Food in my stomach and in my pantry
15. A strong and healthy body
16. A pregnancy with minimal complications
17. Dear friends, past and present, who support me.
18. Being raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
19. Having a job
20. Possessing a sound mind
21. Access to the Internet
22. Modern medicine
23. A car that works
24. Extended family that I love and adore
25. modern conveniences from Ac's to smoke detectors
That's my list for now. There are so many more but this covers the most important ones. I am truly blessed. Beyond these I had the great satisfaction of looking at my life and realizing that I am exactly where I always dreamed I would be at 22. Married for time and eternity to the man of my dreams, graduated from my dream University, and about to have a baby. Since I spend most of my days feeling as if I have disappointed people with the way my life has turned out it was a really nice thing to realize that I have fulfilled the most important goals I wanted to accomplish by this point in my life. God is good.
1. My wonderful, sweet, compassionate, and patient husband.
2. Parents who love and respect me as I am while always helping me to grow stronger
3. A home of my own
4. My husband's job
5. Siblings who I not only love but consider some of my best friends
6. The opportunity to have a higher education.
7. Being a citizen of America
8. Living in a place where I can practice my faith and follow the Lord's council for me without being ridiculed.
9. The experience of living in a place where I was the minority and the compassion and open mindedness that gave me.
10. A healthy little boy growing inside of me.
11. The ability to go to a good doctor and hospital
12. The atonement of Jesus Christ
13. A Heavenly Father who gives me second chances, even when I am stubborn and try to get my own way.
14. Food in my stomach and in my pantry
15. A strong and healthy body
16. A pregnancy with minimal complications
17. Dear friends, past and present, who support me.
18. Being raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
19. Having a job
20. Possessing a sound mind
21. Access to the Internet
22. Modern medicine
23. A car that works
24. Extended family that I love and adore
25. modern conveniences from Ac's to smoke detectors
That's my list for now. There are so many more but this covers the most important ones. I am truly blessed. Beyond these I had the great satisfaction of looking at my life and realizing that I am exactly where I always dreamed I would be at 22. Married for time and eternity to the man of my dreams, graduated from my dream University, and about to have a baby. Since I spend most of my days feeling as if I have disappointed people with the way my life has turned out it was a really nice thing to realize that I have fulfilled the most important goals I wanted to accomplish by this point in my life. God is good.
Monday, August 15, 2011
My up coming attempt at having a cleaning schedule!
I am setting a goal, and since it is much easier to stick to a goal when other people know about it, I am putting the details up on my blog and will be reporting periodically on how it goes. I have been trying (and failing) to be a good housekeeper. It is not one of my natural talents at all! For some reason I was under the delusion that when you get married that talent suddenly kicks in, how about not! Any way, I have been trying to do what I did as a kid and when I was single, save it all for Saturday and write up a to-do list. Well all that seems to be happening is either I look at the massive (and I mean 20-30 item long) to-do list and get so overwhelmed nothing happens... or I work my tail off all day and only get 1/3 of it done while completely wearing myself out. So here is the new plan. I have made up a cleaning schedule, and am going to try and stick to it. In the interest of full discloser (and added accountability) here is my schedule. (It may get altered when school starts... we shall see).
Monday (Kitchen)
-Sweep/mop floor
-Clean microwave
-wipe down cupboards
- clean stove
- clean out fridge
- check cupboards organization
Tuesday (Living room)
- dust
- wipe down fridge (outside)
- straighten tables and shelves
- wipe down walls
- pick up floor
- vacuum
Wednesday (Bedroom)
- straighten closet
- pick up floor
- change sheets
- straighten table tops
- wipe down walls
- vacuum
Thursday (Bathroom/Babies room)
- Bathroom (David)
- straighten shelves/desks
- pick up floor
- dust
- wipe down walls
- straighten closet
- vacuum
Friday (Laundry)
- Wash/Dry
- Fold
- Put away
Saturday (Patio/Catch up)
- sweep patio
- Straighten patio
- clean garbage cans
- wash windows
- finish things not done during the week
Everyday
- run dishwasher
- check/take out trash
- put away dishes
- make dinner
So there it is, my master plan. I know it is very specific but I'm one of those people who hates cleaning so much I have to spell out every detail, even for myself. I'm hoping that after the first 2 weeks or so that things will get much easier. Not only because I am used to the schedule but because things are getting done more often. Here is hoping.
Monday (Kitchen)
-Sweep/mop floor
-Clean microwave
-wipe down cupboards
- clean stove
- clean out fridge
- check cupboards organization
Tuesday (Living room)
- dust
- wipe down fridge (outside)
- straighten tables and shelves
- wipe down walls
- pick up floor
- vacuum
Wednesday (Bedroom)
- straighten closet
- pick up floor
- change sheets
- straighten table tops
- wipe down walls
- vacuum
Thursday (Bathroom/Babies room)
- Bathroom (David)
- straighten shelves/desks
- pick up floor
- dust
- wipe down walls
- straighten closet
- vacuum
Friday (Laundry)
- Wash/Dry
- Fold
- Put away
Saturday (Patio/Catch up)
- sweep patio
- Straighten patio
- clean garbage cans
- wash windows
- finish things not done during the week
Everyday
- run dishwasher
- check/take out trash
- put away dishes
- make dinner
So there it is, my master plan. I know it is very specific but I'm one of those people who hates cleaning so much I have to spell out every detail, even for myself. I'm hoping that after the first 2 weeks or so that things will get much easier. Not only because I am used to the schedule but because things are getting done more often. Here is hoping.
My family is in town for 2 weeks... and I still managed not to take a single picture! FAIL!
So between my family being here and my delusional hope that I would have pictures to share I am a little behind on my blogging. I really am disappointed with myself about the pictures. I even managed to bring my camera every where with me! Boo, dang! Oh well, baby steps, now I'm in the habit of keeping my camera in my purse it should be much easier to remember to pull it out and take a picture. Since I am so much stuff has happened I will stick to covering the past two weeks with a list of firsts:
1. I purchased and cooked with alcohol for the first time, though I'm not sure it counts since the sales clerk didn't even card me :( I even had my ID out and ready but nope. I guess they figure under-age drinkers aren't likely to be buying cooking sherry for the keg party. Still the pasta dish I made turned out amazing and has been put on David's request list! Success!
