Princess For a Night

These are a few weeks old, but I had to share them. My friend had the brilliant idea to get a group to go to opening night of Cinderella dressed as PRINCESSES. I thought it was such a fun idea! We figured maybe a couple other people might want to some along, but we ended up having a group of over 20 women come! It was SUCH A BLAST. Silly, yes, but still so fun. There was a group of little girls there who wanted pictures with us.

The little girl was there for her birthday and wanted a picture with the princesses. :)

My friend in the middle was the brains behind this fabulous night. 

I borrowed a friends prom dress from high school. I couldn't believe it fit over my belly...it wouldn't have a week later. 

Emery was asking where I was going and it was funny telling her I was going to a princess party with my friends. She didn't think that was weird at all. :) I firmly believe that you are never too old for dress-up! 

The movie was so cute, I loved the "have courage and be kind" theme. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it whole-heartedly!

Butterflies!

Emery and I recently went with some friends to the Butterfly Pavilion. I love that place. They were feeding the poisonous tree frogs right when we got there so we got to see them up close. Usually they are hiding in the plants and hard to see. These frogs actually aren't poisonous since the bugs they are fed aren't poisonous, but their colors are amazingly vibrant.

The frogs look fake to me when I see them because they are so brightly colored. 

 At the end of the exhibit they have a little display about bugs eaten around the world and a vending machine where you can buy bugs to eat. Emery was begging me to buy some, and I definitely couldn't refuse that request! My kid wants to eat bugs? Heck yes I'm buying some and going to video tape her reaction! So we bought some chocolate covered worms of some kind (shaped like larvae or mealworm) and passed them around. Emery was the first to go and she acted like it was no big deal. I kept trying to freak her out a little bit by saying stuff like, "Emery, THIS IS A REAL BUG. You are going to EAT a BUG. A BUG." But she seemed unphased. She did hesitate for a second and broke off a piece of the chocolate to eat, but once she realized it was real chocolate she just popped it right in her mouth and asked for more. My friend and her daughter also ate one, they said it wasn't too bad minus the feet that got stuck in your teeth. Blech! I did not eat one...I pulled the pregnancy card, "well...I might puke...you know, because I'm pregnant and all..." Really it just sounded too gross to me. I ate a fried mealworm in a college class and the memory of those little legs in my teeth was enough to make me steer clear of these ones, even if they were dipped in chocolate!

Plus 1

I've fallen behind in my blogging (again). This picture tells you why:

There's a BABY in there!!!

We are pregnant and couldn't be happier! I'm 17 weeks along, due early September. We actually found out CHRISTMAS DAY that we were expecting, it was the best Christmas present we could have ever asked for. Our own little Christmas miracle!

I've been pretty sick for the last few months so it's taken me awhile to get this post out. I've been so incredibly grateful for the support I've received from friends here; they've brought food, popsicles when I couldn't keep anything else down, had Emery over for play dates, and just been so understanding while I've fallen short in everything I do the last little while. I'm finally coming out of that dark abyss known as the first trimester and I'm happy to be getting our life back on track...sort of.  

Emery is so excited for this baby. She frequently talks about how our family will soon have 4 people in it. A month or two ago I was watching a little 9 month old girl and she was laying on Emery's lap while we fed her a bottle. Emery got wide eyed, looked up at me and said, "Is this the baby from your belly?!" She was a little disappointed when I told her it wasn't. :) 9 months is a long time to wait when you are 3 years old. 

This next portion might be TMI for those who have never struggled with infertility so feel free to stop reading here. :)

Our journey to get this baby is important to me and I'd like to share it in case it could help someone else. I'll try to keep it brief. We started going to a fertility clinic almost 2 years ago. After a lot of bloodwork, tests, and a few surgeries, they told us we had unexplained secondary infertility (aka you haven't been able to get pregnant again and we don't know why) and that our best chance for pregnancy was IVF. This crushed me. I was a decently healthy not-even-30-year-old woman. I should be able to have a baby without a petri dish--isn't that what my body was MADE TO DO?! So we stopped going to the clinic and decided to keep trying on our own until I either got pregnant or I was ready to try IVF.

Then a friend of mine started seeing a chiropractor/nutritionist/quantum neurologist in our ward and recommended I start seeing him. I told myself I would do whatever he said and follow everything he told me to do for 6 months, and if it didn't work, we would try IVF. And so began a fun journey of a gluten/dairy free diet (so hard for me!), TONS of nutritional/vitamin/mineral supplements (24 pills a day!), and some brain training/nerve stimulating exercises three times a day. I was not excited to jump on the gluten free wagon because of all the ridiculousness surrounding the fad, but I figured I might as well try it. What did we have to lose? After 4 months of seeing Dr. Hayden, BOOM. I was pregnant (I also lost weight...less carbs will do that for ya!). I was so excited and I had never felt healthier and more energetic. Then the pregnancy sickness started and all that healthy energy flushed down the toilet along with everything I ate. So I'm back on a regular diet now because for a few weeks all I could keep down was white bread..and I eat DONUTS again!

I don't know if the things I did would work for anyone else, but Gavin and I were willing to try ANYTHING people told us had worked for them (yes, that statement should make you nervous) so I wanted to share our story. If you have questions feel free to email me.