Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone!
This is our first Easter being married and since we couldn't go up to the Remy's for the weekend, I took charge. Last night, I put together our Easter baskets and hid 20 eggs for Tyson to find this morning. I got him Peeps because we like to do Peep-wars.
Today was also our last Sunday in our ward. The choir sang "All Creatures of Our God and King" and "God So Loved the World". They were perfect. Honestly. I couldn't be more proud of them. We are moving to our new apartment on Thursday which means, new ward. But also, the Church is reorganizing the BYU Married Stakes from five to three. This means a lot of Married Wards are being dissolved and all those married students will be attending the conventional wards. Our current ward is one which will be dissolved but we're not sure about our new ward. We think that since we're so close to campus we might still be in a BYU stake, but maybe not. Next Sunday there is a huge meeting for all BYU Marrieds in the Marriott Center so the leadership can give us more information.
My visiting teachers came over today and brought me little gifts. Stacia gave me some knitted baby booties and a yellow baby onesie/dress thing. It's cute and she says it's super convenient for changing diapers.
We're on our way to Ogden for Easter dinner. Tyson's parents came to visit us this week and we introduced them to Killer Bunnies which is a SWEET card game. Super fun. Anyway, they loved it and decided, it being Easter and all, that we should play it. We bought it for his parents and we also got them an expansion pack. It'll be fun to play with the rest of his family.
Here are some pics of the day. Enjoy my fun commentary. And Happy Easter!

This is my Easter basket. I didn't hide it because that seemed silly.

Last night I painted my toes a fun color called "Disco Inferno". I like it.

I woke Tyson up at 7am so he could find eggs and then we could get to church at 8am. 

He was still very sleepy, as you can see.

Tyson is looking for his Easter basket. (I hid it above the fridge behind all the stuff. Sneaky.)

He found it! He looked in the fridge and under the sink before he found it though.

Action shot of Tyson finding the last egg. What's in the bush?

He opened all the eggs and then threw the empty ones into the bassinet across the room.

This is his Peep-wars face. Fierce, I know.

We each got a parachute character. We'll have to try them tomorrow.

I got sidewalk chalk eggs. I'm excited to use them!

This is my Easter basket.

We each got a disc spinner too. Tyson broke his after having it open for maybe 30 seconds. 

I let him use mine cause I love him.

Star Wars Eggs!

I love fun holiday socks. Tyson's mom got these for me. Love them!

And here we are, ready for church. We clean up pretty good!

Sister Messer

One of my best friends is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Orlando, Florida. I miss her a whole bunch. I'm lucky that I'm allowed to email her because I am a terrible letter writer. So, I email her, she writes me back.
I love to get a letter from her in the mail. She usually doodles on the envelope, or writes cute things, or, like this week, will write her P.S.s (because there are usually multiple) on the envelope. She is so good at writing letters. She will write me four-page letters every week! I'm so spoiled! She informed me on the envelope of this week's letter that I should feel very loved because I am the only person that gets a personalized letter every week. And you know what? It does make me feel special. I know that missionaries are busy and their time is precious. I know that she will always write to her family because they mean the world to her. To know that I am next on that list makes me feel like a superstar!
It's hard having her live far away but she'll be back in a year. I have to think of it in milestones, otherwise a year sounds too long. I will graduate, have a baby, go to D-Land for my birthday, go to CA for Christmas, and then it'll be only 4 months until she comes back to P-town. Her mission seems to be going by a lot slower than my other friend's mission did. That being said, while friend 2 was gone I went on a study abroad and got married so that pretty took up her whole 18 months. I'm sure once the baby gets here time will FLY.
I can't wait for "my missionary" (hahaha) to get back. I am so proud of her and all the things she is learning. She is a wonderful example to me and I love her oh, so much.
I love you, Sister Messer!!