2. Bought my first maternity under clothes... enough said.
3. Had someone comment on my waddle (thanks Dad!). I would like the record to show that I waddle, not because I can't walk any other way, but for balancing purposes. I tend to have much fewer gravity challenged moments if I widen my stance. And since balance has never been a strong suit of mine right now I need all the help I can get.
4. Went to the Air Force museum at Hill Air Force Base. I went up with my parents and and two youngest siblings. We met up with my Dad's youngest brothers and their families. It was a lot of fun to watch the little kids get excited about the planes and listen to my Dad and his brother get excited about rotary engines and helicopter blades.
5. Had crock-pot Salisbury steak. My mom made it for dinner and it was super duper yummy! I am definitely adding it to our dinner rotation, not that I had much of a choice since David also fell in love! Yeah for additions to our dinner menus!
6. Finished an entire rotation of "Mexican Train" Dominoes with David and my family. Dominoes is one of my families favorite games and we had played it with David before but never made it through all 16 rounds. (you have to play a round for every double and our set goes up to double 15). It took up 3 days of playing (not straight through of course) but we were able to finish before they went back to CA. And guess who won? Yes that would be me!! Dominoes champion. However, everyone else seemed to be more excited that David beat Mom (they came in 2nd and 3rd). Those two had spent the entire time smack talking each other so the conclusion of that was more exciting than the actual out come of the game. I still kick both their butts though.
7. Made a banana cream pie. So even though I love to make pie I had never made one before (probably because I think they are disgusting! I don't understand why people like them so much). I try and make it a point to make a pie for each of our home teachers and one of them requested a banana cream. I started out with these grand intentions of doing it all from scratch, but between the extra dishes that would take and the extra time with the stove on I changed my mind and stuck with the instant vanilla pudding version. It ended up looking pretty good if I say so myself.
That about covers all the firsts we experienced. Its been a fun couple of weeks.
Over and out!
1. I purchased and cooked with alcohol for the first time, though I'm not sure it counts since the sales clerk didn't even card me :( I even had my ID out and ready but nope. I guess they figure under-age drinkers aren't likely to be buying cooking sherry for the keg party. Still the pasta dish I made turned out amazing and has been put on David's request list! Success!
2. Bought my first maternity under clothes... enough said.
3. Had someone comment on my waddle (thanks Dad!). I would like the record to show that I waddle, not because I can't walk any other way, but for balancing purposes. I tend to have much fewer gravity challenged moments if I widen my stance. And since balance has never been a strong suit of mine right now I need all the help I can get.
4. Went to the Air Force museum at Hill Air Force Base. I went up with my parents and and two youngest siblings. We met up with my Dad's youngest brothers and their families. It was a lot of fun to watch the little kids get excited about the planes and listen to my Dad and his brother get excited about rotary engines and helicopter blades.
5. Had crock-pot Salisbury steak. My mom made it for dinner and it was super duper yummy! I am definitely adding it to our dinner rotation, not that I had much of a choice since David also fell in love! Yeah for additions to our dinner menus!
6. Finished an entire rotation of "Mexican Train" Dominoes with David and my family. Dominoes is one of my families favorite games and we had played it with David before but never made it through all 16 rounds. (you have to play a round for every double and our set goes up to double 15). It took up 3 days of playing (not straight through of course) but we were able to finish before they went back to CA. And guess who won? Yes that would be me!! Dominoes champion. However, everyone else seemed to be more excited that David beat Mom (they came in 2nd and 3rd). Those two had spent the entire time smack talking each other so the conclusion of that was more exciting than the actual out come of the game. I still kick both their butts though.
7. Made a banana cream pie. So even though I love to make pie I had never made one before (probably because I think they are disgusting! I don't understand why people like them so much). I try and make it a point to make a pie for each of our home teachers and one of them requested a banana cream. I started out with these grand intentions of doing it all from scratch, but between the extra dishes that would take and the extra time with the stove on I changed my mind and stuck with the instant vanilla pudding version. It ended up looking pretty good if I say so myself.
That about covers all the firsts we experienced. Its been a fun couple of weeks.
Over and out!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Demise of the Wedding dress... Birth of the blessing outfits
Today I finally found someone to turn my wedding dress into blessing outfits! And to make it even better the woman who is doing it is someone I really love and respect from my childhood. Pauline Colton is a really good friend of my family's from our Berkeley days. She has a daughter named Leslie who my mom always jokes is named after me. Not only am I super excited that my dress is finally in the process of becoming baby clothes, I am so excited that it is someone I love and trust doing it! So for your visual enjoyment, here is a picture of my dress and the pattern from the blessing outfits (yes I am doing both a boy and a girl outfit... just get it over with all at once). Enjoy!
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Hives, 'gas leaks', and raspberries
It has been a rather eventful week! On Friday night I was up with a rumbustious child in my belly and reading Anna Karenina when I started to notice my eyes were itching. As a long term allergy sufferer (sage brush is my kryptonite) I figured that I was having a reaction of some kind and didn't think to much about it, I mean I was already on Claretin what more what I suppose to do. We Saturday morning my eyes were swollen, puffy, and red. Again I figured 'oh well, put some eye drops in and double up the Claretin, it will be alright" By Saturday night the upper half of my face was covered in hives and my eyes were even more swollen. Sunday morning my entire face was covered and my eyes were swollen almost shut. Thanks to benadrill my eyes opened before David got home but I'm still trying to get ride of all the hives, all that is left are a few on my forehead and a little red around my eyes. We really don't know what happened, whether I ate something or there was just something really nasty in the air this weekend but I really did not approve. I mean hives are bad enough but did they really have to go for my face? Seriously? Its really unkind to do that to a person... especially a pregnant person, LEAVE THE FACE ALONE GOSH DANG IT! Luckily I have an incredibly sweet husband who kept telling my that I looked beautiful and never complained that I was in a drug induced sleep for most of the weekend. He even would wet my wash cloth and remind me not to scratch. I am so lucky to have him!
