If you’re new around these parts, this monthly series is an exercise in brevity as I try (sometimes not very hard) to summarize each day of our month in one sentence. (Also, I’ve been taking a picture of my daughter every day since she was born, and this is a GREAT place for me to share several of those!). Although I’ve almost always included the photo at the top of its corresponding day, the daily captions of what we did and the photos often do not match. (Just to clarify!)
Thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Jo for the post idea!
Monday 1/1 – Spent some time outside the condo we were staying at in St. George with Raven while she played on the playground and Matt loaded up our car. The rest of the day was spent making our way back home from Southern Utah, including an hour and a half long pit stop in Fillmore to eat at Iceberg, which had the longest wait imaginable. Note to self: no matter how hungry we are, we CANNOT each put down a burger combo with shake. Next time, one of us needs to get the combo with a drink, we split the shake, and we let Raven share ours rather than get her own. So. Much. Food.
Tuesday 1/2 – Sick, sick, sick. I’d started to get a raging headache the night before, but it morphed in the night to full-on body aches and a terrible sore throat by morning that laid me down flat for the day. Basically, Raven watched two movies in the morning while I slept, and then Raven went down for a nap in the afternoon and I slept some more. Not a fun day. I have been sick with this pregnancy sooooo much already.
Wednesday 1/3 – Still sick, but a little less extreme. Pretty positive (judging by the symptoms) that it’s the flu, so no exercise class for me this night (though I probably couldn’t have made it anyway, as Matt had to run pack meeting). Raven had at least something to be excited about though (besides getting to watch waaaaay more movies than normal) because Matt brought home a chinchilla from his work to show to the scouts at the pack meeting, which got to stay overnight with us as our “special guest.”
Thursday 1/4 – Still sick, though I did spend less time on the couch at least. I felt so bad at how many times Raven was asking me to “go to the store” because she had been cooped up inside all week that I had Matt bundle her up and take her on a walk after he got home from work.
Friday 1/5 – Felt well enough to make a grocery run in the morning, which was much needed. I took it pretty easy the rest of the day, though. (Man, these posts are so boring when I’m just sick all the time!)
Saturday 1/6 – Even though I still wasn’t feeling great, I felt well enough to go through with my first photo shoot of the year, which went really well. I did the shoot at the Whittier Center–which I’d never done before–and it was awesome because not only was it indoors with decent spots with natural lighting, but it was also FREE. You just don’t find that many places like that anymore.
Sunday 1/7 – Matt got called to be my co-teacher in Primary, except this year instead of teaching the older group (9 and 10-year-olds) like last year, we’re teaching the 6-7 year old class. Luckily, our first lesson went pretty smoothly, though I’m not putting *too* much stock in it yet, as we’re still firmly in the “honeymoon period.”
Monday 1/8 – Besides a slight cough and sore throat, I largely felt back to normal, which was a nice change from the usual. I even felt well enough to do some research and make a call about a long overdue task (rolling over Matt’s old 401k), as well as doing some dishes. Progress! (I also felt well enough to take Raven to storytime at the library, which we’ve missed being able to go to, seeing as the last two Mondays were holidays!)
Tuesday 1/9 – Matt met Raven and I at Sam’s Club for a little lunch date, which is always fun. What was NOT fun was the fact that Raven threw up EVERYWHERE during her nap afterwards. SERIOUSLY?! It’s like we can’t catch a break over here.
Wednesday 1/10 – Raven was still throwing up and having some other worrisome symptoms, so I took her to the doctor. Luckily, after taking some anti-nausea meds and getting some more fluids in, she seemed to turn a corner in the afternoon and was feeling a lot better. Whew!
Thursday 1/11 – Raven was obviously feeling mostly all better since she started begging me to take her somewhere “in the car” almost the second after Matt left for work. Then she started asking me, “We go to the temple? We go in the car to see the temple?” So that’s where we went—to take a little walk around the Logan Temple and then to visit Daddy at work after 🙂
Friday 1/12 – If I remember correctly, this was the first day in a really long time (like, well over a month) that we went outside and took a family walk together. Had to take advantage of the rare January we’ve been having, which has consisted of no snow and temperatures hovering regularly around 40 degrees (as compared to the typical January, where everything is iced over and snowy and there is usually a two-week period where it doesn’t get above about 3 degrees).
Saturday 1/13 – Probably the most exciting part of the day was Matt needing new pants, so we made a family trip of it and went to Old Navy, where we ended up getting two pairs of jeans for him for just over $9, thanks to the Rewards points I had from Christmas shopping. Score!
Sunday 1/14 – Right after church, we grabbed a snack and loaded ourselves up in the car to head down south to catch my family’s monthly birthday party (where we celebrate everyone in the family who has a birthday that month). After enjoying a potato bar and rousing games of Headbanz and Beanboozled, we made a stop over at my in-laws’ house too. All in all, a GREAT day of visiting family.
Monday 1/15 – For our family night activity, we all sat around and played with the Play-Dough Raven got in her stocking for Christmas. My favorite part was afterwards, when Raven said like four or five times (as sweet as can be): “Thank you for playing with me, Mom and Dad. Thank you for playing.” It simultaneously both melted and broke my heart at the same time. (For the record, we DO play with her on a daily basis…just not all together as often as she’d like, I guess.)
