a year in our life. the 2010 review.

as if every post on this blog wasn't a monthly review anyways. but it's fun to put it all back into perspective. a lot of life-changing things happened in our lives this past year.

january: i was not so blonde this month. also, chris and i had some serious discussions about how waiting too long to get married when you're striving to live a chaste lifestyle is kind of a bad idea. and so we aimed to solve the problem by planning on getting married sooner rather than later.

jan 2010- at torrey pines

february: why wait any longer? we eloped. since we couldn't get married in the temple (chris was still a new member), i wanted to do it without the pomp and grandeur. we got married because we wanted to be together, and we didn't need a huge party to do it. the simplicity of that was- and still is- beautiful to me.

feb 2010- at the county clerk's office

march: chris thought this was a good month to a) severely injure his ankle during church basketball and b) get a 3 week long cold. therefore, it comes as no surprise that he was not a happy camper for the entirety of this time.

march 2010- chris has a hurt ankle

april: chris goes to west virginia for 3 weeks for a specialized training course. while he is there he celebrates his birthday alone in his hotel room amid the throws of food poisoning. poor guy. that was one of the most pathetic phone calls i've ever gotten. while he was gone i managed to rack up a tiny little tan and turn back into a blonde. he was quite impressed when he returned home (i was just impressed that i could actually tan, haha! obviously it didn't stick around for too long, as i'm not a sun worshipper).

may: road trip to ma & pa staples in arizona!! chris's parentals were so kind as to throw us a little wedding party, and we had a grand ol time. well, except for the driving part. chris does not do long car-rides very well. later on this month i aced my finals (hooray for stress relief!). commence summer vacation!!

may 2010- in prescott, arizona

june: we did a lot of working ourselves ragged this month between our respective occupations and obligations- which, we'd found, kind of sucks the life out of thriving relationships. therefore, we made it a point to make this the most epic date month EVER. fun times!

june 2010- at the del mar fair

july: start out the month with a mild bout of what i think is the stomach flu... and then find out that holy cow i'm pregnant. woah! (yeah, i guess that's what happens after having the most epic date-month ever. shoulda seen it coming). promptly, chris gets sent to arizona for the next 6 weeks when i start to feel really sick. divine intervention probably.

july 2010- at the san diego zoo (guess who's pregnant?)

august: chris is still in arizona. i visit him for a weekend and am sick the whole time. this month was THE WORST for my morning sickness- i dropped several pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight (dehydration = ouch). it was one of the most physically arduous things i have ever endured. i also had an ultrasound this month- the little fetus looked like a gummi bear with a tiny flickering heart in the center. my thoughts: "well. at least i'm sick for something." oh and PS: my braces came off! hooray for no longer looking underage!

september: chris came home from arizona! yaaaay! his plan at the beginning was to stay there for an additional 6 weeks on top of what he had already gone for, but ultimately decided that the first 45 days was quite enough for him. also this month- i'm still sick. pertinent thoughts: "why did i sign up for a morning class???" while running through grossmont to the ladies room to puke.

october: STILL sick to the very end of the month and pretty tired of it. me to chris: "seriously?! the books said this would go away like, last month!" chris was pretty tired of it too- i was keeping him up all night long with my trips to the sick closet. we hid from halloween because we were so exhausted.

oct 2010- at the la mesa oktoberfest

november: hey... i'm starting to feel better! only intermittent nausea throughout the day and that's it- thank goodness!  just in time to move to an awesome new apartment! mid term ultrasound at the beginning of the month also, wherein we find that we're having a healthy girl. kind of amazing how much they grow in a few months (although those months felt like forever, especially being sick the whole time). also of note: we got a washer and dryer this month... heaven! no more laudromats for me.

nov 2010- thanksgiving

december: hello holidays and birthdays... well, my birthday. :) the combo kind of stresses chris out, but he managed to do good this year. we were able to take part in a lot of festivities this season despite chris's crazy work schedule. that's all anyone can really ask for- is the holidays with their loved one. :)

dec 2010- christmas eve

there we have it! 2010 in a nutshell. we're now looking forward to 2011 with great anticipation- we've got a few things in the works that could be potentially promising. :) happy new year everyone!

december

oh december... always such a busy time. potentially very stressful. which kinda makes me think that the dude who sings "it's the most wonderful time of the year" didnt quite know what he was talking about.

