The Ellen DeGeneres Show

I just applied to be on Ellen's show for Mother's Day and I thought I might as well share some of my thoughts here.

A few random facts about me may help shed some light on “my story. ”

I wonder why people don’t touch my belly. After reading so many warnings in pregnancy apps of unwanted belly rubs, I feel rather offended that random strangers don’t want to share my body. Will you please touch my belly for me and affirm my pregnancy?

My mom can’t remember what we’re naming our baby and keeps guessing names like “Bammer” or “Boomer.” After her initial reaction to the name we’re thinking of, we’ve decided not to share until after the baby is born. My mom also once told me that she thought I’d produce 8 grandchildren for her. Mom, I love you, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to disappoint you.

Our sister asked the family for pictures of all the kids so she could put them all in the family calendar. Using baby photos of both me and husband, we generated a couple photos of what our baby/toddler might look like and submitted them. She didn’t think it was nearly as funny as we did. And I’ll admit, one of the kids looked pretty scary, but the other one was rather cute. Let’s hope the first photo was a bad photo combination!

My husband teases me about wanting small babies. As a Newborn ICU nurse I got used to “normal” sized babies that weighed about 4 pounds or so. Seriously, they’re so cute! NONE of the kids on his side of the family are of this breed. Like their parents, they are the hefty type- tall and big. (After hearing that I come from a family of 11 kids, people often ask my husband if he has a big family too, to which he replies, “Oh yeah, we’re all at least over 250.” J) I worry about my nether regions when delivering a large baby, and my husband worries that I won’t love the chunky baby that I will most certainly have. Of course I will.

I pretend I’m a great opera singer, my beautiful voice breaking the heart of my lover. I figure this is the best time to sing it out because one day my child will ask me to not be so loud. And then I’ll wish he were back in my belly where he could still hear my lovely voice, but the sound would be muffled and all he could do was kick me a little (which he does without provocation most of the time anyway).

I often find myself joking my way out of hard situations, so all joking aside, I would like to tell a small portion of my story, or my struggle.

I am beautiful, big, and feminine. A symbol of life. My belly is huge, my breasts are huge, and my heart is full. But I wasn’t always this way.

I’m grateful for this little baby boy growing inside me. As a Newborn ICU nurse, I witnessed many couples fighting helplessly as their premature baby struggled to make it in this world. This of course was only after learning that many of these couples faced a great fertility battle of many years before they were ever “blessed enough” to have a baby in the NICU. (If you’ve never experienced this challenge, you may think the word “battle” is too dramatic here. It’s not.) I was sure that in placing me in a situation of such heartache and desperation, God was showing me what I could never handle once I tried to conceive a baby of my own. He was showing me that the world can be a hard place to live in, but luckily I wouldn’t have to deal with the hard things. I was wrong. After years of infertility and anger and bitterness toward the fertile world (and at my sister who, bless her heart, had to try for two whole months to conceive a child), I’ve come to realize God was showing me tender mercies- He was showing me that yes, there will be struggles, and yes, there will be victories. There will be heartache, but sometimes that leads to immeasurable joy and the battle fought hard would only increase the happiness found later.

And so, years after witnessing the painful truths of infertility, I get to experience the wonderful and not-so-wonderful aspects of pregnancy. And I welcome each one with the best smile I can muster. The new stretch marks, the lack of sleep, the decrease in appetite juxtaposed with the increase in hunger. I’ll admit, pregnancy is hard on your body, but I’d take it any day over infertility- that was destroying my soul.

In the end, I discovered that I’m resilient. I’m no longer surprised when challenges come my way. 12 weeks into my pregnancy, my husband lost his job and less than 12 hours later I was in the hospital for emergency surgery that threatened not only both my ovaries, but also my precious pregnancy. The very medication I needed to take to achieve my pregnancy was now ironically threatening this and all future pregnancies. I’ve since recovered from the surgery, but my husband has not yet been able to find a job and money is very tight around our house. Yet, we’re very blessed. We’ve been blessed by the small hand-me-downs that have come our way to ease the financial stress of this little baby boy. We’ve been blessed by the little kicks in my belly reminding us that he’s growing well and is healthy and strong. We’ve been blessed by the joy of knowing that we’re finally getting our little baby.

Why did I want to be a mother so badly? As the fourth of 11 kids, I helped raise my younger siblings- or let’s at least say that I helped them to not die by feeding them, keeping them from falling in the stream by our house, and taking away weapons and the like. I’ve dreamed of having a family of my own one day and I’m nearly there. I married the most wonderful man and I’m so excited to see him be a daddy- he is going to be so great! Now I get to employ all those life-saving skills I learned as the older sister of 7 crazy kids.

