Fundal Height, Bad Mojo,Tiny Melons and a Washing Machine

What is Fundal Height?
In your 2nd trimester the doctor starts measuring fundal height. Fundal height is the measure from the top of your pubic bone to the top of the uterus. The distance in centimeters should match pretty closely with the number of weeks pregnant you are. i.e. 30 weeks pregnant should have a fundal height of about 30 cm. This number can be +/- about 2 cm and still be considered normal.

At my 34 week checkup I measured right on the dot. At this last check up (36 week) I was still measuring 34 cm. This is still in the normal range but the lack of any change and the fact that I gained no weight in the last 2 weeks resulted in my doctor and I deciding to do an additional ultrasound to make sure everything is still fine. This will take place next Wednesday (Sept 9th).

Again let me remind you (and my subconscious) that we are still in the normal limit. Everything is probably fine. The Mayo Clinic gives the following possible no-stress reasons for a smaller than normal fundal height:

• a tall or thin frame (uh... oh well, not that one)
• well-conditioned abdominal muscles (hahahahahahahah)
• a baby prematurely descending into the pelvis (not sure???)

So I'm letting you all know on the strict promise you will assume, with Nate and I, that Peanut has just taken pity on me (and my hippy-craziness of not using drugs for the birth) and decided to stay small until after he after he rips through my vaginal cavity. Thank you.

Next let me tell you of the bad mojo I have had this last week...
(ps who can name this book???)

I ripped the button off my maternity pants packet, had to remove my underwear in a grocery store bathroom, burned my finger, dropped my potato in cat hair, gave bad mojo to an entire bagel store, got raisin bagels in my baker's dozen (ewww!), got a random cut on my foot that bled like crazy, had to park way far away from my building in a spot I wasn't sure was legal and lost poker to Nate (meaning he got an additional book this month and I didn't!). :(

On a brighter side I have melons! I planted, in the desperate attempt to grow anything in my garden this year, some watermelon and cantaloupe plants way late. They have baby melons on them! Here's a pic of the largest melon:
Isn't it cute! Some more melon plant pics.

farther away cantaloupe
watermelon
Other best news...

We got a new washing machine! The one we had was one we got from a lady at church, who had gotten it from a man at her work. It was old and made a lot of noise (some balancing issue inside) and didn't clean super well. We decided that since we're doing cloth diapers we needed a good machine that actually cleaned. It is beautiful and wonderful and we love it.

Last night we tried out the sanitary option on our dirty rags. They came out so clean and good-smelling! (although it did take 3 hours. holy hannah! not to be used often!)

Plus one outfit of Peanut's had accidentally fallen into that basket without us noticing. It was so fun to fold little Peanut clothes. Made me 'miss' him- and he's sitting on my bladder right now. Yes I'm a sap.

Oh well, as long as this doesn't happen...

Garden

fuzzy picture of a yellow tomato

So let me tell you a bit about my garden. This year I tried several different things because I'm not really good at keeping plants alive and I figured I'd see what would survive and make next year worth it.

And I did find out what I could keep alive and what I couldn't. My number one problem was weeds. I kept forgetting to go out and pick them so they'd get really bad. We tried using newspaper (which is apparently what Grandpa Bennion did) but I don't think I buried it far enough cause it just dried up and blew away.


Grandpa Bennion- gardener extrodinaire

I also didn't do a whole lot to the soil before hand. I really should have done some testing and applied some fertilizer but I didn't make much of an effort (we just took a couple of shovel-fulls from Nate's folks compost pile).

But some of it did come out much better than I expected. The tomatoes for example were amazing as you can see above. Oklahoma is perfect for tomatoes. So beautiful!!! Too bad Nate won't eat them. :(

Anyway so here's what I grew and how it turned out:

• spinach- wonderful! it's an early spring plant (or at least just colder weather). It did great in the early part of the year but went to seed once it got too hot. I'd really like to try some more salad greens next year.

• sugar snap peas- very well. these did fine early on but when it got too hot they wilted. I would like to try something more structured for them to grow on next year and a shade device, which I hope will extend their life a little.

• yellow squash- very well for a while and then these weird white and black spider/aphid things ate them all. Must find out what they are and destroy them!!!
  

• zucchini- never got off the ground, eaten by the same things as my yellow squash

• butternut squash- never got off the ground, eaten by the same things as my yellow squash

• watermelon- over taken by weeds, never produced

• cantaloupe- overtaken with weeds, never produced

• corn- got to the perfect ripeness when we were on vacation and didn't get picked so went bad. WAY SAD!!!

• tomatoes- I planted 4 kinds

• beef steak- big and beautiful but not amazing. They love the sun so maybe they haven't hit their stride yet. The rainy weather isn't helping
• roma- my best and earliest producing. I love them! I wish they got a little bigger but overall they're super yummy
• yellow (low acid)- these things are so beautiful. I wish pictures did the justice. They look amazing on the plant. And really good and sweet
• 4th of July- not overly impressed. These were the last to produce and are medium sized red tomatoes, I'll probably skip them next year.

