May

It's May. In case you haven't heard, I'm due in May. And here May is. Crazy. I can't believe it's already here. It seems like January and February went so stinking slow and then all the sudden here is May. Not sure what happened there. Now, I'm not such a fool as to think, "this is the month she is going to make her appearance" because you know the second I say that she is going to come late and make herself a June baby. So I will stick to, This is the month that she is due. Sounds less finite anyway. 
I decided 34 weeks was the time that things got really hard. Work has become almost impossible. All the bending down and being up on my feel for 12-13 hours is just plain hard. There are times when I'm working where I really think, what am I doing? Why am I not at home lying in bed with Ryan rubbing my feet 24/7? Those are the questions of life. I'm actually thinking that bed rest sounds pretty amazing right about now... haha. People ask me at work when I'm due and I say, "May 27th." Their next question almost every time is when my last day of work is. "May 25th" I'm beginning to think I am crazy for working until 40 weeks but maybe it will urge this little girl out a little sooner. Just maybe.
The other question we get all the time is if we have picked a name yet. The answer unfortunately is no. For some reason this time around I feel like I have to see her before we name her. We definitely have a list of names we like but we don't have ONE that we love yet. Hopefully seeing her will inspire us.
We are feeling a lot more prepared for this little girl to come these days. While Ryan was out of town, my mom came to stay with me to keep me safe and be here in case I went into labor sans Ryan. While she was here, we emptied out the spare bedroom, boxed a bunch of stuff up and put it in the garage to make room for all of baby girl's stuff. It isn't really the nursery I was hoping to have but it will work for now until we get a house one day. At least now we have a place for her to sleep, a car seat, a place for her clothes and diapers, etc. Now, every time I walk passed the room I don't get stressed out since it is pretty much ready to put a cute little girl in. We are so excited and I just can't believe that Sunday I will be 37 weeks!! That is technically term! I can't believe it! We are so excited to meet this little girl so soon!

31 Weeks

I am currently 31 weeks pregnant! That means only 9 weeks left until the big due date. (Although I'm just kinda expecting to go over, so it will probably be longer than that!) But it is so weird to think that in only 6 weeks this baby will be considered "term!" Crazy to think about that. I honestly don't think about it very often because we are so not ready for her to come. The spare bedroom is a complete mess with all her clothes and stuff we've gotten for her. However, the essentials are missing. No car seat, crib, changing table, rocking chair, diapers, wipes, etc. Let's just say, we better get busy!
The pregnancy has been going along very well and I couldn't be more grateful. I can officially say that morning sickness has disappeared (thank goodness) and I am feeling pretty good most of the time. I feel large and it is kinda hard to find a comfortable position to sleep but Ryan is good at rubbing my back until I fall asleep. (He's a keeper) So far, I have only experienced a little bit of swelling in my feet after a long day at work but my blood pressure has been great. She has been moving around like crazy lately, which is so much fun. We like to talk to her and tell her that she has to stay in there for a little while longer. However, she doesn't have a name yet (we are still taking suggestions!) so we just call her Baby Girl. It's a fine name for now...

Here are some fun belly pictures. It's amazing how big I've grown in the last 6 weeks. She really started to poke out lately!

Happy St Patty's Day

We had some leprechauns visit us! Yummy green milk and waffles!

California!

We had so much fun in California last week! Lynne and I took the two babies and headed for warm weather. While we were gone, Utah had its only snow storm. It was perfect planning on our part, if I do say so myself. When we got back, Utah decided to go back to its unusual warm winter weather.
The best part of going to California is just being around all our family there. Its so fun to have the grandmas, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews around! (Albeit 4 kids two and under makes for a whole lot of loud!) We had some fun hanging out at home, going shopping, going to the beach, having family parties, etc. Here are some fun pictures of the week!

Cam was so funny. He got all wrapped up in the yoga mat and then tried to walk. Obviously he fell and then he would laugh and laugh! So cute!

Bubble baths in Grandma's bathtub. Cade insisted on wearing her bathing suit! Funny.

Suckers for the little boys! It was adorable to watch them together totally enjoying every minute! Cam tried to share his sucker with Owen and Owen was not going to take his own sucker out in order to take a lick of Cam's. These two boys crack me up!

