30 weeks say what???

Welp, the realization that we're going to have a child is still slowly setting in. So, to celebrate, here is a recent bump update...30 weeks today!!!

That's me...still trying to rock the non-maternity clothes, but I'm not sure how much longer that will last! ha!
And if you look closely, you will see a bright white earring. That is one of the many perks of working with kids!! One of the Social Workers on my peds floor made some cute little sparkly snowflake earrings and she was giving them to all the nurses and staff and such! It's so sweet :-)

Oh, and just a quick update on the internship... Yesterday was an excellent internship day until one unfortunate moment. So, word to other potential dietetic interns that might read this. Apparently, there are some preceptors who like to demonstrate their power. A particular preceptor of mine said some really not nice things to me and it really just shocked me!! I tried to defend myself at the time, but there was no appeasing this lady! So, this morning I sought some wisdom from another preceptor who prides herself in being fair - and she most certainly is! So, this wise preceptor told me not to waste a single minute on the power preceptor because, basically, this preceptor gets terrible reviews and terrible things like this happen every single year. Pretty sweet... SO, while it was quite unfortunate I was greatly comforted through prayers for wisdom and the words of my wise preceptor. For any potential interns out there, my advise is to stick to your guns, seek wisdom from those preceptors whose opinion you value and work hard to prove those power-tripping preceptors wrong :-) Oh, and pray a lot for God to help you get over the embarrassment of the event and not dwell on it and become bitter :-)
Oh, and just a fun tid-bit for you...I'm on call this week, so if you need me, just page me!!

GUEST POST! Sabino Canyon and Christmas Lights!

Hey it's Jarred the husband again! Just wanted to share another adventure with you. There is a cool place about 5-10 minutes from us called Sabino Canyon, which is part of the Coronado National Forest. It has a bunch of paved and dirt trails and picnic areas in a beautiful mountain canyon. I look forward to using a stroller on those paved ones! Well I took one of the trails that went 4 miles back into the wilderness to a place called Seven Falls. It was a beautiful hike and much less steep than the last one I did, so I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was surprised to see a deer there also!

Water in the Desert!

40+ ft Saguaro

 I also felt festive today and put up some Christmas lights outside! I am quite limited by living in an apartment complex but we have our own outside staircase so I decorated that! What do you think?

Come visit us!!!! My wife is an adorable pregnant lady!!!!!

Giving thanks

This week was Thanksgiving...THANKSGIVING!!! How did that happen?? This year is going by SO fast. This afternoon I was laying out our schedule to Jarred and I said, "Next weekend I have to work, then my parents are here the next week and then your parents are here the next week, and then there are two weeks off work for Christmas, and then Kinsley comes...Oh boy - Kinsley comes soon!" Serious reality check for me, but it's just unreal how fast this year is going by!

But, for Thanksgiving we got to go to my grandparents. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures except for this one that my grandpa posed...

Yum...turkey leg! haha!

But it was such a blessing to spend the day with them! I had to work again on Friday, but thankfully, the day was not nearly as terrible as we (interns) were afraid of! A couple of the preceptors were like really ridiculous this past week with how to handle our patient load since we would be gone on Thursday...so we were basically told to leave all our patients for Friday... But then we were afraid we would have tons of new consults and not be able to see all of them plus our follow-ups. BUT! Praise the Lord, we literally had one consult on our floors the entire day!! That was a huge relief!!!

While I was working, Jarred had the day off but he has been working hard on some more projects for Kinsley's room. She now has a place to put more clothes or diapers or whatever! We got this sweet old dresser off Craigslist for like $30...a new paint job and voila! Oh, but we haven't refinished the handles yet...they will be coming soon :-)

And you can see the cute picture frame on top of the dresser...that is thanks to our Secret Sibling! Jarred's youngest sis made this awesome picture frame decoration for us...it is SO perfect for the room and I was so excited to finish the dresser so that we had a place to display it!

I have just a couple of more decorations for the walls, and I want to make a few more accent pillows for the bed. After that, I think her room will be finished! We'll just need to get EVERYTHING else off our registry so we can actually take care of her :-)

Tis the Season!!!

I absolutely love Christmas time!!! I love Christmas because of His miraculous birth, to see my family, to have a break from school, to snuggle by the fireplace when it's blizzarding outside...many, many reasons I love Christmas!!! And because of my love of Christmas, I love to start decorating my house very early :-) Jarred usually makes me wait, but last week while he was traveling he heard some Christmas music in the airport or somewhere, so I asked if that meant we could put up our tree...he said we could do it this weekend after our guests left. So, probably within 5 minutes of our company leaving, all our boxes of Christmas decs were out. Oh it just makes me happy to look around my house!!! Here are some pics! I should have taken some "before" pics since y'all haven't seen our house...but whatevs :-)

Jarred putting the star on top!

The final product!!

Christmas tree and fireplace!

Close up of the fireplace - thanks to Trish for the beautiful wreath!

An evening shot - with the mountains in the background!

