I'm finally here!

Griffith Rafe Yoder

Hello world! I hear you've all been waiting for me! I arrived October 22nd at 1:10pm weighing in at 9 lbs, 1 oz and measuring 21 inches. Mom was surprised that I weighed so much, but what did she expect with me being 11 days past my due date? Sorry I didn't announce my arrival sooner, I've been too busy eating and sleeping. Mom says she'll put all the details on the blog she made just for me. If you still haven't checked it out let her know and she'll send you an invitation. Oh yeah, you can call me Griff if you want to. Gotta go - lunch!

Are you STILL pregnant?

Yes, I'm still pregnant. Funny how the question has changed for us. It used to be, "When are you going to get pregnant?" Well I'm 41 weeks and I wasn't feeling too good about that since everyone told me I'd have him early. "Everyone" knows nothing. Don't listen to him. I'm feeling better now - at this moment. But I have no idea how long this good feeling will last. I just got back from another doctor's appointment and it helped a lot. My doctor is the best. He was very sympathetic to my situation and helped to validate my feelings, but he also helped me to remember what I want to do - have as natural a childbirth as possible with as few interventions as possible. Starting off with an induced birth will change all of that. So we're going to wait it out...till Wednesday. If I haven't gone into labor by Wednesday night I'll be induced. I'm sure that's what you've all been wondering. I think I can make it two more days. Hopefully I'll go into labor before then and I won't have to be induced. Anyway, those are all the details I want to spare for now. Thanks for all your support and patience with our little guy. I'm sure he'll be worth the wait! That's what "everyone" keeps telling me anyway. Maybe he does know something after all...

(Sorry this is another repeat from the baby blog. By the way, those who want in on the baby blog just send me your email address. Either leave it in your comment or email it to me at daciayoder@gmail.com.)

39 weeks and...

Still pregnant. Hopefully my next post will be to announce the grand entrance of our baby into this world and not to say that I'm past my due date. No pictures today because I can't get my computer to recognize our camera or memory card. We'll get that fixed when little Grover comes out though. For those of you who don't know, we're calling him Grover till he's born and we announce the real name. I know some of you are having a hard time handling the suspense over what his name will be and I hope we don't disappoint. But, if we do please keep your disappointment to yourselves :)

Here's a little update from my last two doctor visits. Joel got to come to both of them. That was very exciting. I love having him there to wait with me in the waiting and exam rooms and to know that he is part of this too and will recognize our doctor when we see him at the hospital. Anyway, at my 38 week appointment I was checked for the first time. That was uncomfortable...I was dilated to a one and 50% effaced. I was measuring at 37.5 weeks and had gained exactly 30 pounds. His head was down too. The doc went over what we should do if...scenarios with us and reviewed our birth plan. It was a good visit. I really really like my doctor and I like him more every time I have an appointment with him. He's really in line with the way we want things to go even though he's a bit quirky at times.

At my 39 week appointment his head was "way" down there but my cervix was exactly the same as it had been the week before. I was measuring 38 weeks. My doc said that shows he's still growing and that's good if he needed to. He also pointed out that I had more stretch marks than I did the week before. Yay for me. He went over what we would do if I were to go past my due date. He said he wouldn't let me go more than 10 days over my due date and that I'd probably go into labor before that were to happen anyway. He's not a fan of inducing labor and that's fine with me because I don't want to do that unless I really have to, especially the first time around. I got the impression that he thinks I'll probably have him before my due date, but if I don't then it will still be close to my due date. I guess we'll find out soon enough. We're keeping our fingers crossed for Thursday evening, so please cross with us. If he's born then, Joel will have the next 4 days off to spend with us and not have to miss any class.

Thanks to everyone who has sent us stuff and helped us get ready for our little miracle! We love him so much already and can't wait to meet him!

(This post is also on our baby blog. Sorry for the repeat. I'm out of energy and brain power to come up with something else for this blog.)

