Pre-mommy sobbing and nesting instinct

A couple weeks ago, Steve and our good friend Nefi decided they wanted to go on a hike of manliness. I hung out with his wife Rose while they were gone. It was fun to hang out with a girl friend that is outside my immediate family since I haven't really done that while being married. We sang our hearts out in a Kareoke revolution-esque game and chatted away until we got tired. No pictures, unfortunately. I always forget the camera. Our men ended up having wonderful religious and other conversation up Rock Canyon, but instead of staying the night up there as planned they decided to come down early and surprise us. They snuck in and started to spray shaving cream in my hand when I woke up very suddenly. They ran away before I could tell who they were, so I thought it was Rose. It was a shame, really. I've never been pranked in my sleep before, and I woke up so suddenly that it ruined the prank. I was trying to think of ways to get back at Rose when I heard some extra manly voices serenading outside the window. I realized they were the culprits and went to awake Rose. We all had a grand sleepover and a fun breakfast the next morning.

Before they embarked on their manly hike, Steve and Nefi took a long time trying to figure out what to take with them to eat. They wanted it to be manly and memorable. Finally I convinced them to take canned beans and other things they could cook up easily and put on tortillas. They put those things in their shopping cart and went to get the last item on their list: sunscreen. They went down the aisle where the sunscreen awaited, and then noticed something else interesting on the same aisle. Pet food. They immediately started looking through all the dog food, trying to decide which would be most economical and memorable. They both said "It will be an adventure", and the rule between them is that if that phrase is spoken in reference to doing something crazy, they are bound to do it. I didn't try to stop them when they got a big bag of doggie biscuits. I just laughed. They hardly ate any of them, so now we have a big bag of doggie biscuits in our pantry that will never be touched. Anyone want to take them for free?

You're probably wondering what this has to do with the post title "Pre-mommy sobbing and nesting instinct". I'm getting there, I promise. A couple Sundays ago, Steve had just finished doing fast offering collections with a young man in the ward and came to pick me up. When I got in the car, I noticed there was a box of cat food in the back seat.
"What's up with the cat food? Do you have a fascination with pet food now?"
"No, it's for the cat."
"What cat?"
"The one in our home."
"We can't have a cat."
"Well, we do."
He explained that as he was strolling down the sidewalk collecting fast offerings with the young man, an older lady in a power chair pleaded with them to help her. She showed them a cat hiding in the bushes and asked for one of them to take her home. The young man said his mom wouldn't like it, and Steve said it was against our contract. She pleaded and begged and went on about how the cat would die and she just couldn't take it. Poor lady. She had even bought it some cat food. So, Steve picked up kitty and placed her in our basement apartment, then came to pick me up.

So we had a cat for about 2 weeks. I was afraid it was going to be a mangy old sickly stingy awful cat, but she turned out to be quite the opposite. She was young, playful, friendly, and absolutely adorable. She wasn't sickly and didn't even seem to be starving. We posted signs and notices that we found her, but nobody claimed her. We needed to find her a home fast because we weren't supposed to have her in the first place. I posted on a lot of online sites and made lots of phone calls. We did not want to take her to the shelter because she is so perfect and I knew someone would want her.

Time raced and nobody was calling for kitty. Steve gave her the name "Lenda", a combination of his parents names. I tried not to call her anything but kitty in fear that I would become attached. It was inevitable. I have always wanted a kitty but never could have one because of allergies in my family. She was so lovable and fun. One night we left to go see a play and Steve insisted on leaving her outside so she could get outside time. I started crying and was afraid she would run away or something would happen to her. Steve put her inside, but the next day he proved that she wouldn't run away, so we let her go outside when we left from then on. One day as we were driving home it started to rain heavily with thunder and lightning. I was very insistent on getting home for the cat, and when we did she was hiding under the porch looking very afraid. I scooped her into my arms and held her close inside while she purred nonstop. I started to cry again. There were a few more instances of this crying.

Finally, someone called and wanted to see her. She came over and played with her, then agreed to take her the next Monday. I was so relieved that we found a good home for her. As the time approached for them to pick her up, I held her close and realized I couldn't stop the tears from coming. As soon as the doorbell rang, I started bawling and immediately handed the kitty to Steve so they wouldn't have to see me cry. I cried for a while. It was really hard to part with her. I know that she is in a good home and that we just couldn't keep her.

I realized afterwards that I hadn't spent as much time fantasizing about our upcoming child or reading my baby books as much as I used to. Infact, I felt like I forgot about the baby when Lenda was with us. That didn't last long though. I went to the library and got some infant books. I also started getting nesting instinct like crazy (and still have it!) I am not particulary fond of our cramped batcave of a home, but I made a realization a few days ago that if we moved some things around in our living room and bedroom, there would be a lot more space. It's 100 times nicer than it was before. We're still going through things, but I actually feel like I would be happy having an infant in this house. A crawling baby, no. But an infant, yes. Hopefully before she crawls around a lot, we can find somewhere bigger to move into. And hopefully that will allow for another Lenda.

We're less than a month away and I can hardly believe it. I don't know what to expect, but I know that it will be fun despite the many challenges.