When Cade saw that I was taking pictures of the boys with their suckers, she said "wait for me," grabbed her own sucker, and sat down for the picture! She couldn't be left out!

My dad played airplane and then would flip the kids over his head. They loved it and it gave my dad his workout for the day! What a fun grandpa!

My family was so sweet and while I was in town, they threw me such a cute baby shower. It was mostly family and then a few close friends. I am so grateful for all the adorable things everyone got for our cute little girl. She is already totally spoiled. We had Daphe's gyros for the food and it was so delicious! We ate, visited, opened presents, and then laughed all night long about everyone's labor stories. There were like 4 pregnant women and plenty of mothers there so comparing stories was pretty fun!

The adorable decorations. I was just loving all the pink!

I was surprised to see my good high school friend Jenna show up! She was so cute and even came the next day for my mom's famous waffles. In high school my mom used to make my friends and me waffles. Apparently they are infamous now because my friends still remember them and request them every time they see my mom. It was fun to see her again and be able to catch up with her.

Us at the beach. I say "us" because it's me and little baby girl. She loves the beach already!Lynne, Lila, Me, and baby girl at the beach. Doesn't Lila look so cute in her little outfit! She is so stylin'! The family at the beach with the kiddos and all! We ate at Rubies on the pier outside. The kids chased the pigeons all around and we enjoyed the warm breeze. It was such a fun trip and we already can't wait until we get to go back!

Good News

On Monday I had my 28 week appointment. This was the dreaded appointment where I had to drink the gross non-carbonated orange soda. Seriously, its hard to not throw up after drinking that thing. I was really nervous this time because a) last time, I failed the first screening and b) since I was measuring big, I was nervous this time I actually had diabetes.
The first bit of good news was that I was actually measuring normal this week! I was measuring just under 30 cm, which is only like 2 cm big. That is considered normal. They said that she was probably just in a different position last time and they are not worried about her being big anymore. Yay!
As far as the glucose screening goes, I had to wait a little longer for the results because my insurance has to send my blood to a different location to get it processed. So for the last 4 days I have been worried that my results were going to be too high. I called yesterday for some reassurance but they must have been really busy because no one ever called me back. So I called again today and they said they'd call me back but then I looked online to see if the results were back and they were. I PASSED! Oh thank heavens! I couldn't be more excited. And not only did I pass, but the numbers were actually really good and not even close to the high limit. Must have been those yummy eggs I had for breakfast that morning! haha
Anyway, so now that things are looking back to normal, I can take a little breather and just enjoy the little girl kicks I get all day long! I'm pretty sure that is the best part of being pregnant! Now starts the every 2 week check ups. We are praying that everything continues to go well and little baby girl gets here safely! Can't wait (but we will) to see her!

Lila's Blessing

Dave and Lynne blessed Lila on February 5, 2012. I love blessings because it gives us the opportunity to see all our family! It was a pretty chaotic week but we did pretty well with the 4 kiddos (sometimes more with the cousins and such) running around Lynne's house. I didn't take too many pictures but here are some cute ones from the trip.

Great-Grandparents with LilaGoing on a walk

We took the kids for their first time bowling ever. They totally loved it! It was so much fun to watch them roll the ball down the slider thing and then just sit there and watch the ball roll. Owen was so intent on watching it the whole way! It was adorable!

HUGE

Lately, I've been watching those numbers on the scale go up and up and there is nothing I can do about it but say, "Hey, this baby must be HUGE!" Which would justify those numbers going up so fast. Well, my most recent appointment confirmed that to be true. You see, I'm only 24 weeks along. For those of you who do not know, after 20 weeks, the Doctors start measuring how high up the fundus (top) of the uterus is. The number of centimeters should correspond with the number of weeks you are. So, I should be measuring 24 cm's. Except I'm not. And that is because I'm huge. I am measuring a whopping 30 cm's! That is 6 weeks bigger than I am supposed to be. The midwife told me, "Well, maybe you are just growing a healthy 9 lb baby!" and then I cursed her for saying such things.
At this point, they aren't really worried about it. We are just going to wait until my next appointment and if I'm still measuring huge, then we go to another ultrasound to see why. So if you could spare a little room in your prayers that everything is indeed okay, we would greatly appreciate it.

Lately

I feel like I have so many posts with this same title. I guess it is because sometimes nothing fantastic has happened that I need to dedicate an entire post to, but lots of little great things have--so why not put them into one big post?

