Pictures of Lydia now available! (on the other blog)

Here goes nothing - there are a few pictures posted on lyddlelydia.blogspot.com. Email me at bonbonbassoon@gmail.com or comment below if you want an invite.

The Lyddle One

Adam and I have decided that we don't want pictures of Lydia out there on the internet for all to see (although we do have some on facebook, for all our 400 or so "friends" to see). However, we do want our blogosphere friends to be able to see her. So..., I've decided to make another blog. This one will be private, and will be solely about Lydia. All our pictures and updates about her will be on that blog, but I will post links on this blog to any updates on that blog. Make sense? Then, people won't have to worry about the hassle of following two blogs, or remembering to check the private blog. Any new posts will be posted on this blog. Make sense? Anyway, all that remains is to actually start posting on this other private blog of ours, and to send invites to anyone who wishes to be able to view said blog. So, either leave a comment on this post with your email address or email me at bonbonbassoon@gmail.com if you'd like an invite to the private blog, lyddlelydia.blogspot.com. Is this whole post too convoluted and confusing? Any complaints should also be put in the comments or emailed to me.

Not being pregnant is a beautiful thing. So is my baby.

It's over! And just beginning! Just a post to say that my baby made her appearance yesterday (9 days overdue) and is positively perfect in everyway. Lydia Denise is her name, she was born at 6:43 am, and weighed 7 lbs and 6 oz with a length of 19.5 inches. Did I mention that she's beautiful? Because she is.

Where have I seen this?

My little bro, on a mission in Philly, sent this photo home. I loved it, mostly because Li'l Bro looks so darn good and I miss him, but in part because I know I've seen this billboard somewhere on the blogosphere. However, I have absolute no idea where it was. Anyone have any ideas?

Unfortunate Pregnancy Symptom #823

Your fingers blow up like sausages until you can barely move them, let alone get your wedding ring off. You think everything is fine and dandy until the finger encircled by the ring starts to hurt. Wheps. Enter an early morning, lots of cold water, soap, and twisting, and the thing finally came off. Barely.

Guessing Game!

Currently, I am 3.5 weeks away from my due date. Basically, I'm ready for this baby to come any time. With the arrival pending, Adam and I are hosting a little contest for people to guess the birth day, time, weight, length and name of the baby. Anyone who wants to guess is welcome to, and we may even have prizes for winners! Maybe (no guarantees)! My favorite entry so far has been from Adam's niece Ashlyn (age 2). Her whole entry was pretty awesome, but the best part was her guess at the length: little.

Men are funny - or maybe just Adam

Adam does not know our home phone number. It has not stuck in his brain (partially due to a complete lack of effort). The home number is the only way of getting hold of me. As he carries a cell phone (or portable phone book), this isn't usually a problem. However, every once in a while his phone dies or he leaves it home. Then, when he needs to talk to me (to ask for a ride home, say), he's in a bit of a lurch. A couple times he has just walked home, but the latest instance cracked me up. 

The phone rang. I answered and was surprised to hear Adam on the other end, since I knew his cell phone was sitting right next to me and that he didn't know our digits. 

"How'd you get this number?"

"Oh, I just called University Info, and got the number for the housing office, called them, and asked for the number for our apartment. No biggie."

I laughed at the rigamarole he had to go through just to speak with his wife and suggested that he just memorize our number. No action has yet been taken.

Not over until the fat lady sings - but I'm not singing

Hey all!

Adam's opera is playing this week, so things have been a little hectic. Everyone should come see it!

Tales of Hoffman, by Jacques Offenbach, French with English supertitles
October 21-24th, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday @ 7:00
HFAC, BYU

If you want to see Adam in his big role(s), the nights to go are tonight and Friday, but he has a smaller part on Thursday and Saturday, so you can still see him if you go then.

If it's good enough for The Sartorialist...

A couple months ago The Sartorialist posted about some of his influences, as far as both fashion and photography go. He talked about this book. Besides having an awesome subtitle, it seems like something that would be accessible for a lay person (read: me). I certainly wouldn't mind having this around.

Piecing it together

The first step towards making a quilt has been made - I bought a bunch of fabric.I wanted to put together a mix of pinks, light browns (kind of carmel) and peach (These photos make everything seem kinda yellow, sorry), and I'm quite pleased with the results. What do you think?

I guess, if you want to be technical, the first step was finding a pattern, which I did about a week ago in a quilting book from the library.The thing that won it for this design was the doability of it. I can do straight lines and squares. SWEET! Obviously, I chose less garish colors, but I hope it will turn out well.

Now I just need to find a rotary cutter and mat - anyone have suggestions?

Rugged

Today's rugby pictures on The Sartorialist make me happy. And nostalgic for London. Not that I ever watched rugby there, but if it had been in season, gosh darn I would have. It's on the list of things to do when I go back with Adam.