I’ve always been a big, tall girl (yes, finding maternity pants on a budget is next to impossible). Though I’m in my third trimester, it’s still not obvious to many people that I’m pregnant. This past week, someone held the elevator for me, recognizing I am pregnant. It touched my heart and made me feel silly for being so sentimental about the kindness of a stranger and about how much I wanted people to realize that the reason I’m walking slower than them and panting (and wearing the same shoes EVERY day) is that I’m hiding a watermelon under my dress.

I am exhausted and happy every day, and every time I think I didn’t do enough that day, I remind myself that I grew a HUMAN! What did anyone else do?

The Man I Married

Warning: This is smushy.

Today I was thinking about the wonderful man I married. He's a great many things, but in a word, he's good.

We've been trying to get our downstairs shower tiled for our renters (my sis and bro-in-law) for several months now and for lots of reasons it just hasn't happened or has been delayed. I will admit, I've gotten a little frustrated when something gets in the way because I feel so bad about not having a separate bathroom for them.

As I went to work a couple days ago, I had thought Mark would have time to work on the shower that day, and when I got home he told me what he'd been doing instead. My brother and sister-in-law have been preparing their home to accept foster children, which I think is very kind and noble of them. I guess they have to have beds in place to show they're ready for a child/children and they called Mark hoping he could help them on the spot because their home visit was in a few hours. Mark dropped everything and came to their aid, getting beds from the storage unit and bringing them to their house.

Mark's grandmother's house is going up for sale and he's put in a lot of work over there to get things ready (moving tons of stuff out of the house and cleaning and repairing all sorts of things- it's a big house). Today, the day of the first open house, Mark wasn't supposed to have to come help because he's helped so much already and his cousins could finish it off. We called his parents this morning just to make sure people were there to help and his parents said they needed our help (really just his- I'm basically useless in my 8th month of pregnancy) so he again dropped everything and came to their aid. I almost cried when it was all over and his mom had said that she was a little worried that everything wouldn't get done in time and then said, "as soon as I saw Mark arrive, I knew we would be ok."

Ok, I'm crying now, I hope you're not surprised. I could (selfishly) be annoyed that MY projects have been delayed, but in the end, I'm profoundly grateful that I married a man who could be trusted to help no matter what. He's the person you call when you're in trouble, when you don't know what to do, when you're panicked and afraid, when you just need another set of hands, when you need some strong muscles :), or when you need to ask a favor of someone you KNOW you can rely on. You call Mark. My Mark.

Constantine

Can I just say I'm super excited to have a baby on the way? I see my sister's baby a couple times a week and I just can't get enough of him! I'll be honest, I'm pretty nervous about how the delivery will go, but I'll be happy to meet our little man.

People like to ask us what names we like and we're uneasy about telling names we actually like in case there's some backlash. Once the baby comes out and he's named, there's not much anyone can do about it. Anyway, Mark likes to tell people some pretty weird names just to see their reaction. Constantine is my favorite. :)

Stranger Danger No More

I don't know why, but out world has been made out to be a terrible, awful place, with terrible, awful people living in it. I blame the news, in part, for focusing on the negative and showcasing the evil in the world. 

Also, my parents have had some bad experiences with their neighbors and so I've always been wary of people I see when I'm by their house.

Turns out, people aren't as awful as they're made out to be and strangers are not always mean people to be feared. 

Last night I slid off the road by my parents house and was really stuck. I was hoping I would have enough cell service to call my Dad to come help me, and within a few minutes, I had 4 separate cars stop and offer their services. Only one had 4-wheel drive AND a tow rope, and he got me out of the pickle I was in. He also had walkie talkies and gave us one to communicate with him as he worked to pull me out of the snowbank- now that is preparedness at it's finest people! I was quite impressed and a little embarrassed that I had nothing to help me out of my situation... except a Dad about 1/2 mile away. 

The kind neighbor asked me if I was up there hiking or skiing- I'm sure because I looked so unprepared. No. I've actually been up here SO many times that I should know better than to drive more than 2 miles an hour on that one particularly slippery corner. 

Anyway, I'm just so grateful for kind people who came to my rescue so soon. Funny side note: a sheriff passed me and DID NOT stop to help. He came back later and said that he was sorry and didn't realize I needed help. Not sure how he missed that as I was off the side of the road with a huge pile of snow that I'd plowed with the front of my car. Oh well. 

Just a few weeks ago, the night of that HUGE snowstorm, Mark and I got stuck in the middle of the road in his parent's suburban (that has four wheel drive, but for some strange reason couldn't handle the 12" of snow on the road- literally!) about a mile from last night's occurrence. Two cars stopped and helped us get our car to a safe place and I was so grateful for their help. 

