A Pinch of News from the J&J Family!

I wanted to let everyone know what has been happening in our lives between since our tire fiasco in January and my recent dance recital. (by the way, I had no idea that Jewel had even posted that video until I started receiving comment updates in my email.) We want you all to know that we are doing great and loving life!

January -

News of another member to our family

After many months of thinking, fasting, praying, and planning Jewel and I decided to try and make our family a bit bigger. Our hope was to have the baby in September. So we started keeping a watch on Jewel’s Menstrual cycle. After a couple of months, we thought we had it all figured out. A couple weeks passed and after listening to stories about couple’s first times not being successful, I was beginning to doubt that Jewel was even pregnant. “Oh well,” I thought, “I guess we’ll just have to plan on next month.” A couple more days passed when I came home physically drained. All I wanted to do was climb into bed and take my long winters nap. I crashed onto the bed and fell asleep without even reading our scriptures or saying our prayers. Jewel in the meantime thought that it would be a good day for a pregnancy test. While I was sleeping she nervously went to the bathroom and took out the pregnancy tester from its packaging. A bit curious and a bit hopeful she looked at the results. “POSITVE” She began shaking with excitement as a big smile grew on her face. She quickly knelt down and said a prayer of thankfulness to out Heavenly Father. After rising from the prayer and still a bit shaky, she got out a letter that she had written to me a few days earlier. (She was saving it for the day that she told me that she was pregnant.) The she began planning on how she would tell. (I was still in a heavy sleep through all of this.)

I first remember her shaking me a little and saying, “Jeff, wake up. We need to say our prayers.” It took a little bit of effort but I finally got up. “I’ll say the prayer,” she said. I, still half-sleeping, folded my arms and closed my eyes. She began, “We are so grateful for this day...please bless Katie with her pregnancy and Karen as well (my sister and sister-in-law) and me...” She pauses and looks at me. Surprisingly I was still too tired to even get what she was doing. “We pray that Thou wilt bless Katie, Karen, and me with our pregnancies.” Still nothing from me. Though, I was beginning to wonder why she was talking about pregnancies so much. Finally Jewel could not wait any longer and said loudly, “and we thank the the I am pregnant.” I got the hint and jerked my head up. “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” Jewel then gave me the letter that she had written and a willow tree figurine titled Father that she had kept stashed for away. I could hardly believe what was happening.

Febuary -

The Spreading of the News

We are both super excited for the addition to our family come this September 26th! Jewel could hardly wait to tell everyone that one night, when when she was up late and unable to go to bed, she wrote a poem for the time when we would tell everyone about the pregnancy.



A pretty cleverly written poem, if you ask me. Can you see the hidden message inside the poem? It was a fun week when we decided to give the poems out to family members. The fastest to see the hidden message was my mom, who only glanced at it and gasped while putting a new big smile on her face.

One month down and more agony to go

February was also a time of new pains and sicknesses for Jewel. It’s probably best if I put in her own words. This was an email she sent out on the 4th of February.

Hello, people I love!

I just thought I would share a list of the things that have made me gag this morning. Most of them are smells, but many of them are sights, too. Very interesting. I never knew that the mere sight of someone could make me gag. And I'm not too sure if I'll be able to take the bus too much longer...

Here we go! The Gag List:

1. Waking up and thinking of crackers...the Cheez-It White Cheddar ones that Jeff wanted to buy.
2. Smelling my Prenatal vitamin. (Always a gag.)
3. The cold air of the morning.
4. Walking into PawPaw's kitchen.
5. Midway through eating Frosted Mini Spooners...had to wait a bit before I could continue.
6. PawPaw's paint
7. Spoiled milk on people...there are more people who smell like that than I ever imagined!
8. Looking at a girl eat a blueberry poptart...just thinking about it makes me gag again.
9. B.O.
10. Looking at a guy with dreadlocks, or another with oily hair.
11. When people cough or sneeze right next to me.
12. Stinkers. Especially when you are stuck typing next to someone who just let one. Ewwwwww!

There have been more instances, but these have been the most memorable.

So far, things I can count on not making me feel sick is:
1. Hot chocolate
2. Baked potatoes
3. Citrus fruit (And after I peel them, I like to keep the smell on my fingers. For some reason, it helps clear up my sickies when I sniff my fingers again.)

But amongst the down times there have been a good share of ups. Here’s an email from February the 16th.

I wanted to let you all know that Jeff and I went to my first doctor's appointment, and the lady said everything looks good! I'm going to have to go get lab work done (blood drawn, yuck!) before my next appointment in 4 weeks. Then, I will be 12 weeks, and hopefully we'll be able to hear the baby's heartbeat! SO exciting!

March -

St Patty’s Day with a thump thump thump

St. Patrick’s Day was not only a day full of green but was the first day that we heard our baby’s heartbeat! It took the doctor a while to find the heartbeat but he eventually found the fast paced heartbeat. (some say that a face paced heartbeat means that it's a girl. I guess we'll have wait only another week until we find out for sure.)

We also went to my parent's house for their huge annual St. Patrick's Day party. (My family has Irish ancestors. In fact, my mom's maiden name was Carrigan.) Jewel also decorated our apartment with candy and other green things. She made be a sandwich with green bread for lunch and put green colored food coloring in our milk for breakfast. She is so much fun to have around for holidays.



April -

April Fool's Day!

I was a little scared for this day to come around because I knew that Jewel would go all out and pull as many pranks on me as she could. Luckily, there were only a few bad pranks. The rest were actually quite fun.

First the BAD pranks.

There was some slippery gunk under the car door handle, tape over the key slot, my seat was pushed completely forward, the windshield wipers were on at full speed, and the music was turned all the way up. At home Jewel put a picture of a snake on the computer desktop (I have a snake phobia) and a rubber band was wrapped around the spray attachment on the kitchen sink so that it would spray anyone who tried to use the water.

The Fun Things (Look at the picture)

For dinner we have grilled cheese sandwiches, peas and carrots, an orange drink, mashed potatoes with gravy, and cupcakes for dessert. The fun part about was what they were made of.

The cheese sandwich: Two slices of angel food cake with orange frosting.

Peas and carrots: Green and orange Starbust cut and rolled into the shapes of steamed carrots and peas.

Orange drink: Orange Jello

Mashed Potatoes and gravy: Vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.

and the coolest one of all...

Cupcakes: Cooked meatloaf in aluminum cupcake cups with colored "real" mashed potatoes used as frosting.