I think it's a boy.

I have had lots of comments that we are having a boy, but when you look at the cold hard facts it is hard to argue that it is a girl.

1. Morning sickness is generally worse if you are having a girl. Since you also typically seem to have a pregnancy similar to that which your mother had, and because she had all girls and bad morning sickness it leads me to deduce that I am having what she didn't have, and thus did not experience- symptoms of a woman growing an Adam, not an Eve. Now don't get me wrong, I am still sick and hate the idea of food in general, but I have heard horror stories about morning sickness, and I won't even begin to pretend that my sickness even holds a match to those tales.

2. Hello Carnivore- I am not a big meat eater, typically, but lately meat seems to be one of the best things to eat, since it is one of the few things that sounds good, on the rare occasion that food sounds good at all. I know that this is not a cold hard scientific fact, but it just made sense. Boys=Meat.

3. Dry Skin- my mother got acne when she was pregnant, but I have been experiencing very dry skin. I went and purchased a very nice Olay moisturizer and have been applying it regularly and my skin is doing much better. I am just applying the opposites rule here.

Basically we won't really know til around Thanksgiving, or a few weeks after, whether we are having a boy or girl, but right now I am placing my bet on boy.

SUPRISE

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!! BABY KIRBY DUE THE END OF APRIL!

Alright, so it is general knowledge now that we are having a baby. Please read on to discover how the last few weeks have been for us. We are so excited that everyone will know now, and I hope that you enjoy a little bit of participation and feel included in the journey that have embarked on!

Lil bit sicker

And here I thought I was going to beat the battle with my stomach. I still think I am putting up a winning fight, because even though I feel like I am going to lose it, while even the idea of food is unappealing, I still have not had any repeat incidences of succumbing to the porcelain throne. My Harmon's charade is still the only one on my list. I attribute my ability to handle my wits due to years of living with a sensitive stomach that is prone to become upset if not carefully handled.

I still hope that this passes soon because I certainly don't feel like myself, and I am always hot. Sickness and Hotness are a terrible combination.

Scott comes home tonight, still waiting for him to show up, will probably be a little while still, but man I wish he would hurry up. Having him home can make all the difference sometimes.

Parents are on board

Well our parents all know now, my mom got her package, and because Scott wasn't able to come down this weekend to collect the grandma decoration he just told his parents. I guess they weren't surprised, my father-in-law, AKA Inspector Clouseau, said he already knew because I didn't want to eat sushi the other night. I still think that is a far reach to guess that I was pregnant since there could have been a variety of reasons why I wasn't interested in going to Happy Sushi or Takara for dinner (like, A. I don't want to see my old employer Mama Lee, B. It is expensive, or C. Cafe Rio just sounded better), but he was right, so I can't say too much about it. 

My mom is very excited and can't wait for me to tell other people. My employer Jenny knows, and she and my mom are good friends, so for now I suspect my mom will confide in her. I did mail out our Sisters' Ant Mail today, so they should know soon, and I told Scott he should go ahead and tell his brothers and my sister-in-law Olivia. Grandparents are next in line, and then I plan to launch this blog to inform the rest of the world.

I must admit that I like having a secret of this magnitude, it is going to be a little sad to let it out, but I know that there are many people who will be glad to share in our joy, and that will be much more gratifying than a secret.

Waiting on our world to change.

I sent that package off to my mother on Thursday, it has now had three days of travel and could probably get to her any day now. Last night I had a missed call from her. I looked at my phone, and then I looked at Mandy and said, "My mom called..." I hurried and listened to the message and it didn't sound like anything out of the ordinary, so my best guess is she still hasn't gotten our package, but waiting is certainly giving me butterfly's, I am just so nervous and excited I can barely contain myself.

Names

Mandy and I were looking at a baby name book last night. (PS- Yes, Mandy knows before my parents, my Mom would kill me, but kind of hard to keep a secret like this from your roommate, especially when you have morning sickness and are bringing home baby cribs) Okay, I feel I need to diverge for a minute on why it has taken me up til the 8 week point to tell important people in our lives. I know some people like to tell right away and then if something happens have a support group, but I am the opposite, I would rather not dissapoint everyone if something goes wrong. I realize that the greatest window to miscarry can last up to 13 weeks, but I felt if we could make it to the 8 week mark that I would be comfortable telling everyone, so I mailed off my Grandma Subway Art to my Mom, and Scott will be taking his to Logan next week to give to his Mom. We figured out a cute way to tell our sisters they were going to be Aunts- I kind of want them to have to figure it out, so I am going to make Pink and Blue Ants, a bunch, in little confetti size, and put them in envelopes for each of them to open. I told Scott to just tell Brett and Tyler since they won't really care if they get a cute craft, ha ha.