Pioneer Day

We spent our Pioneer day holiday at Strawberry with the Peavler clan. I didn't do much but observe and relax, which was just fine with me.

Getting closer...

It was fun to watch Steve and my siblings in the tube. Everyone, except Heather, attempted to stand up at one point. I think Sam was the only one somewhat able to do it without falling out.

My manly dude with not so manly Heather.

Everyone fished minus Steve, me, and my mom. Sam vowed that she would kiss a fish if she caught one, and she did. It turns out she has the kiss of death, because when they tried to throw it back in, it didn't make it. Watch out fellows.

Fantastic Fourth

Our 4th of July was pretty crazy, but of course a lot of fun. This balloon is a great example of that, as it landed right in my parents neighborhood very unexpectedly.

Steve wanted to run bandit for the Freedom 10k run. For those who aren't familiar with the term "running bandit", it means running a race without registering for it. He wanted to be a real bandit, so of course he was. He did really well and kept going the whole way, but he was dead tired afterwards. I was pretty tired too, because we had to wake up super early.

Some of my siblings and cousins slept overnight on the street to save us a spot on the parade route. I met up with them in the morning and painted some of their faces. Here are the results below. It was my first attempt face painting, so taking that into consideration I think I did pretty good. Everyone wanted something patriotic except for Noah, who is at the bottom of the picture below. He wanted spiderman. But I couldn't do spiderman, so then he had me paint eyeballs on his face and on his eyelids like Jack Sparrow from the 2nd pirates movie. Funny boy :)

After the parade we had to go do a puppet performance with Curtis. We were already very worn out from the morning, but we managed to pull energy from nowhere and put on a pretty good show. Thanks Dez for taking the pictures.

We performed our Frog Prince show, and at the end we had some girls, who happened to be beauty pageant winners and wearing crowns, come and kiss the frog. They were more than eager, but alas, that frog was no prince.

For that evening Lafe headed up a fantastic bbq. Steve and I collapsed with exahaustion afterwards and slept. Then my cousins came and wanted to play. Noah gave Steve a walkie talkie to use and Steve sent Noah on secret missions throughout the house. Noah loved it.

For the evening, we made some scrumptious treats that I got from familyfun.com. Heather and Sage made these fabulous statue of liberty cupcake torches (though they were supposed to be green ice cream cones. I couldn't find any at the store)

I dipped some strawberries in white chocolate and pretty blue sprinkles for a fabulous looking red white and blue treat. I love Family Fun!

My parents live right across the street from the Stadium, so we had great seats to see the fireworks. We also had to put up with traffic though, but it was worth it. We got some little fireworks to play with, then we watched the real deal.

Not the most flattering picture for me, but I was pretty dead by this time. Steve was too, but you can't even tell in the picture. After that was over, we collapsed with exhaustion again and had to wait a long time for traffic to clear up so we could get home. It felt like 3 days jam packed in one, but that's how we enjoy holidays. Thanks mom and dad for taking most of these pictures.

Me & My Girl Friends

If I were Rapunzel

One of my favorite traditions is hanging out with my mom, sisters, and grandma for the annual quilt shop hop. We jump in a car together early in the morning and drive as far as Tooele and hit around 15 quilt shops all the way down to Springville. We were stamped at every store, so we got to enter for a sewing machine. I would love to win, but of course the chances are way too slim.

People always ask me why we go do this every year. When we describe it, it sounds really boring. I love going to the shops and getting ideas for crafts and quilts, and I usually indulge. The main reason we go is because we love hanging out with each other, even crammed in a car for a whole day. Mainly Sam, Heather, and I "annoy" each other in the back which makes us laugh like crazy women. We can usually get my mom and grandma laughing too, and when they get into a fit of giggles, it only makes us laugh even harder. I got quite a good ab workout this time.

This year we very unexpectedly ran out of gas. The gas meter didn't warn us very well and my mom was lucky to exit off the freeway right before it ran out. Sam and my pregnant self had to get out and push, which was probably very entertaining to the cars around us.

Sam and Mom saving the day.

This experience only made the trip more fun. It's cool to think that if I was ever in a big catastrophe with members of my family, we could all lift and cheer each other up.

My mom

Grandma Bonnie

The theme this year was fairy tales, so each shop made it's store follow a certain fairy tale. This one was Rapunzel, of course.

Heather

Sam

I never thought I would ever want to learn how to knit, but at one of the stores they had a very adorable display of knitted baby booties and I fell in love immediately. I am currently learning and it's very addicting, actually.



I love hanging out with the girls and I hope we will things like this for the rest of our lives. Family really is the best.

Puppets & Stories for Lunch

At the Provo City Library, I've been doing a show called Canopy Capers on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-12:30. Miss Alicen and I perform puppet shows and storytelling for pretty decent sized crowds. It's totally free, so stop by sometime. Here are some highlights from one of my shows:

Miss Alicen is an amazing performer! She graduated from BYU in vocal performance, which is a very hard program to get into to begin with. I have a lot to learn from her.

It's been awesome performing at the library for about 2 years now, but at the end of July I am going to be done. Miss Alicen is going to resign as well, so any of you who would love to perform for toddlers weekday mornings in the fall, there will be 2 positions posted. They aren't posted yet, but I'll let you know as soon as they are up.