More Ultrasound Videos

Here are some other flics from the ultrasound.

When we saw this video, Jared said, "It looks like she's throwing up!"

New Ultrasound

Jared and I had another ultrasound with Baby Whitefield at three weeks. So adorable! We're so excited to find out we are having a girl!!!




So the other day we started talking about names. I hadn't said anything recently about the name Emily, although I've always liked it. Then Jared said, "What about Emily?" And it was just right! It says seems like that's her name. So we're going with that for now.

Spring Semester

Here's what's happened since my last blog was written (Dec 4th, although I posted it just today). Jared and I had our first prenatal visit January 6th (lucky Shayla's birthday). Instead of 10 weeks like they had said, we found out I was only 8 weeks. We discovered this when the ultrasound showed a peanut and not a 10-week-old fetus. Well, it's our peanut! We could see the heartbeat, too! Pictures to be posted soon!

I'm now twelve weeks along and had another checkup yesterday. I didn't bring Jared because it was supposed to be just a routine checkup. Then Dr. G did a microphone-ultrasound thing to hear the heartbeat, which we haven't gotten to hear before. So I call Jared (who was in St. George) right then so he could hear the heartbeat, too. It was this wahk, wahk, wahk sound, but it was super fast, 167 beats/minute. Someone told me that means it's a girl because girl's hearts beat faster. I have a feeling it's a girl, too. I have to admit I've been wanting a boy, though. The thought of an fearless and adventurous boy running around the house tends to waylay the feeling of anxiety I feel as a first-time mom. Plus a big brother to watch over the little girls is a good idea, right? But I'm starting to warm up to having a girl. She'll have her daddy to watch over her, and I'm sure Jared will be wrapped around her little fetal finger.
My fatigue didn't get much better after school started in January, but I'm somehow still in school full time w/ two jobs. So getting it all done has taken a monumental effort. NO ONE could have prepared me for how tired I've been. January was the month of gagging, too. I couldn't brush my teeth or even say the words "prenatal vitamin" without gagging. Normally though I wouldn't actually throw up, which is good, right?

*Dream corner: So almost all of my dreams since the first month of pregnancy have been about houses, and I usually never dream the same dream twice. It's usually a new huge house we've just bought that's too big for us, and we're remodeling and preparing to have people live there. Once we bought a house then discovered my dad & stepmom lived across the street; I spent the rest of my dream scrambling to flip it. Haha! But most of the time they're huge luxurious houses and I keep thinking to myself, "Did we really need a house this big? It's so empty. Oh, well." and start decorating or landscaping. I know, wierd.
But last night I finally dreamed something different. My baby was born. Actually I dreamed I was about to give birth, then they knocked me out and I woke up with the baby in my arms, which annoyed me, cuz I I missed the whole giving-birth part.

Oh, one more thing: when I told the girls in church I was pregnant during our traditional "good news minute," three other girls announced it as well, making the total number of pregnant women in our ward 27 at the time. One score and seven!!! The diva in me does not want to share the spotlight, but it's nice to know they're all going through the same thing.

Tour of the House

This was written around the beginning of December. Then my first trimester hit me like a brick wall, and I haven't touched my blog since then. Enjoy!

For anyone who still might not know, Jared and I are going to have a baby!!! I found out during the last week of fall semester, so you can imagine how distracted I was, which is my excuse why I got got all As except one B+. I feel more reassured that Jared and I are now in our own home, that Jared's job is more secure, and, most of all, that my back and neck have improved a lot and I'm on medication that is safe to take while pregnant.

So Thanksgiving had come and gone and I was still "late." So I took a test, which showed not pregnant. But I was still late a week later, so I took another test and this time there was a very faint line showing pregnant, but the control window was faded and not completely filled out. Huh?
So I told Jared over the phone about it (he was in St. George working), and he thought I was already saying that the test was positive, and he was so excited. But I told him I was going to stop by my OBGYN's and get another test. The whole time I was waiting I kept thinking, "I must be making such a big deal out of nothing. Don't get yourself all excited, Kim." But the nurse came back with the faintest of faint lines on the test, saying I was pregnant! They decided to count it as six weeks along, but it's possible I'm less weeks than that because the line was so faint.
I told Jared over the phone. I was so excited, it didn't even cross my mind to think of some creative way to say it that night over dinner or even wait more than a minute to tell him. He kept saying, "Six weeks? Six weeks!" I told him I only wish I could have seen his face. So in response, he sent me this picture: So our first checkup & ultrasound will be January 6th, and did I mention we're so excited?
During the first weeks I knew I was pregnant, I didn't feel anything weird, except having such dry skin I developed a rash across my chest, back, neck, and scalp. I've never had a rash before, so we have to attribute it to the baby. That and I had one crazy day of emotional hormonal insanity. Oh, and a general aversion to food; I wasn't nauseous; it's just that nothing seemed appetizing enough to get up *sigh*, take it out of the box *groan*, and eat it.

