You're killin' me, Smalls!

Well Hello there.....I have been so bad about writing, but half the reason I haven't written anything is because I knew I would spill the beans if I wrote anything!

Robbie and I are pregnant! (well...I am...)  I am about 9 weeks now and we had our first ultrasound last week.  The baby is looking fine and we saw the heartbeat! So awesome!  As exciting as that was, I am not going to lie....being pregnant in the first trimester SUCKS! I have been soooo sick. Ugh.  I started feeling sick about 4 weeks, and then at 5 weeks it all came down on me.  I had the unfortunate experience of catching the flu and becoming dehydrated in the process.  Throwing up every 20 minutes for three days is not exactly my idea of fun.  On the third night, it hadnt stopped so Robbie called our doctor to see if he thought I should go to the hospital to get an IV in my arm.  We almost did, but the doctor prescribed me this life saving pill called Zofran. I am not lying when I say it is LIFE SAVING. haha. Luckily, most Walgreens in Utah have the 24 hour pharmacy so we could go get it right away.  Ten minutes after I took that pill I stopped throwing up.  I was so happy/exhausted/overwhelmed I began to bawl.  So, I have been taking Zofran every single day.  If I didnt take it every 6 hours, I would be throwing up every 30 minutes.  It stops the throwing up, but the nausea still remains so i still feel like I will throw up...but hey, that is alot better than feeling like I'm going to ralph AND ralphing. So my days are pretty boring, I go to work at noon (the days i can make it...) then come home, cry, and watch TV until its time to go to bed. But about 4 more weeks of nausea and it will be gone! Hopefully....

Now that I've vented about how miserable I've been....I feel better :)  I've lost 10 pounds and counting... i hate how I lose weight when I shouldnt be.

Robbie is so excited to be a dad, and as scared I am about being a mom, I am excited too.  Ive temporarily named our baby "Smalls".  I love the movie "The Sandlot", and when I am really sick I just think to myself...."You're killin' me Smalls!".  Because she/he IS! Haha.  I thought it fit Baby Brown pretty good :)

Right now, Smalls is the size of a grape, and her due date is February 4th.

I'll keep you posted!

Wow....I suck

I cant believe I haven't written since....forever! What the heck Ashleigh? Yeah I know I suck....there really just hasn't been much worth writing about ya know? Welp, lately I have just been going to work and coming home and cooking dinner and stuff and then going to bed. Pretty uneventful haha.  Well, I guess we did move so I could have written about that.  But the couch and entertainment center we ordered wont be here until this Saturday, and I didn't want to take pictures or anything until the new apartment is all ready!

Robs got an internship with the business department at Sprint for the summer. This is HUGE for him! The hard work at Sprint over the past 3 1/2 years (that is a LONG time to be selling cell phones and dealing with angry customers, poor guy) has finally paid off.  The internship will be paying him more than he earns now, will be only monday-friday, (I get to spend the weekends with him! no more crazy retail schedules!) and if all ends up well, he could get a job at the business department.  This will be such a huge step for his career, and will definitely look stunning on his already awesome resume for grad school.  I am so excited to have a husband who will have saturdays off with me! That means we can go to the lake, camp, hike, and do whatever we want every single weekend. This summer will be amazing and I seriously can't wait!!!

Other than that, my parents came down over conference weekend and it was soooooo good to see them. I thought I was going to lose my mind without seeing any Perkins' in a while.  I need my family to keep me in check and make sure I still have that crazy Perkins' sense of humor and fun.  Holy cow the older I get, the more I realize I am my dad in a woman's body haha. I love it. I love my family so much and it was great to see them.  We didn't do anything too exciting, just laid around, relaxed, hung out, you know....just stuff.  But thats all I really wanted to do anyway.

The more I write, the more I realize I really DO have a lot of things to update on haha. Mah bad.

