best date night: Laurie Notaro

I've been a fan and reader of humor author, Laurie Notaro since 2003. She's come to Phx for readings for years and I've NEVER been in town. Tonight was the night. Collin was my date. It was awesome. 

Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club::::::::

I told her I love her and she told me I smell good. 

The ever lovely, ANNE! She got us a seat and a good spot in the book signing line. Ohhhh yesss.

We had her make the book out to "Monte & Dot," OF COURSE. Laurie was like, Monte, Dot? And we were like, "no...they are our cats," hahahhaha. Then she was like, "I love my cats, too! Well, no, my cat's dead. I love my dog!" Then she showed us and picture and then we showed her a picture. It was great. 


HER INSCRIPTION: "Monte and Dot. You can't read. Your people don't seem to know that. Maybe with some black magic we can change that. Meow, Laurie Notaro."


HAHAHAHAH I love her even more now!!!! 


AND I got all sorts of pregnant perks: this lady let me cut her in line in the bathroom and I got a super comfy seat and my husband bought me delicious lemonade. 


New house! tomorrow!!!!! The kitties are SPAZING OUT like usual when moving and boxes and anything out of the ordinary happens. We're excited, too, little guys. 

oh man, I'm just staring at cs (he's sleeping, so I'm a creep) and I'm so in love with him. he's this amazing creature and he's all mine.

yoga makes room, and other exciting things

Just did the BEST prenatal yoga. Seriously, if you are aching, swollen etc in pregnancy, try yoga. I didn't do it for like 4 days and noticed a huge difference. I've been miserably uncomfortable and aches and pains and unable to move. My stomach is big! I'm 32 weeks! My right side has been killing me (that's where babe is at most all times) and I've been even more tired than usual.

But I did that awesome yoga today and I feel SO much better. Breathing into my sides while stretching....creates ROOM! And no matter how cramped I do feel, I still am smiling huge with each somersault in my belly. I have two hearts in my body right now!!!!

I can't get these rascals to stay off the counter, but I sure love them.

Taking mom to the airport this morning! I'm holding down the fort at the Money home (Dot and me and the rest all boys! YIKES!)

Collin is back and work and doing great. We have a doctor appointment set for him just to make sure. And it's the same doctor who will be our pediatrician!!! YAY!!!

Then Friday it's moving time, woo hoo!

repetitions and anxieties

anne costa is gorgeous.





















wonderful performance by aaron n tonight with help from lovely friends.
and very interesting pieces by others as well.
never before have i seen someone shave herself in a race.


before that was birth class, like in the movies. it was really fun.
collin is literally going to be the best birth partner ever.
he knows me and my moods and what i need so well; it's amazing.

Anxieties:
i'm afraid dot's going to go into heat soon and i've no clue what to do.
who will take pictures and video at my birth? i just don't know.

film: The Illusionist

 

We watched this film today. I loved it and I'll tell you why. It reminded me that when you put others before yourself, life has more purpose. You're happier. You have something to work for. You can make a difference.

Also, there's always someone who has it worse than you. 

Lastly, you can really sabotage yourself. The moment you start letting other stuff become priority over loved ones is the moment you are alone. You can fix it. But if you don't, those loved ones might just move on and you'll still be alone. 

It was beautiful, nostalgic and sad. My kind of film. 

animal story for the shine project, AWESOME.

This is Dot. Her mother was rescued by a woman at my husband's office. Soon after the rescue, the cat had kittens. The woman at Collin's office heard we had a kitty, Monte, (obviously because we're obsessed with him and talk/blog/text/post/dream about him daily), and asked Collin to take one of the new kittens.

Seeing as we were expecting a new baby and Monte was already  our baby, I was pretty skeptical about getting a new little one, (and really all that comes with it...shots, neutering, tiny baby needle claws, etc), but Collin really talked me into it. He said it would be good for M to have a playmate when the baby comes in Sept. But I was worried...how could I love someone as much as Monte?? How would Monte react?

