The moody blues

Ugh. Where in the world has sane Nikki gone? If you find her...let me know. The hormones have completely taken over my brain. I've turned into the dreaded psycho chick (sorry to those of you who have met her.) I have been so disoriented lately with this new body. Laughing, then crying, then laughing about crying, then crying again. I've never been a person who dealt particularly well with stress or anxiety even though I seem to be prone to it. And stress is psycho chick's best friend. Hunger is her second best friend. If you happen to catch me when I'm stressed or hungry or worst of all stressed and hungry-- let me formally apologize to you here. I am deeply sorry. I will probably be mean. Snappy remarks and rude comments flow out like word vomit from psycho chick. Then she'll realize she's mean and she'll cry. All in all- she's not a fun person to be around. Therefore, I am not a fun person to be around most the time anymore. Again, sorry guys. May sound like an excuse, but I really can't control it. Hopefully you all get to see me on days where my tummy is full, I am fully rested, and have not had a rough night at work. Today was not one of those days. I went to Salt Lake today to visit Tiffany and her family and I feel like I should have stayed home, because psycho chick refused to be left behind. I got up for work today at 5 am which of course exhausted me so I was no fun. Then I let myself get too hungry, said mean things to Kade, hurt his feelings, stressed myself out because I was mean to my dear husband, word vomited A LOT, and mostly ruined everyone's time I think. I've discovered that I'm starving most the time and even when I eat til there is no room left in my belly, I am still hungry. Two hours later and I'll be ravenous and word vomiting all over the place. Completely hopeless. However, ladies, if you're at this point in your pregnancy (21 weeks) I don't think that you're allowed to throw yourself pity parties about how rough you think you've got it. Trust me--you're the only one who will show up. The men will roll their eyes and the women will kindly remind you that it's going to get much worse. Suck it up, soldier. You might secretly (or openly, like me) wish you had your body back, but then your little baby will nudge you from inside to say he/she loves you and it will put you on the world's worst guilt trip. Probably, you'll cry. Atleast, this is what my experience has been. Party over. Moving on.

I sincerely tried to put up the good pictures of the baby, but I can't figure out how to work the scanner at Mom and Dad's so it'll have to wait. We'll probably be closing on the condo in less than a week (crossies!!) and I can put them up then. I would just like to share one more experience I had this week..promise this one is more light-hearted. Some may think this next story is too much for the blog, but I completely enjoy it. So-- lately wearing a bra has become a death sentence in the morning. Ugh. SO not comfy. My old bras still fit me just fine (luckily) but they are just so darn uncomfortable. So off I go in search of the bra that won't make me miserable. First I go to K-mart and ALAS! I find exactly what I was looking for. Wait...nope. My size is impossible to find. So I leave that store feeling a little down-trodden and disgruntled, but I'm not ready to give up. A couple days later, Mom braves Shop-Ko with me on the hunt again. And Ah!! Look! There it is! And it's just my size....except it's hot pink and has underwire which I didn't want. So...keep looking. We searched and searched and the only thing bras that had the features I wanted (wide straps, seamless, no underwire, etc.) were those awful 18 hour bras in boxes. Mom finds one that will fit and I look it over. Wow. It's like body armor. Those things are so ridiculously huge that they look like vests. I don't particularly want to "suit up" in the mornings so I passed it up and went back to look at the normal bras. I found one with wide straps that was seamless and a normal color. They had my size. It's only downfall is the underwire. However, what I learned is that all bras my size have underwire (unless it's a vest). Psh...land of the free? Yeah, right! Only if you're not a D! Otherwise the companies think they have the right to tack iron rods under your boobs like some sick joke. Jerks. Oh well. So, here I sit. All wired up, but actually much more comfortable than before. Maybe one day I'll swallow my pride and just wear the stupid, ugly vest.