Last night we did have a bit of an adventure. I was awakened at 1am (you may notice a theme in my life) by a certain someone kicking my full bladder. By the time I got myself out of bed (not an easy thing these days) and went to the bathroom I was very awake and feeling the urge to clean something. For those who don't live in Wymount I should preface this story by saying that as much as I am grateful for a place to live and for almost everything about our apartment (I really do love it) the stove is a really scary out of date piece of crap. If you don't believe me go look at one sometime. Anyway, as I was scrubbing the stove and counter-tops all the sudden the stove started making the clicking noise it makes when its lighting. All the nobs were turned off and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. What scared me even more was that I thought I smelled gas. I woke up David and he also smelled gas so I called the midnight maintenance guy. He didn't answer (apparently due to all the rain 20-30 apt in Wyview had flooded that night) so my call got sent to the BYU Police. They told us to get out of the apt and they sent over a police officer and got a hold of the maintenance man. Luckily we weren't having a gas leak (the gas I smelled was probably from when I was turning the nobs trying to figure out what was wrong) and the maintenance man was able to fix our stove pretty quick (turns out the pilot on one of the ranges was frizzing). I am still really grateful that I was awake and caught it because it could have started a fire or triggered a gas leak. David was again such a trooper. He never complained about being woken up (even though he misses enough sleep for work as it is) and even stayed up to wait for the maintenance guy when he didn't have to. I really am a lucky girl, not all men are as amazing as my husband is!
This week we also made a fun discovery. During the daily Daddy and D.J. talks we discovered a game. David has not been able to feel a distinct kick yet but he can see/feel my belly shift slightly as the baby moves from one side to the other. Well during one of these 'belly talks' David decided to blow a raspberry on my belly right where D.J. was hanging out. That little baby moved to the other side of my body so fast I'm pretty sure my intestines spun. Well David and I got such a kick out of it that it has now become a game. David blows raspberries where D.J. is hanging out and we both laugh as my belly shifts in the opposite direction. Its so much fun! I still can't wait for the day when David can really feel D.J. kick, hopefully soon:)
Well that's all for us over and out!
Last night we did have a bit of an adventure. I was awakened at 1am (you may notice a theme in my life) by a certain someone kicking my full bladder. By the time I got myself out of bed (not an easy thing these days) and went to the bathroom I was very awake and feeling the urge to clean something. For those who don't live in Wymount I should preface this story by saying that as much as I am grateful for a place to live and for almost everything about our apartment (I really do love it) the stove is a really scary out of date piece of crap. If you don't believe me go look at one sometime. Anyway, as I was scrubbing the stove and counter-tops all the sudden the stove started making the clicking noise it makes when its lighting. All the nobs were turned off and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. What scared me even more was that I thought I smelled gas. I woke up David and he also smelled gas so I called the midnight maintenance guy. He didn't answer (apparently due to all the rain 20-30 apt in Wyview had flooded that night) so my call got sent to the BYU Police. They told us to get out of the apt and they sent over a police officer and got a hold of the maintenance man. Luckily we weren't having a gas leak (the gas I smelled was probably from when I was turning the nobs trying to figure out what was wrong) and the maintenance man was able to fix our stove pretty quick (turns out the pilot on one of the ranges was frizzing). I am still really grateful that I was awake and caught it because it could have started a fire or triggered a gas leak. David was again such a trooper. He never complained about being woken up (even though he misses enough sleep for work as it is) and even stayed up to wait for the maintenance guy when he didn't have to. I really am a lucky girl, not all men are as amazing as my husband is!
This week we also made a fun discovery. During the daily Daddy and D.J. talks we discovered a game. David has not been able to feel a distinct kick yet but he can see/feel my belly shift slightly as the baby moves from one side to the other. Well during one of these 'belly talks' David decided to blow a raspberry on my belly right where D.J. was hanging out. That little baby moved to the other side of my body so fast I'm pretty sure my intestines spun. Well David and I got such a kick out of it that it has now become a game. David blows raspberries where D.J. is hanging out and we both laugh as my belly shifts in the opposite direction. Its so much fun! I still can't wait for the day when David can really feel D.J. kick, hopefully soon:)
Well that's all for us over and out!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Daddy and Son: already buds (Mom may be feeling a little left out)
So little D.J. is a super active little man. He kicks and squirms and rams his body into places that, gosh dang it, he really isn't welcome (namely my spine and pelvic bones). I know its not physically possible but I'm pretty sure he has figured out a way to wrap his little hands around my spine and swing from it, like it his own jungle gym. And no matter how much I may beg, plead, growl, or even prod he does not move (or let go) of mom. He seems to have very little interest in what I'm doing, unless of course I'm laying down to go to bed, which seems to be some sort of clue for him to throw a dance party with my bladder. But, the little squirt is already enamored of his Daddy! Whenever David leans down and talks to 'the belly' D.J. moves as far forward as possible, almost like he's trying to get as close to the voice as he can, and kicks out as if trying to say 'look daddy I'm here! see what I can do!" David hasn't been able to feel it yet but the daily talks to the belly are becoming a ritual that is super cute. It makes me super happy that David is so excited and that D.J. is so interested (to say the least) in daddy. I have no doubt in my mind that David is gonna be a great daddy, it will be fun to tell D.J. when he older that he and his dad have been friends since the womb. But I'll admit, it makes me sniffle a little bit that baby doesn't listen to me like that:( Its probably that I talk so much that the poor kid is just excited when I am quiet for more than 5 min at a time. Oh well, I'm sure little man will love me... at least I hope... I am his mom after all right? The important thing is that the two men in my life are already getting along really well! Yeah! David is so excited, and just as enthralled with the baby as D.J. is of him. I can't wait to watch these two over the coming years! I have a feeling its going to be a hoot!
Over and Out!
Over and Out!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
My talk on Indexing... minus the on the stand add-ins
Indexing Talk
July 11, 2011
Good morning brothers and sisters, my name is Leslie Pelon and I am an Indexing addict. Before I get into that however I’ll give the customary introduction of my family.
David and I have been married for a little over a year now and we are expecting a baby boy around Thanksgiving. I graduated in History and have been substitute teaching, while David is finishing up his degree getting ready for pharmacy school. Quick story of how we met, David and I were both working custodial for BYU and we met when I sprayed him with water. A few weeks later I invited him to my birthday party. He asked me out three days later and the rest is history. Seven months later we were married in the Oakland, CA temple.
Now as I said earlier I am an indexing addict. The bishopric has asked me to speak about that to you today.
I’d like to begin by telling all of you how (and why) I got into indexing. Right after we got married David and I were called as the family history consultants in our ward. When we were given the calling our bishopric told us we had two jobs; to help ward members get family names to the temple through the family history class and to get the ward indexing. I was incredibly intimidated by the assignment. I had never logged onto the family search website before and had no idea what to do with that. But even more embarrassing, I had no idea what indexing was. When we walked out of the meeting I still had no idea, so like a good college student I went and did some research.
