A little bit of absoutely nothing.

Somehow my life got away from me and a week passed, and I have no idea what happened. Which is great when you need something to blog about. So I'll just basically be making stuff up today. You have been warned. Let's begin with a picture. Because whenever I make the effort to be decently dressed with my hair done, we get to take out the camera. The camera is sadly underused.This is us, just shy of 22 weeks. Don't mind the chaos. We just wanted to paint a realistic picture of our life for posterity. Kimberly is teething, so she doesn't like being ignored by both parents long enough to take a picture. Or she may be concerned about getting clobbered by her loving sister, who is unfortunately struggling with pushing, hitting, kicking, sharing, listening, obeying, and many other unimportant life skills. Fortunately for Kimberly, right now Madeline is struggling with concentration rather than physical violence. Probably saw a Pokemon or something. Oh, and there's me, being all pregnant and stuff. For fun, let's take a look at this picture as well.

Oh, the contrast. I knew there was another picture somewhere that looked somewhat similar. Only minus the circus. This is me pregnant with Madeline. Only I'm pretty sure that's less than two months before I gave birth. Whereas now at the same size I have over four months to go. I just love being large. And surrounded by my entourage. What a short few years will do to you. Different house, different furniture, different circumstances. That is the same ficus tree, though. Because that's how we roll. We are fiercely loyal to our fake foilage. Or just cheap.

Other than that, we are alive. I am enjoying the cold weather. The rest of the family is not. Phooey on them, I say. I want it to start snowing and not stop until March. Because maybe that will kill off all the orange cones that are native to our soil. We're looking forward to Halloween. If we make it that long. We might die of sugar poisoning or toddler induced hysteria before then.

Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dogs' Tails

So once we found out it's a boy, I suddenly felt motivated. I've had no inclination to start preparing the baby's room or prepare baby stuff because frankly, the room is occupied. And all the baby stuff is out. But a boy...oh boy. I suddenly felt the need to have everything ready-the room, the name, the wardrobe, and it has to be done today. Which is totally irrational, because we kind of have over four months until any of it will matter. But try telling that to my hormones. So yesterday I started going through the newborn baby clothes to pull out anything neutral and pack away everything pink, purple, frilly, lacy, and flowery. And man, was that emotional. Because I am completely ridiculous. Let me clarify: I am ecstatic it's a boy. It's supposed to be a boy. I feel really good about a boy. But I am terrified of boys. As I put away everything feminine I felt like I was losing my footing. My little boy can't wear pretty dresses. Little adorable newborn babies that fit tiny shoes and bows and onesies are supposed to be girls. I can't wrap my head around this foreign idea. And I felt like the era of girls was being wrested away from me. What if those tiny girl clothes never come out again? Rationally I know they probably will, because we plan on having several more children, but you never know what life will bring. What if my future is blue? See how ridiculous I am? I was basically having a nervous breakdown in Kimberly's closet. I had to take several deep breaths and remind myself that I have two beautiful girls, including a wonderful baby girl, that I can dress up in pink and frills to my hearts content. Who will buy prom dresses and wedding dresses and high heels and be girly. And boys will be awesome too. And we will have free lawn mowing in ten to fifteen years. So everything will turn out all right.

Fortunately, my mother and sister have taught me the proper way to deal with emotional breakdowns, and I grabbed my Kid to Kid gift certificate and went out to get psyched about little men. Turns out the little boy's section is awesomely reassuring. I bought a bunch of onesies and outfits that say manly things like "Daddy's Team" and "Football" and have pictures of balls and dogs and come in blue and green. And I felt a lot better. So never fear, we're still psyched up about a boy. I just might be a little bipolar until he's here and I can hold him and realize newborn boys aren't a different species. Just a different chromosome.

The verdict is in...

Well, here we are. Two weeks later, as promised, and I believe I owe you some information. Hold on to your hats, ladies and gents. The Warner household is about to up the ante. Apparently it is about 306 percent positive that our little one is all....boy. That's right, boy. Apparently Jessie has some manliness to share. He is very satisfied, of course, because he is sexist and would have been heartbroken at a femal fetus. Haha. Just kidding. He's a sucker for girls and romantic comedies, as we all know. But he is super excited to have a boy. I think he's probably online buying BYU football tickets for ten years from now. I am also quite thrilled. The last few weeks I've been having a hard time not referring to the babe as a He, and last night dreamed that it was a girl and started hyperventilating because it was all wrong and it was supposed to be a boy. It just feels like a good thing. Also, I started thinking about tiny little boy's suits and ties and got a little bit worked up. Dratted pregnancy hormones.

