A few Christmas thoughts!

So, still no baby! Against all of my pleas, our baby girl is still content with just being inside of mommy. I thought when I went to the dr. 2 weeks ago and had that progress that I would be the exception to the rule and that things would go quickly for me... haha I was wrong. Last week there wasn't much news, I was just dilated to a 1 which means pretty much no change:( My official due date isn't until the 28th but my original due date was the 18th, so I was hoping that I would have her then, but looks like we still have a bit to go. Now I'm just trying to hold on and NOT, yes that's right, not have her this week. I would feel so bad if she was born on Christmas! I already feel bad that she's due so close to Christmas, but if she was born ON Christmas it would just be hard.  I'm going to the dr. again in a couple of days and we'll see if there's any progress this week:) 

Anyways with Christmas less than a week away I wanted to share some thoughts:

*Our Christmas this year is a little over shadowed by everything else. We decided that this year Christmas was going to be small. Few gifts and even fewer decorations. We actually only have a foot and a half tall tree on our table and that's all! Which makes me a little sad because I love decorating for Christmas. Its one of my absolute favorite things to do. But this year we didn't see much point in putting everything up. First of all we are moving back up to Utah soon after our baby is born and have already moved half of our stuff up there and I sent all of our decorations up. I just didn't want to have more to take down and pack once we had our new baby and everything. So it doesn't really feel like Christmas in our home and honestly all of our thoughts have been consumed with our baby. 

*However, although this Christmas does not have many material things, this Christmas has never had so much meaning to me. Being pregnant at this time of year has totally changed my thoughts about everything. 

First of all, I know why Mary went into labor:) She had to ride a donkey from Nazareth all the way to Bethlehem! That's why she went into labor that night and they couldn't wait for the next day to try and find an Inn that had room. They needed something right then. So... I guess that's what I should do. I need to find a donkey and ride it through a rocky terrain all day long. Then, maybe then, I would go into labor:)

Second, on a more serious note, my love and adoration for Mary has grown immensely. I love Luke 1:28 what the Angel says about her. "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women... " What a remarkable, humble and faithful woman she must have been. Right now especially I am feeling a tiny, little bit of what she must have been feeling like. I can not hear the song Breath of Heaven without crying now. I love the part that says, "I offer all I am, for the mercy of your plan." I think being pregnant is literally offering every physical thing that you can as a woman. Giving everything that she had, probably so afraid and just trusting in God's plan. What an example she is to me. I can not imagine the heartache she had to endure as a mother. She was a "chosen vessel." 

And lastly, the TRUE meaning of Christmas. I've always heard that phrase and always tried my best to remember the true meaning of Christmas, but this year I feel like I really do understand it better. Yesterday in church we had a lesson on exaltation. Our teacher gave us all a notecard and asked us to write down what we would change about our lives if we knew that Christ was coming in exactly 6 months. What we would want to take out or add more of or what we would like to change about ourselves to feel worthy to be with Him and to obtain exaltation. I always feel like those questions are super daunting and overwhelming, but I tried to focus on honestly what I would change. I made a list and believe me if we would have had more time I could have filled a novel. Then at the end of class, tying it all into Christmas, she had us watch this video, then she asked a question that I had never thought of before. This Christmas, what gift are you giving the Savior? 


I was actually quite happy this weekend because I had finished pretty much all of my Christmas shopping. I was feeling on top of everything and thought I had bought everyone a gift that I needed to. But I had never stopped to think about giving a gift to my Savior. Then our teacher suggested that we look at the list we had made and that this year for Christmas we give Him one thing on that list. And that resonated so deeply with me. The whole reason we have this season is to celebrate the birth of our Savior. I get so caught up in buying gifts for everyone that I didn't even think to give a gift to the one who gave me everything! I felt so selfish and committed to giving Him one thing on the list that I had made. I know my insignificant gift can never repay Him for all that He has done for me. I have been so immensely blessed the last couple of months. There have been so many miracles and answered prayers and so many little things the Lord has done to show me He loves me. I hope that by giving this gift I can show Him how much I truly love Him.

I can't eloquently put into words how much all of this means to me. But I am so grateful for this Christmas season and the time that I have to reflect on what a special event that day was. 

