Baby Shower! Or, Ode to Johanna

So I have this amazing friend of many years, Johanna. This incredible person volunteered to throw me a baby shower in honor of our little Lion King coming into the world soon. And MAN did it turn out great! The pictures really speak for themselves, but I must note that the vast majority of the decorations were made BY HAND. Amazing. I loved it all!

This is the palm tree!

This is the "Pin the tail on the Lion" set up, probably the most adorable lion butt I've ever seen. 

These jungle leaves are really gorgeous.

Monkey cupcakes!! Lion cupcakes, oh my! So adorable I could just eat them up! 

 The theme was "Jungle Safari" or "King of the Jungle," it was wonderful. I loved all the bright colors, cute animals, and jungle decorations!

This is me! 35 whole weeks pregnant! I feel pretty dang huge, definitely swollen here and there but happy and excited for all the great things to come!

And this is Johanna, the creative and resourceful mastermind behind the whole shower. Did I mention she has an 18 month old and is pregnant with #2?? I don't know how she managed to plan and put everything together the way she did (and look cute)! Seriously amazing!

The Spread! There were cupcakes (pictured above), a jungle fruit salad, homemade cheeseball and crackers, Jambalaya (made by Rachel), no bake cookies (made by Tiffany, who was kind enough to come early and help set up!), and jungle punch! It was delicious!

So a big thank you to Johanna for putting all this together! It was such an honor to have this fantastic baby shower for my little man cub! And a big thank you to my sister Rachel and my great friend Tiffany for helping with last minute things. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by talented, creative people who love me. Just call me the luckiest girl ever.

Gardening!

One of these days I'm going to be a great gardener. And I'm going to have an awesome garden. In the yard of my awesome house! And there will be yearly yield of delicious vegetables and fruits, from which I will make the most delicious recipes! It's an exciting thought. But I don't have to wait until I have my own house and my own garden to make awesome stuff from fresh produce.

My Dad has a garden that he's been tending for a few years now. It's a well seasoned garden in a great place and he's been helping me learn the tricks of the trade. It's hard work! And it involves tons of skill and scientific knowledge and good old elbow grease. Lately, of course, it's been hard for me to get out there and work because of my "delicate condition." But I've been learning nonetheless and it's so rewarding to reap that which was sown.

These are cherries growing on a large tree right next to the garden. They're beautiful. I'm honestly not a huge fan of cherries. In fact, last year's harvest yielded excellent cherries but the cherry pie didn't turn out so awesome. Maybe it had something to do with all the little wormies I had to fish out of each cherry before I boiled them...

These are going to be tomatoes! They're even starting to bud little yellow flowers!

This is the view of the two most productive rows of the garden. There are onions, romaine lettuce, peas, spinach, broccoli, and chard.

This will probably be a pumpkin (or some sort of squash)! Dad also planted some corn (not pictured).

 This is a budding apple on the apple tree! Very exciting. I think they'll be a nice red when they're ripe. There will also be peppers, cucumbers and perhaps zucchini!

Gardening is a great metaphor for life. It's fun to ponder things like this while gardening. I look forward to many years of meaningful, productive gardening experiences. And delicious dishes.

Energy Ups and Downs

So I've been going through an energy lull the past few weeks. I'm sad about it because it was preceded by a couple of weeks of lots of fun energy, wherein I created this nice blog, I prepared new and exciting dinner dishes, I cleaned parts of my house that hadn't been cleaned in months, and I had plans. All kinds of plans for even MORE awesome stuff.

But I'm out of energy. I only work part time, but I come home and all I can do is rest on the couch. I'm exhausted. Is the nesting over already? I was really enjoying the nesting phase. But it was so short-lived! I hope it comes back.

So I'm officially 30 weeks along now! ONLY 10 WEEKS LEFT. Little Baby Bytheway is moving around so much, it's amazing. I can kind of see it when he moves too, it's SO weird! He's getting stronger everyday. And his Mommy is getting sicker and tired-er everyday. Normally, I'm just sick at night, starting around 5pm or so. But now, it's more like all day. Not to mention the heartburn that has been making its debut! I can eat otter pops. And the occasional bowl of cereal. But I'm pushin' through. I might complain a lot, but I really enjoy being pregnant. It's a very special time and I'm grateful for a body that has this amazing ability.

Ryan and I recently went to our first Prenatal class. It was very informative. Except that we talked a lot about all the things that could go wrong, which had me dreaming that night about things that could go wrong. I woke up the next morning paranoid that he wasn't moving as much as he should be and went to the OB for a Non-Stress Test. Of course, everything is normal and fine. I need to calm down.

10 weeks left.

Getting Published...Sorta.

So remember when I started this blog and I was all excited about posting things? Well, I've been taking a break because I've been working on this. I was originally going to post it on this blog but another opportunity presented itself.

While still at BYU, I involved myself in research mainly to do with marriage. Thankfully, I am still in contact with my professor, Dr. Joseph Ostenson, who is currently working on designing educational services about marriage. He has a blog and a website, Marriage Eternal.

He invited me to be a guest blogger, which in the blogging world of marriage and family therapy is kind of a big deal. At least it is to me! So check it out, let me know what you think, leave comments, etc., etc.