I went to pick her up and the moment our eyes met, I was instantly in love. She was pretty scared and sad at being separated from her brother (which makes me soooo sad), but she was completely calm. Her bright blue eyes just melted me. My heart had somehow grown to accomodate my new love for little Dottie. She just makes our little family even better and makes us that much more confident about being able to focus on our new skittlecore knowing that Monte and Dot love and have each other.

She is a spunky little girl. She kind of bosses Monte around. She gets into everything and loves to cuddle up right next to us and sleep all night. She loves warm places like your lap or armpit, haha.

We love you Dot Smith.

hey you two. you four.

Hey little kitties, you're cute. You always have to be in close proximity to us. But you don't want me to hold you. You gotta be free!

Hey Collin. Get well. Sorry I beat you in Othello today. I just had to take advantage. You're my super hot sexy husband lover and I'm super in love with you. Seriously, get well so we can play and go on trips before this baby is born!

Hey Babe. You move around a lot. It's super cute. It's like slow-mo-alienish because I think it's getting pretty cramped in there. You especially move around when I'm taking deep breaths and laying on my side. Even my mom prays for you as Skittlecore. I imagined your birth tonight and you looked just like me. Is that narcissistic? Dad imagined you as an anime character. Is that cool or what? I just want you to know we want you. We love you already. This is going to be awesome.

And as for me, I sort of scraped???? the bottom of my left big toe on the killer stairs tonight. Ouch, but whatever. Then laying on the bed felt something slippery. Looked down. BLOOD. EVERYWHERE. Oh well. Gushing. Super juicy red. Why's my blood so red? Not sure. Cut was insane deep. It was really weird actually! My mom bandaged me up though. Alll better.

My dear friend Jayna had her 4th baby today! whOA whoA! Four! What a woman! Her boy is Coleton. What a cute name. She had her baby a week early and was 7 weeks ahead of me...what the soon....  :) :) :)

Barahona, DR

I can't sleep, so here are some recent photos of Elder Money.

He's in Barahona, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

And he comes home at the beginning of NOVEMBER!

With Mission BFF, Elder Carter. They served together months ago, and are now in the same area again and see each other often. :)

Apparently he has a sailboat tie collection, ha!

July 4th.

I love this picture.

Classic David

Making horchata! COOL!

David loves the beach. And it's right there. He can't get in, but at least he gets to look at it.

birth will be

collin and I have slept and relaxed all day. for lunch I made us smoothies and put tons of protein powder in them....I'm supposed to have 80-100 grams per day and it's hard sometimes. the P powder made them gross, but I chugged mine anyway. Collin was sweet and ate a few bites. then made himself some lunch.

our midwife and doc gives us birth videos to watch for homework after each appointment. they are all pretty good, but some are better than others. we watched one today that was really great. mostly waterbirths. I just love seeing positive happy birth stories. I know everything is going to go so well because i'm going to be with collin. he's so supportive. this is going to be an emotional, passionate, amazing, wonderful, intimate, happy, life-changing experience.

Dot sat in collin's lap and slept mostly while we watched the video. she is the cuddliest kitten EVER! It's the best. she kept waking up and looking at the screen with each birth when the baby would cry. hehe. cute.
and Monte is such a teenager and hardly cuddles anymore, but still lets us know he loves us. I love that big boy so much.

finally found out what's wrong with CS!

recap: (this is really just a journal entry for me, so it's wordy, sorry.)

Collin had been feeling muscle soreness and sick for a week or so..and it worsened after the haboub.

Last Thurs he's so bad, he has to stay home from work.

Fri it's worse and we go to Urgent Care.  Collin is having severe muscle pain, fever, chills, no appetite, catch in lungs, etc. They rule out strep. They take a chest X-ray and rule out pneumonia. They take blood, tell us it's a week to hear back from that, and tell us it's just a flu and to just rest. They prescribed vicodin for his pain.