Good ol' fashion violent video game fun

So, last year my wonderful wife finally gave in and bought me an xbox 360 for my birthday. I had been such a good boy what with graduating from school (Boise State, Go Broncos!), getting a job, and upgrading our housing situation from a small 1-room/half-bath(ok maybe it was a full bath...it didn't seem like it) to a huge, 3-room/1.5-bath duplex, I thought I finally deserved it! Part of my convincing/persuasion tactics was that I only wanted one game, NCAA Football. I also played to her likes with talk of how compatible the 360 is with a Windows Media Center PC(which is what we upgraded to prior to our leaving Boise...that is another example(for another time) of my fine workmanship in the art of convincing/persuasion). Since she was not at all interested in football at the time, I knew she wouldn't want to play that game with me. This was summer 2008...fast forward to summer 2009. Our friends Dan and Michelle had us over for dinner last week where we usually play a board game of some sort. Before we got to playing our board game, Dan wanted to show us his new 360 video game...'Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe'. Now, having grown up in an age of video games and arcades, my first exposure to video games was at the arcades in our local mall when I was about 11 or 12 years old. That game...Mortal Kombat! I would tag along with my older brothers when they went to the mall, just to watch them play close combat video games. So this updated version of the early 90s classic appealed to me as something more nostalgic than anything, but I knew it would be fun too. Little did I know how much my wife would enjoy playing it as well. I should add here that she has had some exposure to the layout of the video game controller as it is the remote for our entertainment system at home. It is used to control Windows Media Center and Netflix when we watch shows on TV. However, she surprised us all with her abilities in dominating at MK vs. DC. She has also been searching and searching for a game that we could play together at home. She has found it! Last night after reading our 'Natural Birth the Bradley Way' book, it was still early and so we were thinking of things we could do. Dacia mentioned that we could see if the local GameStop had a used version of the MK vs. DC video game. Well, after I picked my jaw up off the floor and had her sew it back in place I mentioned that we could get some delicious Jamba goodness located in the same shopping center. To which she replied, I was hoping you would say that! We went and bought the 'pre-owned' game and our Jambas and were back home in no time. I'm reluctant to play her now, as she will only get better in the coming months. My wife is the greatest!!!

Baby Shower

My friends Jenna and Michelle threw me a baby shower on August 29th. It was nice to get together with some of the girls and the food was delicious! I got some good stuff too. Thanks to everyone who came!

Noah and Aiden were the only boys there and they were so cute!

Date Night

It all started with craving for movie theater nachos and an icee...and a panicked feeling that we'll never be able to go on a date alone or without hiring a sitter after the baby is born.

So, we headed out to see G.I. Joe but once we got to the theater the movie was going to be starting in just a few minutes. By the time we made it to the ticket counter it had sold out and there was nothing else we really wanted to see. I was mostly devastated because I wasn't going to get my nachos, and I was kind of worried that we'd go back home and Joel would play football on the Xbox while I surfed the Internet or did something else equally lame.

We went back to the car and decided to sit there until we thought of something else to do besides just go home. After about 15 minutes we decided that the only thing we really wanted to do was go to the movies. Well, that wasn't going to happen now. So, we decided to go the grocery store and get some movies from Red Box, buy nacho cheese sauce, nachos, and jalapenos to make our own movie theater nachos, and go to Target for icees. So we were off to Save Mart where we got our movies etc. Next was Target. They didn't have the icee I wanted at this particular Target so we needed to go to another one. On the way Joel decided he wanted a Jamba Juice instead so we stopped there for his craving. We finally made it to the other Target and the flavor I wanted was out so we had to wait for it to freeze enough to make a good icee. So, we stocked up on some candy and then walked around looking at random things that we were never going to buy. Finally the icee was ready - Cherry Coke - yum!

We made it home, created our nachos, and started up the first movie - "Coraline". One of my friends was really giddy about this movie when it came out and I had made a mental note to see it in the theaters but then I forgot all about it. Well, I loved it but it totally creeped me out the whole time. Then I had nightmares about it that night. And a little bit the night after that. I am such a baby. The next movie we watched was "Knowing" with Nicholas Cage - one of Joel's favorite actors and really the only reason we rented it. It started out weird and just got weirder and weirder. Stay away from black pebbles. And don't watch that movie. It's just weird.

In the end, we decided that it was more fun running around everywhere collecting everything we needed for the perfect movie experience and then watching the movies on our dinky little TV where we could make comments and hit pause when needed than it would have been if we had ended up going to G.I. Joe. We probably even saved a few bucks. All in all, it was a great date night! I still have so much fun with my husband and I'm so glad he gives in to my cravings for nachos :)

Just a little update...

Here's what's new with us in no particular order:

• We will now be here in Monterey till March/April instead of November. This is good news since our little boy will get here sometime in October. Now we don't have to move with a newborn :)
  

• My baby bump is growing and moving a lot, especially at night.

