Into unknown territory....

So Jenn really wanted me to write on our 'blog', but I don't know what to write about. I'm a guy. This blog stuff is for the girls to write cutsie stuff. I bet if she really thought about it she wouldn't want me to write here. I'll just talk about dumb stuff and not share enough of my feelings.

So yeah its fun feeling the baby and watching Jenn's belly get huge and everything. But seriously, we have a real issue here. We need to figure out what Collins middle name is going to be. Some of us at work were talking and we came up with a few prime candidates. Here are a few of our best ideas:

Collin Card Brandt
Collin Itquits Brandt
Collin Der Brandt
Collin Inforbackup Brandt
Collin Allcars Brandt
Collin Rem Brandt
Collin Theshots Brandt

Anyone is welcome to give their opinion which one they like best, or if you have any other ideas that would be great too. We need it to be good. We don't want the poor kid getting made fun of at school and stuff like that.

Some pregnancy pictures

Here are two of my 25 week pregnancy pictures. They don't look fabulous but you get the idea, little Collin is sure growing.

Here is his adorable onsie that we bought him for graduation. We don't know if it'll fit so we're going to buy him a smaller size just in case. He's going to be the cutest little cougar at graduation!

Here is one last picture. I went to a garage sale and bought some awesome baby things at a great price. I bought this cute little baby carrier for $1 (normally $35+), a car mirror so we can see Collin for $1 (normally $15), and nine pairs of pants and short for Collin each for $1! I'd sayI'm a pretty good bargain hunter! There are so many garage sales around Provo in the summer so we're hoping to get lots of great priced things at garage sales. What can we say we're smart... or cheap, however you want to look at it.

Our little Collin: the acrobat

So on Sunday during church Adam was able to see our little bundle of joy, trying to escape through my belly. He has grown and is so much stronger that his movements are really easy for Adam to feel and we can even see them on the outside. It is so distracting to me that I find myself constantly looking down at my belly, which is getting bigger and bigger. It's so fun to feel him and Adam just loves feeling and seeing him move. Who needs a t.v. or other forms of entertainment when you have baby that provides hours of entertainment by just moving. We just love it!

I still have three months left, it's hard to believe that he can get bigger, but I know he's going to double in size. Since I have a short torso there is very little room left. He's already started bumping my ribs and sometimes I think he's squishing my lungs because I find myself out of breath. He is such an acrobat because one minute I'll feel him right below my ribs and the next thing I know he's down by my pelvic bone and then he's side to side. He's either loving his temporary home or trying to bust free, either way he's stuck in there for three more months.

So I'm trying to stay healthy, in good shape, and only to gain a healthy amount of weight. As you can tell with my obsession with junk food I'm not proving to be quite as successful as I hoped, however I have found two new exercising loves. Yoga and water aerobics. I've been doing yoga since the beginning of January and I absolutetly love it. What a fabulous thing to do. I think everyone should try yoga. I am becoming so much more flexible and strong. Some of the moves I can't do, but for the most part it's an excellent work out. I've gone to water aerobics three times and it's very entertaining and enjoyable. I'm the youngest person there. There are several women and a man over fifty and an assortement of other ages. I was so nervous to go and thought I would feel so silly, but it's actually a great workout and no pressure on my body which I love. It's really fun to be in the water although i'm not much of a swimmer so luckily we stay in the shallow end. I'm not easy to miss, I'm the pregnant young one in the pool on Saturday mornings at Gold's.

One last thing, Spring has sprung and the sun is shining! Oh it is fabulous outside. The sun just cheers me up!! We may have some trouble deciding where to settle, hopefully Adam will get a job somewhere that will make us decide where to go, otherwise I want to go to sunny AZ and Adam wants to go to rainy WA. When it is too sunny out I think Adam dries out. He needs the rain to be refreshed and I just love the sun! I think i'm a weed! Well we still have another year to worry about all of that and until then I'm winning out and I get to enjoy beautiful sunny UT!