Bermuda Triangle

Life is stressful. I get it. Being pregnant changes things. I get that, too.
Welcome to Finals Week at BYU. I am feeling surprisingly calm but that's probably because I only have one final left. Admittedly, my Humanities project caused me stress for about a week straight. Other things that are stressing me out: starting a new job as a student editor in addition to my current job; my last term at BYU starts next week; my apartment is scary (not just messy...scary); and we are getting ready to move.
After feeling icky all night, having close to no sleep due to a 7am Phonetics final (which I aced), and working for 6.5 hours, my body had enough. So it let me know that.
Gross. GROSS. I don't remember the last time I puked; I was probably really young. I don't get sick that often so puking is not something I'm totally familiar with. It was an interesting experience because I wanted it happen, hoping it would make me feel better, and so I was being aware.
I called my mom to get her advice and she reminded me that all the things stressing me out are normal things. I've dealt with them before. But now I'm pregnant which is totally NOT normal. My mom called it "The Bermuda Triangle" and I call it sucky. She prescribed me a sick day tomorrow. I must not go to work, stay in my pjs, make Tyson buy me snacks, and watch movies all day. Nothing else. I'm okay with that plan.
With the new term and my new job starting next week, I'm a little nervous this will happen again. I really hope not. I blame my mom though. She puked once when she was pregnant with me, so now we're even. Don't worry...she's knows I blame her.

True Love

True love is: 
signing up for a GE course together.
being assigned a joint final project instead of a final exam and being happy.
doing most of the work so your hubby can sleep, since him sleeping is rare.
not being upset about it in the least because, honestly, your project is sorta rockin'.
knowing that even if the project sucked, you'd let him sleep anyway.


Happy Sabbath, honey. Sleep hard!!

Things I Wish

1. I wish my Humanities final would complete itself cause Tyson and I are really struggling to be insightful.
2. I wish I knew magic so I could get all our stuff into one suitcase that I could move to our new apartment and then unpack by magic (think "The Sword in the Stone").
3. I wish that my family lived at least 8 hours closer to me. Jane will live 0.6 miles from me when she moves her. Yes, I looked it up on MapQuest.
4. I wish a boy would ask Jane to mopro. I didn't go to prom but I was totally fine with it. Can't say that she feels the same way.
5. I wish Tyson could sleep. I am pretty sure his body wants to sleep but it doesn't know how.
6. I wish there would be a HUGE thunderstorm in Utah because I like spring showers. I do not like spring blizzards.
7. I wish being pregnant wasn't so dang hard. We watched Robots last night and that sounds like a much better way to birth a baby. Your baby's parts are delivered and then you "labor" to assemble them. But we're not robots so that wouldn't work out. Nine months just seems like forever! It'll go by super fast now that I've only got 8 weeks until I'm absolutely done with school for forever. Forever until my baby starts school. But then it's coloring and easy math. I can do that! It's the writing of papers I'm not so fond of. So close!!!!
8. I wish my friends luck as they search for an apartment in Washington. They're moving there in June and I really want them to find a happy place to live. 
9. I wish I could go with my cousin Matt on his mission. Not for the whole time, but he's going to England! I want to go too!! I'm totally jealous.
10. I wish my baby would kick just a little bit harder so Tyson could feel him kick. I think Tyson feels left out. He followed me around the apartment with his hands on my stomach waiting for our baby to kick...the baby did not cooperate. 