Economics news

I'm not heavily involved with the world of economics these days (bad econ major), but I would like to point out the fact that for the first time since the creation of the Nobel Prize for Economics, the prize has gone to a woman, Elinor Ostrom.

I should be all for this, correct? The only problem is that she's not even an economist - she's a highly decorated political scientist. Steven Levitt, one of the authors of Freakonomics (and Superfreakonomics, coming out in a week or so), predicts that economists will be more upset over this than Republicans were over Obama winning the Peace Prize (which is a completely different discussion, so if you put anything in the comments that is remotely similar to the tirades on facebook a few days ago, I'll hate you forever. Just Kidding. Probably).

Making the lives of pregnant women everywhere easier

It is with great chagrin that I post this picture, but rest assured, I am only attempting to prove a point.This picture was taken last night, so we're looking at 33 weeks, 1 day (yes, I have gotten to the point where each day is significant, in that it gets me one day closer to not being pregnant anymore). This period during my life shall henceforth be known as "a time of great largeness that I'd rather not talk about." I can do this for 7 more weeks, right? I hear it's worth it...

That, believe it or not, was a tangent. The real point is to show off the dress that I'm wearing. I've been considering investing in a nice maternity dress for awhile, just because they look so comfortable and easy to wear, and also because up to this point Sundays have been kind of rough, with my wardrobe of skirts not made for pregnant women. Uncomfortable doesn't even begin to describe it. My wonderful mother took pity on me and bought this dress, considering it an investment that will be passed on to my sisters when they have kids, etc. So I now own a maternity dress. Let me tell you, it is heaven. This thing is so freaking comfortable. I put it on for something earlier this week (on a weekday) and then just didn't change out of it because it was so nice to wear. Moral of this story: Maternity dresses are a pregnant woman's best friend.

This was all fresh in my mind while browsing the internet a few days ago, when I came across these.
What a genius idea! Of course we'd need an LDS appropriate version (possibly in better colors), but I thought this looked cool.

*found via swiss miss

So cool

I want one of these in my house.

We didn't need that Pre-natal class

Adam already posted this on his blog, but since I was the one who found it, I feel justified in posting it here. In case you find the thought of attending a pre-natal class too much to bear, here's everything you need to know about babies.

http://makememinimal.com/2008/instrucciones-para-cuidar-un-bebe/

Ignore the Spanish - it still makes sense.

Which one is your favorite?

Thoughts on love

One of my favorite blogs to read is the Apron Stage. Today's post was particularly poignant.

http://theapronstage.com/2009/10/07/a-post-about-love/#more-2296

Are we immature?

Adam and I have been attending a prenatal class, which teaches/scares you about giving birth and taking care of a newborn. Maybe it's just us, but some of the things they say are just too funny (and immensely awkward), and we bust up laughing at the back of the room. Clearly, we are the immature members of the class, the ones whose child will be shunned for their entire life because they weren't brought up by real adults.

Favorite quote of mine: "Some couples may be alarmed by the appearance of their newborn and experience an urge to put it back because it's not done yet."

Classic, I tell ya.

Lots of time

So, I'm officially unemployed. There are pros and cons to this situation, the pros being that I no longer have to sit for long periods of time (you'd be surprised how uncomfortable this is when 7 months pregnant) and that I now have loads of time to get ready for the baby to come. On the con side, we don't have very much income and the word on the street is that babies are expensive. Who woulda thunk.

In all my newly acquired time, I've got big plans. I checked out a bunch of books on photography, and I'd like to create some skills in that department, and I'm going to make a quilt (and possibly some other items) for our incoming munchkin. This blog may be somewhat resurrected and become an arena for showing off my mad skillz. Yes, that's a z. I'm such a gangster.

Also, I'm hoping to read a lot. If anyone has suggestions for things to read (either baby/parenting related or completely for fun/interest), let me know.

No Duh

My brother ran into a friend of his on campus and the following interchange ensued.

Brother's friend: "Hey, I saw your sister! Did you know she's pregnant?"
Brother (Clark): "..."

Prize goes to the person who comes up with the best response Clark should have used.

Pretty good odds

Adam has been working on applications for summer programs. He's applying to several, all of which would pay him (at least a bit) to sing. I approve of this step - getting paid to sing. We're not sure how stiff the competition is, but we did run into a bit of info that seemed encouraging. This is a blurb from the website of one of the programs Adam is applying to.

How many applicants do we receive?
Below are the averages of our auditions data covering the last seven years:

• No. of applicants 545
• No. of applicants scheduled 455
• Age range 21-approximately 35
• Sopranos 226
• Mezzos 78
• Tenors 50
• Baritones 45
• Bass-Baritones 9
• Basses 6

Adam is a Bass-Baritone. Looking pretty good, eh? Of course, they only hire 26 or 27, but still, we're glad he's not a Soprano, because that's freaking ridiculous.

