All Cozied Up!

This blog is the closest thing I have to a journal.
I already regret not keeping better track of my pregnancy through a journal...
Like the first time I got sick and didn't know I was pregnant and blamed Red Lobsters coconut shrimp and a couple days later fire roasted hot dogs at the annual family Desert Day.
The first time we SAW my belly move on April Fools Day and Russ thought I was pranking him..nope, that's a real human being.. and throwing up in my car 2 days in a row and my amazing friend Heidi for cleaning it out for me after we met for lunch. Fun things like that...
And now that I am due, Im overloading the blog with BABY! But, that is all that seems to be on my mind.

I never did have one single craving, although I always wondered what I would crave, and would I really send Russ out in the middle of the night because I wanted something so bad? Nope, never happened.
Besides being terribly sick until my 15 week, I truly cant complain or say Its been bad.
Ive been able to work ( now past my due date) and travel all the way to 36 weeks across the country.

**Since being pregnant with this baby, she has been out of the country twice, visited 12 different states and been on 27 plane rides! (Its no wonder my feet are huge right?). Love that she is a good traveler ;)

One thing that I did not think was a real thing, was pregnancy brain.
But I did experience this a few times.
The first time I really remember having it, was after we invited some friends over to bring their dog, sit around the fire, and enjoy some fresh Dutch oven peach cobbler and ice cream.
The guys were sitting around the fire chatting and my friend and I went inside to get drinks. I got out a few plastic cups and wrote all of our names on the cups and headed back out to the fire pit.
When we got out there, my friend noticed Russ's cup and said, "Who is Russ-lee?"

Yep, spelled my own husbands name wrong! But if you look at it, it makes sense! It still kind of spells Russell....right?
I hadn't even noticed, and Im pretty sure Russlee was embarrassed for me!
When that same friend came to my baby shower a couple days later, the card to the gift read "Chelsea & RussLee".

Today, my due date, we went to see the ol Dr.
Im pretty sure the main reason Russ comes to my Drs appointments is because Real Salt Lake Soccer team practices basically in the same parking lot as my Dr. The other day Russ asked if I wanted to "grab a burger and watch them practice after".
The Dr confirmed that this little lady is awfully comfy in my belly and doesn't seem to be going ANYWHERE anytime soon. Darn. Whats the point of Due dates anyway...does anyone ever have their baby on their due dates!?
We've tried a few theories of ways to naturally induce labor (now that Im in due week) and nothing is happening. I haven't tried, nor do I want to try Caster Oil, seems weird, and the after effects don't seem worth it.
Anyone have any ideas that worked for them?!
We tried consuming 10,000 calories of spicy Mexican food last night. That didn't do anything but make the scale rise that much more today at the Dr Appointment.
Anyway, looks like this baby girl is going to run on her dads time...LATE.
I was really wishing she would take after me in that aspect and be on time.

After our appointment today we sat on the bench just inside of the doors. We actually sat there for quite some time which was nice not to be in too big of a rush to get back to work and talk about whats in store for us the next couple of days if I make it to my induction date.
The Real players weren't practicing today so I had his full attention. I got ZERO sleep last night ( I was literally reading the news at 2:30 am this morning) and kind of frustrated my body wasnt progressing to have this baby sometime soon, when this lady walked out in a fancy black and white dress like this one.

We both must have been watching her walk out the door and through the parking lot because as I was thinking, Russ said (And neither of us meant this in any kind of rude way)

"She looks like she is wearing an oreo"

And my response, "Yeah? I was thinking more along the lines of Mr. Beetlehead"

Russ, "Beetle Juice?"

Me, " BeetleJuice! Not Mr Beetlehead."

I cant wait to get my feet and brain back.

 

July 24th- Then & Now

Today is a super special day!
It marks 2 years ago today that Russ and I became engaged.
I was looking through pictures this morning reminiscing about it. I remember the day so well!
It was such a hot day, we had spent most of the day helping move my uncles things who had passed away. His house didn't have AC so I remember being SO hot and Russ wanting to go for a hike!
I didn't want to go hiking at all considering we had been in a hot house all day and then go up into the hot mountains and hike around.
I of course had NO idea he was going to propose or I would have A- looked a whole lot cuter and B- been more supportive of his idea.
I eventually gave in, and we rode up the mountains in his non air conditioned truck.
He had it all planned out where he wanted to take me..clear up to the top to a lake.
It was a tough hike and I was super hot. As we neared the top of the mountain there was still snow!
Snow! In the end of July!
I remember walking up the snow, sliding all around and hearing running water under me. I felt uneasy like I was walking above a stream and would fall in so I finally called it. Told him I was done hiking, I didn't want to go to the top and I was beat.
So we slid down the mountain back down to the trail.