I learned that indexing is the process of getting documents like census records, draft cards, and birth certificates entered into a searchable database. So that instead of having to go through an entire city’s census records to find a family member people will be able do a word search of a database and be lead straight to the correct documents. “Since 1894, when the Genealogical Society of Utah was established, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has gathered genealogical records to help members research their own family history. The Granite Mountain Records Vault in the mountainside above Salt Lake City now contains nearly two and a half million microfilms from 110 countries and principalities. Very little of the information contained in these films is available online. Family Search indexing creates indexes to this information and makes it available to everyone on the Internet.” (Ensign August 2007).
My first thoughts were, okay that’s cool, (as someone who was currently spending hours pouring over census records from 1870 I could appreciate what the indexing project was trying to accomplish). But I also felt that I should probably spend my time getting my own family in order, making sure all the work was done as far back as I could go. “I mean as a history major I should have the skills and training to find things my Great-Aunt Becky couldn’t, right?”
Well I got on family search and boy was I wrong. I should preface this story by saying that my family is the exception to the rule, even for someone who is descended from pioneer stock on both sides of the family. If you have not been on family search, or not really looked through it, because you assume that the work has already been done I can almost guarantee that you are wrong, most of us have work and people waiting for us to get up and find them. I, at least on my side of the family, am not so lucky. I found out later that a very wealthy aunt on my mom’s side had hired the genealogy done and completed all the work back to Charlemagne. And on my father’s, well turns out Aunt Becky was a professional genealogist. To my great disappointment no matter how hard I looked the only names I could find that were marked and needing work, were doubles (people entered into the system more than once). In order to do any more of the work I would have to travel to France or England and start crawling around really old graveyards and digging through old church records. As newly married students David and I just didn’t have the money for that.
I was incredibly disappointed! Here I was, the new family history consultant and a history major, and I lacked the resources to do the temple work for my kindred dead. What was I going to be able to teach? How was I going to motivate the ward if I myself wasn’t doing anything? It was then I remembered the second part of my calling. “To get the ward indexing.” So I hopped on and created an account. Two hours later I had completed 6 batches and had to pull myself away to go make dinner. I couldn’t believe how addicting and enjoyable it was. I thought it would be horrible, I mean I was already spending hours looking at census records for my history capstone paper, there was no way that looking at more should have been at all enjoyable. But it was. I was like eating potatoes chips, you can’t stop at one.
Indexing became, and remains, my personal therapy. When school work, family drama, or other issues became too much to handle I would log on and do several batches. And for a while that was all it was, a mind numbing way of distancing myself from problems without feeling like I was completely wasting my time. Then the Lord sent me the New York census from 1920.
Many of you probably don’t know that my husband is the desendent of east European Jews. In fact when you watch the movie Fiddler on the Roof you are watching the story of my husband’s family. So perhaps you will understand why, when I started indexing the NYC census from 1920, and did three pages of Rosenberg, Moskovitz, and Rosenthal’s I started to cry. Though none of the names I indexed that day were my husband’s direct ancestor’s I still believe that someone out there was doing the other pages that had their names, and that someday when those records are made more available we will be able to find and do that work. That was the moment I realized how beyond cool this project was. This is a key part of our modern day mission to help find and redeem, not only our own, but others kindred dead. I firmly believe, and pray that, the day will come when the records from all the churches in Europe, the temples in
Asia, and the Mosques in the Middle East will be available to be indexed so that we can each find those kindred dead who we’re are unable to find now. It is that faith that helps keep me excited about the work. Even though I may never actually do the batch of names that hold the names of my family members, I am doing the names of someone else’s family.
I truly believe that being assigned those pages was not an accident, but Heavenly Father teaching me something important. These pages are not just names from years past; they hold the stories, and the futures of people and families. Every name indexed is another piece in someone’s family puzzle, another clue to where they come from. It reminds me of an Ancestry.com commercial where an African American man talks about looking through is family tree. He found a census and other records showing that his great-grandfather had been born a slave but died a business man. Without indexing, and other projects like it, discoveries like that would be much more difficult to make and families would miss out on the beautiful things that can occur when they are joined together across generations of time.
There is so much work to be done, brothers and sisters. I would like for a moment to speak to those we are blessed to know another language. The church is working on getting indexing set up for many languages but currently there are seven; English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. Looking out into this congregation I see several brothers and sisters that I know speak and read these languges, and there are probably more that I do not know about. There is a need for your skills. There are not enough people indexing who speak these languages to keep up with the demand. I can think of few better uses for your talent than to use it helping the members who speak these languages find their loved ones so they can do the work. The more records we can get completed the more other countries will be will to let us index their records and the more people we will be able to find.
I know I have been slamming all of you with a lot of ‘do indexing’ and that many of you may not be sure how to fit one more thing into your day. Trust me I understand. We are told to work, go to school, take care of our children, keep the house clean, read our scriptures every day, pray several times a day, get to the temple once a month, and write in a journal, trying to fit indexing into all that can seem a daunting task. So here are some ideas:
1) Just do 5-10 min a day. The indexing program is perfectly set up for this. Once you have downloaded a batch you have at least a week to finish it. You can close and reopen it without losing work. Since the average batch should only take 30 min you can still get a batch done a week in the time it takes you to check your facebook and read a blog post.
2) Do smaller batches. Not all the projects and batches are 50 names. Many, like drafts and birth records, are fewer and have less data to extract. This means they take less time and you still are contributing to the effort.
3) Return batches with crazy handwriting. You can return a batch for other people to do and that is more than okay. If you look over the batch and realize that the person who wrote it must have been trying to write with the wrong hand in the middle of an earthquake send it back and let other people deal with it. You will find indexing much more enjoyable if you aren’t spending 20 min trying to figure out if line one is Sara or Kara.
4) Take the time to realize who these people were and what their lives may have been like. The Oklahoma census from 1930 is much more interesting when you remember that many of these people were on the verge of losing their farms to a massive dust storm and that countless of them would end up moving across the country looking work in places like California and Oregon. As you take the time to remember or learn about what these people’s lives may have entailed you will feel a deeper kinship and a desire to help get them closer to the temple.
The family history work is no longer in the hands of the old men and women in family history centers around the world. We are the children of the digital age, and the work is coming to us. We need to do our part to make the work of finding family members easier. I hope that my children never have to be held back from doing genealogy because they can’t afford to travel the world, and if we do all we can it will become possible for our children or grandchildren to simply go online and look through the documents of a tiny little French church and find family names that perhaps would have been hidden forever.
