husband update

{my mcdreamy}

since the hubs wouldn't dare write on "our" blog and since all I want to post about is pregnancy I thought I would take a sec to update about what scotty has been up too lately. He is in the last half of his 3rd year... in the hardest of the rotations or what they call the "big 3" (Medicine, Surgery, Peds... each one is about 2 months long). He just finished up the first month of Medicine at the VA and is going to start the second month at Froedtert tomorrow. We hated the VA because of the inconsistent hours. I don't care if he has to be on call as long as I know when he will be home. There would be some nights when he thought he would get back around 5 but not come home until 11:00! So I would sit around waiting... without a car. Super frustrating. It all depended on his patients that day and how generous the resident or attendee would be. I've heard that scotty had the worst experience out of the other students out here... which means I should get some kind of prize as the wife for this past month. He has learned that he does not want to be an internal medicine doc... he would rather fix then treat a problem and not spend 3/4 of his time doing paperwork. But its great experience for him! He has until August to decide what he wants to be when he grows up. Orginially he was thinking of being an ortho surgeon but is currently debating between emergency med and anesthesiology. Although these next four months are going to be hard I'm thankful for a husband who still takes the time to make sure I'm doing ok. He always asks if he can do anything for me and I keep telling him its his turn to hold the baby...

Since he wasn't on call over the weekend we took full advantage of a full saturday together and drove down to gurnee mills outlet mall in IL. (I tried to convince him that we should be spontaneous and take the 5 hr down to the Mall of America...maybe next time lol) It was so nice to walk around all day :) I finally got my jamba juice and was able to use gift cards for some shopping! Funny story... we hit up mcdonalds on the way back and I saw this kid talking to scotty while he was refilling his drink and I thought he said "I'm really glad your here" and scotty said "thanks"...  so I started laughing on the way out only to find out he really said "I really like your hair" haha first of all- what guy says that to another guy?? So now our inside joke is...

"I'm really glad your here"




finally :) my homemade smoothies are just not the same... so delish!

  


of course we had to go to 7eleven since wisco is lame and doesn't have them

 

{sunday quote}

whats in a name

Besides registering for our wedding, picking a baby name that we both love is going be a major struggle for us! Its been fun to get a list of boy and girl names before we find out the gender. I hope after we have a good feeling about one of them cause it would be hard for my impatient self to wait until we see what our baby looks like.
Here is a list of our favs so far...

Chelsey loves:            Scotty loves:

Girl                                        Girl
Olivia                                                     Madison Norah                                                    Alice
Evelyn
Ally


Boy                                    Boy
Logan                                                    Liam
Caleb                                                     Gavin
Caden                                                    Mason
Jensen (my maiden name)                     Lucas
                                                               Landon 
                                                              Jensen

 It will make it a little easier {or harder} when we find out the gender on Feb 2!! I freaking can't wait obviously

18 weeks

 {and growing...}

size of a bell pepper

I'm technically 18 weeks & 5 days- but who's counting (..me). I've gradually grown bigger over the last 3 weeks! I used to brag all the time about not really feeling preg... But now I can't ignore this belly. I can now feel the baby move inside me :) At first it just happened a couple times here and there but now I can feel little nudges all throughout the day and even more at night. I know why pregos are constantly touching their belly's now... since I've been getting these awful growing pains it feels good to rub my belly and it also reminds myself that there is a little baby in there that will make this process all worth it. I'm constantly putting on lotions cause my skin itches like crazy. Minus the growing pains I'm feeling great... I'm sleeping way better (thanks to my maternity poppy pillow... worth the $, trust me) and I have my appetite back! Second trimester is treating me way better, I'm loving having more energy :)

custard on a cold night

{just for fun}

why I lOVE my husband....reason #1 (out of many) he makes the most of the limited time we have together. Since we got snowed in friday night and he was on call the rest of the weekend he decided not to study tonight so we could run errands and grab dinner together. He is so spontaneous and takes full advantage of spending quality time with me. He has had to deal with my lack of motivation these days so I was happy to be feeling well enough to get off the couch and brace the cold. I got new nail polish at brookfield sq, we walked the mail, browsed barnes & noble, bought some groceries at a speciality market (he wanted to find me salt & vinegar chips... no luck), got dinner and my new 3rd fav flavor- red raspberry custard at Kopps. Don't worry I was still in bed by 9:30. Made my, usually boring, monday night :)

{sunday quote}

canvas photos

{DYI Day}

Since our hubs were on call over the weekend Jess and I  were finally able to do one of the many crafts we found on pinterest. We had a fun afternoon running around to different craft stores, grabing lunch, watching hgtv, listening to music, and catching up.

Jessica's artwork turned out so cute!

Here is the link:
http://hamblyscreenprints.typepad.com/screen_prints_blog/2009/09/new-stuff-a-tutorial.html

I printed pics onto tissue paper



I put a layer of mod podge on the canvas and carefully placed the tissue paper down. I waited an hour or so and then put a couple more layers of mod podge over the tissue paper and the sides. Patience is the key with this craft..



