March

Here are some pictures from March.

Josh & Sofia blowing bubbles





Steven playing soccer. Yes, there is snow in the background but it was actually pretty warm out. Gotta love Utah Springs!

Steven playing soccer with Josh

 Sofia blowing bubbles

 Steven & Sofia when we went to the aquarium. This is very typical: Sofia smiles or poses, Steven makes a silly face.

 ...like father, like son...

 I was cutting broccoli for dinner and both of my kids asked to eat some. Where did these two come from??

 Love the look on her face. She knows she's in trouble! She had just taken a permanent marker and colored allllllllllll over the place.

 Steven checking out the awesome water fountain at the new City Creek Center downtown.

 Sofia sportin' her new shades

January & February

Because I am sooooo behind on blogging, I'm just going to add a bunch of pictures & then do a caption for each.

Steven & Sofia wanted to blow bubbles, but I didn't want a huge mess on my floor, so they went to the bath tub.



This picture is mostly just to show how much she loves her stuffed squirrel. It's from the couple I worked with during my surrogacy; it's an "official NYC squirrel". She drags that thing around everywhere!





Josh & I waiting to see Brian Regan at the end of January. Every time we've seen him, I've been 8 months pregnant. Weird, huh? He's awesome! We love seeing him live :)

 Steven sticking his fingers under his door during time-out

Sofia moving on from coloring on paper to coloring on herself

Even though they fight and drive each other crazy, they still love each other! :)

These next few pictures are just to illustrate how silly Steven can be. He is always making faces or using weird voices. He's a lot like his dad... ;)

Steven flying his first kite

One afternoon at the end of February, Josh was putting Steven down for a nap. He was playing around and flung himself backwards to land on his pillow. This time, however, he hit his head on his headboard (it has a VERY sharp edge), and started crying really hard. I went in there and picked him up and noticed my cheek was wet after he'd put his head on my shoulder. I looked at the back of his head and he was bleeding a ton. We couldn't tell how deep the cut was or anything, so we wrapped his head to stop the bleeding so we could see if it needed stitches.

After a while, we looked at his head, and I decided to take him into the local Instacare. They took him back and put some numbing gel on his cut and then let us sit out in the waiting room for a while to let it work. The nurse called him Kung Fu Panda with the red head band, so he liked that. 

The doctor decided to put in staples instead of stitches because it's faster, and his hair will cover up the scar, so it didn't need to be super pretty. Steven didn't feel anything because the numbing gel really worked! He was a little freaked out that he couldn't see what the doctor was doing. A popsicle at the end made it all better, though! :)

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure

Sometime in April of this year, one of my good friends decided that she wanted to participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a 5k walk/run that supports the fight against breast cancer. I've been wanting to do a 5K for a while and because some of my friends were going to participate, I decided to do it. I started "training" for it and actually injured myself a little (I'm not sure what I did....I think it was probably shin splints) in the process. Because of that and because the group I was in was just walking, I decided to walk the 5K. It was a really great experience being there. There were a lot of cancer survivors and that was amazing to see. One of my good friends is a cancer survivor (not breast cancer but I still thought doing it for her counted ;) ) and is coming up on 8 years of being cancer free (YAY!!!). She is part of an organization called "stupid cancer" which is aimed towards young people with cancer. She sent me some of their wrists bands so my friends and I could wear them during the 5K.

Rockin' the bracelets on my train ride down town to the race. I also had the same amount of bracelets on the other arm.

The train was packed!

The group I walked with. These girls are from the Utah Surrogate Mothers group that I am a part of.

My good friend, Jen, & I

L-R: Darcy, Sarah, Jen, me, Amanda, Rylee, & Natalie. These girls are great!!

Yeah!

Random January 2012 pictures

Sofia playing with Josh's iPad. It's amazing how quickly such little kids catch on to technology.

I love this picture!

Sofia LOVES hats! Modeling one her cousin, Lizzy, made for her for Christmas.

