Black Friday

One of the days I look forward to the most out of the year is Black Friday. The Friday after Thanksgiving when all of the Christmas shopping begins. Major sales, big deals, and tons of customers. Each year I get up at around 4:30 am to hit the stores and grab the deals. There are crazy things that can happen in the stores and parking lots on these days. A few instances stick out in my memory.
The year Wal Mart had the Razor Scooters on sale, we were in CA that year, and there were women fighting over the scooters. I remember one woman took a scooter out of another shopper's cart.
The year I took Katie out for her first shopping experience we decided to go to Best Buy for our first stop. There were so many people there at 6am that the entire Home Depot (next door) parking lot was full as well as both sides of State Street.
The next year Jess and I went to Radio Shack where the sales clerks were less than bright and had all of their inventory in the back. I guess that location had never had a hot item for sale before, they didn't think they'd sell them all before 6:30am. The lady in line behind us yelled at the clerk that we had cut in before her- anyway when we get up to check out the guy running my husband's credit card just about didn't let me use it. I offered to give him another card and he "let it slide this time". Inexperienced store, that's for sure.

This year, I didn't have a babysitter and I didn't think waking Ryan up at 4am was a very good idea, so I let him "sleep in" and we got going as soon as he was awake on his own- all of 6:40am. We were out the door before 8am and I was pleasantly surprised that the lines had dissipated quite a lot. It was well worth sleeping in since I didn't need anything that was on the 6, 5, or 4am hot sheet. The other shoppers were, well, I wouldn't go as far as friendly, but at least not ravenous. The lines were manageable, and everything I wanted was available.
I got nearly everyone on my list taken care of on the first stop. Our second stop was TOYS R US. The line was pretty bad, but of of course I heard stories of what it was like two hours previous. It went fast though and I got Ryan a new inexpensive toy for the trouble he'd been through and would have to endure the rest of the day. I was glad when I got out of there and quite disappointed in myself when I realized that I had forgotten a crucial item, but luckily Colin got off early and went out with me later. I made about three more stops then we went home for lunch and nap time before heading out again with Daddy.

Our big purchase of the year was truly amazing though and I have to share about it. We were looking over the adds and decided that this would finally be the year we got an HD TV. I told Colin to find the best deal (within reason) and we figured out that K Mart had the deal, and that they were actually open on Thanksgiving. I'm totally against it, but it saved me at least 2 hours of sleep and who knows how much other trouble getting a big TV at 4 am with a 2 year old (all by myself) would have been. So, while the turkey was in the oven and Ryan was asleep, we left Katie and Erin with the Trivial Pursuit and took off to get our deal. We found out that our TV was on sale, but would drop another $100 on Sunday. The clerk told me I could get a price adjustment when I found out that they only had 2 in stock. So, we went home with the TV and will go back for our price adjustment and get an even better deal! We also had some credit card reward gift cards we'd been planning on putting toward the purchase so we ended up spending about half on the TV's original price- not bad.
So, we had to get a new Entertainment Center to put the TV in and we found one that we absolutely fell in love with at IKEA. That was the project for the weekend and Colin and I have absolutely sat back and admired our work and set up since then. It is so not like me to do Christmas early, but what do you do with a giant TV box in a tiny apartment that is already overflowing with kid stuff? Anyway, here are pictures of our new finds- and Christmas presents!

Maybe we're doing this backward, but our old stuff is for sale now. So if you know anyone who needs a good deal on an entertainment center, or TV, send them my way. Oh, and if it's one of you (my friends) who are interested, I'm willing to give you a good deal.

The OLD set-up.

Boxes for the new Entertianment Center.

About half way done!


The Entertainment Center all done and the new TV in place.
The set-up wtih Christmas Decorations.

BYU vs UofU

BYU beat Utah for the second year in a row!
Crazy game with a mostly defensive effort and kicking scores. BYU won with a score of 17 to 10 with a touchdown run by Unga followed by a two-point conversion- amazing!
Go COUGARS!
Mountain West Conference out-right champions
two years in a row!

Thanksgiving

This year we had Thanksgiving at our own little house. Colin's sisters Erin and Katie came over for a tradtional dinner. This was our menu.

Turkey

Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes

Gravy

Rolls

Sweet Potatoes

Green Bean Casserole

Green Salad

Cranberry Juice

Pumpkin Pie

Pecan Pie

It was nice to have a small group over to our house. This was my first time actually cooking the meal so I was proud of how well everything turned out. Katie and Erin did the rolls and the sweet potatoes and helped me get everything ready. Ryan didn't eat anything- he's going through this I-don't-eat-phase and its pretty annoying.

Latest HbA1c

Today I had my tri-weekly (every third week) visit with Dr. Day at the Diabetes Management center. He is my favorite doctor ever. His personality and mine couldn't be more different (this man is my polar opposite) but for some reason, that works for me as a diabetes doc. Anyway, I had my HbA1C taken today and it was .................(drum roll)................ 5.2!!! This is as good, if not better than a non-diabetic person's. So, I've talked about an A1c before, but for those of you who aren't familiar with this diabetes lingo- it is basically a two-month average of blood sugar (Web MD link). Anything under 7% is considered normal. So, I'm pretty proud of myself.
Overall though, a good A1c means I'll be healthier in the long-run, have less long-term complications that come with diabetes, and have a healthy baby during this pregnancy. I'm pretty excited. I even did better than one of the nurses in the office who gave me a hard time a while ago. I had to rub it in his face today! :)

The Kid Barn

Ryan was invited to his first Birthday party this Saturday. Curen Cole turned 3 years old on November 10. Curen is Ryan's-baby sitter's son. They get to play together every day, so he's probably his best little friend. His party was at a new place in Draper called "the Kid Barn". It is a really neat place with all kinds of blow-up jump-on toys and slides. It is brand-new, I think they've only been open about a week, so all of the toys were really clean and nice. It was a perfect place for a little kid's Birthday party, so consider this my recommendation if you live in the valley. The kids had a great time, and I think a lot of the adults did too. Colin and I had fun chasing Ryan around and taking him on the different slides. We had a fun time spending some time together this weekend.

