This one's for the females...

This topic doesn't exactly come up around the dinner table or in friendly conversation, but I wanted to share this product with the women who read my blog because well, I had no idea this kind of thing existed until just after I got pregnant last year. After Harvey was born, that monthly visitor came back a lot sooner than expected and I was kind of disappointed that I couldn't have a nice long break like most other breastfeeding moms. Mine didn't even skip a beat. Just right back into it after the regular post partum stuff stopped. Thanks body... :sigh:

Anyway, on to the product I want to talk about. Instead SoftCups. Like I said, while I was pregnant I had found out that this product existed from a mothering/baby/pregnancy site and I kept it in the back of my mind though I really had no intention of trying it and certainly not any time soon...until I found out I was one of the lucky minority who continues bleeding through breastfeeding. I had never heard of anything else other than pads and tampons (and cloth pads) and didn't really think to look for anything else either because it hadn't really occurred to me that there WAS anything else since that is all they talk about in the "Welcome to your Period 101" class in elementary school. Turns out the rest of the world has been ahead of us in this department for a while. ---Side Note: There are also these nifty things called "menstrual cups" that pretty much every other country (even Africa) uses. One of those cost just $30-40-ish and will last you for 10 years. You just wash it between uses and use it over and over. That sounds like a good deal to me and I may try that some time in the future. But, they also wear a little differently than the SoftCup. You can also look into those though if you're interested in all of the different options out there too.--- Anyway, back on topic. I figured I'd give the Soft Cup a try and see how it compared to other products. There was slight learning curve at first and I wasn't sure it was going to work for me the first day, but after I re-read the instructions and tried again two more times, I can say that I love this product. These are so much nicer, more comfortable, and have more benefits than wearing tampons and pads that I wanted to share with all of you lady readers of my blog who are probably also oblivious that there are even any other options out there. You can even get them at Wal*Mart too. They've been in plain site all along. Their website has a list of stores that carry them - mostly drug stores and Wal*Mart. They also make "reusable" ones so you just use one per cycle (think I might try those eventually too) but those are only available online.  My favorite part is that you can wear them 12 hours at a time so you don't use as many of them or have to worry about carrying a bunch of feminine products or different "absorbencies" with you if you are going somewhere or for "just in case". And what a convenience this will be when traveling! Rather than explain what they are and how they work, here is their website for you to check out.

http://www.softcup.com/

Pictures Galore

Here are some of the pictures starting with Easter and then Arizona (I seem to have only taken Arizona pictures when we were at the zoo... haha) and then more from just hanging out at home since then.
 Can you believe he's going to be 4 months old next week?? I can't. Oh and he seems to be teething already too! Red cheeks & chin, slight temp of 9.9-ish, cranky as all get out, chewing everything and slobbering everywhere, there is a small tooth you can kind of feel, but it's where his right molars would be so I have no idea how that works since they usually get the front ones first. Either way, he is growing up so fast!

Busy Busy Bees

We have been busy around here. In fact, I'm just going to write this post and then some time in the future I'll do an all picture and video post to go along with this narrative.

In April, Nick finished another semester of classes and now is down to ONE left! WAHOO! This means he is finished with his Bachelor's in December. Being the proud wife I am, I also would like to brag that even with having a new baby in the house for more than half of this past semester, he still did great in his classes with his lowest grade being an A-. After Nick finished the semester we took a day to clean our house really good and then took our first big road trip with Harvey down to Arizona. The drive wasn't too bad. Harvey sure is a trooper with us. He did pretty good on the drive considering he hates his car seat. We got to visit my dad and surprise two of my sisters and their families. My dad knew we were coming because we stayed with him, but my sisters had NO idea and it was really fun to COMPLETELY surprise them and their families. We had never pulled off a big surprise like that on anyone and they had never been surprised like that by anyone so it was really fun!

While in Arizona, Harvey had a lot of firsts. He got to meet some of his aunts, uncles, and cousins for the first time (I think he and Daniel will get along great. Daniel loved to give Harvey big hugs.) He went to two major league baseball games. He went swimming in Grandpa's pool. He went to the zoo. He came to the movies with us. He slept really amazing because we kept pretty busy and I also think because of the heat. We stayed for two weeks because we had no obligations back in Utah and took advantage of our last summer that we don't have to worry so much about a work schedule.

After we got back home from Arizona, we went to Davis's baby blessing and said goodbye to my grandma who was going back to Michigan. We used our pass of all passes some more to go mini golfing. We have had several parties with friends. We went up to my mom's Mother's Day weekend and went to the drive in. And speaking of that, it was my FIRST Mother's Day as a Mom. Nick made my and I breakfast that morning and we both got plates with Harvey's footprints/foot-smooshes. He kept curling his little toes in the paint for Dad :). We got a new washing machine (which works amazing on the cloth diapers). Nick's brother got home from his 2 year mission in England. Nick inherited a giant TV from his grandpa who had it in storage at his Dad's work. I'm talking the size of TV that we had to rearrange our entire living room to fit it in. I was kind of annoyed at it at first, but now I'm kind of enjoying it just as much as Nick is. We got to have a couple date nights in there since we've been back. Our neighbors are moving and we found out that some of our friends are moving in next door. Also, when our landlord came to renew our contract Nick asked him about doing maintenance to decrease our rent even more and the landlord said that would be great for him too so another yay for saving us quite a bit of money. And last but not least, we also got some soil, pots and plants and made a potted garden to the side of our 4-plex. We have 2 tomato (one larger, one smaller), 1 butternut squash, 4 green pepper, 4 red pepper, 3 anaheim pepper, and a basil plant. I've been checking on the plants each day to make sure we keep them watered since it's already getting pretty toasty here.

So far the summer has been going great and keeping us super busy. We are having fun being social and taking advantage of the extra time Nick gets to spend at home for a few months. We still have a lot more coming up too. Harvey is finally getting to the doctor (we were waiting to make sure he got covered from Medicaid and then we got notice that he was covered while we were in Arizona... then now finally this week he has an appointment.) At the end of this month, we'll be going on another road trip with his family to Arkansas to visit Nick's older brother, wife, and their new baby Liam. Then Nick will be working on a deal for his work with his dad and if that goes through, we're planning on coming out to Michigan for my cousin's wedding in July. If we can figure out how to go with a baby, I really REALLY want (though I feel like it is a need) to go to Cedar Point when we're out there. We'd be so close to it and I have not been since I lived in Michigan nearly 10 years ago! Best amusement park ever for those who are unfamiliar with it... and it's in northern Ohio. We also have a large Potts family reunion in July that will be taking place mostly down in Southern Utah.

What a long update and I could make it even longer so maybe I should start posting little things here and there again so it's not such an overwhelming catch up post every time I post! :)