A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to St George, Utah. Southern Utah was INCREDIBLE!!!! Freddie was so good the whole was there. He was super happy. We would sing and talk and look outside, and let him play with the tablet for a while to keep him happy. We also had an activity box with paper and a few colored pencils, some cars, books and other toys. It worked well. We also went over all the names of his little cousins that would be there. There were going to be 4 other boys all between the ages of 2-4.

A few things:

1. We have all been sick the past few days. Collin got it bad then Fred then me. I had a temp of 101 and poor Freddie couldn't breathe out his nose. so so sad. even sadder, when he cries so hard after putting saline in his nose. that stuff is AWFUL!!

Collin takes really good care of us and gave me a delicious and pretty breakfast in bed.

Fred always gets breakfast in bed. Have I mentioned he is the gassiest little baby? He farts SO LOUDLY! Its so funny. Well just now he coughed-coughed then coughed and farted at the same time Haha.

2. Last night for Fhe we read this article about the power of the scriptures. It says that reading the scriptures can accelerate physical healing!! So cool! My palsy! Healing down there!

3. Here is an awesome scripture I read this morning:

                    2 Nephi 10:25....Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise him through grace divine. Amen.

4. I love my husband. I love holding his hand

(when we were young)

5. My Kitties are cute. They are buddies these days.

6. My baby is awesome. walk, baby, walk.

Life is good.


David gets home from his mission tomorrow.

I am so excited about this: Fall Festival


Cs is sick. We won't catch it though. I refuse.


So am I going to have to buy nursing pads for the next year? Will I ever stop leaking?


Maria Taylor of AZURE RAY, my favorite band of 8 or 9 years, is expecting a baby. I'm so so happy for her! Here's a link to her new album, Overlook. 


Speaking of a little bundle of joy, babe boy REALLY got me this morning. I mean, pooping and peeing on me is a regular occurance...I SWEAR, it's not my fault! HE WAITS till I'm changing his already soiled diaper! Even if I feel like I've waited till he's done...even if I hurry so fast....he gets me...but today...today was the MOTHER of all gettings...(so far). I even had him on a sheet protector pad thing. It SHOT OUT, all over ME, my legs, the blankets, everything....so badly that I had to go jump in the shower! LUCKILY Collin hadn't left for work yet and was able to help me. Oh man, haha. Look at im....

PS. He totally SMILES when he makes eye contact with me. Best thing ever and worth being covered in anything!!!

We went to the harvest festival at Joe's school Wed. My mom helped put it on...let's face it, she practically did the entire thing...and it was incredible. It was a GREAT alternative to the State Fair for us this year since A. my butt would hurt so badly I'd die if I rode lots of rides right now and B. Baby guy's brains would scramble so we'd have to switch off doing stuff. no thanks!! 


THE BIG FOOTBALL GAME is this Saturday. tomorrow.  I don't know if you are supposed to pray that your team will win but i'll be praying that we do our best AND that our best is going to Florida for nationals!!!!!! Wooohoooo! Everyone should come out to support! Or at least send positive vibes our way!


My hot husband and darling baby are asleep next to me and both lightly snoring hehe.


I love grammar and have been going back to my old grammar books to refresh.


David comes home in 6 daysssss. Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy.


Best homemade NO KNEAD bread, and extremely easy:

3 C. hot water
1 ½ T. granulated yeast
1 ½ T. kosher or sea salt 
6 ½ C. 
Cornmeal 

big ol 1 month old baby guy

yesterday we went to the pediatrician for Freddie's 1 month check up! 1 month! what a big boy! Well at birth he was 7lbs 9oz, 21.5inches long and now he is 9 lbs 15 oz, 22 1/4 inches!! (good thing too because we're outta Newborn diapers...time to start on the 1s!!!)

Well, he's alert, healthy, happy, sweet, darling, cute, amazing, handsome, wonderful, FUNNY, silly, and every other good thing.

Me? well, apparently I over did it. my bleeding and level of soreness indicate that I've agitated the site of the placenta and my midwife told me I'm basically back to week 1. :( we were doing so well at my diet and resting and I was getting better so I really did jump the gun and did too much too soon. sad. not to mention the hemorrhoid and what i have to do to get rid of that. TMI? nah...I had a baby. nothing's too much for me.

