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today i ate my feelings for lunch.

they were made of pesto chicken artichoke pizza and i loved them.

except for feelings don't go away after you pile a ton of delicious food on top of them. this i have learned.


i'm kind of very overwhelmed.

work + school + baby + house + work + school + baby + house.

 rinse and repeat.

i don't like not being in 100% control of my situations. i don't like this not knowing part. where i have way too many questions and not enough answers. i don't like that.


what i did learn today is that if you share your secrets with your husband he will not call you a freak. he will send you encouraging messages filled with scripture and love. this is new for me because like i said, i like to pack my feelings down down down and pile things on top of them. i don't like to feel my feelings and therefore i don't let other people feel my feelings. but evan is very good at feeling feelings and he is not very good at judging feelings so he did not judge me.

those things make for quality people. and there are not very many quality people in this world so i'm really very incredibly glad i snagged myself one.

"i made my home in your heart and your mind.

you laid your hands on my chest and

you pointed home.

i'll give you, all of me,

i'll make you mine.

if you'll take me, you'll make me,

your first in line."

seventeen weeks

i'm 17 weeks. which is almost halfway there. which means baby is the size of a onion/turnip. is that not huge? i feel movement but it is super, super sporadic. which is normal and not me freaking out. and according to my baby website, the baby is developing ear bones so it can now hear. to evan that meant, SAY HI TO THE BABY BY SHOUTING REALLY LOUD IN LARISSA'S EAR.

so i'm deaf now.

according to our friends our baby is going to have evan's crazy curly hair and my attitude. i had better tame it down because raising a child like me, while HILARIOUS, would not be fun. [sorry mom. i'm sure i was a handful.]

also we think it's a boy. actually, EVERYONE thinks it's a boy. people will be like "blah blah blah HE blah blah oops! i mean he/she..." hahaha. except for target has THEE cutest little tutus for baby girls right now. and this adorable little peacoat. i could just puke it's that cute.

but we are NOT finding out. we have an ultrasound in a few weeks, which would be the ultrasound that tells us what it is, but on the information sheet it said "blah blah blah rule out twins, blah blah blah." EXCUSE ME, NO. 20 weeks to "rule out twins?" that should have been ruled out on day 1, thank you. get with it, modern medicine 2012. pretty sure there are not twins in there. we can go ahead and just rule that on out right now.

also: i'm over my egg aversion except i still don't want eggs but i can handle them. i even had some egg casserole on accident without even realizing it until i ate the entire thing and realized i didn't gag through it. good for me. and my new obsession is grapefruit juice. OMG i love grapefruit juice. i cannot get enough grapefruit juice. i drank almost an entire gallon in a single day last week. and i have this uncontrollable urge to put salt in it. i haven't yet. but i want to. is that even good? who knows. plus, i hate sweets and candy which is totally unnatural for me because i'm usually all about it. so that's good. this baby is a healthy one.

also, whoever said that there is a 2nd trimester burst of energy is a big fat liar. i napped all weekend long (except when i was woken up by these annoying campaigners banging on my door---hiiii i already voted please go awaaaay) and i still did not want to get out of bed this morning. so whenever that burst of energy wants to grace me with its presence, i will be most appreciative.

engagement sesh

i took engagements for my friends last weekend. they're so cute and in love and perfect for each other. and now, thanks to them, i want to do this every weekend. my children are so lucky they'll be having photoshoots every weekend. hah.

and thank you to montana for being beautiful in the fall and having a beautiful non rainy, non snowy, non windy day. it could not have been more perfect. and all those yellow trees, i want to bottle them up and keep them for ever and ever. move over, summer: i think i am in love with fall.

my husband is the funniest at 4 am.

FACT. four am is his time to shine.

evan and i tend to be a little bit out of control in our sleep. see: this post. but this one probably tops the list of reasons why i love my husband in the middle of the night because:

i woke up to the sound of a pen clicking and evan standing in the middle of the room. so i was all, "EVANWHATAREYOUDOING?" and he's all, "trying to find a light." "why?" "because i think i saw a child in here."

i wasn't even mad.  i didn't even care that it was 4 am and i had to wake up in 3 hours. this was just too good.  i started laughing so hard and woke him up from his sleep-walking slumber and he got all mad and still wanted to find the child.

one time erin told me about this app for the iphone that records any noise you make in your sleep. i have it and i never use it and i don't know what my problem is because can you imagine? i just told evan we need to start using it and he said, "we should have used it last night, then you could have heard the little girl." 

