A Little (?) Update

Maybe it'll be little.  I guess we'll see. :)

I had a second ultrasound yesterday.  It was supposed to be the big one where we find out if we're having a boy or a girl, but the little one did not cooperate.  This is our first one who did this to us!  I couldn't believe it.  I even drank orange juice to make sure he/she could move around good, and he/she did, but with his/her legs firmly crossed.  We don't get another shot until early October!  Still, the baby is healthy, and I'm thankful!  He/she is growing right on schedule.  I was honestly kind of mad, though.  I wanted to know what color yarn to buy and which clothes to start stocking up on.  Well, October is sooner than December.  I'll have time.  Jeremy is convinced this is a girl.  I guess we'll see.

This pregnancy has been progressing, but it's been kind of hard.  I knew it would be, but it's different knowing it's going to be hard than experiencing it.  A couple of months ago I was already pulling muscles in my hips.  It makes me nervous for the rest of the pregnancy.  I don't always know what I did wrong that pulled the muscle, but I can sure feel it!  It's usually on my right hip I think.  Anyway, today I was just in bed and I rolled a tad to the right and somehow that pulled my muscle pretty far.  It hurt!  I've also been having LOTS of headaches.  Normal for me is usually 1-2 headaches per month, but during the last month or two I've been having them most days of the week.  It really stinks.  I forgot to ask the doctor about it yesterday.  I always forget, and that's silly.  I used to have to take a list of questions, but then I have to remember to look at it.  I guess Dr. Joe makes me feel so positive and upbeat I forget anything is ever cockeyed.  I guess I didn't have one yesterday.

I took Jill with me yesterday, partly because Jeremy couldn't go.  We both thought she'd enjoy it, and she kind of did.  I think she had a hard time making anything out on the screen.  I didn't explain beforehand that the pictures would be a bit blurry.  I know that she was glad she went and she did enjoy some things, but she wished we would go be outside by the pond or playing in the elevator.  Ha ha!  When the doctor came in she was suddenly all shy and hid under the table until he listened to the heartbeat.  Then he asked her if she wanted a cookie, and then she pestered him to get her one until we could get out of that room. :) They were little sugar cookies.  There were strawberry shaped ones and flower shaped ones.  She picked a flower.

I had really hoped that yesterday we would know boy or girl so that Jill and I could go do a little shopping.  I wanted to buy a pluggie and an outfit in the appropriate colors.  I was so bummed!  I thought it would be fun to have Jill there to help me pick.  Well, when we didn't know I decided we needed to do something fun to celebrate our little outing.  I hadn't been to Krispy Kreme in a long time, so I suggested we go there.  It was fun to take her in and have her pick a donut and watch the donut machine, but I think we both wished we hadn't gotten donuts by the end.  It was too much sugar and not as yummy as I expected.  Oh, well. :)

Yesterday after I got home Jeremy and I went to sign papers for the new house.  I think there are one or two that somebody forgot, but for the most part the house is ours now.  Exciting!

We have been thinking about school for the next year, and it seems like it would be a wise thing to get Benji and Michael into school, and possibly Jill.  I know that they might be a bit behind, so we've been trying to work on that.  We are considering just putting Jill in kindergarten.  She just turned 6 last month, so she wouldn't be terribly far behind.  Joshua doesn't want to go back, and Hyrum is registered for college, so I don't think he's going back either.  That's ok.  Timmy is 4 and knows most if not all of his letters, so I'm hoping this year we can start some simple reading with him.  I'm going to miss those kiddos while they're at school, but I will feel a little bit freed up, and they are looking forward to going.

And since we're thinking about putting them in school (and since Hyrum is going to go to EAC in Thatcher), we'd better get moved over there pretty soon!  I was thinking about maybe August 1 or August 8, but I don't know how in the world we can.  I've been so tired and overwhelmed.  Jeremy's always at work, and this week we have the Burk family campout.  I just don't know how it's going to get done.  I feel like it's all on me. :P I know we don't have to be 100% moved all at once, though.  Maybe I should just pack the most important things next week and move them on Saturday - if Saturday is even free.  I guess we'll see.  That may be the best thing to do.  I also need to get utilities set up, and we're having the swamp cooler switched out for an HVAC unit.  We wanted to get just an AC unit, but the people said that this is the only way for some reason.  Just the way everything's set up, I guess.  They said they can have it all done in like 3 days, but we need to get over there to talk things over with them, even though they've already given us a quote.  I'm thankful that Jeremy is insisting on getting this done before we move.  He doesn't want to send his pregnant wife over there with just a swamp cooler.  Nice boy. :)

And now for some recent pictures - from June and July

Here is the turtle Jill found in our yard.  I think that I talked about that in the last post.  She named him Fwed.

