Kindi 500

So the cutest thing happened at school today. The Kindergarten classes had a "parade"! Each child came to school in a big cardboard box car. These cars weren't just any cars...they were cars the children could actually wear. Some of the dads definitely had a testosterone rush when making these cars (they really tried to out do everyone else). These kids "rode" in the parade around the halls of school everyone in their homemade car while the entire school lined the hallways waving flags and cheering like a REAL parade.

The kindergarten for the past month has been talking about patriotism and learning patriotic songs and learning about the USA! Today was their celebration. It took up the whole morning and was seriously the COOLEST idea ever.

Once again, I wish I had my camera at school (my other school did a Halloween parade and EVERYONE dressed up). The best car here was actually on wheels. It was a GIGANTIC truck that the parents actually had to help steer around the halls. Let me explain...
it wasn't like steered with a steering wheel, just the bed of the truck was on casters and when the boy, who was walking inside, tried to turn the parents had to steer the back so it would go where it was supposed to. CUTE CUTE CUTE!!!!

Here is an example...

EXCITEMENT!!!!

So I just wanted to let everyone know...we have a VERY ACTIVE baby! The doctor couldn't find the heartbeat today so she sent us over to the ultrasound room. LUCKILY the technician was there today. So she found the heartbeat again and well, the reason the doc. couldn't find it is because the baby was moving around too much to hear it!

So the ultrasound technician, to be nice, showed us our baby and even printed out pictures.

So here is the first glimpse into baby RANKIN!!!!



If you can't tell, that big round thing on the left side of the picture is his head.

Also, I am kinda worried because the doctor told us it was a big baby already. I AM SCARED!!!

14 weeks! and "maternity" shirts!

Do any of you have clothes that you absolutely LOVE, but they might not be the most flattering for your figure?

Well I have this shirt that I bought this past summer that I love. It is just a black and white top with an empire waist that is cute with a pair of jeans or with a skirt. I guess it must not look "great" on me because in August I was asked if I was pregnant while wearing it...at this time I DEFINITELY WAS NOT!

I again wore this shirt yesterday because now if people think I am pregnant it doesn't matter, it is for real this time. I guess it really is a shirt I shouldn't wear unless I am really pregnant because 2 ladies at school, who know I am pregnant, told me I was "showing", while wearing this shirt. How am I supossed to take that? I guess I am a little more curvy now, but I still haven't gained any weight! This is just funny to me. I didn't realize one little shirt could make so many people see the "pregnant" side of you. I didn't think it looked like that when I bought it. I just thought it was a cute CHEAP shirt that would hide the extra weight I may have been carrying at the time. Well I have learned my lesson now.

But to move on to other topics. I am 14 weeks now and SOOOO EXCITED about EVERYTHING! I have another dr's appointment today to make sure everything is going great. It should all be good news. I am feeling a little better and I can tell I am starting to get some energy back. So YAY for 2nd trimesters!

Once I start REALLY "showing" I will have to put some cute pictures of me up here. Until then...you will just have to stand on edge waiting to see the pregnant side of ME!

A Sunday to Remember

*WARNING*
This is a long post that may make you laugh just a little

So Easter, I understand is supposed to be a GREAT Sunday where the speakers are wonderful, you really feel great at Church and then you have wonderful family time after church. That isn't QUITE how mine went. I will admit, some of this has to do with my heightened senses of pregnancy.

To continue...Adam and I get to church and have to sit in the awful metal chairs in the gym (our chapel is small and if you get there even a second late, all the pews are taken). Well the first speaker gets up and does a fine job. She talked about the "real" meaning of Easter, besides the Easter Bunny.

Then something HORRIBLE happens. One of the 5 babies sitting around us RUINED their diaper. Well, I smell it immediately and then Adam gets this look of disgust on his face, along with my friend Cassie, who is pregnant and was sitting with us as well. We all just think, ok the parents have to smell it and do something about it...but NO ONE MOVES!!! So as Cassie and I are smelling our hands to keep from being sick, we see 2 parents actually pick their children up to take a long, hard whiff of their child, but NO, not those children.

I just couldn't handle the smell anymore so I climb over Adam and Cassie to get out of our row and run for the door. I was really going to be sick. I go straight outside the building just to get some fresh air to calm my stomach down. Yes, it really smelled that bad. I then come back inside and sit in the foyer area and finish listening to the talk.