--Work has decided to cross-train the Pediatric nurses to the NICU. My hospital just built a large NICU that can hold up to 24 babies and apparently they are short-staffed at the moment. That means any time they don't need us upstairs on Med/Surg/Peds, we get to go play with itty bitty babies.(And because of the lovely weather we have been having--read "no snow"-- we have not seen very many sick kids, which means we have been in the NICU a lot!) Mostly, I have just had "feeder-growers" which are babies that are there to learn how to eat. Most have NG tubes and require regular feeds through them if they can't finish their feedings orally. With these patients, I have 3 babies and let me tell you, it gets so busy!!! It is like having triplets!! I cannot imagine ever having triplets. Seriously, when do you sleep? You feed the first one, change them, get them back to sleep, then go on to #2, then #3 and then you have maybe 45 minutes until you have to do it all again. And that is only if everything goes right. For all those who are having multiples, you are a better person than me. I would die. Anyway, the NICU is fun for the most part although by the end of the day my feet and back are killing me from the extra weight/baby I've been carrying around lately. Also, the fact that we had about 7 hours of training before they threw me out on my own makes me nervous every time I'm there. (Not really on my own. The NICU nurses are very nice and will answer any question you have but I do have 3 patients all to myself. It scares me sometimes for sure, but I'm getting more used to it.) I always joke when people ask me what kind of nurse I am--Medical, Surgical, Orthopedics, Pediatrics, ICU, Post-Partum, NICU... Who knows what they'll throw in next!
--Ryan's work can be summed up in one word lately: stressful. He is incredibly busy and has multiple projects he is working on all at once and everyone wants theirs done first (of course). I am just so thankful for a hardworking husband who does his best to support us. And the best part is... he is REALLY good at it. He always has calls from different companies asking him if he wants a new job. Maybe one day, but for now, he stays at LanDesk.
--Ryan found out he is going to Europe for work... again. And no, I'm not going with him. I wish I was but, I'm not. What do you do? Oh ya, I go to California. Lynne and I magically planned a trip to California during the exact time that Ryan is going to Europe. I think it is fate really.
--The pregnancy nausea has finally started to ease up. I have even worked a couple of days without taking Zofran. That is just a miracle to me. Not to say the nausea is completely gone, but I can't even remember the last time I threw up and THAT is saying something, my friends.
--I absolutely LOVE the fact that I'm having another girl. I seriously couldn't be more excited. When people ask me if I know what I'm having I say, "A Girl" with the biggest grin in the entire world on my face! It just makes me so happy! I realized today at work in the NICU that I know nothing about boys. I know, I'm sure I will learn once that opportunity comes, but for now, I'm content just knowing about girl things.

Jackson and Gavin

Just thought I'd let you know that I have really cute nephews. Brooke and Nate make some cute babies.

Cinnamon Rolls

I was looking at pictures from when Ryan and I were dating the other day. I came across these pictures from when Ryan was trying so hard to woo me where we made homemade cinnamon rolls together. It was his dad's secret family recipe and at the time I was not allowed to know all the aspects of the recipe, since I was not yet a Gardner. Well the other day, I asked Ryan if we could make Cinnamon Rolls and since I'm still not sure I qualify for the Gardner family recipe, I had to go it on my own. I chose this recipe since everything I make from this blog is completely delicious and these did not disappoint. The frosting especially is so delicious!
I also learned something about myself during this process. Something I already knew but is manifest to me every time I start baking. As much as I really do not enjoy cooking, I LOVE to bake! Cookies, brownies, cake, cupcakes, cake bites, rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. I just love it. Maybe because they are so delicious to eat! Anyway, here are some pictures of the deliciousness.

Please excuse the fact that I look like death. I believe I just came off a 13 hour shift!

Best News Ever

Expecting a GIRL May 27th!

What's that I said, a GIRL?!?! It has been said numerous times that Gardners do not have girls and yet here we are, having girl #2! Can you believe it? And the even better news? She is looking completely 100% healthy! All her measurements are normal and she is the cutest! Here, see for yourself...

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Because even strangers are asking when I'm due, here are the belly pics thus far!