Hyrum liked this waterfall at the Temple.

In June we took a little trip to St. Johns to see my parents, and we met them in Snowflake on the way.  My dad, Jeremy, and I took Hyrum and Joshua to the Snowflake Temple to do baptisms.  It was so wonderful!  There were just boy names, so I didn't participate this time, but it was such a privilege to watch!  There is nothing like being in the Temple as a family, especially watching the boys' reactions as they perform the sacred work there.  It's just so beautiful. :) And while we were in the Temple my mama took the rest of the kiddos on a little tour of Snowflake, telling them all about their Peterson ancestors who lived there.  It sounds like it was a pretty neat tour.  I'm so thankful that she did that!  They are rightly proud of their heritage. :)

This picture actually goes before the old one.  Here are the boys just after we all came out - all wet and squinting in the sun, but happy. :)

 

 

This was Jill's birthday cake.  We haven't had a working oven for like 3 months, so I baked the square cake pieces in the oven.  It kind of worked, I guess.  And then I made rice crispy treats for the towers and stuff.  Jeremy made the archway, the drawbridge, and the dealies on top, and Michael, Jill and I made the towers.  (That short one on the right was Jill's.)  Benji made the flags on the towers, and then Michael made a few more to go in the middle.  It looked pretty great, and it was a lot of fun to do together.  My only regret is that I forgot the sprinkles, and Timmy would have been just the guy to do those.  He would have loved that!  Oh, well.  It was Grandma's turn for Sunday dinner, so we took the cake over there.  It got hot in the car, and the towers started kind of melting and flopping over.  It was a big mess before we got there.  I'm glad we took pictures first.  Ha ha! 

 

 

Here's Jill opening her presents. :)

 

 

Jill dressed up for the Fourth of July - red white and blue! :) She wanted to wear just the blue tutu on the bottom, but that was not allowed, for obvious reasons.  Ha ha!

 

Just a cute picture of Papa and Bubby :)

 

Aaron's lab rats (the ones he keeps to feed his snakes) had babies, so he let Joshua have one.  It's a boy named Mordecai!  He's so little and cute!  He seems more active than Scratchy was.  You can already tell his personality is a little different.  And right now he lives in a small rectangular fish tank.  It works pretty good since he's so small. :)

Cute little fella!

Bubby has stolen my phone a lot and taken lots of strange pictures.  This one was at the store.

 

Brookie got baptized last Saturday. :) Jeremy was in St. George for the wedding of a good friend, but the rest of us were able to go to the baptism.  I was really stressed about going without Jeremy's help.  Timmy and Bubby sometimes go nutso at the same moment, and I didn't know what I could possibly do if that happened.  I brought my phone and my Galaxy tablet, and they stayed happy and entertained for most of the time, though.  It worked good.  It's such a blessing to be able to go to these!  I'm so proud of my nephews and nieces!  They're pretty great people. :)

 

And I like this picture of Aaron and Brookie. :) I should have demanded a picture of Brookie and Michael since Brookie is Michael's favorite cousin, but I guess I didn't think of it in time.  I'm more of a go-with-the-flow kind of photographer.  I like to just take opportunities as they arise instead of demanding.  Guess I'd better get more bossy. ;)

 

Here's Brookie all baptized.  I did actually ask her to hold still for this one. ;)

 

Bubby had a great time playing on the stage during dinner - until he jumped off!  He got right back up and tried to climb up and do it again, and that's when he was not allowed to go on the stage anymore. ;)

 

Michael and Bubby

 

Jill and Bubby (can you tell I was chasing Bubby? ;) )

 

And then I went home and madly cleaned the children's rooms because it was our turn for Sunday dinner.  Here is Timmy giving me a hug break. :) And then in my worry about the lesson I had to give in Relief Society I forgot to put the roast in the crockpot in the morning, so at 6:00 PM it still wasn't done for some reason.  (Did I mention this was a doozy of a weekend for me?  It was!  All day Friday I worked on my lesson and neglected my children. And when I actually gave the lesson I started bawling uncontrollably in the middle and almost didn't recover.  So embarrassing!  I've cried in a lesson, but not that hard!  So lesson prep on Friday.  Baptism on my own on Saturday, including a super bloody Timmy nose.  Lesson and Sunday dinner on Sunday.  And Jeremy wasn't home until 2:30 AM on Sunday, so he was dead tired, and I was pretty tired myself.)  Maybe I didn't put in enough water in the crockpot.   And I'd spent a whole lot of time trying to get the kitchen clean, so the potatoes weren't started, and really, why start the potatoes if there's no roast to eat with them?  We ended up just eating a simple dinner on our own and then going to Grandma's for dessert.  That was her suggestion.  I was bummed because I'd worked so hard!  Oh, well.  It was nice to have it clean for ourselves.

