Suggest a Name

Just thought that this would be a cool way to allow people to suggest names for the baby, if they cared to. I won't promise that we will use any of them, but who knows, maybe you will come up with one we really like. So, give it a shot.

Boy or Girl?

You can watch the video bigger if you follow the YouTube link.

Social Media Experiment

One of the things I am considering focusing on for my Master's Degree is Social Media and its effects on society. As a fun little experiment, I saw today an article in the Daily Universe saying that BYU was getting thrashed in a contest to bring Weezer to the winning college campus. As of 4:30 pm today we were still getting killed, we had 237 votes compared to the first place Florida State who had over 9,000.

Now I am a huge FSU fan, but lets see if we can catch up and make this a contest! I wouldn't mind seeing Weezer in concert.

Belly Progression

Today one of my classmates (a guy who I've only known since September) looked at me and said, "You are not showing at all. How far along are you?" On the other hand, I met with brand new client at work today. She is 32, has 4 kids, is a runner and is in great shape. I went ahead and asked her about jogging strollers since I am in the process of choosing one for myself. She looked at me and said, "I noticed a little tummy and thought to myself 'she must be pregnant and just starting to show'." So I get both types of comments. Some people say I do not look pregnant and some say they can tell I'm getting bigger. I have to agree with the latter, although I think I just look a little chubbier, not really pregnant. I guess this is the awkward stage where people don't know if I'm pregnant or just gaining a little weight. Here are a couple pictures to track my progress. You can decide for yourself.

Me at 16 weeks (2 weeks ago).
This was the day when many of my pants stopped fitting and I had to adopt the rubber band/button hole trick.

Today at 18 weeks.
I can wear these old, grungy, stretched out jeans no problem and one other pair with the a rubber band, but once they stop working I will be out of luck and on to bigger and better pants. Luckily, we got some sweet deals on maternity pants at Gap and Old Navy this weekend. They still seem huge, but they will probably fit before I know it.

The past couple of days I have thought that I can feel the baby, but who knows! I will be more convinced when it is more obvious. We have an ultrasound scheduled for Dec. 1. We are pretty excited and hope the baby will cooperate so we can find out the gender.

Happy Halloween!

I love dressing up for Halloween, or for any occasion really. However, this past month has been pretty hectic with midterms, projects, sickness, etc. Whenever we would think about what to be for Halloween, nothing would come to us and we would forget about it.
On Friday, the day of Mandy's Halloween party, I was ready to give up. I figured I could just go as a pirate and Landon could be a soccer player (our default costumes). While walking to school I suddenly came up with an idea Landon would go for. I have to say, for getting everything together in a couple hours, I think we looked pretty awesome.

Here is our inspiration.

We dressed up as Tom and Summer from 500 Days of Summer. We thought this movie was great. The soundtrack is great, and its nonlinear narrative plot was done exceptionally well. And we could really identify with the characters, as I'm sure everyone could in one way or another. Here we are!

The cute couple.
Us again.

Me as Summer. Summer always wears at least one shade of blue. She often wears headbands and tucks her blouses into her mid-rise pants and skirts.

Tom often wears sweater vests or v-neck sweaters with a skinny tie and rolled up sleeves. He also wears his headphones a lot of the time. Landon had speakers hooked up to an ipod in his messenger bag and had Hall and Oates playing as well as other songs from the movie.

The pictures may be hard to tell, but yes, I sprayed my hair to be a brunette.

Fashion Show

My mom bought me some cute maternity clothes and we decided to have a fashion show since I can now stick my "bump" out. I don't stick out this much yet, but I have a feeling I will start getting bigger in the next few weeks.

Maybe one day I will look like this (below). I stuck a mixing bowl in my shirt.

My cheesy pose. I was trying to cover up the flat part of the bowl.

Gender Guesses Continued

So there have been a lot of votes so far and we thought maybe we could liven things up a bit. Katherine found a website that had a few methods of "predicting" the gender of the baby. Here are the results of our tests:

Heart-rate test

First, the heart-rate test. According to this test if the heart-rate is above 140 the baby is a girl and if it is less than this, it is a boy. You can see on the first picture of the sonogram that is has the heart rate = 165.8. Katherine wanted me to mention that all of the doctors thought she was a boy, because she had a slower heart beat.

Result: GIRL

Chinese Gender Chart

Here is what the website says about this next one: "Legend states that the Chinese Gender Chart was buried in a royal tomb near Beijing over 700 years ago. The original is allegedly currently in the Institute of Science in Beijing. Rumors have it that this chart is over 90% accurate when used properly but please remember that this chart is for entertainment purposes only."

