"Nesting." It's a thing.

All of the baby/pregnancy books talk about this pre-baby phase called, "nesting."  I don't think I quite understood what it was, until about a week or two ago.  Suddenly, I feel the need to have everything perfect for when the baby comes in 9 weeks.  (What?!)  I just have this completely unrealistic expectation that we should have EVERYTHING in place for when out little baby girl arrives.  Here's just a few of the things that I think should be done.  It's like I'm having this crisis that I won't be able to do ANYTHING once she is born.  Again--I realize this isn't that case because I have seen women continue to do things after they have children.  I've heard the first 3 or so months are a bit crazy, but eventually, it seems like women can still work on projects, clean, cook, go on trips, hang out with friends, and such.  Here's a glimpse of my list that I think should be completed before July 11th.

1.  Organize all of my photos from high school (Is our baby going to care if this happens?  No. No. No.)

2.  Sew a car seat cover, nursing cover, baby clothes, Bobby pillow cover, and nursery linens (No biggie...)

3.  Do all of my family history (I know, this isn't even something that can be "completed.")

4.  Make pain au chocolat (It's been on my list of things to bake forever now and will only add to my weight gain.  But they are so good!)

5.  Organize all of my recipes (Because I'm sure I'll be whipping up gourmet dinners for huge parties the whole month of July.)

6.  Plan out our 90-day food storage (with menus) and purchase everything for our 72-hour emergency kits (You never know what will happen!)

The ironic part of this all is that fatigue sets in again during the third trimester.  Maybe I'll go take a nap...

Pregnancy "Glamour" Photos

Per request of my mother, grandmother, and aunts, here is a photo.  I don't know if it is possible to have a glamourous photo taken of you when you are seven months pregnant, plagued with indigestion and fatigue, but let's pretend it can happen.  Just for fun.  Sterling took several photos, but we will spare you having to look at all of them :)

Springtime in the City

Happy Easter!  (Yes, we wore pastels...)

Few things make me happier than waking up when it is warm and light outside.  This is why I love spring so much.  Everything is just so much happier:  you can wear skirts and sandals, it's not freezing when you get out of the shower, and you can eat dinner outside every night.  Sterling moved our kitchen table outside on our porch, so we really have been eating outside every night for the past few weeks.  Last night was a little chilly, so we just snuggled up in a blanket to eat our artichokes and quinoa.  Getting the table back inside requires taking apart the table and reassembling it so it will fit through the door frame, so needless to say, we are committed to eating outside for the next few months.  I love it.

This morning I woke up with Sterling, made him lunch, showered, did some other stuff and then found myself utterly exhausted by 8:00 am.  So, I went back to bed.  Until 10:00.  Is that bad?  This whole pregnancy thing makes me tired sometimes.  I am feeling much better now, but I decided to e-mail my boss and let her know I'd be working from home today.  It just seemed like the better option for, oh, so many reasons :)  And now I'm blogging?  Nice.  Either way, I am officially in the third trimester now and we can't wait for our little girl to show up sometime in July. 

Here is a lovely, glamorous photo of us at the LDS Cannery in Maryland.  For those of you that are Mormon, you probably have worn a similar apron and packed 10 dozen large cans of dehydrated potato pearls yourself.  But!  For those of you who are wondering what in the world this place is, let me tell you:

Packin' it up and lookin' good at the dry pack cannery in Maryland. 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ have been counseled by a living prophet to become self-reliant.  This includes saving money, being prepared for natural disasters, and building up a storage of food.  No, we are not paranoid that the world is going to come to an end any second, but I do believe in listening to God and being prepared for whatever comes. In the case that we do lose our jobs, won't it be so wonderful to know that we have food to eat during that time we are unemployed?  Or what about that crazy snow storm in DC a few years ago when all of the stores were literally out of food?  In the case of a disaster, I want to be in the position where my family is taken care of, so we have the energy and health to help others.  When I was telling my boss about going to the cannery, she asked, "Are you worried about that stuff?"  (Perhaps wondering if I was one of those crazys that has a silo of grain and watches for Russian missiles on a daily basis.)  I assured her I wasn't, but I don't know if she believes me :)  This next weekend we are going to Wal-Mart to get stuff like Band-Aids and medicine for our first aid kits.  

Sterling and I actually had so much fun at the cannery.  We learned so much about oats, wheat, and different kinds of dried beans.  It was like entering this whole other world I knew nothing about before!  Somehow we ended up with way more dried apple slices than we meant to, so if you find yourself in a bind, natural disaster or not, come on over to the Larsen's.  We'll feed you! 

Living in DC has many benefits, including seeing the cherry blossoms.  On the opening day of the Cherry Blossom Festival, we went with our friends, Broc and Natalie Buttars downtown.  

Broc, Natalie, Sterling, and me at the Cherry Blossom Festival

Broc Natalie, me, and Sterling at the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

 By 11:00 am it was totally rainy and the wind had blown off all of the blossoms.  I felt bad for the festival planners.  No more blossoms.  We were cold and it was raining, so we went to a really awesome exhibit to finish off the morning.  There is a lesser-known gallery called the International Gallery in the Ripley Center (underground between the Freer-Sackler, the Castle, and African Art).  I had heard that there was this really cool, interactive science and math exhibit.  Turns out, it really was amazing.  For any of you out there coming to DC, check it out.  The whole exhibit is essentially really cool video games and interactives that teach you about fancy science stuff.   

Here's Sterling and Broc playing this biking game that teaches you about how graphs work.

I love this photo of Sterling.  Pure joy.

What else is going on here in DC?  Sterling is playing soccer on a work team tonight.  I am going to work from home, probably go to the gym, sew a little, and cook dinner for "the boys", as I call them.  (I cook dinner for a house of bachelor's three nights a week to earn a little extra money and practice my culinary skills.  It's actually not too bad of a gig.)  Happy April!

