Consider this now a baby blog

Because our little one is already a star....

I have been having some MAJOR lower abdominal pains, especially at night. So, we scheduled an ultrasound yesterday to check for cysts and make surer baby is doing alright.

Good news... The baby is amazing and healthy, and there is only one in there! It is quite the little mover. The technician said she would be surprised if I don't start feeling its movements soon, because it moves so much. Also, no cysts on the ovaries! Thank goodness.

Bad news.... We still don't know where the pain in coming from. We are thinking either my crazy bowels again or extreme round ligament pain. We will keep you informed. Also, no for sure on the gender.... Sorry. Also, we have a video of the whole ultrasound, and I cut out a little 2 min blip to post, but the iPad won't let me upload it here. If you want to see it, email me.

Hope you enjoy a few of our favorite ultrasound pictures of the new family member. I took out the pictures that showed between the legs.... Can't have you making your own guesses! Nor am I going to tell you what we think, we will keep the suspense til an ultrasound technician can say for sure.

Goodbye pink walls

take all your patch jobs with you.

you would look cute as an accent wall in a little girl's room.


but covering a large basement front room?



now that's just over stepping your boundaries.

The brighter side

I'm sick of being sick. Today is like the perfect storm of every pregnancy symptom herefore experienced, but all at once. I would classify it as a very bad day.

Water makes me puke, but somehow pancakes do not. Strange? Everything is strange right now.

My house is nowhere where I want it to be and still needs a lot of work and organization. It doesn't help that I am a walking (more like sitting or laying) pregnant zombie half my days.

I am starting to really miss our families....and the mountains....and the snow.

Mark is leaving me in Kansas... Alone in kansas.... for a week long training.

I still hate the smell of our kitchen.

The brighter side? The lovely brighter side? The continual tender mercies of the Lord side?

- The gospel is true and we can feel the Lords constant guidance.

- We heard our beautiful baby's heart beat yesterday. What a miracle life is. It's unbelievable.

- Mark has a wonderful job making enough that I don't have to jump right into work to further sustain us. I can endure 1st trimester from the comfort of my home.

- We have a couch downstairs... And it will soon be a comfy hangout pad without pink walls.

- The ward here is amazing and are super nice and super welcoming.

- Mark gets to play with tractors and people really like him there.

- I at least have some good days and can eat most food most days.

- There may be no mountains but this place has beautiful sunsets and sunrises everyday.

- There are 50 different churches in Newton. Everyone is so openly religious and loving and don't care if you go to a different church. It is so fun.

- We found an amazing midwife who will see us until we get insurance and will be our support through the whole thing! She also works with an incredible doctor who we will also be seeing.

- Mark met an elementary principle who says she will be looking for my name and can't wait to get me in to substitute.

- BBQ is better, and cheaper, in Kansas.....yummy!

I want to look more toward the brighter side, the happier side. Happier even when it seems like days are being masked by the seemingly bad.

I love that all good comes from our Heavenly Father. Start counting all the good and then you realize how loved you really are. It throws me into a more eternal perspective. I wish I could just constantly have that perspective. Wouldn't life just make so much more sense? Wouldn't our trials seem so manageable and seemingly easy?

Have you ever met someone like that? I have. Am I one of those people? Absolutely not.

Still....I am going to more often strive for that happy, eternal state of mind. I'm going to start by stepping into the brighter side.

A couch tale

11:30 AM January 14, 2012
Mark and Cassie enter a sketchy furniture store on Broadway street in Wichita. (Why is it that Broadway is always the sketchy part of any city?) The store is dim lit, all windows covered, but actually looks pretty nice inside. Mark and Cassie walk around their LARGE assortment of cheap furniture (much of it marked down further because of little scratches or tears.)

12:00 - Cassie falls in love with one of the most expensive pieces there. A nice brown sectional with a reverse-able chaise!

12:15 - Mark is finally convinced. The furniture looks nice and comfortable and was the exact colors they wanted. It will last a long time and will look great in a front room when a larger set is needed for the family.

12:30 - The couch is loaded into the truck by two jolly drunk men who proceed to tell us what a ?@#&*# deal we got and how their boss must be @#%$@!*$# crazy to put the price low and how they were @#$*@$%#^@ going to come to our house to hang out with our bad %#$^@$ sofa. (I don't think I used the symbols right, you get the jist.) They then proceeded to walk to the back for their weed (actual word used) break. Mark and Cassie "Let's just get out of this place, then we will feel better about life."

