Cloth diapers and other happy things

So most people probably don't know...we're planning on using cloth diapers. I just have made the decision gradually over the pregnancy, and think it'd be a good idea. Am I a tree hugger? No, not really...they are great for the environment and all, but I'm in it for the moolah. :)

Ever since we got married, I'm always conscious of the things that we will ALWAYS have to spend money on, and very regularly. Gas for the car. Toilet paper. Groceries, particularly staples like milk, cheese, bread, fruit etc. I wish there was a way to cut down on these significantly!!! That's why I've gotten more interested in canning, cars with really good gas mileage, food preservation and even making our own cheese (haven't tried it yet but I'd like to).

I realize that soon, diapers could be added to this list. And I don't want them to!! So I'm going for the other option: spend a lot more money up front, save money in the long run. With the baby looking super cute, I might add. These are my favorites. If you are my friend, and want to buy me something for the baby, buy me a Fuzzibunz one-size diaper. Check 'em out. :)

In other news...my parents have been very very generous with me for a long time, particularly since we've been married. If I haven't said already yet, I will now: when they found out I wasn't having any luck with my job searching, they offered to let me come clean/organize their house for them for 10-15 hours a week, and they'd pay me for it. And they have! It's been great! But particularly this week.

This week, I started a big project with the books. I really like how things are changing/looking, and I hope my parents do too. I get such joy out of organizing/re-organizing things!! I'd forgotten!! I really really love making things more functional/'user friendly.' I may not have any idea how to decorate things well, but if you need me to de-clutter for you I would be only too happy to.

I wonder why this is? I'm not sure, but seriously there is little I can do in a work-way that makes me feel more proud and pleased with myself. I just wish it was a more legitimate career!! Plus maybe I'd be horrible outside of my parents' home: I know what they use regularly already, after all, so have a head start with how to organize things.

But if 'organizing' were a major, I'd be all over that.

Valentines weekend!!!

If I could plan it, Valentine's day would ALWAYS be on a Monday. I had no idea how perfect that would make things. It felt like we were celebrating for four days straight! It was glorious.

THURSDAY: The festivities (for me) started. Work was particularly glorious that day-fewer kids, meaning less crazy and more one-on-one time. Everyone seemed happy the whole time-no fights really, no crying, no hitting etc. And we frosted cookies! What fun!!! I love doing stuff like that with kids-its such a treat. I probably enjoy it as much as they do. :)

FRIDAY: I did laundry during the day, which wasn't the most exciting of activities. But then we doubled with my little bro and his chika for dinner at Red Robin, which was really yummy and fun. I haven't chatted with her in a while, so it was good to see her again. She's such a

sweetheart. Then we went to the nearest Redbox, where I had reserved the movie 'Knight and Day.' We actually bumped into some friends there, too, and it was nice to chat a bit. Then we watched the movie. Sam fell asleep (of course-he always does), but I thought it was a wonderful Friday night.

SATURDAY: Saturday morning I got to see two of my favorite old roommates, Emily Deweese-soon-to-be-Brown, and Sydney Jackson. We had brunch together at Gandolfos. It was so nice to talk and catch up! I only wish I'd insisted on taking a picture with my camera-Emily took pictures with hers, but I look gross in all of them. I didn't think to check very closely though.

Dang it.

Saturday afternoon, Sam and I had another date. :) We were going to go test drive cars, but it was right when the BYU basketball game was about to start, so traffic was terrible. So instead we chose to use up the rest of our second gift card for the weekend (we'd also had one to Red Robin) at Cold Stone. Then we wandered over to ShopKo just to look around, particularly at baby clothes. It was so much fun :) I don't know why but so far, I swear every time Sam and I go to ShopKo I have such a nice time. What a dork.

Saturday night Sam had to work, and took the car. I wasn't feeling so great so re-scheduled plans I'd made with another friend for this upcoming weekend.

MONDAY: The actual day!! I started it out with cleaning everything up really nicely for when Sam got home. He's always happy to come home and discover everything is neat and tidy.

He got home after work at 11, and I

was delighted to receive flowers and chocolates!!! What a great husband I have. :) He knew I wanted flowers this year, and he even got me purple tulips which I really love.