Steven & Sofia were pretending that this cassette player was a camera. Mostly I wanted to show her cute pony tail. I think this is one of her firsts (an actual ponytail in the back, anyway).

Car drama

The morning of Saturday the 5th, Josh was leaving to go to work. He came back up stairs and I thought he had forgotten something. He opens the door, looks at my car keys, and then asks me, "Where's your car? Your car's not in the stall." Fantastic, my car had been stolen. The car had a security chip that had to be in in order to start the car. That was upstairs in the house on my key ring so I was really confused as to how someone could steal it. I suggested to Josh that maybe some teenagers were pulling a prank and had just put the car into neutral and then pushed it somewhere. Josh drove around our complex but couldn't see it. He came back upstairs and called the police to report it stolen. He had to work that day so I was stuck in my house until that evening. Thankfully, I didn't have anything absolutely vital to do, and I had done my shopping for the next week already, so for that day, it was really more of an annoyance.

We had already had plans to go on a double date with some friends, and we were still able to do that. While we were in the movie, we got a call from the police department saying that the car had been found in Murray. It was not driveable, however, so the police just had it towed. We weren't too happy about that, because that meant we would have to pay a towing charge on top of whatever else it would cost to fix it, when Josh could've just towed it with his truck. I called the towing company to ask what was wrong with it and they said that the ignition had been ripped out and the steering column would probably need to be replaced. It was good that it wasn't completely stripped, but still, not fun news to get.

On Monday I did a bunch of research. The towing company told me I had to go get a state tax release (or something) from the DMV on Monday and bring it there in order to get my car. I called the DMV to see how much that would cost and what I would have to do to get it (oh, with no car because Josh was working, and no car seats because they were in the stolen car. Great.). I was very happy that they wouldn't charge me to get the state tax release because the car had been stolen, but not so happy when I called the towing company. They were going to charge me $254 just to get it out, and it was $25 a day to store it there. I would also have to pay a towing charge to get it to wherever it was going to go. Then I called the car shop we usually go to to ask them how much it would be to fix it. They couldn't give me an exact estimate without seeing the car, but the guy I talked to said it would be probably be at least $500 to fix, if not more. All told, I would have to spend at least $800 to get my car back. Josh and I had been planning on replacing it within the year, so we decided it wasn't worth getting back and fixing, when we could use that money towards a down payment.

One of my good friends, Amanda, was so helpful and let us not only borrow an old car seat she had, but she also let us borrow her mom's car (who doesn't really drive much) for a few days until we figured things out. She really was such a life saver!

On Wednesday evening we were able to go to Carmax and look at cars. I had looked at their inventory online and thought I knew which one we wanted. Josh wanted to look at others, though, before we made a final decision. We wanted a bigger car that sat 6 or 7. We were planning on getting a car that would last for a while and one that would still work for us when we have more kids. With that and our price range in mind, our choices were fairly limited. One of the first things I said when we told the sales man what we were looking for is that I did NOT want a mini van. I know they're practical, and totally designed for families, but I just was not quite ready to give in yet. He and Josh convinced me to at least look at one, though. We looked at 4 or 5 cars and then I decided to test drive 2. Josh told me it was up to me because I'd be the one driving it most of the time. I test drove the mini van we looked at (yes, I know) and the car I originally thought I wanted, a Chevy Trail Blazer. The mini van (Chevy Uplander) was a 2008 with only 84k miles on it and was in really good condition. It sat 7 and was very roomy and would be easy to get kids in and out of. The Trail Blazer was a 2004 with only 88k miles that also sat 7, but you had to fold down one of the middle seats to get to the back row. After driving the Uplander, the Trail Blazer seemed so old and not as nice. I really hated to admit it, but the Uplander really was the better car and the better value (it was $1000 less than the Trail Blazer). I very reluctantly said we should probably get the Uplander and I officially became one of those moms. I know it's illogical, but some how driving a mini van makes me feel older and far less cool (like my 15 year old silver and black Civic was so awesome...). Ugh. I knew deep down it would probably happen eventually, but I just wasn't ready for it.