So keep in mind. Entertainment purposes only.

Result: BOY

Needle Method

In this method you thread a needle and dangle it over the stomach of the pregnant woman. It also said online that you could dangle it over her wrist instead. We tried both methods and I have to say that this method was a little sketchy. If the needle swings in a "strong circular motion" then the baby is a girl. If it just swings back and forth it is a boy. It was a little hard to tell what was actually happening... it started out in a circular motion and then ended up just swinging back and forth the first time we did it. Then we switched to the wrist motion and it seemed to be more circular. Probably not the most accurate test, but we concluded:

(Side note on this one... Katherine is very convinced by this test for some reason. She insists that it always does a circular motion.)



Result: GIRL

Old Wives Tales Quiz

This next method is just a quiz with a bunch of old wives tales such as the following:

After 15 questions:

Hardly decisive and some of the questions couldn't really be answered, like about how the baby kicks and stuff.

Result: GIRL

The Final Test - Intelligender

Okay, this one is the big kahuna. This is a urine test you can pick up at walgreen's that claims about 80% accuracy. Still enough chance of error that you want to wait for the sonogram to know for sure, but accurate enough to make things exciting.


The website for the product has the following to say:

"Can pregnant women use this test in place of a sonogram?
No, the test is designed as a fun, positive pre-birth experience for the parents-to-be. IntelliGender does not recommend test users to make any financial, emotional or family planning decisions based on the test results. This includes painting a nursery! Seeing an obstetrician as early in the pregnancy is critical for the health of the mother and the baby. Pregnant women should follow the advice of their physician for decisions related to their pregnancy."

Also, the website has these images of what the results are supposedly going to look like:



In our case the results were not nearly dark enough to be labeled as a boy. It looked much more like the girl results.

Result: GIRL

You can interpret these tests however you like, just be careful in reaching an incorrect conclusion. We will let you know how the sonogram turns out when that time comes... still a few weeks to go!

Gender Guesses

I just added a poll to allow people to guess the gender of the baby. Also, feel free to make a comment on the post to let us know who is guessing what.

We're still here

Emily requested a new blog post, so here it is. Here are some things that have happened since the last time we did a post.

• I completed my thesis proposal and have started my project
• Landon's family came to visit us in July
  
• We went to Boise and McCall, Idaho with my parents and Annie's family
• Landon started his first semester of grad school
• We found out that we are expecting our first child in April!

Needless to say, our lives have been busy and exciting!
I am now about 12 weeks pregnant and had my second appointment yesterday. We were hoping to hear the heartbeat, but they could only find mine! They weren't concerned and explained that the baby was likely in a position where it was difficult to catch the heartbeat. But to be safe, they had me go in this morning for an ultrasound. It was the greatest experience! I had no idea we would be able to see the baby so clearly this early. The baby was moving around like crazy and the heartbeat was strong and fast. I am right on schedule and everything looked good. I am so grateful for the experience. My pregnancy seems more real than ever now. And now we have our baby's first pictures! The pictures aren't as clear as they were on the screen, but I still think they are fun.

This one shows the heart rate.

Here you can see the large head, the dark white line is the spine, and the body.
Another view of the cute head and body.My favorite! Look at that tiny arm and adorable little hand!

Early Birthday Present

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton let me have a peak at my birthday present for next year.

Don't even try to tell me this doesn't look fabulous. Now I just have to wait patiently the next 8 months.

Alice in Wonderland- March 5, 2010

I married a winner!

Last Wednesday, Landon came home at the end of the day with two prizes/awards. Check him out!
This prize is entitled, "Bug of the Week." I think Landon has mentioned that he is doing testing on lds.org this summer. As a tester, he has to find programming flaws, or "bugs." Every week they submit bugs they find and someone is awarded with "Bug of the Week." He finds bugs all the time, but he found an especially good one a couple of weeks ago, and earned his first "Bug of the Week" award!
Here is the second award Landon earned that day. This one came from a lab on campus that he has been working with. They had Landon enter into a conference where he had to submit some kind of prediction... and he won. If you can't tell what he won, here is a closer look.
That's right, an iPod nano! I especially like that the certificate says, "Team Sequoia led by Landon Pratt." He is sharing the iPod with me, which is also nice.

Good job, Landon!

