Flowers

Snow and Brownings Means Playtime!

Saturday was tubing day for the Browning Family. Elwin, Julie, Allen, Holly, Ashlyn, Amie, Afton, Tashia, Caleb, Clif and I headed up the mountain for some snow fun, we found a fun spot to stop, go tubing, build a fire, and even do a little snowmobiling.

Ashlyn and Amie didn't hesitate at all to try out the new tubing grounds
Caleb and Afton were far behind!

Even if we had to let them down on a tub with a rope so we could get them back up the hill without going down ourselves.

The rope came in handy getting Amie and Ashlyn up the last steep part too. Affie never got tired, she wanted to go over and over and over. She wore Clif, Holly, Allen and I out pretty good.

Caleb had to try it without a tub and was so proud of himself.

After a couple turns Ashlyn and Amie got in the habit of plopping down on their tub at the bottom of the hill and not coming back up the hill. Several retrieval methods were used to rescue them. Clif tried the snowmobil but couldn't convince Amie to hop aboard.

Snowboard was the next rescue method

What a buff and talented dude! A tube, snowboard, and five year old!

Affie had a hard time eating her licorice with her gloves on. She dropped it at one point and didn't realize why it wasnt' in her hand for a few seconds. Young Adventurers! Caleb wanted to start it up and drive it but Affie wanted to just sit on it. She won't go near the snowmobils while they are on and being noisy.

Back Door

Clif installed our new back door last week. The sliding glass door we had was falling apart pretty bad and was a struggle to even get open. We took it out, put in a door and window. We are still adjusting to the differences but enjoying it also. Oh, yeah and Clif had a little helper working on it with him. Holly came over to visit and brought affie and she had fun handing things to clif and watching him.

Sorry the pictures are so dark!

Luck.... not in the plans!!

I noticed I needed an update on here and discovered that pretty much everything that I had to report on falls under that same category: bad luck. First of all Clif has been trying to get his hazmat endorsement for his CDL license for four and a half months but the government lost his file and nearly cost us his job. We did finally get an approval letter which was a wonderful thing, for about a day! All we had to do now was go the MVD in Showlow and get them to print out a new license for him. We went there the next day and discovered that the one and only person that could help us was not in till the next day. That was frustrating but we also had a doctors appointment for me also so we figured the trip wasn't a complete waste. We headed over there with our fingers crossed since the previous doctors appointment had been canceled due to too much snow on the roads. We got there and guess what? Yep, the appointment was canceled, the doc was in surgery. Bummer, this was a frustrating day for us. So.... we drove all the way back to showlow the next day bright and early so Clif could get the license printed. He stood in line in the cold with six other guys for an hour before finding out that the one person that could help them was not coming to work for the entire week. Holy Cow!! Things were not going our way. The end of the week Clif and I and Holly and Allen and my mom and dad got to go to the Temple for a session which was nice since I hadn't been for awhile. I was really looking forward to it since we had planned to go the previous week but couldn't due to too much snow on the roads. I made it through the session and then had a pregnancy hormone attack and wanted to cry the whole way home (for no reason at all of course, darn hormones). The next day, Saturday, Clif was gone snowmobiling a lot but promised me some "Clif and Bonnie" time that evening so I was feeling special. That is until my gal bladder decided that it needed some "Bonnie Time". I was in pain laying down for almost two hours. By seven I finally felt a little better so we went out to eat but I couldnt eat much since it had messed up my stomach. We did get to cuddle and watch a movie together so it wasn't a complete sad evening. Monday morning arrived and Clif called the MVD office to see if it was worth driving over there. The phone message said that the CDL office was closed for another week. :( Well, Clif's job needed the license so we drove three hours to Flagstaff yesterday just to print a new license, but we did get it!!!! Clif woke up that morning with a cold though so he is not feeling well now. I just have a bad case of itcing lately :) weird! Well this could be the happy ending but not quite. So my doctors appointment was scheduled or should I say rescheduled for the second time for today. We got there, happy that is was in Eagar this time in stead of Show Low and you would never guess what they told us!!! The doctor in in surgery and isn't going to make it. I am rescheduled for next week... in show low :(! I am starting to think I won't see the doc until I am actually in delivery, if then. I guess when there is only two baby doctors in the entire white mountains area this is expected. It's just a good thing that I don't have any complications with pregnancy so far. Too bad this doesn't mean it won't be less expensive. Well, That would be the end, not necessarily happy but still better than when I started. I am hoping for a good February and March. I am slowly getting more and more uncomfortable with the pregnancy which isn't fun but at least I have felt descently good for quite awhile till now. And I have a wonderful husband that takes amazing and great care of me! Oh and by the way, we think we are for sure on the baby name now (unless clif or I have second thoughts again). We are sticking with our original choice of William Cort Browning, we will call him Cort!

Big Belly ???