Besides the nausea and vomiting I've been experiencing for pretty much the entire pregnancy, we are loving this pregnancy. I started feeling her move around a little later than I felt Olivia but now I feel her move around daily and even Ryan has felt her move a couple of times when she was especially rambunctious! We can't wait to meet her cute little face! Love her!

A Colorado Christmas

Since we didn't get to go see Ryan's family this Christmas, we decided to meet halfway (kinda?) in Colorado at Ryan's aunt's house the weekend after Christmas. We had so much fun in Colorado with Ryan's family. Three out of the five brothers were there and we of course got to hang out with cute little Cael! I had the whole week after Christmas off (which was wonderful!) but Ryan had to work Tuesday and Wednesday so we didn't end up leaving for Colorado until early Thursday morning. I was worried that we would have a hard time driving there with snowy roads and all but thank goodness Utah decided to have the most mild winter ever and the drive both there and back was amazingly smooth! We got to Colorado around 3:30 on Thursday and got right into the fun.
We started decorating my very first ever real gingerbread house with real homemade gingerbread! It was so fun to have an actual real looking house and not just our stinky graham cracker ones!

(Us with our awesome gingerbread house!)

(The front of the house. Ryan made the awesome roof. It looked totally pro!)

(Back of the house complete with an outdoor stone fireplace with seating and a pool! My favorite part of the house!)

We had dinner and played games that night. My favorite thing about the Gardner family get-togethers is that they love to play games! Being just the two of us, Ryan and I don't get to play games very often so it was pretty fun! The next day we went over to someone's house to watch the BYU game on a huge giant projector. Ryan stayed and watched the whole thing while the rest of us went and played Wally ball at the local gym. It was really fun up until the point where the ball hit me right in the face and I got a bloody nose. I was a bit skittish after that. Then we all went and saw Mission Impossible Two, which was pretty good, and then played games all night!
Saturday was freezing cold and so windy but we still ended up driving up to this lookout mountain to see all of Denver. It was so windy I swear you could have jumped off the mountain and the wind would have blown us right back up! It was freezing, so needless to say, I stayed in the car for the most part. Then we walked around a cute little street with fun shops and had frets and stoufles (a Dutch or German french fry) and German bakery treats. We made it home just in time to get ready to go to the New Year's Eve party at someone's house. (Ya, I don't know these people, but Ryan's family did, so it was ok.)

The party was actually really fun. They had some really good food (pita bread filled with good chicken and lettuce=A+ in my book!) and they basically had games spread out on a bunch of tables so everyone could play whatever they wanted. We played some Rumikub and some Taboo and just hung out and talked. We left before midnight and made it home in time to watch the ball drop, toast our Martinelli's, and have our first new year's kiss. We stayed up talking way too long and didn't get to sleep until like 2 AM which for me is unheard of these days!

(Us getting wasted on New Year's Eve)

Sunday came and we went to 9 AM sacrament meeting so we could travel home all day. We took Jason and Jenna home and were grateful to have them there so we could sleep some of the way. All in all, we had a really fun time and I have to say Colorado was a pretty fun place. The #1 thing I loved about Colorado=they have the nicest drivers there! Everyone drives in the right lane if they are going slow and if they are in the left lane and you come up behind them, they move over for you. (a completely unheard of concept here in stupid Utah!) It was so refreshing to have good drivers around us for a change!

Christmas Day

Christmas day was much more fun than I had anticipated! Since I got put on call (and never did get called in) I got to spend the whole day with my family. It was awesome! We started the day off with Christmas breakfast with Nate, Brooke, Gavin, and Jackson, complete with orange julius! So good! I think Christmas breakfast is my favorite part of Christmas. Gavin was so cute running around playing with all his new toys and of course Jackson was cute just being a baby! On the way to breakfast Ryan kept telling me he was excited to go to Nate's because my big present was at his house. I was confused as to why my present would be at Nate's house but I was excited to get it too. We kept driving and my butt kept getting hotter and hotter and I asked Ryan, why is my butt on fire? It's so hot!! He played it off and was just like, I don't know, mine is hot too, maybe its just the heater blowing on our feet. I gave him a quizzical look and asked him again why my seat was so hot. He said, "Well if you don't want it that hot, you can turn it on low!" Sneaky!! He got me seat warmers for Christmas! Let me tell you, those are some awesome presents! I LOVE them! The thing I hate most of all is when I'm cold so this solved the problem! Thanks Ryan for the best gift ever!

