Evan Blake

We're having a BOY!!! We are SO excited! The morphology ultrasound was great! The doctor checked everything from thigh bones to the brain to the spine to hands and feet and mouth! Everything looked great. The coolest part was that we actually saw the 4 different chambers of the heart! How cool is that?!? He said everything looked perfect! There is also no way this little guy is popping out a girl, either. Near his head was the umbilical cord and down in between his legs was the penis! We had a perfect shot of it and there is no denying that he's a he!!! We are really excited - I haven't actually really slowed my head down I'm so excited - but we're so happy!! This little guy will have a cousin just 3 months older than he is, and that cousin is a boy. Most all my friends who have kids all have boys - and so there will be a strong support group in a couple years when we're all going through the same things! Scot was a little disappointed that it wasn't a girl, but by the time we were driving back to work, he was talking about how he was going to take him fishing and camping and hiking....he was so cute!! And as most of you know, I totally thought it was going to be a girl, and so while I was surprised, I can honestly say that I am just as excited to find out it's a boy as I would have been had it been a girl (if not more so actually). The only thing now that I have to figure out is room decor. We were set on doing butterflies if it was a girl, so I had all that planned out. ha ha. But we have no idea what to do for a boy - ideas anyone? Oh yeah - name. Haha. Evan Blake. Oh wait, that's the title to the blog - silly me! (see where my head is right now?) But Evan means "God is good" and that is just SO true in our lives and we fell in love with the name and the meaning behind it. Blake was my grandfather's name and he died when I was 4 and I'm the only grandchild who remembers him or had a relationship with him. Ever since I was little, I knew that if I had a son, his middle name would be Blake. :) But it was so neat to see him moving around and it was even cooler to feel the kick while watching it on the screen! Technology these days! ok...ultrasounds photos!! For all you genius' out there who actually recognize what you're looking at, please disregard the next few comments! :) The first one you're looking at is the legs splayed out the the left with the body laying towards the right and the little white dot in the middle was what we were looking for!! The second one is a close up of the first, and you can see the legs splayed upward with the foot in the middle-left part of the picture and the little bulby looking thing in the middle is again, the prime info. :) The last picture is little Evan's face. He looks a little scary - kind of like he's screaming. But if you look hard, you can see eyes, nose and wide open mouth! I turned the picture so it would be easy to see.

tomorrow, tomorrow

We find out the sex of the baby tomorrow!!!! - that is - if the baby is going to cooperative with the ultrasound machine! I also have to take the glucose screening/test - and I'm not looking forward to that, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right? But I can't seem to concentrate today on anything! Go figure, huh? Grrr....Scot has a final tomorrow morning, so we'll go to the hospital right after that. About 10:30! Oh - cool thing that I noticed yesterday...and I say noticed because I'm sure it's happened before, I just haven't been observant enough! But after I ate lunch, the baby started kicking up a storm and when I happened to glance down at my expanding abdomen I noticed that my whole shirt was moving and it wasn't due to breathing!! I'm sure I was quite the site, just staring at my belly for the next 5 minutes - totally amazed that this little person can kick/push so hard already that I see it on the outside! I tried to show Scot last night and this morning, but no such luck! But how crazy is that?!

quick and easy cinnamon rolls

So i decided to try my hand at 'homemade' cinnamon rolls last night and they actually turned out great! They were nothing like the Cinnabon that I was craving, but they did the job. Scot loved them, so that was a bonus. :) They were a different consistency than I was used to, but I attribute that to the 'quick and easy' part of it. Believe me, if I had the time to spend all afternoon making dough for cinnamon rolls, I would do it. But since I had about 30 minutes from the time I put dinner into the oven until I needed to sit down to actually eat - I needed something quick! :) I think next time - and Scot assured me there should be a next time - I will add more cinnamon and brown sugar - they were too 'bready' for my taste (ie: not sweet enough). But they were the perfect soft-on-the-inside/crusty-on-the-edges combo for us - mmm..... Here's the recipe I used in case you want to try it out yourself! Also, I didn't use nuts, but they would have tasted really good with it! Also, I'm sure I could make up a frosting to go on it to make it sweeter, too.

