36ish weeks...

So this is what a normal 36 week pregnancy is supposed to look and feel like... unlike last time (compare the difference) where my tummy was half as big, but my weight gain was higher. Tells you how swollen the rest of my body was. It was pretty grotesque. This time, I haven't had the same crazy pre-eclampsia symptoms as last time (thank goodness). At the time I just thought the absurd swelling, the higher blood pressure and the ophthalmic migraines were normal pregnancy symptoms. Now my biggest complaint is I'm HOT all the time. I love our apartment, but we don't have AC.

I've been telling anyone who asks that my due date is September 14th. This is my due date according to the ultrasound. According to LMP, my due date is September 18, but I'm banking on the September 14th date. I guess only time will tell. Scott is leaving on Friday for two weeks. I'm torn between wanting the baby to wait to come out until he gets back after September 10th, or getting this baby out of me, even if it means not having a husband there, so I can feel a little more comfortable sooner. There are pros and cons to both options. My mom will be here while Scott's gone, but not after...

Rise all loyal cougars...

Did you know Grace can sing the entire Cougar Fight song? In spite of that, I think Cosmo terrified her. She had that wide-eyed stiffness the whole time we were near him when we saw him at Fiesta Days. I think it was a mixture of terror and curiosity.

4th festivities

Despite being daddy-less and totaling maybe 3 hours of sleep the night before, we had a really fun 4th of July. We woke up early to catch the hot air balloon festival. Love it!

The weather patterns weren't cooperating, so they decided not to launch any balloons (except for one that was tethered), but they blew them up for spectators to walk around anyway. That's the funnest part. Grace loved it.

After less than a half hour there was a big gust of wind that instantly blew all the balloons down. It was chaos! Scrambling balloon workers yelling at each other to pull down the balloons, screaming people as the balloons blew on top of them, bystanders jumping on the anchor ropes to help save the balloons - and being dragged in the process. It was quite the drama. All the balloons came down in about 20 seconds.

I love this next picture of Grace eating the strawberry. She loved this whole botched event. She had no idea it was botched. They played music over the loudspeakers and she danced much of the time, even after the balloons had all been packed up.

Then came the parade! Grace whole-heartedly cheered for all the firetrucks and police vehicles that kicked off the parade.

Here's a rare photo of a chubby pregnant Britta and Grace characteristically licking the frosting off a doughnut.
Attention: These next photos are for you Star Wars fans out there. Valerie, I took them especially with your family in mind. Wish you could have seen these.

The parade had over 50 Star Wars characters marching together. The costumes were seriously impressive (and must have been SO HOT).


The afternoon was filled with BBQ fun with my sister's family and her in-laws. Grace was so pooped out that she fell asleep just in time to miss fireworks. Luckily with the new Utah firework laws this year, I had plenty to see from my kitchen window late into the night after she went down.

Hope you all had a happy 4th!

All About Grace: 2 year installment

warning: long post from doting mother

Height: 34" (50 percentile)
Weight: 23 lbs (15 percentile)

There is so much personality in this little girl. She can talk up a storm, laugh at nothing - she's got a hilarious fake laugh, and can sing dozens of songs start to finish. In fact, she knows songs I didn't know she knew, like recently she bust out with this song in the middle of dinner, much to my embarrassment. She substituted "Mommy" for "Daddy" and when I sing it (absent-mindedly) I use the word "gosh" for any questionable profanity. Still, Scott and I just looked at each other with shock. She beamed at us like she was the coolest person alive as she sang and laughed. Honestly, I don't think we'd thought of that song for months before this incident.

If you're a regular follower of my blog, you know Grace loves animals. She is fearless.

Especially when the animals don't seem to want her attention, like random dogs at the park and most cats. She chases after them, begging them to come to her. Size doesn't seem to make an impact on her interest, either. She's been known to chase large weimaraners, getting knocked down in the process, but getting right back up to continue the chase. (Don't worry, I was there and knew the dogs were ok.) A couple months ago I let her outside for a minute while I put my shoes on. By the time I followed her out, this is what I saw:

"C'mere cows"

I think my breath froze as I saw 8 giant cows giving Grace all of their attention. I'm pretty sure she was trying to coax them to her by feeding them dead twigs. Luckily there was an irrigation ditch between them so the cows couldn't reach her.