That makes 3 different neighbor couples who've helped us get unstuck in about 3 weeks. My idea of my parents' neighbors is shattered. They are nice, helpful people. I'm so glad. 

It's so much easier to like people than it is to dislike them. And, I'm more devoted to paying it forward to help someone in need.

Thank you kind people.

The Making of the 30-Layer Cake

Mark turned 30 this year and I wanted to make sure he had a really good birthday party. Turns out I don't really like party planning, nor am I necessarily gifted at it. When asked what kind of cake he wanted, he showed me a picture from Pinterest...so of course mine wouldn't look nearly as good. :) The one on Pinterest was a 30 layer rainbow cake and Mark was kind enough to not make me do that.

I took some cake classes from the woman who made my wedding cake, so I'm always excited to pretend that I can make nice cakes. :) Mark and I decided on alternating layers of double chocolate and classic white cake, which was MUCH easier than a rainbow cake.

9 cake mixes, tons of eggs, plenty of sour cream, and lots of some other ingredients later, we had 30 small cakes.

 And now we begin putting it together... I got this cake board at Home Depot in the bargain wood section. They trimmed it down to the size I wanted and I only had to pay 51 cents for it. :) I love good deals!

Orange buttercream frosting between the layers...mmmm...

 Adding the final layers...

 And finally covering with frosting....

The candles...

 And Happy Birthday!

Quite a feat if I do say so myself.

I wish I'd gotten a better picture of the different layers because it looked really cool, but this will have to do. This is the last few layers.

Happy birthday Mark! I love you!

The Not-So-Humble Tree Skirt

It's finally done!!!

I'm probably biased, but I'm pretty sure I just made the world's cutest Christmas tree skirt. Like for reals. Here's proof: 

I can't remember the last time I was so pleased with a project!

Kamber told me about Small Business Saturday and we went to Pine Needles and got this beautiful fabric, and the best part is, I only spent like $4 in the end.

It's good quality material and I like knowing that the fabric feels wonderful as well! (sort of like how I always was content with fake pearls until I got the real thing...I blame my in-laws for that one!)

Anyway, I saw a tutorial online on how to make a tree skirt and I started doing exactly what she did until I realized that my sewing teacher would haunt me if she ever saw what I was doing. So I went to a lot of extra effort to make sure there were no unfinished edges, and ended up making a much better product. Now I can sleep at night. :) Seriously though, if I had done it the sewing-teacher-will-haunt-you way, this would come apart the first time it was washed!

Thanks to Riley for helping me gather the insane amounts of fabric that went into these ruffles. I started thinking about how fancy I would feel if I had a skirt like this to wear, even if would look silly!

I sewed each ruffle on with a double needle, and because I somehow lost the box with ALL my sewing feet (the one on my machine is actually my mother's) and sewing machine accessories, I did not have an extra spool holder. Nothing my Gingher's and a trusty old paper clip can't fix!

Here's the bias tape I made of the outermost fabric and used to finish off the innermost circle and ties.

Voila! Finito! This was not necessarily hard, but it was quite time-consuming. Mark kept telling me at my most exasperated moments that I could put it away and finish it next year. I love him! He's so supportive.

Here's our humble tree, with our not-so-humble tree skirt. Gotta give it room to grow!

{I'm not sure I want to put the presents on top of it!}

Merry Christmas!!!!!!

Christmas by Lantern Light

Last night, Mark and I attended the Christmas party of my home ward in Emigration Canyon. I will always feel welcome at that ward and return just about as often as I can.

As we had just finished our hors d'oeuvres (French is so beautiful) and were moving to another room for the musical entertainment, the power in the building went out. Everyone got out their cell phones and illuminated the paths as we gathered in the chapel.

My family had not yet arrived, so Mark and I sat in the Walsh's usual bench, hoping they'd find us there (reminds me of counsel given to me about what to do in the event you get separated from your group- go to home base and wait for them to find you). It worked! They found us. Joy of joys.

Once we were all settled, we all sang Christmas hymns and it was truly special. I'm grateful to those who can play any hymn at any moment, and for the unexpected blessing that loss of power provided. By cell phone light, we remembered our Savior's birth and the reason that we're celebrating this time of year.

We even got to sing one of my favorite Christmas songs, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." It speaks so much peace and hope and joy to my soul and I love it. Were tears free-flowing down my face? Of course they were. It was such a special moment to me.

Luckily the soup was already warm, so we moved into the cultural hall (what a weird name) and ate by the light of several lanterns. I loved it so much! I was rather disappointed when the lights came back on at the end of dinner.

Why is it that dim lights calm me and help me to feel the Spirit?