July 11, 2011
Good morning brothers and sisters, my name is Leslie Pelon and I am an Indexing addict. Before I get into that however I’ll give the customary introduction of my family.
David and I have been married for a little over a year now and we are expecting a baby boy around Thanksgiving. I graduated in History and have been substitute teaching, while David is finishing up his degree getting ready for pharmacy school. Quick story of how we met, David and I were both working custodial for BYU and we met when I sprayed him with water. A few weeks later I invited him to my birthday party. He asked me out three days later and the rest is history. Seven months later we were married in the Oakland, CA temple.
Now as I said earlier I am an indexing addict. The bishopric has asked me to speak about that to you today.
I’d like to begin by telling all of you how (and why) I got into indexing. Right after we got married David and I were called as the family history consultants in our ward. When we were given the calling our bishopric told us we had two jobs; to help ward members get family names to the temple through the family history class and to get the ward indexing. I was incredibly intimidated by the assignment. I had never logged onto the family search website before and had no idea what to do with that. But even more embarrassing, I had no idea what indexing was. When we walked out of the meeting I still had no idea, so like a good college student I went and did some research.
I learned that indexing is the process of getting documents like census records, draft cards, and birth certificates entered into a searchable database. So that instead of having to go through an entire city’s census records to find a family member people will be able do a word search of a database and be lead straight to the correct documents. “Since 1894, when the Genealogical Society of Utah was established, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has gathered genealogical records to help members research their own family history. The Granite Mountain Records Vault in the mountainside above Salt Lake City now contains nearly two and a half million microfilms from 110 countries and principalities. Very little of the information contained in these films is available online. Family Search indexing creates indexes to this information and makes it available to everyone on the Internet.” (Ensign August 2007).
My first thoughts were, okay that’s cool, (as someone who was currently spending hours pouring over census records from 1870 I could appreciate what the indexing project was trying to accomplish). But I also felt that I should probably spend my time getting my own family in order, making sure all the work was done as far back as I could go. “I mean as a history major I should have the skills and training to find things my Great-Aunt Becky couldn’t, right?”
Well I got on family search and boy was I wrong. I should preface this story by saying that my family is the exception to the rule, even for someone who is descended from pioneer stock on both sides of the family. If you have not been on family search, or not really looked through it, because you assume that the work has already been done I can almost guarantee that you are wrong, most of us have work and people waiting for us to get up and find them. I, at least on my side of the family, am not so lucky. I found out later that a very wealthy aunt on my mom’s side had hired the genealogy done and completed all the work back to Charlemagne. And on my father’s, well turns out Aunt Becky was a professional genealogist. To my great disappointment no matter how hard I looked the only names I could find that were marked and needing work, were doubles (people entered into the system more than once). In order to do any more of the work I would have to travel to France or England and start crawling around really old graveyards and digging through old church records. As newly married students David and I just didn’t have the money for that.
I was incredibly disappointed! Here I was, the new family history consultant and a history major, and I lacked the resources to do the temple work for my kindred dead. What was I going to be able to teach? How was I going to motivate the ward if I myself wasn’t doing anything? It was then I remembered the second part of my calling. “To get the ward indexing.” So I hopped on and created an account. Two hours later I had completed 6 batches and had to pull myself away to go make dinner. I couldn’t believe how addicting and enjoyable it was. I thought it would be horrible, I mean I was already spending hours looking at census records for my history capstone paper, there was no way that looking at more should have been at all enjoyable. But it was. I was like eating potatoes chips, you can’t stop at one.
Indexing became, and remains, my personal therapy. When school work, family drama, or other issues became too much to handle I would log on and do several batches. And for a while that was all it was, a mind numbing way of distancing myself from problems without feeling like I was completely wasting my time. Then the Lord sent me the New York census from 1920.
Many of you probably don’t know that my husband is the desendent of east European Jews. In fact when you watch the movie Fiddler on the Roof you are watching the story of my husband’s family. So perhaps you will understand why, when I started indexing the NYC census from 1920, and did three pages of Rosenberg, Moskovitz, and Rosenthal’s I started to cry. Though none of the names I indexed that day were my husband’s direct ancestor’s I still believe that someone out there was doing the other pages that had their names, and that someday when those records are made more available we will be able to find and do that work. That was the moment I realized how beyond cool this project was. This is a key part of our modern day mission to help find and redeem, not only our own, but others kindred dead. I firmly believe, and pray that, the day will come when the records from all the churches in Europe, the temples in
Asia, and the Mosques in the Middle East will be available to be indexed so that we can each find those kindred dead who we’re are unable to find now. It is that faith that helps keep me excited about the work. Even though I may never actually do the batch of names that hold the names of my family members, I am doing the names of someone else’s family.
I truly believe that being assigned those pages was not an accident, but Heavenly Father teaching me something important. These pages are not just names from years past; they hold the stories, and the futures of people and families. Every name indexed is another piece in someone’s family puzzle, another clue to where they come from. It reminds me of an Ancestry.com commercial where an African American man talks about looking through is family tree. He found a census and other records showing that his great-grandfather had been born a slave but died a business man. Without indexing, and other projects like it, discoveries like that would be much more difficult to make and families would miss out on the beautiful things that can occur when they are joined together across generations of time.
There is so much work to be done, brothers and sisters. I would like for a moment to speak to those we are blessed to know another language. The church is working on getting indexing set up for many languages but currently there are seven; English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. Looking out into this congregation I see several brothers and sisters that I know speak and read these languges, and there are probably more that I do not know about. There is a need for your skills. There are not enough people indexing who speak these languages to keep up with the demand. I can think of few better uses for your talent than to use it helping the members who speak these languages find their loved ones so they can do the work. The more records we can get completed the more other countries will be will to let us index their records and the more people we will be able to find.
I know I have been slamming all of you with a lot of ‘do indexing’ and that many of you may not be sure how to fit one more thing into your day. Trust me I understand. We are told to work, go to school, take care of our children, keep the house clean, read our scriptures every day, pray several times a day, get to the temple once a month, and write in a journal, trying to fit indexing into all that can seem a daunting task. So here are some ideas:
1) Just do 5-10 min a day. The indexing program is perfectly set up for this. Once you have downloaded a batch you have at least a week to finish it. You can close and reopen it without losing work. Since the average batch should only take 30 min you can still get a batch done a week in the time it takes you to check your facebook and read a blog post.
