Baby Shower and Such

On Saturday the ladies in my ward threw me a nice shower. It was very cute and we got lots of great stuff. It was a lot of fun to be with friends to celebrate the coming of our little girl.

I'm still getting bigger (duh). At my last appointment a week ago there were a few updates.

-I gained 7 lbs since my last appointment two weeks ago, maybe I need to cut back on the chocolate

-I'm measuring smaller than my last appointment, meaning the baby has dropped. I can tell it for sure too. My heartburn is a lot better (it was killer for awhile) and there is a lot more pressure on the bladder and pelvis.

-I'm already 3 cm dilated. Who knows if that means she's coming sooner or not, but I have to get there eventually, so it seems like a good thing.

Thanks to everyone for your advice. It's amazing how different every one's experiences are. I guess I will have my own to share in a few weeks. I'm getting really excited and anxious for her to come. Being pregnant is getting a little tiring...

Finding a job . . .

Who would have known back in the fall and winter of 2006 that the economy would be so crappy? Back then, things were good, Suzy and I were just married and we thought that going back to school to get my MBA would be a great idea. After all, all the statistics said that MBA grads typically had multiple job offers to choose from upon graduation, salaries were high, and the options were endless.

Now fast forward 2 years and change. During my 6 week winter break from school, it has been my full time job to find jobs and apply to them. Even under the best of circumstances this is a daunting and tedious task, as I am sure that many of you know. Adding the poor economy, the enormous pool of business students, and the microscopic job opportunities, makes the task monumental.

Today, a week and a half before I start school back up, I am officially burned out from job applications. I give up! 45 applications in and several more pending, I give up! In reality, this is mostly just a stall tactic so I don't have to work on them, while I try and earn some sympathy to raise my dwindling confidence.

Last week I applied to a job, one that I thought I had a decent shot at. Well within 30 minutes I received a rejection letter, which on the whole is not too bad. I have heard of faster rejections and I would rather know that they don't want me than be left thinking I still might have a chance, when in reality I don't. But, the thing that got me was that the email stated, "After careful consideration, we regret to inform you that we will not be pursuing your application on this occasion." Ha! Right! "Careful consideration." Lines like that make a discouraging process even more discouraging because I know I was rejected before a human even had a change to look at it.

My one small victory from that one was that they addressed the email to me and not "Dear Applicant" or something like that. We are fortunate though, that even amid this poor economic conditions, my education has not cost us, and we will be debt free when I graduate. I cannot imagine the stress on the students at other schools who will be coming out with upwards of $100,000 in student loans.

On a more positive note, the baby is going good, and time is flying by. It is only 24 days to the due date, though Suzy and I both are hoping for her to come early. Here are two images from the ultrasound from 18 weeks, they have been on our refrigerator, and I finally got around to taking photos of them to post (another job application stall tactic, anyone know any others?). In the first picture you can see her little foot and the second is a nice little profile.

Shameless plug: If anyone knows of a company looking to hire a smart, hard working MBA let me know!

4 weeks and counting

Here I am at 36 weeks. Its getting very close now. We finished childbirth class, we took our breastfeeding class, and now we just have our two newborn classes left. Its hard to believe it could be in the next few weeks...or 6 more weeks (probably more likely). Things are getting a little awkward, but we're managing. We have all the big stuff now. We just got our stroller frame yesterday (thanks Cory!) and tested it out with our car seat.

We also got a bouncer. Its very pink. We were trying to go neutral with most of the bigger stuff, but this one wasn't too expensive, and all the neutral ones were either not that cute, expensive, or really looked more boyish than neutral. We thought this one was cute and a good deal.

The ladies in my ward are throwing me a shower on Saturday, so hopefully we should get the rest of the stuff we need from that. We will be able to finish up our preparations, and then we'll just have to wait for her to decide when she's ready!

Life has been fairly uneventful other than anticipating the baby coming. I'm still working for now, which is a good distraction and nice to keep a little money coming in. Casey has been very busy applying to jobs during his month long break from school. Hopefully someone out there is hiring!