Finally some progress:)

Yahoo!! Just got back from the Dr. and there was some good news today... Well first of all I'm 37 weeks and finally feel like I can breath. Over Thanksgiving break I was just sooo uncomfortable. She was completely in my ribs and I could not breath deeply, cough, laugh or sneeze without wincing in pain. My ribs just felt like they were about to break and my baby sure loved kicking them. This last couple of days though, I have noticed a considerable difference. I can breath! It's soo nice! Also lately I have been having quite a few Braxton Hicks contractions on a daily basis. They aren't painful, but definitely interesting. 

Today I went in for my weekly check up and the Dr. said that I am actually 70% effaced and that she's in about -1 position! It was so nice to hear. Just last week at my appointment my Dr. said everything was still where it should be and there wasn't any news. I loved hearing that there was progress. I know especially when its your first that things tend to go a lot slower and that I could stay like this for a couple of weeks... but it just gives me hope and lets me know that the end is near:) So exciting!!! Oh and BOOYAH!!! (that's for Derrick)

Also here are some maternity pictures that we took a little bit ago with our Aunt Katie! Thanks so much Katie:)

I definitely am bigger now and just waiting for when she decides to come:)

Some blankets I made for our baby!

So here are a couple of blankets I made for our sweet little girl. They definitely aren't perfect, but I'm quite proud of them:) 

This first one took me a while to make. I learned how to knit while I was performing in Le Reve. That's what we would do while we were backstage or in between shows. We would all sit in our dressing room and knit. I have so many fun memories sitting there talking and working on all of our projects. There were so many amazing knitters and it was nice when I would mess up or had a question about the pattern I could just ask one of them and they would figure it out. Oh how I love all of those girls and miss them! Anyways so it was difficult but I finally found a cute striped pattern that looked easy enough to knit but the instructions were really vague. I had to kind of piece all of the instructions together and just hope that I was doing it right. I knit it on round needles and used all natural Bernat bamboo yarn that is super duper soft and that's why I choose it. I added a little flower at the end to make it seem a little bit more girly. Like I said this one took me a while, but it was worth it! It's not perfect so don't look too close, but it's soft and it turned out just how I wanted it to:)

This second one I just made this week. Zack had to go to Utah for some business and I decided to work on these other blankets to keep me busy. I have seen a ton of these blankets online and in boutiques and figured that they weren't that difficult to make. So I picked out the fabric and just kind of threw it together. I didn't have a pattern or really any specific measurements I just took a couple of our other blankets that we had based it off those. I used that dot minky fabric and a paisley print flannel. The hardest part was cutting it all and pinning it. But once that was done I just had to sew it together. I sewed the right sides together with the ruffle in the middle and then left a little space, turned it right side out and hand stitched it closed. I really like it and again it's super soft!

Then finally this last one I finished sewing this morning. I did this one the same as the one above. On this one I used the rosette minky fabric and again a printed flannel. It's soft and I LOVE the fabric!! It's hard to tell how vibrant and bright the colors are in the pictures, but it's super pretty in real life:)

It was fun to try and be domestic this week. I didn't really know what I was doing, but they all kind of came together:) Now I just can't wait to wrap her in them! 

35 weeks and counting:)

So I'm finally 35 weeks and so far so good. We had another ultrasound today to measure how big she is and our appointment was kinda funny. We had a young man who was a "ultrasound technician in training" do it and it was interesting. You could tell he was really nervous and probably hadn't done a real ultrasound too many times. Luckily for us though the trainer was in there with us and she helped him along. At the beginning of our appointment we asked them just to double check again to make sure that she was still a girl. Lately I've heard so many stories of people being told their baby is one gender and then when their baby is born it ends up being the opposite. So anyways he said he would check for us. Then they went through and measured everything. The head, the femur, the stomach all those fun things. And oh I just love seeing her! Now she actually looks like a baby. She kept puckering her lips and sticking them out and then one time she stuck her tongue out. It was so cute. It's one of the coolest feelings to see her face and know that she is OUR baby! 

