So I’ll share this picture:

Me and Joe

Last weekend, we went to LA to visit my brother Rob.  It was the last opportunity for my whole family to be together before my little brother, Joseph goes on his mission (to Lima, Peru in 10 days!). Rob only had one day between his tours that we could see him before Joe left. It was a quick trip, but a good time.

While we were there, we took some family pictures and Joseph wanted to compare our bellies.

I think I won. (For historical records, my belly is 30 weeks big in that picture. This baby is getting close.)

I think it may be nearly time to start a support group, so I think I’m going to call it Organizers Anonymous.

The other day, I was looking through my emails and I realized that I had quite a few “Better Home and Garden” emails that I hadn’t read. I opened each email and glanced through the topics, opening the topics I thought would be interesting in new tabs. When I was done going through my emails and I looked at the tabs, I realized I had a problem.  Every single new tab I had opened had something to do with organizing:

• Savvy Ways to Store Food
• Keep Small Appliances out of Sight
• Creative Ways to Store Dishes
• Our Best Cleaning Shortcuts
• Make the Most out of Your Mudroom
• Laundry Room Storage Solutions
• Do It All Entryways
• The Versatile Butler’s Pantry

I’m not one to fall for the magazine displays at grocery stores, but the few times the magazine marketers have trapped me is when it’s a special organization issue.

I can’t count the number of times that I have reorganized my cubical or the way I keep track of my projects.

The aisle at Target with all the storage containers and things is horribly tempting every time I go in the store, I try to avoid it so I don’t come home with something new.

You may be thinking to yourself that having an addiction to organizing things isn’t a bad thing, but for me, it can be. My big problem is that I never actually organize the things that REALLY need it.  I organize and reorganize the same things over and over again (my movies, under my sink in the bathroom, my desk at work, the cutting table at work, my makeup bag) and neglect the others, like my office. It is currently a disaster. There is so much junk on Bryan’s desk that he can’t even use his extra monitor, my desk is not piled quite as high, but still in piles and I’m afraid to even look into the closet.

On Saturday, I decided to do something extra productive and clean out and organize our medicine cupboard and it turned into every upper cupboard except one  and every lower cupboard besides two. But I completed the task and it feels WONDERFUL.  So for this next weekend: I’m taking on the office.

Wish me luck — and may my newly discovered “addiction” actually be a help and not a hindrance.

Then it hit me as I looked at the profile picture: it was an ultrasound, our ultrasound. James Phelps is our baby. Our baby set up a facebook page. I looked at it for a few seconds and started laughing.

James Phelps

James’ info says: “-4 months old, Taurus, waiting to make a big splash.”

As I read through his status updates and the rest of his information page, I kept laughing and laughing. In the end I was laughing so hard I was crying.

I knew that Bryan and I were pretty geeky and too many of our conversations have something to do with the internet, but I never imagined our baby would pick up our on all of it so quickly.  ha ha ha!

I think my favorite status update so far has been:

The other thing I think is too funny about our baby’s facebook page is the mixed reactions we have gotten from it. There are some that thing the whole this is bizarre and creepy and some that think it’s just as funny as I thought. My little brother thought it was pretty cool that the baby got wi-fi in there…but thinks the wi-fi might not be the best thing for the baby.  ha ha!

If you’re worried that we might be crazy, and want to tell us that our baby didn’t actually set up a facebook page for himself, don’t worry. It’s just a joke. And I must admit, if you read through his posts, my wonderful husband (who set up the page, but swears it was the baby) is very witty.

One of my other favorite quotes: “Too far, Amy. Too far.”

But my favorite Friends quotes are not the point of this post. The real point of this post is that I want these boots:

Great Boots

… and they are on sale at www.alloy.com. They are 4.5 inch heel with a .5 inch plat form and I think they are kind of wonderful.  The thing that makes me sad though, is that I know I should not/can’t buy them.

Not because I don’t have the money

Not because I already have a pair of boots (when is that a reason not to buy shoes though)

Not because I’m trying to save money

Not because Bryan said no

Not because my card is lost

But because a few Sundays ago, I wore my amazing blue shoes that have a very tall heel (I don’t think they are quite 4.5 inch, but they are pretty high) and with my ever increasing belly, lack of normal balance and change in my center of gravity, I realized that my tall heeled shoes may have been a most beautiful mistake.

So I guess for now, I’ll avoid beautiful mistakes like these boots (at least until May or I learn to walk at a normal pace with my new center of gravity).

We went to the doctor on Friday, Dec. 18 and had an ultrasound. We wanted to know the gender of the baby (so I can start buying exciting things), and he was ready to share with his parents.  It was wonderful and crazy to be able to watch him move at the same time as feeling him move.

Bryan is all ready to teach him all about basketball, cars and all those kinds of manly things; he’s going to be such a great dad. So now I’ll be outnumbered: Bryan, Baby Boy Phelps and Teddy (if Teddy really counts).

The doctor told us he is measuring exactly to the day (20 weeks and 4 days on Friday), so he’s just perfect.

We got pictures and a DVD (and as Bryan described it to his mom, and a mug and t-shirt with the baby on it. It was just like going to an amusement park).  It really was just a WONDERFUL day.

ps. you can buy this cute little bear here.

Also: Happy Christmas to EVERYONE (finally, three days before Christmas, I found a Christmas theme that I like.  Hope you enjoy!)

I am currently working on Individual Worth Value Experience #7:

7. Heavenly Father has given you special gifts. Read 1 Corinthians 12:4–12; 1 Corinthians 13; Moroni 7:12–13; Moroni 10:8–18; and D&C 46:11–26.