She still loves soft things and is permanently attached to her blanket. She makes beds out of anything soft. One of her most common "beds" are baskets of clean clothes.

These are also one of her favorite hiding places. She loves to hide and play hide-and-seek. Her favorite hiding place is in our walk-in closet, hiding underneath the long black layers of my witch Halloween costume. The darker it is, the better when we're playing. She likes the lights off and curtains closed. She often says "be darker" and "close curtains" and "turn off the light" and then commands me to pretend sleep while she does the same.

She is a little explorer. She loves being outside, loves dirt, sand, worms, bugs, grass and rocks.

She's smart. I had a conversation with her a couple weeks ago that went something like this:

Grace - "Daddy at work."
Me - "Yup, Daddy's at work"
Grace - "Daddy a doctor."
Mom - "Yes, Daddy is a doctor. You are so smart to know that!"
Grace - "Daddy look eyes. Feel better."
Mom - (shocked) "Yes, he helps people's eyes feel better."
Grace - "Med-cine make cry."
Mom - "Yes, sometimes eye medicine makes you cry" (Scott brought home a Glaucoma book that Grace likes to look through. One of the last illustrations is of an eye with drops being put in and then the eye dripping.)
Grace - (with a happily-ever-after tone) "Feel better!"

It was a surreal conversation. She's really growing up and understanding more than I realize.

Grace eats like a bird, just tiny bits here and there. The only way we can get her excited about eating is letting her eat cooking ingredients raw. Like normal children, she loves licking the spatula when making cookies or sweets and loves pinches of raw bread dough.

But in addition, she begs for raw flour, raw oats (she will eat them by the bowlful), cinnamon, sugar, salt, cornmeal... she asks for the baking powder, too, but I have yet to give in to that one.

Just like her 18 month installment, she still resists the camera. She will look, but almost never smile without me tricking her. Here's the best I could do recently.

Still, how can you not love that face?! I sure do.

White coral bells upon a slender stalk...

...Lily of the Valley line my garden walk.
Oh don't you wish that you could hear them ring?
That can happen only when the fairies sing.

Whenever I see lily of the valley, I think of my mom. These and lilacs are her favorite smelling flowers. I think of sitting in a canoe with my mom and sister in the middle of Many Point Lake on a foggy morning, hearing the eerie sound of loons, hoping to catch a glimpse of one, singing the white coral bell song in a round over and over again. Of course, we learned the song from my mom.

For the first time in my life, I have lily of the valley lining the path to my door! I have this song and memory in my head constantly.

A date with 'Doh

I know I have shared with you Grace's short attention span with anything crafty, but occasionally we have a good time. This normally involves a lot of work or effort on my part, and not much craft on Grace's part.

Case in point, last week we spent about a half hour playing with play-doh. The catch? Grace doesn't make anything, she requires me to make toys for her. Her most requested toy is a baby.

What's funny about this is that she doesn't play with baby dolls. Given the choice between a toy doll and a car, she will 95% of the time choose the car. But somehow a play-doh baby fits in a different category... a category where she becomes the mother.

She always asks for a blanket for the baby. As I was making the blanket, she ran to the tupperware drawer to find a crib. She cuddles the baby, gives it hugs.

And carefully puts it in (and takes it out and puts it in and takes it out of) the crib.

Sometimes she sings a nice lullaby... or marching song to the baby.

Eventually her curiosity or boredom get the best of her and she squishes the baby.

Then requests a new toy.

It's fun to see her play so gently and motherly with the play-doh doll. It makes me wonder why the play-doh gets the mother treatment, but no other toy does.

Tulips everywhere

By the end of this week, Grace and I needed a good escape to uplift our spirits. So we caught the leftovers of the Tulip Festival that officially ended a week ago.