They said that right now she weighs 5 lbs 6 oz and they predicted that she'll be a good size baby around 7 or 8 lbs... we'll find out soon enough I guess. Then they went around to double check the gender and he said "yep, ok he's still a boy" and I about died! Not that it would be bad if she was a boy, its just that I wasn't expecting that. And he wasn't kidding! He was dead serious. Luckily the trainer quickly stepped in and said, "Oh no, that's a girl. Those are girl parts." Then the boy tilted his head to the side and said, "Oh, ok." haha Zack and I both breathed a sigh of relief. They took a picture and printed it out and she clearly is a girl:) 

I was hoping soo badly that they would say "oh she's measuring big, lets move your due date up!" but of course they didn't. They said I'm measuring right on and if they had to guess they would say that I'll probably go a bit after my due date:( Not what I wanted to hear. But oh well, as long as she's healthy. 

So this is her face! It's hard to tell but there's her nose and lips and  cheeks and her hands right under her chin. You can't see her eyes, it kind of looks like she has one of those sleeping eye covers on. But that's the clearest picture we got. All of the other ones he took were pretty blurry:)

And again my profile at 35 weeks. It's really comforting to know that if she were to come at any time now that everything is developed and she would be healthy enough to survive:) Oh I just love her sooo much already, I can't even handle it! 

The last couple of weeks:)

It's been quite busy the last couple of weeks, but here is a quick recap...

First, the weekend before halloween my mother-in-law Mary threw me a baby shower down here in AZ. It was so fun and I am so grateful for all of the wonderful gifts everyone so generously gave me. I now feel ready. If my baby were to come at any time I feel like I'm pretty much prepared. (Thanks to all of the showers I've had the last couple of weeks)

This was my favorite:) It's the only time that that is true!

Thank you so much! I am so grateful for all of the adorable gifts. I loved it:)

Then on Halloween around 11:30 in the afternoon I was driving home from the grocery store when Zack called me and said we had to drive to Utah right then! He had a meeting up there the next morning that he had just found out about it and since its a long drive we had to get on the road as soon as we could. So we threw some clothes in a bag and 15 minutes later we were off! It was so crazy, but kinda fun. We drove the rest of the day and got in around 12:30 that night. 

Then we were thinking of leaving after Zack was done with all of his business and then Ashly got a call from her Dr. saying that they needed to induce her. So through some amazing miracle, we got to be there when Ashly had her baby!!! We got to spend time with her while she was laboring and then we were the first (besides my mom) to see little Naomi. Oh I just cried because I was so grateful that we were able to be there. None of this was planned, but it all just worked out perfectly. It was so informative to be able to see what we are going to be going through in the next couple of weeks. Ashly was amazing and made it all seem so simple. Thank you Naomi for coming when I was there! It made me soooooo happy to be able to experience all of that. Here is Ashly and Mike's newest, beautiful addition: Naomi Rose Costa.

I know my little girl and Naomi will be best cousins! 

Then finally here is a picture of me at 33 weeks. It's getting closer! I love being pregnant, but I'm getting bigger and everything is getting a lot harder. Demonstrating while I'm teaching is quite ridiculous. It takes so much more energy to do anything and I just look silly doing it. I sleep really well surprisingly and don't wake up in the middle of the night. I don't really have any pain or any major complaints, I'm just feeling a little uncomfortable. Breathing is a bit more labored and finding clothes to wear is frustrating. But she moves ALL day long and I love feeling her. You can see her movements so clearly now and feel the outline of whatever body part she tries stretching at the moment. She's a little over 4 lbs. and about 17 inches long ( so baby center says). Since she is getting so big I can tell she is getting pretty cramped in there. However, the end is in sight and I'm counting down the days! 

A little tender mercy :)

Lately we have had so many tender mercies that I can't even explain how blessed we feel. There are so many ways everyday the Lord has shown me how much He loves me. This morning I had a wonderful experience and thought I would share it:)

So right before I was about to leave to go to yoga I had a couple of minutes and of course what did I do... went on facebook:) I was only on for a second and then a little box popped up and said I had a message from Mahmud. Mahmud is one of the sweetest men I know. Him and his wife and their cute family live in Accra, Ghana and they are one of the families that Zack taught the gospel to on his mission. They are amazing! They are some of the strongest, most courageous and humble people I know. Truly anyone who meets them, leaves a better person. 