Quick Cinnamon Rolls

• 3-1/4 cups Biscuit Mix (homemade is fine - I used Bisquick)
  
• 1 cup milk
  
• 1/3 cup softened margarine
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1/2 cup finely chopped nuts, optional

- Mix the Bisquick with milk to make a dough. On wax paper, pat into a rectangle and roll to 1/2 inch thickness keeping the rectangle shape.
- Spread butter onto dough. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top
- Roll like you would a jelly roll and then cut with a serrated knife into 1 inch wide 'rolls'
- Place rolls in a well greased 9 x 13 baking dish and bake for 20 minutes @ 400
- Let cool for 15 minutes before enjoying!


I halved the recipe last night and found that i should have used a smaller dish so the rolls scrunched up next to each other instead of being given the liberty to spread out. :)

If anyone knows any good cinnamon roll recipes - please pass them my way. Quick or not so quick, it doesn't matter. I'm just looking for a good one. :)

daddy/baby time

This morning Scot finally felt the baby move!! And the cooler part was that the baby started to really kick when he started to talk to me! How sweet is that? I had him tell me when he thought he felt movement and every time but one, he was actually feeling the baby kick! Anyways - I thought I would update the blog with that little bit of exciting info!!

22 weeks!

I can't believe I'm 22 weeks already! haha! Scot took the customary pictures this past weekend and looking at last months pictures and this months, I can tell a difference! I don't really notice it too much b/c it's my body and who notices the little day to day changes that make up the huge month span changes? We also got a little creative at the end of the 'photo shoot' - I'll post that picture, too. :)



I'm feeling a lot more movement recently and that's been cool. Scot still hasn't felt it and I'm not sure if he even could right now. It's hard for me to differentiate between what I'm feeling on the 'inside' vs what I can feel on the 'outside'. I figure pretty soon he'll be able to feel it, but right now it's a little frustrating that he can't enjoy the miracle the same way I can.

In other 'life' news: it's less than 2 weeks until we go to CO and I can't seem to sit still! haha. I am SOOOOO excited to get back to the mountains and the clean air and blue skies! Not to mention my mother!! We're going to do a little shopping and looking at furniture and paint - fun fun fun!! Mostly I'm looking forward to just hanging out. Scot will be studying during the days, so that leaves me a lot of time for mommy/daughter time!! YAY!

time is going too fast...

Where is the time going? Seriously! Wasn't yesterday Thanksgiving?!? It sure seems like it. It's hard for me to image that I'm 22 weeks along in the pregnancy - it's hard for me to think that I have 3 and a half months left!! But it dawned on me today that Spring Break is in 2 weeks! In 2 weeks, we get to drive 12 hours and see the beautiful mountains of Colorado and I get to see my mom! And in one week - we go to the doctor to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl!! Scot said the funniest thing this morning. I was looking at the calendar and realizing that the future events are SO close and out of the blue he says "You know, I kinda hope we have a girl." I was shocked! Don't guys want a boy to carry on their name? Haha. I turned to him and told him that I thought that was very interesting considering that I don't even care if we have a boy or a girl!! Interesting how things work, huh?

Working out went really well this week! I'm so proud of myself. My round ligament pain is under control and I was able to walk 4 miles Monday and Wednesday (and hopefully today, too) - and then I did my Tuesday/Thursday Flex Your Body class and it was amazing! Tuesday we concentrated on arms (and I'm still a little sore) and yesterday we did legs and I'm definitely sore!! It's all good, though! No pain no gain, right Dana? And I agree - who came up with that anyways? haha!

No real weekend plans - dinner group Saturday night and probably start on some packing/organizing for what we're taking back home with us in 2 weeks. Fun stuff. :)

The Peking Acrobats

Ok, first I have to say that while I didn't take the picture that's posted, the acrobats DID indeed perform this 'Dogs on the Ball on a Seesaw' feat! Truman State (where I work) is amazing when it comes to bringing in outside entertainment since Kirksville is so far away from anything remotely exciting. We've seen the Nutcracker and the Vienna Boys Choir. We've seen the Preservation Jazz Band and funny comedy acts. Tonic Sol Fa (this amazing acapella group) has been one of my favorites! Needless to say, it's great. I get tickets for free since I work at Truman and we get to experience events like this that we wouldn't normally get to.