So then I go back and sit with Adam and Cassie to finish the meeting. The diaper was still at its best. I then decide to look in my bag and see if I had any lotion. I remembered some being in their a while ago. SCORE!!! I had cucumber melon lotion! So I get this out and slather it all over my hands and then give some to Cassie so we can both survive. Adam suggests that we rub it under our noses. WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!! So Cassie and I both begin rubbing it under our noses so that we really can survive.

Don't worry. We didn't do this so everyone knew what we were doing. We were very discrete about the whole thing.

So the meeting ends and then it is on to Primary.

We teach the 5 year olds and that can be SUCH A CHALLENGE!!! Adam taught the lesson and was so sad it wasn't even about Easter! But we went to sharing/singing time first and that was a disaster! Our kids wouldn't do anything we asked. THEN OFF TO CLASS!

Just to share something one kid was doing...when the primary was quiet and listening he kept "meowing" songs. YES YOU READ CORRECTLY! He would take different primary songs and instead of singing or humming the song he was MEOWING! But don't worry, Adam had to take care of him the entire time. I told him it was good training!

Talk about sugar highs! These kids had, I guess, ALL gotten and eaten their ENTIRE EASTER BASKET before they left their house that morning. We basically didn't get to even teach them anything because they wouldn't listen for even .1 seconds.

But that was our Sunday. Luckily we had a good evening. We went to dinner with some of Adam's family and my cousin. We had lots of fun and the kids even did a little Easter egg hunt after dinner. It was great being with everyone.

Doesn't that just make you tired! I was pooped by the end of the day!

A quick thought and question

So I have a quick story and then I want your opinions.

Yesterday I went to work and picked up one of my little kiddos from Kindergarten to do his speech time. We were talking in the hallway...this is our conversation...
(his name will be changed to T.V. for his protection...

Me: T.V. how are you doing today?
TV: Mrs. Rankin I don't feel good today.
Me: Oh what's wrong?
TV: I throwed up this morning a lot and my mommy made me come to school.
Me: This morning?
TV: Yeah as soon as I woked up.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! What about all the other kids in the class. The only thing I can think is if she really just had to go to work and had no other choice but to bring him to school. What was she thinking?

Have any of you (with children) ever done this? What do you soon to be mothers think? Even if you really just couldn't find any where else for your child to go? Just curious if I am just overly concerned about this. Let me know your thoughts.

TAGGED

I have been tagged so here goes...

*10 years ago:

I was in 7th grade! Wow that seems like forever ago. I was at Frink Middle School and was a cheerleader! YAY! I was also taking a couple dance classes and I really don't remember much else. Oh, I was 12 so that means I was a BEEHIVE in Young Women's! For all who understand that...you know how exciting it can be!

*5 Things on my list to do today:

Finish all of my work at school and at the apartment complex

Lay down (11 hours of sleep a night is just not enough to get a woman through the day HAHA!)

Eat Food (this mean spaghetti of course...maybe I will expand my horizons today...NAAAA)

Watch and see who gets voted off American Idol. I really hope it is Amanda! She sounds like she has been smoking for 50 years and she is only 23...someone please explain this to me. And the skunk streaks in the hair...EWWWWWWW!

Spend some time with my great husband who I absolutely NEVER see unless we are switching the car or we are taking each other to work or school. FUN HUH!

*Things I would do if I was suddenly a billionaire:

Buy a Jeep Grand Cherokee ( that is the car Adam and I are looking at right now)

Buy a Cabin for Adam in the Mountains whereever he wants it!

Buy a house in NC for me! My heart will always belong to NC!

Replace my entire wardrobe!

Buy millions of shoes, purses, and TONS OF JEWELRY!! I have decided these are the things to love, because no matter how much weight you gain...you can always be in style with a great pair of shoes, an amazing handbag and fun jewelry. It doesn't even have to be that expensive....just lots of choices.

Buy all the camera equipment Adam wants to continue his VERY expensive hobby!

Ok this could go on and on all day. I could buy stuff for EVERYONE!

*3 Bad Habits:

Not being able to sit still, PERIOD! (this drives Adam crazy!)

Being so emotional and wearing my heart on my sleeve! I cry about everything. I blame Mom and Nana for this one! All three of us do this very well! It is fine until you are trying to be very firm about something and then just want to completely blow up, or cry, or whatever. (Not a good thing when you are managing apartments with stupid tenants)

I like to procrastinate...enough said!

