The Most Emotions I Have Had in One Day Since I've Been Pregnant - (written by Lauren)

Ok, so have you ever had a day where you keep thinking, "is my body even built for all these feelings? I think it's going to quit in a second."? This past Saturday was one of those days. It wasn't an all bad day, it was all you could want, and NOT want in a day. Confusing? Let me explain. Well, now that I think about it, a play-by-play of the day's events might actually serve readers well. Ok, here it goes. Events are in normal font style, my thoughts are in italics.

7:30 am: Wake up. Eww, do I really want to work on school stuff on a Saturday?!
7:35 am: Take Shower, get ready for genealogy conference that is optional but helps Matt and I complete one of our assignments for a class. The catch: we have to attend 4 hours of it on a day that we'd much rather sleep in and relax! It's ok Lauren, it will be totally worth it after today and 4 hours really isn't THAT long!
7:36 am: Yes it certainly is too long!
8:55 am: We made it to the conference with 5 minutes to register and get to the first class. Why am I up this early?
9:00-10:00 am: "Names in Stone" Class Suprisingly interesting for talking about cemeteries! I'm ready for some more of these neat classes!
10:00-11:00 am: "All in a Day's Work" Sadly, not as interesting as I would've wished - I thought learning about my ancestor's occupations would be very exciting. Although, learning that the occupation title, "foot pad" means a professional thief, makes it all worth it.

11:00-2:00 pm: Food time! We decide to take a break from the conference and go home and eat lunch. Thank goodness! Now I think I can survive a couple more hours - the two earlier ones weren't too hard.

2:00-3:00 pm: "Mid-Atlantic Research: Using a Digital Camera" At times I feel like I'm in a digital camera class for dummies, but there are some interesting points the teacher makes pertaining to genealogy. At the end of this class, I am ready to go home, but one more class to go!

3:00-4:00 pm: "Historical Maps: The World at Your Fingertips" This class is taught by the same person who taught about the occupations and he is quite a character, which is good since I'm about to fall asleep before I get in there. Interesting, I think it would be more interesting if I were not so tired, but somehow I manage to stay awake!

4:00 pm - Finally we leave the conference, very proud of our accomplishment on a Saturday, and even more happy to be going home.

4:15 pm - We get a call from a family in our ward that has offered their washer and dryer to us, free of charge, and we are ecstatic to hear that they will be home after 5 and we can pick it up anytime after that. Ok, so maybe I'M just ecstatic. But Matt is happy that he can make me so happy (what a good husband!).

9:00 pm - We are finally able to round up some help (just as I am starting to think we won't get the washer and dryer this weekend and I have a TON of clothes to wash) to get the washer and dryer onto our friends' trailer, so we head over to the Browns' house to pick them up. (Seriously - this is a mother-to-be's DREAM! I have been wanting to wash all of the baby clothes I have gotten so that I can be ready for him whenever he comes, and I know you have to wash them with the special baby detergent so that it doesn't irritate their skin, so I'm starting to get anxious as it gets closer to my due date.)

10:00 pm - Our new (at least to us) washer and dryer are installed in their proper place and ready to go... there's just one little problem: We need a dryer exhaust hose in order for the dryer to work.

10:30 pm - I convince Matt that we should run to Home Depot to get the hose, since it is Saturday night and the soonest we'll be able to get one later is after school on Monday (SOO far away!!!).

10:45 pm - Matt turns on the washing machine (since it's all set up and ready for business) for a cycle to clean it out, since it hasn't been used for at least 2 years (the Browns were on a mission for our church & left their washer & dryer at their house). Then we head out to Home Depot.

11:00 pm - Since WHEN did Home Depot close at 9 on a Saturday night?!??!? I thought we were just here last weekend after 9! We decide to try Walmart - this is our last hope for being able to wash & dry clothes this weekend. I'm getting a little sad...

11:25 pm - A little more out of the way, but at least it's still open! Let's see if they have the part we need - fingers crossed! We ask a store associate & they have a few different kinds of dryer hoses - we are in luck!