Sat he eats some fruit because he can barely take two bites of anything at a time. He takes a vicodin. We go to our hypnobirthing class, and during it he goes white as a sheet, runs to the bathroom and throws up. I mean so violently that he gives him whiplash in his neck and now when he coughs it hurts so badly that I have to hold his neck and push hard. it feels to him that his head will explode off his neck if I don't. He sleeps sat and feels better at night. Fever still going up and down.

Sun morning, there's no way he's going to church. (and I haven't slept in days but I decide I need to go. Glad I did because we had the most amazing lesson on the atonement.) But Sunday afternoon collin is worse. all he can eat the whole day is a piece of bread, two bites of plain potato, and two bites banana. and hours apart. he's weak, his heart is racing. he takes half a vicodin because the pain throughout body is so bad, but that just makes him feel crazier. He receives a blessing and is blessed to get the correct medical attention.

Sun night Collin is so sick he can't breathe. everything hurts and nothing makes it better. he had been taking ibuprofen 6 at a time instead of vicodin. that V stuff is evil to his body.  His temp is up again, he's coughing violently and shooting pain in skull, neck, and everywhere else. We find a different urgent care to go to, my mom drives us because I'm having tons of warm-up contractions and can't see well at night and don't feel good at all. My mother is a saint. I love her. This Urgent Care seems so much more competent than the first, but still can't really do anything...but they tell us that Collin's vitals are COMPLETELY "out of whack" and he order him to go to the Emergency Room. His blood pressure is super high, heart is racing over 120, temp of 101, and dehydrated.

So on our way to the ER, I'm so stressed. Like, so STRESSED. Why is this happening? What is going on with him. Seriously, it was scary because he was freaking out and in so much pain. I'm about to question everything that I am and that I believe, but peace and calm come over me as I pray and though neither of us are able to calm completely, I believe everything will be okay.

We get to Chandler ER and sort of thank goodness Collin almost collapses because they take us in RIGHT AWAY in a wheelchair. They take all of his vitals, ask questions, then take him to get blood work. As these two women are working on him (one on each arm) and really developing crushes on Collin even in this zombie-like state, I just had this peace, calm, everything will be okay now feeling.

The night shift was like the show scrubs. And I haven't worn my wedding ring for the past few days because of a little pain and swelling, so one of the nurses called me Collin's girlfriend. We laughed and thought we were so scandalous. hehe.

they get him on Morphine and Toradal for the pain. then an IV to get some nutrients in him (Collin had a rough time with the needles) and he started calming down. his neck was still in pain after that so they had to rule out meningitis. They did! Took more X-rays, saw various nurses and the doctor and guess what...

PNEUMONIA.

I was honestly relieved when we found it out because we knew what it was and what to do and he was already starting to feel better with the correct meds. They put him on two different antibiotics through his IV and Tylenol for the pain. That took a few hours and I sat by his bedside and read him this month's Bon Appetite (very good btw, despite Gweneth Paltro being the feature.) They discharged us at around 2:15am, we went to the Pharm to get his oral 4 day antibiotics, anti-nausea, and Motrin. They said to just take Tylenol and Motrin at the same time for the pain. He also was ordered to stay home till Thursday.

So we got home, went to bed and slept WELL till late this morning. Collin got up at one point and had a fever but took the Ty/Mot combo and it really really worked! His fever was gone this morning and he was able to sit up, get up, and walk around by himself (HUGE IMPROVEMENT. Picture a 7 month pregnant -and getting larger by the day- woman trying to lift her husband out of bed..) And we both got up and ate breakfast. Now we're going to shower, and sleep more. Probably practice some hypnobirthing techniques. PHEW! What a week! What a night! I'm grateful for prayer and family and friends and ward members who really care and the priesthood! Collin will be fine. yahoo!

And the kitties were waiting for us by the door when we got home from the ER. They keep going up to Collin, smelling him and checking on him, and then running off and playing together.

I had to get some pics on CS's phone. What a helpless cutie.