This picture is a couple weeks old, but the most current belly pic I have.

• I am no longer a primary teacher. Joel is now teaching the class I used to teach along with another guy from our ward. I do visiting teaching stuff now.
  

• One of our best friends here, Jenna, was baptized almost two weeks ago and Joel got to baptize her! We're so excited for her and happy to have her and her family in our lives.

Jenna with the sister missionaries who taught her and her two boys, Noah and Gabe.

• We hosted a family of 8 a couple of weeks ago. Joel's brother Roman and his wife and kids came to see us for a couple of days. We had a great time with them and I still can't believe they all fit comfortably in our house!

Roman and Cathy's kids and Jared (another of Joel's brothers) and Tera's kids at Jared and Tera's place in Carmel, just a 15 minute drive from our house.

Happy Birthday Joel!

Joel turned 28 on July 17th. That morning I drove him up to class/work and on the way there we passed this big sand hill/dune thing where the local highschoolers are always writing messages. As we drove by the hill I happened to look at it and said, "I love you Joel." So he said, "I love you, too." Then I pointed and said, "No, look it says 'I love you Joel' on the hill." For a second he thought that I had hauled my pregnant self to the top of the hill and written that in the sand. If only I were really that thoughtful...It was pretty fun that someone else had unknowingly done it for me though!

Later that day I surprised him by driving back up to where he goes to class to meet him for lunch. We had sub sandwiches at the sandwich shop up there. It was nice to see him during the day and in his uniform too. I can never get over how handsome I think he looks in his uniform. I'm sure all military wives feel the same about their husbands.

After lunch I purchased his birthday gift - 2010 version of NCAA Football for the Xbox. Easy because he wants the same thing every year and it comes out around his birthday every year and he's always excited to get it. My friend Michelle came over and helped me get some things ready for his birthday party to be held later that night. I made ice cream cakes and she made the "knock-you-nakeds" and blond brownies. Then we had lots of friends and Joel's brother Jared and his fam over for ice cream cake. It was nice to see how many people care about Joel and wanted to celebrate with him. We are really thankful for the good friends we've made here and that his brother could make it too. It was fun to see him and Tera and the kids. I put trick candles on his cake because he's always doing things like that to me. He knew what they were as soon as he saw the cake, but he could never get them blown out. They started smoking really bad so we had to take the cake back into the kitchen and take out the candles and put them in the sink to get them to go out. I think I'm either laughing or getting worried that the smoke detector was going to go off. We had 3 little babies in our house so I didn't want that to happen.

The only drama was when our nephew Carter found himself up on our roof and was too afraid to come down. One of our adopted nephews Gabe had thrown a frisbee up there by accident earlier that night so Joel and his dad Mike hoisted him up on the roof to get it down. It must have looked like fun because then Carter threw the frisbee up there on purpose about 30 minutes later. So, Joel and Mike lifted him up on the roof to get it down, but he wanted a ladder when it was time to get off. We don't have one of those. Eventually they talked him into letting them help him down. Kids never fail to provide some good entertainment.

Some of our friends brought Joel gifts even though we didn't intend for anyone to do that. It was very thoughtful of them. It was a fun night and we're glad everyone could make it!

4th of July

My brother Don and his wife Tracy and kids - Hunter, Kassy, and Emma all came to see us for the 4th of July weekend. They drove 15 hours in one day to make it here! We had a great time and we're so glad they came! Nothing gives you the excuse to get out and about like having company and I loved every minute of it! Here are some pics from their visit.

First stop - Santa Cruz and the Mystery Spot. Gravity is all whacked out here. You feel like you're standing straight up, but you're actually leaning.

Next stop - The beach of course! Also in Santa Cruz. Tracy's cousin lives in Santa Cruz and was kind enough to show us one of the secret spots only the locals know about.

The kids loved being buried in the sand, especially Emma.


Even Joel admits he had a good time. (He's always saying that Florida beaches are better.)

I didn't put on a bathing suit this time, but I love relaxing on the beach.

The kids even braved the freezing cold water and had fun splashing in the waves.

Another day, another beach - this one is closer to home for us.

Searching for seashells.

Isn't that sweet? I just love Emma's rosy cheeks.

Whaler's Cove at Point Lobos.

A lazy sea lion and Joel.

A couple of pirates.

Some whalers.

All aboard!

The end.

Sock Monkeys!

