Scouty Crawls.

I was planning on being so good at blogging once Scout got here! I was going to document all the little things she did so I would never forget. Because she is the first, and you have loads more time with your first than with any other...

Yeah...that was wishful thinking.

It makes me sad though because I have this beautiful little girl, and very few records of when big things happened. Well, we do have iphone pictures. So those will have to do.

One thing I do remember and can document is the day Scout learned to crawl. For Labor Day Weekend, Tay and I coordinated with a few of my family members and made the trip to San Diego to stay with my grandma. This is my mom's mom, and the only grandparent I have left. She is 87 years old and is still kicking. She was diagnosed with colon cancer a year ago and survived that like a champ. Sadly, her age is beginning to catch up with her and her mind is starting to get confused. She forgets things quickly and has quite a few falls in the last little bit. Anyway, we decided to make the trip to visit her since we hadn't seen her since Christmas. 

Tay and I left Friday morning (September 4) and drove the quick 5 hours to grandma's house. When we arrived we knocked on her door and she stared at us through the screen and asked "do I know you?" Classic. I had to tell her who we were and then she opened the screen and was excited to see us. Apparently, my mom had decided to make our stay with her a surprise, but forgot to tell us. So it was a little awkward when we started bringing our bags in and talking about what we were going to do over the weekend. But grandma was a good sport about it all. 

That afternoon we just sat and talked with grandma while we waited for mom, Ethan and Megan to arrive. But this is also the afternoon that Scout legitimately crawled for the first time. Grandma has a bar in her family room that has a mirrored wall behind it. Scouty loves seeing herself in the mirror, and when she saw herself she took off for the wall. She fell over and army crawled a few times, but she nailed actual crawling for the first time! It was so exciting and depressing all at the same time. She learned something new that she has been working on for what felt like months, but she was also now mobile which makes my life so much harder ;)

Mom, Ethan, Megan and Maddox got there that night and the party began. We went to the beach everyday which is what we were most excited about. Having grown up in Southern California it's weird how quickly I forgot how much I love the ocean. Sitting in the sand. Diving under waves. Basking in the warm summer air. It was so relaxing. 

A trip to California isn't complete for me without eating at my favorite places: The Chicken Pie Shop and Filippi's Pizza. So we had our fill of both. I ate a disgusting amount, but hey it was a holiday!

Tay and I left Monday night since he had school Tuesday, and the rest of my family left Tuesday morning. It was a quick trip but so much fun! We were happy to see Grandma and reconnect with our Utah family in the place where we grew up.

Pregnancy & Birth Story: Baby Scout

**Warning: this will be long**

My pregnancy was fairly easy.

 I got sick the first trimester, not horribly ill, but enough that sometimes i just laid around. don't judge. It was mostly at night which i did not anticipate because it's called morning sickness,  but that's a big fat lie, because you get sick at any time of day. just because.

 haven't eaten in an hour? nausea.

 haven't eaten in 10 minutes. nausea.

 talk/sing when you haven't eaten in 2 hours puke. 

It was an adjustment to say the least, but i was grateful to be having a healthy pregnancy. 

Before getting pregnant i had forced my husband to sign up for a half marathon with me that we were going to run in June. We had been training and were running everyday with our long runs at about 8 miles. good, right?! I was stoked. but I went to the Dr and he axed running because i had a small tear under my placenta. he said if i didn't want to be on bed rest the rest of my pregnancy then i had to stop all activity until it healed...wah wah...so i stopped. and never really started again..eek!

At 13 weeks I had another ultra sound that showed my placenta had healed and i was cleared to exercise. I was excited, but working out is hard when you're gaining weight! so it all ended pretty quickly and i took time off from the gym to just be pregnant. 

The rest of my pregnancy was pretty smooth. i continued working up until the beginning of December (my due date was December 28). I always felt like I would deliver earlier than my due date, but everyone always told me that i was just hoping and i thought they were right, until contractions started on December 13.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

I woke up at 5am uncomfortable but that really wasn't new. sleeping at 38 weeks pregnant is just hard. i fell back asleep but then woke up again a half hour later with more pain. kind of odd, but it wasn't super intense so i went back to sleep. the pains kept coming back, but weren't really regular. the day wore on and i downloaded an app to time contractions after my mom warned me that this could be it. (for thinking i was going to deliver early, i was pretty unprepared for when contractions started) i started timing when i was getting "really uncomfortable" and they were fairly regular. 

