THIS is the epic blog post you've been waiting for.

Sorry it didn't come yesterday like I planned. There were unforeseen obstacles to my ability to blog (like a complete lack of motivation to do anything productive).

And now . . . HERE COME THE UPDATES AND PICTURES!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!

First, please direct your attention immediately to the right of this post. Notice that big 'ole button that says "I'm a Mormon"? Well, that's a link to my mormon.org profile. Mike and I finally managed to make them (we did it for our FHE activity this week). I figured, if they're talking about it in General Conference and there's a full-on insert in the Ensign, they're probably serious.

Next, about this whole baby business. As of a week ago Tuesday (meaning December 14), I was 1cm dilated and 50% effaced. And that week, baby was still measuring long. This week, (December 21), I don't know how dilated I am, but baby has slowed down and is now "average-sized." I still have heartburn, sore muscles, hips that hate me a lot, sometimes nausea, dizziness, and Braxton-Hicks . . . but no Katie yet. I'll be 38 weeks on Sunday. For twins, that's the due date. But for just one baby . . . I have to keep waiting. Grr.

Yesterday morning, Mike was reading his book (I think he's on The Two Towers now) and looked up and said "I fully expect you to go into labor later today." When I asked him why, he said, "because you're nesting like crazy." It seems that without even thinking about it, I had cleaned off the table, organized Katie's room, cleaned our bedroom, remade the bed, put away all the dishes, folded Katie clothes and cleaned off her changing table, swept the kitchen, and vacuumed the whole house. Rather. So maybe I was sort of kidding about being unproductive.

Now, to some pictures. I caved: here's one of the two of us. I just realized we hadn't had a picture together in like ninety years. Because it's always just us without a photographer. So most of my pictures are . . . Mike. But here's us.

This crib bedding is what my mom gave me. I think it's the same stuff all of my siblings used. It also came with a lamp, but we have that up on the shelf. (I don't think babies like to sleep with lamps. That's why we left the giraffe and the Peter Rabbit books instead. Much more cuddly. Or . . . entertaining? I don't think books are cuddly either . . . I think we need to rethink our plan.)

This bassinet we also inherited from my mom. I love the pretty eyelet cover. Note: this bassinet has since moved from Katie's room into its designated place in our room, in an effort to encourage the little stinker to get born. The carseat has also been strapped into the car. Now if only she'd get the hint . . .

Along with all the big stuff, my mom also gave me a bin full of little girl clothes (some of which, yes, I myself did wear). Oh my goodness, all the frilly dresses made me giggle so hard my face hurt. We took them home and washed them all and Mike was a good sport helping me put them all away. Note: being an awesome dad and appreciating cute baby clothes does not in any way decrease man points. If anything, it enhances them. (He worried about me putting this picture up.)

This is me and some friends from the awesome baby shower that Sara (furthest right) threw for me at her house. The picture turned out a little blurry, but still good. They're holding up twine from the "guess how big around Brittany's belly is" game. I think it should be mentioned that they let me cut a piece without cheating at all, and I got it exactly. Like, exactly. No gaps and no extra. Everybody else cut off the extra from theirs to compare, but I had none. Because I guessed exactly right. Who wins the spatial reasoning award now, huh?

This one is less blurry, but includes the winner of the aforementioned belly competition. Jackie is second from left and only had, like, a 1cm remnant. It was super close. And she was winner because apparently the pregnant lady herself cannot win.

This picture is included because I think baby shoes are only the cutest thing that ever happened. The saddle shoes I got from my mom (again, I think I wore them), but the red ones I got at my shower. Oh! and the burp clothes my mom made. She said the BYU one is for Mike, so he can still look manly while burping a frilly little girl baby.

Can you tell we just really want Katie to get born? I have . . . (cough cough) I mean SANTA has . . . some cute little stocking stuffers, but she's not here yet, so I'll have to open her presents for her. Seriously. Come out, kid. I'm getting rather impatient. And my back hurts. That's a sure sign that you're supposed to get born soon.

You know, Mike and I thought Christmas would be weird just staying here with the two of us, but so far it's been really fun. We had yesterday (the 23rd) off and just did almost nothing, except nest. Then, in the afternoon, I got all baking happy. So far there are two kinds of cookies, and tomorrow after Christmas, there will be more cookies and pumpkin pies. I'm feeling all domestic.