Today I went to the tow yard to sign over my title to them so they could sell the car for parts. I looked through it to see if there was anything worth taking home with me. They had stolen the car seats which I was honestly more upset about than the car. That may seem silly, but I was already planning on replacing my car but I wasn't planning on replacing the car seats. I had just bought a big Costco pack of toilet paper and garbage bags the day before the car was stolen that I hadn't taken in the house yet. I looked in the trunk today they had stolen those, too. Really??? You needed toilet paper that bad? Ugh. Some people.

Here is a link to a really funny video about mini vans.

The inside of the stolen car showing the missing ignition

 The new car. It's so hot, right? ;)

 Me in the new ride

What a difference a year makes...

I have been meaning to write this blog for quite some time...I wanted it to be a reflection on the past year and therefore planned on writing it in December or January. It's now May. Good job me ;)
Wow. We have definitely had a year full of changes, both good & trying. New jobs, new friends, vacations, growing kids & other adventures took place in 2011.
At the beginning of January I left my on-again-off-again job of 3 1/2 years (that I loved) in order to take a part-time night job at Primary Children's Hospital. I had been thinking about getting a night job for quite some time in order to save some money on day care and be home with my kids more. I kind of just applied to the job on a whim; I didn't really think I'd get it, and I really just cared that in the description it said "night position". I was really surprised when I got it but happy. I was getting an almost $2/hr pay raise, I would be eligible for benefits, and my day care bill would be about a third of what it had been. I was definitely sad to leave my job at the OB office, but it was what I needed to do at that time. It was the best thing for my family. Let me tell you something, though: it was rough. Working a 12 hour shift from 7 pm to 7 am was hard. Harder than that, though, was being up all day the day before taking care of my kids, knowing that I had to then work 12 hours straight that night. I dreaded going to work, and basically being up for 24 hours straight. Once I got to work, I usually enjoyed it. I worked in the float pool, so I worked in 7 different units. I enjoyed that and I enjoyed learning so many new things. I would be up all day with the kids, *try* to stay up all night during work, and then I would come home and get about 4 hours of sleep the next morning. I was really surprised at how well I functioned after only getting 4 hours of sleep (or sometimes less) and then getting right back up and starting all over again. Fortunately, I only worked 2 nights a week, so it really wasn't too bad. I really feel like I was blessed to be able to function on such little sleep, especially while I was pregnant (for those of you who don't know about that, read on...). I also realized how much I liked having weekends and Holidays off. It was just tough all around on my family. Because of certain circumstances dealing with my pregnancy, I had to work until February of 2012. I really wanted to quit many times, but I hung in there. Now I am able to stay home full-time with my kids. If I hadn't worked that year at PCMC, I don't think I would appreciate staying at home as much as I do now. I don't mean to say that it was all bad, because I did enjoy a lot of it, but I am definitely grateful that that chapter in my life is over.
At the end of January, we took a trip down to Arizona & spent a week with my sister, Sammy, & her husband, Irwin. The vacation was very low-key but so great. We did a whole lot of nothing the majority of the time, but it was a lot of fun. Family vacations for us can only really happen during the winter because of Josh's work schedule. It's really nice to go some place warm during the winter, though, and also to go some place that has clean air.  In June, I was able to go to New York City and Connecticut for about 5 days with one of my best friends, Kim (continue reading for why I was in NYC). It was really hot and really humid while we were there. Kim had never experienced something like that and I can't say that she liked the weather. ;) We were there for a great reason, though, and we had a really good time. NYC was amazing!
In April of 2011, Sofia turned 1 and in September of 2011, Steven turned 3. Now another birthday of Sofia's has passed and she is now 2 years old. I can't believe how big they've gotten!
The biggest thing that happened in 2011 was that I became a surrogate. I think most people who read my blog know about this already, but I know there may be a few out there who don't yet know. When I first started the process, I was really excited about it, but didn't want to tell everyone before it was a sure thing. As time went on, I started telling more people and I was flat-out shocked when I got some really negative responses. After that, I was much more apprehensive about telling people, and I didn't blog about it here. Now that everything's said and done, I am now longer afraid of what people might say and no longer feel the need to hide it. It was an amazing experience and I am so grateful I got to be a part of it. Being a surrogate has changed me for life, has marked me in a positive way. I feel like I have grown a lot through this process and I feel much more comfortable standing up for myself and the choices I make. I've realized that sometimes people aren't going to agree with you, and that's okay. I can't let it hold me back. Some of my relationships in my life have changed but I don't think any are lost. There is much more I could say about this, but most of it I've already said on my private blog. I chronicled my experience as a surrogate on that blog, so if any of you want to read that who aren't already, leave me your email and I will send you an invite.
I hope your past year as been as amazing as mine. I really wouldn't change anything that happened. :)