12:45 - Mark and Cassie leave with their nice new sectional.

1:30 - The beautiful chaise is downstairs and looks amazing! Main sofa is in the door and plans are being made to fit it downstairs.

1:35 - First attempt to fit the couch downstairs...fail. Wall and pleather is slightly scratched, slight frustration is being shown.

1:45 - Second attempt to fit couch turned a different way. More scratches, more dents, more frustration and realization that furniture has never existed downstairs because there is no way to get it in. Hormonal pregnant women runs upstairs in tears. She really wanted the couch downstairs. Logical Mark weighs the options....wants to make wife happy.

2:30 - Decision is made to take only option of getting it downstairs, take the $600 piece of junk apart.

3:00 - Thousands of staples are all pulled and the couch inside is exposed....deliria begins to set in. Everything is funny now, even as they realize how cheap the furniture really is.... Hammer is now taken to the inside supports. Mark and Cassie are amazed at how many large staples were used in the process.
3:15 - The main bottom beam is taken out and the possibility of wiggling the couch around the door frame and down the stairs seems possible and exciting.

3:30 - The couch is completely stuck in the door frame and Mark and Cassie are separated, possibly forever, by a couch.



3:35 - Mark crawls under the couch onto the landing and he and Cassie proceed to push the couch out with all their might. The couch makes one huge budge but now both Mark and Cassie are stuck behind the couch. Mark finds a very small opening below the couch and proceeds to wiggle out while Cassie laughs at the predicament.

3:45 - Couch is finally back upstairs, wall looks unrecognizable, door frame is completely marred, but Mark and Cassie are reunited. Much rejoicing, hugging, and kissing takes place.

4:00 - Pregnant woman will not give up, Mark too has become completely dedicated and couch is taken apart even further.





5:00 - Couch finally, with a few more wall dents, makes its turn and is carried down the stairs. Yeehaw!!! Mark proceeds to put the couch back together and Cassie uses a dremel to cut off every freakin staple on the pieces of wood.

8:00 - Couch is finally reassembled, with less parts and less staples. It is flipped over, cursed at, and left for the night.

January 16, 2012
Mark and Cassie now feel very thankful to have a couch downstairs and are less mad at it. It looks quite nice actually, just ignore the pink walls. It may never make its way out of the house, but at least they can enjoy DOWNSTAIRS for at least the next 11 months.


With dented walls and doors frames and scratched furniture, we are still trying to pinpoint the lesson that we were supposed to learn. Maybe its to always ask the landlord if furniture fits downstairs, or that couches don't come apart very easy, or realizing that you will be stuck in the basement forever can be really frightening, or always measure the door frame BEFORE you go shopping for furniture, or don't buy from shady places with dim lighting..... well, we learned it all and have the scars to prove it.

This is what no homework looks like

It is so nice to just spend the night together....


Also, the sky out here is amazing.


There are lots of parks here! I can't wait until it gets a little warmer and greener....we will definitely be spending time at the parks.

How we told everyone

We considered telling the Glades at Ken and Kim's Christmas party with the family, then Kim's son announced their second pregnancy. That stopped that idea real quick. We didn't want to steal any thunder here. We decided that night that it was still really early on and that his family wouldn't be upset with a phone call later.... they are chill like that, and they already have 8 little grandchillins running around.

The question now was my family. We wanted to tell them in person, being the first grandchild and all, but would they keep a secret until we were a little farther along? We decided to go for it and see what happened. So here is how we did it. We were making a Christmas video for my missionary brother Justin in California. (I let him know of all this before hand.) We got my whole family together and just let them talk to him for like 15 minutes and then Mark announces the good news. Its kinda fun to see their reactions. Here is a short clip of the joyous occasion.




Well....obviously they were excited and wanted to tell the world as soon as possible. So we took almost all of Christmas calling Mark's family and texting people so that my sisters and mom could post their excitement. It ended up working out really really well and we had a ton of fun telling people.

For facebook and text messages we gave this picture and said "Cassie passed all her tests this semester. Merry Christmas."

We ended up doing 4 tests, but here is three.....because I know you all love seeing a good pregnancy test.

Ok, no more pregnancy posts for a good while.....

Pregnancy Questions? Answered

I am going to lay out this post in a question and answer format because people love to ask lots of questions when they find out someone is pregnant.


Were we trying to get pregnant?
Oh yes and man did it happen quick. There was lots of prayers and fasting and our answers came with "knock you over" strength!

