The End Is Drawing Near

yea! i am so excited!! i was over at carson and jen's when the doorbell rang. i went to answer it and saw a u.p.s. truck driving away through the window. i opened the door and what do i see? one graco box, staring at me! i told jacob and isaac that they should be so excited for me and once i explained the contents of the box, they were genuinely happy for me. each of them was a helper taking the box to my place in the guest house. who know a stroller/car seat could be so heavy? they helped me open the box and unload the contents and told me how i should put it together and how of course their dad could do it when he got home because he can do anything. i had to agree.

so kyle thinks that now that i have everything we need for the baby - the stroller was the last thing - he says i should be done with the nesting phase of cleaning out all the drawers in our house and organizing everything. i tried to explain that i am a little o.c.d. and have done this my whole life and that it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. but he is convinced, if only for his own sanity, that i will only be like this in preparation for the baby. little does he even know, i'm just getting started. (although i have to admit, i have been going into overdrive the last month of pregnancy and will return to my normal o.c.d. self once i have the baby.

speaking of baby mckay, have you seen how big she is inside of me? go and take a look at the widget that counts down the days for me near the top left of my blog. only 16 today. wow! it's so amazing. i can't believe something that big can fit inside my tummy. can't wait until i can finally meet her. and even though this might sound crazy, i don't feel scared or nervous about the birth. it just doesn't seem real to me. why not? you mean since i do have this crazy big belly that twitches every few hours or less, how is that not real enough? i dunno, but i'm probably in for the greatest shocker of my life. can't wait!

this photo at the right shows how i see my belly everyday. isn't it huge?! it totally looks fake in this pic.

It's All About the Baby!

on the 22nd of this month i had my baby shower and it was too much fun! i had friends come that i hadn't seen in a while and all the family that could make it. i have a huge family when you put both sides together, it's quite fun. the food was excellent and displayed beautifully - thank you to everyone who brought something and jen for decorating so cute. we had a leaf salad, chicken salad croissant sandwiches, lemon squares, brownies, chocolate cake, nuts and candy, a cheese ball, and fruit and veggies with dip. it ended so fast. i'm so glad for all who made it a huge success! i had a great time with great company.

Pregnancy Blubberings

so pretty much kyle and i are cheap and love to be frugal (although he wouldn't agree that i am frugal because he complains about my grocery bill). kyle gets excited and makes us budget worksheets that are followed for a while until we forget about them and then he'll get excited and make another. we hardly ever go out to eat, mooch off our parents all the time - because hey, what else are they around for - and i used gift cards from our wedding to buy all of kyle's christmas gifts.

so when this past saturday came around and i suggested we go maternity clothes shopping, i was kinda surprised when he was okay with it. we headed out to the chandler mall and stopped only in barnes and noble book store before going to motherhood. i have always dreamed about being pregnant since i was little and loved playing with my baby dolls. i even was video taped trying to nurse my cloth baby doll by lifting my dress and placing her on my chest. now that i am really pregnant, i love dressing up and showing off my very pregnant belly. but, it's so hard to love being pregnant in non-maternity wear. well, i do have some, but they are a limited supply. because i have grown so huge in the last month, i was down to only four shirts for a seven day week. in fact, those four shirts aren't even maternity, they're baby doll style so they fit fine. i am tired of stretching out my nice non pregnancy cloths.
back to shopping. so we walked into motherhood and took everything off the clearance and sales racks that were size small. kyle was so sweet and helped me try on everything and put all of the hangers back on, something i hate to do. i asked him while trying on more shirts if he hated shopping and if he was wanting to bolt of of the store and he told me it wasn't his favorite thing, but he was ok and liked being with me. that sure made me love him a lot more.

we picked four items from the first go-around of the store and then went for a second. kyle probably thought there was no more to find and try on, but i found just as many shirts the second time. kyle was passing a rack and saw a dress that he fell in love with for me and insisted i try it on too. when we left, i had two new shirts and the dress kyle found - he wouldn't let me leave without it even though i went to buy shirts. he gets so funny sometimes. it made me laugh.

the next night, we ended up going over to grandma brown's and i got some more cloths from courtney. you may think i am dumb because i only have three and a half weeks left, but who doesn't want to look cute in the last inning? plus i have my shower coming up. and i plan on having another baby in the not too distant future.

maderma scar cream. i heard that it works for stretch marks so i bought some today and all i can say is that it had better work. i paid $23.57 for a 1.76 oz tube. i was so mad when i saw the price, i almost didn't get it. i text kyle and told him the ridiculous price and he said to get it. that's how bad he wants my stretch marks gone. remember how i said i got really big this last month? yeah, stretch marks. when people would ask me if i had any, i would say no because i could only see the upper half of my tummy. one night, about a week and a half ago, i got a hand held mirror and was so mad to see what looked like three little scars on the right side of my tummy, just below my belly button. i don't even want to say how many i have now, probably more than triple that first amount. and not all of them are staying so tiny. makes me want to cry. hopefully the mederma works.