Bunch of Junk

Sometimes I am grateful for hereditary things. Sometimes I'm not. 
Mostly I am not so grateful that I inherited a lot of my momma's health issues. Other than that, I think my parents did a good job of not being too insane so I ended up a-okay. 
Today I am grateful that I inherited my mom's love of organization. Now, I may not be quite as...passionate, as she is, but I have learned a lot of things that keep me sane in my life.
Rule #1 of organization: Stuff is not important. It is just stuff. 
Growing up my mom would periodically bring large trash bags into our room and tell us to get rid of stuff we didn't play with, never wore, hated, etc. While siblings weren't allowed in the bag, we did a pretty good job of keeping our stuff to a minimum. It also helped that we moved a lot. Moving makes you realize that you have a bunch of junk that you never use/never knew you had/forgot about and that now is the perfect time to toss it since you don't want to haul it around. Unfortunately, Tyson does not share this perspective. I am a DI queen! EVERYTHING TO DI! Tyson wants to keep stuff "just in case". I don't really get it but I try to be understanding and end up compensating by getting rid of more of my stuff. Now that we're expecting a baby I have gone into full DI mode because now we have to make room for a baby. In the last hour I have gone through our kitchen and office and removed a bunch o' junk from those rooms and relocated it to the kitchen table. Tyson will have a say but I will hopefully convince him that we don't need my old electric blanket because I have HIM to keep me warm at night. Him and about a zillion other blankets. 
What I wish I would have been taught is when is it okay to get rid of things that have significance to other people? Sounds weird but I was given some stuff for my wedding that belonged to my great grandmother and while I appreciate the sentiment I don't know what I will do with some of it. I'm not talking about jewelry or anything. Specifically a round metal case...thing. Sorta like a box but maybe "tin" would be a better word choice. The thing has to be like ninety years old and it belonged to my grandmother but I don't really like it and I don't use it. It's been sitting on my bedroom floor haunting me since July. I finally took the stuff out of it and I even wore some of the old-school jewelry to church. But that dang tin. I feel bad for wanting to get rid of it because I feel like it should matter but the things inside it meant a lot more to me than the container. 
Getting rid of junk brings me a sense of newness. I can move on from the stuff. I don't want to be like Madame Blueberry and require stuff! Say no to the Stuff-mart!! Whenever I go shopping I think "Oh, I would like that. That'd be nice to have...NO! I don't need it! I'll never use it! Run away!" It's a good strategy. But it makes setting up a baby registry difficult.

Mid-homework Post

So here I am, mid-homework, to post a little tidbit about life in the Remy house today.
I was booted this morning. Background: Friday I went to my Humanities class and when I got up to leave my right foot was hurting. I hadn't hit it on anything and I couldn't see anything wrong with it so I let it go. Saturday it didn't get better. Sunday it was getting worse. There was still no bruising but I had a hard time putting pressure on it. Monday night Tyson and I went to the library and by the time we were walking back to the car Tyson was practically carrying me. No good. I tried icing and rice-packing it but nothing was working. Last night I could barely sleep because my foot hurt and my right wrist decided to join in the fun and my carpal tunnel started acting up. (Read acting up as being overwhelmingly painful). I took some Tylenol and tried to sleep. Bah! Yeah, right. Enough, I thought this morning. I'm going to Urgent Care. They saw me pretty quickly and the doctor prescribed me a week and a half of boot wearing. I have an appointment to meet with the foot doctor next Monday. Hopefully my foot will have healed itself but I have a sneaking suspicion something will be wrong just like with my finger before my wedding. My body likes to make things go wrong and fool all the doctors into thinking it's nothing important...until they do their job and discover there is an issue.
The boot is annoying and doesn't really make my foot feel any better. I wear it anyway hoping something will change for the better.
In the meantime I finished writing my Senior course and Humanities papers. Yay for me! I emailed in some Phonetics homework today and took a wild chance that my professor would show some mercy on me. In his syllabus it says NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED (caps are legit) so I had never asked if I could turn in late work. I have missed a few assignments and was feeling pretty nervous about my grade. I asked if I could please turn them in but that it was okay if he said no because it was in his syllabus after all. He, in a moment of extreme charity, wrote back saying I had until the end of this week to get all my work in. YAY!! I knew I liked this professor. So now I'm working on Phonetics homework.
I also cleaned the fridge today, took out the trash, and continued doing laundry. Despite being a gimp I feel very productive today. Go me!

We're moving!