CHRISTMAS TREE: or, rather, "the saga of the christmas tree" because the probability of things going according to simple plan is apparently zero in our lives. i am going to spare the gory details of the crisis and just mention that it seriously took 3 days for us to get the thing upright and decorated. the good news is that it all ended well, and the result was rather charming- although i realized after the fact that all of the red ornaments i bought made our noble fir look like it was sprouting apples. i found that amusing.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING: who doesn't love christmas shopping? all the stress, spending, herds of people, lines for restrooms, and outrageous traffic. mmm. holiday cheer at it's finest. i personally enjoy the wrapping of the gifts more. i like the sight of presents under the tree. it's so exciting.

CHRISTMAS BAKING: a delicious marathon by yours truely. and yes, i sacrificed and accumulated an extra few pounds by taste testing every single thing that i made, for the good of the people. i shall remember it fondly when i'm working it all off post-partum.

CHRISTMAS LIGHT-SEEING: off of old pepper drive in lakeside. here is how it went down this year: we parked, started walking, got up a couple streets before my back started spazzing out, and then we went home. do i sound like a pansy? it's because i am. i can't even walk up hills anymore. how pathetic.

this house was my favorite: absolutely nothing except for a grinch in front of it. awesome.

FINALS: for noel. so painfully stressful. we shall not talk about them here.

NOEL'S BIRTHDAY: being born close to christmas is kind of a hassle. luckily i've got a good family and great friends who take the time to remember it amid all of the holiday tumult. dear christopher ordered me birthday flowers this year. i was quite impressed that he managed to remember my favorite flower and my favorite color- and put both in the same bouquet! oh i felt so special and loved! because everyone knows that just saying "you're special and i love you" doesn't quite communicate it like something as indirectly metaphorical as flowers (yeah... we women are all crazy, i know). and then, of course, we had a tiny little party at my family's house.

at the logan house... with choco cupcakes.

GIVING BLOOD: by chris only this year, because i am preggers. ;) not to worry though, for tradition's sake i went with him- and the dude taking his blood told us a story about how he changed his son's diaper in his trunk one time and the kid peed all over the upholstery. fun times. i'll have to remember that one if we ever have a boy.

CHRISTMAS EVE: which was actually when chris and i celebrated our christmas day, since he had to work on christmas this year. we had the morning together to open the bounty under our tree, and in the evening we partook of the glorious feast-party that was provided by mi madre. awesome awesome day. i loved it.

at my parentals. in front of their gigantic tree.

CHRISTMAS DAY: was like old times for me. chris marched off to work early in the a.m., and i went over to my parents to witness christmas morning as i always knew it. all seven of us kids were home again- probably for the last time- and i am grateful to have experienced all the magic again. to top the day off, we were able to spend time with some of my dad's family who we haven't seen in forever. it was a good time.

COMMENCEMENT OF 3RD TRIMESTER: which is rather interpretive, since i've seen 3 benchmark weeks that could be considered the beginning of the last trimester (as if pregnancy math isn't weird and confusing enough). whatever the case really is, december was it for me- and i'm looking unmistakably pregnant now. i think it's kind of funny- it took me so long to actually look pregnant, and right when i started thinking "oh there it is", my bump started growing at hyper-pace. and let me tell you, i'm getting pretty stealthy at 7 months pregnant... with my parabolic protrusion knocking stuff all over the place, and me mistakenly thinking i can still squeeze through tight spaces, i am THE epitome of poise and grace, right here. just to think i've got 2 more months of getting bigger to go!!

a little bit about christopher.

i realize that most of the people visiting this blog probably don't know my darling husband, because i am assuming that most of the people visiting this blog do it via the link on my facebook page. in all reality, i'm not all that certain that he really even knows what a blog is- he just knows that i made one about us and i post junk on it. so, just for kicks, i thought i'd write 5 things about the man:

#1: where is christopher from?
 christopher staples was not born in california. not anywhere near it. as a matter of fact, he was born in the most opposite place you can get from california. christopher was actually born and raised in maine- yeah, that place all the way over on the east coast, by the canadian border (like, woah...). he tells me stories of these crazy things called blizzards, ice storms, black flies and mosquito swarms... all of which sound fairly horrific (i've never personally experienced any of them myself). if you were to ask him whether or not he'd ever like to return to live in his home-state again he would emphatically answer "no". christopher is definitely a fan of southern california... apparently the weather is much nicer, and instead of black flies and mosquitoes we've got katy perry and snoop dog prancing around in forests of chocolate and gumdrops (which isn't too bad of a trade off, assuming katy perry's still on autotune). PS: chris hates the song "california girls", and thinks the music video is ridiculous- just so everyone is clear here.

this magnet is on our freezer door. i think the implicit wit is brilliant.