Summer Reading List

One of the benefits of all the time I spend on the bus between Provo and SLC is that I have the opportunity to do quite a bit of reading. I have always loved to read, but with school and all the last number of years, I haven't been able to do as much as I would have liked. Anyways, here are a few of the books I have read so far:

1. War of the Worlds by HG Wells - It looks like I am doing a lot of Science Fiction reading this summer, and what better way to start it off than by reading this Sci Fi classic.  It was a decent book, although a little humorous at times because of the setting.  It was written in the late 1800's so a lot of the technology used to fight off the invading aliens was pretty obsolete and archaic by today's standards.  It was a little strange to read a science fiction novel that predated the automobile and that, in the novel, our most effective weaponry was horse-drawn artillery and ironclads.

2. Ubik by Phillip K. Dick - Science Fiction book #2.  This one is a little bit weirder, so if you can't handle a little weirdness, don't try to read this one.  One of the basic ideas behind the book is that a technology has been developed to allow for a kind of "half-life" once a person has died.  If action is taken quickly the individual can be frozen and put into a kind of dream like state where loved ones are capable of communicating with them for a few days a year.  Pretty crazy. 

3. The Shining by Stephen King - I had been told that this book was pretty scary, and even though the movie definitely fits that description, I was sceptical that any book could really be that scary.  I have to say, it did a pretty good job of getting into my head.  I would look over my shoulder at night to make sure nothing was lurking after reading The Shining.  I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I felt that the author did a great job of bringing the reader into the psyche of each of his characters.  The book does contain a fair amount of bad language though, so reader beware.

Coming Attractions:

Neuromancer by William Gibson

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

I will hopefully keep you updated on the rest of my summer reading as I get to it.

My Mix is Done!

It took me a while to finish my girl and guy duet mix because I kept coming across more and more options. It was hard to nail down my final playlist. As I went through it I added a new item to my criteria: no duplicate artists. All songs feature different musicians/actors. That's right, I was surprised at how many actors/actressess appeared on my list. Mainly due to soundtracks where the actors did their own singing. So here is my list with comments to go along with each selection.

1. Two of Us- Aimee Mann & Michael Penn
This selection comes from the movie, I Am Sam, one of my favorite movies of all time as well as one of my favorite soundtracks. All songs are Beatles' covers and this song is a great one.
2. You Don't Know Me- Ben Folds & Regina Spektor
I love both of these artists and they really do sound great together. I love this song but it almost didn't make it because Ben Folds drops the F-bomb... typical Ben Folds. But Landon edited it for me. I would also recommend watching the music video for it on you tube, it is hilarious.
3. Train Song- Ben Gibbard & Feist
Again, two of my favorite artists. This song is simply beautiful.
4. Jackson- Johnny Cash & June Carter
This was one of the songs that inspired the mix idea. I'm not a huge country fan, but I'm a fan of Johnny Cash as an extremely influential musician. In my opinion these two are probably the most famous duet team ever. This song is my favorite of theirs.
5. Falling Slowly- Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
This is a new song to me, recommended by my brother. It is really pretty with nice harmonies.
6. Elevator Love Letter- Amy Millan & Torquil Campbell- (the band "Stars")
I just really like this song. The first verse is sung by the girl and the second by the guy and it tells a story. The vocals and music fit the feeling of the story well.
7. Volcano- Damien Rice & Lisa Hannigan
Lisa Hannigan is Damien Rice's main back-up vocalist. There were a couple of songs I could have gone with including "9 Crimes," but I went with this one just because "9 Crimes" is a demo and the recording quality is not fabulous. It is good though, check it out.
8. Storytime with Rabbi- Seth Hanks & Mallory Davis- (the band "Maple Grove")
I had to include a song from my talented friends, Seth and Mallory. I chose this song because it seems more duet-like in that they sing at each other rather than just doing back-ups for each other like most of their songs. It is a good one, and Mallory does a great job on the keys.
9. Paperweight- Joshua Radin Schuyler Fisk- (from the movie "The Last Kiss")
A couple of my friends suggested this song to me. Schuyler Fisk is an actress, although I don't think she is in this movie. She is the girlfriend in "Orange County." In my opinion, this song is a great representation of beautiful harmonies.
10. Portland Oregon- Loretta Lynn & Jack White
There were a few options for Jack White duets, but I went with this one because it is fun. He also did the theme for the new Bond movie with Alecia Keys. It is a great song as well and I think it was the best part of the movie.
11. You Really Got a Hold on Me- Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward- (the band "She & Him")
This is a great cover of this song. Once again, another actress/musician. She is the girl in Elf where she also does her singing and now collaborates with M. Ward in their band.
12. Elephant Love Medley- Ewan McGregor & Nicole Kidman- (from the movie "Moulin Rouge")
Another favorite movie of mine. This is a great medley that combines cheesy love songs into a rather well done song. They both do a great job at singing in this movie.
13. World Spins Madly On- Deb Talan & Steve Tannen- (the band "The Weepies")
I love The Weepies. They are an idie folk band and have some great songs. This is just one of them were I felt they each sang about equally. A lot of their songs mostly have her singing.
14. Relator- Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson
This song also inpsired me to make this mix. I was surprised that Scarlett is a decent singer. Apparently she did an album a few years ago that was pretty bad, but this song is really good (I'm sure because of Pete Yorn's influence). They are releasing an album in September, this is just their single.
15. Nothing Better- Ben Gibbard and Jen Wood
Okay, so I lied. Ben Gibbard appears twice on this mix. I honestly didn't even notice until right now, so I can't change it now. This is a great song where the two have a conversation back and forth. He is trying to convince the girl to get back together, while she insists that their relationship is over.
16. Don't Come Knocking- Bono & Andrea Corr
I am a longtime fam of U2, but I honestly didn't think Bono would make it on here... until I discovered this song. The mp3 doesn't actually exist that we could find (legally or illegally). But with his mad skills, Landon was still able to get it for me. :)
17. It Ain't Me Babe- Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon- (from the movie "Walk the Line")
Kudos to Joaquin for doing a great job for singing like Johnny Cash. Reese is great as well. I think I actually like this version better than the original one.
18. Anyone Else But You- Michael Cera & Ellen Page- (from the movie "Juno")
These two aren't the most amazing singers, but I love this song because of its lyrics and Michael Cera cracks me up. My favorite lyric... "we sure are cute for two ugly people."
19. Don't go Breaking My Heart- Elton John & Kiki Dee
Oh Elton! Not his best song, that's for sure. But I still think it is classic.
20. Lua- Conor Oberst & Gillian Welch
This is a "Bright Eyes" song that is redone by Oberst (who is "Bright Eyes") with Welch. The song is similar to the original, but good in its own way.
21. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off- Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Two amazing jazz musicians put together for a classic song. Don't even try to tell me that you don't love Louis's voice.