Our Christmas eve itinerary: wake up after 10, eat leftover pancakes while watching It's a Wonderful Life (crying may ensue), take a shower, vote to get back into pajamas rather than get dressed, play some riveting games of Uno (I won, by the way), eat macaroni and cheese, take a nap, read some fun books, blog, watch Santa Claus is Coming to Town, read the Christmas story from Luke 2, then maybe another game or something before going to bed (where we won't sleep because we're all acting like little kids today). No, seriously. We both have been so excited about the presents we got each other that we're all super excited about Christmas. It's gonna be great.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!

COMING THIS THURSDAY!!!

A totally epic blog post for Christmas. You should be excited.

Also, it has been snowing big, heavy snowflakes since before I woke up this morning (and I woke up early because work starts at 8). Blech. Heaven help anybody who waited until today to leave Provo.

Maybe I should take some pictures of myself now that I'm so pregnant people actually gasp when they see me. That would be cool.

A few small notes

Some may have noticed that I very conspicuously didn't say anything about Thanksgiving break in my last posts. Just know that the ride there was very traumatic and I almost went into labor, Aunt Annie called my baby Katie Lou (which I have secretly wanted to do for a long time so this kind of gives me affirmation), food was delicious, I actually slept in a bit, and the ride home was LOOOOOOOOOONG. Oh, and the break wasn't nearly long enough. That's it.

In other news, last night when I went to run some errands, I passed a mom and two little blond boys, and the boys' names were Talmage and Kimball. I can understand wanting your kids to have good role models as their namesakes, but really? Couldn't they be James and Spencer and it would be just as good? Only in Utah. Seriously.

I really don't feel like doing anything at all today. Like moving. Or keeping my eyes open. I told Mike that and he said "You're growing a Katie. I think that counts as a lot." I hope so, because otherwise I'm a total lazy slob who never cooks and who hates walking. But it's a life, I guess.

When I pull the skin tighter around my belly button, it kind of puckers and forms a little mound thing.

But it hasn't popped out yet! Seriously, the one thing I was actually looking forward to about being pregnant, and no such luck. I'm 34 1/2 weeks, and I still have an inny belly button. I feel so cheated.

I do have really crazy stretch marks, though. Seriously, my belly looks like an eyeball: pasty white, with a bunch of ugly red streaks coming out from the middle (so my inny belly button is the iris?). At my last doctor's appointment, when I pulled my shirt up so he could measure me, he was like "whoa, do these itch a lot?" I said "um, yeah, like crazy." And he was like, "whoa, I'm glad you haven't made yourself bleed! Get some 1% hydrocortisone on that business!" (Note: this may or may not be a direct quotation of our conversation. You can decide.)

Mike's doing Organic Chemistry homework. Which means I'm really bored. I do have to finish my paper for Pearl of Great Price, but I don't get a thrill from writing religion papers like I do writing other kinds of papers. Maybe this is a good thing, but religion papers are just way too easy. When I'm writing about Hansberry and the Black Arts Movement of the '60's, I feel like I'm trying to fit my brain through that strainer mold thing my mom has for playdough, but in a good way. When I'm writing about Enoch, it just feels kind of like, well, like "duh." I know this stuff. Please don't think I'm being sacrilegious. I just don't have to work really hard to know what to say about spiritual stuff.

And maybe I don't care about my grades nearly as much as when I was still looking at more school. I'm a little bit done. Even if I kept my grades up (which I probably will anyways, Dad, so don't freak out) I'm only taking three credits (one class) next semester, which means they wouldn't give me my scholarship anyway. Therefore, I will do the work without stressing myself into labor, and my professors will probably never see me again. Sound fair? I think so.

I have a friend who is twenty-something weeks pregnant with twin boys, and whose experience seems to be extremely compounded compared to mine. Every time I want to whine about how hard it is to waddle about campus and not be able to put on my own boots and have heartburn all the time, I go read Becky's blog. It makes me grateful that I'm having one little Katie and not two little boys.