*Places I have lived:

K-Town, NC and Provo, UT. I absolutely love K-Town and am so sick of Provo I can hardly stand it anymore!!!!! Get me out of this place!

*Jobs I have had:

Does this include like high school jobs? if so here it goes...

Mowed my Grandpa's yard a few summers.
Kinston Indians food vendor, gift shop worker, etc.
Receptionist at my dad's office for many, many summers.
Applebee's Waitress in K-Town.
Security officer at the BYU library...yeah I was TOUGH!
Carpet cleaner at BYU for only a few weeks.
Aspen Grove Family Camp in the Mountains in Provo...I took care of the 0-2 year olds all summer!
Apartment Manager (currently)
Speech Technician at 2 different elementary school...if you don't know what this is, basically just think of me as a Speech Therapist without my Masters Degree. (currently)

I am sure there are more that I am missing.
You can just call me a Jack of all trades!

*Things most people don't know about me:

This is a hard one.
I love Christmas Music and would listen to it all year round if people wouldn't make fun of me.
I absolutely love American Idol and have watched it every year.
I used to absolutely LOVE ice cream (it is sad I don't like it as much anymore...maybe in a few more months...we will see).

I really don't know...I tell people everything about my life.

Ok...I'm now tagging Cassie, Alison, Katie, Michelle, Lyla, Jaz, Rebecca, and anyone else who reads this...consider your name up here!

VERY PRODUCTIVE

So, yesterday I actually started feeling a little better after Church and I wanted to be somewhat productive. I was excited because of what I got done. Yes, I understand I am not supposed to work or do chores on Sunday, but that is not what I am getting at...just keep reading.

I thought it would be a great idea to prepare meals for the week. So i begin by making a lasagna for dinner. By MAKING I actually mean getting a Stoffer's lasagna out of the freezer popping it into the oven for a little while and then putting extra moz. cheese on it to make it delicious. But that is beside the point. I was cooking the lasagna and then began boiling chicken to make chicken salad. But that wasn't enough. After the chicken was boiled I got out 1/2 dozen eggs and boiled those as well. Yes, I know...this is more than I have done in like the past month. So I made egg salad, and took out the lasagna for dinner.

Then Adam and I ate dinner/lunch as we played Halo 3 with Cameron and Tyler (my little brothers) and Samuel my SUDO little brother. You might think this is so uncool, but I love HALO! I think it is a lot of fun. I am not very good, but I got started with Adam when we were dating and played Halo 2 every so often. I don't know what it is, but it is really fun to me.

Well after numerous games, we decided it was time to get off. We then together cut up the boiled chicken from earlier. I tried to cut it up earlier, but I was getting really tired and dizzy, so I put it in the fridge for Adam to do later. Well we made the chicken salad together. It was fun taste testing as we went along since there really aren't exact measurements in my mom's recipe. But we finished that and were proud of ourselves. Now we have food for like the whole week!!! YAY FOR ME!

So that was my productive Sunday Afternoon!

Very Cheap Grocery Bill

Well, I have decided how to keep our grocery bill low this month, and I wanted to share it with all of you. I have decided the only things that taste really good are mashed potatoes and spaghetti noodles with butter on them. How cheap is that! And the potatoes are FREE!

We have hook-ups. Our really good friend who lives near St. George, UT runs a potato cellar thingy. So we went down to visit him 2 weekends ago and he gave us a 25 pound box of big baking potatoes. THEY ARE SO GOOD!

Adam has been bugging me to make a huge pot of mashed potatoes "whenever I felt up to it" (yes he is very understanding of my not feeling so good). So last night I made a GIGANTIC pot of potatoes. I will be eating these things for days. I just absolutely love homemade mashed potaotes. And these remind me of how Grandma used to make them. They still have chunks of potatoes in them, which I LOVE!

So I just thought I would share with all of you that if you don't want to spend a lot of money on groceries, just stick with spaghetti noodles (the sauce is just too expensive haha) and mashed potatoes! This will get the job done.

