Christmas This Week

I know you clicked on our link because it said that we updated our blog and you were waiting to read something witty from Kaylene. This past month we complied a list of baby things left to buy and have gone on a shopping spree. I really felt like I was a contestant on supermarket sweep, for those who remember that show. You race around looking for the bonus item that makes it worth your while to go down that baby aisle. We have some extra money in our health savings account so we might be giving first aide kits for Chirstmas and birthday presents. Please don't hate us for the kits either, just remember us when you cut your finger.

This past week it has felt like Christmas in our front yard. We have been ordering thinks from Overstock, like our stroller and crib and other random things for the baby. The UPS and FedEX workers played Santa for us and left the presents in our desert-esque front yard, leaving the gifts (really just the items for the baby) behind bushes and trees so we got to search for them. They didn't really do a good job because I could see the items from far away. My parents did a way better job than them.





Phoenix has been cooling down but it is still 65. As you can tell from the nuns we saw at the Grand Canyon, its just cold enough for an extra jacket before you leave to see the world. School continues on... I am about half way done and have enjoyed the classes for the most part. We are excited to be called together to teach the 12 years in our ward. Our first week had 11 young adults come to class. They are great people and we are excited to teach them. That is life for me and I am sure Kaylene has alot more to tell you later on.

Getting My Hopes Up

At my 34 week appointment today my doctor was measuring me and said, "Wow can you even breathe?" Apparently our little guy decided to surpass the 34th week point and is now measuring at a little over 35 weeks and smashing all the way to the top of my ribs while he's at it. See! I told you I couldn't breathe.

Anyway, his head is still down in ready position and should be dropping in the next 2 weeks...at which point I should be able to breathe again. Sweet. She then continued to get my hopes up that he could be born early since everything is going so smoothly and a week ahead of schedule. So I'll go in again in two weeks and she'll check to see if my cervix is dilating at all. Yikes.

But really, it's too soon to tell...so let's all just calm down and see what happens.

Speaking of Landon...he continues to be as amazing as ever. Wednesday I picked him up from the airport and took him to Costo for lunch, and he got me a churro! I have always wanted to try one but can never justify it. It was just as good as I always imagined it would be.

And last Saturday morning while I was miserably sick on the couch, Landon took my car to my oil change appointment for me - which was nice enough - but he also went to JC Penny and looked at coats for our baby to wear during our trip to Utah in January. He's already a better parent than me, and I'm too lucky to have him.

New Look, Same Great Taste

The only thing I've consistently enjoyed eating throughout this pregnancy has been BLTs (...and KFC mashed potatoes if you want to get technical, but I have nothing to say about them right now). While homemade BLTs are good - and we were making them once a week for a while, I soon after discovered Subway's BLT on flatbread and my life's happiness increased greatly.

Truth be told, I really haven't eaten that many. Maybe about 9 altogether, which is nothing compared to the 8ish months I've been pregnant. But the point of the story is as follows: While I was picking up my Subway BLT on flatbread for lunch a few weeks ago during work, I splurged and made it a combo then was all disappointed when they didn't have Baked Lays. After staring at the potato chip shelf for a while, I realized they actually did have Baked Lays, they were just hidden in unrecognizable packaging that said "New Look, Same Great Taste."

Besides the fact that I hate when companies pull pointless stunts like that, I started laughing on the drive back because I realized this applies to me also: New Look, Same Great Taste!

Today especially I feel huge. I feel like I can hardly breathe no matter what I'm doing...standing, sitting, lying down, trying to stretch my shoulders as far back as I can, etc. Other than that (and the never ending sickness), I really can't complain. My doctor said I'm one of her lucky few patients who have made it this far without any complications, including not having any pain or swelling. So I think that's pretty sweet. Landon thinks it's because I've been repulsed by sugar through it all. But I think it's because I've been blessed with Overly amazing genes...wink wink to all you other Overly's out there.

And we only have 6 weeks left! OR it could be more like 4 or 8 according to our birthing class. Apparently 40 weeks is just a sham number they assigned because it's in the middle of 38 and 42. By the way, we totally graduated from the aforementioned birthing class last week and are going to miss our Taco Tuesday's at Cafe Rio every Tuesday before class.

The Days the World Didn't Stand Still

Thank Goodness I have people of relation that know how to fix things. The house that we have is in really good shape but I have no idea about electrical and general contracting projects. So while Kaylene's mom and two brothers were in town last weekend to deliver our baby shower gifts, we put them right to work.

Joshua, Kaylene's eldest brother, handled the electrical work and fixed the lights. Andy, Kaylene's forever to be known as "the fattest brother" from his own introduction at our wedding, fixed the locks that I tried to replace. Andy also put together the crib we got on Overstock and a toy chest and changing table that we got at ikea. Little known fact: no changing table mattress fit ikea's changing table.

