The New Place

Woohoo! We're (mostly) moved!! We LOVE our new place. There's so much more space now that there's actually places to store things! I don't have to stress so much about Gabe getting injured by clutter. We're in a ground floor condo and let me tell you! I love not walking up and down stairs all the time! It's delightful. Even more delightful is our very own washer and dryer!! Our clothes actually get clean! Even though it still costs money, I can guarantee it's cheaper than the old laundromat. Besides, our AC hardly ever has to turn on. We're not only on the bottom floor, but we're pretty shaded too. I love not having to run our AC all the time just to prevent sweating profusely.

Things are falling into place a lot quicker than expected. Still lots to do though! Our living room is pretty much set up! Gabe's room is probably the most put together. We got Sofia's crib up!! Our kitchen is mostly organized and our bedroom is looking like a bedroom. Andy even planted a potted garden on our back porch! It's all very exciting! Pictures will be coming soon!

We have had some problems with noisy upstairs neighbors. They like loud music and video games. After talking to them and several bangs on the ceiling we called the police. They have never been quieter. I hope it lasts!

Andy started his new job today! What a relief! Things are finally working out for us. So excited for the future! Just 4 more weeks until Sofia comes, although I'm really hoping she'll cone this weekend when I hit the big 3-7 week mark. That us if we can get our place in order by then.

Whelp! Time to lay down until the Goob wakes up. (he'll probably wake up as soon as I lie down.)

Have a great day world!

It Gets Better

My heart is so full!! I am so grateful for the "It Gets Better" campaign members of the church have been doing. My whole life I've felt that most Latter-Day Saints don't love those with same gender attraction. This assumption started when the subject came up in a Sunday school class when I was a teenager. After saying one of my brothers was gay my peers said things like, "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" and "You need to tell him he needs to change." They made me feel like it was my duty to force him to be different. I remember feeling confused and heartbroken after that experience. I wasn't going to go home and tell my beloved brother he HAD to change. I loved him and I didn't want him to think otherwise. My wonderful Mother has always taught me to love someone to change, not force them, so this is what I did. I loved him. My brother didn't live with us at this time so I wrote him an email telling him just how much I loved him. Most importantly I told him that I loved him no matter what. He emailed me back telling me a huge burden had been lifted off his heart. He always thought because of our religion we wanted to burn him on the cross. How horrible of him to feel the need to think that. It makes me wonder what kind of impression others might have given him about our beliefs. We do not teach hate. We do not teach judgement or the putting down of others. In fact the teachings of the gospel are quite the opposite. I knew this and yet I still struggled for years thinking I was in the wrong for loving those with same gender attraction. After a lot of research, chats with local leaders, and seeing what the Prophets and Apostles have said on the subject I realized that I was not in the wrong. They teach us to love everyone despite their sins or struggles.

I wish videos like these came out sooner. I wish those who have and do struggle with same gender attraction could see that they have always been precious in the eyes of God. That they are not condemned to hell. This new campaign teaches that we do love unconditionally. I hope we can help people open their minds and really learn where we are supposed to stand on this subject. I hope that people will take the time to do the research, talk to their local leaders, and learn to love as Christ loves.

Here's the one from BYU students.

And here's the one from parents and family. 

I LOVE these videos! They are messages of hope! We all need a little hope in this life.

iPhone

I'm blogging from my phone! That automatically makes me super cool, right? I actually feel like I accomplish more now that I have a fancy phone. It's been especially great for my prego brain. Yay for reminder alerts. :)

As for our little family, we are one big happy hormonal wreck. The pregnancy is almost over and we are all elated!! We are so excited to meet Sofia (and to not be pregnant anymore)! We all had a wonderful Easter and are looking forward to more holidays together. I am so excited to start our own traditions.

As for Gabe, he took his first step and has since decided to not repeat this epic event. He is standing on his own more and more though! I just hope he's walking before Sofia comes. He's also quite the talker when it comes to gibberish. He seems very interested in learning new sounds right now. He is LOVING his ABC books. He watches the reader's mouth very intently and the tries out some of the sounds. It's so wonderful watching him grow and learn. I am very glad for his interest in books. He'll sit and read with me or Andy for as long as we can stand it. :) There's no point in putting his books on his shelf either. He just pulls them all off first thing in the morning. But who needs a clean house when you have a happy baby?