**disclaimer** i had no idea what pain level was considered worthy of going to the hospital for, and i was terrified of not getting there in time for an epidural. consider that as you continue**

We ended up going to the hospital in the late afternoon because i was having contractions every 5 minutes or so. They checked me in and monitored me. When I got there I was 90% effaced and 3 cm. When they checked me again in an hour i was 100% effaced, but still only 3cm. The nurse said I could go walk around to try and get things moving, or they could send me home. I did not want to be sent home so I went and walked. Even did stairs! But no progress. So they sent me home with some pain meds to help ease the contractions. 

Monday, December 15, 2014

I woke up at 3am with contractions. They were twice as bad as the day before which made the fact that I had gone to the hospital already super embarrassing (i can admit that now, but would have killed anyone who asked) ;) We timed them again and they were still really regular at about 5-7 minutes apart. I didn't want to be turned away a second time, so I was waiting as long as i could before going back to the hospital. Tay made me walk for a bit and I had to stop during some of the contractions to breathe through them. After a few more hours of this, and timing these contractions to ensure they were regular we went back to the hospital. To save myself some brain damage, and your already tired eyes, I will keep it short in saying we got sent home. again. i was dying of embarrassment. we went home with more pain meds and me praying that the pain would end or something would happen. 

Tuesday, December 16,2014. 

I woke up at 2am with horrbily painful contractions. I couldn't sit still through them and I didn't want to wake Taylor up because of them so I went to my little brother's bed (we lived with my parents at the time, and Ethan was on his mission in London so the room was available.) I tried to go back to sleep but kept waking up every 20 minutes with contractions. Hard ones. I forced myself to stay in bed until 5am before getting into a warm bath. I was hoping to take some of the pressure off my body and relax a bit. It didn't really help because the contractions started coming on every 10 minutes. At this point Tay woke up and came and sat in the bathroom with me while I contracted and cried because I was hurting. I was determined to make it to my 10am Dr appointment to have my OBGYN check me before I dared walk into that hospital again. It was the hardest and longest wait of my life! A piece of advice: if you start having contractions, don't go to the hospital until they make you cry they hurt so bad. Anyway, I make it to 10 am and waddle into Dr. Haskett's office with sweats on and tears in my eyes telling the receptionist that i think i'm in labor.  They call me back pretty quick and Dr. Haskett checked me and said I was 4cm and my water bag was bulging and to go to the hospital! I cried. I was so happy and so ready to not be in pain anymore. Tay drove the car across the parking lot and I walked over to the hospital to check in. We tried to take a picture to document this, but i started having another contraction and ended up propped up on the wall breathing through while Tay smiled.

^We're both happy to be having this baby!

^ Contraction...

We walk up to labor and delivery and they put me in a room so the nurse can check me. When she does my water breaks and she told me I was there to stay. More tears..I was going to have the baby! Five minutes later the anesthesiologist comes in to give me the epidural. Best experience ever! I didn't feel an ounce of pain and had relief from contractions a few minutes later. 

At this point we called mine and Tay's mom so they would be aware we were having our baby. We had decided that we wanted them both there for her delivery. They got there and Tay and I were just watching TV and i was drinking dr pepper to my hearts content. I was on an all fluid diet but wasn't mad a bit about it. My nurse came and checked on me about every hour to make sure I was progressing, which I was so I didn't need to be put on pitocin. Finally at 6:30 the nurse said I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. I don't know why I hadn't really thought about this moment that day, up until this point, but i hadn't. Not once. So when she said that I had a small freak out. pushing. actually pushing this baby out of my body. It was terrifying, but it had to happen eventually.

So i focused all I could and started pushing. hard.

I was doing well for the first 15 minutes-ish. But then fatigue started setting in. The not sleeping for 3 days and then working that hard was completely exhausting. And to top it all of Scouty was stuck on my pubic bone. (apparently this happens a lot to first time moms and you just have to push through it, literally, and you'll be fine for all the rest of the babies. who knew?) So that was a real bust. At this point Dr. Jones came in (the man who was on call with my OB's office) and started feeling things out. He stayed about a half hour before telling us that he had to run to Orem to deliver another baby real quick and would be back.

Ugh, didn't know that was a possibility!
 "hey, your babies' head is chilling right in your pelvis and we can all see it, but hang tight and i'll be back in 40."

The only thing i could think to say was "i really hope you have a fast car!".
He drove a Tesla.

As soon as he left, the nurse called the anesthesiologist back to top off my dose to make sure I wouldn't feel the contractions coming back (bless her heart) and then we waited.
Although I wasn't in pain I could definitely feel Scouty moving further and further down into my pelvis because the pressure was mounting. After about an hour Dr. Jones came back and we got back down to business.
I pushed...
and pushed...
...and pushed.