So Saturday night, the Peking Acrobats came to perform for us and it was amazing. I was in line to get perfect seating about an hour or so before the doors even opened and it was worth it. We were front and center of the balcony. The auditorium isn't huge, so we felt pretty close to the performance, and it was a great view, especially when the guys were on the ropes or climbing a ladder that had been made out of chairs, the bottom legs sitting on empty bottles!! Some of the things they did really seemed just unnatural, but it was phenomenal all the same. Scot really enjoyed it, too, which is good, since he took time off of studying to see it. :)

My favorite part, I think, was the ring diving. (there are so many 'acts' to chose from, it's hard to pick just one) It was amazing what these guys could do and how high they could jump through a small hole and then land just fine!! My other favorite was where this gal laid on her back and spun and rotated and 'played' (for lack of a better word) with big vases and small tables with her feet!! When you looked at the moving object, you really lost track of the fact that it was her FEET that were doing all the work! We also saw the classic 'balancing' acts, plate spinning, normal acrobatics, rope and pole acrobatics, swinging and oh course, the human pyramid! I kept telling Scot that there had to be something actually 'wrong' with them in the first place in order for them to be about to do some of the things they did! I mean, girls were bending at the neck, backwards! Slightly unnerving to watch, but beautiful in form and execution, that's for sure! I would definitely recommend going and seeing them if you ever get a chance. It's an experience you won't want to miss. (And yes, again, I didn't take this picture, but they did perform this feat as well - incredible)

The Rose

Here is a picture of the rose Scot got me!! It started to open a little bit and it's so pretty and it's smells AMAZING! As always, pictures really don't do justice, but you get the idea. :)

Sweet Husband Report

So when Scot and I first started dating, I let him know my 'expectations' (or lack thereof) of Valentine's Day. I think it is such a commercialized day, and while yes, it's fun to get candy and flowers and jewelry on the day, to me, it never really seemed as sincere. For me, I would much more rather/appreciate flowers or candy or jewelry on any day BUT Valentine's Day since every other women is getting the exact same thing and it's almost expected. Valentine's Day is to extra express your love for one another, but why limit it to one day, ya know? So I told Scot, if you want to get me flowers on Valentine's Day, fine. But I would much rather you take that bouquet of roses that cost 3 times as much as normal, and spread them out over the year, and so that's what he does. On Valentine's Day, we do cards and something fun, but we tend to stay away from gifts. I'm sure on certain years there will be exceptions, but right now, we like it this way. But, this is NOT why I'm writing this blog. So we celebrated our Valentine's Day this past weekend, and other than cards, we weren't going to do anything today. But when I walked into the office this morning, there, sitting on my desk, was the most beautiful rose I have ever seen. It's a perfect creamy white that fades into the most brilliant dark red around the edges, with pink being the 'transition' color. Gorgeous! He put it in my favorite vase and had little conversation hearts by it making the phrase 'I "Heart" U' (it's the phrase he used in his little 'plan' when he proposed.) I guess he slipped out of the house while I was showering and getting ready for the day. haha - Anyways, I was so surprised and just very thankful for the sweet sweet husband the Lord has blessed me with. :)