Ode to banana pudding and chocolate cinnamon bears

So while Adam was gone last weekend I decided to make him a special treat. He has said he loves banana pudding especially the banana pudding a woman made on his mission. Well I couldn't exactly call up the woman from his mission, so I looked on-line and found numerous banana pudding recipes. I could have made it completely from scratch but that had eggs in it and that's a little risky being pregnant and all so I opted for the homemade, but less homemade one. It is quite delicious.
It has a layer of vanilla wafers, I purchased the orange and purple shrek vanilla wafers because they were on sale, then a layer of banana slices, then a layer of banana pudding (mixed with a can of sweetened condensed milk, and cool whip), then another layer of vanilla wafers, another layer of banana, the pudding mix over that and then to top it all off more cool whip. Oh it is delightful and I think Adam has found a new love in life. He loves his banana pudding and guards it with his life. It is really good and I have to admit I have a weakness for it also, not that that's a surprise I definitely got my mom's sweet tooth, darnit!! OH how I wish I was one of those people who had self-control, but no alas, I am one of those people who shamelessly eats all the sugar I want and then shamelessly regrets it!
Well now I have to write about the junk food I am in love with. During my pregnancy, unfortunately I haven't craved anything healthy, which is unfortunate because I'm gonna have to lay off the sweets soon if I don't want to gain two baby's worth of weight. Which I don't, yet my sweet tooth just controls me sometimes. I have been craving Taco Bell. I just love taco bell, just two soft tacos and I'm happy. I've been good about that and Adam has allowed me to splurge only three times in almost 7 months, which is a good thing or else we would probably go there every day. The other junk food that I just love love love is Chocolate covered Cinnamon Bears. Oh what a delight. Simply divine, food of the Gods. And the best part is, Adam doesn't like them at all. He hates what he calls, fake cinnamon flavored things. I on the other hand love them, so it's perfect I get to enjoy my chocolate covered cinnamon bears unrestrained and I don't have to share. Okay I do need to be restrained and Adam usually give me a hard time because he knows that I don't want to blow up like a balloon, but I always seem to find my way into the kitchen without him noticing me. I get extra quite and pull a handful of cinnamon bears out of the bag as silently as I can and then I stealthy leave the kitchen. Adam gets so caught up in his homework that he is clueless. I feel that I am fooling him, but he isn't the one who needs to lay off the sweets, it's me so I'm really fooling no one. Yet this passion for chocolate covered cinnamon bears continues. Luckily I ate the last few last night, so I think no more cinnamon bears for me, unfortunately, but I'm sure i'll find some other way to fill my sugar need.
Let's just say we are a family who loves our food!

That was hard!

So Adam and the professor he is doing research with published a paper about research they have done. We were so excited to find out that his paper got accepted and he was invited to present his research at a mechanical engineering conference. Last year the same conference was in Italy, this year the conference was to be in..... RENO,NV! Ha ha not nearly as exciting! Which was probably a good thing because if it was in Europe I would have to go and that's just an expense we don't need right now. So anyway this past week Adam wen to the conference and presented. I was left home alone, since I didn't really need to go to Reno and BYU was paying for Adam. So I was home a lone and I hated it! Talk about being paranoid. Luckily Adam was only gone a few days, but he was sure missed! It was son wonderful when he came home and we spend all Saturday together, a very unproductive day, but super special! It is so hard to be apart, I have no idea how my parents were apart so much growing up! I sure don't want to get used to that. I love Adam and he is simply wonderful!

On Saturday we also bought a little blue onesie for Collin. It has BYU on it and a baby cougar! It is so adorable. We bought it so Collin could wear it to graduation! Yeah we're pretty excited! It's so cute I'll post it soon!

Adam felt him wiggling all over the place!

So I begged Adam to add a post about feeling Collin move, but I don't think that'll happen so I figured I would. Adam felt Colling move all over the place Friday night. When Collin moves he is sooo active. It was really fun and Adam was really excited! It sure makes it feel so real!

our baby boy is sure stubborn

So on Sunday in church the baby (Collin) was moving. I was so excited that Adam would finally be able to feel him move. He's been active in my belly for over a month, but he's been so little that you can't feel him on the outside. So I was hoping that Adam would get a chance to feel the little rascal. So when he started moving around I grabbed Adam's hand and placed it on my belly and Collin stopped moving. How convenient. We went on doing the same thing for about 15 minutes and everytime I grabbed Adam's hand to put it on my belly Collin would stop moving. If this is any forshadowing for how he will be I'm a little worried. Adam and I are pretty stubborn so I guess we've already passed it onto our son. I guess we might just have to get used to the idea that all our children may be as stubborn as us. I felt so bad that Adam couldn't feel Collin moving around. Especially because I feel him so often and it's so strong. One time Adam's hand was on my belly I totally felt Collin moving around, but Adam said it really didn't feel like anything and he couldn't tell if it was the baby moving or me breathing! So frustrating. I get to feel our little guy all the time and Adam just gets to see my belly grow.

I sure do enjoy getting a bigger belly. I'm showing now which is fun. Even strangers who don't know I'm pregnant can now tell. It's funny how people automatically reach to feel your belly when they see that you're pregnant. I wonder what the draw is. So far it's been people I know, so it's not uncomfortable, but I heard that even strangers come up to you and feel your belly. Now that's pretty weird, what about personal space?! I really enjoy walking by windowns or mirrors and seeing my little pregnant belly! It's so fun. I don't usually feel pregnant until I look in the mirror or try to bend over. That belly is starting to get in the way, but just a little. For the most part it's just fun!! It sure is going by slowly though. I feel like I've been pregnant for most of my life. I just want this little guy out.

At first I was so nervous to have a boy because they are so energetic, like to get into everything, break things, and get dirty. I still am nervous especially since I'll be home all day with him. I'm sure it'll be very exciting when daddy comes home to throw him around and chase him around the house. What a wonderful blessing to have two parents! Children sure need that tag team because they're just too much work to do it all by yourself! We're so excited to have Collin, we talk about him all the time. With in a few days of finding out that we were having a boy we received two baby boy outfits. They are just adorable. And I can't believe we're going to have something so little and cute to go in the outfits. Adam being his silly self decided to put them on hangers and hang them in our hallway. It probably looks like a little shrine and I'm sure is pretty weird, but we love having the little outfits hanging up. We look at them all the time and get so excited!! Oh it'll sure be an adventure to be parents, but what a wonderful blessing!