like, where did the pen come from? he just found that somewhere in our room and carried it around while he searched for a light? what possessed him to get UP OUT OF BED? i am going to have to invest in some type of mechanism to strap him in before the baby is born. he claims that he wasn't asleep and was wide awake and seriously needed to find the child. i need to be a more better wife and help him do these tasks he comes up with in his dreams. like, can you imagine if i handed him his phone or told him that she's in the closet?

that is my new mission. that and to use the recorder app and catch all the greatness that we probably usually miss.

favorites

my mom brought back over 1,500 pictures from ethiopia and some of the cutest videos (like the one of a group of my kids saying, "hi looreeesa and eeeven. we love you." i died dead when i saw that one. and then died again when rozaa starts bawling at the end of it. that girl seriously holds my heart in her hands.) and you better believe that i stole every single picture and have gone through them every single day.

anyway. these are my favorite pictures that my mom's camera took. probably not my mom because probably the kids stole her camera the second she stepped off the bus. and they are little photographers and these are my favorites.

 this is little aragu. i was on my 2nd trip when her and her little brother were brought to new hope and she has seriously grown like a little weed! you can't really see them here but she has these little curly bangs and i swear she couldn't be any cuter if she tried.

okay, those bangs? get out here with that cute! my favorite is her little model pose. who is teaching them these grown-up things? because STOP. also: slow it down, time!

bestillmyheart. these two. i love them and i can't even handle this cuteness. left is my zelalum and right is my decho (aragu's brother). zelalum has grown like 5 feet since last year and he looks SO good (he's HIV+ and that just breaks my heart into a million tiny pieces. but he's getting medicine and so many prayers.). and decho is such a little trouble maker but i know that zelalum is the best big brother anyone could ever have and i know he's going to turn little decho's life around. ugh. heart broken. in the best way.

this is my kid, rozaa. my little baby who isn't so little anymore. this is on the last day and that's why she looks a little sad. she's always one of the saddest when we leave and i seriously want to scoop her up and never let go. and apparently her new thing is smiling with her mouth closed which happened to be my new thing this year. i tell you, we are meant to be together. this is the same little girl who calls herself my son sometimes and wears boys clothes because she is a little tom boy. she's also the most beautiful girl, so. she's winning.

 rozaa may very well be a boy because she never takes that hot wheels shirt off. my friend brian is going to ET in december and i'm now on the hunt for a new hot wheels shirt for her. i should make a blog titled "the stages of rozaa's hot wheels shirt" because it's been around that long. and then my mom and then my other kid. ummm when they start to creep up on being the same height as my mom that's when i have to draw the line.

 i know this picture was probably an accident and she would never ever let me have a picture like this if she knew it existed. but she doesn't. and i'm practicing being that mom. this kid is the most beautiful. she's so perfect.

and the best/worst part of the week. baptizing the kids. guess who got baptized? rozaa, meskerem and zelalum. (plus some others). but i was like COME on!  so excited that they got to do this finally so glad that rozaa is SO happy. this made evan bawl and my heart break that we couldn't be there to celebrate her. because baptism is kind of our favorite. the best part of this deserves its own blog post. coming up soon!

she also probably wouldn't allow this picture because she is SO sad here. whoever took this is a genius and i love them. i love this picture because it is her. and i love this kid more than i'll ever be able to describe. and this picture just kills me.

and this is our other little girl, derartu. my little model who can seriously pick evan up off the ground and gives the best kisses and is really good at giving me dreads. but look at that little fro! my mom has a video of her bouncing around a bus with her fro hair in a pony and it is the cutest thing ever! this girl has had a shaved head and braids and now a fro and she is so beautiful anyway she wears her hair. i just want to squeeze her gorgeous face.

i'm going to put all these pictures side by side with the ones from our very first trip. these kids are doing SO good and i am so incredibly thankful i've been able to come along for this ride. god is SO good.

lately

/i straight up peaced out from social media for a second. i got some mean comments on my fb so i deleted it and then didn't even check my poor little blog because i was just in a mood. in an "everyone annoys me" mood. i promise i will be more better with my real child than with my blog child.

/my brother turns 20 today. (WHAT.) and is coming home this weekend so my mom can wash his clothes (a 7 hour drive for laundry service. not worth it.) and restock his fridge. also he's bringing home his friend MIKE who is from NEW JERSEY. are you thinking what i'm thinking? i already told my parents that he prefers to be called "the situation" and so don't call him mike. we're having birthday dinner at their house on saturday and i'm going to make evan wear a wife beater to their house and then prance around yelling "T SHIIIIRT TIIIIME" and i'll most definitely rat my hair and not take off my big sunglasses. this is going to be the best weekend of my life. i may no longer have a brother after this weekend. i'll let you know. but seriously, being a big sister is the greatest thing in the world.

