7 Weeks and Counting!

Tayva: I am suddenly feeling very pregnant this past week. It felt like I just looked down one day and was like, whoa! Where did that come from? But then the baby belly has been doing that all along... Very sneaky of it.
Friday was my last day at work, which was very sad for me. I will miss seeing all the friends I made there, even though a lot of the people I used to associate with work left a while ago (Candice and Elise), have been gone for a while (Becca and Jeff), or are leaving the same time as me (just Caitlin, but she's cool enough for two people). I will also miss envying Stacy's baby belly, which was always so much more impressive than mine. And I am sad that I won't be there to hear all about Krista's pregnancy. And, of course, I will miss seeing Ti'Ata (the greatest supervisor EVER) every day. She's been a very good friend to me, and a lot of fun.
From here on out (until baby begins taking up the free time) I have to find projects to keep myself occupied. This week: putting wedding pictures in an album (instead of a box). I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Peter: 7 weeks to go! Wow, it's gone really fast. Tayva's getting larger every day (but with that comes a beautiful radiance that makes her glow)and is excited. It's funny the whole time Tayva's been worried that she hasn't looked pregnant enough, that her tummy's not been big enough. I don't understand this girl mentality. I've been trying to get my belly to go down for 3 years now (3 years of intense trying at least more than that if you count it all up) and she's also coveted her friend at work's (who's also pregnant) pokey out belly button. That's weird! Studies show that more men lose an eye due to their wife's pregnant pokey belly button than any other cause.
I started school this last week. 3 classes (9 credit hours) of school just doesn't sound fun. Last fall I was so excited to go back to school that I read some of my text books before the semester started-I also got a 4.0 but this semester I am dragging my feet. We made a super cool fort today with all of our diaper boxes. It was awesome. Our baby's going to have the blessing of coming to a home where his parents are less mature than he is...but who wants to grow up?
Kinda scary to be the sole earner in the family now, but fortunately this last week I received a raise at work. I won't say the amount but it's the equivilent of a 9% annual raise. That should sorta help but we've been saving and paying debts and stuff so we're good. It's been amazing how much the Lord has blessed us, especially financially, the past few months. I am grateful for his constant concern on our behalf.

Tayva: In reference to envying Stacy's baby belly, I just have to say in my defense that if I have to feel this pregnant, I figure I should at least look like it! Otherwise it feels like I'm faking...
But life is good! Here are pictures of our diaper fort:

32 Weeks!!!

We were going to post every week, but we realized last Monday that we just don't have that much going on just yet. Here is a new preggo picture of Tayva, as well as a picture of Peter's addiction to the zoo game on Facebook. Some minor updates in our lives: we went to the real zoo last Saturday with our friends Ben and Laura and their three kids, which was a lot of fun--and a lot of walking for a pregnant Tayva! We recommend going to see all the very cute baby animals (This has nothing to do with our fascination with all things baby. Promise.), particularly the baby tamarinds and the baby meercats. And the baby giraffe. We would have loved to see the baby elephant too, but she was only a couple days old at the time, and not out in the exhibit yet. Tayva had to admit that she felt very relieved to not be giving birth to an elephant or a giraffe, since an elephant is pregnant for about two years (!) and the baby weighs about three hundred pounds at birth. The baby giraffe doesn't weigh quite as much, but is still about six feet tall at birth. That's enough to make any suffering pregnant mom feel like they're getting off easy.

We've been advised to do all the things that we can't do when the baby comes so we're trying to cram in as much as possible (which includes sleep)! Peter even got tickets to his and his dad's annual tradition of going to a BYU football game and is so excited for the upcoming season. As long as the baby doesn't come 5 weeks early they should be okay to go to the game!

Childbirth class was this last Friday/Saturday, and was a mixture of alarming, surprising, reassuring, and enlightening, with the occasional dash of cringe-worthy comments. But good, overall. It was an 8 hour course: 3 hours on Friday and 5 on Saturday. We were running behind to the Saturday's meeting so didn't eat breakfast, as a result Tayva almost passed out twice. Luckily we were at a birthing seminar so the teacher knew what to do. Peter's main complaints were that they didn't have any breaks during the 5 hour Saturday class, including no lunch break, we had to sit on the hard ground with only a blanket for padding, and nothing to lean against. Pregnant women sitting on the hard ground and only having their husbands to lean against isn't a great idea. Before Tayva got pregnant Peter said he wouldn't mind having 5 kids 2 years apart....as time has gone by the number of kids has decreased and the time between kids has grown. I think he's currently wanting 3 kids at most with 5 years in between. :)

But he's excited to be a daddy and we look forward to meeting our little guy in 56 days...or so!

30 Weeks Down 10...ish to go!

Before and After Tayva! You don't realize how much she's "grown" until you look at them side by side!

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30 Weeks Down 10...ish to go!

It's the craziest thing, in hindsight it feels like the pregnancy has gone fast, yet looking forward 10...ish weeks seems so long. Tayva's getting ready to quit her favorite job in a couple weeks. The upside is that she'll have lots of time on her hands...til the baby comes, the downside is that her car is dead so she'll be stranded. Cabin fever ah! (see Muppet Teasure Island). We've tried to be smart and prepare as much for the baby as possible. Starting in February when we found out we started stocking up on diapers, buying things here and there and saving up for the hospital bill so the doctor can't repo our tater tot :) Besides a few tiny purchases that we still have yet to make, we're pretty ready for the baby. Peter's looking forward to completing his last 3 semesters at school while having a newborn and working full-time and being in the elders quorum presidency which takes some time too. But he's being a good sport about it.

Baby's been pretty active lately, which is lots of fun, but as of yet Peter is still the only person to have felt him kick. This may be due to the fact that our little guy is either sneaky or has stage fright, because as soon as someone puts their hand on Tayva's belly he holds still for the next ten minutes. Peter sometimes tries to poke him in punishment, but the baby's currently got the upper hand--the other night while we were sleeping, the baby woke Peter up by kicking him squarely in the backside. Haha, revenge!