practically pregnant in every way

being pregnant this time around is of course different.

i think back to when i was first pregnant with everton.  i slept in till noon everyday and stayed up till whenever.  those days are LONG GONE.  i value sleep now that i have a toddler and knowing that a newborn is coming next year i cherish sleep even more.  lately though, everton's been sleeping in till 9 or 10 and that's been glorious.  i have to put everton's needs before mine, except ice cream, he doesn't need that.  the nausea pretty much stopped since i hit my second trimester and man did i miss eating.  eat eat eat and sleep, they're my favorite things ever right now.  i've gotten back into freezer meal cooking and we're loving it, the trips to taco bell and mcdonald's have become a lot less frequent thank goodness.  i'll actually be doing a post on my most fav freezer meal crock pot recipes so stay tuned!

and thus begins the periodical posting of maternity pictures.

gestational age-20 weeks

i can't believe i'm halfway there already!

and speaking about life changes and stuff we recently found something else out that is going to turn our lives upside down, we're having a girl!!!! 

i had no inkling as to what the baby could be, just that on the way to the ultrasound appt brett said, "i am afraid of having a girl, not because of the girl herself but because of the shopping you'll be doing."

well be very afraid brett.  be very afraid.

as much as i love having a boy and that we have a ton of boy clothes already, i secretly did want a girl.  being in the little girl sections in target and H&M made me go crazy!

bring on the nail polish, tutus, the sassiness, the bows, flowers and the pinks but yet i will totally instill in her my love for the lord of the rings, harry potter, and anything MARVEL.  she's gonna be awesome.

it's so weird, i'm growing a baby girl!  she's getting to be quite the kicker and i'm definitely feeling pregnant.  my back's been hurting and i feel heavier even though i don't necessarily look it.  i already need a crane getting out of bed.

it's ALL WORTH it though!

ever since finding out that we're having a girl, i look at everton differently now.  he's going to be a big brother to a little girl?  is he going to be protective or totally mean to her?  i never had any brothers and always wished i had an older bro.  and from what my friends say about their brothers they were mean to them anyways.  if that's the case, i hope everton grows to love her as much as we do already.

poor kid, he probably just sees his mom slowly getting fatter and even lazier.  

he's in for quite a surprise next january!

i saw STAN LEE-SAT

LAST POST I SWEARS. i just have to write one more post about my last day (saturday) at salt lake comic con. i stayed the night at erin's apt in slc, that way i didn't have to drive from tooele really early and brett and everton could just hang out at home. we left what we thought was early enough to get to the salt palace and hit up the first panel on our schedule but when we got there, HOLY CRAP.  the line went from the salt palace, under some bridge, and i'm pretty sure it actually reached middle earth. 

standing in line pretty much sucked.  it got hot and felt like forever, but that's what i get right?  deciding to go on the most busy day of comic con?  seriously, i heard that 70-80,000 people came just on saturday and it felt like it.  that was the day my personal space didn't exist.  i'm sure the chitlin inside me lost some personal space too....sorry kid...but it was WORTH IT.

definitely missed the first panel on our list by the time we got in.  went to the next one then had lunch, which i brought a freakin subway sub in my backpack, i ain't paying 9 bucks for a sandwich.  

erin and i were darn sure we would make the next panel on our schedule, "Excelsior! Stan Lee!"  

every time we went to get into line for stan lee, the line was still for william shatner.  after spending some more time in the convention center we went to check on the line again, it was horrifyingly looooong and it was all for stan lee.  we were still able to get in, which i probably would've cried if we couldn't.  i saw him with my own eyes and he is so endearing.  i wish he was one of my grandpas.

fav Q and A's-

Q-"who would win in a fight, hulk or thor?"

A-"depends on who wrote the script!"

Q-"who would say is the sexiest character you've ever created?"

A-"i would say mary jane."

then he went on to say how after he named her mary jane, someone told him that that's another name people call marijuana.  and stan said, "i swear, on marvel comics, i did not know that!"

what a lovely old man.  i'm so grateful i got to see him live.

then we went to the, "Travels from Spartacus to Arrow to the White Orc Azog: Manu Bennett" panel.  erin and i have become quite infatuated with him.  he didn't wear colorful skinny jeans this time but he did teach some girl how to do the haka.  ADORABLE.  see vid below!

here are some of my most favorite cosplays.  it took me a while to get courage asking strangers to take pictures with them but i'm glad i did.  i got a little giddy when i saw my fav characters come to life.

logan/wolverine has always been my most favorite marvel character.

these kids are so freaking cute!  galadriel and bilbo with thorin in the back.  their mom had sewn ALL of their costumes.  i REALLY need to learn how to sew.

the cap'n and thor!

and dear loki, i'd say he's my second fav marvel man.  i seriously love this guy's costume.

our last and final panel was, "Superhero Films: What's Coming Up?  What Can DC Learn From Marvel Studios?"

this panel was a perfect way to end our time at comic con.  it was a small panel and all it consisted of were geeks galore debating the differences between DC and MARVEL films.  my kind of peeps.

erin and i were heartbroken that comic con came to a close.  i'm still a little sad now!

brett and everton picked me up and took me back to tooele.  man did i miss them though.  brett had taken everton to get his haircut and he looks like he aged 10 years and looked so different.

i loved my experience at my first comic con and hope to go back many times!

saw that erin and i are in an article on theonering.net!  we're totally famous now.