ethical/moral issues

what a way to even start a blog!! ethics vs. morality!! seemingly, to some, interchangeable words, but to me, they are different. Morals come from who we are and the standards we set for ourselves - the knowing of right and wrong. Ethics is more the study of issues that could cross moral boundaries. To be put simpler, morals are from the Lord and ethics from the theology. Anyways - why am I talking about ethics/morals? For 2 reasons, really. I just read a book where, in the end, the man helps kill his wife, whom he very dearly loves, all because she asked him to help her out of her pain and he is convicted of 1st degree murder. Now this presents us with MANY issues to look at. Euthanasia, for one, which I am totally and completely against in any way, shape or form. But it also takes a look at love. How much do you love someone and how far will you go to making sure that they are happy? Ugh! I'm glad this was a fictional book!! I love Scot more than I can say, but I could never end his life just to put him out of his misery. That's something you do with your old dog, not anyone you love. But it sparked some interesting dinner conversation, that's for sure. Part of the book, too, was convicting the man of 1st degree murder. Scot said that yes, of course he murdered his wife. I, of course, disagreed. (even though what he did was wrong, i don't see it as murder) So then we were debating the difference between killing and murdering. I told him that in order to murder, you had to kill. but just because you've killed someone doesn't necessitate the fact that you have committed murder. I gave him examples of accidents with guns or cars. Protecting yourself and having these scenes end in a death. If it wasn't with malicious intent or premeditation, it wasn't murder. He held to the fact that the 2 words were interchangeable. So, as always when it's a war between words, we turned to trusty Mr Webster and indeed, he supported my definitions. But Scot still thought that the husband was guilty of 1st degree murder and that's fine. It's a fictional scenario. Thankfully.

The other topic of conversation last night was not fictional at all. In Denver, there is an 8 year old boy who has decided he wants to go to school as a girl. Here's a link to the local paper that covered the story if you want to read up on it. Anyways - we got into discussion about how an 8 year old can even think that there's an option to become something else?!?! We thought about parenting or nature vs. nurture or even maybe some hormonal imbalance. We decided that there was something obviously wrong there, emotionally or otherwise, and we discussed how wrong it seemed, and what a bind it would put the school and other parents of classmates. We also got to talking about the difference between sex and gender. Well, the difference I saw in the two words at least. Again, Scot didn't see the difference, but this time Mr Webster wasn't as supportive of my definitions even though the definitions for the 2 words are different, they weren't different enough for Scot. haha. Oh well.

Anyways, I just got to thinking about how many ethical and moral issues there are out in this sinful world that we have to deal with and sort out. Obviously, in my head, killing (unless it is for pure self defense and there is no other way out) is wrong. Also, as a soon-to-be parent, letting your child decide on his own that he now wants to be a girl seems utterly absurd! Just the fact that there would be such a discussion seems absurd! What happens when the kid is 13 and decides he now wants to go back to being a boy? I understand that I'm not in that parent's position, and I can only pray that I won't ever be, but it just seems so unnatural.


So this is somewhat a rambling babbling rant at society in general - I think I just needed to write it all down so it would stop swimming around in my brain. Haha. I'm glad these are issues that I only have to read and think about, not ones I actually have to act on. :)

sweetheart weekend

Scot and I celebrated our Valentine's day this past Saturday since the actual day falls in the middle of his school week and we wanted to do something fun. :) I think I already mentioned that we're skipping on gifts this year and instead just having a fun afternoon to ourselves, which, is in itself a gift. :) (The joys of being married to a Med Student.) So we left Kirksville around noon on Saturday and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! It was about 40 out with blue skies and just perfect! We ate a later lunch at the HuHot and enjoyed our own creations that the nice men cooked for us on the BIG 'grill' thing. SO yummy - we both had seconds and were delightedly full afterwards! From there, we went to the Columbia Mall because there's this little tea place called Lollicup that sells Thai Tea (my absolute favorite drink in the whole world) and so we had to get some. Scot had never been and so he got Carmel Milk tea with Boba - it's really quite an interesting little place. They specialize in all sorts of milk teas, like Honeydew or Mocha or Peach - (also normal teas without milk) there were so many flavors to choose from I was glad I knew what i wanted BEFORE we got there. :) You should check it out. Boba is really weird to me, it's just cooked cornstarch balls, kinda like Tapioca. I don't like Tapioca, so I don't get Boba in my tea, but Scot said it was ok. They give you these massive straws to suck the Boba through, but to me, it's just weird, texture wise and also the lack of flavor!



I was also reminded while in the mall on a Saturday, why I don't like malls. And this time was especially mad considering it was the weekend before Valentine's Day - someone wasn't thinking. Haha. But we had a good time people watching and just milling about. They have a Target IN the mall, so I got my Target fix. :) Oh, and we saw the most, umm...interesting....tattoo! It was a picture of a man's face, evil looking, with his eyes all narrowed and glaring. It was just a very mean looking tattoo, and it happened to be on the back of this guy's shaved head! The scarier thing was that the picture was a sketch of himself!! Some people!

