you gotta fight for your right... to potty.

women have this unspoken, unwritten law about potty etiquette.

if in the event you go into a public bathroom having to go number two - you walk in, scope out the scene and make sure you're alone. if you are alone, all systems are go. if you're not alone, you quietly walk into the stall, sit down, go number one and wait politely for your neighbor to get up, wash their hands and leave before letting er' rip. it's just the way of the world, yes?

well... i walked into the bathroom at the hospital today, scoped the scene and realized that i wasn't alone. so, following all set etiquette, i sat down, tinkled and waited for the woman with the velcro shoes next to me to get up and leave. but she didn't and i quickly realized i had forgotten the second part of the law. if in the event you are interrupted while doing your business, you do all you can to shut it off while you are in company of a potty stall neighbor. so here we were... me stuck in the first addendum of the law, her stalled at the second. we were at a stalemate. great. i had an appointment... i realized i couldn't wait. so... i did what i had to. sorry velcro shoe lady.

ugh to multiple bathroom stall bathrooms.

also... on that note: i'm getting bigger, this is no secret. therefore it is no longer an easy task for me to maneuver myself and my lulabelle belly in and out of the stalls. clearly bathroom stalls were (poorly) designed by men as if they had been designed by women they would function properly for both pregnant and non-pregnant women and open out instead of in. seriously...

i'm such a stinkin' wimp!

so... as posted below i had my gestational diabetes test on friday (to which i passed, thank you very much). well... in my excitement over my cake, i left out some of the gory details. like the mother-loving lab phlebotomist who needs more practice on an orange. she was a jammer-inner and a ripper-outter. but don't worry. my arm vein took it's own revenge when it just about squirted her coat. this is about the time i dang near passed out. (yes, i'm serious).

i'm not sure that getting blood drawn has hurt like this... ever. i do recall one event long ago in which i had to be poked about 20 times to get an IV in that hurt much worse... but this was up there on the hurt-o-meter. and... i still have a bruise. and i'm a whiner. a wimp. and... reality check: i'm getting an epidural.

yes. this is a three day old bruise. but i'm still going to whine about it. and... holy crap... i just realized how full my inbox is. ack. i better get on that... booo.

gestational diabetes and cake...

this summer i ate the most magnificent cupcake i've ever had in my life. while at the bite of bozeman i came across the super-cupcake confection from sweet pea bakery. it was a raspberry lemonade cupcake made from scratch. i seriously can not put into words how good this sucker was. thick, creamy raspberry frosting (and lots of it) over a moist lemonade cake bottom... mmmm.

mmk, fast forward to wednesday. since i've been pregnant i've been dreaming about this cupcake. i'm talking literally. i go to bed and i dream about eating this cupcake and can sometimes taste the pastry perfection.

in a moment of weakness, i decided that i'd stop in at the sweet pea bakery this week and just see what they had... all the while secretly praying to God that someone at the bakery had the urge to bake my sweetly perfect raspberry lemonade cupcakes. no suck luck. shocker. so as i was walking away from the counter... obviously looking defeated, the nice young man behind the counter said, "you know... we can make them for you on a special order." whooo hooo! so i said, "great! how many do i have to order?" and he replied, "at least a dozen." awww crap. seven months in and i've already gained 34 pounds (ack!) so i said, "well, i really don't need that many." and he said, "well, did you know that we make raspberry lemonade cakes?" whoo hooo again! i said, "i most certainly did not! let's do it!" somehow ordering one cake made me feel a little better about myself than ordering 12 cupcakes... no comments about this please. :) so i ordered and agreed to pick up the cake this afternoon. i've been waiting for today to come for 48 looooong hours. :)

mmk, you are finally up to speed. fast forward to today. i had a doctor appointment today and my gestational diabetes test was scheduled to be done this morning. ever since i ordered myself a whole entire raspberry lemonade cake i've been a little concerned about the results of the test coming back positive and then i'd have to watch my lovely hubs kev eat MY cake. sooo, when i went into the docs office this morning i said, "dr. augustyn, i have something to tell you. it's important. i take my prenatal everyday, without fail. even though i often eat too many burritos in a weeks time i do try to watch what i eat. i haven't had a drop of booze or even so much as an aspirin in the seven months i've been pregnant." she said, "ok. sounds good..." i continued, "i ordered a cake. i pick it up this afternoon and i'm eating it regardless of my diabetes test results." she said, "mckenzie, you are going to be a terrible mother. how could you even think of eating the cake without getting the results of your gestational diabetes test? don't you understand what eating a lot of sugar at this point could do to your fetus? you should just consider adoption." ok, ok... she didn't say that. that's what i was expecting her to say. gotcha. she said, "sounds great. enjoy." HAHAHAHA. :) perfect. so - that, friends, is exactly what i did:yep... that is me and my cake. thank you sweet baby Jesus for inspiring someone at the sweet pea bakery to come up with this confection. it was everything i remembered it to be.

oh, and i passed my 1 hour test with flying colors. no gestational diabetes for this cake-eatin' mama. :)

me like-a-do da' bumbo...