The only downside is that we have almost no boy names we like. As usual, we won't be disucussing the names we like with anyone, but this time it will be a bit easier, because we don't have any. Probably we'll name him Fredette. Or Josh Lyman. Or maybe Benjamin Franklin Hawkeye. So many options. And while I'm pondering the many possibilities, I get to go boy clothes shopping. And figure out how to make a pink bouncer look manly. Maybe I'll just put a sign promoting breast cancer awareness on our front door, and then I don't have to redo anything pink. I love supporting a good cause and getting to be lazy at the same time. I have a feeling a boy is going to be a lot of fun. I just hope he doesn't mind getting his nails painted.

Trucking along. Woohoo.

Hello again, my faithful few. Time for more exciting Warner exploits! In our last episode, we were looking forward to the many adventures of September. Unfortunately, my immune system continues to be fickle, and I seem to catch every sniffle and cough that comes around. Also random shoulder pain that incapacitates my arm. But that's another matter. On to the good stuff! Besides dying, we've been having a blast. Guess who is learning to walk? Everyone's favorite Warner almost toddler, Kimberly! She's not actually to walking capacity yet, but she took her first steps and she can be persuaded to take up to five or six at a time before she succumbs to your enemy and mine, gravity. Why we are encouraging these rogue activities is beyond me, but there you go. Some irrepressible parental urge to prepare your child to outrun predators probably.

Since I only blog every two years, I know you are all dying to see if I have turned into a pumpkin yet. Here you go:
I feel like I'm getting bigger, but more slowly. Not inflating like one of those rafts on an airplane. Life is pretty good, because I'm feeling pretty good for being pregnant. Definitely a little more energy and almost zero nausea, which is excellent. And the baby is starting to move, which I forgot how much I love. Go second trimester. Well, except the whole not sleeping thing. Because I have to be turned like a pancake every two minutes. Also because the baby has found my bladder. Also because my toddler likes to fall out of bed frequently. And scream. But hey, in good news, only two weeks until we identify the gender chromosomes on our growing life form. Excitement and expectation abound. I have no idea. No inclinations, no burning desires, no visions or intuitions. Jessie has no such qualms and says it's a boy. Feel free to weigh in. Whoever can accurately guess the gender, estimated gestational age, number of ounces of liquid I'm going to consume before the ultrasound, the name of the ultrasound tech, and the color Jessie's face would turn if I successfully tricked him into thinking it was triplets, wins a trip to our house and an afternoon of fun with my children. Let the fierce competition begin!

A post to end August and usher in an era of awesomeness.

So I don't want to jinx myself, but I kind of feel like I'm in the land of the living again. The nausea left weeks ago, but apparently my immune system thinks pregnancy=vacation, so I spent most of August being sick. A really long nasty cold, a lot of stomach pain, and just general yuckiness and lack of will to function. But I actually got up and did some things the last few mornings. My floor even got mopped, which says a lot. I did some non essential cleaning tasks. Jessie was impressed. We'll see if it lasts. I'm glad it's almost September. I'm done with August.

Oh, by the way, in case you haven't been able to tell from the last few posts about ME ME ME and Baby, I have some other kids. They're pretty cute. I'm starting to enjoy them again since I have energy to play with them and they somehow found it in themselves to start sleeping in until 6:30, bless their little hearts. We took Kimberly to her nine month appointment and she got poked a lot, which she didn't like at all but Madeline liked a lot because every time she got poked she got a bandaid. She ended up with four and Madeline had fun counting them the rest of the day, while Kimberly had fun having a fever. And not sleeping. Kimberly is thinning out, by the way. It appears despite her chubby babyhood she's going to be exactly like Madeline: long and skinny. She was 75th percentile for height and 45th for weight. And healthy, which is the main thing.

The girls also enjoyed a couple of outings this month. We took them to the dinosaur museum and farm country at Thanksgiving Point because it August and it's cheap. Madeline loved all the dinosaurs, although we had to assure her they were all dead and wouldn't be eating her after Jessie may have insinuated they wanted to consume her whole at the start of the outing. They also both enjoyed the pony rides at Farm country. I believe there are pictures of all these marvelous childhood memories, but they're all on Jessie's phone so they may or may not ever make it into the light of day. Just imagine it was awesome. Because it is always awesome when the Warner family graces the public with our presence.


Anyway. That's the scoop for today. I leave you with a picture of my children to prove they are alive and well and surviving my lack of stellar parenting. Actually, mostly because I think they're cute and worth looking at. That's all we do all day around here. Sit and watch our kids and wait for them to amuse us. It's like having a couple of active puppies that do tricks. And tell jokes. And jump through flaming hoops. Except they substitute each other for flaming hoops because we don't let them play with blow torches.

