Elven Baby Names

Jake and I have been looking at little girl names this past week.  We opened our Baby Names book and started with the A's.  I came across these two names:

Aelfthryth - having an elf's strength

Aelfwine - a friend to the elves

I kept telling Jake that these were perfect names - since I'm such a huge LOTR fan (see Halloween 2009).  Jake was adamant that our little girl isn't going to have any names dealing with elves.  Adamant.  (I was joking anyways... kind of...)

A few minutes later I decided we should look up the definitions of our names.  I started with Alfred.  Here's what I found:

Alfred - one who counsels the elves

No freaking way!!!!!!!!!  What are the chances?!?!?!?!  hahahahahaha!!!!!!  Jake had never heard the definition before.  It was so perfect cause he was dissing elf names not 10 minutes before!!!  How funny!

And - another story - this morning I was on a conference call for work.  Before the meeting started there was music playing (like the music they play when you're on hold).  I put it on speakerphone and I had the cell phone laying on the couch next to my belly.  Our little baby started jumping and moving like crazy!  Then when the meeting began and the music stopped, our baby stopped her wiggling.  What a tiny dancer!!!  Darling!

Results are in - It's a ...

GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

       YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She was dancing around a lot during the ultrasound, but she was very cooperative for her photo shoot!

Here is her darling little face

And I love this picture of the bottom of her feet (they are crossed so one foot is laying on its side)

This is cute, but hard to decipher... it's another face picture, but this time her left arm is tucked under her chin and her right arm is up by her ear.  It's so funny - I lay in the same position while talking to Jake at night!!!  She's already taking on our characteristics!

We also have a few other pictures, including an obvious "girl" shot... not the kind of photos a lady would want of herself online!  But if you're ever in Provo, you can drop by and see them on our fridge.

Here's a picture of the baby bump - this photo is only a week old and I feel like I'm noticeably "bump-ier".  (Jami said if I had a boy I would have to change my hair to blue - luckily I can stay with the pink! Blue's just not my color...)

I finally went and bought some maternity pants - the elastic waistbands are so intimidating.  But after an entire week of wearing my black sweats, I realized it was finally time to take the plunge.  It's nice to have jeans that fit now (makes getting dressed in the morning a lot less depressing!)

Our baby girl is quite the kicker!  She's so sassy!!!  Jake's even felt her kick!  Seeing her little face made the pregnancy feel so much more real!  I guess we should start looking at cribs, car seats, diapers, etc (I don't even know what to buy!) AHHH!!!!  I'm starting to freak out a little.  I can't believe in ~20 more weeks we're going to have a BABY!  YEA!!!

Boy -or- Girl ??????

We find out the gender of our darling little baby this week.

            Leave a comment with your guess ...

              *Boy     ~or~     *Girl

Little Alfreda? .or. Little Alfred?

     Mini-Jake!   or   Mini-Jenni!

Jake and I are just hoping for a healthy baby.  We're already getting to know our little baby's personality - every time I lay on the ground on my tummy or when I'm bent over... the baby will kick me!  Apparently it doesn't like being squished!!!

Baby Wrists

You might think this title is referring to the little joints that are growing inside my belly... but in fact, I am referring to my own wrists... let me explain.

On Sunday I had shooting pain in my right arm.  It was mostly on the skin - kinda like a really bad sunburn without any sunburn... or like the flu in my skin (sounds weird - but that's how it felt).  It was so uncomfortable that I had to take pain reliever to fall asleep.  Monday morning it was still bothering me crazy bad.  I googled all sorts of stuff trying to figure out if it was a common pregnancy symptom.  All I could find was prego women getting carpal tunnel syndrome (from swollen wrists) or that it could be shingles (which I've had several times).  But without a rash or swollen limbs, I was stumped.  My mom convinced me to call the nurse at my OBGYN and see what she thought - she suggested I go to the doctor, cause if it is shingles they can treat it within the first 3 days.

So.... I saw the doctor this morning.  I explained exactly my arm pain and how it hurt my hand too, but only around the thumb.  She quickly diagnosed my symptoms as radial nerve inflammation.  She said with everything shifting during pregnancy that maybe it somehow got pinched or if I had any trauma to the area it could cause this.  As we were talking it dawned on me - I realized exactly what had happened.  Let me take you back to Saturday night. 

Jami and I decided to decorate cakes during Priesthood session.  We just finished our last Wilton Cake Class at Michael's and wanted to try all our fancy techniques.  In order to make roses, I had to whip up some pretty stiff frosting - great for keeping shape but a huge pain to squeeze out of the bag.  After my 4th rose, I had to have my mom help me squeeze the bag to get the frosting out cause it was so much work.

After I explained this to the doctor and we realized my stiff frosting was the source of my radial nerve trauma, she wrote in my chart: "no decorating with stiff frosting, only the light and whippy kind"!!!

Now... it might seem strange that such a simple activity could cause me physical harm.  But you have to understand, I have really small wrists.  Baby wrists.  Example: I have a baby bracelet that still fits.  And I have proportionately small fingers - my wedding ring is a size 3.75.  My pinkie is a size 1.5!  (they sell baby rings in sizes 1 and 2!)  While cheering/tumbling I had many sprained wrists.  And one good game of bowling is likely to cause me grief the next day.

Luckily my doctor's appointment wasn't completely in vain - I got some RX refills and my flu shot.  But you can bet I will steer clear of stiff frosting from now on!

Here are some pictures of the cakes we made during our class: