Summer Update

I want to be better about posting more often instead of feeling like I have to make a big production out of each post. It looks like last time I posted was at the beginning of June. Here are some highlights since then:

• Rex started taking Anatomy at UVU mid-June and it has consumed much of our lives since. I used to have some sort of pride about BYU having the most difficult classes, but no question about it - UVU is the hardest Anatomy class. Rex works so hard and it has been fun to study together.
• I switched from monthly prenatal doctor visits to having visits every 2 weeks! Baby is almost here!
• I had a combined baby shower on June 27th with my sister Julie who is due a couple weeks before me. Our sister-in-law Sarah was in town and threw the cutest shower with beautiful decorations.
• Following our tradition, Sarah also did a photo shoot of my pregnant belly and me in her parents' yard, our usual location. It is always fun to spend time with her and this time she had her new baby girl strapped to her.
• Rex and I joined his brother Tom at the Real Salt Lake game on July 4th. I had never been before and I had a great time. The fireworks were amazing too and seemed to never end.
• July 6-11th I was involved in recording a CD with Brevitas, a professional choir that I have been a member of for three years. We rehearsed Monday-Wednesday and then had three long but successful nights recording in a beautiful church in SLC. Our CD, titled Silence and Music, should be available this fall.
• July 13th Rex and I joined all of my siblings + spouses for a sibling date. We went to Los Hermanos for dinner (all 12 of us + one baby) and then everyone came to our apartment for dessert, games, and talking. It was SO fun to be with everyone and it was great motivation to clean my apartment really well ;)
• July 18-19th we had our annual Graden Family Retreat. We all slept at Julie's house and enjoyed spending time together, eating good food, looking at pictures of my parents' Africa trip, and staying up late.
• July 26th we had a Dastrup family dinner at Rex's sister Amelia's house. Four of the seven siblings were there and at 7:00 pm we commenced our weekly video call with Rex's parents and the other siblings. His parents are on a mission in Russia, so we do a weekly video call where everyone gives a recap of their week.

I am still working a few times a week and will be done in a couple of weeks. I have been crafting and am almost done with the decorations for the baby's room. I will post pictures as soon as I have everything put together. 

xx

  

 

Haircut + Graduation

I had been thinking about getting my hair cut for a while, but did not have plans as to when I would actually take the plunge. On May 7th, I went to the salon with my mom. While she got her hair done and as a birthday present to me, I got a manicure, scalp massage, and lastly I had a pedicure lined up. Before I started my pedicure, I started talking to my mom and some of the hair dressers about if I should chop my hair off instead. I was really nervous. Last time I did a haircut that extreme was in high school and I had grown much more attached to my hair this time around. After about 20 minutes of debating what to do, I finally sat in the chair and told my stylist to "just do it." She braided my hair and chopped off the braid.

Seriously, the moment my short hair fell, I was in love. I have had no regrets and it has been so fun to have a short cut for summer. I also feel more "mommish" with a short hair cut.

The next day I graduated with my Master's Degree in Exercise Physiology with an emphasis in Coaching Wellness. It may seem embarrassing to admit that one of the main reasons I went to graduate school was so that I could graduate "with a hood." I thought it would be so cool and that I would feel so accomplished. I am very grateful to be done with school and for all of the relationships that I developed while at the University of Utah. I am also very grateful for my extremely supportive family that sat through nearly 2 hours of graduation ceremony with their little kids. We all went out to dinner after and it was fun to celebrate.

Angie and I were the only ones from the program who went to graduation.

The Coaching Wellness graduating class! This was right after our master's presentations.

Ultrasound and Gender Reveal Party

We were SO excited to find out that little baby Dastrup is a BOY! I knew I wanted to know the gender and back in April, before I ever had an ultrasound, my sister-in-law Amelia said she wanted to make us a gender reveal cake (she is the same one that made our beautiful wedding cake). To be honest, I wasn't dying to know if baby was a boy or girl until about the week before the ultrasound. I was so busy trying to finish school and felt that if I knew the gender, I would be even more distracted. Finally, at 19 weeks and 1 day, I got my first ultrasound and it was so much fun to see our little baby moving, kicking, and especially sucking his thumb! [side note: I don't know why my videos appear blurry and why they are so tiny. Oh well...I tried.]

