Raegan

We love charts in our family.  Today Raegan made a really awesome chart for me.  She told me, "You get a star for every time that you brush your teeth, and a dot for every time you let me sleep with you in your bed."

Photo taken by this amazing lady.

I don't know where she gets her ingenuity from.  :)

30 years old

I am 30.

I have been slightly dreading it (although MANY people in their thirties have reassured me that it is awesome) but mostly just bummed because I wanted to do a mega-awesome, crazy thing on my 30th birthday and really, I just haven't felt up to anything, besides napping.  Well, even though I wasn't feeling super wonderful on my birthday it ended up being so great!

I was spoiled by super awesome friends, a really cool family, and the best husband ever.

I spent the day being fed (breakfast-Layne, lunch-Casey and dinner-Spaghetti factory).  This in and of itself made my day amazing.

Casey making me a gourmet lunch.  Such a great friend.

I got a pedicure.  No pictures...:( 

I got the sweetest gift ever from my mom and Tiff and Kels.  They gave me a photo book entitled 30 Memories to Celebrate 30 years.  Each page had a picture (or multiple pictures) of a memory and was numbered.  THEN, there was this box with 30 gifts (all numbered) and each gift corresponded with one of the memories.  Such a cute, fun idea.  I wish I had thought of it!

A couple of the pages:

This page came with some yummy dried pineapple.

This page came with a bag of Laffy Taffy.  I think it's impossible to look at this picture and not at least crack a little smile.

Then of course, this came with a pound of See's.  

(Not all of them were food, these three just happened to be...)

So cool.

Then, Layners threw me a rockin' birthday party and lots of my good friends came to wish me a happy birthday.

Thanks everyone for being so great!

Me with the really cool cake Layne made built me.  (I don't know why this picture looks so weird, but it does).

30 years...so far, so good!

Christmas Season in a nutshell

So, as previously mentioned, December flew by and so has January.  I need to get these Christmas pictures posted once and for all.  For me, so that I can move on.  :)

 I hardly took any pictures, but here are a few of Christmas day.  The kids are at such a fun age for Christmas.

Every single present that the girls opened was "just what they wanted!"  (Sadie with her hotwheels).

We went to temple square both with Layne's parents...

And then with my family and cousins.

 The girls had tons of fun with their cousin (2nd cousin).  They cried and cried until we let them all sleep together.  Such cute little bugs.

So, there it is in a nutshell.  It was a really hard month, but a fun, magical one as well.  I love the Christmas season and am always so sad when it's over.

Hair cut!

I'm still in the process of going through Christmas pictures and doing some Christmas posts.  To be honest, today is the first day that I sort of feel like I am digging out of my hole that I've been living in.  December was all about survival for me.  I was only capable of handling the bare minimum and that is all I did.  I spent the begining part of December feeling sorry for myself that I had to spend the holidays sick, but now I realize the positive side is that the whole month FLEW by.  I'm feeling pretty good today and a little more energetic--could I possibly be on the upswing??  and so I'm hoping to get some blogging done and (dare I even say it) house cleaning done.  Of all of the things that suffered in December, our poor house suffered the most.

One thing that I thought I'd mention first though, is that I got my hair cut.  It was probably almost a month ago that I cut it, but due to circumstances, it was never really picture worthy.  Here are a few pictures of the new hair from the holidays.  I like it for a change, except on days where I really just want to put it in a ponytail.

straight hair

curly hair (with a weird grumpy face)

(pictures taken by my lovely mother)

Some day I will have a more close up picture of myself and my hair.

Caldwell #4 on the way!

And we are so excited!  We did a thorough check and there is definitely just one.  I'm sighing with relief.  :)

Like, my other pregnancies, my first few months have not been fun.  I think the thing that is hard for me is that I'm used to having a really healthy body and in my first trimester particularly, I just do not feel well.  I don't feel healthy.  I feel sickly and frail.  Things seemed to escalate really quickly this time and I was feeling pretty terrible by 5.5 weeks.  I got to a really low point a couple of weeks ago where I just couldn't keep anything down.  I was dehydrated, starving, had a massive headache, a black eye from the toilet seat and I was really depressed.  Unless you have had serious morning sickness (like anything else in life) I just think you cannot judge how dark and despairing it is to feel sick all day, every day, for months. I admit I said a selfish prayer to Heavenly Father once or twice.  "It's not FAIR that some people feel good during pregnancy and others don't."  As soon as I realized what I had said, I realized that, yes, lots of things in life aren't fair.  It's not fair that some people have cancer, or have a loved one die of cancer.  It's not fair that others have a hard time getting pregnant.   I am sorry for that prayer, but so so grateful for the sweet answer that I got. I just had a strong feeling to try some meds.  I have been pretty against medicine in my pregnancies (I mean don't get me wrong, I believe in modern medicine, but taking something while pregnant, makes me a little nervous).  I have taken some things, but only short term (like for a couple of days to get over a really bad week or something).  But I really believe it was an answer to my prayer.  I started taking them and I have been able to survive the last few weeks.  I still don't feel great, but I'm able to keep most food down and nausea has not been as bad.  This has been the sweetest "tender mercy" of my life.  I think one must be careful when talking about "tender mercies" because obviously not everyone is going to get the same answers to a prayer, but I just want to say that I am SOOOO grateful that I've found something to help in my pregnancy.  I'm still really looking to that magical 13 week mark when I start feeling better, but for now, I'm pretty excited to get another little person in our family.

Even if I'm only 10.5 weeks and look like I'm 18.  (My body is apparently getting good at this).

PS My due date is August 4th  (a little too close to the twins birthday for comfort)!