But back to my original thought, I trust Andy to put together furniture more than I. I am not technically savvy, so when Kaylene's mean mother called me out about my lack of manly skills all I could do was cry. This made me look even more wussy.

Other than that the weekend was alot of fun. The five pounds I added can attest for the fun. We ate like kings at Jason's Deli, Chipotle, Valenzia Pizza, Dunkin Donuts, and of course In and Out a couple of times. Please enjoy the pictures of the days the world didn't stand still.

Last Grand Vacation

Last weekend we took a spontaneous little trip up to the Grand Canyon with our friends the Ashby's. I'd say the highlights of the trip included:

• forgetting my freakin nausea pill and being up sick all night
• breakfast at Denny's!
• getting a sweet parking spot at Mather Point
• eaves dropping on a random tour guide to learn the difference between a gorge and a canyon
• not falling off any ledges, because "even though falling off is rare, those who do fall rarely survive"
• climbing a few sets of stairs in the tower and feeling my legs burn from mass inactivity these past several months
• overall having a very relaxed and amazing last vacation before this baby comes

Stolen Thunder

I was all excited to post about how much I love October, only to find that everyone else has already stolen my thunder. Shucks. And it's already October 5th, so it's practically half way over anyway. But I really do love October...especially since living in Phoenix. I opened the garage door this morning and the weirdest feeling came over me. I could only describe it as "not hot". And then walking to my car after work it finally hit me what it was: double digit temperatures! In fact, today must have been at least below 90 and it was holy-freakin-heck amazing.

Another great thing about this month is my family will be here next weekend to bring our loot from the baby shower!! And when that happens we'll only have 8 weeks until baby Pandall will officially join our life of Crandallness. We think he's really going to like it, but you never know. All I can say is I hope I still like him after the delivery. JK. I'm pretty sure I will.

Sunday Night Blues

I have been sick this week. The type of cold or whatever it is where your nose gets clogged and runs down your throat. If anyone knows if those symptoms are those of the flu of the swine please let me know. Kaylene has tried to go off her anti nausea pill this week and has succeeded in being off it; but her body has lost the battle of not being sick.

We have started a list of things we need to do before the baby comes but we lack the experience to know what to get. Please feel free to comment on recommended items or items in general we need at least need for the baby. So if you are bored at work and reading this or have some spare time I would appreciate the input.

My economics class is almost half way over and that puts me about 5/13ths of the way done with school. I have enjoyed the class. We get to speak a lot about the history of depressions and recessions and what qualifies them as such. I have to do a presentation on either monetary or fiscal policy of the government. I wonder which one sounds like more fun.

Third Trimes a Charm

Five days into the 3rd trimester and I think (or thought) I was feeling much better. Besides being pretty sick when I woke up this morning, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this final trimester will be all fun and no sickness! My doctor appointments have now been upgraded to every 2 weeks, and I have the pleasure of "counting kicks" instead of just enjoying them.

Now that Landon and I realize we only have 3 months left we are getting even more excited! We still haven't purchased a single baby item, but we have started making a list. And I promise I'll get around to moving all those boxes and misc items out of the baby room in time for my family to bring our baby loot from Utah next month!

I also think this is a good time to start pursuing my acting career. I love how tight and toned my tummy has become :) and all I have to do is think a single insignificant sad thought and I can cry on cue. It might also be a good idea to stop listening to the country music channel (especially the song "Your Gonna Miss This") on my way home from work so I stop coming home to Landon as a big mess.

Wow, I just watched an amazing tapper on So You Think You Can Dance. He was so good I almost thought he was a clogger. I miss clogging, but I still dream about it every night. That and grandma Overly's house. What's up with that? I need to eat something.

We Like to Move It Move It

Okay... so now we actually live in our house. We kind of moved throughout the week last week after getting back from Utah (which I shall post about at a later date in time) but everything was officially said and done on Saturday. Landon hired a few guys and their moving truck to help us out since I'm not supposed to lift anything, and all of our stuff survived with only a few nicks and scrapes.

I don't think my feet have ever hurt that bad. Landon and I were walking around that night like we didn't have fully functional spines. Of course, poor Landon had it the worst since he was the one actually performing all the lifting power and heavy cleaning at the apartment- but even though I'm 27 weeks pregnant I did my best to contributed 100% anyway.

Our gas wasn't turned on until Monday, so we had to shower without hot water, which isn't a big deal in Phoenix, but the lack of a stove and microwave made eating a little bit of a challenge. (I know the microwave doesn't require gas, we just don't have one yet.)

Now the fun part: unpacking. The pictures below were taken on Sunday, so we've made a little progress since then. And by "a little" I mean the kitchen and living room are finally put together. The other 3 rooms are pretty much in the same position as they were Saturday. I think it makes life more of a challenge because I pride myself on knowing exactly where everything is in the scattered mess of boxes.

