Pregnancy Quotes

(at about 16 weeks) Asking T about an outfit I was wearing: "Does this make me look pregnant or chubby?... I hope it's just chubby."

(at 23 weeks and still struggling with food aversions) Looking for something to eat after dinner but before bed: "Will you get me the Frosted Flakes down?  They are the most bland cereal."

(Yes, I know Frosted Flakes aren't the blandest cereal, they were just the blandest we had in the house.)

More Germany stuff

Some more things about Germany...

• Laundry.  

Oh, boy.  Most people don't have dryers, they still hang dry their clothes.  Also, many apartments have community laundry rooms.  So you own your own washing machine (the capacity of which is much smaller than the average American washer) and put it in the community laundry room.  Then you hang dry your items on a rack in the community laundry room.  Luckily, our washing machine was in our storage unit next to the community laundry room and we bought a dryer (no hook-up required, it plugs in and the water collects in a tray you have to dump out after every load) because let's be honest, hang drying garments in the community laundry room wasn't going to fly for us.  And if you hang dry things in your apartment in the winter your whole house is moist forever because German apartments are so well built / insulated that there is no air circulation at all.  And who wants to wait 24 hours for one load of laundry to be done?!

But doing laundry in Germany isn't fast anyway.  A wash cycle takes two hours and a dry cycle takes two hours.  And we couldn't run the washer and dryer at the same time.  And since the washer and dryer were in the basement and we lived on the fourth floor I couldn't always get down to rotate them right when they finished because sometimes Pippa would be napping and I couldn't leave her alone.  What this amounts to is that on a very good day I could get two loads of laundry done.  I absolutely do NOT miss doing laundry in Germany.  As a side note, some people owned machines that were washers and dryers all in one.  They still had a really small capacity and still took really long to do a full cycle.

• Appliances are smaller.  I've already covered washing machines.  A normal German oven could barely, if at all, fit a full size Thanksgiving turkey.  A German fridge / freezer combo is what you would normally see in a USA hotel room.  The dishwashers are also significantly smaller.  T and I used to joke that Germany is a country built for dwarves.  
• Buying items in bulk is not a thing in Germany.  They don't even sell gallons of milk (only 1.5 liters) much less have bulk stores like Costco.  It's kind of surprising because Germany is super into recycling so you would think they would have bulk items to cut down on the amount of original packaging but they are more into super fresh food.  Most German recycling seems to be post-consumer not pre-consumer.  I actually think we had MORE trash in Germany than we do in the USA because nothing comes in family sized packs.  
• The pizza in Germany is terrible.  And we tried a lot of pizza there.  The basic problem is that it's mostly crust.  But not even fluffy crust, just flat boring crust.  There's almost no sauce and no cheese.  We did go to a Pizza Hut in Munich once and they did have regular (American style) pizza.  
• Germany has some really good pastries.  Like really good.  The best pastry I have ever had in my life came from Munich.  Sadly it was on like our 5th day in Munich in a far part of town that we never visited again and I didn't pay attention to what it was called.  But it was SO good!
• No food items have ziplock packaging.  Like shredded cheese, you just cut the bag open and it stays open.  The same with frozen fruit and everything else you wish came with a ziplock built in.  Also, you can't readily find regular ziplock bags.  It's all twisty tie.  
• Hot dog and hamburger buns do not come pre-sliced.  I know, a small thing, but definitely something we noticed. 

Baby #2

In my head this photo announcing the gender of baby #2 was going to be ridiculously cute.  But Pippa wasn't interested in the balloon after riding in the back seat with it, the wind was blowing the balloon almost completely horizontal, and Pippa spent the 98% of her time running away from the balloon.  So this is it.  Still kinda cute, though.  

We do have a name picked out for this baby girl.  We're not keeping it secret so if you're curious just email me and I'll let you know what it is.  Like Pippa, we're going to have a blog nickname for baby #2 and try to never use her real name anywhere on the internet.

Another girl!!!  We're so excited!

NIT - Cal vs UVU

My cousin plays basketball for UVU.  They made it to the NIT and their game was against Cal.  Which is practically next door to us!  My cousin and his family were so nice and got us excellent tickets - two rows behind the team!

The game was on a Wednesday night and we weren't sure if our regular babysitter (who is just a sophomore in high school) could watch Pippa.  Plus it would be the first time someone not me, T, my mom, or my dad had gotten her to sleep.  But the babysitter was free so off we went to the game.  (She got Pippa down for bed just fine.)