Well, I finally had Clif help me take a picture of me when I started to show. This was taken about three weeks ago so I have gotten a little bigger but this is the only picture I have for now!

Delayed Pictures

There are several pictures that I have been promising to put up on here for a couple months now and so now I am trying to make up for that. I am still missing a few of the halloween ones but this is as good as I do right now.

This is the quilt that my mother in law Julie Browning and my grandmother Joann Adair made for Clif and I. It is really neat, I like it a lot!!

I was working hard yesterday and came home for lunch to find Clif washing my pile of built of dishes that I have been neglecting and also on the table was this plant. Clif doesn't like buying flowers since they just die so I told him that he could always just buy me a live plant so he apparently took my advice. It is a kind of cactus and the flowers are really pretty, he also got me a card to go with the flowers but I will keep that part to myself :)! He is sweet and it really cheered me up since I have been super stressed lately!

This is our Christmas tree this year with the penguin decorations that I made for Clif last year for christmas. It turned out pretty cute and fewer penguins have fallen off so far than i expected. From a distance it almost appears as if we toilet papered our tree but they are supposed to be skiing slopes so make sure your imagination is working :)!

This was the sunset the evening we finally found our tree up around Green's Peak. It kinda looked to me almost like the orange clouds were flames behind the hills. It was really pretty even if my pictures don't do it justice.

And finally some pics from my halloween party almost two month ago. I decorated the doors in my house so that my nieces and nephews in town could come over and go trick or treating inside where it was warm. The adults seemed to have just as much fun as the kids so I guess it was a success!

Tashia was behind the mummy door.

Allen was behind the ghost door.

My mom was behind the pumpkin door.

Bryce was behind the spider door.

Daryl was behind the witch door. I like he was wanting to hang out in my pantry more that he was really wanting to be a witch :) hehe!

Clif was behind the monster door dressed in his traditional gorilla costume which doesn't always go over so well with some of the smallest kids but no one got eaten by the monster!

I have more pics of the food and people and stuff but they are on Clif's camera and he keeps it with him all day so I haven't gotten them yet.

The night before the party ashlyn amie and affie slept over at my house and then in the morning they helped me with a few things for the party. Their cupcake decorating was messy but fun. and next time if I use black frosting affie is wearing a bib, she got it everywhere!

Christmas Time

I have been excited and waiting impatiently for christmas ever since the beginning of October, not really sure why, I have never had christmas fever come over me this bad before. It's nice that it is here but I am having a hard time trying to relax and enjoy it. : ( Clif and I put up our christmas tree :) it only took us two days to find one we liked on the mountain. I am thinking it is a combination of our pickiness, my inexperience, and clif wanting to explore dirt roads on the mountains rather than look for a tree. Anyway, we found one we could live with. Last christmas I had made clif 30 skiing penguins ornaments so we were both excited to put them on our tree this year. They don't hang, they actually just sit on ski slopes made of cotton batting so, DON'T BUMP THE TREE!!! :) (this of course means that we might not get to use them again next year since we will have a nine month old rolling and crawling around the house). I will get pictures up of it soon, I know that is what I always say but I really will, just having trouble lately getting around to getting pictures off my camera. I also decorated a small tree that I had with me during my college years. I mostly put it up to entertain my two year old niece I was babysitting. She had a cold and was not happy to not be with mommy for four hours so I had to be creative in entertaining her. Decorating my own house has been kind of fun even though I only have limited decorations that I have collected in my life.
Well, that is the unstressful parts of christmas. I have been decently busy designing and printing christmas cards which usually wouldn't be bad, I like designing and printing is ok but there are always all the little problems that show up here and there. Like my moniter dying at the print office, or my computer at home deciding to show symptons of dying and having only a month or two to live, or ink cartridges being bad and ruining my pictures, or ... never mind, I am sure you get my point. All things I just have to work around, without them everything would be too easy, RIGHT??
Also a little stressed about some presents I am still working on making for christmas along with getting visiting teaching done without all sorts of problems getting in the way and trying to be comfortable and brave enough to participate in our ward christmas party as Mary (with speaking parts, there is a reason I never did drama events). Well, I am just going to live for the week around christmas when hopefully I won't be working, my projects will be done and I can thoroughly enjoy family!!

Finally!!

I am having a BOY!!!! kinda weird since I am so used to girls in my life but I am really excited as is Clif. Our baby is very healthy and actually a few days ahead of schedule on his growth. It was so fun getting to see his little face, arms, fingers, legs, toes, etc... I can't wait!!! I am calling him WC for the time being since we have three possible names now that we are working through and may end not picking any of them, who knows: William Cort, Warren Cort, William Clif. Clif let me buy some baby clothes since I have been wanting to buy something for forever but wanted to wait till I knew what it was. We bought him three little sleepers, and I think Clif enjoyed picking them out as much as me even though he would deny it. Anyway, that's about it. I am just so happy to have a baby coming, I feel special to be going through all this and being able to feel closer and closer to my son. He is already so special to me that it kind of scares me. I hope I have what it takes to be a good mom to him. I love him!