She was making slow progress and Dr. Jones kept trying to stretch me to give her a little more room. I did end up getting an episiotomy which I felt- should have hit the epidural button to give me more!

But...

After an hour of pushing Scouty made her debut:

Scout Austen Roderick
Born at 8:36pm
6lbs.14oz
18.5inches long

She was perfect. I was exhausted. I had to work to open my eyes to look at her after she was born. They laid her on me for a minute so I could see her before taking her to get her cleaned up, weighed and measured. After about 10 minutes, they brought her back to me and we laid skin to skin for quite some time before I would let anyone else take her. It was amazing. All that time being sick and uncomfortable was rewarded with the most perfect baby girl I could have asked for. She is amazing and perfect in every way and has changed our little family forever.

Pregnancy Photo Dump:

  ^  July 4- 16 weeks                                                                             ^ September 19- 23 weeks  

November- 35 weeks

December 4- 37 weeks

Baby Scout:

1 week 

   2 weeks

First Family Pictures:

i'm still here!

Hey friends! Pretty crazy that I'm blogging again, right??? 

Considering it's been well over a year, i give you my permission to be impressed ;) (does anyone even use the winky face anymore? I feel old...) 

Regardless, I am determined to continue blogging because I want to keep track of my life. My family. and have some order to all the pictures we take! So to update you on life since last April...

1. We got PREGNANT!!!

For any of you who have read my blog at all knew that we wanted a baby desperately. After having a miscarriage in November of 2013, we were anxious to try again. and it happened! 

2.  We moved back to Utah from New Hampshire.

-Loved our experiences back east but I was sooooo ready to be done. 

-Also, I do not recommend driving 36 hours while 10 weeks pregnant. BLEH!

3. Scout. Austen. Roderick. December 16, 2014. 6lbs 14oz. 18.5 inches. 

(birth story to come)

4. Tay got accepted to several law schools (he applied to 15!) and we decided to attend Arizona State University. 

-He got a killer scholarship and we can't get over 365 days of warmth....Maybe more like 300.

5. We moved to Tempe, Arizona on June 9, 2015.

We have been loving our time here despite the intense heat! Stay tuned for photo dumps and updates on Scouty's almost 7 months of life. 

How Mormons celebrate Easter. Courtesy of my husband.

"How do you celebrate Easter?” asked my Greek Professor at the end of class Friday. She is a native Greek speaker and the prototype of a charming Giagia. As the only student in her Modern Greek 656 class, sometimes I feel more like family than a student with the way we joke and laugh all the while.

What was inherent in the “you” was “mormons”. I have often, to my delight, fielded tough questions about Mormonism being the first member of the “very financially savvy” church she has befriended. Having served a full-time mission in Greece, I relish the opportunities to focus on the eccentricities of Mormonism’s view on Christ’s teachings.

When one is actively learning multiple languages she often finds herself waiting for the right word/language combination to surface in her thoughts before opening her mouth. In like manner, I paused, then hesitated. Behind my answer flowed the context of why she would ask this in the first place: In the Greek Orthodox tradition the week of Easter is the Super Bowl of high and holy holidays. You don’t miss it! Many of the days are marked with stunning psalms and lustrous liturgies. These culminate Saturday night. When the clock strikes midnight all the lights of the church go out and out of the Holy of Holies a lighted candle emerges. Every participant in the cathedral has a candle and the flame is disseminated down through the congregation. In a moment all the cathedral is lit from the one candle, the source of all light. The symbol is stunning to think upon.

So how was I to answer the curiosity of my professor? “It’s personal,” I responded. But the words felt chunky falling off my tongue. Wanting to add to this meager response, I started again.. and failed to breathe out anything. “It’s personal,” she responded with a merciful smile which meant that my answer was sufficient. What she thought was something lost in translation was something that I simply couldn’t formulate. What is different about our Easter that brings out the masses? What beautiful symbols could she appreciate? Where’s the “magic”!? Nothing!? While sitting in the pews I’m not going to be hearing the hymns of Mary’s laments, but the lament of the child who spilled his Cheerios. Church proceeds as normal. Which reminds me, I need to prepare my lesson for Sunday school! 

Mormons don’t see eye to eye with Historic Christianity on the holidays, rituals, and feasts. We kind of lump those things into the miscellaneous category of good intentions gone wrong. Our method of worship is simple and unbounded. It’s kind of the Build-a-bear of religions. A lot is left between you, God, and your conscience to work through, like Jacob wrestling the angel for his blessing. Epic.