11:50 pm - We finally are home & happy. Matt wants to hook the hose up immediately, just to have it done. I am planning on going upstairs to watch a movie with our friends, since Matt says he'll be right up. Before I start upstairs:

Matt: There's a big puddle here!

Me: Huh?

Matt: A puddle! There's a big puddle here at the bottom of the stairs!!!

(The big puddle of water in the carpet is water seeping from our utility room which houses the washer & dryer.)

Me: Uh....

12:00 pm - While grabbing towels and trying to help Matt soak up the water, I glance into our utility room. Big mistake! Our utility room has the furnaces & hot water heaters and a few of our belongings in it for storage. It has cement floors, so the all the water from the LARGE cycle of the washing machine has leaked out onto the floor, because the washer hose had so much water pressure during the cycles that it pushed itself out of the drain pipe, and leaked all over the floor. Since the floor is cement, it wasn't soaking in, but instead gathered until there was a couple inches of standing water that then proceeded to make its way out to the carpet in our hallway, partially in our bedroom, towards the bathroom and kitchen.

12:30 am - Good thing we got the dryer hose! We have used ALL of our towels to soak up as much (DIRTY) water as we can (which seems to have not made a difference at all) and we wring them out as best we can so we can throw them in the dryer, wait through the cycle, and then do it all over again. Also, during this whole time, we have 3 fans blowing continuously on the carpet, and we have turned the heat up to 85 degrees F to try and hurry the process.

1:00 am - Dryer's done, Matt sets to work with the whole process - I'm beat, and ashamedly admit that I am not much help after this point. (Needless to say, I am sweating profusely in my bed, and getting hypothermia on my runs to the bathroom, when I have to cross in front of 3 fans.)

1:30 am - Again.

2:00 am - Again.

2:30 am - Again, one final time, only because at this point I am asleep and I've already told Matt that he should wait until the morning and then I can help him.

So... I'll stop there - everyone gets the point, I'm sure. It took us a couple more cycles of soaking up the water & wringing out the towels, 2 more days of fans blowing continuously, and then another 2 days of fans blowing after we sprayed Febreze on the carpets because they started smelling bad (my fault for suggesting we turn off the fans - too early - since it was winter and I was freezing.)

After all that, I am happy to report that we have a fine washer and dryer that work well, after using rope and duct tape for securing purposes.

This is Life

So we're had some unexpected things happen in the last couple weeks but first the good news.

Our little spawn is now larger than a fist which is cool. We got to hear the heartbeat again when we went to the doctor yesterday and got to see another one of the doctors in the clinic. Everything went really well and we also learned that the clinic has two ultrasound technicians so when we go in next week we are hoping for a better time with our second ultrasound then with our first.

Now the crazy stuff. So last week Lauren learned that the job she's been at since just before Christmas she wasn't gunna be able to work at anymore. For us it wasn't the failing economy it was just a employment technicality. At the University in order to maintain employment over the spring/summer you have to be enrolled either in one of those two terms or you must have been previously enrolled in winter semester and be registered for the following fall. With Lauren switching to cosmetology school in the fall she isn't registered for fall at the University. So her bosses we told by their higher ups that Lauren either had to register for classes or be let go. So today was Lauren's last day of work for the University but on Tuesday Lauren had somebody leave a message for her while we were seeing the doctor. We later found out it was a call from Kohl's where she had applied to work before she decided to start cosmo school earlier int he summer (like in mid April). So the day before she lost her job she got an interview call which she went to today at 4. After making it through at group interview that lasted over an hour she was asked to stay with only a few of the other applicants and fill out some paper and answer some other questions...which were basically "when can you start and what hours can you work?" Both questions we like to hear :-). So it turns out that God still looks out for his children, go figure!

So we'll hear back officially tomorrow about Lauren's new job! We're just really excited that it all worked out we got a little concerned as bill started coming in the mail and Lauren's school told us about surprise payments to them as well (why do we get financial aid again?) but it really looks like life is gunna work out just like its supposed to.