Weekend festivities

This weekend we were so very excited to host our FIRST visitors (besides my grandparents who live here...). Jarred's oldest sister and her new hubby stopped by on their way from California to Missouri. Long story short, they are transferring a car from California to Jarred's family in MO so we got the great pleasure of having some company!!
They got in just in time for dinner last night so we tried a local place called Oreganos. It was pretty delish. My dish was so-so...the description said it was like, "topped off with spice" and yet it had virtually no flavor. But, it was still prepared very well so I can't complain. BUT, Jarred and his bro-in-law got a "stuffed pizza". This thing was RI-DONC! I've never seen anything quite like it. So, here's a pic to help describe it

The thing probably weighed like 10 pounds from all the cheese! Yummo!! But it was a thin layer of crust, 10 pounds of cheese and some pepperoni, and then another thin layer of crust with some sauce and parmesan cheese on top. Oh. My. Needless to say, we are having leftovers for dinner :-)

Then, this morning we went to church. Just want to share a few words on that. First of all, I kinda teared up during worship (which is not unusual for me, as I am often quite emotional when singing praise...) But, this morning I also got emotional because we sang a song that we used to sing at Northstar...man oh man I miss my church family!! But, our message today was really good too! We talked about Hebrews 5, and our pastor kinda covers a lot of info and is semi-random...but he did briefly talk about the fruit that we bear. He brought up one of the most terrifying passages of scripture, in Matthew 7:
²² Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ ²³ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
But the pastor went on to say that many "Christians" will experience this but you can find hope in knowing that you aren't one of those by the fruit that you bear. You will desire to follow Him, to obey Him, to know Him...
So yea, I really enjoyed the message today.

Then after church we took our fam on a quick tour of the city and then, unfortunately, they had to leave. But, at least we got a couple of great group pics before they left!

 

An Anniversary Engagement

Welp, this time four years ago I didn't even know that I was going to be engaged, let alone married, let alone preggers. But here I am, four years later...married to the most wonderful hubby ever and 6 months pregnant! So, to celebrate the many blessings God has given us, we ate blizzards! ha! But for real... we did...
Also, we went shopping. We bought our secret-sibling gift (it's a Caple family thing) and we also had to do a bit of shopping for Miss Kinsley. Clearly we have our priorities straight because Kinsley's room is just about to be the cutest nursery ever...although she may have to spoil in her own filth as we have yet to buy any diapers, wipes, or anything else that might actually help us take care of our sweet child. Well, we have gotten her stroller thanks to my parents, grandparents and Aunt. It was on sale on our registry a couple weeks ago, and it came in last week!

Really poor quality pic, but you can still see the stroller! I had to try it out!

But other than the stroller, we've mostly just been working on the room. Jarred finished painting the crib which is "blaze orange", aka coral. And on Monday, I had a brief evening of nesting so I made a sign to hang over the top of the crib. Check it out!

A close up to show the cuteness...the paper on the right is totally perfect for our theme!

Hard at work!! P.S. check out my shirt...my $4 thrift store Motherhood brand shirt...score!

Jarred worked so hard on the crib and even hung the sign...he's a keeper!!

I'm sorry all my pics are such poor quality, I'm just too lazy to not use my cell phone! But anywhos, what can you do!
Oh, and one last pic...the bump update! I'm 28 weeks today. And, I'm sporting my big splurge of the weekend (by big splurge I mean my $10 buy compared to my other $4 purchases). My grandma took me to a clothing exchange store and I found some awesome maternity tops! And, they are all Motherhood brand which is like, really good!! So, here's my favorite weekend purchase!

Weekend of Lamaze

Jarred and I have been continually forgetting that going to parenting/pregnancy classes might be advantageous. So finally, last week, we sucked it up and just registered for a class. We did a weekend lamaze class because we weren't sure if we wanted to go to a class for two hours, once a week, for six weeks. So instead, we busted it out!! Saturday and Sunday, 9:00-4:00... nailed it!
One of my favorite experiences from the class was being massaged :-) We were taught lots of relaxing poses and massaging techniques and such, so I got to be spoiled for a while! Another one of my favorite experiences from the class was Jarred having to "make the bed" with a 25 pound backpack on (except he had to wear the backpack backwards so it was on his belly...to give him an idea of what I'm feeling!) Here's a few pics!

Sorry the quality is so poor...the room was dark except for the windows I was facing :-/
Anywhos, after he "made the bed" he had to lay down and then roll over without disturbing me. You can see my feet in the second picture, so Jarred had to roll over without falling off the bed or hitting me... If you've ever been preggers, rolling over is like the hardest thing! ha! So I think it was really good for Jarred to experience these things before I actually get so big and start complaining about it! ha!
Oh, and as for Jarred, his favorite part of the class was, obviously, watching the birthing videos...he was SO into it and can't wait to see another baby crown!
And just a quick life update...this week I finished Phase Three!!! Praise the LORD I am done with ICU patients!!!! Also, Jarred was in VA this past week, so super huge thank you to all our friends in VA for taking care of him while he was there!! AND, super huge thank you to my grandparents who came to keep me company while he was gone!!!

A few tips we learned in Lamaze that might be helpful to you at some point in your life:
1) You don't have to go to the hospital until your contractions are lasting 45-60 seconds and are happening every 3-5 minutes - at that point you're likely dilated to four!
2) I learned that I really don't want to have meds (I never really wanted them, but now I don't unless it's just totally unbearable!). But I don't want meds because after an epidural you are like stuck in your bed and can't move around. And moving around really helps progress your labor... We'll see if I'm tough enough :-) Oh, and I don't want pain meds because then they might be more likely to let me eat...I WILL need food if they expect me to labor for 10 years!
3) Most people have to have their water broken for them. But, actually, you can refuse to have them break it unless there is a medical reason for it....breaking your water before it naturally happens doesn't usually progress labor and actually causes labor to be more painful.