Not that there's anything wrong with boys. It's just that two of them at once would probably kill me. (Do you hear that, Grandma Blair? You're superwoman.)

I should probably actually work on my paper a little bit, since I suspect that's what Mike thinks I'm already doing. He'll discover this blog post tomorrow and be like "Brittany! You were supposed to be doing homework!" And I'll either bat my eyelashes at him or stick out both my preggo belly and my lower lip. Either works.

Oh, and his making-aspirin lab write-up is done, so I gotta go. Peace out.

To My Adoring Fans :)

#1- I never imagined I would get such an overwhelming response to my comment about Mike and my mom. That was kinda funny and really self-esteem boosting. Thanks guys. :D

#2- Is it Wednesday yet? (When I finally finish work for the week and we drive to Thanksgiving)

#3- We may have secretly gone out and bought a stroller/car seat thingy one night last week instead of being responsible and doing homework. It's really cute though. And Mike got all manly to build it. Not to mention super overprotective-new-dad on me. ("You read all the reviews? This is the safest one?") One of these days I'll take pictures of Katie's room and put them up here.

#4- Is it January yet?

No Diabetes For You!, or, How I Became a Raving Lunatic

That's right. Raving. Lunatic. You get what I'm saying. It mostly has to do with the fact that my moods are like souffle--I pop anytime, at any stimulus. Mike is the most patient man in the world.

In other news, yesterday was a fantastic day. I'm going to tell you why. And it might end up being a long blog post, so I apologize if you're tired of my writing.

The first reason involves rather a long story. Once upon a time, doctors were really mean and made me take all kinds of yucky glucose tests. I took the routine one first, in which I come in fasting in the morning, they make me drink the flat Seven-Up, and I come back an hour later for a blood test. The next day, I received a frantic phone call from the nurses at my doctor's office saying "Holy bananas your levels were high! We're going to torture more results out of you!" I am not ashamed to say that I had a TOTAL freak out at this. I have ALWAYS been afraid of diabetes. I like food too much.

Thus, I had to take the second glucose test, in which I come in after fasting for 12 hours (not fun for pregnant ladies), get my blood taken, drink the nasty stuff that they say tastes like flat Orange Crush (but really tastes like children's Motrin), and come back every hour three more times to get my blood taken. Summary: fasting for 15 hours + having blood taken 4 times = NOT HAPPY PREGNANT LADY. I was cranky forever. And I missed my religion class because I was so weak and shaky I couldn't get off the couch after I got home the last time.

Anyways, that test was on a Thursday. I had a doctor's appointment the following Tuesday. Well, I say doctor's appointment, but it wasn't really. My doctor was out of town during my scheduled week to need an appointment, so I really saw the nurse practitioner. She's very nice, and I'm sure she knows what she's doing most of the time, but I like my doctor better. He's much more awesome. But I had to see her, and she had my results from the glucose test. She told me that my levels were high, gave me all kinds of scary information about horrible things that could happen to my baby, and sent me to the diabetes clinic at the hospital next door. This was not a good day.

I played phone tag with the diabetes clinic FOREVER, so it was another week before I got there. Then, I had to sit through an hour and a half of this dietician (not a doctor, mind you) who repeated herself at least four thousand times, and spent the first 40 minutes or so telling me all the horrible things that happen to babies of diabetic mothers, and was like "You're going to be miserable forever because having diabetes will hurt your baby lots and you're both going to get Type II diabetes in a few years. Buaha." Then she dictated how many carbohydrates I was allowed to eat each hour, gave me a blood glucose meter, and told me to prick myself six times a day: before and after each meal, which means I could only eat every two hours.

Signs that made me NOT believe her AT ALL: I followed her diet plan. I even cheated most of the time, eating a few extra carbs at each meal and snack, and not eating for two hours between each thing. Result: I was constantly weak and dizzy. I had headaches every day at work and wobbled walking home from school. I stopped any healthy feelings I had been having previous to this instruction. I fell asleep all the time in class. Also, the meals when I cheated the most (like, 15 or 20 extra grams of carbs), my reading was not even close to the high end of normal. I spent most of my time in the 70s, which I don't suspect is healthy for anybody, but REALLY not healthy for someone who's growing a whole nother person. I got a little bit angry with her.