GIRL!!!

19 weeks

We are having a girl!  She's in my belly this very second.  Now we are at about 20 weeks and I can feel her moving around even more!  Secretly (or not so secretly), we were kind of hoping for a girl...  Is that bad?  Maybe it's because I didn't have any sisters growing up?  Or maybe it's because girls are more fun to shop for? Either way, it just is so exciting now to start to planning for life with this Larsen girl.  I had to go to work right after we got the ultrasound, and let me just say that that probably wasn't the best idea.  I was pretty distracted.  Fortunately, I didn't have to stay at work long.

That evening, Sterling and I went and got the blessing dress that we saw a few weeks ago at BabyGap to celebrate.

blessing dress

The day before, Sterling got me this really great diaper bag for Valentine's Day.  It has a little changing pad and bottle carrier thing and everything.  It's "legit." 

 I know, that's not your typical Valentine's Day gift, but he totally surprised me and I love it.  It actually can pass as I purse and I've been using it already, 'cause why not?  For date night we bought her a book called, Bedtime for Mommy. 

 It's my new favorite.  The illustrations are great.  This little girl puts her mom to bed by helping her lay out her work clothes for the next day and reading her "Anna Karenina" before she turns out the lights.  Kind of awesome.  


I realize that this is a very worldly post about things that we have bought.  As a disclaimer, these are the ONLY baby things we have (besides a pack of onesies).  I don't want people out there thinking that we are crazy.  (Well, I guess you can think that if you want...)  Anyway, what I am trying to say is that we can't wait to be parents and are so grateful that we have the opportunity to raise this little girl.  Thankfully, we know that God is going to help us out!  In my next post, I will go deeper into the psyche of the expectant mother...  


Sterling is at his ceramics class tonight.  I miss him.  Blogging is the way I cope :)  

New Development (in my belly!)

8 weeks

10 weeks

12 weeks

Oh!  It has been way too long since I have blogged.  Now seems like a great time to start up again.  We are going to have a baby!  And it's going to be born July 11th--give or take, I'm sure.  It's happening and we are so, so excited.  Tomorrow we find out the gender and we probably won't be able to sleep tonight.  Right now the baby is still kind of an abstract idea, but I imagine seeing it during the ultrasound tomorrow will make things a little more real!  I am 19 weeks along right now and have been feeling little flutterings in my belly since about 16 weeks.  What an incredible sensation!  Sterling and I were talking about last night how the baby is at the point where he/she can hear.  Sterling was so excited, so guess what we did last night?  Yes, we read to the baby.  We were just going to read just one children's book, but we ended up reading three as we ate our late night snack of peanut butter and honey sandwiches :)  Romantic, huh?  It was actually.

Sterling and I have been joking that once we know the gender the floodgates of consumerism are going to burst open.  Up to this point, we have been less tempted to buy baby stuff because we don't know whether it is a boy or girl.  I mean, we bought white onesies at BabyGap one day, but that is all.  It helps that we know that we are moving to Australia in October, so we can't really get into the crib/dresser/nursery thing.  That will save us a lot of money right now.  We are going to be there for 6 months, but we will be in a fully furnished place, so we'll just take our little pack-n-play and go and worry about the nursery thing when we actually get a place with 2 rooms.  Right now our little one bedroom doesn't really have much room.  It'll do for the 3 months before we go to Australia.

Living the Life in DC---Photos from Daily Life

Outside of the Kennedy Center.  We went to this crazy modern music concert for date night.  The band  made music with rubber bands and pieces of old futons and stuff.  I don't know if it was necessarily my type of music, but a cultural experience nonetheless! 

Here is Sterling outside of the Kennedy Center the same night.  For the record, he didn't want me to take a picture of him by himself.  He just looked so handsome.  I had to take a photo of him.  

Amazing, right?  One day we met downtown and got pastries at Paul's Bakery after lunch.  I totally devoured much the most amazing chocolate croissant ever made.  For you DC-ers, it is right across the street from the National Archives. 

I got kind of side-tracked while we were packing and Sterling caught me!  I forgot how many cool cookbooks we have...

Our New Home

We just moved back into the neighborhood where Sterling and I met each other.  Romantic, eh?  It really is, though.  Every day I can walk by my old house and be reminded of the awesome doorstep scenes we had at my old house while we were dating.  (I don't think the lady across the street appreciated them very much, though!  She would always turn her porch light on and off as if to signal us that it was time for us to go our separate ways.)  Aside from being nostalgic, our new place is great for so many reasons.  Ready?  These are the reasons:

1) WAY cheaper than our old place,
2) a yard,
3) a covered porch outside of our bedroom big enough for a table, couch, and grill,
4) close to our friends,
5) walking distance from the metro,
6) tons of storage space, and
7) a good decorating challenge!

The first thing we did when we moved in was take down the hideous valance and scrape the wallpaper off in the kitchen.  Sick me out!

This was the biggest mess.  Not only one, but two layers of extremely ugly wallpaper!

Sterling hard at work.

These cool cabinets left by the previous tenants were also covered in wallpaper.  Who thought this was a good idea?  It is obviously not.  I am smiling because I am happy to be looking at Sterling (who was taking the photo), not because of the wallpaper!

Yay!  They got clean. (And Sterling's photos above)

How did we get so much stuff?  We have only been married a year...

So much better.  Ahh......  We need another accent color.  Gray maybe?

We love it here.  I mean, it is a bit smaller and we don't absolutely love the wood paneling in the living room that the landlady won't let us paint, but it is home.  It's where we make a life together.  And THAT is pretty wonderful.  Come visit us.  You can sleep on the couch.