Belly Pictures and Crackers

And so it begins. Here's the first belly picture for this baby. It's weird because at 6 weeks, I already feel like my belly is getting a little bigger, or at least that it's more uncomfortable. I have a long ways to go so I need to get used to it. It kind of makes me laugh when I look at this picture, though, because it looks pretty normal and I know no one would even be able to tell yet.

I have been feeling pretty sick lately. I spent a lot of Friday in bed, and was very thankful that Ethan and Elle played so well and allowed it. I haven't gotten to the point of throwing up, but I do feel like I'm going to a lot and last night, in the middle of the night after getting up with Elle, I actually went and sat in the bathroom for a few minutes because I was so close to throwing up. I got up with Elle twice last night and that just is not good because my stomach is totally empty during the night which leads to the nausea, so I had a handful of crackers both times which helped.

I bought crackers for myself for the first time in a while, and I know it's kind of cheating as far as natural food goes, but I did get Triscuts which aren't that bad. They were really good too, and really hit the spot! I ate them plain a lot, but I also really liked to eat them with cottage cheese, yum! The hardest thing was keeping the kids from eating them all! "These are mommy's crackers!"

Crackers and pregnant women go together like peanut butter and chocolate (mmmm, why did I have to use that analogy?) so I feel totally justified. We used to always be able to tell who was pregnant in our college ward by who brought crackers to church. I probably would have brought my crackers to church today, but they were already gone. I had a little sandwich right before we left, but 3 hours is a long time to go without eating if you feel nauseated as soon as your stomach gets empty. I had another sandwich as soon as I got home, then after cleaning up a little, laid down for a nap. I slept until dinner time, and the roast cooked in the crockpot while I slept. I LOVE THAT! It was so nice to get up and already have food ready. I'm really going to have to start using the crockpot more.

The weirdest thing, and I remember having this from previous pregnancies, is that the foods that should sound good to make me feel better, just sound so disgusting to me sometimes! I've been loving smoothies lately, and last night Pete suggested a smoothy, but I was like, "Don't make me puke!" Even the thought of eating strawberries or grapes or apples or yogurt makes me sick sometimes. I'm sure if I ate them, they would be good and make me feel better, but it's hard to tell myself that sometimes. The same with water. I know I should be drinking a lot, but drinking water on an empty stomach makes me feel worse.

I have been craving junk food a lot more, at least the baked variety, like cookies and cake, but I'm trying to be good. I made cinnamon rolls the other day with half my bread dough. I just used butter, honey, molasses, and cinnamon as the filling and sprinkled chocolate chips on half and raisins on the other half before rolling it up and cutting it. I don't like raisins so I only had the chocolate chip ones and they were really good! We even cut them in half and made french toast with them the next morning which was yummy.

When I'm not feeling nauseous, I feel pretty good. When I wasn't in bed on Friday, I went for a bike ride with Ethan and Elle, and we stopped at this park just down the street from our house. It was fun, but it's in pretty sad shape with all the graffiti. I don't think I'll bring the kids back there even though they really like it and it's so close. I don't think I got any bad words in this shot, but there were plenty, some in huge letters that could not be ignored. Pretty sad.

Well, that's all for now. Have a great night!