Ask a family member, a Young Women leader, and a friend to write down positive qualities the Lord has given you. List your gifts in your journal, and write how you can continue to develop these gifts and use them to serve your family and others.

If you have a few moments and can think of something off the top of your head, can you please be my friend (that the goal mentions) and list one of the positive qualities that you think the Lord has given me?

If you have the time, I would really appreciate it.

As I have been working on these experiences, I have forgotten what a wonderful blessing the personal progress program is and how much these simple value experiences can strengthen my testimony.  If you have the chance, if you work with the Young Woman or for any reason, these goals are a wonderful way to add a little bit extra to your personal scripture study or just to help continue to grow spiritually.

You can get a book at the distribution center, or find it online here from www.lds.org.

Thanks for any help you can give!

I am preggo!

my belly, from my angle

That’s right, ladies and gentleman: through the power of prayer, miracle of modern science and so many other wonderful blessings from the Lord, Bryan and I are going to have our first baby and we couldn’t be more excited.

I am due on May 3, so I’m just about half-way through now.  We get to find out what “flava” the baby is next Friday (on my mom’s birthday, I told her I was going to give her a super awesome birthday present. Since it is going to be her first grandbaby, she’s pretty excited too).

So from the beginning: We found out at the end of Aug., and just shortly after that, all-day sickness hit me (morning sickness is a giant lie). Thus, my lack of blogging. When I would get home from work, the only thing I wanted to do was lay on the couch. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was get on the computer. Luckily for me though, Bryan’s younger brother Kevin is currently living with us and during the months that I didn’t want to do anything but die and keep my dinner down, Kevin had made a deal with us that instead of paying rent, he would clean our house.  So our house didn’t look like a complete disaster. That was nice.

I was blessed enough to not be terribly sick while I was with my family in Florida celebrating my parents’ 30th anniversary. I must say though, Disney World isn’t as fun when you avoid all the rides that say, “expectant mothers should not ride.” It was still a great trip. While there, we bought the baby it’s first outfit. Finding a gender neutral baby outfit at Disney World was a little bit of a challenge, but Mel’s husband Tyler found the perfect little onesie — it’s Tigger.  We did buy a cute little girl’s outfit for my sister-in-law, Lindsay who is also pregnant (she’s due in Feb., having a little girl. Our little baby is going to have a cousin close in age to play with).

I’m feeling great now. I have started to feel the baby move and that might be the weirdest, but most wonderful thing ever. I feel like I’m getting bigger and bigger every day.  I’m sure it’s not as big as I think (which is why you get a picture of my belly from my angle, because that’s how I see it. That’s way more interesting that how other people may see it.  ha ha). I do have to admit that I’m getting a little bit tired of my nose being stuffy since Sept., but it’s all going to be worth it.

So that’s what’s been going on with me. In the beginning, I couldn’t figure out how to balance life and be pregnant at the same time, but I’m getting the hang of it and things couldn’t be better. I have so much to be thankful for. For me, the road to get here was a little longer than expected, but I am thankful that I went through all the experiences that I did and my testimony has grown so much through these last three years. It has been a wonderful experience.

(As a side note: If you can guess the movie my quote came from, you can have 10 whole points… I actually watched it today.)

Anyway.

To celebrate the holiday this year, my department at work joined a Halloween movie contest.  Here’s our short, scary film.

Be warned, it is a little bit creepy (you probably don’t want your little kids to watch it before you do).  If you are not a scary movie fan, this might not be your favorite. We were going for creepy/scary. It turned out pretty well considering most of us in the department haven’t made many movies. And I must say, I made an outstanding acting debut. Because my company does make dental office software, we tried to tie it back into Dentrix. So the story takes place in a dental office.

Enjoy.  (Updated: Please visit the URL below to see the movie, it was bothering me that it would automatically start playing)

Visit www.MadilyntheMovie.com to see the site we created for it as well.

As much as I love skirts and own many of them though, I do not love hanging them up.  I’ve tried many different options for hanging skirts: skirt hangers, folding them over regular hangers, just folding them… I didn’t like any of them.  Really, it just all boiled down to the fact that I wanted a way to hang my skirts, keep them mostly wrinkle free and still be a lazy as possible (sad, I know).  Then one day I came up with a fantastic idea:

Small, light-weight hooks, made by 3M with the little removable sticky thing on the back.  I had an empty wall next to the door of my closet, stuck a bunch of these little hooks on the wall in rows and dun, dun, dun daaa-SKIRT WALL.

I kind of love it.

I put up the top row, then about a foot below that, staggered the other rows below it.  Using the tags inside the skirts they hang up very nicely and surprisingly stay pretty wrinkle-free. The best part is, after a long day of meetings and church, I can come home and slip the skirt off and hang it up. My skirts have no longer become a decoration for my floor.

I’m thinking of making a similar one for my purses, I just have to find the right wall.

Life is fragile, and therefore, should be handled with prayer.

I did change the quote just a little for my handout, so it’s more a paraphrase than a quote, but I think it turned out pretty cute.  So cute in fact that I printed a bigger one off for myself and framed it.

It matches my office!  I’m pretty into that font lately.  The one thing I don’t like though is the E.  Specifically the middle post of the E.  Whatever though. It’s a fad, and I’m sure I’ll get tired of it soon. Kind of like at one point my favorite font was Gill Sans, it’s a nice font, but really?  Gill Sans.  Oh well. And, my handsome, handsome husband says that I should share my talents, so if any of you love it and would like a copy, I would be more than happy to share.