Baby Chatterton Update

We are having a little boy and we wanted to show off our most recent photos of him. This ultrasound was taken at 18 weeks. The picture on top is a profile shot and the one below is a top view of his head. He was scratching the back of his head when the doctor snapped this one. The third one is a view of him from the outside. I am now 22 1/2 weeks (about 5 months) along and definitely sporting a little baby bump. It's nice because I actually feel pregnant instead of just big and fat. The little guy kicks up a storm. He especially likes to kick Ben, which I think is hilarious.

VIDEO!!!1!

This is our vacation! The first one to correctly identify the three species of bear in the video gets a prize!

O, Holy Night!

Tales from the Land of the Christmas Cactus.

The Mary and Joseph Show

So, there was this one day where we got cornered to be Mary and Joseph for the ward Christmas party. The Activities Chair had heard so much about us, and decided that we should totally be
Mary and Joseph. The one problem was that we don't really sing. I mean, we do, but not really solo. Or in public. But we practiced real hard and got there and found that: baby Jesus was not actually put in a manger with any hay. Turns out. No hay. Also that our baby Jesus simulacrum was actually one of those crying baby doll machines, which was malfunctioning in the "Shut this crazy thing off" department. Thankfully the Act. Chair was right there and used her Seasoned Mommy powers to get it to stop. Crystal then performed "Mary's Lullaby" and Ben performed "What Child Is This?" complete with the word "ohepherds".

Birthday!!!!1!

So, Ben had a birthday and had awesome cake made by Crystal. Also, he got the above bathrobe a little early so he could be Joseph. Yay for 28.

Party!!!!1!

So, we had a little Christmas party in our one-bedroom apartment for the people in the ward that live in our apartment complex. You know, to try to get everyone who lives in the apartments together and have a little unity in the transient sector of the ward. Y'all should try it. Have parties. Get people to know each other. It's fun.

Running for Two

Crystal ran a 5k for India! (Note: not in India or to India. For India. India's way further than 5k from Kiwanis Park in Tempe.) She did real good, and our baby got to go on his or her first run! Hooray!

"Copy that."

We responded to a call for people to volunteer as "hosts" (read: babysitters or rent-a-cops without guns) at the Mesa Temple Lights. We may not have had guns, but we did have cool walkie-talkies. We were tempted the whole night to report things like, "Attention, base, there are unruly kids out here. I repeat, children that are insufficiently well-behaved." and "Hello, we have a little problem at the nativity: there is no room at the inn. Can we get someone on that?" Mostly we chatted with missionaries and the other hosts and reported a dangerous stroller maneuver (no, I will not tell you what it was; I don't wanna get sued). I did report kids with laser pointers and light strings that were out, and malicious honking. And I did get to say, "copy that." It was a dream come true.

In sum, we love each other a whole lot and are still mushy and gross. Thank you for your attention.

Three Posts for the Price of One!

"Trader Joe's": We discovered TJ's recently 'cause it's right next to the Gold's that we go to. We ventured in one day and discovered that it is awesome. Produce that looks good and doesn't cost too much, a line of in-house breakfast cereals for cheap, more cheese than anyone knows what to do with and a complete milk-alternatives aisle. Hippies, veggies, hipsters, and vipsters (I just made that word up and I don't know what it means) everywhere. I suggest Joe-Joe's (Oreo-remakes) with candy canes. Get 'em before the season's through. Also everyone was nice there. We buy our Clif Bars and our morning bran there exclusively.

"Tiger-eating babies": You know this is going to be good, if only by the title. So, we teach the 11-year-olds in Primary, and our lesson was on the Jaredites. It was my job (this is Ben) to give a run-down of the historical-scriptural background for the lesson, and so I started in on all the genealogy--and so I started explaining, "And these people had babies, and they had babies, and pretty soon there were a lot of people, and they were very bad and fought lots of wars." To which our kids said, "Did the babies have swords?" "Were they tiger-eating babies?" That was the end of all semblance of sanity during the lesson. In the end, we learned that a good method of warfare is to use a pterodactyl as your mount and a crossbow as your weapon, and that the T. rex is a good way to keep people from stealing your sword. This reminds me of my motto when I was in fifth and sixth grade: "Don't bother me; I'm thinking about dinosaurs."

"Crackling pixels": It's November in the Valley of the Sun, and that means you should wear a windbreaker until about 9:30 or 10:00 am, unless you have a good tolerance for light chills. Well, we have been trying to imagine it's winter, and so we bundled up with the A/C on high and turned on the Sufjan Christmas album and got a fire going. Awesome.

