strange cravings

I have heard of women having strange cravings when pregnant, but have never experienced it till this pregnancy.

My strange craving isn't so much a food item that I want to eat, but things that I can't get enough of smelling wise.

I am finding that I want to smell bleach, dish washer soap, Windex, hand sanitizer, pine sol floor cleaner, and other cleaning supplies. I am starting to get a bit worried at how much I want to smell them. Hand sanitizer (while its still wet and full of rubbing alcohol smell) and the Windex especially. I have to avoid using them so that I don't get tempted.

This reminds me of the commercial from a few years ago about a woman who craved the smell of Gain laundry soap. I am sure if I had any of that around I would be craving smelling that too :)

R is starting to joke around about having to hide these items from me. Although sometimes I wonder if its more serious than joking around... Just to be clear, I am NOT opening up bottles of cleaning supplies and sniffing them all day, so don't worry about that.

I'm just glad its not something crazy that I want to eat, I have heard some really CRAZY things that pregnant women are craving... Stucco walls, wet dog food, and a few others. To those I just say YUCK!!! But I am starting to see how something that sounds so silly or crazy really can become such a big craving.

Thankfully this pregnancy is getting closer to being over, and I wont be tempted by all those wonderful smells anymore, hopefully.

grateful for a testimony

I recently found out that yet another person I know has decided to leave the Church. This person was someone who had gone through alot in their life, more than I can ever imagine going through, and was still really strong. This person moved away from our area a while ago and I haven't seen them since but I had kept up with them a bit on facebook and their blog. A few months ago this person decided to get off of facebook and stop blogging, I kept thinking about them and wondering how they were doing. I am sad to say that I never acted upon those feelings of wanting to contact them. I wonder if I had I could have helped in some part to stop them from leaving the Church.

I found out the week before General Conference that this person had left the Church and it really shook me up. To think that someone I thought had such a strong testimony could leave... Could that happen to me? It was weighing on my mind alot, I didn't want this to happen to me. I would rather believe something blindly than to turn my back on something that means so much to me, even if it wasn't true.

So I went into watching General Conference with lots of prayer, not only for me but for this person and their children. As soon as I saw the Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson walk into the conference center, I had this overwhelming burning in my heart telling me that he truly is the prophet of the Lord. Not that I really had any doubt, but I am so grateful that the spirit could testify to me so strongly something that I needed at the moment. It seemed like all the talks during conference were just what I needed to hear, and they brought such peace to my heart.

I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Lord's church restored in its fullness here upon the Earth today. I know that we have a living Prophet upon this earth that he receives direction from Heavenly Father as to the things we need to know for our day and time. I am so thankful that I can pray to my Father in Heaven and he will answer my prayers, in just the way I need those answers. I am thankful to have a testimony, and I pray that I never let it go. I am thankful that I can pray and find out for myself if the Church is true or not, and I can do the same thing with things that our leaders say or do.

I can't imagine my life without the Church, nor do I want to.

Baby #3 updates

I had an appointment yesterday with the OB and also had an appointment for an ultrasound. I love that my Dr. office does a "complimentary" 3D ultrasound. I say "complimentary" because we don't pay for it, but I am sure that the insurance does :) Thank Heavens for the wonderful insurance that we have!

R and the kids came with so that they could see baby C. When I told A that we were going to go see C on the tv again she wasn't too excited, but later decided that it would be fun to see the baby in Mommy's tummy after all.

Apparently C is going to be a chunky baby. We are just barely at 33 weeks and he is already measuring 5 lbs 8 oz. and is in the 90 percentile for most babies at this stage. I have a feeling that we will most definitely be delivering early.

While the lady was trying to get us some good pictures of C he kept putting his arms in front of his face and punching at the area where she had the wand thing that they use to look at the baby (I have no idea what that thing is called). I remember that A and G both were a little camera shy, but nothing like this. We were able to get 1 good picture that only shows one eye and part of this nose and the other eye.

C is more active than I remember A or G being too. He is constantly on the move, as of late his favorite time to move is right when I am trying to fall asleep at night. I am glad that he moves around so much though. I remember being scared a few times with the other pregnancies that there might have been something wrong with the baby since they moved so seldomly.

We are now on the countdown, I am guessing we have about 5 more weeks until we deliver if C keeps up the growth, and knowing my Dr. I would be delivering that early even if he weren't that big.

I am so grateful that this pregnancy is treating me so well, I usually only get swollen feet on Sundays from wearing my church shoes, and its only my feet, not my ankles. There is hardly any back pain and what I get I am sure is related to stress (since its mainly in my shoulders). I have only gained about 12 lbs so far, and hearing that almost 1/2 of that is baby makes me glad that its not a ton of ......... ummmmm "fluff", like with the other pregnancies. I am carrying in the front this time instead of all around this time too, so I hardly look pregnant unless you look at me from the side, and even then I am not that big.

So yeah there are the updates.... I can't wait to hold this little one in my arms. I know life is going to be changing Big time with adding a 3rd child into the mix, but I am super excited for our future.

Garden 2011

After helping to plan the Relief Society meeting night, all about Gardening, and then reading an article in the April 2011 Ensign about gardening; I felt impressed that we needed to try our hand at gardening again.

We tried making a garden shortly after moving in the house but it pretty much died the day we planted it. We didn't realize just how horrible the soil is out here and that we needed to mix a bunch of stuff in it to be able to have a chance of a garden growing.

So needless to say, we did alot of research, and planned much more than last time.

We decided to try an above ground approach (although I have already realized there was more we needed to do to avoid weeds and such). We bought soil from a local nursery that gives you a GREAT deal for as much as you get. We also decided to plant it in a place that doesn't get a bunch of direct sunlight so that it wont burn.

We planted summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a green bell pepper plant. We also planted from seed some peas, carrots, and romaine lettuce.

Yesterday when R went out to water, he saw some promising signs in the Garden.
<- this is a picture of one of the pea plants, the seeds sprouted! So far 2 of the 3 are out of the ground. I took some pictures of the carrot and lettuce sprouts, but they are still too small to show up well on the pictures. So I guess you will just have to take my word for it that we have some of those coming up too.

We still need to get something to shade the garden, although it gets about 3 hours of direct sunlight, the plants get really wilty and sad looking during that time. With the weather getting hotter and going to be getting even worse, shade is a necessity. I also want to get a trellis or something of the sort to let the squash, zucchini, cucumber, tomato, and pea plants grow up on instead of through the rest of the garden.

I am supper excited that this is working so far, the real test will be keeping it alive through the summer and after having the baby. I really want to keep it growing and hope to test out a new way of gardening we learned about at the Relief Society meeting night later this fall.