As for me I'm still painting for the University and hoping to get all 40 hours I can there. Its kinda cool being able to drive around the school and see all that I've done...and see the parts the buses have just totally destroyed.

In other fun news Brandon (on Laurens side) just got engaged to a girl who we really like and are very excited to have as part of our family. They met up in Logan and are currently making wedding plans. The one thing they didn't waste much time on was choosing a date. The date they choose? August 7th! The only problem with that date is that its right in the middle of a vacation my family has planned for Las Vegas. So right now Lauren and I are working on finding flights to and from LV to SLC and hoping everything works out. We'll see how that really goes. But we're keeping our fingers crossed.

So that's our crazy life and for now...we're still loving it!

My Sweet Husband

So if anyone knows any of the Stott boys, they know that they love to joke around, entertain, and laugh a lot. What you might not know is how they treat their wives... from my experience, and from what I have seen - they are the best husbands a girl could ask for! Their parents brought them up RIGHT! Not to ignore Brandon and Steve, but since Matt is my husband, I get to brag about him! :)


Matt has always been very respectful of women. Now, after getting married, I see all he does on a daily basis and can't believe how blessed I am! Now, you might just say, "well, you're pregnant for the first time, and he's excited and still wants to help..." And I would have to respond, no, that's not the reason. Even though he helps out even more right now, he has always been helpful and positive since the day we started dating (and of course even before then!)


I guess right now that I am going to school and working all day, and he is working all day too - I just notice even more how much he does. I really am not able to help out around the house at all because I'm never home, and when I am home, I don't feel very good because of all the nauseousness. So he does the dishes (which is his LEAST favorite chore, and when I say LEAST favorite, I mean that he would rather clean the shower or the toilet before the dishes) and he cooks me meals that he hopes that I can eat without feeling sick. He does the laundry by himself - this is all ON TOP OF working full-time doing outside painting for BYU.

Basically, what I want to say is,

You're amazing Matt! I love you! Happy Birthday!

Us at The Cheesecake Factory for his birthday

Hello All!

So contrary to popular belief, I DO write some of the blogs! (Just not very many of them) But I figured that since I had some time, and some pictures, that I could try my hand at writing. I actually LOVE free-writing... which mostly happens in my journal. But since I don't have my journal on hand and since I have been DYING to write in it, but have not had the time, I have decided that I'll just put it up here.

Alright, so to start out, when Matt and I got married, we had already discussed that it would at least be 2 years (3 years in my opinion) before we tried getting pregnant. We had known each other for 3 years before we even got married and we wanted to get to know each other even more before we expanded our family.

Heavenly Father had some different plans!

Only 2 months after we got married, and 2 weeks after we had started working at the temple, I was sitting in Relief Society making faces at my neigbor's baby (while of COURSE listening to the lesson!) when I felt a burst of excitement for when I would have my own children! I was quite startled, to be honest, and as I tried to pull myself out of my daydream, I told myself that it must just be 'baby fever' since my sister-in-law, Ellie, had just given birth to her first child two weeks before, and my other sister-in-law, Heather, was due in another 2 weeks.

So, like the good newly-married wife that I was, I stopped playing with the baby and listened (more intently, of course) to the lesson that was being given. The lesson was on Joseph's letters home to his wife and children. (Bad idea, i thought.) Well, try as I might, the feeling would not leave me and it grew stronger and stronger until I had difficulty breathing normally. However, what else could I do? Stand up and say, "There's too many babies in this room - I have to leave!"? Yeah right! I lived in a ward that the average number of years a couple had been married was 2 and the average amount of children couples had was 0.99!

Well, I knew that I couldn't hide the awe-struck look on my face for very long, so I tried to come up with a distraction while I asked Matt after church how Priesthood meeting had gone. He mentioned a couple things (none of which I even listened to - sorry Matt) and proceeded to ask me, "How was Relief Society?" I quickly answered, "Fine," and looked elsewhere. Confused, he asked me what happened. (Man, why and HOW does he know me so well?) I looked him in the eyes and said, "Are you ready for this?"