Downhill journey

Well folks, first off, let me apologize for dropping off the face of the planet last week. Kade and I had a very, very busy week moving out of our apartment, and I had zero energy for blog-land. BUT- we have reached week twenty and it's downhill from here! Hooray! Last week's appointment was a success! I finally gained five pounds (go me!) and we also found out what had been causing the very disturbing mystery pain on my left side. I have pulled the left side of my round ligament. Boy, is that painful. It was a relief to know that that's all it was. I started icing it for the pain and it seemed to help until the worrier inside told me I was freezing my baby's brain. Yes, ridiculous-- but mom's worry a lot. The ultrasound showed that baby is doing exceptionally well. Kade left the good pictures at work, so I'll post them as soon as possible. Baby was right on track for size and weighs 11 ounces!! That's about the weight of a can of pop. What a little hard worker! I'm so proud! The heart, brain, and spine are looking perfect and there are no signs of cleft lip. Also, baby was very active and already sitting head down. I have gotten to feel the wiggles a lot more lately :) We also found what we've all been waiting for. The sex! I'm happy to say that Kade and my hopes were confirmed! It's a beautiful, wonderful, perfect little man!! YAY! Now the real fun can start. Of course, like all new parents, we had to go out and buy a few outfits just to please ourselves. The real name game has started and the name of the day is Easton Maddox....stay tuned. We'll see if I like it next week still. We also are looking for cribs and crib sets now so we can pick the nursery colors and get painting! If only Kade and I could agree on whether or not to do jungle theme or sport's theme...(go monkeys!) We are staying at my mom and dad's house and I have to say we are NOT hurting. Mom is so wonderful. She makes me dinner and keeps me company. However, we will be very grateful to have our own home ready to move into. We're still working on getting the loan stuff closed up so we can get to work with the paint. All in all it's been a pretty good week. One more down.....twenty to go.

The house

Well, that's it. I'm a real grown up now. We bought a house. Well..a condo anyway. It's in the blackhawk subdivision for those of you who know where that is. It's all very fast, but we love it and are very happy with our decision. We have to move out of our apartment by the 22nd now...which is just about nuts. So we'll be staying with mom and pop for a few weeks while we get all the paperwork settled and painting done that I decide to do. I'll post some pictures when I have them. Anyway....we have made it to week 19. Almost half done. We just have 6 more days until we find out the sex of the little bambino. However, I did have a dream last night that it was a girl (named Emma Lois...uck!) ...A sign, maybe?

Stretchy pants are awful

Today I went shopping at Kohl's and decided it was time to check out the maternity section. None of my pants fit me anymore, and I also discovered today that not one of my skirts can be done up so I guess I'll be wearing the same two dresses for the next 6 months to church. I've mentioned before my feelings on maternity pants with the big stretchy tummy part. UGH. Mortifying. But I decided to be brave and try a pair on today. I thought that maybe once I had them on I would fall in love with them and vow to never wear pants without elastic again. Nope. I was wrong. I took one look at myself in the mirror and knew I could never pay $50 to look that way. So I'm looking into alternative options. Kade was slightly less than helpful with his comments (he's clueless.) I don't even remember what he said exactly. I only know that by the time we left the store I had sworn not to go pants shopping with him again. Perhaps I was just in an especially sensitive and foul mood. Later, we went to visit Jack at his "foster parents" home. Kade's parents have been more than generous by taking him while we sort out our housing situation. I was so amazed at how much he had grown in a week. I guess it's the same way with little babies, so I'd better get over it. Speaking of housing, I've been looking at apartments the last week or so and I have been absolutely disgusted by the places that allow pets. Of course, they all REEK of pee, and are just generally run down. After looking at one particularly disappointing place, I decided to heck with renting. We're going to just buy a townhouse instead. It will end up costing more, but hey, it's OURS. So Kade is going to get a second job to help out since he's taking a semester off school and I'm sure it will all work out. It's more than a little nerve-wracking to get a mortgage, but we're both tired of throwing our money away on rent and moving from place to place. Tomorrow we're going to speak with the bank about our financing options and etc. Wish us luck.

Summer winds down

August has become one of my favorite months. I know we're only a little bit into it, but it has been a nice month so far. Last weekend, Kade and I drove up for my Aunt Bea's 50th birthday party in Blackfoot. I really love getting to see all of my family :) Tiffany even drove all the way up and stayed for the weekend with her Little Man. He's the cutest little boy I ever saw. Maybe he'll have some competition come January.We have just about a week and half until we find out the sex. Anticipation is thick at the Gardner house. I'm pretty sure that I can feel the baby moving....but it's hard to be sure. Perhaps I'm making something out of nothing. I was finally able to pull my head out of the new and final book in the Twilight series last night. I savored every page. It was wonderful, by the way. This week, Kade and I are working at the Cache County Fair to earn a little extra dough and help out his mom. If it weren't so hot, I'd love it. Even with the heat, it's pretty fun to be down there. I inherited a love for "people-watching" from my mom, and the fair is a pot of gold for weirdos wandering about. It's highly entertaining. We're still looking for a new place to live and still working to get our current place rented out. Finding an affordable place where we can keep Jack is proving to be more of a hassle than we had hoped. Perhaps our move will only allow us to keep Jack, and not save money as we had intended. But he's worth it. I'll get a part-time job if I have to.