I love his toes in this one

one finger up, he know's he is number one I guess!

Traditionaly face shot, not always the most attractive but still special!

3D Face, he looked like he was sucking his thumb right before this was taken!

awww! Hard to believe he is really mine!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will (hopefully) officially know if I am going to be a mommy or a daddy. Or in other words if I am going to have a baby boy or a baby girl in March! I am so excited its crazy, never thought I would be so excited! I don't have a preference, I will take either gender with a happy heart. Clif is hoping for a boy!! but he would love a girl too, even if he teases otherwise!

Pain!

Sunday I went to church and was enjoying since the previous week Clif and I had had to speak, so we were a lot more relaxed this time. In the beginning of Relief Society I started to feel a slight pain in my tummy area so I ignored it like I do a lot. After fifteen minutes I couldn't ignore it anymore, I figured that my nylons were just getting uncomfortable so I snuck out and went to the bathroom to rearrange a few things (some of you know how nylons can be the most annoying things ever). I went back and the pain didn't go away. When leaving church and on the way home I was starting to think that maybe it was heartburn since I was pregnant and that is a symptom of pregnancy. I got home and had clif run to Allen's house to borrow some tums. I took three and it never made a difference. Two hours after church I was still hurting and hurting bad, it was all in the very top of my tummy just below my ribs so I wasn't really worried about the baby. By this point I couldn't handle it, I wasn't getting any relief and it hurt. I cried and Clif didn't know what to do but kept giving me things that we thought might help. After trying one thing I rushed to the bathroom and threw up over and over and over. When I got up I was shaky, hot, cold, dizzy, and still in a lot of pain. I told clif that my temperature had to be wacky and suggested we go to holly and allen's again to take my temperature. We got there and I was crying most of the time (my nieces were confused and sweet affie kept coming to me and giving me pretty smiles to cheer my up). We took my temperature and blood pressure. Temperature was 94.7 and I can't remember the blood pressure. I threw up again there. Clif tried calling doctor Tindal, my OB doctor but he was out of town so we talked to Doctor Connolly another OB Doctor and he said it was most likely a bad flu or gal bladder and that to be safe we should probably go to the hospital. Clif and Allen gave me a blessing and then we headed to the ER. I just wanted the pain to go away so I hoped this would be the best choice for that to happen soon but I was out of luck. We got there and they had us fill out a small amount of paperwork, took me to a room, asked me what was wrong, and had me change into a gown. Then they took my blood pressure, temperature, blood sample (which apparrently they let me bleed on the floor since clif has a pic on his phone of blood all over the floor below my arm), put an IV in, and wrapped me in lots of blankets since I was really cold to them. They also checked the baby's heart beat which was just fine. It came time for the shift to end so we had to wait for the switch to change. The new nurses came and checked everything all over again. Eventually, an hour and a half after being there and five hours since having the pain, one of the nurses asked how I was doing and I told that I was still hurting a lot. She came back with a small amout of morphine, I was just so happy that they finally were going to try and help me feel better that I didn't really think about that they were giving me morphine, a thing I would have usually thought was used for bigger things that what I was going through. It took a few minutes but they pain lessened, but never went away completely, it also made it easier for me to close my eyes and rest which was nice, I didn't sleep, just rested some. After being there for two hours they came back after looking at my blood and urine and said it was indeed gal bladder causing the pain. They gave me a little more morphine and told me when I felt well enough I could go home. I was tired enough wanting to sleep but there bed wasn't letting me that I didn't wait long. After being there for three hours Clif helped me dress and walk to the car. They sent a pain killer (less than morphine :) ) and a perscription to get an ultrasound done the next day. I got home, Clif insisted I eat something and had a hard time getting me to eat much since I kept dozing off. I finally got a little salad and an entire apple down and he let me sleep. It just felt so good to not be in such bad pain anymore that I didn't care that I still hurt a little bit, I just slept. The next morning my tummy area was sore, like it had been run over by a car or something (maybe from the throwing up, I am not sure). I ate a handful of cheerios before I got a call from Clif saying I had to fast from then till four when he had scheduled my ultrasound. I was beginning to miss food. We did the ultrasound and I do have gal stones in my gal bladder. We still haven't had any one really tell us what to do about it besides be careful what I eat. I am watching the fat and off dairy products for awhile (I hate that, the dairy part). Clif found some herbs that are supposed to help dissolve gal stones and improve the gal bladder so we want to try some of that to hopefully help. Tuesday I was even more sore than monday, I walk hunched over cuz it hurts most to stand. Today, I am sore still but not as bad. The baby seems to have not minded any of this at all, still moving around like crazy.