Happy Birthday Breezy!

Yesterday was Breezy's 25th birthday! (She likes to rub it in that she's a whole 5 days older than me.) I took her to Chilis for lunch to celebrate and then we are having a party tonight. Breezy absolutely loves the beach (who doesn't?) so we are throwing her a beach party. Everyone is wearing Hawaiian shirts and shorts and flip-flops and we are sitting on beach towels. We are going to make fruit smoothies with little umbrellas to drink and eat Hawaiian pizza. I was going to make her a fancy beach cake, but sadly this has not been a very good week and the cake is going to have to be store-bought. *Sniff sniff* We thought about watching a classic beach party movie, but didn't think the guys would enjoy it as much, so we are going to watch Jaws instead. In my opinion, another classic beach movie. Plus it goes along with the whole Friday the 13th theme as well as the beach theme. Perfect! We are also going to play some fun games. I just love celebrating birthdays!

=P

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, HATE snow!

That is all.

What little girls are made of

I keep meaning to write this post, but its been a crazy week and I've been distracted by other thoughts. In our condo complex there are several young married couples. Matt and I have become pretty good friends with two of the other couples. Well last Saturday, Matt went with these other two guys snowboarding. They had a blast! One of the other girls (Jill) who lives across the street is also pregnant with a little girl. She's just due one month after me. The two of us spent the day in Park City at the outlet malls shopping for little girl things. We had so much fun!! I bought a couple little outfits and got some more ideas for the nursery. (The other girl had a wedding, so she couldn't join us.) We both had gotten coupons in the mail for both Carters and OshKosh B' Gosh. So we had fun picking out little things and even got them matching outfits for when they get a little older. I could have spent so much money there! They have way too much cute girl stuff! I had fun picking out her little outfit for coming home from the hospital. Jill and I talked all day and had a really nice, relaxing time. Then that night, the six of us went out for Thai food. Jill's husband served his mission in Thailand, so he wanted us to try it. It was really yummy! Matt and I were planning on registering on Saturday, but then we were invited to go snowboarding and shopping instead. I'm really glad we went though, I think we both needed a day of fun! It also helped inspire me to do the nursery more girly. We were going to do it a neutral theme (winnie the pooh) in case we have a boy next, but I never loved the idea. Then inspiration struck and I decided I really wanted a girl room! After I showed Matt some ideas, he loved the new color theme too. I'm excited to make my vision a reality! We've ordered a few things so far and I'll take pictures as the room progresses. Yay for little girls!

Silly Questions

I realize part of human nature is to ask silly questions. We, as human beings, often don't know what to say to each other so we end up saying the first thing that pops out of our mouths, if only to fill the silence. I am not one of those people who needs to talk. I am completely happy sitting in silence unless I feel I have something to say. But that still hasn't stopped me from unintentionally asking silly questions on occasion. So why do we do it?

You all know exactly what I'm talking about. You've probably been a victim to such questions as well as victimized another person at some point. Matt and I have been laughing over a few circumstances lately. Pregnancy seems to be a glowing beacon for silly questions. Some of our favorites are "So are you excited?" Honestly? How could we not be excited?! Matt has said that next time someone asks him this he wants to reply with "No actually, she told me she was still on birth control! I'm really pissed!" Just to see the reaction he gets. Another favorite is "So are you ready?" Really? Is it possible to be ready? I think Heather Harris Bergevin said it best,

"We eagerly anticipated, but also realistically understood the changes about to joyously attack our home. We were as prepared as we could get. But, ready? Never."

That's a quote from "The Mother in Me", that book I told you all about last week. I think she words it so perfectly! Another classic one before finding out the sex of the baby is "So what do you want?" and now its turned into "So is that what you wanted?" Honestly people, what am I supposed to say? I wanted a baby and that's exactly what I'm getting! Matt's favorite response to this one is "No, I wanted a puppy." And of course "Have you thought of names?" Nope. Not at all. Are we supposed to name it? *Sigh* People make me laugh.

We work with a girl who is also pregnant and she just recently found out they're having a boy. Matt asked her "Are you excited?" Then almost immediately he said "I am so sorry! That was such a stupid question!" The three of us laughed over the situation, but it proves we can't help it! Even when Matt and I are bombarded with these questions day after day, we turn around and ask the same questions to someone else! I was very proud of him for catching himself, though. I guess its a start.