I made two 8x10 canvas wrapped photos for only $6!! I'm excited to start my next project this week... I'm going to make a coffee filter lantern for the nursery, wish me luck.



Here is the link that I used via pinterest

http://sarahsprojects.blogspot.com/2010/02/wall-art-for-siennas-room.html

I need a new hairstyle

{I miss short hair}

Now that its winter and my long hair is dry and flat and ug I am at that restless stage where I just want to chop it short. I go through this every year. Its been hard living away from my personal hairstylist (miss you mom!) cause it was so easy to say "hey cut off a couple inches" throughout the year. But since I've been out in wisco I haven't had the luxery of getting my hair done often so it ends up being same-old... and the longest I've ever had it. I love long hair.. I think I feel less vulernable with the length. Its fun to braid. Its easy to pull up. Its cute when I blow dry it out with a round brush. But I'm bored and sick of it getting tangled in the back with all my winter layers.  Plus lets be honest... I never really do it- I just dry it straight and it hangs there.. but thats the beauty of the length.

They say to not do anything drastic with your hair while your pregs... I guess you might regret it or the color could not turn out the same. Everyone thats known me for years says I look great with shorter hair but some friends out here say they love longer hair on me. Of course the hubs loves longer hair. I think I'm at the point where I need to stop talking about it and just do it... or not. What do you think? 

love. too short?

love the bangs.

cute bob. love the blonde 



reiki

{Have you heard of Reiki before? Yeah I hadn't either... }

I meet Ali through our Rewards & Recognition committee and we have become close work friends. She is a Reiki master and is always telling me about the benefits of holistic healing. I've always been a strong believer in positive thinking and found her approach to having a mind/body connection very interesting. Being pregnant I've really gotten into yoga and meditation. Every night I stretch and try to feel in tune with my body's needs. I have also been thinking a lot about my friend Danielle and her frustrating adoption process. Since she has done acupuncture before I thought she would be interested in Reiki as a form of relaxing and distressing. After a little research we made a date out of it and loved trying something new!

Reiki= a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.

We learned that our bodies have 7 Chakras or "energy centers" that each represent different areas in our life. When Ali held a pendulum over these different areas apparently its supposed to show if its out of balance or something and what areas she needed to focus on. Very new aged thinking. I strongly believe that our minds are way powerful and can heal our bodies so it was interesting to me.

We both had a very relaxing experience. If anything it was a good half hour for me to forgot about the outside world, take some deep breaths, and focus on me. I actually read an article that says it can make you feel connected to your baby... I didn't feel any connections but I did feel at peace. Ali said there was a lot of love surrounding me :) She could feel angels at my feet helping me with my balance. She also said that the whole time she got the impression that it was a BOY... we'll see if the Reiki master was right soon! Overall it was fun to experience something new... if I ever felt way stressed or had super bad anxiety I would do it again.

if any of my wisco friends are interested here is her website
healinghands-reiki.abmp.com/home

missionary discussions with coworker {update}

remember my blessing in disguise post? Here is an update!

Given our busy schedules its been difficult for Lisa and I to meet outside of work and have more discussion with the missionaries. We've stayed in contact through email and gone to lunch occasionally. Its fun to catch up with her but over time I stopped asking her religious questions..unless I needed to clear up another Mormon rumor. The Elders never contacted me to meet with her again, even after I took her to church. But we got new Sister missionaries and they are great!!! Every week they would text me and see if they could meet up with Lisa.

Finally after the holidays I was able to have them over for dinner tonight and we had a great discussion over pizza :) (I rarely have the car cause of Scotts rotation so I had to order pizza.. whatev they loved it) Lisa come prepared with her insightful questions and brought the Gospel Principles book that I gave her at church. She said she had read it cover to cover and loved it! Everything made sense to her. She loved how everything was explained in a way that didn't "beat around the bush." It was simple and beautiful to her. Her main question for the missionaries was about our concept on the war in heaven and how the Savior became the Savior. We also talked about Joseph Smith and how he got the plates. She had questions about the "dark skinned" and we clarified that it was the Native Americans. I bore my testimony on the fact that being L.D.S isn't just my religion but that its my life. I explained more about callings and everyones role in the organization of our church and she loved our definition of the term "active."

Even though Scotty and I sacrificed our Friday night date night it was worth the spirit that we felt in our apartment tonight. I was scared she might be too much for our new sister missionaries but everyone got along great.  I love discussing the gospel with those who respect our views. Even though I don't think Lisa will be converted anytime soon its been fun to plant a little seed. Who knows who she is going to meet through her life that will have a misconception on Mormons.. and now she can set all of the straight!! I feel blessed to be that example in her life and look forward to more open discussions in the near future.