Hot Pants

A few weeks before I went to Women's Conference and heard that talk that really changed my perspective on things like weight loss and body image, I saw a Groupon for some Zaggora Hot Pants (pictured above). I had seen this Groupon about a year before and had been intrigued then, but didn't get them. When I saw them this time, though, I had a Groupon credit so I decided to get them. They ended up only being $20, so I figured, why not? The pants are called "Hot Pants" because they are supposed to make you sweat and therefore lose more weight than you would wearing normal work out clothing. They also claim to focus on slimming down your waist/thigh/glute region, and, like most women, that's where I wanted to focus.
They came in the mail after I had decided to stop worrying so much about my weight and focus on how I look/feel. In the past, I have had similar epiphanies, just never in such a profound way as this time. One thing similar about those times in the past and this time now, is that whenever I decide I don't care about how much I weigh, I really only care about how I look and feel, subconsciously (or consciously), I kind of feel like that realization also lets me off the hook from working out and watching what I eat. Once I start to feel like that, I swing in the opposite direction and kind of lose all motivation. I started to feel that way a little bit when after I heard that talk. It's a bit different this time, in that I really enjoy working out right now and have a good routine I like to do, however, I did really kind of stop watching what I ate and I have been eating a lot more goodies than I probably should have lately.
When you purchase these shorts, they encourage you to do a "2-week challenge" where you weigh and measure yourself at the beginning of the 2 weeks, then they suggest you wear the shorts often, work out, and eat less, and then weigh and measure yourself at the end of 2 weeks. I didn't weigh myself at the beginning of this, but I did measure myself. I don't have such a weird relationship with my measurements as I do with my weight. I don't have any set numbers in mind when I weigh myself, I just like to see concrete evidence that my body is changing (hopefully in the way I want it to!). So as a disclaimer before I "reveal" the results, the two weeks in which I did this challenge were not really "normal" for me. I worked out every day the first week, although the work outs were different because I was "training" (I use that term very loosely) for a 5K (later post). The second week, though, I only worked out 3 times because of something that happend on Friday the 4th (also in a later post). Also, I wasn't really watching what I was eating. I usually eat a pretty good breakfast and lunch, but dinner is not always good, and I was eating sweets left and right. With all those considerations in mind, I am pretty pleased with the outcome after 2 weeks.
After 2 weeks I:
-lost 1/8 inch off my waist
-lost 1/2 inch off my stomach/hips
-lost 1/2 inch off one thigh & 1/4 inch off the other

I had definitely been feeling like my stomach/hips were smaller and it's nice to see that I wasn't just imagining things! I am planning on doing another 2 week challenge starting today, but this time I don't have any crazy things going on in the foreseeable future, and I plan on going back to my normal workout/eating routine. I'll post in 2 weeks about that.