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!