I have some cysts on my ovaries.  I knew something was up when this last period left me wrenched (is that a word? It sounds pretty good...) over in such excruciating pain that I couldn't even stand up.  I called my gyno and he had me come in on the last day of my P.  They did this crazy ultrasound. let me just stop right here and tell you about this ultrasound.   So whenever someone says "ultrasound" I think of that cool thing the rub on women's pregnant bellies.  No thats not what happened to me.  The doctor told me that he wanted to do an ultrasound when I told him about my symptoms and he said they had to sick it up my vag. (He didn't use quite the wording I just used....) Haha I thought he was kidding! No way Jose he came in the room with this crazy stick thing and sure enough he stuck it up there! HELLLLLO! Yeah that hurt pretty bad. But thats the kind of ultrasound thingy they used on me.  Sure enough, I have 4 or so cysts on my left ovary and  5 or 6 on my right.  No wonder I was in so much pain holy cow Chester!  But let me just tell you that period I had was soooo painful.  I have never been so bloated.  I have never felt so swollen.  My insides felt so swollen that any pressure on my abdomen at all killllllled man! Everything was so swollen that I couldn't even put a tampon up there because it was so......swolllen. That was a very graphic depiction of my last period but I wanted you to know.  Anywho...he gave me some birth control which SHOULD shrink them, (and also makes me sick as a dog and crazzzzzzy) but said that if it is still bad next month, to call and he'll prescribe some pain pills.  I am really nervous for next month...I really hope it doesnt happen again!  If those cysts don't go away or they get bigger, they will have to surgically remove them.

Soooo thats life right now.  Oh wait? Did I tell you we bought a car?  Its a Toyota Avalon and I love it!

Sorry that took forever.  I had to write per Lacey's request.  Turns out I had a lot more to say than I thought! My life just seems so boring until I take the time to sit down and disect it.

Ok bye!

PF Changs Lettuce Wraps. Mmm Mmm Good!

OH MY HECK!  Today at work I was really craving some PF Changs lettuce wraps, and decided I would test my cooking skills by making some tonight! Making lettuce wraps don't sound too hard right? WRONG! I am seriously surprised they turned out as good as they did for me tonight. I learned two important lessons tonight.

1) Be careful when you have a wok full of boiling lava hot oil! OUCH!

2) A little bit of sesame seed oil goes a LOONNNNGGGGG way :)

The recipe I found is amazing...these tasted just like the ones at the restaurant! I challenge anyone who is reading this blog to try this out! (Pick a night where you have at least an hour and a half to cook....)

Here is the recipe and instructions.

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 Chicken breasts

1 cup water chestnuts

2/3 Cup mushroom (I didn't use the mushrooms and you couldn't even tell)

3 Tablespoons minced garlic 

1 head of iceberg lettuce

Special Sauce

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar

2 Tablespoons ketchup

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1/8 teaspoon sesame oil (make sure its NO more than 1/8 teaspoon)

1 Tablespoon hot mustard

2 Tablespoons water

1 teaspoon garlic (minced)

1 1/2 teaspoon red chile paste

Stir Fry Sauce

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon rice wine vinegar

1) Make special sauce by dissolving sugar in water in a small bowl.

2) Add soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ketchup, lemon and sesame oil.

3)Mix well. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

4) Combine hot water w/ mustard and set aside.

5) Eventually, add your desired amount of mustard, garlic, and chile paste to special sauce mixture to pour over wraps. 

6) Bring oil to high heat in wok.

7) Saute chicken breasts 4-5 minutes until almost done. (to avoid having dry chicken, finish cooking the chicken at the end) Remove and cool.

8) Keep oil in pan hot.

9) Mince chestnuts and mushrooms small. The size of peas would be great.

10) Make stir fry sauce by mixing soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice vinegar in a small bowl.

11) When chicken is cooled, mince it to the same size as the water chestnuts and mushrooms.

12) With the pan still on high heat, add another teaspoon of vegetable oil.

13) Add chicken, minced garlic, onions, water chestnuts, and mushrooms into the pan.

14) Add stir fry sauce to the pan and saute the mix for a few minutes. 

15) Serve in the "lettuce cups".

16. Top it all off with the "special sauce".

AMAZAZAZING!

Seriously, Jake?

Ok, I don't know about any of you out there, but I have watched the Bachelor religiously this season. I just get so frustrated every single week because of VIENNA! EWWW! Have you googled her? (I have...) and she is so disgusting! She is sooooo ugly! Oh my heck. I guess after a little plastic surgery though, anyone can look halfway decent.  But take away her boob job, her nose job, her bleached out blonde hair and extensions, and her fake and baked tan...you have nothing but a spoiled brat with over-plucked eyebrows.  EW. I hope Jake gets rid of her soon. Haha. Ok. Done.