When did we find out we were pregnant?
Aunt Martha comes pretty regularly in this home. Once I had missed by three days, I knew it was time to take a test. I took 4 over the next 2 days and all were unmistakeably positive.

How did we tell everyone?
Next post. Will be done today. Watch for it.

Do I feel sick?
Yes. Very lightheaded and some days very nauseous. For a couple weeks I only felt really sick when I was hungry, and I was hungry almost constantly. I would wake up 2 or 3 times in the night needing a snack. Luckily that is mostly gone away and I am left with my fair share of nausea and that joyous lightheaded feeling. Still, I feel my best between having felt sick from eating, and being sick because I am hungry.
Eating food = sick _________small window of feel good opportunity________ sick because want of food.

Do I crave anything?
Not that I have noticed. I just have LOTS of food adversions. I shop the grocery store in a completely different way now.... I walk down the isles, and when I see something I could stomach, I put it in the cart. Mark says feeding a pregnant woman is expensive. I do not argue.

How's my sense of smell?
I cannot stand the smell of my kitchen, its a terribly painful subject. I hate being able to smell everything within a 20 mile radius. Its quite incredible, really.

What other symptoms have I noticed?
Terrible low back pain - especially when I sleep. My sister in laws say its time to get a body pillow, so I shall.
Frequent urination - no further comment.....inevitable.
Very tender tender, almost painful breasts - I know you have two other questions in your mind.... yes I need a new bra, yes he loves them.
My stomach is so hard - This is so cool. This makes up for all the difficult pregnancy symptoms. I love to wake up and before I eat, just explore my new belly and dream of the little guy inside.

Have we met with a doctor yet?
I have gone into a health center to get the pregnancy confirmed but that's it. Since our insurance doesn't start til March, we needed it confirmed so that we could make a payment plan so that we could make an appointment. We are already finding out how fun it is to be caught in the medical system, insurance system, financial assistance system mumbo jumbo. Another painful subject. So! until we get it all worked out, I am meeting with a midwife. We might just stick with the midwife for the whole thing instead, since we will probably be paying for most of the baby with cash anyway. Also, I really want to do a waterbirth. We are still tossing lots of ideas around and will continue to fight our way out of the medical rat race and will come up with a more for sure plan later. As of now, I have an appointment with a very highly esteemed midwife on January 19th. She may be the only person that will be there to answer all our questions and walk us through this crazy process and help us get what we want.

When am I due?
August 8th. I'm only 10 weeks along and still in the crucial stage, so keep us in your prayers. :)

Do we want a boy or a girl?
Well, we really would love either. But if I had to absolutely choose, I would say girl. I think its because Mark has always been so sure that we will have a girl first. But, they're both favorites.

Are we excited?
WE ARE SO EXCITED!! We both love kids and were super excited to have our own. I think Mark is more excited than I am, if that is possible.

Are we scared?
Terrified.

Any more questions? I hope I answered all yours and then some. :)

P.S. I will do a blog post about our home after we get it set up. Unpacking everything is going really slow for this sick woman. Also, we found roaches in our stove behind the circuit board, and we have been trying to rid of the kitchen smell (or train my nose to like it). That has really slowed progress down.

P.P.S You may also be wondering about Mark's new job! Who better to hear it from than him! Give me a couple days of persuasion, I will get him on here.

Oh dear.... It's real

So excited.... So nervous

Yay!

My favorite pregnancy snack

Since I am hungry ALL THE TIME.... Little snacks like this have become very important. I feel as if I have a little parasite eating all the food I put inside me.... And it's name is baby glade. This is my most frustrating pregnancy symptom right now. I am so sick of being hungry and waking up starving in the middle of the night, so this fun little snack will continue to stay on my night table.

We have arrived

In Kansas my friends. Who would have thought we would end up here? I sure didn't. Once upon a time, about 2 months ago, we printed out a map of the United States and proceeded to mark the places we wouldn't mind living. 2 colors were used in this process, green for the places we would like to live, and red for the areas we definitely wanted to avoid. Kansas was definitely red. But, life tends to be quite the jokester, and here I sit......writing this blog in Kansas.

This place has its own pretty though. It was quite mesmerizing driving through the endless flat farmlands. And, it's so fun to see and hear all the trains!

We drove through a tiny little beat up town called Glade, KS! Meant to be? I think yes.

We have amazing ward members here. They showed up with dinner and strong helping hands on Thursday when we got here. We had everything in the house in 45 min! We are feeling very blessed to already know such wonderful people here.