As I suspected, Grace's favorite parts were the water features, splashing and throwing rocks


And feeding the fish.

When I looked at the hundreds of koi fish climbing on each other for the food pellets, I felt like I was watching an M.C. Escher drawing live.

Grace called this her "castle." Below she's beckoning me to join her.

We played ring-around-the-rosie over and over again in the castle.

One of my favorites of the 16 different gardens we visited is the secret garden. Here is Grace trying to close the door on her way out.

Tulips were everywhere. It was fantastic, breathtaking, and refreshing.

Grace really knows how to soak it all in.

We ended the day chillin' by the waterfalls. It was a great day.

So Big

I think I'm incapable of going to sleep before midnight when Scott is out of town. That being said, I thought I'd share with you some pregnancy stuff. I know, your favorite :)

Today I got my first comment EVER about how big I am. I never even got that with my first pregnancy, but in retrospect, there were unfortunate reasons I was small. The comment went something like this:

Neighbor - "You're so big! You're not even six months yet, are you?"
Me - "No, I'm around five months"
Neighbor - "Gosh, you must be having a big boy."
Me - smile with a slightly perplexed look on my face.

Her comment didn't bother me, because I'm really not that big yet, but it got me thinking. I assume I'm bigger this time around because it's my second pregnancy and hopefully the baby is growing normally, which wasn't the case with Grace.

So I took a photo of myself (I'm at 22 weeks) and compared it to my Grace photos.

I'm about the same size I was at 24 weeks with Grace. Pretty much right on schedule. Plus I just had an appointment today and everything is right as it should be.

I decided that maternity shirts make you look bigger. I was wearing one today.

Barefoot, pregnant and running

Like my shoes? They're like running barefoot. I decided to run with them in a 5K last week, before I get too big and it gets too hot outside. Here is me, running 5K at (almost) 5 months pregnant in honor of the 5 of May-o.

The day was perfect! It was one of the exceptionally few perfect days we've had this spring. Scott took some pictures of the area while I was off running.

Perfect, right? That little head running along the path in the above photo is Grace. She likes to run, too.

Running was a great experience. I felt like a rock star as I crossed the finish line at exactly 30:00. While pregnant. That's my not-pregnant time, and I know I've been running slower at the gym. I was actually shocked when I realized I had maintained a 10-minute mile the whole time! The location was awesome, running on shaded blacktop paths along a river. The sponsor was awesome, organized, and good at psyching everyone up, and the whole event was treated like a fiesta. We even ran alongside the three amigos! We got serenaded with "My Little Buttercup" around the first mile when they passed us. (We passed them about half a mile later when they started walking.)

I had a running buddy, too, which made it even more awesome. At the end of the race, they had a feast with overflowing platters of fresh fruits, vegetables, tortilla chips, a salsa bar, virgin margaritas and other drinks, tons of churros and candy. Then, to top it all off, during the awards ceremony (which was treated like a party) we won 18-holes of golf at a nearby club, a ball and frisbee for Grace, and a voucher for two theater tickets.

Probably the funnest 5K I've run. I think I'll try it again next year.

Happy Mother's Day...

...to my dear, compassionate mom and all my beautiful sisters. Thanks for coming last week for Women's Conference and Grace's birthday. I loved being all together, wish we could do it more often. Can't wait 'til next time!

Easter recap

Ready...

Set...

Go!

Collecting Easter Eggs

Riding the 4-wheel tractors

Going down the big slide(s) with daddy

And the highlight: Petting the animals!

Grace worked hard to try and pet or hold every animal within her reach. She loves animals.

"C'mere, chicken"

She tried and tried for that duck, but he was a quick rascal.

So she settled for watching the baby ducks and chicks.

By the time Scott caught the hot commodity, the baby lamb, Grace was getting too tuckered out to care. But Scott looks pretty cozy holding a baby lamb.

So we went for some lower-key fun: The animal train!

Again! With Daddy.

Finally, the hayride where Grace partook of the spoils of her egg hunt treasure. Hurray for a Happy Easter!