Our baby's room kind of became the holding cell for stuff we don't know what to do with just yet:

Just Kidding! I didn't lift anything. I learned my lesson after trying to lift what I thought was "light stuff" and then regretting it minutes later.

I hope this counts as a "belly picture" for those of you who keep requesting it.

Can You Believe It?

It's official: we are homeowners. Scary. Landon even took the first of our boxes over today. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be useless during the whole moving process, so wish us luck getting this done.

Happy Birthday Landon!!

Today is Landon's birthday. It's harder than I thought to celebrate birthday's on Sunday, so I'm sorry to say I let the ball drop this year. But we get the keys to our new house tomorrow, and then I'm taking this cutest 27-year-old ever to one of his favorite places ever: Olive Garden! Now if you'll excuse me...I have some cupcakes to frost.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANDON!

...and we'll greatly miss Grandma Drake who passed away Friday night.

Oh hey...If You're Not on Facebook...

We bought a house!

I know I announced that on facebook last month, but I never got around to posting anything on here. I took these pictures about 3 weeks ago at the home inspection, but my camera battery was struggling so they are all pretty blurry. And the new carpet was being put in that morning...but if you can ignore all the rubble I think you'll get the general idea. We are closing tomorrow, so I'll try and post newer, better pics when I can!

And Then There Were 3

Landon and I like to keep the computer to human ratio 1:1 in our house. So in preparation for our little boy, we bought a new Dell desktop computer. Well, Landon did all the work buying it while I had to put it all together against all my protests that we will just be packing it up again to move into our new house in a few weeks.

Nevertheless, we love it! It’s so freakin fast and the screen is way bigger than we expected. We practically have a second television now. Now we need to consolidate the files from our laptops onto the desktop so we can really enjoy it. Oh, and we need PhotoShop since my student software only came with one license.

Speaking of baby boy Pandall, he has now decided that I can’t button any of my pants anymore. It practically happened overnight: one day I could squeeze into them standing up, the next day I couldn’t even make the two sides come together. So I had a blast last Friday buying a bunch of maternity pants for work and play. Gotta say, I’m a huge fan of the whole elastic waist thing. The day I have to go back to regular clothes is going to be a sad day in my life.

Also, we had a freak cool down here last weekend. It finally dropped from 115 to what we guessed was about 98 degrees. So we spent Saturday morning trying to enjoy it while it lasted. After a short - but very exhausting - game of tennis, we gave up and jumped in the pool. (It was too strange trying to run around the court with the added weight in front of me.) Then during singing time in primary we celebrated by singing “Once There Was a Snowman.”

The other night, Landon was jokingly drafting a post in his head called “Things I had to give up when I married Kaylene”. Before he posts that (which will probably be the shortest post ever) I’d just like to say that he has been amazing through this whole pregnancy. He always has breakfast ready when I get up, dinner ready when I get home from work, and still faithfully cleans both of the bathrooms. He even gave up his side of the bed so I could be closer to the air conditioner, kitchen, and bathroom. Not only that, but he put the twin memory foam mattress on my side, leaving him barely enough room to move. He does too much for me, and the only thing I had to give up when I married him was staying up late at night.

20 Down, 20 To Go

We are half way there! And even though it feels like I have been pregnant for much longer than 20 weeks, we're still excited to have made it this far. I'm still sick, but I'm starting to look the part so that's much more fun. This week I've even started to feel our little boy moving around in there. So other than quickly running out of pants that will button, things are going great.

ALSO...we took a very short, VERY fun trip down to California this past weekend to meet up with Landon's brother Luke and his family and Landon's parents. (By the way, I'm here to tell you that I wasn't sick the entire trip! Therefore, I have deducted that this blasted Phoenix heat is the cause of all my unnecessary hardships). We picked them all up from the LA airport on Saturday, went to Knotts Berry Farm Sunday, and hung out at the beach on Monday before driving back home.

I grew quite attached to my two nieces, Haley and Lauren - who we only get to see about once a year since they live in Oklahoma - and wish we could have stayed the entire week. Even though I couldn't ride anything at Knott Berry, I bought a hat with Lucy on it that says "Crabby" and was happy as a lark the entire time to just watch and sit in the shade with the other non-riders (depending on whether it was an adult ride or a kiddy ride).

We didn't take our camera, but here are a few moments we captured on my camera phone:

I thought the carousel was safe...and I rode a bunny!

This was the crazy huge windmill farm we drove through on our way there:

He's a BOY!

Bet you didn't see that coming! The chinese calendar was the only one who guessed right.

Landon and I had so much fun during the 30-minute ultrasound this morning. (Thankfully the lady let me go to the bathroom after the first 5 minutes, because I don't think I could have held it much longer). It took a while to move our little baby around enough to know he was a boy, but the pictures were so clear and fun to watch! We both went back into the waiting room smiling from ear-to-ear! He weighs 9 ounces and is right on track for his December 18th due date.

This is a semi-creepy video of him yawning...