I know we're old because we felt so wild going out on a weeknight.  We took an Uber down but the driver dropped us off at the football stadium instead of the basketball arena.  So we had to walk across campus and we missed the tip off (but not much else).  Everyone on campus and at the game looked so young.  I asked T if he thought we could pass as grad students.  He said that me being pregnant probably gave it away that we weren't students.

UVU played Cal very close through the first half, but Cal pulled away in the second half.  It was still really fun to watch my cousin play and to get out (on a weeknight!) without baby.

I took a few photos during the game and totally forgot to take any of me, T, or our relatives.

Pippa Says

We thought it would be a while before Pippa started saying adorable quotable things.  We were wrong.  Here's her first:

Pippa has been picking up new signs so quickly.  A new sign that I thought she had picked up from us and "Signing Time" was "thirsty."  She would point to her throat and say "nak" which didn't really make sense, but whatever.  When she did this sign I would offer her a drink and she would always (always) say "no."  This had been going on for a little over a week when I figured out that she was signing "neck" and saying "nak" and that to her neck and snack were the same word.  She wants a snack when she signs that! (To her credit, neck and snack do sound pretty similar.)

This and That

Lately...

• Still having a hard time adjusting to daylight saving time.  Baby goes to bed and wakes up like daylight saving time never happened.  Which means T and I do, too.  Bleh.  Can't we all just be like Arizona and get rid of daylight saving?
• Our things from Germany arrived last Thursday!  It's been 114 days since our things left our Munich apartment.  Unpacking has been... different.  The movers pulled most things out of boxes and took the boxes away but there are still a few boxes.  Unpacking with a toddler trying to "help" definitely takes longer.  Plus we have to wash all our clothes / clothes Pippa out grew / blankets / sheets / towels / dishes / kitchen accessories before using or storing them.  No joke we've already done at least 15 loads of laundry (our washer is so small, but at least it's in our unit).
• Pippa has started singing of sorts.  It's just babbling but definitely more lyrical - going up and down and holding some of the sounds.  Pretty cute.  
• Pippa loves to shout in the parking garage.  I think it is because her voice echoes.  
• Morning sickness is officially on the downhill.  I've thrown up 6 times this pregnancy (5 more than with Pippa) and the last one was last week.  I rarely feel queasy during the day and I'm not so bone tired (still tired, just not bone tired).  
• T and Pippa have missed the last two weeks of church with coughs, runny noses, fevers and sinus headaches (T only).  And the week before that was Stake Conference which means Pippa still hasn't gone to her first week of nursery.  It's so sad when babies are sick.

• On Sunday we finally took a video of Pippa dancing.  Most babies bounce up and down to dance.  Pippa never has.  She's always done this side to side shimmy with optional arm movements.  And it's adorable.  (You know my stance on naked babies.  But this is an exception because Pippa had had a fever all day.)  You probably can't hear it but there is music playing in the background - she won't just dance on command.

• All by herself, Pippa tried on her first pair of high heels.  She might have done it earlier (she does love all things shoes), but all my high heels were being shipped from Germany...  Here's an adorable photo of her and a video of her walking in them.  And ok, they are wedges, not heels. I'd like to think she's easing her way up to the stilettos.  

And that's us lately.  What's you lately?

Lammily aka Average Barbie

Perhaps you have heard about "Average Barbie."  It was kind of big in the news a few months ago.  Basically Nick Lamm created a Barbie with the real proportions of an American woman.  Here's the comparison to real Barbie.

I hadn't heard of "Average Barbie" until today when one of my cousins shared this article on Facebook. (Really, read the article, it's pretty great.)

So many people were asking where they could buy an "Average Barbie" that Nick Lamm decided to make the doll a reality and called her "Lammily."

This is Lammily (it's two photos put together by me so if one doll looks slightly larger it's just my mediocre cropping skills)

She is made according to typical body proportions of an average 19 year old American woman.  She also has articulated wrists, knees, elbows and feet. This is pretty awesome because Lammily will be able to "play" sports and other activities.  She also has visibly less make up than Barbie and (especially) the Bratz line.

The tag line of the doll is "Average is Beautiful."  When asked about why "Average is Beautiful" Nick (the creator) responded, "Has there ever been a non-beautiful average sunset? Who you are, that is beautiful."  That is such a beautiful way to put it and it hit me hard.

Basically, this is the type of doll I want Pippa playing with.  So I bought one.

You can buy one and learn more about Lammily on the Lammily website.  The project is fully funded and the first production will roll out in fall 2014.  They are $25 but I think that is a small price to pay to help Pippa learn that average is beautiful.