sooo... whenever kev and i get new baby stuff, we always call katie and say, "kaatttiiiieee! you wanna play baby?" and she (reluctantly) comes because she knows we are holding a cookie that she will earn for whatever stupid thing we make her do. we figure we need practice and it always is good for a laugh.

last night was no exception. i love this dog... i do. she will seriously do ANYTHING for a cookie. anything. including, but not limited to, sitting in the baby bumbo with a big goofy grin on her face all the while looking like she likes it:

your jealous she's not your dog, huh? hahahahaha! this picture seriously makes me laugh, out loud, everytime i see it. in fact, when i was taking the picture last night i had to pull a do-over about four times because they pictures were all blurry because i couldn't stop laughing and shaking the camera all over the place. hilarious.

love you katie dog. :)

this is the day...

this is the day friends. week 28, day 4. the day the belly took charge. kev and i went to rosauers for lunch today and as i was putting my ranch into my dressing cup i turned around to head back to my table to eat my lunch. the belly, however, decided to linger and knock off about 30 plastic salad to-go containers onto the floor. lovely.

the girl in the salad bar line next to me goes, "ohhhh, rough day, eh?" i said, "umm... you have no idea." :)

holy mother of infant bows...

i love that we're having a girl. :) i have so much fun shopping for swimsuits with ruffles and cute little bright pink dresses. my most recent obsession has been with cute little hats with big flowers attached to them and infant bows. yep, that's right. despite major resistance from her daddy, my sweet little nora will be one of those accessorized princesses. i can't wait.

anyway, during my search for newborn bows on my new favorite website, etsy, i ran across something that absolutely blew my mother-loving mind. now... please note i'm a newbie. my sweet husband and i are taking parenting classes two nights a week to be sure we can keep nora alive when she comes. :) i don't know what kind of mama i will be because i just don't have a lot of experience. but, i will try. very hard. anyways - i was drawn into a particular site by this adorable photo of a little baby with a bow:she's cute huh? i love the expression. so i enter the site. (**disclaimer so my bump ladies don't think i'm a dummy: noooo, i wasn't really going to PAY $6.95 for bows that i know i can make for $.99 - i just didn't understand how to stick them onto nora's head (especially if God chooses not to bless her with a full head of hair), so this esty search was for research purposes. sheesha!) so i find a picture of some bows i think are cute for sale in this shop:
i click on them and start reading about how they stick to a baby's head and am confronted with this picture:
GLUE! bwahahhaha! this lady seriously uses surgical lubricant to GLUE bows to her baby's head! LOLOL! seriously? this cannot be how this is done! i thought i must be missing something... and that's not all friends... she says in her listing that in the event you'd rather not use the GLUE you can use KY Jelly.

::jaw drops wiiiide open::

really? can you imagine? if kevin walked into nora's bedroom and found me attaching bows to her head with glue or KY jelly he would have me locked up in the nuthouse. HAHAHA! wouldn't that be funny? he would think i had lost my mother-loving mind!

and so... my search continues. i will find a better way. there must be a better way... LOL!

alas... i will just pray that my sweet babe has a full head of adorable blond hair for me to affix my little bows to... otherwise this mama has no choice but to stick to hats. :)

confession...

well... i don't know where the montana girl scouts are hiding. perhaps they are warm inside their homes since it's
-10 and blizzarding again... but dang it... if you want to sell those cookies you have to get your butt out there and push em, right?

ugh. well, ok. now to the confession part. i don't know how - but my boss has a contact where i have none. a girl scout contact. he brought in a box of thin mints today... i devoured it. absolutely devoured it. as i wiped the last of the crumbs of my chin i said, "ummm, hope you didn't expect that to last long. until tomorrow." bwaahahahaha! the evil seven month pregnant woman strikes again!

i have my gestational diabetes test on friday... so i figure just in case i better make dang sure i'm satisfied. (ack! red flag - bad mom alert!) mmkay, in all actuality though, this is the first incident where i took out a box of cookies. not good. my weakness is cupcakes, not girl scout cookies.

so, once the box was gone i realized... i don't even like thin mints! i like tagalongs!

::silently prays for God to send a girl scout bearing cookies, no tagalongs, to her office during this wonderfully snowy spring break week::

that's all for now friends. ack. :)

i hate being sick...

i do. i really stinkin' do. i hate being sick. i try to fight it off with sleep but i can't lay down for more than 30 seconds without my mother-loving nose becoming plugged and so i open my mouth only to have it dry out and then my throat hurts all day. it's a vicious cycle...

and, i haven't so much as taken an aspirin in the last 7 months so cold meds are out... not because i can't take them but because i am stubborn. so there.

that's where i'm at... i'm rollin' hard these days. booo.

words of wisdom...

in all actuality, i've had a relatively easy pregnancy. sure, i'm exhausted and my hips fall out of their place every now and then and yes, i wake up almost nightly with a charlie horse straight from hell, but otherwise i'm doing good.

that said; in these moments of weakness i secretly wish i could fast-forward through the rest of my pregnancy and just push play right after i've finished pushing and am holding my sweet babe nora in my arms. i received an email from my awesome mom this afternoon and this is what it said:

