39 Weeks...Baby, where are you?

I seriously suck at keeping up with this blog, and I know it's going to be harder once Baby Caige is actually here, but here's a little update on what's been happening lately!

I'm officially 39 weeks now. My doctor said we are doing great, and then brought up to topic of possibly being induced because I have about a week until my due date. Naturally, I'm a little bummed out because I was hoping to experience the whole "middle of the night" scenario of waking up Jake in excitement yelling "it's time!". Granted, we still have time for that to happen, but at this rate, I don't want to get my hopes up.

(Sorry if this gets a little too detailed...or graphic).

My doctor stretched out my cervix on Friday an extra 1/2 centimeter. I was still at 1 1/2 cm dilated at the appointment, and she asked if I still wanted my membrane stripped, which just basically means that she stretched out the cervix, and separated the bags of fluid in my uterus. She said with this, there is a high possibility I could go into labor within the next 48 hours, or it will just give me more contractions throughout the next week. So far, just contractions. But we will see what happens.

This next week I am trying my hardest to just relax, and enjoy my time. Which everyone and their mom has told me to enjoy these last few days, but quite honestly, I hate hearing that. Yes, I know the last month of pregnancy sucks, and you get to the point of being impatient. Yes, I'm impatient, and so is Jake.

Speaking of Jake, he has been so wonderful these last few weeks. Actually, he's been great through this whole thing, but lately he's been so understanding and helpful with everything. As many of you know, I absolutely hate asking for help. But of course, for my safety and for Caige's as well, I've had to ask him for loads of help. Everything from carrying laundry for me up and down the stairs, to tying my shoes for me. And he can even sense at night when I'm in pain ( because I've had quite a bit of back pain lately), he'll reach over, in the middle of the night, and give me a back rub, enough to relax me and help me fall back asleep. I honestly have no idea what I would do without him. He makes everything so much easier to deal with, and he makes it worth suffering through. My pregnancy hasn't been too hard, but when you're constantly tired and dealing with sore muscles and swollen feet, hormones all imbalanced, everything seems to be worse than it is. Which I know I've blown quite a few things out of proportion, but hey. Can you blame me?

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I am proud to say, that I have officially finished my first course of college. And what a pain that was. I passed my class with an 85%, which I know I could have done better, but being pregnant and completely mindless, I'll take the 'B'.

That's all for now. Hopefully the next thing I post is an announcement of our little boy finally coming out of hiding! :)

Registry

I've been talking about getting my gosh darned registry done for baby items for the LONGEST time now, and Jake and I finally went and did it this weekend! It was cute watching him walk around Babies R' Us, wanting to buy everything (more specifically argyle sweaters and peacoats), but I managed to talk him out of it until Caige is actually here.

Anywho, in case anyone is interested, we have registries at both Target and Babies R' Us. Here are the links to both if you're interested in helping us out! :)

Target Registry

and 

Babies R US Registry

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Baby Caige is growing rapidly, and it kicking a lot. He loves using my ribs as a punching back, especially while I'm at work.

This picture you are about to see, is a side by side picture of the difference of about a week. The left picture was taken November 19th, and the right picture was taken November 26th. That's a huge difference if you ask me!

XO

Procrastination is not Flattering

I am the laziest person in the world, and for that my followers, I apologize for my negligence. I have some pretty huge announcements (which if you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you already know about said announcements), but here you will get to hear the whole back story, and all the juicy details. And trust me, you'll want to!

Last weekend (Nov 11th-14th), was finally the weekend we were to spend in travelling to Denver, CO to see my beloved, City and Colour. Dallas Green, who is the heart and soul of the group, is the most magnificent and talented musician I have ever laid ears upon. You can basically say I have a bit of a crush on him. (Click the link to check out some of his music! Trust me, you won't be disappointed!)


Before I get into the concert...let's back track a bit, shall we?