Our house is great! It's a 3 level condo with two bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a nice big hot pink basement. It definitely was not clean when we walked in but now that we have cleaned the carpets and wiped everything down, I think we are really really going to like it. Our landlord also told us we could paint, so that hot pink downstairs......ya...that will be gone. Who paints a huge basement completely hot pink? Some teenage girl with complete reign of the basement, thats who.

It's almost short sleeve weather here. its a warm winter they say, I'm ok with that.

Well, we are here, we are exhausted, but we are happy and excited for this adventure.

Kansas or bust

Ok....I am going to try blogging again. I figure if we are going to be more than 16 hours away from family and friends, I should do a better job in keeping them updated online.

Also, you notice we changed our blog address again.....I am so indecisive.

I am totally graduated and man does it feel good! When my peers and I were asked how we were to celebrate it was a unanimous answer.... Sleep. Well I slept for 2 days and now I am ready to party it up... But Mark has one more final to study for. But.... Tomorrow at 1:30, we shall party. Hooray for getting bachelors degrees!

IPads are AMAZING... Words just can't express the joy at my finger tips.

Packing is fun when you have a week and a half to do nothing but it. I like getting rid of stuff. It will be nice to be settled for a little while though.... We found a nice 3 level apartment in Kansas for only $25 more than what we are paying for our moldy basement now! And it has....drumroll....a dishwasher!! Aww......dishwashers are nice.

Congratulations to Mark

Mark was awarded the outstanding undergraduate teaching assistant award yesterday from the Mechanical Engineering Department! He is such an incredible T.A and there is always someone asking him for help. It's nice to see his hard work acknowledged.

Cute free collage from Walgreens

Yay for free stuff!

USU Love

Fact # 5 This campus is so pretty. We love it. I especially love the fall. There are so many trees all over Logan and it makes it so pretty.





Beautiful eh?


I have not been able to be on campus a lot this semester. Its been a little depressing. Especially since I have missed all the "Zombie vs. Humans" action. About 700 people on campus are immersed in this game. It all started with one zombie (who wears a band on their head) who has to "feed" on any of the other 699 players within 48 hrs or they die. They feed by touching a human, who has a band around their arm. The humans have nerf guns and have to shoot the zombies before they get "eaten." Once a zombie is hit, they place their band around their neck and they can't "feed" for 15 min. Once a human gets touched, they become a zombie, register on facebook as a zombie!!, and place their band around their head. It's pretty awesome and insane. The game is only played on campus. Mark has seen some pretty good battles, I'm a little jealous. Sometimes its not so fun to be so busy.

Still... happy pretty Logan. Can't wait for the snow.

Happy Halloween

One of the traditions in Logan is this pumpkin walk. Basically people spend hours designing sets using lots of pumpkins. It's getting insane, the sets are getting more incredible each year. Here are a couple of our favs.

Pictures are taken with my Ipod, sorry

There were a couple that were so big that I could not get a picture of them that would suffice. Pretty awesome.

Also, my cute little PAL went with us. We love Aubrey

Fact #4 - I love love love Cinderella. Always have, always will

Halloween has been a blast this year. We drove down to Salt Lake for yet another Manor Massacre film which was incredible! Go Thorups and friends!
We celebrated a lot of our Halloween at the elementary school at which I do my practicum. We helped with the first grade party and were in the Halloween parade with the rest of the school. It was great fun! The whole school then proceeded to dance to Thriller. It was epic. I will try to get it up here. Its too cute.
We dressed up as a cowboy and an Indian. I know....real original. Someday we will have time to make cool costumes....

Successful Halloween

My Knight in Shining Armor

Mark Age 6 ish

I read a saying recently "Sometimes your knight in shining armor is just a nerd in tin foil."
It made me think of this picture. I love it.

Mark is my prince, my knight and shining armor. He is perfect, perfect for me!

The profession I chose

I love teaching...

This semester has been a great one so far. I just finishing my first block of practicum in a 5th grade class. Who knew I would love 5th grade so much! I was dead set on 1st or 2nd grade, or maybe work as some sort of specialist in a school, but those little adorables are making me double think.

I'm awesome...

I have a picture of the whole class as well, all 30 of them, but cannot post it on the internet.

Next week I will start my second 5 week block in a 1st grade classroom. Maybe I'll love it more, maybe I'll love it less, maybe I just like being around kids in general. Their hilarious, witty, creative, active, kind, forgiving, adorable, etc. Everything we all hope to be, they are.

