First Anniversary, Red Egg and a Baby Blessing

John and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary last month. We were able to eat our wedding cake for the first time. It was delish even a year later. If anyone in Sacramento needs a wedding cake, let me know and I will give you the info of my wedding cake maker.

I guess in China, when a baby reaches the ripe age of one month, they throw a party called a red egg celebration. I don't know much other than they have red eggs and red envelopes. My father-in-law and mother explained it to me, but it didn't stick. Instead, we just have pictures of her as a one-month-old baby.

Olivia even went to Texas Road House on her one month birthday!

For her one month birthday, my parents bought her a cradle/swing. It wasn't really just for her one month birthday, but it was to keep her mother sane. Olivia use to always want to be held. Even when she fell asleep and I would put her down, she knew it and cried until she was picked up again. Thanks to the swing, mama has a lot more freedom.

Olivia had her baby blessing this past weekend. Her grandparents, Uncle Ryan, Mackenzie, her mom, sister, and kids came up to visit! I didn't get a picture of Olivia with my parents. It was a busy day, but we did get one with John's parents!

Then we took a picture of all the kids together. Keelie was so much fun to have around and had so much fun playing with her dime! She loves her little brother and it was so cute watching her with him. Here are all the kids right next to each other. Sorry the picture is on it's side. I can't get it to be normal.


Coming up soon: Yellowstone!

Olivia's First Few Weeks of Life

Olivia is almost three weeks old already which seems like super old for her mother. I can't believe that I was pregnant that long ago, but now my little baby is getting old! And it's only been three weeks. John has had this entire time off work and he is going back tomorrow, so this is a perfect time to update the activities we've been doing.


Her bouncer. I don't think she really likes it that much though.


Her first stuffed animal from Granmama


I swore my child wouldn't leave the house for at least a month after birth, but just 9 days old, she went to Daddy's work, ate at Olive Garden, and dropped Granmama off at the airport.


Her PaPA came to see her for the first time and volunteered to change her poopy diaper. After only four sons, his reaction was "There's parts missing!". That's what happens when it's a girl.


That smile was on PaPA's face all weekend long.


Off-roading with her stroller.


Then a Big Judd's trip.


On the couch being ignored


Olivia with her Uncle Ryan who visited twice already.


I tried to watch General Conference today, but I couldn't stop playing with Olivia and taking pictures.

And that about sums up her first few weeks. More will come as we start planing fun weekend activities!

Welcome Baby Olivia!

We have a child. After a wonderfully delightful labor and delivery, Olivia was born! She was 7 lbs 11 ounces and 19 inches long. She weighed the same that John did when he was born, except she is nearly 2 inches longer!

Here are some pictures! I was planning on only putting one or two up, but narrowing down pictures of my own child was harder than thought. Enjoy!



I think this picture is hilarious! This is the trash that we needed to put diapers in. Obviously dirty diapers are a bio hazard.

Going Home!

Hat Grandma Ruthie made for Olivia

GranMaMa McAdam


Uncle Ryan


I hope you enjoyed the pictures! More updates to come later!

If you want to read the entire childbirth story, click here to read it on my Observations About Nothing blog.

Baby Preparation Done: Ready for Baby

Just a few more weeks until the baby gets here and we just got the last of the baby gear in on Tuesday! Now we have all the big purchases out of the way and all the little ones too for when the baby comes.

And now for a little comedy:

My parents came up this week for a few days to help with the last minute preparations. It helped too that my parents did all my cooking and the dishes for me while I was here. I just love it when my mom says, "Melinda, you can't do the dishes! You'll get too tired." I don't argue. I just let her go for it.

While they were here, we went down to the mall to look around and there were four clown-white-skin-color kids with red bandannas on. They were in line to take pictures at a photo booth. Scary eh? My father works at a high school with kids that have had trouble with the law or got kicked out of their school for whatever reason. He knows what a thug looks like, or at least a California thug.

And now he knows what an Idaho "thug" looks like. Red bandannas, nice new clothes, just waiting in line patiently at a photo booth for children. My father on the other hand, looks more like a thug than they did. Here's a picture of him trying to look like Will Smith from the movie I-Robot. So, that was my long boring story just to explain this picture.


My father as Will Smith

John LOVES seafood, especially lobster. I don't know what my mom does to make seafood taste so delish, but she made some just for John the night before they left.

This is Johnny with his favorite lobster tail. It tasted way better than the one that we boiled for Christmas.

Along with his lobster tail, we had salmon and shrimp with rice and veggies. John hasn't eaten this well since before I got pregnant.


We're bad at taking pictures, but here is a picture of us at the dinner table. If you look very closely, on the wall there is a paper that says, "BYU-MARRIOT GMAT:700". Not only is that sign right behind my mom, it is also posted behind the camera, 7 additional ones in he living room, 2 more in the kitchen, and who knows how many in the back rooms.

John wanted a little more motivation to study for the GMAT. Although I think it is really tacky to have 7 of these in plain view when guest come into the house, John was just so excited about it, I had to let him put these up. My parents also encouraged him by telling him more places that he may have forgotten to put them up. (Thanks Mom and Dad: putting ideas into John's head) I don't mind them anymore, but if you come over to my house, don't be surprise that it says BYU-MARRIOT everywhere.

That's all for now. Oh, as for a baby update, I went into my doctor yesterday and begged her if there is anything that she can do so that I can have this baby a little earlier. I'm not mobile anymore and I'm just uncomfortable, so I want the baby out soon. She said everything looks good and if I am really that miserable she can induce at 39 weeks which is a week and a half away. I go in next week for a check up and if I still feel the way I do, my friend told me to cry and they'll probably induce. We'll keep you posted, but don't be surprised if this baby comes super late. I've never been super lucky with things like this.