 

Here's Jill outside at the doctor's office with her cookie.  I paused here to let her eat her cookie and look at the ducks on the pond while I called Jeremy.  She's such a cute girly. :)

Stuff

I don't think I've mentioned this again, but Joshua was still having issues with heartburn - all the time!  It sounds like it was a pretty constant thing.  He saw an ad one day for Lactaid, which he'd tried before, but whatever persuasive argument they used made him want to try it again.  So for the last few months I've been buying him Lactaid, and he hasn't had heartburn nearly as much.  Thank heavens!  He's such a funny guy.  He doesn't pay attention to things like that, so before, when I asked if the Lactaid helped he didn't know.  This time he paid better attention.  I'm glad it helps, even if it is more expensive and he goes through it really fast!  He can have regular milk in small amounts and be fine.  And our regular milk consumption has dropped.  Ha ha!  He is definitely the biggest milk drinker we have.

Joe got a job!  He talked to the builder who is building Aaron's house in Pima, and he hired him right away.  So Joe and BreAnna packed up their newly-fixed truck and moved to a little apartment in Thatcher.  I'm really glad for Joe.  It's so good for him to have a job.  I think it does something for a man, especially a married man, that nothing else can.  And I think it's one he'll do well at.  Now, if we can just get BreAnna's mom and grandma to leave them alone!  They're always making them do things and take care of people.  Joe and BreAnna lived with Joe's parents at first, and then when they moved BreAnna's grandma left 3 or 4 kids at their house.  BreAnna has always had to take care of all the kids, even as she was growing up herself, and it looks like the matter of an hour and a half distance isn't far enough.  Supposedly, she's supposed to pick them up on Thursday, but man!  Married people need to have at least some time alone!  Especially just starting out when you have a tiny house and not enough food for a billion people.

I've also been thinking a lot about our moving to Thatcher.  It's coming up, whenever we decide to move.  We had decided to move in December right before the baby comes, but we've been thinking it over and praying about it, and it's looking like we may move sooner.  That would mean that Jeremy's going to commute for a while.  But even if he did get a job in Thatcher he might commute anyway because he is supposed to teach at the college here in Globe.  And Susie actually signed up to take Jeremy's class!  And the more teaching he gets in the better it will look on his resume.  Anyway, we'll figure it out.  We have over a month before college classes start.

Did I mention that Jeremy didn't get the job at Edward Jones?  I don't understand it, and it makes me so sad to be back at square one when we thought we had it in the bag.  (Overconfidence?  Probably.)  Well, we'll keep trying.  I know that God knows how it'll work out, so we'll just keep trying.

I've been worrying a bit about different things with the move - a job, a doctor, finding friends...  Last time we lived in Thatcher we were newlyweds.  We had no friends in our ward and pretty much no friends anywhere in town.  People were nice to us, but we just didn't really have friends.  And the friends we had before we got married pretty much stopped contact with us as soon as we were married.  And that area is kind of cliquish anyway, kind of keeping to themselves.  I was so lonely!  I've worried that I would just be lonely again, and I've prayed that we can all find friends.

This last Sunday Jeremy decided we needed to go to Thatcher and go to the ward we'll be living in.  It's actually the same ward where we lived when we were newlyweds, and it's the same ward Joe is in too.  I was super tired and had a headache coming on, so I did not want to go, but I left it up to Jeremy, and he decided we should go, so off we went.  The building that the ward is supposed to meet in is under renovation right now, so the wards that attend there and the young single adult ward are all squished into the Institute across the parking lot for the summer.  There's no possibility of overlapping wards because of the way things are set up, so each ward goes for just two hours - one hour for Sacrament Meeting and one for classes. 