Please pick Tenley...ok Jake?

Ode to Rob.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I declare this post "Ode to Rob".  I just want to take a minute and declare my love for "Skidmark McGee" and how truly blessed I feel to have found a husband like him.

Robbie is one of the sweetest boys I have ever met. He is truly sensitive and puts me first in every situation.  Just one example of this: On our 6th month anniversary, he took me to Nordstrom Rack so I could pick out some jewelry by Betsy Johnson. (I LOVE her jewelry) He didn't expect anything in return, and I found it funny that on OUR anniversary, all he wanted to do was make ME happy. He never thinks about himself, and that is just one example. He treats me like that everyday. 

**He never yells. He never belittles me.  He is sensitive to my feelings and never says anything out of line.  As we venture into the world of having "married friends", I have realized by hanging out with other couples, that Robbie really is one in a million.  Some of the husbands I have been around don't treat their wives half as good as Robbie does to me.  

**No matter how hard I TRY to annoy him, he can still only smile and laugh. Sometimes I feel like its impossible for me to get on his nerves....and if I DO...he hides it VERY well...which is nice :) 

**Even after being together almost 2 years, he still opens the door for me everywhere we go.

**All he can ever think about is doing nice things for me.  When he gets a paycheck, instead of immediately looking for things that he wants, he gets online and looks at stuff he would like to get me. ( I am not a very material person, I don't know why he loves doing that. Its his OWN idea haha.)

**He is very ambitious and hard-working.  If he sets his mind to something, it WILL be done.  I feel like I will never have to worry about him supporting me and our future family.

**He is patient.  I am emotional. Get it?

**Lets be honest, I have some self-esteem issues.  Robbie makes me feel beautiful, and he NEVER talks about other girls, looks at other girls, or says other girls are pretty.  To be honest, I really wouldn't care if he said "That girl was really pretty" but the fact that he doesn't is nice.

**I feel comfortable knowing that he is our foundation.  No matter how lazy I feel, we will always say our prayers, read our scriptures, and pay our tithing.

**He is freaking HOT. I see girls checking him out wherever we go. I like the feeling that I have what they want ;-)

**He treats me like a princess.

** He is self-less, respectful, and understanding.

**I could go on and on, but then again I don't think you would want to read a novel about how much I love my husband.

Lastly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, he reminds me sooo much of my DAD! That makes me feel good inside, because my dad is the most respectful, most LOVING, caring, self-less, patient, and amazing man that I know.  My dad treats my mom like a princess, and I love knowing that I picked someone just like him.

 

One on One time. With myself.

Today I had the day off since it was a holiday, but Robbie still had to work because he works in the exciting and wonderful world of retail.  I really wanted to make the most of my day off so I cleaned the apartment, got ready, and then headed to Antelope Island for some picture taking. Welp,  being the airhead that I am, I got to Antelope Island and realized I probably wouldn't have enough gas to explore the island AND get back in rage of a gas station before I ran out of gas. Typical.  So I took some pictures right at the gate and then left, barely making it to the gas station. I frustrate myself.  Anyways, it was beautiful out there today with the inversion letting up and whatnot.  You could actually see the sky!  I am definitely going back out there as soon as I can- with a FULL tank of gas! I want to take more pictures out there as soon as possible.  Here are some of my pretty pictures from today. Next time it will be better :)

                            

Yeah, thats about all I could get today... pathetic eh? Yeah, but I really enjoyed the time to myself! Expect more soon! 

i am going crazy!!

Ok so my friend Ally and I were sitting in Olive Garden a few weeks ago and I saw this woman wearing the CUTEST hat ever. Well, it wasnt really a hat its technically an ear warmer. But its knit and has a knit flower on the side. I cant find it anywhere and I want one soooo bad! If anybody knows where I can buy one let me know...its seriously driving me nuts haha.



that is all.


Oh PS.  I am watching the biggest loser and as much as i like this show, they make every little thing into the biggest dramatic event possible. A woman just fell and got a bloody nose and she was being such a freaking baby about it. They took her to the hospital in an ambulance.  Seriously? Get over it. Ive broken bones without even going to the hospital until a week later.  muthaPLEASE.