Tyson and I are moving to a new apartment at the end of the month. If you didn't know this, don't worry: we found out yesterday. Actually, we decided yesterday. Actually, we only started looking at apartments yesterday. Lots of stuff happened yesterday.
It all started with our current landlord calling to setup an appointment for us to resign our contract since ours is up on May 1. We have thought about moving closer to campus for some time and thought we should check out KSL.com for postings one last time. Boy, did we get lucky. We found a 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartment that is approximately 1.5 blocks from campus for the same amount of money we are paying now. Yes. It's right on University Avenue at about 800 N. We can see the Indoor Practice Field from our parking lot. This is a huge blessing for us especially since Tyson will be in school for the next two years. It'll be great living so close that he can just walk to class. I'm most excited about this new place because it's next to campus which means I can go on walks by myself, and with the baby when he gets here, and not feel like I'm going to get mugged. This apartment is such a blessing. We were chatting it up with the woman who lives there now and she told us that Thursday, when she was working in the temple, she got twelve calls about the apartment. She called all those people back but no one had contacted her again to come see the apartment. We couldn't believe that so many people had wanted it and hadn't done anything about it.
We looked at that apartment first and then drove to the other side of campus to check out a basement apartment. NO WAY. First of all, the kitchen was in a hallway. No lies. Second, our furniture would not have fit down those stairs. If the main part of the house had been for rent, we may have considered that since living in a house is preferable to an apartment complex.
After looking at the basement we drove back to the first apartment, said a prayer in our car, and went to confirm with the woman that we wanted to sign her contract. We couldn't be more pleased with the whole situation. We are going to sign tomorrow morning and sort out the details for moving in at the end of the month.
Moving is going to be super interesting because school starts again for my April 26 and we are allowed to move in on April 28. This wouldn't be an issue except BYU's Women's Conference is April 28-29 which I will be working at while working my second job and going to classes. On the 28th I'm at class and then work from 10-8pm. The 29th I have work then class from 7:30-4pm. My goal between finals and school starting is to pack up everything that I possibly can so that Tyson can do all the moving and lifting while I'm at work. Hopefully some of our friends will be able to help him since I won't be able to do anything. And it's not just cause I'm preggo! I just won't be there. Not like that makes it any better, I'm just saying.
I didn't take any pics of our new place since there are people currently living there and let's just say they are less organized than we are. There were pics with the ad but I'm fairly certain the pics did not belong with our specific apartment. That's okay though. I'll take plenty of pics when we move in. If anyone in the BYU area wants to help out Tyson, especially big strong men who can help him move our piano since our apartment in on the third floor, that would be greatly appreciated. Any help will be appreciated!

Song Today

Today I sang a solo in church. I sang "His Hands" and my friend signed it in ASL. I had practiced that song for months and even practiced singing at the pulpit. Today there was a baby blessing so four full rows of extra people showed up plus more family of the speakers. I was so nervous. It didn't help that I had hardly slept and was feeling shaky anyway.
Needless to say, it did not go as well as I had wanted. I could barely support the notes and had to cut notes short because I kept running out of air. Luckily, I got all the words in. Luckily, Steph was there signing which HOPEFULLY distracted people. 
The good thing is that people felt the Spirit. I could see it on their faces; some people even teared up a bit. So even though I didn't perform as well as I wanted, my ultimate goal was met perfectly. I tried my very best to sing my testimony of the Savior and I hope people remember how they felt, not how I sang. I know there are some people who will only remember how breathy I sounded but I also know that some people were touched by the Spirit as I sang about the Savior's life, death, and how we can be more like Him.

Primary Songs

I have finally picked a new year's resolution. Better late than never, right?
In this the year of our Lord, 2011, I resolve to learn to play every Primary song on the piano well enough that I could sub in Primary and play any song without a hitch. This resolution includes practicing the songs until I can play them perfectly at least twice.
Why did I choose this? I'm going to have a baby! My son will grow up and go to Primary and I want him to be familiar with the songs. I thought about doing this with the hymns but, let's face it, the Primary songs are a tad bit easier and sorta more fun to play. Maybe I'll do hymns next year! I've wanted to learn to play all the church songs since I was in high school and now I feel motivated to do so. I started right at the beginning and I'm about twenty pages into the first section. Huzzah!

