The Joys of Carrying a Parasite... err.. Fetus

There really are lots of joys of pregnancy!  Hearing the little peanut's heartbeat and getting to see a little sonogram were two of those joys.  Looking forward to the future is certainly a joy (however sleep deprived that future may be), as well as talking about possible names, and picking out our baby's first footed p.j.'s, (the only piece of clothing our baby has, as of yet).

Unfortunately, this post is not about those types of joys.  Instead, this post is a short dedication to the other types of pregnancy joys, including: an increase in migraines, a decrease in migraine medications available to me, lots and lots of puke, uncomfortable nights with little sleep, as well as other "unmentionable" symptoms, as my mother would call them.

I had one enchanting evening in the E.R. last week.  Of course, the never ending puke ordeal had to come during the 48 hours that my parents were in town.  The plus: nobody takes care of you when you're sick like your own Mama!

I'm posing the extra flattering picture below.  I don't actually look like that when I'm suffering... hopefully.  This was just the picture to send to Dad & Grant to make sure they weren't having too much fun at the Dallas Stars game without us.

After two months of this lovely yuckiness, it is either starting to get better or I'm getting used to knowing when to take my medication.  I'm guessing it's the latter.

Recent milestones include: 2-3 days without throwing up, 1 day without taking migraine medication, and running a whole mile without stopping.  Really, it was more of a light, light, jog, but man, I've never been more proud of a 12 minute mile!

As far as pregnant belly goes, I don't have too much of one yet.  This picture was taken two weeks ago.  I am now at 14 weeks and I've grown a little, but not much.  It's hard to gain weight when you can't really eat...

But don't worry, I've been on the new and innovative Cheetos diet lately so I should start showing soon.  Perhaps the growing fetus inside me might assist in that growth too...

I'm Married to a Murderer

For this New Year's Eve (can you believe it is 2011?!) we were invited to a Murder Mystery dinner party!  Each party member was given a part to play as we read through the dialogue and clues to discover who committed the horrendous crime.

Caitlin & Jared were Mama Rosa and Marco, the wife and son of the deceased.  Jared was a wannabe soccer player and always said, "I'm gonna be world cup!" in a Mario & Luigi-esque voice.  Best line of the night, hands down.

Zach & Megan were Rocco and Tira Misu, the brother of the deceased and his floozy fiance.  You will be impressed to know that my computer did not spell-correct the word floozy.  All is right with the world.

Heather & Jeremy played Angle, daughter of the deceased, and Father Al Fredo, the priest of the parish the family attended.

Grant played Beau Jalais, boyfriend of daughter Angel, and I played Clair Voyant, Mama Rosa's psychic.  I clearly forgot to control my eyeballs in this picture.

Okay, that's at least a little better.

Caitlin, er.. Mama Rosa made a delicious Italian meal for all the guests and we had a lot of fun reading the dialogue.  However, I think the best part was trying to figure out all the accents.  Grant was supposed to be French, but inevitably ended up being Mexican (of course).  I was supposed to have a deep husky voice... that I also tried to make Italian... not so easy.  And of course, all the Italian accents got pretty interesting all around.  We had some Scottish Italians, some British Italians, and of course, some Mexican Italians.  It was awesome.

Grant ended up being the murderer... Sneaky little bugger.  Unfortunately, my psychic powers proved insufficient as I was unable to figure it out...  But man, I totally had the best husky-Italian-Mexican-fortuneteller accent!

What the Baby?

The rumors are true! (As if you've heard rumors...)  Grant & I are excited to announce that we are expecting a little "Baby T" in July.  This sonogram is a little old so he still looks like a little peanut.  

July is the (only) month for Peterson women to have babies, apparently.  My dad, sister, brother, nephew and I are all July birthdays so Baby T will fit right in.  In fact, I'm due on July 17th, the day before my birthday!

I'm 13-14 weeks along and it's been quite the adventure so far.  Morning sickness and migraines have kept me in bed, on the couch, and even in the ER once.  It's been tough, but we're hoping things will start clearing up in the next few weeks.  And of course, it will all be so worth it to have little Baby T in July.

We don't find out whether it's a boy or a girl until March, but we have both felt strongly that it is a boy.  We refer to Baby T as a "he" so it will be a big shift in mentality for us if "he" is actually a "she." 

Woohoo for babies!

Family Portraits: A Second Go

About a week after I took my first set of family portraits with the Gurneys, I took family pictures for the Koerners, the Gurney's cousins.  