So we showed up, and we were actually about 30 minutes early.  Better than late!  Jill had been pretty much asleep when I got her dressed and brushed her hair just before we got in the car, and then she ate some Cheerios out of a bag and then fell asleep on the drive.  When we got there her hair was all down in her face and wouldn't stay back.  Jeremy took her aside and braided her hair and then make a ribbon by folding duct tape so the sticky was all in the inside, and then he died the end of the braid.  It worked great! :)

Church at the Institute is in the gym.  The ceiling is really high, and there was a lot of extra space in the back.  Between the empty space and all the new people and the new surroundings, Timmy was stimming like crazy.  He couldn't hold still, and he couldn't be quiet.  Really, asking him to under those circumstances are pretty fruitless, but I tried anyway.  Ha ha!  I did give him his Play-Doh.  That's always helpful because busy hands take some of the pressure off that comes that kind of environment.  Seriously, even a lot of people that he's familiar with is still a lot of people, still overwhelming for him.  And then Michael kept trying to steal the Play-Doh and the cup and lid.  Timmy uses all 3 for his Play-Doh creations.  Every time Michael took something Timmy would fuss.  That stinker of a Michael wouldn't stop!  Finally, after spending half of Sacrament Meeting in the foyer with a squirrelly Bubby, Jeremy took Timmy out too.  Poor guy. 

All the while I was trying to shush people and pay attention to the speakers and look around and see if there was anyone who could be my friend.  Sometimes you just know when you see someone, you know?  Anyway, I just wasn't sure, but I can't tell you how nice it was to be in the Institute again!  So many memories there! 

After Sacrament Meeting there was a letter from the church leaders that was read to the adults and the youth separately, and then I took Bubby to nursery.  He didn't like being grabbed by the guy who grabbed him, even though he was a nice-looking guy.  I was surprised the guy didn't show him the toys immediately instead of trying to talk him down.  But since that guy seemed so happy to have Bubby there I just went ahead a left, much to Bubby's dismay.  It sounds like he settled down pretty quickly, though, and he was quite happy when I picked him up later. 

And on my way back to Sunday School I ran into Jill who the teachers were trying to coax into the "classroom," which happened to be the Institute library!  Oh, man!  Do you know the sweet memories I have of that very room?  I remember presidency meetings there with sweet old ladies I will never forget.  And most of all, I remember studying there.  Sometimes I brought schoolwork there, but soon before my endowment in the Temple (I can't remember if this was before Jeremy came home of after), I went to that library and read books that helped me learn a bit more about the Temple.  Specifically, I read from The Encyclopedia of Mormonism.  Such a great set of books!  I wish I had some in my home library.  But they are available on the BYU website. :) Anyway, I learned a lot, and I felt more prepared and excited because of it.  Bless that old library!

Anyway, I told Jill I'd come and sit with her, so I did.  Apparently, what made Jill so hesitant was that she was afraid of the teacher's eye.  It sounds like she'd had surgery on it or something, and so the white of her eye was completely red.  She was such a nice lady, but I guess her eye was too scary for Jill.  I sat through most of the lesson, and then I wanted to go to Relief Society, so I just took Jill with me.  Jeremy had Timmy.  I don't think there was any chance at all that we'd be able to get him to go to Primary anyway.  Maybe when we move we'll transition him in there. 

Sunday School was over, so Jeremy had taken Timmy with him and gone to Priesthood, and he'd taken the bag with my tablet with him.  When Jill found that the tablet was gone she insisted that we go find Papa immediately.  I had no idea where he was.  It turned out that he'd gone over to the old building across the parking lot (not the chapel, but the little old building that was part of the old Church Street Chapel that burned so long ago), but at the time I had no idea where he might be.  I'd seen some men in the game room/lobby area having their class, but I figured Jeremy wasn't there because they appeared to be high priests.  Anyway, I told her that, no, we couldn't go find him.  Being the stubborn girlie that she is, she stood up and started slowly backing toward the door.  A lady across the aisle from me noticed her and didn't know she was mine, and she asked if she could help her.  Anyway, long story short, Jill came back and sat with me, and then the lady came and sat by us and let Jill play with her Kindle Fire.  Phew!  She was so nice.  She sat and talked to me and seemed so pleased that we were moving in.  I was so glad to have somebody come and sit by me and be happy that we were there!  Plus, I had an enormous headache!  I've had a lot of headaches lately.  It's part of being pregnant for me, but this one was the worst in recent memory.  Anyway, because Carolyn came and sat by Jill I was able to run out to the car and find the headache medicine we keep out there.  And then it dawned on me that my prayer for a friend had clearly been answered!  I almost cried right there on the spot!  I'm so happy about it!  I mentioned it later, and Hyrum kept telling me to calm down and thought I was a silly ninny for being so happy about finding a friend.  Ha ha!  Actually, he'd never use the word ninny, but you get the idea.

Anyway, that was a long story.  Oh, well.  It's written.  I guess the thing is that even though it was a struggle to go to church there that day, it was a day filled with blessings as well.