2) Do smaller batches. Not all the projects and batches are 50 names. Many, like drafts and birth records, are fewer and have less data to extract. This means they take less time and you still are contributing to the effort.
3) Return batches with crazy handwriting. You can return a batch for other people to do and that is more than okay. If you look over the batch and realize that the person who wrote it must have been trying to write with the wrong hand in the middle of an earthquake send it back and let other people deal with it. You will find indexing much more enjoyable if you aren’t spending 20 min trying to figure out if line one is Sara or Kara.
4) Take the time to realize who these people were and what their lives may have been like. The Oklahoma census from 1930 is much more interesting when you remember that many of these people were on the verge of losing their farms to a massive dust storm and that countless of them would end up moving across the country looking work in places like California and Oregon. As you take the time to remember or learn about what these people’s lives may have entailed you will feel a deeper kinship and a desire to help get them closer to the temple.
The family history work is no longer in the hands of the old men and women in family history centers around the world. We are the children of the digital age, and the work is coming to us. We need to do our part to make the work of finding family members easier. I hope that my children never have to be held back from doing genealogy because they can’t afford to travel the world, and if we do all we can it will become possible for our children or grandchildren to simply go online and look through the documents of a tiny little French church and find family names that perhaps would have been hidden forever.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
IT'S A BOY!!!!
Dear world we are pleased to announce we are having a boy! Our ultrasound turned out well with nothing appearing out of place! Nothing where it should not be and everything where it should be. Little DJ (David Jeffrey) was a bit of a pill and refused to pose pretty for the pictures, in fact the ultrasound tech said that in twenty years he had never had a baby who was less cooperative. But we got definite proof that we are having a boy! Here is the closest we came to a whole baby profile picture! (Not going to lie I think he has an adorable bottom! hehe)
Sunday, June 19, 2011
A Father's Day Tribute to my Daddy
I am the luckiest woman in the world! I have the most wonderful Daddy in the entire world! I have always loved him so much. I was lucky enough to have him at home most of the time when I was little, something that many kids don't get. He is the one who did my hair for church and went on school field trips with me. When I got older he was the one who always got so angry when I didn't get the boy I wanted or played 'Eponine' with my guy friends. He was willing to call my teacher's less that polite names when they were being jerks, and hold me to a higher standard when it was my fault for slacking off. Some of my favorite memories from high school are coming home for stake dances to find him waiting up, and then while the whole house was asleep we would stay up and talk till 2 or 3 in the morning about everything and anything and nothing. He was the first person to give me flowers. He made coming to BYU possible even when I didn't always deserve it. He's the person I called at 5 am UT time (4 am CA time) because my car wouldn't start. He always takes the time to talk when I call. Perhaps one of my favorite things about him is how much he has loved David as his own son from the very begining. I am so excited (even if he is quite so sure about it) that my kids get to call him Grandpa. He has always been the Priesthood holder and I am so grateful that he was able to bless, baptize, and confirm me, as well as being a witness at our sealing. Thanks for teaching me to cook without directions and try to fix a car. I love you Daddy!
Oh really quick David got his first Father's Day card... I love you honey!
Oh really quick David got his first Father's Day card... I love you honey!
Late night hanging with old friends... equals missing church... opps
So for some reason David and I have gone from being total home bodies who never see anybody to being really social and having plans all over the place! and the turn around happened over less than a week! I'm not kidding... a week ago when i wrote up the calender we had 4 events (one of them being Father's Day which we didn't really have any plans for. This week ended up having 3 events and this next week is full except for Tuesday! Both of us are enjoying the crazyness but are definatly tired at the end of the day... man we are getting old!
Oh before I get into the craziness of the week I'll give a quick update on my finger. It was not broken thank goodness! After a call to my mom (it is such a blessing to have an RN in the family!!) David was able to pop my finger. Can I tell you that hurt like pickle juice in your eye! However it seemed that was all my finger needed, within a few hours the swelling was way down and other than a nasty bruise it is now completly back to normal! Yeah! David does want me to make it clear that no daughter of his will be 22 years old and still unable to catch a football! He's pretty disgusted with me about that. LOL.
Thursday morning was super productive! I ended up doing the laundry and decided that it was probably time to put all the winter quilts away, which of course meant i had to wash them first. For all those who live in Wymount and use laundry mat 3 I'm sorry if you tried to do laundry that morning and all the washing machines were taken, 7 of them were mine and I am sorry. But when I walked in and saw that all the machines were empty I couldn't help it! While the laundry was going I did dishes and cleaned out the fridge! After all that I was pretty tired and David let me take a very nice afternoon nap. Thank you baby!
Thursday night we got a fun suprise call from our friend C.J. inviting us over for dinner at his place that night. We actually had thought he was in New Mexico selling stuff, but nope he's been here all spring. We felt silly. But we went over and had an amazing fettichini alfrado dinner. C.J. is a really good cook and as always his food hit the spot. He had also invited his Uncle and cousins over. His Uncle has a 3 month old little girl who is just adorable! And when everyone went swimming I got to hold her so her mom could play in the water with the other little kids. I have always loved holding babies but now I'm gonna have one it is even cooler. As much fun as catching up with C.J. was, and as good as the food was holding that little girl for 20 min was the highlight for me! She was just so cute!
Friday was pretty quiet just some basic cleaning and a grocery run.
Saturday was deep cleaning day! I (finally) got caught up on dishes (which David will tell you is a minor miracle in and of its self). I moved furniture, vacuumed (my least favorite chore ever!), and bleached the heck out of the bathroom! I wish I could claim self motivation for this burst of cleaning, but alas, I had realized that I had invited my dear friends Sarah and Jeff Clark over for dinner and games that night. There was no way they were coming over unless my house was perfect! Oh well, at least now its back to where it was before morning sickness killed me, hopefulling I can keep my house this way. It is so true that keeping a house clean is much easier than getting it clean! Sarah and Jeff came over and we had spagettie night! Yeah!! I realized when it took me 5 min to find my olive oil (it was hiding behind the Cheese-itz) that it had been a long time since I made pasta for dinner, which is sad since spagetti is one of my favorite foods hands down. Happy day baby likes it too!!! Happy Dance!! After dinner we played a (long) game of Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights. For those who have never played Catan you are missing out! The basic run down is that you build cities and settlement that give you access to recourses, which you then roll to earn. The goal is to get to certian number of Victory Points first buy building the most things. Any way, poor Jeff got his butt completly kicked almost from the very begining! He was a pretty good sport about it though. I ended up winning (thats right! whose the Queen of Catan) and Jeff and Sarah introduced us to a card game called Bang. Its an Italian game based on the Wild West. Kind of like Mafia the goal is for the Sheriff to kill the outlaws first, and the outlaws are trying to kill the Sheriff first. Jeff completly dominated the first round, and then I came back and kicked his butt in the second! We were having so much fun goofing off together that before we realized it was past 11pm and time to go to bed. I fell asleep soon after they left and did not move until 1 pm. I completly slept through my alarm and all three hours of church, oops! I guess I'm getting too old and boring to stay up that late on a Saturday night, but Sarah and Jeff are deffinatly worth the sleepies.