 

Little did I know I had ruined his plan.

He told me he needed to use the restroom as we hiked on down.

He went off into the bushes and came back a short time later. I had been swatting away at bugs the whole time he was gone and was ready to get a move down the trail.

He told me he had found a beautiful water fall while using the restroom and wanted me to come take a look.

I walked down the steep mountain slope to find he had picture in his backpack he was carrying that he had hung on all the trees. Pictures of the two of us and all of our adventures!

He had a camera hanging from a tree and said he wanted to take one more picture to add to our collection of memories and placed me on the mountain side and ran over. As soon as the camera was about to take the picture he plopped down on a knew and presented me with the greatest surprise EVER!

 

Of course at the time I didn't care, but looking back, I wish I wasn't wearing shorts that were too big for me and Eckos bandana in my hair.

 

He carved our initials into one of the trees. Last year for our one year anniversary we hiked back to the spot, (and actually made it all the way up to the lake!) and put in a little notch for one year.

A couple days ago Russ asked me if I wanted to hike back up to our tree and put another notch in it.

I had to remind him I was 9 months pregnant and maybe next year.

 

Some of the pictures he had hung of the 2 of us.

I miss wearing my beautiful ring. My fingers have been to swollen and fat :(

 

One of our FAVORITE memories of the whole engagement night, was after he proposed, I of course had a burst of energy and we ran the trail down the whole rest of the way. As we got in his truck to head down the mountain, the sun had now gone down and the entire city was lit with fireworks! Everywhere we looked for our entire ride down the mountain was fireworks galore! We felt like everyone was celebrating our new engagement :)

 

Now on our two year engagement anniversary, I am a day away from my due date with our first baby!

Our hospital sits up high,  so I would love nothing more than to go into labor today, and look out our window at all the fireworks tonight holding our new baby girl.

Fingers crossed!

 

Happy Engagement Anniversary Russell! xoxo

Any Day...

I'm due in  2 days! I cant believe its here already! Its gone by so far and so slow all at once. Between selling our old home, buying a new on and all the moving in-between its gone fast. But then you add the 100+ temperatures and It seems like its been dragging on. Ive never been so hot in my life.
We have been keeping SO busy!
We moved into our new home and were so lucky to have such amazing help. It was 104 the day we moved so the fact that we had so many people show up meant a lot because moving isn't fun already, but then you add those temps and its down right miserable.

 

Luckily we had so much help we had almost all of our stuff out of our storage until by noon!

We also had the help of some of our nephews from Russ's side that found just the perfect place for some of our things :)

 

Even after we got all of our stuff moved in to our new house we still stayed at my parents another couple weeks. We got a lot of crap from friends, family and co workers, but what can I say, its all my fault.  I felt extremely overwhelmed everytime I stepped foot into the new house and saw all the things we needed to do and buy and put away and with a baby on the way, I liked the comfort of my parents home, in a familiar area, with all my things in place. But, then I realized, Its going to be extra hard having a baby and bringing her back to new house, new area, and boxes upon boxes.

Slowly but surely (its only been 4 days) we are making it our own home.

My sister has been FANTASTIC and we have truly benefited from her having twins and two of everything. She has really hooked us up and made my life so much easier.

She gave us one of her cribs for our baby and Russ spent a lot of time refinishing it and painting it white.

My parents garage has become a workshop! Russ refinishing the crib

 

My dad retired a couple of weeks ago and has also been a saint. He has been at our new house during the day while we are at work building us shelves in our garage, meeting the furniture people for delivery, painting our nursery, hanging our pictures on the wall...

He is seriously the most handy man I know.  Maybe soon he will be able to enjoy his retirement and not slave away for us ;)

 

We celebrated my very favorite holiday ever!! I LOVE the 4th of July. This year was a tich different, because I am always over heating and my feel are so swollen they look they are about to pop! I didn't make it up to the parade with the rest of the family. Kami also stayed back with their new baby so we sat in the cool family room, ate otter pops and watched Keeping up with the Kardashians.

The kids sure had a great time though!

We have a lot of 4th pride in this family.

I cant wait to add our little gal to the mix next year :)

We had our traditional Kemp sleepover in my parents back yard. I wouldn't miss that! I started in the back yard on the ground, until I realized that Russ grabbed the wrong blow up mattress and I was on the hard ground. Normally, I wouldn't be a party pooper, but being 8+ mo pregnant and sleeping on the ground just wasn't working for me. I woke up Russ and told him I was moving inside. This was at 2:00am.