And just for fun a picture of one of our kittens attacking a tomato I dropped in the kitchen. It was way funny.

Fences, Plates and My Poor Snuggly

So on Saturday we helped our friends Spencer and Laura

tear down their fence (they were the friends who watched all 4 of our dogs at their house while we were gone for Thanksgiving last year so they could ask me for a kidney and I'd be happy to give it to them). Anyway, we'd only been there a few minutes when Nate was trying to jiggle a post we had to take out and it broke off. He went flying and hit a metal post in their neighbor's yard. He has this to show for it.

I didn't get any bruises or even a sunburn but it's been so long since I did any sustained physical labor I went home and slept for like 4 hours. It was sooo nice.

Right after the fence project Nate and I went to see the new Hulk movie. I don't know what to say about it except that I thought it was just ok but Nate liked it so I guess it was worth it.

I also just harvested our fist yellow squash out of out garden. YEA!!!!


Ok and now here is really the best story from the last couple of days...

Several weeks ago Nate got us a bread maker off of freecycle.org. At school I used to make my own bread and rolls pretty often but with school and work and the lack of kneading space in my kitchen I hadn't been making any for Nate so he decided while bread maker bread isn't quite as good as homemade bread it is better than store bought bread.

So the day before yesterday Nate made bread. He added all the ingredients and it ran through the whole cycle and then finally yesterday we got around to actually trying to eat it. We were watching a movie in the living room and Nate grabbed the bread maker pan to get out the bread. The problem is this:

See that weird blade thing in the bottom? that's what stirs/kneads the bread but it also makes it very difficult to get bread out. the baked bread sticks to that blade and so you spend a lot of time pulling and thumping and being very irritated trying to get your bread out. Anyway so Nate struggled with it for several minutes and finally got it out. He set it down on a plate on the couch. He was really excited to have an egg salad sandwich on his super yummy bread. But...it was time to switch the laundry at his parent's house (yes we still do laundry at his folks one day I will have the amazing ability to do laundry in my own home but that day has not come yet). He asked me to make the egg salad out of the eggs he had just boiled and have it ready for him when he got back.

I made the egg salad, put it in the fridge and then went to take a bath. A while later I heard Nate pull up and the dogs bark because they're glad he's home. I hear Nate open the door. I can hear the dogs pretty loud so I figure Nate decided to let them in. But then I hear the yelling...

Turns out Nate did not let the dogs in. They got excited and pushed open the back door that we hadn't completely closed. Cali ran in to her favorite spot by the love seat and lo and behold there was a treat just for her - a whole loaf of bread. I mean it had to be for her because human food is usually on the table. So she grabbed it (before the other dogs could) and ran for the back door. Nate saw her and was way mad. He was so sad he lost his bread and his sandwiches he was looking forward to. He actually got the bread from her but wasn't going to eat it now. Here's a pic of what was left for my poor snuggly.

I of course thought it was pretty funny but don't tell Nate. :)

Now for fun a cute, blurry pic of one of the kittens.

They are just started to get playful and wrassle with each other. I love it!

Baptism and the Garden

I was just looking through the photos on our camera and I can't believe I didn't post about these things already! I'm a slacker!!!

First, on June 6th Nate got to baptize 2 young men and their mother. These boys had been coming to our primary class for a couple of weeks before (although they're actually in young mens). Nate got to baptize all 3 of them and next Sunday will be giving one boy the priesthood. ***** Correction. Nate ended up confirming both boys to the Aaronic Priesthood. It was super cool!*** It was really amazing.


Victor, JoAnn, Clarence and Nate

Secondly, I harvested most of my sugar snap peas. I brought one to my coworker, Chris, and I tried to take a picture of it but it was really hard to get my camera to focus on it for some reason. Isn't it beautiful? We also have a yellow squash growing that is getting pretty big. YUM!

My Garden and Our Not-So-Smart Puppies

Ok so I've been meaning to post about my garden (because I'm crazy proud) but it's not weeded so I'm too embarrassed to put up pics. But I really need to because it's amazing! Things are growing that I planted. We've been harvesting our own spinach for a while but I think it's being close to being done (it's a cold-weather plant) and we just started getting out first sugar-snap peas. We've got blossoms on our tomato plants and our squashes. And our melons and corn are looking really good. I love it! *extra note- Nate felt I left him out of the garden info. He did help plant and often does the watering* Here's the one pic I have which Nate took (I'll give you a hint he was not focused on the garden...).

Plus I saw this cute little spider carrying around an egg sac the other day. Yea for spiders that eat the bugs around here!

And just for fun here are my not very smart dogs. This is Hoss wanting to get inside (even though he knows if the baby gate is up he's not allowed) and getting his head stuck. So funny...