Well thats all for the basic run down of our life. I'm going to do a seperate Father's Day post.
Over and out!
Oh before I get into the craziness of the week I'll give a quick update on my finger. It was not broken thank goodness! After a call to my mom (it is such a blessing to have an RN in the family!!) David was able to pop my finger. Can I tell you that hurt like pickle juice in your eye! However it seemed that was all my finger needed, within a few hours the swelling was way down and other than a nasty bruise it is now completly back to normal! Yeah! David does want me to make it clear that no daughter of his will be 22 years old and still unable to catch a football! He's pretty disgusted with me about that. LOL.
Thursday morning was super productive! I ended up doing the laundry and decided that it was probably time to put all the winter quilts away, which of course meant i had to wash them first. For all those who live in Wymount and use laundry mat 3 I'm sorry if you tried to do laundry that morning and all the washing machines were taken, 7 of them were mine and I am sorry. But when I walked in and saw that all the machines were empty I couldn't help it! While the laundry was going I did dishes and cleaned out the fridge! After all that I was pretty tired and David let me take a very nice afternoon nap. Thank you baby!
Thursday night we got a fun suprise call from our friend C.J. inviting us over for dinner at his place that night. We actually had thought he was in New Mexico selling stuff, but nope he's been here all spring. We felt silly. But we went over and had an amazing fettichini alfrado dinner. C.J. is a really good cook and as always his food hit the spot. He had also invited his Uncle and cousins over. His Uncle has a 3 month old little girl who is just adorable! And when everyone went swimming I got to hold her so her mom could play in the water with the other little kids. I have always loved holding babies but now I'm gonna have one it is even cooler. As much fun as catching up with C.J. was, and as good as the food was holding that little girl for 20 min was the highlight for me! She was just so cute!
Friday was pretty quiet just some basic cleaning and a grocery run.
Saturday was deep cleaning day! I (finally) got caught up on dishes (which David will tell you is a minor miracle in and of its self). I moved furniture, vacuumed (my least favorite chore ever!), and bleached the heck out of the bathroom! I wish I could claim self motivation for this burst of cleaning, but alas, I had realized that I had invited my dear friends Sarah and Jeff Clark over for dinner and games that night. There was no way they were coming over unless my house was perfect! Oh well, at least now its back to where it was before morning sickness killed me, hopefulling I can keep my house this way. It is so true that keeping a house clean is much easier than getting it clean! Sarah and Jeff came over and we had spagettie night! Yeah!! I realized when it took me 5 min to find my olive oil (it was hiding behind the Cheese-itz) that it had been a long time since I made pasta for dinner, which is sad since spagetti is one of my favorite foods hands down. Happy day baby likes it too!!! Happy Dance!! After dinner we played a (long) game of Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights. For those who have never played Catan you are missing out! The basic run down is that you build cities and settlement that give you access to recourses, which you then roll to earn. The goal is to get to certian number of Victory Points first buy building the most things. Any way, poor Jeff got his butt completly kicked almost from the very begining! He was a pretty good sport about it though. I ended up winning (thats right! whose the Queen of Catan) and Jeff and Sarah introduced us to a card game called Bang. Its an Italian game based on the Wild West. Kind of like Mafia the goal is for the Sheriff to kill the outlaws first, and the outlaws are trying to kill the Sheriff first. Jeff completly dominated the first round, and then I came back and kicked his butt in the second! We were having so much fun goofing off together that before we realized it was past 11pm and time to go to bed. I fell asleep soon after they left and did not move until 1 pm. I completly slept through my alarm and all three hours of church, oops! I guess I'm getting too old and boring to stay up that late on a Saturday night, but Sarah and Jeff are deffinatly worth the sleepies.
Well thats all for the basic run down of our life. I'm going to do a seperate Father's Day post.
Over and out!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Late Nights watching Shakespeare movies... lends to being better at blogging!
So its been an interesting week so far. Monday was pretty chill, the only thing of note was that I got an email from my father telling me that my Great Aunt Debbie Keele Blair had suffered a massive heart attack and was showing no brain activity. I was sad to hear it and even sadder to hear the next morning that she had passed. She was only 54 and I wish I had known her better. I was talking to my Dad about her today and trying to remember her better. It was really cool to hear him talk about her and what a sweet and kind woman she was. Neither of us can remember whether the memory I'm about to share was her or her sister Becky but Dad says it would have been in total character of Debbie to do this. When I was about six my Great Grandma Keele (Debbie's mother) passed away. She had lived in Hawaii and I hadn't had the chance to spend much time with her but was still devastated by her loss. After the funeral the family all gathered at the family home in Spanish Fork where a table had been spread with various pieces of jewelry, handkerchiefs, and other small belongings of Grandma's for people to look through and pick a few of their own. Picture if you can a six year old girl having just come from her first funeral and absolutely devastated by losing a grandparent. Then, my aunt Debbie (or it might have been Becky) came and led me to the table and helped me pick a pair of earings and some cloth doilies to make into a shadow box. Afterwards she took me to the corner and tried to teach me to crochet. It is one of my most treasured childhood memories and shows the kind of person my Aunt was. Not many women, or people, would be aware enough at their own mother's funeral to comfort a small child that wasn't their own. I hope that someday I am that aware and caring of others. Debbie will be deeply missed by all who knew her.