I had a doctor appointment Friday morning, the day we were to leave, and naturally, I was running late. I am the least punctual person I know. I can't be on time for anything, but at least I can admit that it is always MY fault.

This appointment was my dreaded glucose/gestational diabetes test. What happens for this appointment, is before the appointment takes place, the doctor gives you a glucose drink, that you are supposed to consume within a 5 minute time period, approximately one hour before the glucose test appointment. If you results come back looking kind of sketchy, you need to go in for another glucose test, except this one takes 3 hours. I opted for the lemon-lime flavored glucose drink (with options of fruit punch and orange), and made sure it was nice and cold before I drank it. To describe the taste, imagine if you will, a thick, syrupy, flat Sprite, that is twice as sweet as a normal one. Gross, huh? Yeah, I had to chug that stuff otherwise I might have thrown it up.

Anyways, showed up to the appointment late, and barely got in to have my blood drawn. Had to wait 15 minutes for my doctor after my tests were run, since my tardiness had inconvenienced a lot of people (which I felt horrible for). My results came back normal (thanks goodness).

Our initial plan was to hit the road immediately after my appointment, which we did. But we were running later than I had hoped. The reason I was late for my doctor appointment in the first place, was because I had neglected packing for our little excursion until that morning, and our clothes weren't even completely dry by the time we needed to pack, which I started doing so 15 minutes before we needed to leave. Not the brightest idea, but I somehow managed to have everything we needed for our adventure.

Jake went and picked up his friend, Derek, who was going to tag along to Salt Lake (which was on our way to Denver). Derek was planning on seeing New Found Glory, along with a phenomenal line up of other great pop-punk bands, he was going to buy our tickets, but one our way there, it seemed as though the show had sold out, because the pre-sale tickets were no longer available online. We were bummed, but not terribly. We later found out that they were still selling tickets at the door. Again, not terribly bummed out.

First thing we did when we got to Salt Lake, was stop buy a sweet little shop called "Next Level Custom Tattoo". Why do you ask? Oh, because Jake and Derek decided he needed to get his knuckles tattooed that night. And I was not complaining, seeing how every time Jake mentioned getting his knuckles tattooed, I would always push him to go for it. I love his tattoos, and am excited to see which ones he will get in the future!

I met some of Jake's friends while we were at the tattoo shop. There's a band that hails from Salt Lake called "Becoming Everest". They're really good friends with Jake's band "Our City Skyline". Anyways, I finally got to meet most of the guys and their significant others. Here are some pictures from Salt Lake:

Salt Lake was a blast. We weren't there long, but we got to see some cool people. Instead of hitting up the New Found Glory show, we found a hotel, and decided to relax until the show got out and then we were going to go to "The Pie" for pizza with some friends. Unfortunately, Jake and I passed out and slept all night, and slept through texts and phone calls from people to see where we were. THAT we were bummed about.

The next morning, we woke up early, grabbed free continental breakfast from the hotel lobby, checked out and hit the road for Denver. I slept the majority of the drive, which was kind of nice because of how boring and dismal the drive was through Wyoming. I felt bad Jake drove the whole way, but he didn't complain once. We made it to Denver around 6:30pm, and the show for City and Colour started at 9pm. The hotel we stayed at was actually pretty sweet. It didn't look like a hotel at all!

The upper part of the hotel was actually a sports bar/restaurant, which some pretty tasty food, which we indulged in to try to pass the time. I finished eating before Jake did, and went back to the room to freshen up before the show. Meanwhile, one of our friends from Boise (Miss Kelli) who is going to school in Fort Collins, met us at the hotel to head over to the show with us! It was nice seeing a familiar face in a strange place. We took the free hotel shuttle to the show, and ended up taking a cab home. Downtown Denver is...sketchy...to say the least. It could possibly be the fact that there was a Tech N9ne concert that same night, so you can only imagine the group of people going to see that show. 

(I wish I would have taken more pictures while we were in Denver. I'm so mad at myself for not doing so!)

