Five Things for Friday, Baby News Edition

So,  I have a good excuse why this blog has been sort of quiet lately.

Baby #4 is on his/her way in September!

Is this anyone else’s favorite Pixar short?

We are all really excited, especially Rose because this baby is due around her birthday. She keeps telling me that she is getting a baby sister for her birthday… and really what could be better than that?

Some days I feel really overwhelmed at the idea of having another baby and can’t help but wonder, “What in the world was I thinking!”

Definitely had my moments of feeling like this.

But overall I feel such peace about this pregnancy. I can feel the gratitude that this little spirit has for what I am doing, and that makes everything so much easier to handle… even the morning (and night) sickness.

Which, hasn’t been too bad this time around. I haven’t been as sick as I was with Abe, which is nice, but I have still spent my fair share of time “calling Ralph on the big white telephone” as my Dad would so tactfully say it. Bowls of Rice Crispies and wet rags with peppermint oil on them have become my best friends. I am about 13 weeks along now though, so hopefully the nausea will start to ease up soon.

Other than that I have just been really tried. Which is why blog has been suffering. My choices in the evening have been #1) to blog or #2) to take a hot bath and go to bed at 9:00 PM.

Needless to say #2 has won out most nights.

I found out I was pregnant on a Sunday morning and the moment I saw the positive test I felt a wave of the spirit telling me that a little girl was coming to me. Then later that day at Stake Conference (a regional church meeting) I was walking with Abe in the hall when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little girl in white dress come charging towards me. I jumped out of the way because the little girl was coming at me fast and I was sure she was going to run right into me. I was surprised when no little girl went flying past me and even more surprised when I looked behind me and saw that there was no one there. There hadn’t been a little girl in a white dress at all. Which was strange because I had felt that there was one, so much that I had literally jumped out of the way. I realized that what I had felt was the spirit of my little girl and it filled me with such joy. After that experience I  know there is a little girl coming to me, if not this pregnancy than in another one, who is going to knock me off of my feet!

Even though I really feel like this baby is a little girl I think we are going to wait to find out the gender until the birth. With Asher and Rose we found out at 20 weeks but with Abe we didn’t. I will admit that not knowing the gender with Abe really drove me crazy but it also taught me some beautiful spiritual lessons. This time around though, knowing or not knowing the gender of the baby doesn’t seem to matter to me at all. It would make absolutely NO difference to me if this spirit was a boy or a girl, which I couldn’t have said with my other children. I feel like this time I am ready to receive anyone the Lord wants to send to me and so knowing the gender doesn’t seem important this time. But who knows, that could change in a few months!

I have been working on packing up our house and as I was loading books into their boxes I realized that this is the fourth time this year that Jon and I have moved our stuff. We loaded it all up into the moving van when we sold our house, then moved out of the moving van and into a storage unit for a month, then moved it all back into the moving van and unloaded it at our rental house. Now, 10 months later, I am packing it all back up and moving it back onto a moving van.

Good thing I enjoy packing, huh?

No, really I do. There is something really satisfying to me about emptying a house of everything and making it look empty again. It is really enjoyable to me.

It has also been really nice to have an opportunity to purge out alot of the junk Jon and I have accumulated over the years. This time around I have decided that if don’t LOVE something than I am not taking it with me, which means I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff. Perhaps I will regret it later but it sure feels really nice to be moving to Iowa with a much lighter load.

A few days ago I bought a stale loaf of french bread at the grocery store for 50 cents. For some reason buying stale bread seemed like a good deal at the time, but when I got home I found myself wondering what to do with two feet of hard bread. After giving it some good hard thinking I finally decided to try to make a breakfast casserole. I found this recipe online and it turned out yummy. I didn’t have any potatoes so I left them out, added green chilies instead of the hot sauce, and omitted the dry mustard and the mushrooms. Then we ate it on warm corn tortillas.  It was so good, definitely a keeper. I also tried this French Toast casserole and really liked it too. So now we have two new breakfast menu options, which is good because I was starting to get really bored with breakfast again!

I think I might be hooked on breakfast casseroles now. Do any of you have any other good breakfast casserole recipes I could try? 

Bonus, you get one more this week!

I will be signing books tonight at an Empowering Fearless Birth event in Lindon, Utah. This sounds like an incredible event and I would love to see you there. Here are the details:

Come view two brand new birth films, mingle with the best of the best in the birth and women’s services industry, AND enjoy a gourmet dessert buffet!

When:	Friday, Mar. 8, 2013
Where:	Castle Park Events Center 110 S Main St, Lindon UT, 84042
Cost:	$5/person if purchased by March 5th $8 at the door (cash only, space is limited)

HERE’S WHY YOU WANT TO COME!
-Support and learn about EMPOWERED and FEARLESS birth!
-Meet some of the best birth service providers and products in the valley. Only the best!
-Amazing dessert bar! Seriously epic!
-Celebrate the births of Asher and Sparrow!
-Guaranteed delightful conversation!
-Awesome odds of winning a door prize! 

Great date-night activity! Husbands, Dads, Mothers, Friends, Sisters, etc are invited! Bring your family and friends! Please leave children home. Non-walking babies are OK.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

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