Tuesday morning David and I were invited to the temple by a couple in our ward. I have had a difficult time getting myself to go to the temple on a regular basis because I do not yet feel comfortable going without another woman with me. I am always grateful for the opportunity to go with others and am grateful that Greg and Erin Treasure thought to ask us. I did have a rather unpleasant moment while I was there. I had a "your mother was right moment." Those are always bitter experiences. Here is the story. When I was preparing to get married I went shopping for a temple dress with my mother and Grandmother. I wanted one of the more modern, fitted, and stylish dresses. My mother however insisted I get one that zipped up the front and had plenty of room in the waist for a baby belly, since Grandma was buying she and my mother won the argument and I got a nice but very simple and 'older' looking dress that fit all of their requirements. So... back to the present day. I got into the changing room at the temple and suddenly realized that I might have to rent a dress because I would not fit in mine. I put on my slip (barley squeezing my new 'ba booms' into it) then the moment of truth came and on went the temple dress with no problems whatsoever. So I am here to say, yes mom you were right, yet again I bow to your greater wisdom and am glad I took it.
Besides that unpleasantness going to the temple was a wonderful and blessed experienced. I am so grateful to live so near to a temple and especially so near to one that is large enough that you don't have to call ahead to make sure there is room int eh session. The temple is a place of such peace, beauty, and love that I always leave feeling so rejuvenated in my faith and my love of the gospel. I also always feel a renewed conviction to be a worthy wife and mother so that I enjoy the blessings and promises that can be ours if I am faithful. I am so blessed to have a temple marriage.
Tuesday night David and I went to dinner at our friends home. Laralynn and Rodney are friends from our first married ward and we love hanging out with them and their daughter Kaylee. Kaylee usually is tolerant but not excited about visitors but for some reason she really liked David. We had brought dominoes to play and he opened the box and set them up and knocked them over with her for a good half hour. Then she had to take him back and show him her toy kitchen and how she can fill her spoons with 'water' from the tap and make treats. It was really cute to watch him play with her. He is going to be such a good Daddy I am really excited to watch him play with our baby.
Today I woke up at 2:25 having to pee, only to hear David's alarm while I was in the bathroom. I didn't really feel like going back to bed so I sat up with him while he got ready for work. Right after he left I lost the small breakfast I had eaten and remembered that I had not taken my Unisom. So I took one then (around 4:30) and went to bed. Needless to say I slept till mid afternoon and did not have a very productive day. After David went to bed I went outside into the quad where several people were throwing around a football. Despite my usual distaste for that sort of activity I joined in, and what do I get for it? I jammed my left ring and middle fingers. I was able to pop the middle one out enough so that now it doesn't hurt any more, but my ring finger is another story. Its turning blue, wont bend, and has swollen to the point my wedding is uncomfortable but I can't get it off. I really hope I didn't break it, that would be like me though. I hoping that when David gets up he'll be able to pop it like I did the middle finger. Its actually hurting bad enough I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep till he gets up for work anyway, its moments like this that makes me miss being able to take pain meds.
Oh speaking of pregnancy this baby is still craving fruit like nothing else, specifically nectaries and watermelon. I have also developed a taste for croissants. In fact I could live very happily if all I was given was a bag of nectaries, a croissant, and half a watermelon with a spoon. In fact that might be heaven in food from. Yum, writing about has made baby and I both hungry so I shall pull out the watermelon and have a feast.
Over and Out!
Tuesday morning David and I were invited to the temple by a couple in our ward. I have had a difficult time getting myself to go to the temple on a regular basis because I do not yet feel comfortable going without another woman with me. I am always grateful for the opportunity to go with others and am grateful that Greg and Erin Treasure thought to ask us. I did have a rather unpleasant moment while I was there. I had a "your mother was right moment." Those are always bitter experiences. Here is the story. When I was preparing to get married I went shopping for a temple dress with my mother and Grandmother. I wanted one of the more modern, fitted, and stylish dresses. My mother however insisted I get one that zipped up the front and had plenty of room in the waist for a baby belly, since Grandma was buying she and my mother won the argument and I got a nice but very simple and 'older' looking dress that fit all of their requirements. So... back to the present day. I got into the changing room at the temple and suddenly realized that I might have to rent a dress because I would not fit in mine. I put on my slip (barley squeezing my new 'ba booms' into it) then the moment of truth came and on went the temple dress with no problems whatsoever. So I am here to say, yes mom you were right, yet again I bow to your greater wisdom and am glad I took it.
Besides that unpleasantness going to the temple was a wonderful and blessed experienced. I am so grateful to live so near to a temple and especially so near to one that is large enough that you don't have to call ahead to make sure there is room int eh session. The temple is a place of such peace, beauty, and love that I always leave feeling so rejuvenated in my faith and my love of the gospel. I also always feel a renewed conviction to be a worthy wife and mother so that I enjoy the blessings and promises that can be ours if I am faithful. I am so blessed to have a temple marriage.
Tuesday night David and I went to dinner at our friends home. Laralynn and Rodney are friends from our first married ward and we love hanging out with them and their daughter Kaylee. Kaylee usually is tolerant but not excited about visitors but for some reason she really liked David. We had brought dominoes to play and he opened the box and set them up and knocked them over with her for a good half hour. Then she had to take him back and show him her toy kitchen and how she can fill her spoons with 'water' from the tap and make treats. It was really cute to watch him play with her. He is going to be such a good Daddy I am really excited to watch him play with our baby.
Today I woke up at 2:25 having to pee, only to hear David's alarm while I was in the bathroom. I didn't really feel like going back to bed so I sat up with him while he got ready for work. Right after he left I lost the small breakfast I had eaten and remembered that I had not taken my Unisom. So I took one then (around 4:30) and went to bed. Needless to say I slept till mid afternoon and did not have a very productive day. After David went to bed I went outside into the quad where several people were throwing around a football. Despite my usual distaste for that sort of activity I joined in, and what do I get for it? I jammed my left ring and middle fingers. I was able to pop the middle one out enough so that now it doesn't hurt any more, but my ring finger is another story. Its turning blue, wont bend, and has swollen to the point my wedding is uncomfortable but I can't get it off. I really hope I didn't break it, that would be like me though. I hoping that when David gets up he'll be able to pop it like I did the middle finger. Its actually hurting bad enough I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep till he gets up for work anyway, its moments like this that makes me miss being able to take pain meds.
Oh speaking of pregnancy this baby is still craving fruit like nothing else, specifically nectaries and watermelon. I have also developed a taste for croissants. In fact I could live very happily if all I was given was a bag of nectaries, a croissant, and half a watermelon with a spoon. In fact that might be heaven in food from. Yum, writing about has made baby and I both hungry so I shall pull out the watermelon and have a feast.
Over and Out!
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