Stir Crazy!

We have been SO busy lately! I am not sure how things got so crazy around here. Suddenly, in less than 2 months, Adam went from no clients to 5, and I am working 10-15 hours a week. So I have been working a lot on Saturdays, and Adam comes home at 4 on weekdays and makes dinner with Lily while I work. Unfortunately, this has been limiting his time to study for his classes, grade assignments for the class he is teaching, meet with his clients, and work on his dissertation. I have also been doing a home-study HypnoBabies course, which I am really excited about! It is a different approach to natural childbirth, and I think it will make this a really great birth experience. However, it is "labor" intensive (haha), and requires about an hour each day, which I can only do after Lily goes to bed. And Lily never goes to bed before 8:30 (usually more like 9), has stopped napping, and always wakes up at 7. If we put her to bed earlier, she wakes up earlier. So by the time we get her in bed, clean up from dinner (some days), read scriptures, and I do my Hypnobabies studying, it is past our bedtime already! In fact, it is so busy that I am almost excited for this baby to come so we can have more time . . . I said "almost". I recognize that once that actually happens, we won't even have time to sleep!

So how's that for an explanation of why I haven't written in almost two months? Let's see, since I wrote last, we went to California for Christmas, had a wonderful time, got completely spoiled by Nana & Papa, visited San Francisco for our 7th anniversary, got fairly sick, but had fun anyway. Here are some pictures of our fun trip to California.

Lily decorating the tree with her cousin, Amelia. 

And her aunt Amber. 

Playing Mr. Potato Head with Nana 

Christmas morning! 

It was a fun trip. Lily got her fairy wings from Santa, and a lot of other fun gifts. May too many . . . :) We all enjoyed it, but it was also nice to come home and start regular life again.

Then I had a lovely week in January when I couldn't do anything because my back went into terrible spasms. It was so painful that I couldn't sleep or do anything else for four days and had thoughts like "If only I were in labor right now. At least that ends!" Ultimately, the chiropractor said that my huge belly has been pulling my back out of alignment while I sleep. So I invested in a super-awesome maternity pillow, and every night I look forward to snuggling with it! I also spent a lot of days in a friend's hot tub, borrowed a massager from my neighbor, tripled my intake of calcium, and increased my exercise regimen. And now my back feels great, thank goodness!

Otherwise, we are doing well. Lily is growing up and saying funny stuff, as usual. She asks "why" to everything, and has for about a year. Those conversations usually terminate in "because that's just the way God made us." So for example:

"Lily, put your shoes on please."
"Why?"
"So we can go to the store."
Why?"
"Because we need to buy food."
"Why?'
"Because we have to eat in order to live."
"Why?'
"Because that's just the way God made us."

Well, that has backfired. Now, whenever we ask her a question, she responds with "Because that's just the way God made us." Whether we ask her why she doesn't want to eat her cereal, or why she threw her sippy cup on the floor, or why she took a toy away from a friend, or why she is screaming. "Because that's just the way God made us," she replied, with a pesky little grin. It has been funny, but also really frustrating.

The other day, Lily was singing "Jingle Bells" and a little while later I told her, "Lily, you got Jingle Bells stuck in my head." She replied, "You have dingle bells stuck in your hair?" We laughed, and I tried to explain what having a song stuck in your head means.

Then the next day, I was brushing my hair and Lily asked what I was doing. I said, "Getting the tangles out of my hair," to which she excitedly replied, "You getting the dingle bells out of your hair!" Classic.

This next little guy is also making his presence known. He can really kick! He kicks much harder and much more often than Lily did, and I thought she kicked me a lot. I am also getting bigger, and have already had someone ask if I am having twins. Really?! In fact, most Sundays and Tuesdays, when I take Lily to the library, I have multiple people ask, "You must be getting really close, right?" No. I am not getting really close. I am just getting really big! But, honestly, do you have to rub it in? I am certainly grateful that I don't need to worry about him being a low-birthweight baby. But I had really hoped to gain less than 50 pounds this pregnancy. That will probably not happen. I guess I should just be grateful that I lose it easily. :)

To ward off any unnecessary weight gain, I have been successfully avoiding sugar for the past month. However, yesterday I went to a friend's house and she taught me how to make fudge. That kind of catapulted my sugar-resistance efforts. But I thought it was worth it since fudge is Adam's favorite thing ever. I really wanted to make him some for Valentine's Day, but I have failed at making fudge so many times that I knew it would be a bad idea to attempt by myself again. Happily, our fudge was a fantastic success! We made the marshmallow creme kind and the old-fashioned kind - so much work, but vastly superior!