We had a nice lunch together.

Then we went to Bicentennial Park and played Frisbee golf. It was great-other than hailing for a little bit, it really was a great day Monday-it felt very Spring-y. I'm awful at

throwing frisbees so that part wasn't so amazing, but I still had lots of fun with my honey.

After Sam went to class, I got to finish the mystery I'd been reading for the past week. SO good. I really like Mary Higgins Clark-I can follow her much better than Agatha Christie. I loved the dramatic ending to this one (Two Little Girls in Blue).

When Sam got back, he'd gotten a few goodies at the close-by grocery store, and he cooked me dinner. It was so fancy! We ate by candlelight. Ah! Here's two pictures:

After the lovely dinner of elk steak, asparagus, corn, french bread and juice, we made fondue! It was our 'breaking in' of our little fondue pot-we got it for our wedding, but up till now we hadn't used it yet. It really went wonderfully. Here are pictures:

We had pineapple, bananas and of course Strawberries to dip into our yummy chocolate. mmm!!!
Dashing man: This is actually a really really genuine smile. Maybe it looks weird though cause I rarely feel this carefree:Sam says this should be on the fondue box.

I did this one because strawberries in chocolate are supposed to be so sexy. Yowza

We finished off the night with watching the movie "RED", which I had rented from the Redbox at Smith's (with a free code). What a lovely Valentine's Day/weekend! I really can't even say enough how happy I was to get to do all this with my Sam. Lucky for us, it was also like a perfect day with how we interacted-we were just happy to be together, and nothing could rain on our little parade. That's the best-it's so frustrating when something is off and neither knows what. I'm so happy the day was so perfect-I'm really blessed.

Valentine's madness at Smith's! And drug dealing

I wanted to make a post primarily about Valentine's day, but I can't resist before getting to our fun events of the day mentioning the madness that was the Smith's grocery store at 6:10 pm this evening.

Holy tomatoes!

I have NEVER seen a grocery store so crowded. It felt like trying to find parking on campus (BYU or BYU-Idaho really), but worse because not only was every spot taken, people were everywhere. Prancing around busy in their own little lives, cutting off the cars. And the cars cutting off the cars. Including mine, eventually-I was stuck for so long! Oops.

But this was perfectly logical when I went inside, and seriously my whole time in Smith's I could not stop giggling. Out loud. Alone.

It was insanity!

Men were literally everywhere. Right when you first go into the Smith's on Freedom Blvd in Provo, there's this area where normally there are all these bins with discount items. But instead, there was this HUGE square area set up with lady workers in the middle, frantically cutting off and arranging flowers for men of all shapes and sizes. There were pre-made bouquets too, and chocolates and other Valentine's-related merchandise ready to be grabbed.

The further I went into the store, the harder I laughed. Old men! Young men! Polynesian men! Mexican men! Causasian! All there for one purpose: to buy gifts for their Valentines.

It was hilarious. Wish you could have been there. I should have taken pictures! Next year.

So the drug dealing part...

as one of our activities for Valentine's day, Sam and I ended up at a park in Provo with frisbees. We were passing it around right in front of where we'd parked, and first this one guy drives up and parks and then another. It was kind of weird to me-one in particular looked rather scruffy, the other just a normal Joe. But I was curious why they were meeting up at an almost unpopulated park in the middle of the day on a Monday. When it's kind of rainy.

So the scruffier looking guy first went around to the drivers side of the other car, like he was just going to talk to him through the window. We're glancing at them the whole time: we're right in front of them, seriously.

Then that guy goes around to the passenger side instead and opens up the door, like he's going to get in.

Then finally the other guy actually gets out of the car, and they wander off together with cigarettes in their mouths.

Right before they wandered off, the scruffier looking one (who we hadn't heard the whole time) says loudly "I gotta meet here or I'll get in trouble with the Mrs! She gets mad when she smells [cigarette] smoke on me! Gotta come to a park!"

Ok. What? Nuh-uh.

So you can make fun of me if you want, but I seriously doubt they were only there to smoke cigarettes together. I think he just said that cause he knew we were right there listening. And I don't think they would have wandered off together if it weren't for the fact that we were right there, clearly in view of whatever they would have done in the second guy's car or exchanged out of it.