Tuesday 1/16 – We acquired a stand-alone freezer for free, which Matt went and picked up on this day. It’s old-school vintage, but we’re crossing our fingers that it still works great because my frugal mind has all sorts of plans for it. Also, I went up front during my hip hop class to demonstrate the harder version of the moves on one of the songs, seeing as my instructor is in her third trimester of pregnancy. It felt pretty good that after over two and a half years of going to the class, I have the routines down pat, ha ha.
Wednesday 1/17 – Our ward (church congregation) was having a temple day this day, so thanks to our good friends being willing to watch Raven for us, we were able to make a little date of it and go do sealings, followed up at home with some ice cream and Fixer-Upper-watching after Raven was in bed 🙂
Thursday 1/18 – The weather reached 50 degrees (!) today–an absolute rarity in this neck of the woods–so Raven and I took full advantage of it by going on a long walk/play date/kind of picnic with my friend Katie and her son.
Friday 1/19 – After that unusual warm spell, Utah made up for it by dumping us with about a foot of snow over the weekend. As a result, we spent a cozy day tucked inside from morning ’til night (well, I did, anyway. Raven went out and helped Matt shovel when he got home from work).
Saturday 1/20 – We had our monthly get-together with friends, with the theme this time being “Comfort Foods Dinner.” Our friends are on a clean eating challenge at the moment, so everything had to fall within certain guidelines, but it’s always reassuring to know that food that’s really good for you can also TASTE really good. After, Matt got Raven into bed while I went to our stake conference meeting for adults.
Sunday 1/21 – We had Stake Conference, so church was shorter than normal but SOOO good. (In case you’re unfamiliar with LDS lingo, stake conference is when several local LDS congregations–called wards–gather together to receive instruction from our leaders over the whole area, or stake.) The meeting left me so inspired that I promptly went home to work more on our genealogy and family history, and I made contact with a living relative of Matt’s in Australia who’s going to be able to help me with a ton of the stuff I’m looking for. (Also, in the not-fun department, Raven got a minor case of hives…her first.)
Monday 1/22 – I had my 16-week appointment with a PA at my doctor’s office–always such a relief to go and hear the heartbeat and be reassured that everything looks good.
Tuesday 1/23 – I felt bad that we basically missed storytime on Monday (we literally only caught the last two minutes after rushing to the library from my doctor’s appointment), so I tried to make up for it on this day by taking Raven to a different library’s storytime. Though it’s always good to get out of the house, Raven was just not as impressed, and was pretty squirrely the whole time as a result.
Wednesday 1/24 – A day spent largely at home, finally starting to tackle the mountains of clutter and random debris that had been gathering since I first started feeling sick with the pregnancy months ago. (Raven loves days like this since I let her watch a movie, which I try not to have happen very often though you can see that this month had rather a lot of days like this.)
Thursday 1/25 – Spent the morning going visiting teaching, which easily is one of Raven’s top 3 favorite ways of spending any given morning, as it means she basically gets a play date while I visit with the sister (fellow member of my church congregation) I’ve been assigned to and catch up with how she’s doing.
Friday 1/26 – After Matt got back from work, we headed down to stay with my mom and stepdad, who made dinner for us (I loooooove it when someone else cooks for me…I don’t think I’ll ever take it for granted again like I did when I was a kid and teenager), and my mom and I spent the evening working on and filing mine and Matt’s taxes.
Saturday 1/27 – A day full of adventures! We started the day by using up two tickets to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum that my mom had given us (Raven got in for free), where we joined my sister and most of her kids for the morning. Raven had a blast playing with all the sand especially (and her daddy seemed to enjoy building in it with her, too!). After, we stopped at our favorite place to eat of all time (Leatherby’s, who also catered at our wedding reception), and we attempted to put Raven down for a nap after all that, but it just wasn’t going to happen. That night, we celebrated with Matt’s parents as they were celebrating their 41st wedding anniversary (their 40th anniversary happened last year when my father-in-law was in the hospital and so therefore got a bit ignored, so this year was a chance to make up for that and rejoice that our father-in-law is still with us and healthy again).
Sunday 1/28 – This was the Sunday of meltdowns by Raven, which went pretty much from wake-up time to bedtime. Granted, she didn’t get a nap the day before due to our adventures running late nor did she get a nap on this particular day due to some extra church meetings we had, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected. I am proud, though, that we didn’t have to resort to sticking her in front of a screen and that we rode it out as rationally and calmly as could be expected. It was a rough day, though.
Monday 1/29 – After a bit of a tantrum in the morning before library storytime, I was worried that it was going to be a repeat of the day before, but luckily, being back on a normal schedule seemed to help immensely, and we enjoyed a pretty pleasant day overall.
Tuesday 1/30 – Showed up to my hip hop class in the evening, only to discover that a sub was teaching the class instead and that that sub (and her cardio of expertise) was waaaaay harder than anything this pregnant lady has done for several months. Felt a distinct humbling as I realized that, despite my going to exercise classes two or three times a week, there are still exercises that I just will not be doing again until the postpartum phase (*cough* burpees *cough*).
Wednesday 1/31 – Raven and I took a long walk outside in the morning due to an extended period of mild weather we’ve been having and enjoyed every second of it. Also, for the first time since I told Raven that she’d be getting a sibling, she wanted to “cuddle” with the baby (by patting my stomach and giving it loves) and then proceeded to try to explain to me how the baby was going to come as soon as “Daddy gets home from work.”
As you can see, the first half of the month was largely taken up by sickness, so believe me when I say that we were full of nothing but intense gratitude to have the rest of the month more or less healthy enough to do whatever we pleased! Fingers crossed that February allows us to continue on without any more sicknesses!