All I know is that my poor husband is probably suffereing though because he is a CARNIVOR! If any of you feel bad for him you can send him some BBQ from J&L, Bojangles cajun filets and country ham biscuits. These are all favorite NC foods of his! hehe

A Little Racing Heart

I had been so excited for February 27. This was the day of my first "real" doctors appointment. I was 10 weeks along and the doctor told me she would be listening for the baby's heartbeat. Well, Adam came with me and we were both so excited. The doctor tried and tried but we just couldn't find a heartbeat. The doc told me not to worry because it was still a little early to hear the heartbeat. Even though I heard those words, worry still was sneaking in. What if something was wrong?
She told me to come back in 2 weeks and at that point if we didn't hear a heartbeat we would do an ultrasound to make sure things are ok. Well, Adam and I went to the doctor yesterday and lo and behold we heard the most amazing sound EVER!!!!! It was a little racing heart! I couldn't believe my ears. At that point I looked at Adam and said "See there really is a baby in there." He continued to joke that I was making the whole thing up just so I could pretend to be sick and so he would take care of me!
So this is our first really cool experience being a part of a developing baby! I can't wait for everything else that is in store.
And yes, I am still nauseous. I just hope it ends SOON!!!!!!!!!

Confession Time

Ok it really is time to confess.

My first confession is that my IQ really is higher than 80. After reading some of my lastest blogs, you may not think so, but I promise.

My second confession if you haven't caught on by now I was trying to see how long it would take everyone to figure out my little secret. You know all those fruit blogs....that was how big "a certain something" was. The latest blog with all my symptoms...well I was hoping most people would just figure out that was my way of (as my sister-in-law Michelle explains it) "coming out of the pregnancy closet". Yes, I didn't just think I was sick with all these weird things...I am now almost 12 weeks pregnant! I will begin my 12th week on Monday! Yay for little babies!!!!!! My due date is the 22nd of September and I can't wait.

Wow that feels good to get it off my chest. I have been dying to tell everyone, but I decided I would wait until now. So now we all can speak openly of this wonderful experience, and Mom you don't have to keep your mouth shut anymore. Sorry to have made you wait this long...I know how much better it feels to tell everyone!

My world is UPSIDE DOWN!

Have you ever felt like everything you have ever known has been turned upside down. Let me explain...

1. You lose weight, but your clothes continue to get tighter.
2. Everything you used to eat and love doesn't sound good anymore.
3. You are nauseous all day, every day and nothing really makes it better.
4. Everything smells awful, but no one else can smell what you are smelling.
5. You are starving, but all you can eat is a spoonful of mashed potatoes and then you are so full, you are sick.
6. You are so exhausted you can't think of doing anything but sleeping.
7. Your lower back is in so much pain sometimes you feel like an old woman.
8. Your head hurts all the time.
9. Food that you never really liked, you actually wouldn't mind eating now.
10. You have to pee all the time, even though you feel very dehydrated.
Oh and I almost forgot...your menu every day consists of cereal (dry or wet), potatoes, grilled cheese sandwiches, and then anything that is bland!
and one more thing... you have written 4 blogs in the last few weeks about food and no one understands where you are going with that topic...

If anyone out there is a doctor or just has great life experience, could you please help me with these symptoms? Thanks!

WARNING...VERY RANDOM POST

So I warned you already, but I am really bored at work today and thought I would share my thoughts. I am eating lunch right now and went down to the cafeteria and got some chocolate milk. I don't know about you, but I absolutely LOVE chocolate milk! I bought one little milk box and ended up going to buy another cause I was so thirsty and it tasted so good. That is what led me to this blog.

I have a confession to make and I think my body is just screwed up. I absolutely love breakfast! This leads me to believe that I should have been a morning person. The only problem with this is that I love to sleep. I hate waking up in the morning especially if it is before like 9. So how does this work out...I have found a way to cheat the system. I am an "afternoon" person who eats cereal all day long. I snack on dry cereal all day, I eat bowls of cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and this just makes me happy. I have loved cereal since I can remember...just ask my mom. I ate it in High School like it was going out of style.

So I apologize for this really random post, but that is what happens when I am bored at work and have time to think while drinking chocolate milk!

Who else out there loves breakfast? And what is your favorite breakfast food? Please share your thoughts!

When you are given limes...

I know you have all heard the saying "If you are given lemons, make LEMONADE!" Well what do you do if you are given limes? I guess Sonic does have Limeades, but that isn't quite the same as the lemon thing.

I guess you can use it to put in Salsas and Marinades to give it a little secret taste. Good thing for secret ingredients. Don't they just make you smile on the inside when people are trying to figure them out?