We went to the Hollywood Theaters for our showing of Atonement. It was so fun. We sneaked skittles and gobstoppers and sour straws into my purse to eat during the movie. We're cutting way back on sweets, but we decided to splurge since it was our Valentine's Day and what's a movie without either Popcorn or candy? But the movie was great. I won't spoil it for any of you who will potentially see it. But it was very well done, the costumes were amazing and it was a great movie in so many ways. (Also, the green dress she wears is AMAZING!!) All in all, it was a great weekend.


Baby news: Sunday morning I could sleep come about 3:30 or 4, and so I just laid in bed (what else was I going to do?) and all of a sudden I felt the baby kicking - a lot! It was like mini acrobats - it was the coolest thing ever and it continued for about 15 minutes. I was so happy I was up to feel that. I think babies really are more active when you sleep, they're not lulled to sleep by your movement during the day! Anyways - neat little tid bit.

oh the changes...

So I found out this week that along with my body changing, so my exercise routine changes, too. My normal routine up until this point was Monday and Friday I had a cardio class I went to, Tuesday and Thursday I had a "Total Toning" class I went to and Wednesdays was my day to just walk. Well, thanks to round ligament pain I can't do what I used to!! (and for those of you who have yet to experience this, it's a pain in your lower abdomen and groin area that is painful due to all the muscles stretching to hold the growing uterus - or so I've been told) So now I've had to take it down a step - literally - in my Total Toning class and I think I'm going to stop the Cardio class all together because when I went this last Monday, I was dying and my heart rate was up a little too high for my comfort level. So I'm going to walk for an hour on Mondays and Friday and then on Wednesdays, I'll walk 30 minutes and do some target toning and stretching for the other 30. I'll keep going to my Total Toning class because it's amazing, I'll just modify as I go along. For example, today in class, we had to do isolated lunges. Great workout, but when I put my foot up on the step and started to dip down, I felt this shooting pain where no one should ever feel pain unless you're actually IN labor, so I stopped and just did normal lunges. There was no pain. And while it's not as good of a workout, something is better than nothing. I've come to realize that in about 2-3 months, I won't be able to do anything but just walk. But by golly, I'm going to workout until my body just won't let me and then I'll just walk until my water breaks!

Otherwise, life is good. Scot and I are going to Columbia this weekend to eat at the HuHot (YUMYUMYUM!!!) and go and see a movie in the theaters. Since we really never do either of these, and definitely never in the same day, it's quite a treat. (it's our Valentines celebration). I'll let you know how it all was and how we liked the food and movie - Atonement. We're looking forward to it!!

4th Prenatal

Scot and I just got done with our 4th prenatal appointment and it went really well! Every time you go to the appointments, you have to 'leave a sample' - it's a lovely thing. Anyways, this morning, I wasn't really thinking, and so I went to use the bathroom at about 8:20 and realized too late that that was the last thing I should I have done. So i pretty much downed a Nalgene in 20 minutes and was fine, but man, it was a close call! Otherwise, everything else looked and sounded good. The doctor said that my uterus is growing at the appropriate rate and we heard the heart beat again with the Doppler and that was cool! Heart rate was 142 (still above 140!! hee hee).

We'll find out the sex of the baby (along with making sure things like the heart and brain look good) at the next appointment - Feb 29th. An update with the names: we have officially decided on names and we will start using them once we find out the sex! :) BUT - we're keeping the names mum for the next 4 weeks. You may think that it's not a big deal since we already had names picked out, but here's the twist - we've changed them. Not completely - but somewhat. I'll tell you this much. The girl's first name is still Anelise, and the boy's middle name is still Blake. :) Gotta love the suspense, right?

Other news: the weekend went really well. It snowed buckets it seems, but we're surviving! I did a lot of cleaning and read "My Sisters Keeper" by Jodi Picoult - really good book! Makes you think about certain life issues and was really just a nice quick read. I'm going to start on "Harvesting a Heart" next - we'll see if it compares. :) On another book note, I read "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls the other weekend and it was FABULOUS!! Going on my 'Favorites' list for sure. :)