Dance, Dance, Dance

Some members of the Columbus Branch at the Stake softball tournament in Lincoln Nebraska
Alexis her first day at Centenial Elementary Preschool

Alexis's new Tap shoes

Alexis's new ballet shoes and her ballet pose

We signed up Alexis for Dance lessons and she is very excited. She starts on Sept. 10th. Today was her first day at her new preschool. I asked her how her day was and she gave me a moment by moment itinerary and then ended with it was "so, so, so, sooooo fun!" I'm excited for her to go back tomorrow. Her teacher is an early education major and there are two para professionals that help in the classroom. Alexis got to do some art projects which she loves. She brought home a long piece of paper with bunch of feathers glued to it. As for Shaun and I we went to Lincoln over the weekend for a Stake Softball tournament. Still no baby yet but I am content on waiting. We are getting excited to see our little one though!

BD Picnic, House Foundation, Corn

House pre corn plowedCorn gone
foundation footings

Corn, Corn, and More Corn!

cutting the corn off the cob to freeze

Scott washing the cobs

Thankyou Melissa for letting us do this at your house!

snowcone and cotton candy

fun balloons

jump, jump, jump

little train to ride

climbing wall

We had fun going to the BD picnic for Shaun's work. They had a carnival. Everything was free. It was really fun to be able to let Alexis do whatever she wanted and get whatever food she wanted to try. She had cotton candy, a snow cone, and a fried Oreo. She liked playing on the big bouncy blowup castle and shooting the crossbow to win prizes. Shaun tried the climbing wall. It was sooooooo hot and humid we were just sweating and sweating.

After the picnic we went to Scott and Melissa Hyde's to put up some sweet corn that we had picked from a lady from Shaun's work that had extra this year. We got about 40 bags each out of a trunk load of corn. It was quite the project. We owe the Hyde's for letting us do it at their house with bugs, husks and corn all over their kitchen and little maggots falling from the bad parts of the corn. We luckily had some electric knives that made it super fast to cut the corn from the cob. It will be nice to have the bags in the freezer where we can pull them out and use them this year. Especially for Thanksgiving.

We have been checking the progress for our house and nothing was going forward with the foundation till this week .Yay! I was able to catch a before and after picture. The wall should be going up within the next month. We were a bit disappointed to find out that the trim for the outside of the house we had chose is not available. (black) We are going to probably go with tan instead. Darn it! Our windows are already ordered so we can't change that color and will have to pick a trim color to coordinate.

School is starting up next week and I'm thinking of putting Alexis in a preschool at Centennial Elementary school. It is right by our new house and is free. There is also a tap/ballet combo class we are thinking of signing her up for. She is quite the little dancer and I think she would enjoy it. The cost is what gets me, but I guess with free preschool maybe we can swing it.

Pregnancy comments

I'm definitely getting tired of all the pregnancy comments and the belly stares lately. Today I thought I'd venture out of the house. Alexis and I went to a home decor store. While there a lady said "well aren't you just ready to pop any day now". For one I just hate the term "ready to pop". To me it sounds like someone comparing something as special as a pregnancy to a balloon getting blown up bigger and bigger until it pops because it gets to0 huge! In my nicest voice I could muster up I said to the lady "actually I have 5 more weeks." I didn't want to sound rude so I added "getting close though!" Her next comment I didn't really know how to reply to she says "Oh you poor thing". I know I must look terribly uncomfortable and I admit it is partially true I am pretty uncomfortable! I don't however feel sorry or feel that people should feel sorry for me either. I am thrilled to be pregnant and feel it is such an amazing miracle. I don't feel like I'm "a poor unfortunate soul" as Ursala from The Little Mermaid would say. I know people mean well most of the time but I just find it so insensitive that people think it's ok to tell you your huge when your pregnant. As if I'm not totally aware of this! If I go out in public I get the comment from almost everyone I talk to "when are you due". I look back now and realize that I'm guilty of saying this to other pregnant women. I will jot down in my memory bank to not ask other pregnant women their due date after they are 20 weeks pregnant or more. I will try to remember to be sensitive to others more often and think before saying things like "I was huge too when I was pregnant with my first child I gained 50 pounds". (to this comment made to me by someone I was thinking in my head "I must look like I have gained 50 pounds") .

I have found that unless you are the person who is going through something directly you cannot know how another person is feeling and should not assume how they are feeling either. This goes for not just pregnancy of course. There is a wonderful article that was in the Ensign in June 2008 titled Cultivating Sensitivity to Others. The article was written by Andrea Worthington Snarr. I think it is a great article to remember.

I got this from a pregnancy website that emails updates to me on my pregnancy

Useful comebacks to rude pregnancy comments

• "At least I made somebody's heart and brain today. What did you do?"

• "You're huge too — and you don't have the excuse of

another person living inside you."

• "Go ahead, but I'm not touching yours."

Imaginary Friends, Various other activites

For those that want to see how huge I am now. Here is a pregnancy photo
Alexis and her new bedding a steal of a deal from Wal-mart.

Winter Quarters Temple

My latest creations

These didn't turn out so well. The pattern was hard to read

For awhile Alexis has had an imaginary friend named Julianna. Julianna sometimes does naughty things and so Alexis has to go and have talks with her or put her on time out. It is so funny to hear her talking to the air. As she has gotten older the imaginary friends have expanded to a Grandma who is a chain smoker and won't quit no matter how much Alexis reprimands her. Today Alexis was telling me about her whole pretend family. What imaginations 4 year olds have. I love it! Her imaginary family consisted of a Grandpa who like her real Grandpa drives a Tahoe. His name is Grandpa Will and her imaginary Grandma is Grandma Pill. They have an aunt named Sarah (her real aunt) and she has a baby named Jan (her real grandma's name). The funny thing is that they all don't have brains. Except for Grandpa who she said went to the doctor and got surgery to have a brain implanted. Later today I heard her saying that her grandpa kept saying stupid. I told her it's not nice to pretend that and she said "remember mom they just don't have brains that's why!"

Lately we have been getting stuff ready for our baby to come. We still need to order a car seat and get some furniture to put clothes in and change the baby on, but I have gotten all the baby clothes washed. For my birthday Shaun got me a few crochet patterns from a website called Etsy. I have been making various hats and shoes. It has been fun. Tomorrow we are going to the temple and I have been trying to find a dress that will fit me while I'm pregnant. The temple here doesn't rent out clothes. I think I found one that might work. It will be really nice to go to the temple with the Branch presidency and the wives. Saturday we are hoping to go to the new Harry Potter movie if we can get a babysitter. I am pretty tired lately and my feet have swelled up considerably. So far I'm measuring exactly on my due date. The baby has already turned upside down and dropped quite a bit. It's nice for my ribs not to feel as cramped but now It's harder to walk! I have had a great pregnancy other than a lot of ligament type pain when walking and sleeping. I didn't even throw up at all with this one! Our last Doctor appointment the doctor was saying the heartbeat sounded like a boy and wanted to know what he had told us we were having at our ultra sound. We told him a girl and he said he has been wrong before. We still think it will be a girl, but it would be quite a shock if she ends up being a boy! It is hard to imagine we are having another little baby. I am so out of the baby mode with having a 4 1/2 year old. We are getting really excited to have our baby girl here!