Now that I'm further along, I get nausea, which gets exponentially worse if I don't eat something right that minute. Heaven help me if I'm actually hungry.

The biggest problem I've had is being so TIRED! The other day, I went to bed @ 10:30, exhausted, woke up @ 5:00am (6-1/2 hours), went back to bed at 7:00am, and slept until 1:30pm (another 6-1/2 hours). When Jared woke me up with a phone call, I was still so tired I was literally shaking! Thank goodness this hit during my Christmas break.

I only hope the symptoms will lessen by the time school starts next week, that really has me worried! I had all these plans this break of studying for the Praxis exam, but I'm lucky if I survived the day without a three-hour nap in the middle of it, so I've hardly gotten anything done!


By the way, to celebrate the end of finals, Jared and I went to Off The Cuff, a local improv show. It's like "Who's Line is it Anyway?" but I call it TV for ADD viewers. I love trying to think of all the paths a scene can take and always being surprised.
It's so much more fun than watching a stupid show full of filler and cliffhangers just to keep the series going for as many seasons as possible.
But IMPROV is all about finding unexpected resolutions and opening up possibilities in a story. So it's always super-fun.





Last note: Jared and I spent a few hours making a video to tour the house and putting it together in Vegas Movie Studio, but now I can't open it, so the grand opening is postponed once again until Jared can get home & do his tech stuff.

I gotta say we love our house to bits though. It has been so fun hosting events. First, for Thanksgiving, we had my sister's family over (Cami, Mike, & Sara). Then for Christmas we had Jared's parents (Rob, Phemie, & Granny). I don't think there's anything more fun than having people over and making a fabulous meal for them, just knowing your friends are comfortable and having a pleasant time at your house.

Revision on my last post

So it looks like I actually had the brother of Mike Leavitt over to my house, Mark Leavitt. They look so much alike, though, and why do their names have to sound alike?!

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

So, we had the Christmas dinner party tonight for our ward. I played some songs, including "Grown-Up Christmas Wish" for a sister named Kaitlynn and "Three Kings," from The Forgotten Carols for one other guy named Mike. The both had come over today to rehearse the songs. Mike had this an amazing tender tenor voice. I told him how nice it was to accompany for someone who could really sing like he could, although he admitted the song was a little low for his range. We threw some ideas around but Mike mostly deferred to me. When we finally performed that night during the dinner party, it ended up sounding so beautiful, I got a little teary during the dinner party. After performing, he patted me on the back and commented on how well I had done, which made me feel better because I was nervous from playing for the first time in front of my new ward members.
I left the ward party early to catch SUU's symphony concert, which was great. By the time I got home, Jared was home from having to work in St. George. So we talked about each others' day, and I mentioned the people who sang. He asked me to repeat Mike's full name again. I repeated it, asking if he knew him. Yes, he had given Jared a special presidential commemorative coin for the Department of Human Health Services for giving his office a free copier.
Wanting to make sure I was talking about the right person with that name, he found a picture of him on the internet and pulled it up. "Yeah, that's him, that's Mike Leavitt." And it hit me that the former governor of Utah and former cabinet member for the Bush Admin had been in my house, taking my lead. wow.

What the Heck Happened This Summer?

Well, you know I haven't written since the end of spring semester, so here's the catch-up.

I got a job taking customer service calls for Convergys, complete with 7 weeks of training. I've never had to take that much training before; it was like a whole semester in itself.

Once I started taking calls on my own, I started the summer semester. Five weeks of school in what would normally be 16. All I needed to take was Education Technology & Multicultural Education, but in order to qualify for the school loan (since my scholarship didn't come in til the fall), I had to have six credits, so I took a private voice course to bring my credits from 5 to 6, an almost $500 difference. (Doh!)

I gotta admit the Ed Tech class was so fun. I ended up doing so much more than I was asked, because I wanted to know how to do the projects I had in my head, not just get by with the most basic boring project. It's embarrassing to admit I didn't know how to make a PowerPoint Presentation before, but now I can do that, edit a website, make a DVD (editing audio & video), even decorate a bulletin board. Woohoo! My biggest projects are on my eportfolio, which I add to with every class to have available to my next interviewer. Techno-swank!

MultiCult, as I call it (just kidding) was informative. I was braced for a PC-stringent re-education camp. Despite some parts of the book that made me scoff, I appreciated that there was something actually objective to learn. Like the difference between equality & equity, stages of ethnic identity, and the like. It turned out to be more positive than I thought, like not all white males are the devil, whodathunk?

The voice teacher that usually teaches only voice majors got to be MY teacher, supercool. It was very helpful, and I'm glad she recorded all the lessons, although I have to lock myself somewhere quite, turn the volume all the way up, and press my ear to the laptop to review it. Looks like it's time to use the hookup speakers.