That's all folks! Hope you enjoy. Thanks to those who recommended songs. I'm sorry I couldn't include all of them.

The Mormon Channel

One of the benefits of my internship is that I get to hear about all the cool new webpages the church is doing before they are even out. I can't really talk about them much, though, until they are available to the public. Well, the Church just released a new one a few weeks ago. themormonchannel.com .   Check it out!

New Mix Idea

Landon and I love to make mixes, especially when we come up with a good theme for a mix. I came up with the idea to do a mix with the best girl and guy duets. The idea was inspired partly from watching "Walk the Line" the other night and partly from coming across a great new song. The only rule is that there must be a girl and a guy vocalist in the song. Each person should have a significant part, not just a few background "awws." All genres are acceptable. I have a handful of my favorites, but would love any suggestions to not only consider for my mix but also to learn about music out there I don't know about. When I finish it, I will post my final product on here. Please help me out if you have a brilliant suggestion!

Internship

As you may or may not know, I started a new internship for this summer. I am officially a Quality Assurance Intern with the LDS church. That means I get to try and find problems in all the new websites the church is producing these days. There are going to be a few new ones coming out in the next couple of months. It is pretty cool, for once I get to work on something that people have actually heard of, like LDS.org.

Actually the best perk so far is the fact that I now have a "super admin" account for the stake and ward websites. That means I can edit any stake or ward website in the whole world. Oh the power!

On the down side, I have to get up at a quarter to six every morning, and I spend around 3 hours a day on a bus going between Provo and SLC. I'm pretty tired by the time I get home in the evening. I plan on doing a lot of reading this summer, and luckily I got a little netbook for graduation. I will get some good use from that.

Twitter?

I got curious about twitter and created an account.

http://twitter.com/hndsoff8

Here is some info about twitter.

My Favorite Albums

I got this idea from a facebook application... you know, those things that everyone hates.  Anyways, the application gives you a bunch of different categories in which you can choose your 5 favorites.  One of these categories is "favorite albums".  I filled mine out and then decided that I wouldn't be satisfied choosing just 5.  That seemed too few.

In making my list I considered a few criteria.  The first of these factors that I considered I will refer to as "completeness".  This means that if I were forced to listen to the entire album I wouldn't find myself fighting the urge to skip a significan number of the songs.  The album needs to be consistently good.  Second, I considered how "influential" the albums were in my life.  If an album had left a lasting impression on me, enough to be remembered years later, it would be more likely to make the list.  Finally, I decided it would be smart to exclude compilation albums.  "Best of" cd's that pulled from many different albums would not be considered.