Unlike the Gurneys, the Koerner's don't have any babies.  Instead they have three kids who love the camera, which made my job pretty darn easy.

I am still struggling a bit with my settings, most specifically with white balance.  I got a little more used to using exposure this round with the result that fewer of my pictures turned out over exposed.  Yay.

The Koerner's are moving to Denver soon and wanted to take a few pictures representing what was then their "family secret."

A fence behind them made it easy to line everyone up and to direct each person in terms of where to stand.  The bridge in the picture below offered the same direction and I like the linear aspect of pictures like these ones.

It is a little more difficult for me to "clump" people and not make them look awkward.  

And of course, the girls were regular hams for me.  Love that.

Thanks Koerners for a fun day and for putting up with me :)

The Two Musical Tanners

Music has always been a part of a Tanner Christmas, all three years of our little family celebrations.  

We love to sing Christmas songs.  We even have a song of the year each Christmas.  2008: Mistletoe by Colbie Caillat, 2009: Last Christmas by Wham, covered by Jimmy Eat World, and 2010:  ??  Well considering the events depicted in the video below, it just may have to be Silver Bells.

Wow, we are just so durn multitalented!

In the tops o' the mountains

One of our favorite activities from our little Christmas break was snowmobiling!  I had never been before and we had a lot of fun.  Grant and I were excited to be up in the mountains breathing fresh air and clomping through the snow.

Here is the whole crew minus Grant who took the picture

We suited up with helmets and gear (I was excited because my helmet was a medium... I was sure I would need an XXL hah)

Oh and of course, goggles.  

There are benefits for everyone when I'm the one behind the camera.  The lack of pictures like these is one of those benefits...

It was a perfect day!  The sun was out, clear skies, and it was only about 32 degrees.  It was so warm that I didn't even wear gloves most of the time!  Lauren, the true trooper, kept hers off the whole 2.5 hours.

They gave us a brief run down of our machines.  Rob, our guide, said that the two seaters were like Cadillacs while our machines were more like Ferraris.... While I'm sure Grant was excited about that it basically just made me nervous.  Anyway, this is us practicing our lean.  A proper lean assists in good clean turns.  It also results in extremely sore legs the next day.

Our fearless leader.  Some of the trails were wide and open.  I liked these the best because I could go fast without feeling like I would fly off a mountain.

However, we also went up trails like the one below, which I wasn't so comfortable with.  Rachel & I stayed at the back of the pack because we were the slow and steady turtles on trails like these.

The view at the top was gorgeous.  The mountains in Colorado are so different than the mountains I'm used to seeing & skiing in Utah or Idaho.  They feel more like rolling hills that never end.  It's beautiful.

Of course when our guide says, "Now a funny one!" I always end up being the one looking stupid.  I'm glad to have found a husband who isn't afraid to look stupid with me.  We make a good pair.

The girlies

And of course, Ron & Grant had to get in a few good snow angels.  

It was a great little adventure, and while I didn't manage to get through it without looking ridiculous... multiple times... at least I didn't fall off any mountains...

Tis' the season to provide updates

With the holidays behind us, (and thanks heavens, the semester too), I finally feel like I'm ready to leave my blogless cave.  Unfortunately, that cave has also been fairly camera-free, so here's one of those full of junk, no picture posts:

• We spent the Thanksgiving holiday relaxing and refraining from cooking (because that cave of mine doesn't have a pot, spatula, and certainly not an oven).  We ate our turkey dinner at Mimi's Cafe, which wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't home cooking.
• We saw Harry Potter!  We decided to ignore the fact that we're no longer sleep deprived college students and went to the midnight showing.  We paid dearly the whole next day and didn't catch up on sleep for at least 3 days afterwards. 
• I sang in the choir as part of our church's nativity program.  It was an amazing program with a big orchestra that included percussion and a harp, our choir, a video that went with the music, as well as actors that played out the Nativity scene in front of a beautiful stable and manger.  It was pretty incredible.
• I somehow made it through the semester.  I graduate in May and I have only one semester to put together my entire culminating project.  Blech is what I say to that.
• We spent a wonderful Christmas in Denver with the Tanners!  I'm going to do a separate post about all those fun happenings.
• We're back in Texas and back to real life, at least, for Grant.  I start work again next week and then school a few weeks after that.  Yay for free time once more.  It's almost time for New Years Resolutions (as if we make those...).  The first on my list is to fatten up Grantie :)