That's our update! Maybe I'll post more now that I have this app. Don't get your hopes up though!

The Diet Jar

So I know we haven't updated this thing in AAAGES! There just hasn't been much to say. We have a beautiful baby boy that eats sleeps and poops! We also eat and poop and recently we've started sleeping again! Gabe is sleeping through the night and he started this ALL on his own! We didn't try to keep him up during the day or get him on any sort of schedule. He's naturally put himself on a schedule and everything! Looove it!

The REAL reason I'm writing this is to let you all know about our wonderful new family goal. It all started with a dream. Last night I was dreaming about dieting and how I was having a really hard time sticking to it. I was trying to come up with different things I could do and so in my dream I prayed for an answer. I got the answer that I should commit to no dessert/no fast food to 15 different people. When I broke those rules I had to send $1 to each person. $15 is pretty steep for a dessert or fast food. I definitely wouldn't break those rules if I had to pay FIFTEEN dollars every time!

After I woke up I got to thinking about the dream and realized this really is a great solution!! But then I realized that it costs money to send that $1 to the people I'd most want to commit to... and then it's really like $2 a person.. well you get the picture. I kept mulling this over in my head and thought, "Hey! Why don't I do this with Andy? He's trying to maintain his weight right now and we've both been doing horrible with desserts and eating out!"

I remembered we have a TON of jars in our pantry for canning

(and we never can anything). What a brilliant idea! I would write the "rules" on the jar and Andy and I would both have to pay up if we had a weak day. Andy was not happy at first with the idea of being so restricted and having to pay TEN dollars(I thought $15 was a little high) if he decided he wanted some ice cream. After much discussing we concluded that $10 definitely was high enough neither one of us would want to break it. His money comes from his ebay account where he's spent lots of time selling bike stuff so he can build up a new bike. My money comes from the massages I do which will be going towards baby things (like new clothes for Gabe.. he's growing SO fast!).

Here's the result:

"No TREATS(desserts)"

"No FAST FOOD"

"No SODA"

"Must have fruits or veggies at every meal"

"Must eat 3 meals a day"

"Juice only at breakfast"

Andy decided we needed something more.... "positive" also on the jar. But if you know me well you know that these are things Andy's been trying to get me to do since before we got married. I guess now's a good time to get started. The "No treats(desserts), fast food, soda" ones are valid 6 days of the week. We each have a free day where we can go a little crazy and not have to cough up $10. We'll see how this goes! I am definitely motivated to getting my butt in gear when it comes to these things! Working out is not a problem for either of us, but the diet is our weak side. WE LOVE SWEETS!!

That's all for now! Hope you enjoyed!

We've got a live one!

Baby Gabe is incredibly active! He seems to have become even more active in the last week. He's been very busy in the womb tumbling, kicking, punching, dancing, and practicing his pedal stroke (He's going to be a GREAT cyclist!). He now even wakes Mommy up in the middle of the night to play. His newest thing though is waking me up early in the morning, ready to start his day! He must take after his Daddy and be a morning person.

Gabe has started enjoying green bell peppers again! His current favorite food is keilbasa and peppers on top of rice with teriyaki sauce (A favorite of mine as well). He also really enjoys fruit and pretty much anything spicy (He takes after his Momma in that department). He's very good at getting my attention and I have a feeling that's a permanent trait. Hopefully though after he's born it isn't with kicking and punching. :)

He very much enjoys music. His favorite Pandora station is Rossini. This morning however he kept kicking and kicking me so I put on some Bloc Party and that seemed to calm him down (Really though, I think he just wants attention). He also really enjoys his Daddy reading to him. Our current book is "Hank the Cowdog". We read him "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" to introduce him to the wonderful world of Seuss. Unfortunately that's the only Dr. Seuss book we have right now! So I registered for a bunch. Our color themed only room seems to slowly be turning into a Dr. Seuss theme. Hopefully Gabe likes it! haha

