I don't watch scary movies. Mostly because I'm a big wuss. I don't understand the appeal of choosing to spend a couple of hours feeling absolutely tense and uncomfortable. About the scariest movie I can handle (on a good day) is Signs. Pathetic? Maybe.

But it gets more pathetic. Why? Pregnancy. Yes, those pesky hormones have caused my scary movie aversion to soar to levels well above the atmosphere.

A while back Adam and I picked up a copy of "The Spiderwick Chronicles" on DVD for 3 bucks. We had taken some nieces and nephews to see it earlier this year and both thought it was pretty good. If nothing else it was cute.

I have not been able to bring myself to watch it again.

We finally popped it in the other night and about 60 seconds in I flipped out and told Adam "I can't watch this!" That's right. I got too scared remembering the movie to even try watching it. I couldn't watch a children's movie, a movie rated PG ("for scary creature action and violence, peril and some thematic elements"), a movie my 4 year old* niece seemed to handle just fine (her only complaint was that it was too loud at times).

I once made fun of my dad for being scared of the flying monkeys (from "The Wizard of Oz") when he was a kid.

At least he was only frightened by kid's movies when he was a kid.

*I'm not actually positive she's 4 years old, but close enough.

Friday (yesterday) night I attended a Girl's Night which consisted of chatting and chowing down on cupcakes. Oh, yum! It was a lot of fun. It was great to get out of the house and spend some time with other women (not that I don't LOVE spending time with Adam, I do). In fact, it was so fun I didn't get home until about 3 in the morning. *sheepish grin*

Of course...I would have just slept in this morning to make up for my late night cupcake caper but our ward Relief Society had "Super Saturday" this morning at 9:00! Plus I had to get up and go to Micheal's first to buy some paint. I've never been to a "Super Saturday" before but I'm a fan. It's basically a chance for us women to get together, do crafts, chat, eat, etc. What a blast!

Behold! My crafts!

This nifty thing-a-ma-jig is now hanging in our entryway (thank you Adam)! The knobs are magnets. We're going to use it as a place to stash in-going and out-going mail. I picked that particular shade of red I for two reasons:
1. My mom gave me her Kitchen-Aid mixer (which, incidentally, I gave her as a gift some time ago). The mixer is bright red. So I use red as the accent color in my kitchen. I have a paper towel holder, trivets, and utensil holder in the same shade (also gifts from my mom).
2. I didn't want to buy two separate paint colors and I thought I needed to bring my own paint for the craft below (which I wanted in this shade of red).


This isn't quite finished. I need to grab some ribbon so I can hang it. There were several spools of ribbon available but none of them matched. I'm also kind of bummed that I didn't get the vinyl letters/picture centered. But there's nothing to do about it now. At least it's not terribly off-kilter. [Just FYI: the box the plaque is sitting on is Lovey's car seat! One less item to worry about! Of course, we had to buy this particular item new because it's not safe to buy used ones. It's a convertible car seat though. So it'll get her from infant stage through child stage.]
When we signed up for which projects we wanted to do I got the impression (like I mentioned) that we needed to provide our own paint. Since I plan on focusing on red and white (and green) for my Christmas decorations I wanted to do this in a festive red. There were lots of different shades to choose from at Micheal's. Fortunately, in the midst of pondering which shade would be best, I noticed this one, called "Christmas Red." I'm going with a red/white/green theme for Christmas for several reasons:
1. It's classic. As much as I love the blue and white Christmas decorations, and even the purple ones, that are so in vogue right now those colors won't stay in style forever.
2. It's affordable (my ultimate priority, especially with how tight things are this year). I can easily make decorations in these colors using cheap materials (peppermints, ribbon, holly, etc.).
3. It's easy. The colors are already so prevalent at this time of year. After all...what color is snow? The Christmas tree? Yeah. Exactly.


And my final craft? A "Reverence Book" or "Quiet Book" for Lovey to (someday) use during Church. There was no possible way to finish this one today. But I'm still excited about it. The front has a little "S" in the corner (for Shumate). The inside has lots of different scrap booking papers. I'll share several pictures so you get a feel for the pretty pages inside (sorry the photos aren't very good). And here's a link to the content I'll be using (though slightly changed). And this is where I found most of the clip art I'm going to use. Even after doing all the letters of the alphabet I'll have some extra pages. So I'll probably add in a "Who Loves You?" section and throw in some family pictures and such.



And now some photos unrelated to "Super Saturday."

This is the desk we got off Freecycle to use as my sewing table. Score!

And this is the wrapping paper that the baby book my mom gave me was wrapped in. Didn't I tell you it was adorable?

I just found out (about 5 minutes ago) that starting April 2009 Alberta health care coverage will cover MIDWIVES!!!

*happy dance*

That's too late to be of use to me this time around. But it's still wonderful, exciting news! All the research I've done indicates that midwives are good for babies and moms! There are no midwives in Medicine Hat. But hopefully this change in policy will encourage more midwives to start practices here in Alberta.

To read more about the change and how it'll help Albertans see the official announcement.

*Did my post title make anyone else think of "Wicked?"

I can't remember exactly which day this newest belly picture was taken (ETA: I checked the digital time stamp, it was 29 weeks and 0 days). But I was at 29 weeks and some number of days. Tomorrow I'll be 30 weeks along. Lovey is about 17 inches long from head to toe. My belly is certainly growing. But I still can't help but wonder "HOW DOES SHE FIT IN THERE!?" The stretch marks are multiplying. And my hair is frizzy because my pregnancy hormones are causing my hair to go curly.

Yesterday we were invited to Thanksgiving dinner by our neighbors/friends from Church. It was a wonderful meal! After the meal we let the two older children feel my belly. Their little girl was feeling too shy and didn't want to. But their son did, and as soon as he put his hand on my tummy Lovey kicked *right* where his hand was. His eyes lit up as if he had woken on Christmas morning to discover a real working space ship under the tree! It was very sweet. After the fact I realized besides Adam and I he is the only person who has felt Lovey move.

And in closing here are two other totally unrelated pictures for your enjoyment.

This is the current state of our entryway closet. The scale is all wonky. But you know what...it was free hand. I was tired. And I just didn't care enough to fix it. It's done by mixing 1 part dish detergent to one part acrylic paint (the soap is what makes it possible to clean up later).Saw this box at Wal-Mart. Do you notice anything funny? See the bit at the top about going online to vote for your favorite shape, diamond or square? Yeah...that's what Adam pointed out. They're the same. In fact...the two Shreddies (Canadian cereal) pictured are exactly the same. That's right. It's the same image just copied and turned on it's corner. How weird is that?

Add South America to my list! What am I talking about? This.