You never know

If this baby ends up being a boy, I'm going to have to deal with a major paradigm shift...

An excuse to make more cupcakes!

Today was a good day.  My dear friend, Emily, threw me a baby shower!  Of course, my first thought was, "Can I make cupcakes for it?"  My second thought was... "gosh, I don't know very many people to invite." I'm really quite a hermit. I sit in my house all day working on weekdays, and on the weekends I'm traveling with my stake calling half the time, so I don't even know a lot of people at church. I feel blessed that so many people came to my shower! Thank you to everyone who came! And thank you, Emily for making it happen! And thank you to all who ate my cupcakes!

Sh-Boom

36 weeks today! Hurray! This little girl is in no hurry to get here.

When I told Scott that she was transverse breech, he layed out with his hands behind his head and his feet up, "Like this?" This little girl is hanging out like I'm her own personal hammock. During my appointment yesterday, the doctor said I was measuring small, so she decided to do an ultrasound to check on some measurements. When we got in the ultrasound room, every time the doctor was trying to get measurements, the baby would kick the sensor out of the way, over and over. It started to get so funny I had to laugh, which didn't make it any easier. They had me do a "no-stress" test, too, where I sat for 20 minutes while they monitored the baby's heart, and she passed that with flying colors. In fact the nurse said, "That is one of the most perfect no-stress test results I've seen in a long time."

Ever since then I've had the "Sh-Boom" song (aka "Life could be a dream") in my head. It seemed like a fitting soundtrack for a baby in the womb who's living large, in no hurry to get out and teases us by kicking away instruments that disrupt her personal watery pea pod. The verdict of all my tests? My baby is healthy, but small. The current prediction is she's 5 lbs 3 oz. Small, but not critically. I'm not too worried about the breech part. She'll flip when she's ready.

Baby Britta

I've been thinking about what our baby bundle is going to look like, so I looked up some baby pictures of myself. Above is a picture of me at about six months. Aaaww... look at those pudgy cheeks and cute neck fat rolls. The only baby picture of Scott that I have doesn't really give me a clear idea of what he looked like as a baby, but I'm sure he was cute, too (when he wasn't crying). Surprisingly, we both had hair! Our baby will probably look more like the pink Britta baby blob below when she makes her first apperance.

Nesting?

With the combination of a new first house, a new first baby, a new first yard, and our first ant infestation, I'm not sure if my current passions are just me or if it's my nesting instinct kicking in.

I'm very excited to make our lawn look good and start a garden. My seedlings started sprouting yesterday! Scott calls them my little green babies.

Part of my nesting instinct I believe is this desire to make baked sweets. Unfortunately half the time I don't want to eat them. Just make them and make them pretty.

I mentioned the ant infestation because it's leading me to maintain a different level of cleanliness in the kitchen sink than I normally do, and cleaning is one of the most common nesting instincts I've heard about (and something I'm admittedly not good at).

I've had the urge to sew things, however, the lack of a sewing machine easily puts a damper on those urges.

I've also started working on the baby's room/my office. It's going to be a cozy room with too much stuff, but I'll post pictures when it starts looking presentable.

Skype

We are new to Skype, but we love it. We have used it twice. Britta's family is going to start to use it to keep in touch with each other. This is a photo of Britta talking with her dad. Growing up we had neighbors who had one of the first video phones. The display was monochromatic LCD and probably 4 bit resolution. Nobody else had a videophone, so it was completely useless. But it was cool. Also, I think Nickelodeon was having a promotion at the time (I think it must've been in 1992) when their winning contestants were awarded with videophones. This is so much better. You ought to call us sometime!
On another note (pun intended) I awoke this morning to hear a bright red cardinal singing on our back yard fence. It wasn't long before this female cardinal came and called back to the male, and they both bounced along the fence and the shrubs before flying off together. I had just enough time to take a bad picture. I love spring!

Cake eaters

Scott was accurate in the fact that I've never made or used fondant before.  I have, however, made white cake before (during my cake phase), but never successfully.  And that hasn't changed.  Although this white cake was very fun to make, and it wasn't dry and it had a good flavor, it was terribly dense.

I think I'm done attempting white cakes.  They're kind of a pain.  And I like egg yolks.  I guess it's on to yellow cakes!

What do you do on General Conference Saturdays?

Britta decided to try and make a white cake covered with two colors of fondant. She has never made a white cake before, nor has she made fondant. She was having a blast, molding the covering with her tongue sticking out half the time. She calls it "amateurish". I call it "mmmm".
I am trying to subtly start a tradition of cinnamon rolls and orange juice for breakfast on Saturday with family pizza night following the Priesthood session. The Pizza tradition started with my dad and my older brothers, and I am trying to keep it in their honor despite our separations to different states. I hope you guys keep it up, too! The cinnamon rolls are just a new thing because I like them.
Do you have any family traditions for General Conference?