I explained the whole happening to him on our walk home from church. I asked him if he wanted for us to pray and see if this feeling was real. Well, he decided that I should pray and I of course, got choked up in the middle of it.

The next day I went off birth control (we found out later that that probably wasn't the best idea).

We also wanted to make sure that Matt felt the same way, so that we were in this together, so we went to the temple that Saturday and did sealings. While Matt was sitting in as the witness, he remembered looking at my dad on the day we were sealed together, and he remembered how proud my dad was of me, and all of the sudden he felt that same excitment and pride as if he were in my dad's place. Well, needless to say, we were on the same page.

It took 6 LONG months, but here are the results:

This is me at 6 weeks. I am at 9 weeks now, and I have my first doctor's appointment in 2 weeks - where I get to see an ultrasound and hear my baby's heartbeat! So I look forward to that! Until next time!

Red Hair and Facial Hair

So its now Christmas Vacaction and we are in Huntsville AL, taking a break from the worries of the world. But before we get to far into that first we need to do some set up.

So first off the most exciting part of this whole thing is the fact that laurens mom had NO idea we were even coming out for vacation. Only her dad and brothers knew, because her sister Rebecca would have told her mom if she had known. But not only did we have the joy of supprising the crap out of her but we had the joy of flying through O'hare in Chicago!

So of course after getting up at 4 am (ok I'll be honest we actually just never went to bed) on sunday morning we got to O'Hare 20 mins early only to find out that our flight to Nashville had been canceled due to delays in the North East :-D Now Nashville was SUPPOSED to be where we would suprise Laurens mother, where we would get our ride to Alabama and where we were supposed to meet my parents for a quick gift exchange but now our plans had to quickly change. So after getting in to a gate in terminal H we walked all the way to terminal G before we realised our flight was canceled (people who know ohare are gunna LOVE this story) so we get to H realise the big problem and make a B-line for the nearest rebooking counter...in terminal H! So then we get there and find out its just a stupid phone number ANYWAY so I call the number and she tells us the next open flight to nashville is monday morning at 730. Normally being stuck in Chi-town for an extra night would be SWEET cause we'd just call lindsey and hang out with her but she was out of town anyway so that was a BIG no-go. So I started beggin asking if there was anything else. After getting a big Negative from her I asked about getting into huntsville air port and luck for us there was a flight leaving from chicago but it was leaving in fifteen mins from terminal G (or so she said) so I stayed on the phone with her while we litterally sprinted down to the gate. when I told the lady we were at gate G2 she said "wait G as in Golf I'm sorry I ment to say H!" thats right the terminal we had just walked past many many times. So we bolted back to the gate and got to the counter panting and sucking wind and to our supprise actually got seats. we were SOO releived! anyway so after waiting another 2 hours (for the flight that was supposed to leave fifteen mins after we got to the airport) we actually made it to Huntsville.

At the airport Laurens Uncle picked us up (in his 525 BMW might I add) and drove us to the Zittings apartment where her brother had placed a key for us, hidden VERY securly (thanks Christopher). So Lauren and I sat and enjoyed a couple episodes of Heroes waiting for them all to get home. when they did get home Laurens mom was greeted by a daughter she didnt know. not cause lauren has changed who she is but because she very much so changed her hair color.

Gone are the days of the innocent Blonde HELLO fiery redhead haha. We had my 2nd Cousin kerby do it just before we left for AL its been fun supprising people with it and I say it look pretty dang good.

So since we've been here we basically passed the time each just doing our own thing. What ever we feel is relaxing and fun.

For brandon fun and relaxing is playing on the families brand new Wii

For rebecca fun consists of taking her dads computer and then spending the rest of the day glowering at anybody who dares say a word to her. What word it is doesnt matter it all warrents the look of SATAN

Laurens mom is mostly enjoying just resting while she has all of her slaves home. I quickly took on the role of Kitchen slave spending most of my time hanging out there cooking the family meals...which I'm cool with I kinda like being about to do something I'm good at it makes me a lil more comfortable. So while I'm in there Shelly gets some rest.