P.S. back to pregnancy news and regular life, we find out the gender this evening!  our appt is at 6.30.  

no clue why their office is open so late but this way brett doesn't have to take work off.

we're excited!

salt lake comic con-FRI

day 2 of one of the most awesome things i've attended.

on friday of salt lake comic con i had to leave early to drop everton off at my sister kyla's place in bluffdale.  bless her sweet heart for babysitting everton till brett got off work.  i REALLY didn't wanna have to deal with him all day.  but i sure feel bad that he pooped 3 times for her during that time.

then i was off to the salt palace again.  

i thought i left home with enough time to make it to the first panel on our schedule but with getting a toddler ready and out of the house we missed it.  but we had enough time to get to the next panel on our list, "An Unofficial Sneak Peak at The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."  The panel was hosted by TheOneRing.net.  we got front row and center.  as the panelists shared their insider info about the next hobbit film a guy came in and announced that a surprise special guest was coming in-manu bennett!  he played azog in the hobbit and holy cow was he adorable!  he had muscley arms, a cute new zealand accent, and awesome yellow skinny jeans, which i think he's the only guy that can pull it off.

in this pic he was demonstrating riding his "warg," how he was asking peter jackson what his relationship to his warg was, and that he named his warg, daisy.  i freaking loved it.

and then another guy announced that there was another surprise special guest coming in-william kircher!  erin and i were seriously just a few feet from these darling guys and were fangirling like crazy.

after that amazing panel we hurried on over to the "Darth Maul: Ray Park" panel, which of course, was just as amazing.  i love ray park more for his role as toad in x-men, which was the movie that made me even more obsessed with the MARVEL universe.

ray park talked about how much of a dream it was for him to be in star wars and how much it thrills him to still see darth maul's face on backpacks and lunchboxes.  what was really cool about these celeb panels was that audience members could get up and ask the celeb a question or could just tell them how much they love them.  one girl went up and told ray park that darth maul gave her nightmares for a year when she was younger and he apologized over and over to her.  it was hilarious.  also, ray park is a freaking karate master!  he knows the craziest kung fu, like bruce lee, jackie chan, and jet li.

after this, we had quite a lot of time to kill till the next panel we wanted to go to, so we thought we'd spend more time in the convention center.

1.  we met larry from TheOneRing.net who was a super nice guy and we chatted about all things tolkien and middle earth at theonering.net booth.

2.  we of course had to go back to weta workshop's booth and gawk some more at their amazing work.  i once had a dream that i got married to gollum, i guess he wasn't so thrilled to see his wife.

3.  at the lego booth they had really intricate lego sets of the shire, helm's deep, and the argonath. in the shire piece you can see bombur eatin a sausage.

4.  got to see a lot of the weapons from the hobbit films.

5.  ran into 2 of my boyfriends (sorry brett)

6.  war machine and iron man!  seriously, some of these people did amazing work with their costumes.

when it came time for "The Avengers & X-Men" panel we wanted to go to the line was horribly long and the panel was in a small room.  so annoying.  hopefully next year they'll figure out which panels should be in bigger rooms and whatnot.  but luckily there was the Dean Cain panel in one of the bigger rooms so erin and i decided to go to that.  we used to watch the lois and clark show with our fam growing up so it was awesome seeing him live.

we went to 2 more panels after this one and called it a night.

i have to say, standing in some of those lines and the surrounding body heat/odor from other people wore out this preggo nerd.  but there were quite a few other pregnant ladies there who were a lot farther along than i am.  i just don't know how they do it.  but still, i survived day 2!  and HUGE THANKS to kyla for watching everton that day!

shout out happy birthday to my bebe sis erin (who's no longer a teenager) and to my dad!

alyssa goes to her first comic con-THURS

i got to attend my first ever comic con here in salt lake city!  and salt lake comic con broke the record in attendance for first comic con EVER!  i bought my 3 day pass ticket back in june not really knowing what to expect and it was not what i was expecting at all!  it blew me away.  the geek in me exploded seeing all the costumes, celebs, booths, and panels.  i'm so glad i got to go with my sister, erin and we're hoping kyla and our mom can come with us next year!  brett would rather ingest lead paint than come with me to this geekfest but that's ok, he can watch the kids.

i did have to take everton for a few hours on thurs till brett picked him up after work, which brett's office is RIGHT next to the salt palace.  super convenient. but i learned that everton is a bit too young for this kind of thing.  i took him with me to the "JRR Tolkien to Peter Jackson: A look at All Things Middle Earth" panel and he got so antsy i kept trying to entertain him with food and cars.  he just made a crumbly mess with the food and he was making loud VROOM noises with the cars almost the whole time.  i can't wait to take him when he is really into all this kinda stuff like i am.  i think he did like gawking at some of the crazy costumes though.

once brett picked him up i was free from diapers and cars for the rest of the day.  

erin and i proceeded to "The Incredible Hulk: Lou Ferrigno" panel and got to sit in the front row.  what an amazing and inspiring man.

then after that panel we went to check out the weta workshop booth in the convention center.

weta workshop is a company that peter jackson used to create the lord of the rings films and continues their work on a ton of other movies nowadays.

erin and i definitely geeked out over all the things middle earth.

and we got to see this guy, william kircher!  he plays the dwarf, bifur, in the hobbit movies.

pretty sure we heard him talk more than he's ever talked or will talk in the hobbit films and he has an awesome accent.

we spent the rest of the evening seeing just a quarter of the convention floor then it was time to go.

end of day 1!