About 15 minutes later they came back, got in their separate cars and took off.

So anyway. I wish I'd gotten their license plate numbers!!! Because the whole thing seemed so sketchy to me. I did call it in an hour later, but they were just mad that I didn't call right away and get the license plate numbers. ARg.

Anyway. Made for a fairly exciting turn of events on Valentine's day, eh?

a few pics

Well hello again!

It's been almost a month now since I last posted, so I thought I should give a brief update of the happenings in our lives in January. With some pictures. :)

1-I used the little crock pot we got at our wedding (over a year ago) for the first time!! I made this thing called...Chicken enchilada...something. Anyway we had it with chips and a "Mexican cheese," and it was pretty good. (I'd say really good but my stomach or the baby was being picky that day and didn't like the enchilada sauce. Lame.)

Evidence:

Second, I started flipping out (unnecessarily) about how much the baby was going to cost, including preparations for the baby. The most immediate seemed to be maternity clothes. Now I used to really love shopping and probably still do, but clothing is so expensive!!! I could buy so many treats with what it costs to buy a dress!

So. I got on ksl.com, and looked in the maternity wear section and low and behold, a petite lady like myself was selling these TEN items for 50 bucks. 50! That's 5 bucks a piece! Steal of a deal. :) I'm rather proud of my find.
Next, Sam had been looking on KSL since August for an entertainment center. Our good friends James and Jenna were nice enough to give us their old TV, but we didn't have anything really to put it on other than this honking...I still am not sure what it is, actually. Table cabinet thing. So Sam had been on KSL for ever, keeping an eye out...and found this!
A really nice, cherry wood entertainment center that our TV would fit in perfectly for...well. Super cheap-I'll keep it at that.


Joy! :)

Those are our main spending stories: besides those, we've been busy enough. Sam's taking 6 credits (that's a half-time student) and working right now, and he also goes snowboarding every chance he gets. These are some pictures of Sundance he took for me, where he has a pass. Beautiful.

I really don't have that much to report, other than I think I may be done with school for a while when the baby comes. Some amazing ladies are able to go to school as well as having babies to take care of, but I'm so tired of it anyway...I think a break will be quite welcome. That might help me figure out what it is I'd like to do career-wise, anyway. But we'll see-I change my mind pretty easily.

I've been working for the Provo School District still, but not as supervisor any longer and have LOVED the change. I still get to watch and play with the kids, but without quite as much stress. I don't feel like the responsibility of discipline lies solely on my shoulders anymore, so that has been really nice.

Still, because that's only 8-9 hours each week my mom has been very generous and has let me come and work for her doing cleaning and organizing in my parents' home. I sure do love to organize, so I was only too happy when she offered.

All of us kids and our spouses also gave my mom the gift for her birthday of some money for photo albums, and our time to help her fill the albums with all the photos that were in boxes. I reminded my mom of this gift in late December, so she went out and bought a ton of albums and I've spent a good deal of time filling those, too. I've filled up 9 1/2 of the ten, with lots more photos still left but it still feels good to have done this much so far.

Changing the subject completely: I got a double-yoker for the first time ever a week ago! So I took a picture so I could prove it:

Look! It's the two that are much smaller and connected than the other. Awesome!! :)

And that picture I took today, evidence of my growing mid-section. I hadn't realized how much it's grown in the past five weeks until I looked at the pictures I took from before-sheesh! I'm kind of dreading stretch marks, but perhaps they're inevitable. Ah well-it's all worth it!

Oh! Duh! I should have said this earlier: February 25th we'll have the second ultrasound, and probably find out if it's a boy or a girl. I say probably because I'm not sure if I want to know or not, but I'm pretty sure I'll break down and have to know when we're actually in that room and my belly's all gelled up.

Oh, and last night I had some old friends over for a 'girls night' while my husband went skiing with a couple buds. (He skiied for the first time Monday, and the second time yesterday and loved it!) I'm so grateful for good friends-they certainly bring light to my life.

That's it for now. Toodles -Ariel Hatch