Zack and I can't wait to go to Ghana some day and visit all of the people he taught, but luckily the last 2 years Mahmud has come to visit us:) The first summer was when Zack and I were dating and Mahmud came out for conference and they got to go to every session. Then last summer, Mahmud and his wife Irene, came out because Mahmud was graduating from the University of Phoenix and luckily we got to see them and have them stay with us. It was Irene's first time to America. We had so much fun and I LOVED getting to know them and seeing the love they have for my husband:) Here are some pictures from then:

My african dress Irene had made for me and Zacks african shirt! I am a spaz:)

Boating

Irene and I laughing so hard:)

Making fufu:) It was so yummy!

Irene trying to teach me how to walk with a full glass of water on your head. I was not so good at it:) But she was amazing. She could turn and sit all the way down on the ground and do pretty much anything!

At Temple Square. What a sweet experience:)

 So anyways this morning I got to briefly talk to Mahmud on facebook and it was such a sweet tender mercy. How many times does a wife get to talk to one of her husbands converts and let alone get to know them as well as we have been able to? This was one time I was so grateful for facebook. I was here in Arizona and got to talk to Mahmud in Ghana! 

I just had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. So grateful for my amazing husband and his mission that he served. He served so selflessly and wholeheartedly. You can see his hard work through the amazing converts and relationships he has with everyone in Ghana. I have loved getting to know Mahmud and Irene and I am so grateful for their wonderful examples. Everything they say and do testifies of their love for the Gospel. It just made my day to be able to talk to them today. Zack was a bit jealous, but hopefully we'll get to talk to them again soon! I'm grateful for my husband and the faithful mission that he served. And I am so grateful for Mahmud and Irene and their testimonies. Talking to them always uplifts me and strengthens my testimony. 

Baby showers and trip to Utah!

Last weekend we got to drive up to Utah. It was a packed weekend! It was my cousin Brayden's wedding, my mother-in-law Leisa threw me a baby shower, then I had a combined shower with Ashly, we saw Aaron (Zack's brother) perform at Lagoon and ultimately we got to visit family! It was so fun and we loved every minute of it! Here are some pictures :)

My first shower! I only have a few pictures because I was so distracted with the yummy cupcakes that I forgot to take pictures. 

So grateful for all of the generous gifts I received from friends and family! Thank you so much Leisa for putting this shower on for me. I loved it and I am deeply grateful:) 

This cute balloon Rog got that was a binki:) 

At Brayden's wedding! Got to see all of aunts who came in town for the wedding and then they stayed and came to our shower the next morning! Loved seeing everyone. 

Our bellies!!

Brayden and his cute wife:)

Amber has chickens and Ciana is not afraid of them at all! It is so funny, she was chasing them around and would just grab them and hold them.

She put herself in a box and had up to 6 chickens in there with her. Even when they tried to get away, she would just grab them and put them back in! 

Mine and Ashly's combined shower!

Playing a game that luckily everyone helped me with:) 

Opening our gifts! I am so grateful for all of the gifts that my family and friends gave my baby and me! Now I just can't wait to see her in all of those cute clothes we received:)

We were trying to make our babies jump when we were next to each other:)

Sorry most of our pictures were blurry, because everyone was moving the whole time! haha imagine that in a singing and dancing show:) But we were so proud of Aaron! He was amazing and we loved watching him perform! He's so talented:)

We got to see the show 5 times! It was such a busy night and the shows were packed so in this picture, Matt was actually waiting in line for the next show. 

We went and rode the lift at Sundance. Lydia just wanted to sit with Zack the whole time. It was so cute!

I have THE cutest nieces and nephews!

Wow it was soooooo beautiful! Fall is my favorite season and I am so glad we got to go up and see the colors in the canyon.  

Carving pumpkins at grandmas:)

one of my favorite pictures! London just came up to Ashly and said Hi, I didn't see you! and gave her a big hug!! See her leg wrapped around Ashly's leg? haha

All of us together!!! I love them so very much:) They really are my best friends.

Everyone carved pumpkins and London named hers Frent..... Ha

It was such a fun trip! So grateful for the time that we were able to spend with our families. It was fun to finally have our families see and feel my belly. I swear every time someone new came and put their hand on my belly, right on cue our little girl would kick their hand. It was so fun. It was her way of saying hi! The first time she did that to Averie, Averie screamed and jumped away and started crying. First it scared her, because my little girl sure knows how to kick, then it was so cute to see her reaction that there really is a baby inside of me and we both got emotional. I just love our family and friends! Thanks for such an amazing weekend and for all of our cute presents we got at both of our showers:) Love you and miss you!