#2: what is chris's favorite color?
chris's favorite color used to be green. that is why he has a green car. when chris and i first met he also had green towels, a green bathrug, and an awful green toilet-seat cover (side note: WHY were those ever invented?? even in the most meticulously clean bathroom, they're wrong and gross). anyways, if you were to ask chris what his favorite color is today, he would say: "well... it used to be green. before i started to wear a uniform everyday that was green. now it's just... too much green." and so if you were to ask him again what his favorite color is- because he will always lament the loss of his old favorite color the first time you ask him instead of actually answering the question- he'll go "well... i don't know. i guess blue. i like blue. blue's an okay color." and so: blue is his favorite color.

#3: chris has... tattoos?
yeeeep. as you may have noticed. he has four of them. many of you may know that i come from a very traditional family with very traditional expectations. i personally couldn't care less that he has em- i've actually grown quite fond of them myself (just don't tell my kids that in 18 years, ok?). when chris and i first started dating, i couldn't tell you how many people asked me, "oh he has tattoos??? wow... how does your dad feel about that?" well, chris heard exactly what my dad felt about it when he forgot to wear long sleeves over to my parent's house for the first time (oops). in all reality, it was bound to happen sooner or later... and dear ol' dad promptly offered him "free tattoo removal" with a belt sander in the garage. you can imagine my father's disgruntlement when all of my younger brothers began to examine chris's ink with express fascination. after a few months, and a stern talking to from my mother, my dad finally let go of the tattoos thing. and now chris and the pops spend time talking about the UFC, wrestling, jiu jitsu, guns, shoulder injuries, and other man-topics instead. brotherly bonding at it's finest i suppose...

it's kinda like watching "the gladiator"... starring chris's bicep.

#4: what is chris's favorite thing to do?
chris is by nature a very energetic being... he is not unlike a dog that needs to be walked every day in order to drain excess energy and maintain a healthy state of mind (dog whisperer anyone?). as a matter of fact, chris's mother mentioned that during road trips their family would have to stop every so often to "run chris" so that he would be more tolerable in the car. hence, it comes as no surprise that he has adopted a very active lifestyle... nothing makes him happier than a good, challenging workout. the harder he's breathing and the more sweat he's dripping the better (don't say "ew", he showers afterwards. he's not a complete barbarian).

#5: chris likes youtube.
a lot. especially the channels that re-mix already preposterous videos into even more ridiculous songs. why is this? i do not have an answer. and i stopped searching for one a long time ago.

the end.

*note: all information contained in this post has been reviewed and approved by chris himself, and has been deemed "accurate and irrefutable". just so we're all clear here.

november.

the trend seems to be that the closer the year is to ending, the more exponentially busy things get. november exploded upon us with a ferocity this year. happenings include:

ULTRASOUND- (yeah, i kinda mentioned this in the previous post, i know) looks like daddy's gonna have a little yoga buddy. :) she's already a pro at garudasana.

MOVING- whaaaat? oh yes we did! OUT of the modified barracks where we had been living and IN to an actual apartment. the improvement is glorious, holy cow! however, moving is still moving... it's always kind of an all-encompassing hassle, and it always takes way more than a few days to get everything situated. add to the mix that i've become incapable of lifting anything relatively substantial anymore (for reals- i tried it and in doing so i realized that my formerly strong, sturdy back had instead become all bendy and unstable like a slinky. it was painful and pathetic). this created a futuristically comical, but presently exasperating situation, as i very much dislike being helpless. i've been raised to be the princess that slays her OWN dragons, thank you very much- but this time, i kinda had to rely a little bit more on prince charming than i had initially intended... dang it. how embarrassing.

VETERANS DAY- good day to honor the veterans. and my dad, since it's his birthday (cake anyone?). also, since chris had the time off, his parents came by that day for a thanksgivingish sort of visit, and stayed for the weekend. mmm... nothing like a pre-thanksgiving to load me up for the holidays.

taken on veteran's day weekend. bump = 22 weeks.

SCHOOL- for me, not chris. for some reason, the month before finals gets freakishly busy. projects are assigned and exams start happening more frequently. i personally think this is all because many professors- like many students- are procrastinators. tsk tsk.

THANKSGIVING- at my family's house! mmmm... more food for the pregnant lady (haaaa... except i'm being quite serious). for reals though, every year i find myself more and more thankful for my mother, and not just because she is one of the most fantastic cooks of all time. :) and chris surprisingly got the day off, so we were able to celebrate together. hooray! my gramma took pictures, bless her.

 aww, acting like we love eachother. ;)

bros and sisters all home this year! check it out!

PREGNOID UPDATE- no more morning sickness! AT LAST! i can EAT again!!! it's so wonderful!