So here they are, my top 10.

1. Danse Macabre - The Faint

2. Weezer (Blue Album) - Weezer

3. Bleed American - Jimmy Eat World

4. Plans - Death Cab for Cutie

5. Deja Entendu - Brand New

6. Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park

7. Wet From Birth - The Faint

8. You're A Woman, I'm a Machine - Death From Above 1979

9. Infest - Papa Roach

10. Darkest Days - Stabbing Westward

Some Updates... in Bullet Format

Sorry we have been such slackers in the blogging world. We always say we will get better, but that doesn't usually happen. Here are some things we have been up to lately.

• I had a birthday and turned 23 years old. We ate pesto pasta, opened gifts, and Landon took me to a ballet on campus. Debbie (Landon's mom) was in town and ate lunch with us and had a sleep over with us. It was a great day!
• Both of Landon's parents have visited. It is always fun to have family in town. My mom and my sister and fam are coming this week as well.
• We have had lots of parties lately! This weekend we had some of Landon's Florida friends over for games and treats. We also had a Y-Be-Fit party with all my friends from work. After everyone left at about 9 our house was so quiet. We decided it was too quiet and invited Marcie and Kathryn over to play games with us.
  
• At the end of the semester I am going to do my thesis proposal... that is the plan anyway. I have a lot of work to do in the next month!
• We have a new favorite game store. You can rent games for a fee and the amount spent (up to $5) goes toward a game to purchase. Killer Bunnies is our favorite right now, thanks to Gameboard Revolution.
• We hung up wedding pictures in our front room... finally!

That is all I can think of right now. Stay tuned to a more exciting post, maybe even with pictures.

Good Fortune

Last weekend I got a letter from BYU Graduate Studies informing me that I had been accepted to a master's program. To celebrate Katherine and I went to the grocery store and got a pair of Jones cream sodas. It is good cream soda, and we like the fortunes under the cap. Both of our fortunes were good this time, considering the event we were celebrating.

Here is mine:

Here is Katherine's:

Both were true!

Update: I just posted a photo submission on the Jones Soda website. Check it out and vote for me!

Cinnamon Santas (because that is what I'm eating right now)

It really is amazing how small decisions can lead to experiences you never thought would happen to you. Walking home from school today, I became aware of this concept in my own life. Looking back to when I was a freshman at BYU, I never would have imagined that I would be where I am right now. Let me explain my realization.

Background

During my sophomore year of college, I learned about an opportunity with study abroad to go to Namibia, a country near South Africa, for the summer of 2006. I have always wanted to go to Africa and this sounded like the perfect experience. There was only one problem, I had missed the deadline to apply. I talked to the director of the program and he let me know that he had room for one more if I wanted the spot. After talking with my parents and thinking about it on my own, I eventually decided not to do it. It was extremely hard for me to pass on the opportunity.

As a result, I went home to Boise for the summer and worked. In July of that summer, I received an email about an internship at Y-Be-Fit. I decided to go ahead and apply since I needed an internship for major requirements. I did not expect to get the internship because I would only be a junior, but felt it was a good way to get my foot in the door. To my surprise, I got the internship for that fall semester.

While working at Y-Be-Fit, I got to know two graduate students who became my mentors. One day one of them asked if I had ever thought about going to grad school. I told him, "no," which was the honest truth. I never felt that grad school was for me. My goal was always to finish undergrad and be done for good.

Fast Foward to Today...

I'm now a Co-Director at Y-Be-Fit, I'm in grad school, and I just found out today that my committee chair was awarded with $20,000 to use for my study that I'm really excited about. Actually obtaining a master's degree now seems attainable.

Reflection

• Had I gone on study abroad, I would have completely missed the email about the internship. Or even if I had received the email, applying would have been out of the question because I would have had to work fall semester instead of going to school (to pay my parents back for the trip and to earn money for future tuition).
  
• If I hadn't gone to school in the fall and gotten the internship at Y-Be-Fit, I wouldn't have met Nate and Joel who were extremely influential in my decision to apply for grad school.
  
• In addition, had I not gone to school in the fall, I wouldn't have had some majorly painful experiences that eventually led me to date my husband.
  
• Without the support of my husband, I would not be in grad school. He could have easily encouraged me to start working instead.

And now here I am, with nothing to complain about. Sure, things don't always go well for me on a day to day basis. But I feel so grateful for the experiences I'm having and that I'm where I should be right now. And one day my husband will go with me to Africa.

That is all. Sorry if I wasted your time.