Amanda vs Melinda: Pregnancy Belly Comparisons

My sister and I are physically very different. One of the ways that we are different is the way that we handle pregnancy. Starting from week six, I was really sick, but then had a two month break in my 2nd trimester. Once 3rd trimester hit, I began being the sick pregnant lady again. My sister on the other hand, never felt a bit sick the nine months of her pregnancy. She says it's because she's taller and the baby has more room to swim around. I would have to agree with her on this one.

I do have one advantage to pregnancy though. Amanda got stretch marks when she was pregnant with her kids. However, my sister, asking me about stretch marks, phrased it by saying, "Your body must be a road map by now!" Little did she know I inherited my mothers stretchy skin.

I had my sister send me a few pictures of when she was pregnant with her first child so that we could compare how a baby fits into someone that is 5'10 and someone who is 5'2. You've probably seen most of my pictures, but here they are next to Amanda's. Her pictures are smaller than mine and I don't know how to fix it. Here you go! I hope you enjoy!


Amanda 26 weeks


Me 25 weeks


Amanda 30 weeks


Me 30 weeks with my friend Jessica who is 28 weeks in this picture.


Amanda 34 weeks


Me 35 weeks

Looking at the pictures now, we do look pretty similar, but I thought some of you might like to see how we look.

Just a few more weeks! Hopefully the next blog will have baby pictures instead!

Last Childless Traveling

We haven't been on many really neat adventures lately. With freezing weather, business trips, and pregnancy, we haven't been planning very many fun weekends. Our last big trip was to Utah for John's business meetings. I was able to go along with him this time since I am currently out of school and have a very flexible schedule.

Last Sunday we went down and visited with John's brother and some of his cousins. When we go down to Utah to visit his family, it's the only time for John to play video games, so we had to go down Monday night too so he could get his share in before the child is born.

We stayed at a hotel with a really nice view. Here's a picture, but it was so nice because of the mountains in the back, but this picture does not do it justice.



While John went to his meetings, I stayed in the hotel room and worked on my family history since the family history center was so close to the hotel. My mom just got a lot of new Chinese family names and I put them into the computer. When I was kicked out of the hotel at check out time, it was not a problem since I spent most of my afternoon in the family history center getting help from a lady that knows more Chinese than I do. Just a few more hours on my own, and we will have tons of names to take to the temple.

Lastly, we are just waiting for the baby to come now. I am 35 weeks pregnant now and am not very mobile. I don't look too big, but walking isn't very enjoyable for me right now. That's mostly why we do puzzles and play board games inside than go out and do mini hikes. Here's a picture which I don't think I look any more pregnant than my other pictures, but I'm definitely bigger.



That's all for now. We will keep you all posted the next time something new and exciting happens!

Christmas with the McAdam Family

Christmas here with the McAdam family was simple, memorable, and a lot of fun! Unfortunately, we are still really bad with our picture taking, but here are a few pictures that we took during our first married Christmas together.


For lunch, we had John's favorite food: lobster! It was nothing extraordinary, but it was delish! We added a little crab and some sparkling apple juice to make it a little more special.


Dinner time! Unfortunately I was sick during Christmas time, but I was planning on having something extravagant for dinner. Instead we settled for omelets and cinnamon rolls. It tasted super good and was probably better than cooking all day and having 4 weeks worth of left overs.

My parents were in Hong Kong for my cousin's wedding during Christmas so making a trip out to California would have still been fun, but we had something different planned. John's parent's and brother Jared came up to Rexburg to visit us the day after Christmas and stayed for a few days before we went off to Logan for a week. While they were here, John's mom and I started attacking the baby stores and began decorating the nursery. John's office is really big and has a perfect little nook that we designated as the baby area. We use to put all of the Kan Do Kandy business stuff there, but now I won't let it enter my baby area. Here are a few pictures with the crib. I plan on doing a little more, but this is just the start.




Here's the full view. We plan on putting some storage things under the crib, putting in a changing table, and adding a few more things to the wood-panel walls.

And just in case you wanted a belly-picture update:


I am 30 weeks along in this picture. I'm not a fan of maternity pants, so if you see me wearing these pajama pants in all my pictures, it's because they're the most comfy.

The Tuesday after Christmas, we all went down to Logan, UT because John's parents rented a house there for the entire family to stay. John's brother Ryan came up from Provo, UT and Jacob flew up from Santa Rosa. Again, I don't know why we don't take very many pictures, but here is the one picture that we took the entire time.


John's family has a Hersey's puzzle that they do every year doing Christmas time. Just to spice things up a little, we started a new tradition this year to time ourselves working on the puzzle and hopefully we will beat our time next year. With seven people working on the puzzle, it took us 1 hour 5 minutes, and 27.1 seconds to complete the puzzle. Next year, we plan on shaving off at least five minutes to get our time under an hour.

For New Years, all of John's cousins joined us at the house. We all had fun eating dinner together and playing games.

When we got home, John and I had a wonderful surprise waiting for us!


For those of you who don't know what this is, it is our thermostat. The temperature when we got home was 31 degrees in the house. It was a good 3 degrees outside in the early afternoon. John shoveled several feet of snow so that we could park the car in our driveway while I brought everything in. When all was done, we noticed we had a few more surprises waiting for us:


Nalgene bottle that use to have water in it, but turned to ice.


A glass of water that I left on my nightstand.


My olive oil container.


Our Dawn dish soap.


We have to leave all of our faucets running here in Rexburg because if we don't, then the lack of water flow causes the pipes to freeze. Here in our bathtub, we have a thin layer of ice. It's hard to see, but it's there.


Lesson learned: put anti-freeze in the toilet always.

What we learned:
When leaving on a trip in the middle of Winter, put everything in the fridge to keep it warm.

Hope you enjoyed the update!