But I did promise to follow the rules until my next appointment, which was a week after visiting the clinic. This was yesterday, and my real doctor was back. I guess nobody filled him in with what happened while he was gone, because he was like, "Oh, we got your glucose results, and you just barely passed, so we're not going to send you to a diabetes counsellor." When I told him we'd already gone, he was like, "who sent you there?" It made me happy. He told me that I am NOT diabetic, I don't have to prick my finger AT ALL anymore, and that the nurse practitioner overreacted to my results. I guess one or two of them were slightly abnormal, but it just means I need to still be careful. But NOT starve myself.

I was so happy I almost cried. I did start laughing maniacally after leaving the office. Mike thought I was crazy.

The second reason yesterday was such a good day is slightly less consequential, but just as important to me right now. It also contains a story, but not a long one. Last week in my fiction editing class (the same day I was tortured by the crazy dietician), as I stood up from my desk, the seat of my jeans caught on a piece of metal and ripped a giant gash across the bum. I didn't make a scene, and it was okay because my coat covered it until I could get home, but still. One thing on top of another, right?

But anyways, because wearing dresses in the winter in Utah is never fun, we decided I would need some new preggy-lady jeans. Monday night we started some pizza dough rising, ran off to Penney's, and found some really cute ones on sale. They are skinny jeans, which I've never owned before in my life, but I've discovered the appeal. Mike says they're flattering (and sometimes I believe him) and they make my legs look less swollen (which they extremely are every single day). AND I feel all trendy, which doesn't happen ever.

So yesterday, the same day that I rediscovered food, not only did I get up on time to do my hair and wear makeup, but I was wearing cute jeans that made me feel good about my blecky swollen legs.

It was such a good day that we decided to celebrate last night by going out and getting a crib mattress instead of doing homework. And that is the end of my extremely long post. I hope you'll still be my friend after this.

Small note: I just realized I spent almost the whole hour between my classes writing this post instead of doing homework. You had better appreciate this, Mike and Mom (the only people who actually check my blog and read the long ones . . . :)

How Did I Even Get Here?

Tonight our family home evening activity was shopping. Furniture shopping. BABY furniture shopping. That's right. We officially own a beautiful espresso-finished (but it looks more like cherry) crib and changing table. I totally went on a cleaning the house rampage on Saturday, which resulted even in cleaning out the fridge with 409, but included getting the baby's room clean (finally!) which means we had to go shopping. We had no choice.

We went to, like, six different stores before we ended up at RC Willey and found their children's furniture. Just when we found the most perfect changing table ever, guess which song came on? My favorite song from my most favorite band of all time--"Faithfully" by Journey. It was a sign.

Really though? We fell in love with that set almost as soon as we walked in and saw it. And for every other piece of furniture we'd looked at, we had to be like, "well, I like this, but I liked this on the other one better . . . " Yeah. Not the case.

The hardest part about buying our furniture was tracking down a salesperson. Unfortunately for us, college students in their twenties are not typically targets for furniture salespeople. Every single one we saw was trailing an older couple around the sofas and dining sets. But when we did find one, he was super nice--not pushy--and recommended the crib we had already chosen because his wife is having a baby in December and they picked the same one. Totally perfect. Mike gets to pick it up tomorrow (they have them in stock in Salt Lake and a truck comes down every morning with the previous day's orders).

So besides purchasing physical evidence of my impending mommy-hood, I also just clicked "add" on my one and only VERY LAST class at BYU. Seriously. As of thirty seconds ago, I have finished registering for the entirety of my academic career. I've got the jibblies so hard it's putting the "EEEEEEEE" in WEEEEEEEEIIIIIIRRRRDDDD!!!!! Mike is only a little bit jealous.

Yeah, a lot of things have been sinking in recently. Such as owning furniture for the baby, and having a belly that's actually big enough for me to spill food on it, and completely finishing my education. I'm really (for REAL) going to be a mother very soon, and my life will be dictated by someone who's not a professor but has WAY more power over me. This is going to be so great. :)

Oh! and maybe I'll post pictures of our new baby room after Mike gets his manly on and builds all the furniture.