Hairspray

Since Tyson and I got married we've gone to see a LOT of musicals in the BYU scene. Turns out, Tyson actually likes musicals! I'm so lucky that I don't have to twist his arm to come with me to see these shows. While I was in London I saw Hairspray twice, we saw it last summer at the Scera Theater in Orem, and we saw it again, last night, at the Hale Center Theater in Orem. Why, you may ask? For the lovely lady playing MotorMouth Maybelle, Miss Tierra Jean.

Tierra and I were in the same student ward for a long time. She is one of the most talented performers I have ever seen. She has auditioned for shows on Broadway (and done well!) and is a frequent performer at the HCT-West Valley for "A Christmas Carol". This photo is of the cast from the Scera theater last summer. When I found out she was playing this role again at HCTO, I knew we had to go see her. I booked our tickets over a month in advance and we had front row seats. She knew we were at the show and frequently stood right by us (the theater is in-the-round) but didn't look at us until the second act. If you are familiar with Hairspray, you know that MotorMouth Maybelle sings an emotional song titled "I Know Where I've Been" and Tierra rocked it. Right in the middle of that song, she looks right at me and pretty much starts singing right to me! After the show she told me she tried really hard to NOT look at us during the rest of the show but couldn't resist staring me down during that number. Ha! I knew it! Anyway, she was amazing as always. Someday I really hope she ends up on Broadway. She could totally be Effie in Dreamgirls. Don't know that one? Also a great movie chock full of celebs.
This production was, actually, not my favorite. I felt like some of the other cast members were trying to hard to be their character and ended up being very unbelievable. Tracy frequently ran her words together, Seaweed was too ghetto, and Penny was spastic. Maybe that last one was intentional but I always pictured her as more of the "repressed nerd with a horrifying mother" type. If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the movie with John Travolta, Amanda Bynes, Christopher Walken, Zac Efron, Queen Latifah, Michelle Pfeifer, and Brittany Snow. Enough celebs for one show? I think so. The original movie is weird. Don't watch it. The new one is way better. In fact, I'm going to put it in right now.
Tyson informed me that he would NEVER play "Edna" because then he would have to shave his legs. I would like to point out that he did not mention being adverse to wearing a dress, heels, or a wig :D (He's going to love this post! haha)

Fabric and Clothes

My in-laws came down for a few hours today. They took us to Joanne's Fabrics so we could pick out fabric for some baby blankets. Colette (my mother-in-law) wanted to make me some baby blankets but wanted me to pick out the fabric. We got a lot of really cute stuff. For some more wintery-type blankets we got some cute fleece that Tyson and I are going to tie tomorrow during conference. We got a white one with blue cartoon spiders, a BYU pattern (gotta start 'em young!), and a blue one with monkey pirates which we'll tie to a plain yellow fleece. I'll take pictures of them when we're doing it tomorrow. 
Tyson has never tied blankets before and was worried he would mess them up. Once I explained how to do it, he felt more confident in his abilities. He was a scout after all.
After that we went to Target where I set up a registry but we didn't register for anything. We picked out some clothes from 0-9 months. Colette wanted me to pick out some things she could give me at my baby shower that she knew I'd like. We got some super cute things! Tyson and I will have to register for stuff later.
I'm super excited to try my hand at sewing. I have blue gingham fabric to make covers for the bumpers my aunt sent me. I also have some fabric I'm going to use to make baby cloth blocks. I have never sewed anything by myself before so I'm worried I'll mess it up. Luckily it's mostly straight lines and I'm an excellent direction-follower. It's too bad my mom doesn't live closer because she could teach me and I'd love that.