We had the senior missionary couple in our ward over for dinner and games tonight. It was a lot of fun and we learned a few new ones, which we always like.

We got about 5 inches of snow last night. Church was postponed until noon and we only had sacrament meeting. I think Casey was glad because he was supposed to teach Elder's Quorum today!

I start going to the doctor every week now. We also have an appointment with a pediatrician this week. We're getting very excited to meet the very active little girl squirming inside of me!

Some Random Stuff

So I have to brag on my brothers for a moment. They recently build a rather large snowman in their front yard in Orem, Utah. It has become a local celebrity and dominated the discussions at Church and apparently in ward PEC meeting. When my brothers arrived at Church two Sundays ago the Elder's Quorum President approached them and asked them how tall the snowman was. He told them that the height of the snowman had been the dominating conversation in PEC that morning! So how tall was it exactly? Here is a picture. . . what do you think? (hint: my brother on the right is 6'4").

I am sure my brothers would want everyone to know that they did in fact wear appropriate clothing when building this snowman. The shorts and sandals were just for the photo.

The monster snowman was about 11 feet in this picture. Then they heard about snowzilla a huge snowman in Alaska. So when the next snowstorm came through they added to the height of their snowman, pushing it to 14.5 feet.

My family says that it has drawn a lot of attention as people come from all over to take picture of it and with it. They even have had a few cars nearly crash as they were distracted by it as they drove by.

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Proverbs 22:6 says that "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

We have gotten an early start on this thanks to my brother and Suzy's brother who gave Baby Girl Sullivan these for Christmas . . .

We are already off on a good start in training her up to be a Jazz Fan!!!

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Lastly, for Christmas I received a fun toy, the Nike + iPod. For someone like me who suffers from slight OCD coupled with my strange fascination with numbers and statistics, multiplied by my competitive nature, this little device is wonderfully cool. It actually makes running fun, because while I am running I can know exactly how far I have gone, how long I have run and what my current pace is. And even better when I get home I can upload my run onto my computer and compare it against my other runs and thousands of other people.

One quick complaint about the area we live in . . . Sunday night it rained ever so slightly, which in most places would not be a big deal. But here in the land of "we don't believe in plowing our roads or putting salt on them," it was a big deal. The rain coupled with the freezing cold, was just enough to turn the road from a drivable road into an ice skating rink. The road was completely covered in a layer of ice mixed with the snow that they city did not plow. So not only was it dangerous for drivers, it was difficult for me to complete my run. The uphill parts were not too bad as long as I baby stepped my way to the top of the hill, but the downhill part was scary. The entire way down all I could think about was, "What if I fall and get a concussion or break my leg, will anyone even see me or help me," followed by "I wonder if they could pull my personal information off my iPod because that is all I have to identify myself?" I finally finished my run without falling, and as I finished a voice came over the iPod and congratulated me on my longest run yet! So fun, can't wait until the next run!

p.s. The Nike Plus programing is what created the little guy in the right column that tracks my progress.

My latest project

I have been wanting to make a quilt for the baby for a while now, and for Christmas I got some new quilting tools and supplies for the quilt. Casey helped me pick out the fabrics. He was satisfied with the frog print we ended up getting, but was really pushing for the monkeys. They were cute too, but didn't really match anything else.

I'm a novice quilter. I am still working on a big quilt I started back when we were in Payson. I underestimated the amount of time it would take to hand quilt the whole thing together. I learned from that and I knew this time I wanted to make something much smaller that could be machine quilted. I finished it in one week, which is a vast improvement on the two years and counting I've been working on my other one. I had to teach myself a lot, so it was kind of an experiment, but I think overall it turned out well.

Me and the quilt

A close up so you can better see the different fabrics.

I hope she likes it! Thanks for the advice you given so far on my last post. If any of you haven't written anything yet, I'm still waiting for your words of wisdom. Thanks!