What draws us to church on Easter Sunday is not what happens on that day in church, but what has happened previously in our lives. I felt unsatisfied with my answer because I didn’t do it justice. I told her that everyone worships in his and her own way. They have candles at church, we have prayers at home; They have crucifixes hung, and we present our bodies as a living sacrifice; They hear beautiful liturgies, and in silence are the greatest sermons taught to us. 

The thing that draws me to church on Easter Sunday is the same thing that brings me every week. I love the Lord. He is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He counsels me often to consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

He is the tree whose fruit is most sweet. It is the love of God, the most desirable of all things, and the most joyous to the soul; whose word is iron leading to the fountain of living waters. 

Though I should serve him with my whole soul, yet would I be an unprofitable servant.

This Sunday, this is the testimony, last of all, which I want to give of him: that He lives!

I don’t want the pomp. This Easter is a product of how I have chosen to live my life. Ritual and tradition do not inform my worship, only devotion and longing to be more. I will try to approach God in thanksgiving for the awesomely terrifying gift of His Son. 

So, It’s personal.

Utah Photo Dump.

We went to Utah a few weeks ago for my sisters wedding. It was amazing! A quick trip, but so refreshing to be back with family.

 We did lots of wedding things and I got to meet my sisters baby boy, Maddox who was born just a few weeks ago! Be still my soul, he is so cute.

See:

And he's a tiny 6lbs. So cute.

My basically 4 year old niece Addi who is sad to be human and not lioness.

Wedding day. The ladies in my fam.

Sisters.

And of course, no trip to Utah would be complete without seeing this guy. Hudson. He seriously has stolen my heart. His mama is having a little girl any day and she has a lot to live up to following this stud :)

Hipster Hudson. 

Feeding his glasses obsession.

Fried.

So life has been busy with me having a job and all. It's been great to be working again, but this job isn't exactly my ideal. I mean, I'm at a little Mexican restaurant making burritos and frying the tortilla chips and such. So...it pays the bills, but isn't a confidence-booster. Ha!

Now to the story. 

Like I said, I fry the fried foods in the mornings when I first get to work. This includes loads of chips, taco shells, taco salad bowls and little crispy tortilla strips. It's a great time, let me tell you. I get all hot and sweaty over that rectangle of boiling soy bean oil.

So on Monday, I was going about my taco salad bowl frying business, when an air bubble formed in one of the tortillas and then exploded. On my wrist. Hot oil straight to the tender underside of my arm. It was so hot! And hurt so bad! Initially, I didn't want to look at my wound because I was couldn't tell exactly where the 350 degree oil blob had struck. I was slightly nervous that it was somewhere on m gloves and the glove would be melted to my hand somewhere. Yes, I know. I have a flare for the dramatic. But, seriously. I was scared. 

When I finally looked I saw it was just a big red spot on my wrist and was relieved. I kept frying even though my skin was still on fire because that day I had a particularly large load of frying to do and New Englanders are not exactly the most tender-hearted of people. So I finished my duties and when I got the chance I ran some cold water over it to help relieve some of the burning and then got on with my day. 

But, while on my break I did snap a quick picture of the initial damage to send to my dearly beloved. Just because he is  my husband and signed a marriage certificate saying he would sympathize with me :)

So for the past few days I have actually maintained my photo documentation of said burn because it was amusing and I have never had anything like this. 

**Side note: I have a weird obsession with things like this. The human body just amazes me!**

So here you have the daily progression of my oil burn:

 Just some redness.

 A more defined burn spot

Small blister formed.

Big, gross blister.

Popped. (sorry for the blur)

Crazy, huh? 

It's actually gross. 

But what can you do. Such is life. 

good eats.

So Tay and I have been talking recently about doing a clean eating diet for the next few weeks. We have been exercising a ton, but don't feel like our diet is quite up to par. So we're thinking of doing this total overhaul to reset our metabolisms. It will not be easy, but we are excited for something new and challenging. 

So tonight, for our healthy meal I made asparagus soup compliments of pinterest and blissfullydomestic.com. The ingredients were all whole foods that I boiled and then pureed in our blender. It was delicious!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 sweet onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• fresh ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 pounds asparagus
• 3 cups water
• 1 vegetable bouillon cube

How-To

1. In a large pot, sauté the onion, bell pepper, garlic, and black pepper in the olive oil until tender.
2. Add in the water and bouillon cube and bring to a boil.
3. In the meantime, chop the asparagus, disposing of the woody parts of it.
4. Once boiling, add in the asparagus.
5. Cook for about 5 minutes until the asparagus is tender.
6. Pour the soup into a blender.
7. Blend until creamy.
8. Serve and enjoy!

We also added a little greek yogurt to the blender and mixed it together to make it a bit creamier.

Hope you try it and love it!