Family Traditions

when this past school semester ended - i think it was december 18th - kyle and i went out to eat to celebrate. we have this tradition that in order to celebrate, we eat breakfast at three in the morning. kyle started this when we were engaged after the fall semester of '07. the whole time that we were dating and engaged, we got to bed somewhere between two and three thirty every night, sometimes even later. it was so hard when we had to wake up for 8:00 classes and then go to school, back to some more classes, and then hang out for the rest of the evening until the early morning hours. the only thing different about the weekends was that we didn't work (kyle did some saturdays) and we didn't have school, just church. so as you can see we never got any sleep. but the only time we complained was when our parents would call us home because they wanted some sleep. in our minds, we never saw each other enough and never spent enough time with each other. school was the enemy, the reason we were tired everyday. we had no fault, of course. if we could just sleep in a little and then start the day we would be fine. so the natural thing for us to do would be to celebrate when school is over for the break. and just to be spiteful, we went at 3:00 am and had breakfast at ihop.

the first time we went, kyle acted like he was drunk the entire night and i was so embarrassed when he let one slip right before the waitress came over. i had never seen him act like that before and thank goodness never since. we did the same thing at the end of the spring '08 semester, and pictured is the tradition living on at the conclusion of the fall '08 semester. i did change however going at three in the morning. i'm pregnant, so it really didn't appeal to me to stay up until three or wake up at three and be tired all the next day. we went at ten. kyle and i get to bed late enough as it is, something we really need to work on before addison comes in four short weeks!

this past time at ihop was so fun. it's always a treat when i get to hang out with kyle. not that he's always gone, i just can never get enough of him! so yummy!

kyle ordered an amazing omelet with a side of buttermilk pancakes, and i ordered stuffed strawberry crepes and a plate with egg, hash browns (mmm) and sausages. the over-easy eggs turned out to be my favorite next to the hash browns. neither kyle or i could finish the crepes because we thought they were a little too sweet. what a fun tradition, one i'm excited to pass on our kids when they start school. i can't wait for a new semester!

Come Get Your Funnies

i don't know who all reads the sunday papers with all the politics and schmolitics, but i only care for one page and that's the comic page. i have my favorites like zits and family circus and non-sequador (spelling?) that i always turn to first and am an avid fan of. recently though, kyle has introduced me to the world of life seen through a six year old and his tiger. i have to admit, i have fallen for calvin and hobbes. in running for world's best comic, this cartoon has steadily risen to the top of the line and i love it! for those of you who aren't familiar with this comic or have forgotten, i'll give you a refresher. calvin is the most mischievous boy you have ever heard of. (i thought the neighbor boys i grew up with were bad, but calvin beats the mclaws boys easily). calvin has a very impressive vocabulary and sees the world in a way that is unmatchable. he has his stuffed tiger named hobbes that only comes to life for him. when i was looking online for information about the comic, hobbes was referred to as "calvin's jimney cricket "which is just what hobbes is. you can't find this comic in the paper anymore because sadly the writer, bill watterson, retired in 1995. kyle says he remembers reading the very last comic written by watterson when he was in elementary. how sad. i think i also read that the comic was run for ten short years. i don't think anyone could ever get enough calvin and hobbes.


things i love about calvin and hobbes:

• calvin has a time machine that really works
• g.r.o.s.s. (get rid of slimy girls) calvin and hobbes' club of which they are the only members.
• life lessons ignored on sleigh and wagon rides
• hobbes pouncing on calvin when he come home from school
• calvin's secret crush on susie derkins and the way he hides it by being really mean to her
• snowman
• snowball fights
• bath time
• monsters under the bed
• fights with hobbes
• advice from reading the paper
• chewing
• camp outs in the backyard
• timeout happens
  