Barry has still had to do some work while we've been here but when he's not doing that he get to spend time just haning out on the family computer checking out songs and some of the new technology coming down the pike (maybe a plasma?)

Christopher took off this morning headed for Chicago cause he's too cool for the rest of us.

Lauren and I are just here enjoying the married life and holidays with the in laws.

SANTA!!!! I know him!!!

So lauren and I finally decided to decorate our apt this week. When we were up in logan in October, Laurens Grandparents decided we were worthy of a tree donation so they allowed us to have one of thier pre-lit trees which we decided to decorate with blue and white to show our BYU spirit.

Lauren and I had to get a few thing from big lots to make it work but we actually ended up with a pretty sweet looking tree including our BYU tree topper and Laurens BYU blanket as a tree skirt.

Lauren didn't know that I had gone out to get all of the decorations while she was at class so she got a little excited when she realised we were gunna be able decorate.

Ok so maybe I got a little excited too. After we finally got it all put together with our pretty white and blue ornaments we got to put our cool BYU tree topper. It was a little precarious seeing as we are both hobbits but fear not...WE HAVE A FOOTSTOOL. so once I got that all set up I got to put the tree topper on there

I liked our new tree.

Alright so we've been totally terrible about updating our blog but we do have good reason...we did get married in the middle of all this madness haha! Ok so here's the run down we reall actually did succeed in getting married, after all the craziness of our dating and engagement, in Logan UT on August 15th. We Decided during our planning stages that it was best to try and keep things as relaxed as possible by spreading our festivities out over multiple days which ended up mostly working. We were smart enough to do our wedding pictures with just the two of us on Wednesday which was a BRILLIANT idea cause we go to do pictures while we both really were still happy haha. Thursday I had the chance to be there in the temple for Lauren's endowment which just really was incredible it was so amazing to have her in there with me. My wife looks beautiful in white. After the temple lauren headed out for bridal shower and I went golfing...I got the better end of the deal I think! Friday we finally got to the main event and we got sealed which again was absolutly amazing! it really was great to walk into the room and see all of our friends and family there to support us...and my wife STILL looks amazing in white. Following the sealing we had a grooms dinner at Hamiltons Stake and Seafood in Logan...btw if you get married in logan do SOMETHING there: Reception, grooms dinner, Bach party SOMETHING its really good and they take good care of you it really was great. So Finally on Saturday we had our reception at the Old Rock Church in Providence Utah which was really nice but qutie small and short. Now of course with all of these events planned far apart and with pleanty of rest in between our loving family and friends ensured all that "empty space" got all filled in haha. So we offically got zero rest the week of our wedding...so much for wishful thinking I guess.
Ok so now for the REAL fun part! We finally left everybody behind and went on a cruise!!! it was SOO much fun! We went from LA where a friends mom picked us up and drove us around till it was time to board (we really do have the best friends) from there we went down to San Diego where we wandered through the city looking through little Itally and The Gas Lamp District. The Following day we were in Catalina Island where we decided we needed some time on Jet Skis so we went out and found a place we could rent some for an hour and we just had a blast...Laurens favorite way to drive was to speed up real fast and then stop REALLLY fast ensuring my chin always ended up in her shoulder my style was more holding down the throttle until I didnt have any strength left to hold both my weight and her weight on the handlebars and then I'd finally slow down...doughnuts were also cool! The last stop we made before heading home was in Ensenada Mexico where lauren and I learned to make mexican food! We also did our only real shopping of the trip! We picked up some new knock off sunglasses for lauren, a nice mexican wrestling mask for Laurens brother cause we thought it was funny, A mochaxete (Pestil and Morter), Two beautiful Onyx Candell Sticks, and a cool Mayan Chess set. So we were pretty dang excited about our party favors.
So we're now back in LA waiting for our flight back to the real world tomorrow afternoon. We'll be doing all the the moving into the apartment and all that fun stuff as soon as we get to provo but for now we're just basking in the glow of the best two weeks ever.