So, one of my friends is going to have a baby and one of the items on her registry was a sock monkey. I thought it would be fun to get one for her, but then I had a sudden spark of creative inspiration and thought - it would be even better to make one for her! So, that's what I did. I actually made two. One was given to my expectant friend and the other was given to one of my friends who just had a baby. Next, I'll be making one for our baby. I think I'll venture out even more and make him other types of sock animals as well.


I think they're buddies...

Man of the Year

I might be kind of biased, but this year I think it should go to my man Joel. He gets up long before the sun (and me) nearly everyday, puts on his uniform, does his PT (physical training) or goes to early morning meetings, goes to class learning an impossible language for 7 hours, usually has more meetings or obligations after that, comes home with a smile on his face, studies, works on our car or garden, listens to me talk about my day, goes to bed usually later than he'd like, and gets up and does it all again the next day without complaint. Oh, and now that I'm pregnant he pampers me too and doesn't care if I haven't lifted a finger all day (I've had a cold for the last month so I've been pretty worthless lately).

Today he was really my hero. Our car has been doing strange things for a while now and the check engine light finally came on last week so we decided to take things a little more seriously. We can't afford a mechanic right now so in any spare time he's had he's been reading stuff online about our car to try to find out what the problem is. He changed the spark plugs last week, but that didn't seem to help much. He was up early this morning inspecting things and in an answer to his and my prayers that we could find out what was wrong with our car he found the problem. It was a cracked hose that was soooo small and probably barely noticeable. He got a new hose and replaced it and our car works perfectly now and the check engine light is off.

After all that was over he went and bought fertilizer and top soil and some wire for a fence and was out in the garden for hours trying to make it better. He also bought new sprinklers and set them up so that our grass can be green again. I don't know if its my complete lack of energy these days that makes me appreciate him so much, but I just don't know how he does it all and never complains. Soon he'll be a dad and I'm sure he'll do a great job because he does such a great job taking care of me. He probably doesn't like me bragging about him like this, but too bad! Happy Father's Day Joel! That coconut cream pie I made you is your Man of the Year award ;)

Army Ball

Joel took me to the Army Ball on Saturday night. It was fun to get all dressed up with him and enjoy an evening with friends. It was neat to see everyone in their uniforms and meet some of the higher ups too. Everyone was really nice. The food was decent and the program was pretty cool. Afterward there was dancing. It was nice to do some slow dancing and to watch everyone else out on the dance floor during the fast songs. Most of the songs consisted of the same music they used to play at my junior high and high school dances, including The Electric Slide. It was weird. I'm not very coordinated right now so I didn't dare go out there for that action.

We took these pictures after we got home. My friend Jenna took some at the ball, but I can't seem to get them off of her memory card.

We got married

And we've had six anniversaries. The last one was a week and four days ago. I'm a little behind, but I still love my husband. I loved him when we were married six years ago, but I love him more today and I'll probably love him even more next year. I'm not going to get any mushier than that on here because I already gave him a card where I did that. I just want to say that he's a great guy and I'm a lucky girl. He bought me a beautiful orchid for our anniversary, which I've since killed. And he took me out to dinner and shopping for a dress. It was just nice to spend time with him. Thanks Joel, I love you! Sorry about the orchid!

Bad influences

This is what we did the Friday after I got back from Lacy's. See what a bad influence sisters can be?

No, they were not as good as they look. They were better. It's really Pioneer Woman's fault though, not my sister's. And yes, we gave some away. I'm not taking the whole eating for two thing that literally. Yes, I know my last post was about food. No, it's not ALL I think about.

Cake

The baby wanted some cake. So I made him one.

I think he liked it. So did I.

Sister time!

I got to go to Florida to visit my sister Lacy and her family the week after Mother's Day. It was so much fun to see them all and get to spend time with them. I miss Lacy and my nieces sooooo much! We spent time at the beach, did some crafts, made some yummy food and just had some good quality sister and niece time. Here are some pictures. I can't wait to go back!

Some random kids came up and started playing with the girls' beach toys. Molly got so mad. She's so cute when she's mad!

Some silly singing time.

Sophie is the best at snuggling.

Lacy and I made these little sculpy Savannah, Sophie, and Molly dolls for the girls. Savannah is holding her Baa, Sophie is holding some roses, and Molly is holding her pink kitty. The girls loved the dolls, but I think Sophie was the most excited about it.