Everything else is pretty boring right now. I finally caved and bought some new shirts. Yay for clothes that fit! Motherhood Maternity has amaaazingly comfortable shirts. I also got a couple of men's t-shirts from Target. SO COMFORTABLE! One of my baby books has little quotes for the different stages of pregnancy and where I am now it says, "Yeah, I'm wearing sneakers with a skirt. Who cares? I'm comfortable!" Truly this is how I feel. I can't borrow my husbands shirts unfortunately like most women, but I think he prefers it that way. I am sure I would stretch his clothes out all awkward like. So I will enjoy NEW clothes and save them for future pregnancies!

Happy Birthday, Andy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is the day we celebrate Andy's clumsy entrance into this world! He seems to think that because today is his birthday he needs to be treated like a god. Well, too bad Andy, you came to the wrong world. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Oh who am I kidding. I started spoiling him last week! As for celebrations, me and some friends threw him an awesome "green" party. (As seen above) Mostly everything was green! There was dyed dips and cake, green drinks, and almost everything else at the party. Here's a good picture to describe the intensity of the green.

Mallory did such a great job with the cake!

It was a small celebration with only a few close friends. However small it was still very enjoyable! Andy was even given his own personal concert by the famous Jensen Stenberg! Thanks to all those who came out to celebrate with us! I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Today we will be celebrating with Andy's family! It should be another fun time.

As for news of the baby, I seem to be entering yet another growth spurt. Maybe the growth stays the same, but my eating habits say differently. Last night I came home from the party and ate a ton of lasagna(This is around midnight). Then I woke up this morning (around 9am) STARVING! So I decided to get up and feed the little devil. I ended up eating sausage and eggs with a large glass of milk. Who needs carbs? I'm realizing that at the beginning of each week I tend to eat a TON of food. As the week progressing my appetite lightens but my belly grows. By the end of each day you can actually see where I've stretched. I can't seem to keep up enough lotion on my belly to stop it from itching. Granted this could be from moving around all day and whatnot. I still say, this sucker is growing FAST!

There are definitely a lot of things that are unpleasant about being pregnant. So let's go over some of the positive events. This week I felt the baby move and even kick! I might have felt it before only not realizing what it was. A couple of times he kicked hard enough for me to feel it on the outside. Andy keeps putting his hands on my belly when it happens and saying, "I want to feel! Can I feel?" Unfortunately that's when the baby stops. We'll get it right soon enough though!

We hope you all enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather the last couple of days! It looks like winter has already returned. What a shame. Hopefully spring will come early this year!

Let the nesting begin!

Everything is going great in Draper land! Andy is adjusting well to school and I am adjusting well to having a ton of energy! It's been really nice to get some of my projects completed! We've recently started with all the rearranging that needs to be done before baby Gabe comes! Here's a sneak peak at just one finished project.

We love plants! We will be taking pictures throughout our rearranging process and then I'll post before/after pictures. There's still A LOT to be done! Like switching where the piano is to where our love seat currently is. I wish I could do this on my own but alas I must wait for big strong men to help. In the meantime I will be moving pictures all around so that our baby's room doesn't look like an office anymore. :)

Here are the sewing projects I've recently completed! Sewing has been great because I can do it on days I don't have a lot of energy.

Horray for burp cloths! I've finished two and have just four more to go for now.

I finished my wash cloths!

It has been a lot of fun to do all the nesting projects. It keeps me busy and our house was in desperate need of some TLC. (well.. still is) I recently found some really cute patterns for a quiet book and am hoping to start on that soon!! Hopefully I am ready to tackle a big project like that.

In other news, Andy's birthday is this Sunday! He'll be the big two-five. I have a fun little surprise(well.. he knows mostly about it now. As Mama Aro always says, "Surprises are just too exciting to keep all to yourself." planned for him on Saturday and I'll be sure to post some pictures of the event!

Goodnight and Good luck.