The Dunstan Dialogue

Matt and I have decided to take on the challenge of cloth diapers. We have done much research and this is the end result. We have not decided to go COMPLETELY cloth, but will do it as much as we can. A.K.A we will do disposable when we go out of the house most of the time.  I was a little nervous to do this at first. Yes, it's better for the environment. Yes, it reduces diaper rash significantly. And yes, in the long run, it's cheaper. But is it really worth all the work?? The thing that tipped us this way instead of the other, I think, is that a friend had a garbage bag full of cloth diapers and diaper covers and gave them to us. So Matt and I looked through them. There were diaper covers of every kind. There were a ton of cloths. Matt tried to show me how to fold one.... I don't think he remembers as much as he thinks he does from his family using cloth diapers. Anyway.. We looked up how to fold and use these things and decided it would be a good thing to do. Esp...

So I recently found this cute idea for a date jar on pinterest from a blog. You can find the original idea here . While I thought this idea what so creative and cute, I also felt there weren't enough date ideas. So I started scrounging online for fun date ideas. I found a lot of different websites with a lot of good stuff. I sorted through for the practical and fun sounding ones (there were a lot of dumb ones that sounded like people were just trying to get filler for their "100 awesome dates"). Anyways, I've gathered a bunch together and categorized them into 3 groups: expensive, less expensive, and stay at home. Here are 48 great dates:   EXPENSIVE: -Bed & Breakfast -Weekend Hotel Stay -Couples Massage & Spa -Concert and Dinner -Horseback Riding -Hot Air Balloon Ride -Sky Diving   LESS EXPENSIVE: -Planetarium -Drive-in & Take-out -Surprise Date (Him) -Surprise Date (Her) -Picnic and Library -Local Museum -Nicklecade ...

I am now 25 weeks along in my pregnancy and I haven't posted any pictures yet! So here you go:                                                  Here I am at 20 weeks: and here I am at 24 weeks Now that I look at them together I do see a difference... It's been hard for me to see that I'm getting bigger, because no one seems to notice I'm pregnant! Everyone says it's a blessing that I'm not big. But I want to show off a little bit... I am about 5 months now!! Anyways.. I have been thinking lately about the toilet seat issue. You know what I'm talking about... Whether you keep it up or down. For a lot of people they say that the men in the household should put the seat down when they are finished. While I agree it is very nice to not have to touch the seat when I need to go, I also have to think about my husband. He has to touch th...

So I am 21 weeks pregnant now. Woo hoo! I'm starting to feel the baby kick more and more. Everything is working out with this pregnancy so far. We have had so many blessings of friends and family being very generous towards us.  The only thing that is a bummer about all of this is health insurance. They must indeed suck all the fun out of everything. I have my own health insurance (not through a company I work for) and I have been a loyal customer for years. No major health problems for them to deal with, just my regular doctor check ups. Then I got pregnant. A very normal pregnancy with no high-risks or complications so far. And guess what? Because I live in Utah, I am not covered for prenatal doctor visits or labor and delivery. If I lived in Colorado, or Nevada, or Washington, or pretty much any state other than UT, I would be covered. rude.  Well, thanks health insurance, now I have to jump through a bajillion hoops to be able to get money for this totally normal ...

I'm about 16 weeks pregnant now and I'm still not over that extremely randomly exhausted phase. Even now I thought I wanted to write a new post and I am almost contemplating ending it and taking a nap instead because it would be more fun I think. But I've already started and I might as well finish.  Matt got to go to the doctor's with me for the first time and he got to hear the heart beat, which was cool. He said it sounded like it was swimming. He thought it was really neat to actually hear our baby. We get to find out the gender in about 3 weeks for our first ultrasound.  We thought it might be a girl, but now I'm leaning toward boy, but either one would be great! Any guesses as to what it might be? 

It's true, we are expecting a baby in October! It's hard to keep such a thing a secret. Not totally because we are so excited, but for one, people ask us a lot since we are married and haven't yet. And two, because there are a lot of other ladies pregnant right now and you want to be like, "I know what you mean!" But you can't. And Also because you are in so much discomfort that you have to stay home or don't want to participate in things because you might puke all over the guy or lady who is wearing too much cologne/perfume or didn't brush their teeth that day.  Soon I will not be as nauseous over little things and then I will be more excited about being pregnant, but until then I still wonder why I am doing this sometimes.... Too late now!

  This is what we do in nursery sometimes haha. And yes, there is a child crying in the background... that happens a lot in this class. For some reason kids hate being separated from their parents....

Since Matt and I have been married I have gone grocery shopping by myself only a few times. My reason for dragging my husband along is that there are too many people at the store and they leave their grocery carts in the middle of the aisle, don't watch where they are going and are just inconsiderate.  So last night Matt tells me quite firmly that I will have to go by myself this time because he has quite a bit of homework and the house is in desperate need of food. So I gather up my will power and set out. We like to look through the weekly ads and find the best deals and since our grocery stores don't price match (and I refuse to go to Wal-mart unless its an absolute necessity) I had to go to 3 different stores.  My first destination was supposed to be Sunflower market to get some produce. Well, instead of going there I accidentally went to Whole Foods because I get the two of them mixed up and I didn't realize I was in the wrong store until I already had a f...