Seeing the baby's feet was my favorite! Cutest little toes in the world ;) Our ultrasound tech printed tons of pictures for us and we were so grateful! Rex and I looked away while she found out the gender and then she put those printed pictures in an envelope. We had her text Amelia the gender so she could get started on the cake.

After the ultrasound it was just a waiting game until the next evening. We planned a fun dinner with the whole family at Amelia's for Saturday, April 18th. Amelia worked very hard and had a whole party for us! It was so fun to see everyone's guesses about if baby Dastrup was a boy or girl. Those who thought the baby was a girl wore a little tutu pin and those who thought baby was a boy pinned a little tie to their shirt. We had a delicious dinner and then we cut into our cake to find that the inside was BLUE!

We had a cute photo booth for everyone to take pictures with their gender guesses.

Baby BOY Dastrup coming in September! 

Heart Beat #1

I know, I know, I am behind on posting. I really wanted to get this first heart beat video up because it was a special moment. My doctor is wonderful and made it even more special. Rex took a video before this that was about 6 minutes long where the doctor was trying to find the heart beat (not the most comfortable thing). I wasn't nervous that anything was wrong, I was just nervous we wouldn't find it because I was just shy of 10 weeks and the baby was so small. Right when Rex stopped filming the first video, he turned the camera back on and captured this one :) Take a look at my face when I first hear the heart beat - pure joy! (p.s. we had to crop the video a little, so the size is smaller and the quality isn't great)

Of course I didn't take the doctor's word for the heart beats per minute, so I counted when I was watching the video (for the hundredth time) and it was about 180 bpm, which is about right for a baby that size. I was SO excited that he found the heart beat because right after that he got a call on his cell phone that he needed to go deliver a baby. My next appointment is on Monday so I'm excited to hear the heart beat again, hopefully after a lot less pushing on my belly this time!

I am in my second trimester now, but sadly am not feeling better. Except for today, which is probably why I am blogging. My gag reflex is even stronger now and I still feel yucky most of the time. But there is still hope! I feel overwhelmingly grateful that I've been able to go to school every day and do well in my classes. Come May I will have my master's degree + a cute baby bump.

I would blog about topics other than the baby, but my life is pretty similar week to week - go to school, work, try to survive being sick, fall asleep on the couch around 8 pm, get ornery that I have to get up and get in bed later, then wake up again at 5:00 a.m. the next day. I do have another blog post coming with a video where my sister and I announced that we were pregnant at a family dinner, so maybe after that I'll try to post something on a different topic.

Have a happy day!

Newsflash

Well, are you ready for the most exciting news (at least for us) for 2015?! We are so happy to announce that we will be a family of three come September! I found out I was pregnant early in the morning on January 2nd. I wanted to take a pregnancy test on New Year's Day so badly, but I tried my very hardest to be patient. I was given two pregnancy tests from a friend and sister who recently found out they are pregnant. I started with the dollar store test and was so extremely excited when I saw a faint second line. After that, I took the other test and it was confirmed that I was indeed pregnant! I snuck back in bed, waited a few minutes, cuddled up to Rex and said "It's so late..." (it was 8:00 a.m. which is usually late for us). He laughed, got out of bed to say his prayer, and then I leaned over and asked: "Are you ready to be a daddy?!" We celebrated that day and were conveniently invited out to dinner at Rodizio Grill that night by Rex's brother and his wife. We spilled the news to them because we just had to tell someone.

That first week went by so slow. I was pretty sick for the first three days, but then the sickness went away and I felt great. I was convinced that I had a baby bump at 4.5 weeks, but I'm pretty sure (after looking online) that it was impossible to have one that early and that I must have just been too excited.

***Fast forward (since I wrote that first part weeks ago)***

I will be 11 weeks along on Thursday! I won't say it is going by fast or slow, just normal. I will post about our first visit to the doctor sometime in the next couple of days. Of course I am SO excited for our little one to be here, but I will say that pregnancy is much more difficult than I anticipated. It's different for everyone, but this has been life for me for the past 5 weeks:

• Sick sick sick. All day almost everyday. I realize that it could be worse since I'm not throwing up all day, but it is still not fun (or cool) to have an upset stomach most of my days. And the worst part is that it's the worst at night - my only time with Rex - so I go to bed pretty early and he has been the greatest to pick up my slack with housework.
• Waking up 2-4 times every night to go to the bathroom. How is this happening already?! 
• Not sleeping well. I can't really sleep on my back anymore so my hips are pretty sore each morning from switching from side to side all night. I'm used to falling asleep right when my head hits the pillow and not waking up until my alarm goes off, so this one has been a change for me.
• Although I haven't gained weight yet, none of my jeans fit, so I am left with leggings and exercise pants (which works for school and work considering my field).