If I could do it all over again, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

wow. aren't moms awesome? well said my mama. two points for you. oh, and by the way... i love you. :)

labor and delivery class, take one...

i love kevin. i do. he is so amazing. that said; i need to share something with my blog people. i just don't feel right keeping this to myself... ::giggle::

we went to our second night of labor and delivery class last night and we watched "the video." for those of you not already pregnant or having kids - "the video" is the video they show you in the classes of the actual birth. it highlights some strange woman's vagina and shows the progression of labor... and then delivery. it's great.

so here we are sitting in this class with 9 other couples watching "the video." i'm actually quite sure that none of the wives watched "the video" because we were all too busy silently dying of laughter at our husbands reactions to "the video."

it was awesome. and then... when it was all said and done and the credits were rolling i caught kevin secretly taking this very deep breath and mumbling under his breath, "oooohhhhhhhhh God...."

bwaaahahahaha. i can't wait for the real thing. i found out his dad wasn't actually in the room for any of his four kids births because he about passed out. haha. i'm going to make sure there is a second bed in our room for this very reason. i swear internet blog readers... he will stay in the room and pass out or leave the room and get divorced. LOL! i love him. :)

one crafty mama...

this weekend was full of nora crafts. i started my big painting for over the changing table, got the crib mobile done and hung (thanks to my awesome hubs kev for the help) and kev hung the shelves. whoo hooo! we are making real progress now. :)

here's a little pic of nora's name i made and stuck on the shelves:

also, i got to debut the room this weekend. my first real visitors! kev's mom and aunt susan came over and i think they were impressed. go me. :) haha.

mmk, more later.

hello belly, goodbye feet!

well, i finally can no longer see my feet when i look down. all i see is belly. rock hard, solid belly. (mmk, i know that sounds crazy, but my belly has never been harder. thanks for nothing gym... bwaahahahaha!)

anyways, without further ado:

a sad day for bozeman...

above you will see what's left of a portion of downtown bozeman. it was a very sad day for our town.

when i was driving to work this morning i noticed a very large cloud of black smoke over downtown so i switched on the radio and heard the news. there was a major explosion caused by a gas leak at a downtown restaurant, boodles. the gas leak exploded boodles and the surrounding businesses at 8:12 am this morning. to make matters worse the building then caught on fire and it's almost five now and the fire is still burning because the fire department can't find the gas shut-off and they'd rather let the fire consume the excess gas than let it pool.

downtown bozeman is a staple of our town. it's beautiful. the rug gallery, the rockin' r bar, pickle barrel, boodles, the legion bar, the art gallery and lilly lu's is completely gone (as seen in picture). since downtown is so old the fire department and police department haven't gone into the destruction to look for survivors because they aren't sure the buildings surround the devastation are structurally sound. i just pray no one was there...

i've been filing insurance claims for downtown businesses all day. windows were blown out of all the buildings within 5 blocks. there is debris everywhere. city officals have said it looks like a bomb went off downtown. the initial explosion blew cars 10 feet into the air and store fronts for boodles and the gallery were blown into the middle of main street.

this explosion made national news - i watched it with kev on fox news at lunch. i've got to hand it to the city officials. for small town montana they did a great job.

i will miss the pickle barrel oh so much. rest in peace sweet pickle paradise.

sneak peek and the dropsies...

here is what my sweet babe nora's room looks like today... a sneak peak of what is to come if you will:

in other news... i've all of a sudden become the most clumsy person i know. and just so you know, this is saying something. i know some clumsy people. i won't name any names (tiffany hartpence). :) hahaha. you know i love (and miss) you lady. :)

anyways - this morning while i was at work i had a couple little mishaps both within an hours time. i was standing at the water cooler filling up my water bottle and when it was about ummm 3/4 full i just let go. i can't explain it. my brain told my hand to hold it there but my hand just decided it was tired of doing that. blah. so it spilled all over the place. and everyone in my office was watching.

then... if that's not bad enough i was headed back into my office, coming in (we're talking about 20-ish minutes after the water incident) in from my hourly bathroom break and went to open the door into my agency and rammed smack dab into the glass door. i swear, once again, my brain told my hand to turn the mother-loving door handle but it just wasn't listening... the biggest problem was my body was listening to my brain and it started walking... and i smashed smack into the glass door. you see how this could very easily become a problem when my pregnant body refuses to work as a team, right? ugh. oh - and again, dean and heather were looking right at me... through the glass. laughing. ha-ha-mother-loving-ha. :)

jo' mama is sorry about that nora d. whoopsies. :)

i got my paint on...

those of you that know me in real life know i'm not only cheap, broke and a coupon clipper but i'm also very picky. i don't think i've been this way my whole life, but who knows. :)

so i went to mike's this weekend (my favorite neighborhood craft store) picked up some $1.00 wooden picture frames and a few bottles of the on-sale $.50 paint and went to work. here's what i came up with:

i figure i'll stick nora's ultrasound picture in this one until after she's born. and then there's this one:

i'm going to stick a picture of my dad in this one. he passed away in october 2008, just 13 short days after we learned we were pregnant with nora. :( but i know he's watching out for her. :)

more crafts to come later... :)