The growing whaleness

~21 weeks (thanks for the picture, Sage!)


~23 weeks


Today, ~27 weeks

More favorites from OBX

A few favorites from Outer Banks

Howdy, Stranger

It's been awhile, and by awhile I mean 5 months, since I did anything with this li'l blog o' mine. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if resurrecting it is in my plans, but I figured I would at least give it a go. I'm actually contemplating going private in the near future, so let me know if you'd like to be on that exclusive list (not that exclusive - I am certainly guilty of blog stalking people I barely know or haven't spoken to in years, so if you're lurking, let me know and I'll make sure you get an invite if I go private. This is too long of an aside).

The point is, however, that a lot has been going on in the last 5 months. The most significant change is that we're expecting a baby! In November! So I'm over halfway through!

Sorry if this comes as a big shock to anyone. I was just afraid I was going to run into a good friend at the mall or something and they'd kill me for not letting them know. Or that they'd look at recently tagged photos of me on facebook and think I was just getting morbidly obese. This isn't exactly something I can hide any longer (speaking of, I know this girl who just had a baby. The pregnant pictures of herself on facebook are ridiculous. At 21.5 weeks, I look as big as she was at 36.5! I am going to be the largest of blimps/whales).

Anyway, it's a girl, due on November 28th (two days after Thanksgiving) and we're so, so, so excited! Adam thinks ultrasound pictures are awkward, and when they're not my own I kind of agree, but let me know if you want to see our little one.

Well, I probably won't really try to catch anyone up on what's been going on in our lives, partly because most of the people who follow this blog already know.

Let's just summarize:
We finished winter semester - Huzzah!
I got called to be in the Primary Presidency, which has been awesome and incredibly hard - Huzzah?
I spent 3 weeks jobless - less Huzzah!
Obama gave me a job - Huzzah!
Adam's family had a wonderful family reunion - Huzzah!
We decided to be more disciplined and active - Huzzah, but hard!
Pregnancy plus 100+ degree heat = not the most comfortable summer - Ick!
My family had a humongous family reunion (52 people) on the beach in North Carolina. We have now decided that Outer Banks, in North Carolina, is a pretty accurate representation of what the Celestial Kingdom looks like - Huzzah!
We learned that babies like Adam more than me - wheps
We tie-dyed onesies for the little one and only 1 turned out horrendously ugly - Huzzah!
The Washington Nationals game we went to actually started again after a 3 hour rain delay - Huzzah!
We made it home safely - Huzzah!

And now we're back and you're sick of Huzzahs. HUZZAH!

My Li'l Bro

It was a rite of passage. The atmosphere was tense as, surrounded by his closest friends and many relatives, Li'l Bro slit open the envelope. He was nearly shaking with the anticipation of it all. Guesses had been made, all that remained to reveal his fate was to read the second line of that important letter.Dear Steven,

Blah blah blah blah, blahbitty blah blah blabo. Bloh blah blub, blaihb blah blah, blah blah Bloub blah blat blad blaith blah blah blahblahblah. Blah Blah Philadelphia, Pennsylvania mission. blah blah bolahb June 3rd, 2009.
HUZZAH!!! And who even cares what the rest of the letter says?

Congratulations, Steven!I'll miss you like crazy, especially since you're one of my closest friends. I never thought we'd be this close - when we were kids we were always the ones fighting like cats and dogs. But we've both grown up, and you've turned into a smart, dashing, insightful, thoughtful, stylin', brown-loving, spiritual, funny, curious (oh wait, you've always been like that - we even have a book about it), interesting, handsome and downright cool little brother. I'm glad I know you and I know you'll be an amazing missionary.P.S. Does anyone remember the Strongbad email about Little Brudder? Calling Steven Li'l Bro has always reminded me of that. Not that he doesn't have all his legs or anything.

Even watched on our laptop screen...

...these movies have made me happy lately.

Everything is IlluminatedThis movie is gorgeous and thoughtful and extremely funny at times. And what's not to love about fields of sunflowers?

Penelope
I nearly died when I discovered that you could watch Penelope on Netflix instantly. Seriously, Adam was scared, I was so excited. Anyway, it's a fun watch, and the style (both set and clothes) is lovely (Note to any guys: Adam says that the only thing that made this worth it was being curled up with a girl (me). Just so you're warned).

Once

Be careful with Once - it's a British film and they don't think twice about using certain words. I watched it on a Clearplay and it was wonderful. It's real - not polished or anything - just honest and real. I love it. Oh, and the music is fantastic.

And, just for fun, North Avenue Irregulars.

Adam's family puts together movie parties every so often, involving costumes, themed foods, and applicable games, and this was the subject for the most recent one. It was made in the 70's and cracked me up. Good times.

*images from here, here, here, and here.