Well, I got one video to work, the other is still not showing up, I've uploaded it three times! Arg! It is just over 1 minute. Like 1:07 or something, is that too long. It is so cute too, I'll keep trying once my computer stops acting up.

Dump Truck

Ryan loves his Dump Truck, which was a hand-me-down gift from his sitter Tonya. He loves to take it outside and play with it on the sidewalks and grass. He'd love to take it into the parking lot "street" but knows he's not allowed to do that. Any chance he can get, he's going outside to play with it. Gotta love the Tonka Trucks!




I think he's just dancing with excitement at being out side and playing.

"ah, the sun is in my eyes" or "mommy quit taking my picture"

I have some videos for this post but can't seem to get them to work. For now I've spent too much time on it and will give up.

It's A Boy!

My ultrasound at LDS Hospital's Maternal Fetal Medicine office went very well. The ultrasound technician was really great and she did an ultrasound for about 20 minutes. She looked at the baby's head and brain, she measured his leg bones and took the circumference of his head. She watched his heart and listened to the heart rate. The baby looks wonderful! He is so healthy and doing very well. Everything was perfect. There is a lot of amniotic fluid and the placenta is in the right place. His umbilical cord looks good and she even checked for things like clefpallate and everything was so normal. That really makes me excited to know that the baby is very healthy. The baby was moving a little during the ultrasound. He kept putting his arm and hand into the view. I told the nurse that he was waving at us. It was really quite funny- personality already.
After the technician left, the doctor came in. I met with Dr. Rose this time and she was really great. She told me that I am doing very well with my diabetes and is impressed by my control. The only thing that I have to worry about is that my blood-pressure was a little bit high. She said it's not high enough to put me on medication yet but she wants it to be monitored. She said I don't have to come back until about 28 weeks for some growth measurements, and then we'll start the non-stress testing. I remember what all of that entails, so I'm not worried about any of that.
When the appointment was over, I drove over to Colin's work and gave him a card announcing the gender. Inside the card were some of the ultrasound pictures. I also bought him a onesie that says "Daddy's Little Star" on it. He was really excited for another boy!
I think we've pretty much decided upon a name for this baby. If you know Colin and I, you shouldn't be surprised about that, it's just the way we are. Anyway, we'll probably go with Evan Miles Dean. I really like that name, Ryan can say Evan really well too.
So... we're excited to be having another boy in another four months or so!
little boy parts
a leg
all five fingers
another leg
and a profile shot

Final Thoughts

In just a couple of hours I go in for my ultrasound. I'm really excited to see the baby and find out its gender. As the votes stand, 51% boy, and 48% girl. Looks like some votes came in at the end to put the boy guess ahead. 29 votes! I'm glad that many of you care. I have to admit though, that if I had to bet I'd say that I think this baby is another boy. I guess I feel that way because everything has been so similar to my last pregnancy. However, there have been some subtle differences, so I am still hoping that I might be having a girl.

I felt the baby move about two weeks ago, and this past week it has been moving a lot. I get excited when that happens because I know that everything is going well with the baby. Another active one, that's for sure. This baby moves all of the time.
Anyway, I'll be posting ultrasound pictures and notes from the visit a little later today or tomorrow.

On another note, big brother had a major break-through yesterday. Ryan has never been very good to sit through sacrament meeting at church. Last week after a very embarrassing event (I'll let Colin tell that story), we decided that it was time to make a change. We sat down and had a talk about what would be the best strategy for sacrament meeting.

This was our plan. We decided that he had to stay inside the chapel the entire seventy minutes. We would bring plenty of toys and snacks that would keep him busy and quiet. If he had to be taken out, he would have to sit on our laps until he was ready to go back in, then he would return. (This is I think where we have gone wrong the past two plus years, Ryan has been allowed to leave the chapel and then let down to run around and play)

With daylight savings time, we were hoping to easily get in a nap before church making him extra-ready for the big meeting. However, he had another plan in mind and did not take a nap at all. He did stay in his room for about 40 minutes though and got some rest. By the time it was finally 1:00 (which felt more like 2:00 given the change) he was ready for a nap and just about melting down. We almost through in the towel before leaving the house.

He really did an excellent job during sacrament meeting. We tried to bring some interesting quiet toys he hadn't seen in a while so that he was entertained and not so noisy. He did very well. I took him out once when he was getting kind of fussy and I needed to use the bathroom. We went right back and stayed until 2:10. Fast and Testimony meeting wasn't quite wrapped up, but I took him down to the nursery room and let him play.

Whew!

We made it through all 70 minutes!

Colin was a big help in getting out and putting away snacks, books, toys, and baby wipes.
I was so proud of our little guy! We'll see what happens next week!

Happy Halloween

For Halloween this year I took Ryan up to Colin's work to trick-or-treat around the office. He's done this every year and it is a fun tradition they do at Goldman. He only went to Aunt Jessie's and Grandma's for trick-or-treating. I think one more year and he may want to go walking around. How young do you take your oldest out for trick-or-treating? Anyway, Colin and I dressed up for Alisha's "famous couples" party as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. All three of us at the office. Ryan with frosting all over his face.
Ron (Daddy) wearing Sully's hat because he was sick of it.

Daddy helping Sully get a drink of water.
Cheese!

These last two photos are from Alisha's party. We had a great time, thanks Alisha & Jimmy.

Hermione and Ron
Nacho Libre and the Nun girlfriend.