The City and Colour show was at the Ogden Theater, which is an old, vintage theater. I LOVED the building. It seemed like it had so much history! And it definitely fit the style that City and Colour brings to their shows. The opening group was called "Hacienda". They were pretty good. They had an indie/folksy feel to them. But of course, I wasn't so interested in them, because I was finally going to see Dallas Green! 

He finally came on stage about 10:00, and they played for a good hour and a half straight. He didn't do much talking between songs, he did mingle with the crowd a little, but he kept the music coming. It was so intense, and beautiful, that every inch of my skin was covered in goosebumps. His voice is so pure and gentle, I could listen to him for hours and hours. Here are a couple of pictures I took with my phone (sorry they're not very good quality...)

There were even times during the show I found myself tearing up. Yes, I had the ultimate "fan girl" moment. I was just in total awe at how talented this man was. His music has been my music of choice the majority of this year, and I had been anticipating this show all summer. And the best part was I got to experience it with Jake. He made this all happen for me. He is the reason I found out about City and Colour. He was the reason we were there, at that exact moment in time, enjoying the beautiful melodies of Dallas Green's talents.

Sunday morning, we woke up early and hit the road to head for home. Our plan was to drive straight home in attempt to make it back in time for work, but the drive in Wyoming didn't allow that to happen. There was one stretch of road where I took over driving for a little bit, and we moved about 8 miles in 3 hours. 3 DREADFUL HOURS. It was awful. And it was snowing to top it off. Wind gusts would hit at least 50 mph, and while we were sitting there in bumper to bumper traffic, in the middle of nowhere, it hit me. I had to pee. And when a pregnant woman has to pee, that means NOW. I ended up having to hold it for about an hour (this was an hour 1/2 into the standstill), and it hurt, but I tried to hard to be patient to at least by pass traffic before doing something drastic, such as pulling over and "roughing it". 

It felt like forever sitting in traffic, but we finally managed to by pass the stalled semi, and drive at a normal pace. I told Jake that I was pulling over at the next exit, restroom or not, and relieving my aching bladder. He laughed and said he was hoping I would say that. He slept the majority of that parking lot we were stuck in, but when he woke up he could see I was in pain from holding my bladder. I took the next exit off, and there was nothing that I could use as a bathroom facility. Not even a port-a-potty. I didn't care, I had to go! I pulled the care over, put it in park, got out and walked around to the back of the car and propped myself up in a wall squat position. I've never felt such sweet relief in my life. And that's as far as I'll go with that...

We go into Salt Lake around 1 am to pick up Derek and head home. I slept the entire way back, curled up in a little ball, covering myself in a make-shift blanket of pea coats. We pulled in to the driveway at 8 am, and headed straight for bed. 

Later that night, I had to go to orientation for school. That's right folks, I'm officially a college kid! I've neglected furthering my education long enough. I'm sick of dead end jobs and limited opportunities. I'm doing online classes through University of Phoenix, and my major is Human Resources Management. The orientation class lasts three weeks, and just teaches us how to utilize and navigate the website we will be using during the duration of our attendance at the university.

After sitting in a two hour long class listening to people tell their life stories on why they're finally going back to school, I came home to relax, since I didn't have much time to do so after getting back from our trip. I sat on the couch with Jake, and remembered I had bills I needed to pay. I mulled around on my laptop, watching my bank account dwindle with each bill getting paid, and then Jake ran upstairs without saying a word. I thought to myself,it was a little weird, but didn't put too much though into it. He came back downstairs, and kissed me, and then gave me this little speech:

"I really screwed up this weekend. I had this huge plan to surprise you, and I had been trying to coordinate this surprise with Dallas Green in hopes to make it a super eventful weekend for you, but I screwed it up."

I replied by saying: "This was the best weekend I've had in a long time. It was perfect, why do you feel like you screwed it up?"