At 2:15 just a few minutes after I got inside, I heard the lighting and thunder start up and everyone running inside. That was a first. But we still had a fun indoor sleepover with a delicious breakfast the next morning.

We spent the day doing water games, and watching fireworks with homemade funnel cakes!

I LOVE funnel cake!!! This year, I told Russ how excited I am to take our baby to her very first State Fair (maybe my second favorite thing besides the 4th) and he said

"Are you kidding me?! We are NOT taking our 2 month year old to the fair!"

He was dead seriously when he said this and almost mad I would even consider it, but the fact that he said "2 month year old" made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

But come on...how could this not be magical, even for a 2 month year old?!

(2011)

This particular year, I took a night out of wedding planning to enjoy me some funnel cake!

 

(2012)

This year, I was working one of our big events downtown for work and took a night off as well as Russ, who was working in Logan to enjoy some State fair and funnel cake!

 

This makes me giddy just looking at it .

So, after I found out that Russ was dead serious, that our new baby couldn't be introduced to the State fair this year, we decided to make our own funnel cakes for the 4th fireworks!

 

They aren't the state fair, but they turned out pretty dang good if I say so myself!

 

Poor Ecko has been in a state of depression. It really breaks my heart! She is such a good girl and always listens to what she is told. She has boundaries at my parents house she knows she cant cross. When we came back from the fireworks, we found he shaking in her boots, under my parents kitchen desk. She truly hasn't been the same. Im a littler nervous for Pioneer Days here in SLC and more fireworks in the next couple days.

 

Ive tried to ease her pain a little with a few after work walks around my parents neighborhood. One night we were walking and she kept pulling me towards a sewer grate. I let her sniff around and finally she just sat and peered down. I walked over to see what she was looking at and found 2 baby ducks that had fallen in.

They were covered in mud and looked exhausted from their efforts to get out. I tried to lift the grate but couldn't with my big belly so we went back to get my dad.

My dad loves birds so I knew he would help! We loaded up in my car and I took him back where he pulled them out.

 

He was so careful and even wore a plastic glove when getting them out so they wouldn't get his scent. We took them home and washed them off and put them in fresh water so I could call the city.

The city said they wouldn't do anything about it, they only take care of domestic animals so to just take them back where they came from and hope their mom comes back.

So we drove back and dropped the little ducks just away from the grate where we found them and all the sudden the mom duck comes waddling over to them so fast. It seriously made my day! I was tearing up so excited.

I noticed one of them wasn't walking with the mom and the other one as they left, and my Dad told me to get in the car and let nature run its course.

STUPID me, the next morning on my way to work I decided to go check on the one that wasn't moving, and it was dead :(

I was SO sad!!!! I started to get in my car when I thought I would check the sewer grate. Sure enough, there was baby number 2...dead.

I got in my car crying and called my dad and Russ. Wow, pregnancy emotions and dead animals are NOT good for this gal.

But we did our best.

Speaking of animals, crazy Griffin has stayed around at my parents house. She loves the rain and loves to play in my parents fountain in the backyard.

Seriously the weirdest cat. 

 

She has earned her keep by killing 3 gophers in my parents back yard, but it ends up being a total wash in comparison to my parents pretty birds she kills.

 

Now the baby count down is on!!

It could be anyday and the anticipation of not knowing is killing me.

I have had more text, more bribes, and suggesting and more people popping out of the corner trying to scare the baby out of me now that there is a bet at work as to when this baby will come. My surrounding co workers all put in money and guessed a day she would be born. The pot is up to $70 so this morning when I came in and the guy who had today saw me he yelled "Go home and have a baby!" He is also the one trying to scare the livin daylights out of me to get me to go into labor.

 

I have so many emotions with this baby coming I cant even believe it. I am super excited and happy, I am super nervous and anxious about delivery, the first couple months of sleepless night, and I am sad to be losing my one on one time with Russ.

Last night I was complaining to Russ as I was looking down at my huge swollen feet and talking out of my huge swollen face about how I was so ready to just deliver and be done being pregnant. He reminded me how lucky we are, and even though she isn't here yet, we have been extremely blessed to have had such a good, healthy pregnancy. And its the truth. I feel very lucky and blessed that I can still take the stairs at work, and have been medicine free and all is fine and healthy on both our ends.

We look forward to being parents and all the changes that it brings!

I cant wait to see what she looks like, if she has hair, if she has red hair, and what kind of personality she will have.

I found these two pictures of myself and Russ and sent them to him and said..
"what is she going to look like?"

His response, "How dare my mom do that to me?"

 

 

We definitely don't have reporters outside our hospital right now and the world wondering when our little princess will be here like Will and Kate, but we are sure anxiously awaiting!!!