IT'S A...

throughout the first half of my pregnancy i noticed that there's this game that people like to play called "guess what you're having". i realized that there are up to 2 parties that can be involved in this game: the people who try and make you guess what you're having, and then the people who will guess for you. i liked the latter of the parties, because then i was not obligated to join in the speculation.

my family had been playing this game since the moment they found out i was with child. instantaneously all of my brothers decided that i was incubating a miniature one of these:

image source



my 15 year old brother, brad, was sure that i'd find this out when one day "THIS IS SPARTA!!!" would echo from my abdomen, followed by a kick, followed by a bout of unconsciousness- since apparently a kick from an unborn spartan will KO a person from the inside out. my brothers then began to make plans to dress the little spartan up in a red cape and helmet to go fight wolves at the age of 7 years. this conversation prompted my youngest brother, cole, to try to "persuade" the fetus to be a boy by popular vote (i think he needs a serious talk about how biology and reproduction isn't a democratic process), and during the ordeal my father came in declaring that he knew "exactly" what i was having.

"oh yeah?" brad said audaciously. "well tell us then, smart guy." my dad glanced around at the expectant room and announced,"she is going to haaaaave- a BABY!" and then began laughing outrageously as the rest of the room erupted into a chaotic din of disparaging comments. (yeah... this stuff happens in my family for reals, all the time).

my mom was certain that i was having a girl from the first week that i started making oblations to the porcelain throne. "morning sickness is always the worst with girls," she said. "i think that you are having one." after weeks on end of violent sickness, i was pretty dang convinced i was having one too.

occassionally, i'd pull this tricky little game on christopher. he was pretty elusive. our conversations would go as follows, with myself instigating:
"so... what do you think i'm having?"
"i don't know"
"do you care?"
"i don't have a preference either way"
"for real?"
"yeah."
"you have no clue?"
"nope"
"you're telling me you have no gut feeling."
"i honestly don't"
"well alright then. so much for this conversation."
"......."
"......."

at last, came the morning of my 20 week ultrasound. before chris went to work, i was FINALLY graced with his opinion that i was having a girl with the explanation that "since you're finding out today, now i can tell you." sneaky man. playing ambivalent for that whole time. anyhow, since he had to go to work that day, my mom and my very curious 18 year old brother, grant, tagged along to the scan instead. the most important thing to me was finding out if the baby was healthy- i had such concerns about it, being the paranoid that i am- it was SUCH a great relief to me when the ultrasound technician let me know that the baby looked normal and healthy. however, finding out the sex of the baby was slightly trickier, as it required the little fetus to open it's legs for longer than a nanosecond- which barely happened. i laid there on the table for SO long, staring at my unborn child's butt, waiting for it. i actually told the ultrasound technician that it was ok to just let me go without finding out right before the legs opened up for a brief moment and we caught a nice glimpse of an absence of spartan parts- which, of course, meant: "it's a girl!" (my brothers were sorely disappointed)
--
later on that night i pulled out the ultrasound photos to show chris (a great deal of them were blurry because little lady staples was moving around all over the place during the scan- she is her father's daughter already). "see, i knew it was a girl." he said, smiling. he was pretty happy about it.

so, what now? it's name pickin' time of course :) we've almost got one... stay tuned. hopefully we won't have to change it at birth... i've been hearing stories of sons who were supposed to be daughters, according to ultrasounds. i guess the only way to know for certain is to wait until the child is born. just a few more months to go!

octoberween

so this month consisted of a lot of planning of things and not exactly following through because i was still a sickly sickerton for the most of it (i thought it was tapering off last month. i was wrong). but of the things that we did do, here's the list.

oktoberfest: we don't oktoberfest for the reason that everyone else does (we don't drink), so we went during the day when the lines for the food wouldn't be as crowded, and when i was the least likely to be ill. and not only did it work out for us, but we ran into my family there as well (my mom usually takes all the kids out of school to spend the day with them there, as a tradition). therefore, we wandered around with them the whole time, and had a blast.

the pumpkin patch: because we're festive like that. come on, you can't do october without a pumpkin, no matter how old you are. brings out the kid in you (not literally though- my kid's still safely inside me, incubating away).

excited christopher finds his pumpkin. hooray.

halloween: the week before halloween was so busy for us that we were too wiped out to do anything for the holiday (laaaaaaame i know!!). i was still able to eat my fair share of candy though :) mmm.... candy... luckily for us though, this dude helped us out with our halloween decorating:

wasn't it nice of him?

oldly weds.