Okay, so back to Mandy and I looking at names. Scott and I have decided that we both love our parents very much and want to, in some form, honor them in the baby names. So we decided to use their initials. Our first two children will have each of our parents initials. Girl names were super easy to come up with and we figured those out right away. For Anona and Rod we would name the girl Aspen Rose and for Lesa and Jeff we would name her Lorelai Jay (please note the second name is the middle name of the child). Boys....I am not so good at picking out boy names, which brings me to Mandy and I browsing at midnight through the most ridiculous baby name book ever created: 60001 Baby Names, the majority being severely ridiculous (rambo, amadeus? who would be cruel enough to use these?). Let me tell you, I have a VERY hard time choosing names. So, we found a couple that were good: I liked Grayson Rhet and or Rhet Aden, and then for my parents Joel Bryan- I know, there is no L in there, but to be honest, we love Lorelai Jay so much that we would probably use that at some point for my Mom. Bryan is actually my dad's middle name and it sounds so good with Joel, and I just dont like any boy L names.

Anywho, Mandy has a friend who just had a baby in the Spring and names her daughter Scarlet, so I told her this morning that if we have a boy named Rhet that she will have two friends with babys named after "Gone with the Wind" characters. How special ha ha.

Free Crib

We got a call today from a very nice sister in the ward who let me know that her friend was moving and was getting rid of a beautiful crib. I was so glad she asked us if we would be needing one, I was so glad to take it, and it really is a beautiful crib! Lucky day!

This photo below shows what our crib looks like, minus the bedding of course ;)

I figured out how to surprise our important people

I made this subway art, and am going to send it to both of our mothers in the mail, framed. I am also going to give one to each of our grandmas, it is modified to say "Great Grandma" and then I made one for my Great Grandma Anderson that says "Great Great Grandma."

I just love subway art, so I thought, heck, I will give it a shot. I think it turned out pretty dang cute.

Dreams...I have dreams....when I'm awake...when I'm asleep.

So ever since I can remember, whenever I had a dream about having a baby it always involved a little boy. I had another baby dream last night, and once again it was a boy. I distinctly remember checking and making sure that it was a boy. Also, often times this boy is a blonde, which with Scott's coloring as a childhood could be quite a possibility. For those of you who know me, and my girl dominated family, you will know that whenever I pictured myself having kids, I have always pictured girls, but my dreams are telling me otherwise.

Now, I know that I will be happy with whatever I get, and that is something that I will come to terms with, but a part of me can't get over the idea of not having a little girl. For one thing, I really just don't know what to do with little boys, I never really had to deal with them. For some reason my mind keeps wandering to scouts and I think, "I have no clue what goes on in scouts, how would I deal with this?!" I know, silly, but little things like that, I would feel extremely inadept to cope with.

On the other side, people always say, "Girls are so much harder." Whenever someone says this I always think of examples around me. I look at me and my sisters and compare them to Scott and his brothers and I just don't feel that there is that big of a difference, I think we all, as children, have caused our parents equal amounts of grief, but in the same breath, probably brought just as much joy. I don't think it much matters what sex your child is, it is all about your parenting technique, so whenever I hear this argument I always think "poo poo" in the back of my head (think of the Madeline books, I am not thinking about fecal matter, but am rather dismissing something  as irrelevant and unimportant).

I know that at some point I want some boys and some girls, so you may be thinking, who cares what the first one is, and I know that my thought process is somewhat irrational because of this, but deep down I just can't stop wishing that this is a girl, so I guess until we find out my dreams and my daydreams will both be thinking of contrasting genders. I promise I will love my baby no matter what, but I may have a few moments that resemble those of gloria from Modern Family:

http://www.hark.com/clips/qtgjfkndpb-manny-girl  (click for sound clip)
"For the first year of his life, I made up Manny like a girl and told everybody that he was a my daugher. I just did it a few times, I didn't want to mess with his head. When he found the pictures, I told him it was his twin sister who died."

TOMATO SOUP and GOURMET GRILLED CHEESE

MmmmMmmmMmmm! Today Mandy and I made the best lunch. We made the following two recipes, and links are below:

 

http://jennysteffens.blogspot.com/2011/01/recipes-tomato-basil-soup-best-grilled.html

and

http://sites.google.com/site/ediblesymphonyprintablerecipe/tyler-s-mozzarella-grilled-cheese-sandwiches

It took us about 45 minutes to make everything, but that included stewing the tomatoes we got from my Grandma Marilyn, we decided to use fresh instead of canned, I am not sure what difference that makes because fresh are obviously better than canned tomatoes, but it was awesome, that is all I have to say.