/also this weekend is going to be great because it's my sister's-in-law baby shower and i got her the softest onesies and the softest baby bouncer that i just want to curl up in. it also makes me want to hold a baby really bad and cuddle that fleece (target has the softest fleece known to man) so good thing i'm 25 weeks away from that. problem: i adamantly do not want to find out what the baby is because i have heard that there's nothing better than the surprise. evan wants to find out. target is our only registry option, they don't have any sort of gender neutral anything. what do i do?! i thought about having the shower post-baby. i need to google this predic stat. give me ideas, ready? go!

/this weekend is also going to be great because i'm taking my friends jess and joe's engagement photos! i have been out of control with my pinterest account, trying to find the best and cutest pictures for them. and joe is the cutest ever with his own pinterest account pinning sooo many wedding ideas. that's true love.

/speaking of those friends, jess just had her birthday at our one night club, the shore lounge. which coincidentally reminds me of jersey shore. (jersey shore rulz my lyfe.) and they hired a dj to play the loudest music i've ever heard and i felt the baby move! all night long, flips in my tummy. i cannot decide if the baby loved the shit outta that music or if the baby already has my issue with noise. and i hope that it does not have my issue with noise because i'm about to play more really loud music so we can have ourselves a little dance partay. it was a good thing that there was loud music to preoccupy me with the baby's dance moves because someone who used to be my friend told evan congratulations and not me. basically had to take 5 in the bathroom so i didn't smash a glass across someone's face. because that's just plain rude and uncalled for. expected, but uncalled for.

/also with the jersey shore and rude people, does anyone else think that the skank cathy on the last season of the office is just like angelina? agree with me, someone!

/enough about jersey shore.

/my mom came home from africa on saturday and i made her tell me every story in slow motion and i've already stolen all 1,500 (not enough) of her pictures and looked through them 900 times. my kids are seriously little humans! i don't know when or how they decided to grow up but no one asked my permission first. i plan on looking at pictures from my first trip to now and comparing them side by side to see just how much they've all grown. my little derartu had a little fro the entire week. these kids take after me with their hair. (the other night evan successfully got a "fun straw" stuck in my hair for like 3 hours.)

/let's talk about my pregnancy brain for a second. i have removed approximately 903 words from my vocab. i have stopped talking mid-sentence when i can't think of the word. the other day it was empathy. today it was contest. i mean, really. evan brought me a drink for lunch the other day and he kept stealing sips and i said, "why are you drinking my lemonade when you have your own in the fridge?" it was sprite. i legitimately thought it was lemonade. i'm apparently using all my brain power and taste buds to cook a baby. don't expect much of me for the next little while.

/don't remember how i got behind on my 12 projects. i'm catching up, i swear. life for example, engineer prints. cannot wait to hang them all over my house! and my stolen pallet that i want to hang on my wall but might be too heavy so it might become something else like chopped up towel racks. awesomesauce.

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montana's new thing is 5 second seasons. it just became fall (if you can call 80-90's "fall") and we're predicted to get 30-40 DAY TIME temperatures with a rain/snow mix for the rest of the week.

i'm not going to lie, i'm excited. i hate snow, but i'm ready for it. i want clean air and cooler weather and boots and scarves and hot drinks and the weather to actually act like fall and not just a cooler summer.


but it feels like fall at my parents house. and my mema's house next door with the glowing tree that i would always climb as a little girl. just the tips of the branches fading into this golden yellow so that i couldn't tell if it was sunshine or leaves. and as i was standing there admiring this giant tree that holds thousands of memories of me climbing and jumping and jumping and climbing, a gust of wind came up and blew hundreds of leaves off the tree in a rainstorm of leaves that cascaded down with the wind and it was the most fall i've ever felt.

and it was the best moment i've had in a while, after two hectic weeks and an almost trip to the ER this weekend and anxiety levels that are through the roof and too much alone time, there was just something about those leaves and the wind and something as simple as that to ground me and bring me back to reality from every stupid little stress. i move too fast to enjoy anything. and i think it's high time i slow down and relish this life and these blessings and all the pretty fall around me.

also evan has done two of the nicest things for me today: 1) made himself gross eggs for breakfast and lit a candle so i would not have to gag as i was leaving; and 2) shut the door while he brushes his teeth. some pregnant women have really high smell powers, i have really intense hearing powers and the sound of teeth brushing makes me want to punch.

also my dear friends got engaged last night and i could not be more excited for them! i'm taking their engagements in a few weeks AND she asked me to be a bridesmaid and i could just pee my pants. my life is hectic and stressful and i hate my grad professor but seriously? i love my friends. you know who you are and i love you.