...chad the dad...(to be)

some of you may know about my husband's tendency to sleep walk, sleep talk, sleep argue, and sleep rearrange. i've gotten to know this through the years, beginning with chad waking me to tell me about a fox in our backyard (no where to be found) or about a neighbor (we didn't have) at our back porch, and so on. i've learned, not to jump up from my sleep state and react, rather how to remain calm and encourage him to fall back asleep...not that this always works, rather he typically feels he needs to be even more convicted to the fact of whatever it is that really isn't.
so i've also learned to accept it and fall back asleep.

the dreams come about once a month, but have been more prevalent ever since we found out about lil' pearson to be. it started at the beginning with chad's dream state being convinced that we were having triplets. he'd wake up in the middle of the night and stack the books from the night-stand into piles of three, making sure there was the same amt for each of the babies. he'd rearrange some of the artwork on the wall and one nite i awoke to find him carrying around the wrought iron candle stick looking for the right place to put it so it wouldn't fall on the babies.

some mornings i'd wake up wondering where my books were, or where our framed artwork had gone. we began to wonder if these dreams continued when we actually had the baby, we may wake to find him outside of the crib, who knows where. we decided maybe we should register for a "baby locator" vs. a "baby monitor." luckily, now that we've found out for sure that there is only one little fetus in there and no chance of triplets, the dreams subsided...at least for a little while.

they restarted a few weeks ago, as chad was embracing his "care taking" roles during sleep. we were having a heat wave and it barely got below 80 degrees at nite, but chad would awaken to find me a bit uncovered and felt convinced that it was part of his care taking role to keep me covered. he'd cover me and whisper "i think you're all right now"...or "stay covered up in case 'they' come in"...i'd try to convince him that the down comforter was a bit too warm, and he'd "shhhush" me back to sleep saying "it will be allright"..."it will be allright"...
good think we're having the lil' guy in the winter, at least he'll stay warm at nite...even if we don't know exactly where in the house he is....

birthday guests

we' had friends in town right around my birthday. the cake was decorated, possibly by someone new to the cake decorating position, but with the best of intentions it read:

Happy Birthday Mama Juli

...pretty crazy if you ask me...

thanks to becca and tell for the great birthday cake, and paul and amy for the fancy birthday dinner. i'm guessing my birthday will be a bit different come next year.

20 weeks

Pregnancy Tip #283

energy isn't something i've had a whole lot of these days...especially in the evenings. some people tell me they feel the need to eat for two, but more than that, i've been feeling the need to sleep for two. it can be a drag when there's so many things i'm feeling like i want to be doing. one of these many things had to do with making a batch of cookies for two of the sets of new neighbors who moved in. they both moved in over a month ago, but hey, it's taken me a while to get enough energy to get the baking force together. so earlier this week, i finally decide to muster up the energy to make my infamous carlee cookies, which i've ad libbed over the years. ad libbing and baking isn't always a good combo, but it is what i do. so instead of all crisco butter, i add 1/2 peanut butter....butter is butter right? we only had the natural kind, so that was maybe part of the problem, but it still wasn't that far off the mark. we get to pregnancy tip #283 when i brilliantly decided that coarse sea salt would be just as good, if not better than finely crushed mortons salt. it's better on edamame after all. well, let me tell you what i've learned. coarse sea salt is in fact NOT a good alternative in baking cookies. the cookies turned out bland, but then with the occasional crunchy, excessively salty burst of flavor. i had decided 1/2 way through the DOUBLE batch of cookies i made that i could at least fix the "bland" problem, by salting the batter and continuing on. do i need to say, it didn't fix the problem. now we're left with 60 some tempting, but not so good cookies, that chad and i keep eating b/c they look so good, and still nothing for the new neighbors. maybe i can pop them some "welcome to the neighborhood" popcorn...i can blame the baking problems/cluelessness on pregnancy right?!

We're half-way there...What a kick?!?!?!?

20 weeks and counting.
this whole pregnancy was such a romantic notion...that is when it was happening to someone else. the first few months i spent a bit weepy, pukey and sleepy. while i was either sleeping or puking, chad was wondering what happened to his wife, and we both were thinking...is this what we really signed up for?! the weeks have passed, and there's been some pay off along the way. chad listened to the baby grow with my stethoscope from work. we'd oooh and ahhh when he could hear "the baby move" and would spend a bit of time each evening, just listening away. it was one of our last dr. appts that we confessed to our efforts, only to be told that chad was not really becoming intimately involved with the baby, rather was just getting to know my g.i. tract really really well. who knew that you cant really hear the baby?! ...just all of the extra flatulence that pregnancy brings on. boy is it something. i have always blamed it on the altitude (at least in the last 3 years, living at high altitude and all), now i can blame it on being "pregnant in altitude." we've been anxiously awaiting to be able to feel the little guy kicking, and he's started to become more and more active. i keep grabbing chad's hand having him try to feel the little guy kick. He thought he felt him kick once, but now that i think of it, it may have just been some gas.

Juli and Chad in Crested Butte

GROWING....GROWING.....GROWING!!!!