40 Laps for 40 Weeks & The Plan

Thank you all for your support and encouragement! It really does help me out a lot to know so many people are thinking about me. :)

This morning I decided I didn't want to sit around waiting to go into labor again so I went to the pool and swam 40 laps - one for each week I've been pregnant. It seemed only fitting. Plus it was a good little workout.

I broke it up into 10 sets of 4 to help me keep track, and here's what I did:

1. 4 kick board/fins
2. 4 free
3. 4 pull buoy/paddles
4. 4 free
5. 4 pull buoy/paddles
6. 4 free
7. 4 butterfly - I've never even done a full lap with butterfly, usually just a few strokes at the end for fun, but the guy next to me was doing it and it looked like fun so I thought it would be good to mix things up a bit. It was painfully slow, though! Plus, it felt like it was going to use up all my energy so I switched back to free after 2 laps. Then I felt like a big ol' quitter and switched back to butterfly for the last lap.
8. 4 pull buoy/paddles
9. 4 free
10. 2 kick board/fins + 2 backstroke

It took me about 40 minutes to do all that, which isn't bad considering I was taking it easy and all the belly drag and whatnot. It was so nice to be able to do this while Elle was at preschool so I didn't feel rushed or anything. By the time I got out, though, I was having some pretty bad heartburn. Yuck. I will be happy when that's all over! I'll be happy to get rid of this big belly too. Pete likes me when I'm pregnant and I have to say I like some of the added curves, but the belly's getting old. It's so weird to think that there's a baby in there!!

I feel really good today. Too good! I'm really going to to try not to worry about it. It will happen when it happens. Later will actually be better because then we might actually get the girls' room done before George comes!

Anyway. We had a nice little teaching moment last night with the kids that I wanted to write down.

We've been reading The Book of Mormon as a family, and last night we were in Mosiah 3 and we got to verse 11 which says:

For behold, and also his ^ablood ^batoneth for the sins of those who have ^cfallen by the transgression of Adam, who have died not knowing the ^dwill of God concerning them, or who have^eignorantly sinned.

Pete stopped to explain to the kids what that means. (I love that he does this!) How some people believe that if someone dies without knowing about Jesus, they go to Hell, but that that's not true. The kids were asking questions, and Elle said, "If there wasn't Hell, then people wouldn't go to Hell," or something like that. (That sounds kind of funny coming from a 4 year old.) Pete decided he had some more explaining to do so he drew a diagram of The Plan of Salvation that looked almost exactly like this:

He explained that there isn't really just a Heaven and Hell, that all the kingdoms of glory are really nice, and that Outer Darkness is very small and not very many people will go there. We want to make it to the Celestial Kingdom because that's where Heavenly Father and Jesus will be, but you have to be perfect to live there so there has to be a place for everybody. Pete explained that even people who do bad things, can repent and get to the Celestial Kingdom. (For more info about this click here.)

We talked about how George is right on the line between Pre-Earth Life and Mortality. Isn't that exciting? Of course, we don't really know when you actually leave pre-earth life and when you enter mortality. I mean, he's definitely alive and moving around right now, but he's not born yet so it's hard to put a label on that.

Then, when Pete asked if anyone had any questions, Ethan asked, "Why did they make this world anyway?"

Elle pipes right in, "So we could live here!"

It was so cute, and such a perfect answer! Leave it to a child to keep things plain and simple. As adults, we tend to over-analize everything and make things more complicated than they need to be. I mean, I'm sure the Plan is much more complicated than we can ever understand, but all we really need to understand is that Heavenly Father and Jesus did make the Earth so that we could come live here, and so we could get our bodies and our families. It's a wonderful plan. I'm so glad I know about it and that I can teach my children where they came from and what we're trying to accomplish in this life.

Last night I also got released from my calling in the Primary at church which is really sad, but it will also be good to be able to just focus on the baby for a little while. I'm so excited to meet the newest person in our family! Hopefully it will be in the next few days!