my dad and me and my mom!

Last night I found a sealed envelope under my pillow, and inside it was a picture and a letter from Alyssa.  It took me a few minutes to notice my pregnant tummy, and when I did I laughed out loud.  At least my legs are skinny - if only they looked that great in real life!

The letter says, "Dear Mom, I want you to know that when you're sick it makes me sorry for you.  It just makes me feel so icky inside.  I want to be the best helper I can! So, if there's anything I can do, please let me know! Love, Alyssa  P.S. Thank you for the crayons" 

I had a relapse of some bad sickness this last week, because I missed my medication on Monday afternoon and did pretty well and thought, "Hey, maybe I'm far enough along I don't need medication anymore," and skipped Tuesday morning.  By Tuesday at lunch I was throwing up and dry heaving a lot, and it lasted through Wednesday until I could get the medication in my system again.  Yeah, you'd think that at 15 weeks I'd be far enough along to at least have the morning sickness under control - nope!

Brian's mom came over on Wednesday to help out, and while she was cleaning and asking the kids for help, they were complaining about everything they had to do.  On Wednesday evening I just heated up some leftovers and tossed a salad for dinner, and when I asked Alyssa to set the table, she started complaining again.  I explained to her that my body is sick because it's making a baby, and because of that I need to rest and take care of my body so the baby can be healthy, and whatever she and the boys do to help me out while I'm pregnant, it will help them to love the baby more when it comes.  She gave me a sweet hug and has been helping out ever since.  Yesterday she cleaned out the dishwasher and filled it back up again with the breakfast dishes AND ran it through a cycle with just a few dishes in it to surprise me.  It was so sweet!  She's a wonderful girl!

Getting Terribly Excited

I think everyone knows by now that we're Disneyland freaks.  Okay, I'm the Disneyland freak, and Brian is quickly becoming converted.  It took us forever to go, because Brian didn't want to spend the money on it, but once we went, we just keep going back.

Last Spring, I finally decided that it had been long enough since Marcus had been born, and I was ready to endure another pregnancy.  Fast forward to late September...still not pregnant.  I didn't want to have to battle morning sickness while trying to teach Alyssa, so we decided to put off being pregnant until next Spring.  At this point I said, "Since I'm not pregnant, and our tenth anniversary is coming up, let's plan something incredible for it."  Brian agreed, and his first suggestion was Disneyland.  Whether he suggested it because he now loves Disneyland as much as I do, or because he just knew it would make me happy - bless him.  I love that man.

We decided to invite some friends, and the first people who came to mind were Will and Nelsa Sumsion, because when we mention Disneyland they get as excited talking about it as I do.  We called them up and left a message inviting them, and they called us the next day saying they had already lined up a babysitter and were excited to go.  Yea!

Getting back to the pregnant thing:  When I want to get pregnant, I chart my cycles and find out exactly when I ovulate and all that, so by September I knew I was pretty consistent with my ovulation dates, and I knew that if we planned it right I would not get pregnant in October.  Heavenly Father had different plans.  I figure that either Heavenly Father really wants us to have a baby right now, or he really wants us to go to Disneyland - maybe both.  Anyway, when we went in for an early ultra sound we discovered that I had ovulated a week late, and I said, out loud, "So that's how we got pregnant!"

Anyway, now that the morning sickness is under control and I'm only miserable part of the time instead of all of the time, I'm feeling much better about this pregnancy, and I'm getting very excited to meet this baby in the Summer.  But we're also getting very excited for our Disneyland trip with the Sumsions.  A few weeks ago, when I was laying on the couch, Brian asked, "If you are feeling like you are now in February, do you still want to go to Disneyland?"  I thought, "Go to Disneyland?!? I don't even want to move!" and said, "No," but now that things are better, we're lining up our plans and counting down the days.  38 as of today, by the way.

This is the first time that we'll be going without our kids, and even though the pregnancy changes our plans of riding every roller coaster 'til we drop, I still look forward to going through the shops on Main Street without keeping tiny hands off of everything, and walking places without worrying about losing anyone.  We won't have to carry anyone who's tired of walking, or push around a stroller.  We can eat out at the fancy restaurants (We've got reservations for the Blue Bayou on both Valentine's Day and our anniversary, but we'll only pick one to go to) and walk through the stores that have breakable collectibles.  We're going to see the new water show, World of Color, and we're headed one night to watch knights battle at Medieval Times.  It's going to be so much fun!

Edited to add: I just realized I'm not going to have to help anyone get dressed in the morning!  I'll still probably be telling Brian, "Eat your breakfast, quick!  Let's get going!" though, like I have to do with the kids.