"Because, I forgot something very important here at home that I needed for the show", he said as he pulled out a beautiful diamond ring and slipped it on my finger. He then got down on his knee and asked me to marry him.

I was absolutely shocked. I had a bit of a hunch that he might propose while we were at the show, but I will say, this "oops" he feel like he made definitely caught me off guard. I had butterflies, and the warmest, warm fuzzy feeling I'd ever experienced. I almost cried, but instead teared up and felt giddy, which I can't remember the last time I felt "giddy".

 So, now you are all caught up on the past few weeks, wonderful events.

And to answer your questions on if we have a date picked or have we started any wedding plans, we aren't making any plans until Caige is born. Our focus right now is making sure he is healthy and stable. We're planning on moving into a new house next year, and want to get settled into that prior to taking on the stresses of wedding planning. Not saying that planning a wedding is or should be stressful, but we have quite a bit on our plate as is. So bear with us, we will make these announcements as they come along! :)

And, I'll leave you with the most recent "belly pic" I've taken. In this picture, I'm 28 weeks (or 7 months along).

As you can see, little Caige is really heading south. He likes to keep things on the down low ;-)

XO

Cute Moments and a Bump

It's been a few weeks since I've posted a belly pic, so, here you go!

I believe this was 22 weeks. I'm 24 weeks right now.

Anyways, now that things are more visual, things are feeling more and more real for Jake. Anytime Caige starts kicking and wiggling around, I try to have Jake feel it. Every time he feels him, the look on his face is priceless. He is definitely a proud daddy, and can't wait to meet his little man (I can't wait either!) 

(And at this exact moment, Caige is thrashing around, so I'm sure he is just as excited too!)

There have been a few cute moments I definitely need to make note of. They were conversations that took place between Jake and I, so I will narrate for you.

A few weeks ago, Jake and I were at the Knitting Factory for "Art in the Bar", and art show he was invited to participate in, that was a lot of fun and very intriguing. I stayed with Jake for the majority of the time because he had to stay with his display, and I wanted to keep him company. At one point, I started to get hungry so I decided to walk to Pie Hole. It was about 8:30 at night, but I felt comfortable walking by myself.

Jake (grabs my belly and says:) "Keep my baby safe!"

Me: "I will! Don't worry!"

Jake: "...I was talking to Caige..."

(Cute, huh?)

Cute Moment Number 2:

I was laying on the couch because I wasn't feeling great. Jake was carrying the rest of the groceries in from the car. He came over, knelt by the couch, laid his head on my stomach and said:

"I love this so much. I don't care if someday he hates me at one point, I still love him so much."

(That one made me cry a little. Happy tears anyways!)

Modern Day Betty Crocker (Volume 1)

Alright folks! I've had quite a few people (mostly girlfriends) ask that I teach them how to cook. Granted, I don't think I would have time to set aside for everyone, so I decided to start a cooking portion to my blog in hopes it might help those who've asked for it! Or even inspire some others to try new recipes!

NOTE: My cooking techniques vary. My recipes are generally not very difficult (to myself), but could feel difficult to others. Just stick with it. It's not hard, just follow the directions! I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to cooking. I enjoy challenges, and trying new things. I love flavor. Bold flavors, spicy flavors, intense flavors. So some recipes I post, you may think "huh?", but trust me. It will taste amazing!

Meal Number One:


I was feeling a little inspired today. The weather is FINALLY feeling like fall, so I wanted to make a meal tonight that made you feel warm inside when it's wet and rainy outside. Here are the courses: (and the links will lead you to those recipes)

Whole Pumpkin Pie Soup
Parmesan Crusted Chicken
Baked Potatoes


Don't be afraid of the Pumpkin Pie soup. It is not what you expect! Here are a few pictures I took while I was cooking:

All the ingredients needed for Pumpkin Soup!

All the ingredients go inside the hollowed out pumpkin.
Which is a great idea because it also is EASY clean up!

My pumpkin is a little too big, but it sure does look yummy!