And today, it snowed another 10 inches in Corvallis, and it's still coming down hard! I ended up watching a friend's children most of the day since school was out, but she still had to work. We played in the snow a little, but Lily got cold really fast. Hopefully the whole city doesn't shut down again, or we will be really stir crazy! But if it does, maybe I will get caught up on all my neglected sewing projects. :)

Strange things afoot in Oregon

Things have been a little unusual around here lately! Corvallis is not southern-California-balmy, but usually relatively warm. It only snows a couple times each winter, and it almost always melts by the next morning. But this past week, it was FREEZING! Literally. It snowed a week ago last Thursday. But this was no ordinary mid-Oregon snow dusting. It snowed over NINE INCHES overnight! School and about everything else in town was cancelled, including the big band Christmas concert I was very excited to attend.

What made this incident even better was that some ingenious high-up city authority decided that it would probably melt on Friday, so they didn't bother to plow the roads. By Saturday morning, everything was so packed down and frozen that they couldn't plow it. Brilliant. The result was an entire week of nothing happening in this town. Church cancelled. Choir performances and the stake nativity festival cancelled. The downtown entirely shut down for several days, and all public employees were sent home. Saddest of all (for me), the ward Christmas party was even cancelled. The choir, primary, and youth in our ward had been preparing an special program, which we have never done before. I had assembled a small group to sing a jazz number, and I was really excited. Finally, I had invited two non-member families to come with us, and they were both really excited about it. All cancelled. Stupid city planner.

It was also SUPER cold. As in, cold for Utah weather. It stayed below 20 degrees for almost a week, and dipped below zero one night. I haven't experienced negative temperature for a while, and I forgot how cold  they really are!

But there were good things - we got Adam at home more than usual, since campus closed for two days. Lily also really loved playing in the snow. Unfortunately, the snow was really powdery and "dry" so it was almost impossible to make a snowman. We tried every single day, hoping the snow had melted a little to make it wet enough, but it never did. She was very disappointed. So we improvised by using a spray bottle with warm water to make three snowballs, and stacked them on top of each other with the tiny end of a carrot for a nose, twigs for arms, and tiny pieces of raisins for eyes.  It was only about 10 inches tall, but that was good enough for Lily. She talked about our snowman for days.

Poor Lily was so tired after all that winter recreation that she fell asleep in her high chair!

Besides the weather, things have been busy, as usual. Unfortunately, Adam has not had many clients for several months. This has been a challenge for our income, but I have been blessed with the opportunity to work some from home. My former employer, DecisionWise, contacted me in October and asked if I would be able to do a project for them. It was only a 30-hour project, but it kept me busy for a few weeks, and Adam was able to come home early to watch Lily since he didn't have clients. That project led to another in November-December, and I will be doing another in January. Even though it has been a bit stressful to have deadlines, I have appreciated the opportunity to use my brain again and remember what I learned in college. And of course, the added income has been a huge blessing. I really feel that the Lord has been looking out for us this year. It has been a difficult one, but we have been blessed in so many ways.

And now, it's almost Christmas! I can't believe it came so soon! We will be going to California to visit Adam's family in Soledad (near Salinas). It will be fun, especially for Lily who will get to play with her cousin Amelia. Adam and I are especially excited to spend our anniversary in San Francisco. Ironically, he has practically never been there, even though he grew up less than three hours away. We are going to visit Chinatown and Fisherman's Warf and Ghirardelli Square and drive down Lombard Street. We are going to pass up Alcatraz, since I have already been and it is unbelievably expensive. But if you know of any other destinations we just can't miss, please comment!

Here are a couple more recent pictures.

Lily made a bed for herself under the table.

Mutual teeth-brushing

Lily's first french braids (Shortly after this picture, she started sobbing and demanded that I take them out. So sadly, she never wore them anywhere.)

This was our excursion to Storybook Land in Albany, which Lily really enjoyed.

Merry Christmas!