Some say teaching is the hardest job in the world, but yet the most rewarding and most important - I believe them, it's an important hat to wear, but it's worth it.

This semester I am doing my level II in Elementary Education. This means that I enter the classroom for a full days work 3 days a week. I do anything the teacher needs. I have gotten some good one-on-one and group teaching experiences, as well as a better feel for how the classroom runs.

Being in the classroom has also revived my love of reading (Who has time to read what they want anymore!) I got a glimpse of a couple good 5th grade books and decided to start my own classroom/home collection of children books. We went to a book sale and got all of these for $20!! Mark got some he wanted as well. I got almost 50 picture books, 15 chapter books, a children's dictionary, a "almost perfect" Disney storybook, etc. Needless to say, it was a blast for both of us.

Come Christmas time, it will mean that we are one year away from graduating, Mark with his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and me with my Bachelors in Elementary Education with an emphasis in ASL. Sounds pretty cool, and those titles will sure look good on beautiful embossed USU card stock paper. What a Christmas present that will be!

After that? maybe a 4 month trip to China and surrounding areas to teach English...
After that? Well....that's as far as we have gotten

Oh life

Life...
I feel like it's running us over, leaving us behind in it's tracks...

There's class (enough credits to keep us busy themselves), homework (lots is an understatement), work (paid and unpaid), laundry to be done, ASME meetings and socials (not to mention all the work he does behind the scenes as a secretary), a house to clean (yikes!), PALS activities and trainings (and LOTS of busy work), DESA money handling and fridge stocking, lab grading (not his favorite thing), groceries to be bought (note: we have starved due to lack of time), appointments to meet, blogs to be written..... does it ever end?


Lucky for us we have gospel scriptures, talks, hymns, magazines, etc right at the tip of our fingers! (Our scripture app on our iTouch have made this even more remarkable.)

Lucky for us we get to slow down this weekend and listen to Him speak through our beloved prophets, seers, and revelators.

Lucky for us there is someone who won't leave us behind, someone who will pick us up when this craziness we call life knocks us down and tramples us under it's feet. That person is our Savior Jesus Christ.

Blessed are we to be a part of this wonderful good news gospel!

I have felt very close to my Savior lately. Thanks to some wonderful experiences, institute classes, and questions so tenderly answered. This is a gospel of happiness and joy, we know that for a fact.

That fact keeps us going in such a crazy awesome world! That fact keeps us loving every little bit of it.

Glade Reunion

The things we do for great pictures :)

The weekend was full of laughter, beautiful nieces and nephews, games by candlelight, smiling faces, gorgeous views, yummy food, "You don't have to come and confess, we gonna find you"s, golfing, pirate ships, enjoyable walks, and mustaches.

Thanks Glade family for a wonderful weekend!

Sorta life changing

I have been going to the chiropractor the last couple weeks because of some back problems that I have basically had my whole life. The past couple years my neck and shoulders have been getting progressively worse. After an X-ray, I saw my scoliosis and my uneven hips (which I knew I had) and I found out I have no curve in my neck like I guess I am supposed to and I have some twist in my spine.
So.... after several adjustments and using ice instead of heat (a great discovery) I am feeling pretty great. Some of my problems cannot be fully taken care of, like the scoliosis, but I already have SO much more movement in my spine.
Though my spine felt so much better, I was still getting crazy bad headaches and they were getting worse, especially the weekend before my Monday visit. So Monday I brought it up to the Chiropractor and he did some energy tests. He explained that I had some inflammation in my skull and that it was usually due to a food allergy. So he asked what I craved, because when looking for an allergy it is usually something you crave. Easy for me......hearty foods....breads. After grabbing some wheat and testing the wheat while I held it he confirmed that I do in fact have a gluten sensitivity.
Can he be totally sure? After studying it more when I got home I realized that that fact explained a lot, like why I feel sick after I eat. The reason my headaches were getting worse was because we had been eating a lot more whole wheat because its healthier. We have been making our own whole wheat tortillas and bread.
After studying a lot more, and some help from my mother in law, we are changing our diet..... Mark is so amazing to be doing this with me. Since it is a sensitivity, I am going totally off gluten for a while while we try to rebuild my healthy bacteria and intestine walls. Then we will introduce it back in small amounts and see what happens. Small amounts is probably what I will stick with the rest of my life though. :) If my body is ok with it. We are off to a healthier us and I am excited about it! I will let you...my blog...know how it goes!