So the week after summer semester ended, we closed on the house! August 14th to be exact, Jared's sister's bday, so now I'll remember when to celebrate every year our house anniversary. We now live at 48 South Marble Canyon Drive Cedar City, Utah 84720. It's so nice to not have your address include the words, "box" or "apt" or "turn off the paved road." No, seriously, I love my house. A shout out to all the friends and family that helped us move out & back in again, including my in-laws, my sis Cami, Jared's h.s. buddy Steve, sis-in-law Amber and her fam, including my nephew Alex, and his buddy Cameron (who I swear had bronchitis and would not stop moving furniture even with my begging and his nose bleeds)!

The first day sleeping there was so eery. I felt like I was sleeping at someone else's house, which is always hard. No, it was like I was sleeping at a friend's house and they had put us in their master bedroom. The ceilings were so high, I felt like I was outside looking at the stars. The icemaker in the fridge wasn't that loud, but because it was so new to me, I kept waking up. It wasn't til the third night that I actually got a full night's sleep.

The next week I spent unpacking and figuring out where to put everything. The hard thing wasn't finding room for everything; it was trying to decide which of the twenty cabinets to put the medicine, or where in the umpteen drawers in the kitchen to put that 2nd pasta maker I got from a friend. I have way too many kitchen toys, mostly donated by a divorced friend who was cleaning house of ex-reminders.

I also spent that week finalizing & distributing my posters & fliers. You might have seen my picture on facebook. I put a similar pic in my piano teaching ads and trotted around town asking to post them up in businesses windows & boards. I really liked how they turn out. (I'll go back to this post & add the pics later, just gotta finish debriefing.) You know, local business is more likely than I thought to support other local businesses. I'm all for Ma & Pop stores, which to me is the antithesis of federalizing. But I digress. It was tough, but I got almost all my posters/fliers distributed. The bleeding toes were so worth it; I've never felt so confident and interconnected with others. I'm already accumulating some students, by the way, to start teaching in October or once we get a piano, which might be earlier. We're looking at some deals this weekend in Las Vegas. Funny, Jared did all the research on buying pianos. But he likes to do things like that, research & development, hunting for the best deals. Why do you think it took two years to buy a house? If only he could put that gift toward yard sale shopping, and the world would be ours.

The next week (last week) was the first week of school. I'm taking (inhale) Teaching Math for Elementary I, Music Technology, Private Voice instruction, Choir, Teaching Dance, Teaching Theatre, Assessment, and Special Education. I was looking forward to Music Tech, but the teacher is one of three in my classes that was thrown into the course at a moment's notice. So far I've been called a guinea pig, an experiment, and a pioneer. Not good signs to me, but I try to stay positive.

Last Saturday was our official house-warming party, which turned out to be a blast. My bestest friend from h.s., Shayla, came down on her way back up from Zions and slept over. Don't you love those friends you see after being gone for a few years and it's as if you'd just hung out together yesterday? I love that we have that, although it makes it less motivating to do all the things I know good friends do, like call (sorry!).

Sorry about the text only blog, I'll throw together pictures when I have time to think. The only reason I'm writing a blog now is because I threw my neck out bending down to pull up my pants while in the little-lady's room, so I have nothing else to do. I think it's from the constant doing-something's, multiple scooter trips per day, and the lack of sleep.

Speaking of which, in my Teaching Math class, we have math homework that said in the syllabus it was due today, right? It was a LOT of homework, and the math is completely different from what you normally learn, because it has nothing to do with plugging in numbers, it has more to do with critical thinking, working outside the box, finding multiple ways to do the same thing, and the like. So I made sure to pace myself and do a quarter of the hw each day until it would be ready today.

Well, last night, I'm working on the last quarter of the hw, and it's thrice as long as everything else. So I do what any must-have-a-4.0 girl would do, stay up til 2am finishing it. I go to class, we review some of the questions in the assignment, then everyone leaves after class without handing in their hw. And I'm like, did I miss something here? Turns out we're not done discussing it so we don't have to turn it in yet. NOBODY had completed the hw yet, except for one OCD guy I knew, not that that is a reflection on me... Anyway, So I say out loud to the teacher, "The hw's not due today? I stayed up til 2am getting it done." She immediately replies, "Don't ever do that again. I'm not that stringent." So instead of acting offended and put-off, I chose to look at it like, "Okay, here is a teacher that cares. And I'm never doing another assignment on time again. I'll accept that." This is the one and only time I'm going to vent about it. At least nNow I won't throw my neck out again due to lack of sleep. Late-night math isn't that productive anyway; my mind goes on standby after midnight.

One more thing, then I'll let you go. This last week New Harmony was literally "under fire." They had a fire that started a month ago from a lightening storm and has been festering ever since. Officials have been letting it burn (controlled) to keep wild fires from occurring. Well last week the fire got out of control. There were several times my sister's family & Jared's parents' family were almost mandatorily evacuated, but instead it was just strongly suggested. Jared's brother, John, is staying with us until we're sure they're not in any danger anymore.

Cedar City got all the smoke though. I almost passed out a couple times walking to class on campus just because there wasn't enough oxygen in the air. You could see the ash floating around, and everything had an orange eclipse-like caste. Now it's better in New Harmony but headed toward Cedar. Fun fun fun. K bye