Baby on Board

We just recently found out that we are expecting a bouncing curly-haired baby sometime around June 10. It's much better than the bouncing baby alien some believed Ben was pregnant with a few months ago. Although, judging from the ultrasound we got this week, it might just be an alien.

We got to watch the heartbeat and listen to it for a minute. The little Baby Chatterton was moving all over the place and wiggling its arms and legs (it just has nubs for now, but they are the cutest nubs I've ever seen). The doctor said that everything looks great, so we are happy about that. People have already been asking us about what we are going to name it. My little brother has started calling it Nubby, but hopefully that won't stick. We'll find out the gender mid-Januaryish and then we'll let the cat out of the bag about names:)

So there's our happy news. We couldn't be more excited about it. I haven't been sick at all and I'm almost done with the first trimester, so that is an added blessing. The decision we are dealing with now is where to put the baby when it makes its debut. We have a one-bedroom apartment, which means I don't have to worry about decorating a nursery for now (Yay!). My vote is to put the baby in the front room, but Ben is rooting for a crib in our walk-in closet. We'll let you know what we decide.

This may be what happens when you get married too fast. Or what happens when you love each other a lot and really want a baby.

Famloween

Apparently, Hallowe'en is a bigger deal than we expected.

We thought it was a little odd when our bishop's wife called and asked if we had anywhere to go for Hallowe'en. It seems that she had confused the holiday for Thanksgiving, but Crystal humored her and gave a tentative maybe to the invitation.

There was also a Hallowe'en Carnival on the block near the church a couple of days before Hallowe'en and that was fun. There were kids there. Can I tell you, lots of kids. It was rad, and we got to see things that you will only find at the Harmony Park Hallowe'en Carnival, like a "train ride" that consisted of a tractor pulling train cars made of metal drums. Sweet. And we saw one of the kids we teach in Primary. Yeah, we teach the 11-year-olds. It's pretty sweet.

Oh yeah, we totally went over to bishop's for Hallowe'en. It was awesome. Everyone was there having a great time, eating a big dinner, and watching all the trick-and/or-treating that was going on. What an awesome tradition.

Put Your Hand Inside the Pumpkin Head

So, then there was this long long time where we didn't blog. We're back now, to tell you all of our adventures in pumpkin carving. (This is not to be confused with "pumpkin craving", which is actually really abnormal. If you crave pumpkins, see a competent medical professional.) We purchased this pumpkin from our local Kroger affiliate, and some cheap carving tools too. (Again, if you're aware of "craving tools", this is a cause for alarm.) It was Family Home Evening, so we did our lesson thing and got to hacking the gourd. All the patterns that came with the carving tools were a little tough, except for the emoticon ;) which would have been cute, but I think I'd prefer H-#, which is the emoticon for "I was playing some Virtual Reality game from a bad 90's sci-fi, when someone came up from behind me and duct-taped my mouth shut." So we decided on a Happy Pirate, which is actually pretty much an emoticon in and of itself.

First, we had to get the goop out. Lobotomizing Jack, I've heard it called. The goop is gross, and the inside of the pumpkin has a smell designed, I guess, to ward off predators. Or maybe predators like that sort of thing. Again, pumpkin cravings are no good. But you just do it because that is the way it's been done in our country since Squanto taught John Smith to do this in Pilgrim times. John Smith carved a witch silhouetted by the moon, and Squanto carved a haunted ear of blue corn.

We carved the daylights out of that thing, and between the fact that our pumpkin was actually a ball of inch-thick drywall stuffed with canned pumpkin goop and the fact that our tools were made out of the finest aluminum Chinese sweatshops have to offer, it was a little difficult. We broke the tools right off, and finished the carving with some good old-fashioned American kitchen knives. The way our parents did it. The way their parents did it.

Then we put it on our Arizona front doorstep. This was the 20th, and in the more temperate climes from which we came this would not have presented a problem. The only downside we've yet found to the Grand Canyon State--pumpkin rot.

We got sick right after the carving, and so for days we barely noticed anything. Then when we got better, there was the pumpkin, housing its own breeds of creepy-crawlies. It was very spooky, with mold over the remaining eye, and bugs deep inside its entrails. I bravely sort of got a plastic bag around it and, careful not to sever the beast with the edge of the bag, rushed it out to the dumpster. Shame, too. Maybe it had some penicillin in it.

Lessons learned: Beware the deadly pumpkin-rot, and don't carve until the 29th at the earliest.