We came home after that and had Ryan and Andrea Christmas opening our gifts we got each other. Along with the seat warmers Ryan got me cute platters that match our dishes, some movies, and more European candy! I was totally spoiled! Ryan got European Fanta (he is in LOVE with that stuff!), lots of Disney movies, a new pillow, and a clean car (to which he responded, "why does my car smell like a girl?). We opened all our gifts and I could totally tell that Ryan was disappointed because he had been telling me for weeks about this driver that he wanted so badly and it was on major sale. I told him like a million times that I wasn't getting it for him because even on sale it was so expensive! It was actually pretty funny to see his face after realizing he wasn't getting the driver he so desperately wanted. It was so sad. I told him we had to hurry and get ready for church and went in the back to take a shower but came out instead with a big package that was obviously his beloved R-11 Driver. He was as giddy as a 5 year old! Jumping up and down and a smile ear to ear. It was pretty funny! Glad he loves his golf things! We had a pretty fun morning together.

(Giddy 5 year old with his Driver!)

(My cute platter!)

We went to church and then made a visit to the cemetery to see Olivia and we left her a little present for her Christmas. We missed her a lot and were glad we got to go remember her.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Lynne's playing with the babies and eating good food. We continued the Whitaker family tradition of eating paninis for lunch and played a lot of Family Feud on Scott's phone. Christmas turned out to be really fun this year and I seriously couldn't be more excited about the fact that I didn't have to go into work. I was totally dreading it and so not going was the best Christmas present I could have gotten! We hope your Christmas was as fun as ours! Merry Christmas to everyone!

Christmas Eve

We had such a fun Christmas this year! I'll be honest, this year it took me up until the night of Christmas Eve to actually get into the Christmas mood, but once I finally did, it was wonderful. You see, it was going to be my very first Utah Christmas. In the past, Ryan and I have always gone to be with family (California or Illinois) for Christmas. However, this year I was scheduled to work all day (6 AM - 6 PM) on Christmas day so I was totally bummed that I would virtually be missing everything. No Christmas breakfast, no Christmas morning opening presents, no sleeping in until you feel like getting up and opening presents, no Christmas paninis. I was sad. However, I was totally stoked that my parents and Scott were coming into town to have my very first Utah Christmas ever. We decided to have a fancy Christmas Eve dinner and do most of Christmas (the present opening) on Christmas Eve.

The dinner was awesome! My work gave out Turkey Roasts for Thanksgiving and since we headed to California for Thanksgiving, I was left with a huge bird in my freezer. So we decided to have Turkey, delicious fingerling potatoes (seriously, YUM!), jello, Gulliver's corn, salad, and the best rolls in the world! Two years ago, I made Lion House rolls for Thanksgiving and have been dying to make them again. So I did. I was totally nervous that I was gonna mess them up and they were going to be a total let down, but thank goodness I did not. They were pretty much the best rolls ever! (If I do say myself!! haha). Anyway, we had a delicious dinner with Mom, Dad, Dave, Lynne, Owen, Lila, Scott, Me, Ryan, Dave's parents and sister. It was super good and totally put me in the Christmas spirit. Nothing like eating a bunch of food to get you in the spirit!

(YUM!! I could eat those right now!!)

After dinner we opened our presents. It was mostly fun to watch Owen actually be interested in opening presents although he didn't last too long before he was in tears over his moving car andoff he went to bed. We were totally spoiled this year and loved all our fun gifts. After the gift opening I got the best gift ever! I called work to see if they were busy and to see what I could expect the next day and they told me that I was gonna be on call! That means no work on Christmas! I couldn't have been more excited! We ended the night by making homemade Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and playing fun games! It was a fun Christmas Eve!

(All the presents under the itty bitty tree!)

(Ryan's favorite Christmas present was that the Cardinals won the World Series)

(Us and Lila on Christmas Eve)

(I swear this is like a tradition with my Dad and his girls but they say it was a one time thing. Since we did it this time, it makes it twice--and a tradition!)

Lila Jo

Welcome Lila Jo Kimball

December 17, 2011
7 lbs 7 oz
20 inches long

Isn't she the cutest! I love newborns! They are just so tiny!

She is all cheeks and is totally her momma's girl!