On the plus side, I haven't experienced many difficult pregnancy symptoms that other women do, so I feel blessed. In a video call with my family on Sunday, I was asked how I am doing. I gave the camera a thumbs down, indicating not good because it was a more sick day. However, I got thinking this morning and realized that I should have clarified - I may not be feeling well, but I am doing well. I have so much to be grateful for (Rex, baby, almost done with school, apartment, family, etc etc) and I can always be happy regardless of how yucky I feel. Tune in soon for a video of the first time hearing the baby's heartbeat!

Oh, and p.s. this post explains my asian food posts lol (although now I don't even want to touch oriental food)

Orange Chicken + Fried Rice

Don't ask me what is up with Asian food and me lately, but it is just so simply delicious! Orange chicken has always been one of my favorite foods and I decided it was high time I found some at Costco. Below is a picture of my Costco purchase. It was $14.99 and came with two bags of frozen chicken + two sauce packets. Each bag is at least two servings (it should probably be 4 servings per bag, but for us it was two...).

I made one bag of chicken with the sauce and I can't even tell you how amazing it was. It was crispy and hot and dare I say almost better than Panda Express. I'm glad Rex still thinks I'm cute after I made "yummy" noises for about an hour straight [I felt like I was in What About Bob?].

What's some orange chicken without fried rice? Luckily, we have an oriental market near our house so I headed over there to purchase soy sauce and oyster sauce. I found an amazing fried rice recipe on Pinterest that is comparable to Panda Express. [Note: I used freshly cooked, hot brown rice even though it says to use cold, and I didn't have frozen peas/carrots, so I used frozen mixed vegetables and it was delicious].

Here is the link to the recipe: http://www.iwashyoudry.com/2014/02/05/quick-easy-brown-fried-rice/

[Picture found on the website]

This was a delicious meal that you just have to try! I'm excited to make it again soon.

xx.
| Flower |

oh, and here are some extras, for fun.

The first picture expresses my true feelings toward this deliciousness.

Green Smoothies

If you haven't given in to the green smoothie trend, you may want to jump on the band wagon (not because it's trendy, but because they are healthy + delicious!). I was first introduced to green smoothies through my mom's e-mails to me when I was an LDS Missionary (see "O Canada" tab above). I laughed each week as I read her e-mail detailing every ingredient in her smoothie that day.

Rex and I love to have a variety of options for breakfast and smoothies make it easier to wake up for my early morning train ride to school. The great thing about smoothies is that nothing has to be measured and you can add any ingredient that sounds good. We like to prepare our smoothies beforehand by putting the ingredients in a quart-sized ziploc bag (which we put back in the freezer after we empty it so we can refill it later). Rex is so wonderful and makes breakfast each morning while I'm getting ready. All he has to add to the pre-made smoothie bag is liquid and protein. Our smoothies usually turn out purple, but they have greens in them. Here's an example of what we do:




Smoothie bag (2 servings):

• 1 1/2 cups frozen mixed fruit 
• 1/2 cup blueberries
• 2/3 banana
• 1 Tbsp flaxseeds
• 1 Tbsp chia seeds
• 1 1/2 handfuls spinach                                     

To make the smoothie, follow these steps (this is for a Blendtec blender, adjust if different brand):

1. Pour 1 cup milk in blender.

2. Dump in whole smoothie bag.

3. Add heaping spoonful of peanut 

    butter.

4. Add 1/2 cup water.
5. Blend and enjoy!

Other ingredients to try:
               Cilantro                    Oats                           Cucumber                       Oranges
               Almond milk            Soy milk                      Almond butter                 Cottage cheese
               Kale                          Vanilla extract           Unsweetened cocoa     Pomegranate juice
               Plain yogurt             Greek yogurt             Apples                              Etc.