• he's an inventor
• hobbes is most always right
• twenty seven bases plus ghost bases, secret bases, ghost points, ghost players, and "get out of jail free" plays in baseball
• babysitters
• he has a great imagination and tells great stories
  
  
  
  
• he's a great fibber, but can be brutally honest
• there's an explanation for everything
• he's kind enough to donate his mucus that he sneezes for mucus transfusions
• he always hates his dinner
• calvin loves destruction
• it's only $1.50 for a good idea!
• real life morphing into adventures of spaceman spiff
• figuring out ways to not do homework
• walks in the forest
• water balloons
• stomping out messages in the snow
• calling librarians to find out the spellings of four-letter words
• calvin and hobbes are freakin' scared-y cats
• teachers that wear pink dresses with polka dots

the great thing about calvin and hobbes is the way every kid can relate with them. even if you're not a kid anymore, reading these comics will certainly take you back to your childhood and make you laugh out loud. they're timeless. and with all the adventures they go on together, what's not to love about them?

14 Years Today!

H.E.I.D.I, h.e.i.d.i, h.E.i.D.i. and HEIDI was her name-o! today is my sister heidi's birthday. just like jalee, she was also born in california and is considered one of the californian girls in our family. heidi was the only girl in our family actually born with hair. not only did she have hair, but it was very curly too. everyone agrees that heidi was the cutest toddler out of any of us! she also had a different personality than any of the rest of us, and still does. if someone came to the door that she didn't know, or we tried to introduce her to someone new, she would scrunch up her nose, show her teeth, and even quietly growl - kind of. it was the funniest thing to us and we could never understand why she hated new people, but it sure did give us a good laugh plenty of times. today that stubbornness has evolved into something else that can sometimes be scary or just plain annoying, but it makes her very unique. know one else in our family quite knows why she gets so stubborn about some things, but i know that she can do great things with it if she puts her mind to it. heidi is very caring and loves to babysit for family and people in her ward. she will be a great mother someday and i know that like jalee, she will also be a great aunt to my kids. she is very smart and will watch the news or read an article and understand what is going on with politics, the earth, or whatever the subject is. she catches on WAY better than me. we jokingly contribute her smartness and great understanding to the fact that she was the only child that was nursed for a year and because of that she has a great advantage in life. i love her very much and don't know what i'd do without her! happy birthday to heidi on the 12th of january!

Recap on Christmas

well, now that the holidays are over i can finally breathe a sigh of relief, and tell you guys how christmas and new years was for the kyle and i - pretty much plain awesome! i waited until last minute to wrap any gifts for kyle and started after he went to bed christmas eve around ten. that was pretty dumb of me, although i think i did pretty well at buying them when i did - i finished my shopping in the middle of october. 

we woke up at about 8:15 christmas morning. let me rephrase that, kyle woke up at 8:15 and then proceeded to wake me up. since it was christmas, i didn't make him work too hard and got up pretty easily (i am definately NOT a morning girl, sleep is something i worship on a regular basis). kyle was just like a little boy as we took turns opening presents. his "excited fingers" was a regular occurence. (for those of you that don't know what this is, you're are sorely

 missing out on a good laugh. when kyle gets excited about something, he feels a great urge to get rid of that energy through his fingers. imagine his fingers close to his face, pointed away from himself, and moving like he is tickling someone really fast. his face also scrunches up and he makes a noise like this: "ewwwww, ewww, ewwww!" i love it! i smile just thinking about it.) i actually catch him doing it quite often. so funny.

we opened gifts from each other and then had our favorite breakfast - crepes with tons of good fruit and syrup as well as fresh squeezed orange juice with the juicer kyle gave me. then we waited until carson and jen woke up and watched the boys open their presents. crazy to think that we will be having the same kind of christmas at the end of this year! the rest of the day was spent with my family and then kyle's, ending at grandma brown's. 

the surprise of one of his presents that i was so excited about was ruined when he accidently found out (my fault) what it was. i had decided to make a quilt for him and began to work on it in july. cutting all the squares the same size, fitting them together, sewing them, picking out the backing material, and all the work was ruined when i asked him to switch items from one purse to a matching other one. he saw the receipt of the fabric store and knew what i was making him for christmas. i was pretty bummed to say the least. but, i must say that the quilt (my first) and matching pillowcase turned out so cute!! 

so anyway, kyle was doing his excited fingers every couple of seconds, and our first christmas with just the two of us couldn't have been more perfect.