Today Matt and I are preparing to embark on an epic road trip! Just kidding.. it's not that epic, we are just really excited to go :)  We are head to Californ-i-a. We are going to visit Jeanette, who just had her baby Jewel. Then we will visit Keith and Brandy and Then we will visit Matt's sister Ruth and her husband Patrick. It will be a fantastic trip! Tonight we have to cut Matt's hair, pack our things, change the oil in the car (which needed it about a thousand miles ago), and we need to go shopping for road trip snacks!!! Essential road trip snacks are as follows: - Mountain Dew - Gatorade - Trail Mix - fruits and veggies - Stax (better than Pringles)  - PB & J - jalapeno cheddar cheetos

Today is February 29th. It is a leap year this year. I feel like I should be celebrating or doing something super cool or breaking a world record. But what am I doing instead? I'm home sick. Sore throat and didn't sleep at all last night. Maybe in 4 years I will think of something cooler to do on the leap year... In other news, this is my last week working for the LDS church. I will miss seeing general authorities around every corner and getting flowers every now and then to bring home. Next week I will be a full time therapist. Look out world! I will align your bodies!  To learn more about Alignment Therapy click here :)

Ok, so I know that it's already February and I haven't posted in forever! I am sorry. Truly. Well, for those of you who don't know already, I have been working for the LDS church headquarters in the floral department as an assistant. I get to help put up all of the indoor Christmas trees on temple square. I am now going to explain why my posts have been lacking of late. During the late months of 2011 I first had an accident where I fell in a hole in a stage at work, then a few weeks later someone ran into one of our cars in the middle of the night and drove off. Then I dropped a very heavy barricade pole on my foot at work and broke my toe, then a few weeks after that I crashed the very same car that had been hit. Needless to say, we had a very eventful end of the year. We managed to stay afloat with the help of a very generous family and lots of budgeting and saving. We are very grateful for these experiences and the lessons we have gleaned from them. In case you are wond...

This is the inspiration for my future kitchen. I haven't decided what to call it, but it has a french bistro/cafe feel to it. The colors are red, white, black, and some neutral tans. I am slowly accumulating things for it. I have the dishes already and they are awesome! A butter dish is my next conquest.  Eventually I will have this poster too. But one step at a time, right? I don't even have much of a kitchen to put all this stuff in. My kitchen at the moment is pink and white :/ I wonder if I move to France if the people there would make fun of me for having such a kitchen.

I am finally done with the blanket! I gave it to my mother a few days ago when she came through to visit. Perfect timing mom! It's not perfect, but it's my first one and I learned a lot. So on to my next project! What should I do next? I've got a lifetime of scrapbooking that needs to be started on... yikes. So here's the picture of the finished blanket: front  back  

There is a background story to this picture... 3 years ago, I decided I wanted to make this heart rag quilt for my mom. Unfortunately, I did not have a sewing machine, skills at sewing, or patience for it. But I got all the materials and borrowed a little sewing machine from a friend anyways. Well, I never used that sewing machine in the year that I had borrowed it and so I gave it back. Although I had cut out all the pieces for it. Well, now Matt and I decided that we should make our own curtains instead of buying them (a.k.a. Kate will make them because Matt tried and it was a little crooked and needs more practice before we let him do something serious). So we had borrowed Matt's grandma's old sewing machine from one of his aunts to do these curtains and since I have it, I might as well work on the quilt...but as soon as I started working on the quilt it starts breaking down on me every other minute. It did it before, but not like this. Eventually it just stopped working. F...

You can't really see it that well, but this is my name plaque at work. I can switch it around to different treatment rooms and stuff. It all official and professional, I love it! Currently I'm doing this paid internship for work right now at The Structural Integration Institute. I love the people and the work environment, and I hope I get hired on someday to be an employee. I'm starting to kind of look now for another job on the side, to earn some extra money. We are trying to save up for a car :) A Honda Fit to be exact. We still can't decide on a color, but it will be a while til we can afford it, so we have time to decide.

Today, Matt and I wanted to go to the temple, but upon arriving, found out it was closed for cleaning. Not wanting to go back to the house quite yet to sit in darkness while Matt did homework, Matt started driving around. We drove past the zoo (making a mental note to visit sometime soon) and went up into the mountains. We found a great little look out point and took some pictures. Then, we decided to go farther up. Then all of a sudden as we came over the hill, we found this beautiful lake. We drove down to see what it was all about and found out it was called Little Dell Recreation Center or something like that. You can take canoes or kayaks there, and it is just amazingly gorgeous. We now have a place to canoe!! We also saw a sign for archery hunting and decided we want to find an archery range to have some fun on. Then as we were coming back down, we stopped at a gatorade (lemonade??) stand that two boys of about 8 were running in their front yard. so we bought two glasses o...

Somehow, I couldn't post all my pictures in one post... Don't ask and don't try to help. Computers and I don't get along and I don't want to get into it. Just enjoy the pictures in the other 5 posts I made.