An Excerpt From My Book

Matt bought me this great book for our anniversary back in October and I finally sat down and read it this last weekend. I highly recommend it to any and all women! Especially mothers! I'm kinda a literary geek, so you may not like it as much as I did, but I'm gonna recommend it anyway. It was written by LDS women for LDS women. It's mostly essays and poems about pregnancy and motherhood and the struggles and joys that come with it. I could go on about it, but I'll let you read it yourself and make a decision on your own.

This book really helped inspire me to get my butt in gear and spend more time writing. I have gotten out of the habit of writing every day, like I once did, and quite honestly I miss it! It reminded me of my college days of writing workshops and creative writing courses, which inspired this epiphany: I write more when I have an audience to write for. So I decided I should share parts of the book I am working on, instead of keeping it so secretive. Nothing inspires writing better than receiving feedback on the things you write (both good and bad). However, since my writing is precious to me, I don't want to post it on my open blog. I know it's cocky of me to believe anyone would swipe my work, but its not a risk I'm willing to take. So I decided to start a private blog just for my writing. I have already posted an excerpt from the novel I am currently working on, and I will continue to post as I make progress. So, if you have any desire to be invited to this blog, send me an e-mail and I will let you in. pinkstacy@gmail.com

I coulda been a Gilmore

LUKE: Uh, I made some brownies, I thought you might like some.
LORELAI: Oh, gee, since I just ate half a bag of marshmallows, six Pop Tarts, four bagel dogs and a really stale Cheese Nip – yup, it’s brownie time, thanks. Hey, here’s a question for you.
LUKE: Yeah?
LORELAI: Well, you probably have a diner full of people who would love these brownies – plus, I bet they’d pay you for ‘em.
LUKE: Well, I accidentally dropped triple the amount of cocoa powder in the batter so I either had to dump the batch or find someone with some sort of superhuman chocolate tolerance – only one name came to mind.
LORELAI: God, I love being special.

This is the scene that came to mind this morning when I sat in the doctor's office. Last week I had my gestational diabetes test where you drink that really sugary drink, wait an hour, and then have your blood drawn to find out how your body handles sugar. My doctor told me most women's levels are about a 130 after the test. They are concerned if its over 150. I'm at a 55. So basically, my body handles sugar really, really well! The funny thing is, as I was drinking the drink I thought "this doesn't even taset very sugary to me". I have an extremely high tolerance for sugar and Dr. Brown laughed as she told me I don't really need to worry about all the doughnut, marshmallow, and m&m cravings. I can eat as much as I want! In fact, my cravings for doughnut holes (my fav food as of late) might just be my body telling me that I need even more sugar. Darn. I would like to thank my father and all of the Howell's for this gift! Without whom I may never had succeeded in reaching such a high sugar tolerance level. Thank you!

Weekend Fun

Matt and I had a fun weekend, so I wanted to share our adventures before I forget. Sorry, no pictures. My ward has recently started doing enrichment groups and I was asked to be in charge of the game night. Pretty much we meet once a month at someone's home and they teach us a new card or board game and we all play together. I love games, so I said "of course" to being in charge. Normally we will be meeting on Tuesdays, but because I had been sick, we held our first one on Friday night. I taught the ladies Mormon Bridge, though most of them actually knew how to play already. We ate mango salsa and M&M's and chatted while we played. I'm looking forward to more games nights! Being in Primary, I don't get to know very many ladies in the Relief Society. So finally, here's my chance.

Saturday my brother, Bryan and his girlfriend, Ricci came up to Layton. We had a blast! They are so fun! We first went to the store and bought the ingredients for rotti, curry, and lime-wash then we went back to our house and made a feast. Curry is so yummy! It was really funny making dinner together because Bryan was in charge (being the only one who knows how to make curry) but he kept forgetting things. Everything turned out great anyway and we had a ball in the process. Then we played Mario Party and watched some clips of Jeff Dunham. It was getting really late, but they couldn't leave without Bryan's "new" couch. We have my parent's old hideabed couch in our basement, but to make room for baby stuff, we gave it to my brother. I was very impressed Matt and Bryan were able to carry it up the stairs by themselves! That thing is HEAVY! Thank goodness Ricci has a van!

It was so fun having them come up and play! But we promised next time was our turn and we'd make the trip down to Provo. Guess we'll have to do that soon!