so apparently the common consensus is that a married couple is considered "newly wed" for a year. ah "newly weds"... doesn't the phrase conjure up thoughts of rose petals, giggles and holding hands and skipping down some path together while birds sing, bunnies hop everywhere and butterflies flutter about? ok... perhaps i am exaggerating slightly, but you get the picture. anyhow, i was giving this topic some critical thought the other night while i was reading this blog called "the dating divas"... cute little blog, and quite popular by the looks of it. i bet that a great many of you would probably enjoy it. let me just say right now that i like this blog enough to follow it, and i think it's interesting. i mean, i've got a husband, and we try to date (eachother, obviously), and isn't that what the blog is all about?

all that being said, apparently this blog is authored by a group of really creative women who have husbands who are also very creative... something that i am not, by default, and something that chris is very not, by nature. for instance: scrapbooking? curse word to me. nothing makes me more anxious than sitting at a table with piles upon piles of decorative paper, bows, glue, pictures and strange cutting contraptions. and chris? doesn't know what scrapbooking even is (i've tried to explain it to him, but his brain cannot grasp the subject). so anyhow, i am sitting here reading this blog about making handmade invitations to dates, dressing up for themed activities, scrapbooking, and using rose petals all over the place to be romantic... and inwardly feeling, let's say, less than inspired. my inner voice says: "now now, noel. you're being a cranky pregnant lady. ask chris for his opinion." so i asked him: "hey, uh... so what do you think about a written, handmade invitation to a date?"
 he goes, "um why would you do that? coudn't you just tell me about the date? i'm just gonna throw it away after i read it. seems like a bunch of wasted effort."
validation and releif! "ah, thank you honey, i was thinking the same thing!... hey so... what do you think about rose petals all over the bed, for 'romance'?"
he thinks for a second and says, "well... i dunno. i... guess... so.... but isn't that kind of a mess? i mean, it's not like they do much anyways...."
"THANK you! my thoughts EXACTLY!! oh i'm so glad i'm not the only one who thinks like this!"
"ha, yeah, i can just imagine me throwing rose petals everywhere and you coming in, getting all pissed off and saying 'great! who's gonna clean all this crap up tonight?' haha! why are you even asking me all this stuff?"
and so i showed him the blog. chris took a few seconds, furrowed his brow and said "whaaaat the heck? NO honey. what the... all of this stuff is uneccessary. how do these people have time for this? even looking at it is making me tired."
"so... it doesn't matter to you that i am unromantic and non-creative?"
"no honey. you're perfectly fine. don't even try any of that stuff- i'm not interested. just spend a day with me to go out and do something together like we already do- that is good enough for me. i like that. and who the heck knows what 'romance' is anyways? it's a stupid term, and people only pretend to know what it is."
we laughed together.

this isn't to say that we haven't ever done any "uneccessary stuff" when we first started dating... for instance, around halloween a couple of years ago chris spiderwebbed my car while i was at work, and then left a card and flowers on it. when i brought that to his rememberance he laughed, "yeah that was funny. but it makes no sense to do that now... i'd do it, and you'd laugh for a second and then you'd have spend a bunch of time cleaning it all off so you can drive to school early the next morning. i don't want to do that to you. we have a good relationship and we have other things to worry about." so so true, and i'm grateful for that. i used to think that couples stopped doing "cute" stuff for eachother when they "lost the spark". now i realize that those cute, outrageous things that were so fun early in the relationship are replaced by deeper, subtler, more meaningful things. like getting his favorite dinner on the table hot and ready the moment he walks through the door when i know he's had a long, rough day at work. like him doing the dishes for me after dinner because i'm sick and tired from being pregnant. like a voluntary back-rub when the other is sore and exhausted. i suppose one of the reasons why i love my husband so much is because we think similarly, appreciate similar things, and uphold eachother in our daily endeavors. sometimes life is hard. sometimes it's all you can do to get through to the end of the day. and when you get home and collapse on the floor, the other person is there to lift you up, heal you, and make it possible for you to make it one more day.

THAT is what i think matters, and that is what i know matters to him. and so somehow because of this i feel that deep down we are an old couple, even though we've only been married 8 months. :) i call us "oldly weds". not to say that we wouldn't hold hands down the aforementioned path with the singing birds, hopping rabbits and fluttering butterflies... we'd probably just walk instead of skip.

this picture is from our front porch. when chris and i first started seeing eachother we bought this plant in an effort to "beautify" his front walkway (in a masculine way of course). at this time we were not exclusive, and so it bothered him when i went to hang out with other guys... one of these nights i was on my way to do just that, and felt bad about it, so i bought him these manly figurines, placed them in the planter, and left chris a voice message to water his plants. later on that night i got a voice message in reply from chris, thanking me and saying that he'd never had anyone do something so thoughtful for him. he's since told me that it was at that moment that he knew he loved me. this was over two years ago. as you can see, the figurines are still there. :)