After the soup was finished, I don't own an immersion blender to puree all of the diced ingredients, so I strained them out, blended them in my "Magic Bullet" blender, then put them back in the soup. (HINT HINT: Jake, I'd love an immersion blender! Christmas is coming up! :))

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The Baked Potatoes I start while the soup is still in it's first baking phase. The soup is to bake for 1 1/2 hours for the first phase. Get your potatoes ready and put them in the over when there is still 1 hour left of the first phase. Here is a look at my prepared potatoes:

With my potatoes, I pierce them with a fork on all sides, spread a thin layer of butter over the whole potato, season with salt and pepper, then top with minced garlic. Wrap in aluminum foil and stick in the oven.

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The Parmesan Crusted Chicken is really easy to do. All the ingredients you will need:

-Chicken Breasts (4-6)

-1/2 c Mayonnaise (I used Light Mayo)

-1/4 c Parmesan Cheese

-4 tbsp Bread Crumbs

(I added about 1 tbsp Parsley, about 1/2 tsp onion powder. You can add any other seasoning you think might give good flavor)

Mix all ingredients, and coat chicken breasts.

I put the chicken breasts in the oven when the soup had only
10 minutes left of baking time. After the soup is finished, turn up the heat
to 425 degrees and bake an additional 13 minutes. (Leave potatoes in oven as well)

After everything is finished, enjoy this delicious dinner! You can also add in a salad if you like! Jake and I were entirely too full to have salad :)

Enjoy!

XO

Me from A-Z

I stole this from my good friend Taylor's blog. Just something fun and new. Sorry if this is boring.


A. Age: 22
B. Bed size: Queen!
C. Chore that you hate: I'd probably say dishes. Even though it takes less then 10-15 minutes to do.
D. Dogs: Jake has Maggie (boston terrier), but she's still at his mom's house. Once we have a backyard, she'll be ours!
E. Essential start to your day: Brushing my teeth. I love to brush!
F. Favorite color: Lately I've been into neutrals and earth tones.
G. Gold or Silver: Silver.
H. Height: 5’2'
I. Instruments you play: I play the radio. Or my iPod. Jake is the musical one!
J. Job title: Front Desk. 
K. Kids: I have a little boy on the way! (Obviously, you all know this already.)
L. Live: Kuna, Idaho
M. Mother’s name: Robin
N. Nicknames: Ape has always been a consistent one.
O. Overnight hospital stays: They've never been for myself. Only other people.
P. Pet peeves: People who overreact, people who don't take responsibility for their actions, judgmental people, oh I could go on...
Q. Quote from a movie: Oh don't put me on the spot like that. I can't think of anything...
R. Right or left handed: Right.
S. Siblings: 3 sisters, 5 brothers. No, I am not having that many children.
U. Underwear: I wear clean ones.
V. Vegetable you hate: Lima Beans.
W. What makes you run late: The fact I usually have to try on about 7 different outfits before I decide on one. It's even worse now that I'm pregnant and showing.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth, Back, Neck, Left Arm,
Y. Yummy food that you make: If you ask Jake, he'd say just about everything. I really enjoy cooking,  I don't make anything BUT yummy :)
Z. Zoo animal: Penguins.

Drum Roll, Please!

The announcement has already been made on Facebook, Twitter, and by mass text, but our little bundle of joy is a BOY! And we are SO SO SO excited! We would have been just as thrilled about a girl, but we're just excited to know!

We have a name picked out! Our little man will be known as:

Caige Daniel Smith

And we cannot wait to meet him!

Our gender reveal party was such a success! Our close friends and family members were there to share this awesome experience with us! Jake and I didn't know what baby was until we cut the cake with everyone gathered around. The inside of the cake was to either be pink or blue, depending on baby's gender. When we had the ultrasound done, we had the tech seal the gender results in an envelope and we gave it to a baker who made our cake, so our reaction was just as genuine as everyone else's.

Here's a few pictures of what went down!