So now it's going to be hard to keep myself down...but I can do stuff as long as I adequately rest as well. we've also had zilch food lately due to being outta town. but we went shopping last night and stocked up on fruits, vegetables, and coconut water.

breastfeeding is going great. I'm really starting to enjoy it. I did buy a simple pump and will start that up in a bit so that Collin and I can take advantage of my parents/free babysitting.......BUT WAIT! that would mean I'd have to leave Fred. and I just can't do THAT.

not too much sleep going on these days, but i AM happy! ha!

shoppin...

 i love fresh and easy.

 his fav sleeping position/place: right on the breast.

 cutie.

PS. SHINE PROJECT EVENT TONIGHT! Frederick, Collin and I will be there.

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.

true happiness and a little stress.

i was laying there in birth class yesterday, instructor starting another relaxation exercise, and as I was breathing and relaxing, babe was moving around so much. the happiest feeling just came over my entire body. i would rub back and s/he'd move and back and forth and back and forth. and then "collin and i are going to have a kid! What the heck!?!" i forgot everything bad ever and was just glad. beaming. it felt really good.

is this true happiness?

poor collin took a Vicodin that morning for the muscle pain he's been experiencing and then he ran to the instructor's bathroom and threw up in the sink. my brother came and got him luckily, and then i watched the most amazing water birthing video in my life. it was about women in Russia. man they were calm. this one woman just was so patient. the head came out and then she just waited, calmly, for the rest to come on its own instead of forcing or pushing. it really seemed to be less uncomfortable. i want to do that.

so with the true happiness comes a little stress: collin being sick and my dad having some heart issues. everyone please pray for them/send positive thoughts.

cute sad little cone face

Wow, surgery is real. And surgery for a cat is really especially horrible because he was super crazy coming off his drugs and has to wear this really sad cone so he didn't lick or bite his wound. Pooooooooooor poor baby. Each day gets better, and man, prayers work for kitties to heal more quickly, too.

But we take the cone off first thing in the morning/right when we get home and give him so much love. I don't think there was ever a more loved kitten. Well, maybe; but man, we love you Montgomery Jack-o-Latern Smith.

So humiliating.

He does his best to sleep while he has the cone on. It's really all he can do. He becomes pretty lifeless.

But when he's awake, he bites the crap out of ol' Pluto, there.

Alan, Sandy, Joe, Nik, Colony

Photo taken by the lovely Amy via my dad's cell phone.

Today I'm going to the temple and grocery shopping. My poor husband is dead in our bed. Not really; he's asleep, but super sick, poor guy. Either way, I'm not sleeping, and it's very very early. Lately I just haven't been able to. Too many strange dreams and stresses. I feel I'm getting tired again after staring at this screen a while. So I'll go snuggle in and kiss 'im and hope my Vitamin C pills work.

bread?

I bought this two days ago. That is just sick. I'm taking it back.

Changing things up

We're doing some deep cleaning and rearranging. Hope it looks better than this when we're done!

In other news, I'm sick. Super super death sick. I was sick Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, and Saturday, but I just kept on going to work, going to friends' houses, ignoring it and pretending my body would reject it and it'd go away.

I even ignored it last night as my sinuses attacked all the way through dinner at our neighbors' house. Then we got home and everything hit. I had a horrible fever. We retired to bed and I made it through most of Michael Jackson's This is It (which is very good, by the way.)

I had to stay home from church today. Sad. But at least I got the time off work and get to go to GIRL'S CAMP! Yahoo!!!

Books on the Czech Rebublic

Degrassi: still good.
I miss you, friends.
I have some sort of mite living in my body, burrowing bumps and puss-boils into my skin.
I got medicine for that, but I itch all over.
I am in love, and love makes you crazy--like makes you want to wake up next to him every morning for forever.
I have no job and no money, so my sugar-daddy pays for everything; it's great!!!
I crave swimming everyday.
I been working on my tan, but mostly, I get freckles.
I watched 4 excellent movies today.
Chinese food is amazing.