Everything you ever wanted to know.

So. We've been busy around here. Want to hear about it? Great. I thought so. Basically, we had a wedding. Then we went to the ER. Then we went to Provo. Yep, that's about it. Now we're going to tell you more. Because you know you want it.

Last week my little brother got married. Madeline has been super excited about the event for the last month. She got to be a flower girl, and she loved her pretty dress. We all wore purple and yellow and ate food and tormented my brother and things went pretty nicely. Then they were married and we all went home. That's about what happened.

Then Jessie and I were planning a little vacation. We wanted to ditch the kids and go down to education week at BYU for a few days and relax and have no kids. Basically. The plan was to take off Wednesday morning after my doctor's appointment. So naturally, on Tuesday night I started getting horrible stomach pains. Which is always great when you're pregnant and paranoid. I told myself to tough it out until morning, but after neither Jessie or I getting any sleep we finally went to the ER at one thirty in the morning. Which is the absolute best time to go, because they have CSI marathons on TNT and you have plenty to do while you're not sleeping. So Jessie took the girls home while I sat at the ER for four hours. After some morphine and a bunch of tests they decided they had no idea what was wrong with me and sent me home. So we got home and rolled back into bed about 5:30 in the morning. Let me tell you, I have never attempted an all-nighter before. It was so much more awesome then I imagined. Then, being the smarty pants we are, we got up at seven, took the girls to my parents, and went on our getaway anyway because we had money invested and drat it all, we were going to go get our money's worth! The vacation was actually pretty great. We spent the first day falling asleep in various rooms across campus, but after that we had a blast and enjoyed our time together.

Anyway. That was our fun and exciting week. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: pictures of my bloated stomach! Because I feel gargantuan. I took so long to show with the girls that I feel like I'm already six months pregnant. The kids in our primary class we subbed today were quick to point that out. I never really did weekly pictures with my other pregnancies, but now that I feel huge I understand the morbid fascination of documenting your downward slide into a ball instead of a human being. I know it's bad because when I complain to Jessie about how fat I'm feeling, he just looks non committal and says, "Well, you are pregnant. You can tell you're pregnant." Which is sensitive husband talk for "Dang woman! You must be growing an elephant in there! " Just kidding. I love my sensitive husband who knows how to answer no win questions. Oh. The pictures. I got distracted.


This was a few weeks ago. It doesn't look as bad as I remember it. But remember, I was only 11 or 12 weeks. Madeline's stomach, by the way, is coming along nicely.


This is today, just shy of fifteen weeks. Feel free to assure me I'm not as huge as I look. I'll know you're lying, but I'll write you down in my book of nice people. And no, it's not twins. Just a football player, apparently. So, that's all for today. We'll see you again in two weeks. Or sooner if I win the lottery or another vacation. Don't hold your breath.

Startling Updates. Prepare your mind.

Hello, all. Lack of posting can only mean one thing- we are going through a sleep phase. But everyone slept in until a whopping 6:20 today, Hallelujah! (You think I kid. I do not. This is late at our house. I am actually pleasantly shocked.) So that leaves me with enough coherency to update you. I know, you all thought we died in Antimony. But I am here to make a startling announcement. We went to Antimony and nothing bad happened. I know. Amazing, right? No major accidents, tricks of fate, health crises, or other tragic turn of events. We enjoyed ourselves. We're planning on going again next year and I don't have anxiety in my stomach. It was our year. The year of the Warners. I hereby declare the rest of the year to be the Year of the Warners as well. While we're at it.

One reason Antimony was good was this little baby:

We bought a van! And we rejoiced and filled it with stuff and drove it around a lot. (Disclaimer: Not the actual van we own. Just a doppelganger from the internet. Please do not be disappointed. You may come stare at the actual van in front of my house if that makes you feel better.) We found a decent deal on a Honda Odyssey and bit the bullet. I love it. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. Not that we do, because we are lazy and tired and pregnant and like to sit on the couch all day watching Oprah. (Oh wait. Is that over? Maybe that's not what we do all day. When I figure it out I'll let you know.) But we could if we wanted to. And we reclaimed our extra parking spot from its communal status and the neighbors were all sad. But sometimes you just have to be selfish and forget your community. Anyway. We're glad we'll have room for three munchkins now without strapping one to the roof.

Other than that, we're enjoying being chill this week. Kimberly learned to climb stairs and developed a keen interest in the bathroom plunger, so that's keeping us occupied. And Madeline spends all day singing I Am a Child of God and Somebody to Love, so we're all entertained over here. Happy August. Seems like every time I turn around it's a new month. Calenders are funny that way. Until next time.