Let It Snow

This is the last week of school, so I still don't have time to write, but after this week I'll put up our Thanksgiving stuff and more Christmas stuff. For now, this is the adventure of getting our Christmas tree, and the view I had this morning while I was eating breakfast in our living room.







Yay for Christmas!

December

I'll write about our Thanksgiving in St. George in a couple of days when I get the chance, but for now, Happy December!

Harry Potter

No matter what anyone says, I would have much rather watched Harry Potter this weekend than not go see Twilight because I'm not going to pay full theater price for it. A good thing about Twilight coming out, we get a new Harry Potter trailer! Can't wait for July 16th! I might have to start looking for a babysitter now in order to make sure I have one!

FHE with Garfield Thanksgiving

FHE has begun to be much more fun lately since we’ve started doing it every once in a while with the Larsens. Last night was another example of that. We had planned on watching Garfield Halloween (which you can watch in two parts here and here on YouTube) before Halloween but never got to it, but then we just had to watch Garfield Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving, so that’s what we did! They came over, we had these great no-bake cookies, and some pumpkin pie and then we watched both the Halloween and the Thanksgiving one! I don’t think I saw the Halloween one very much growing up, but I’ve definitely seen the Thanksgiving one like, 600 times because as soon as it started I knew the song they were singing and remembered some of the jokes. It’s really funny to watch cartoons you’ve seen as a kid because they are so different in your memory than in real life---a lot more singing. It was great fun, and fun to have the Larsens over! They’re always a riot to be with (we went to a haunted house with them before Halloween), and you’ll be able to see just what kind of people they are if you read their “M.U.D.” post on their blog.
Up next is Garfield Christmas (which even though I haven't cheated yet and watched, I do know you can watch it in two parts here and here on YouTube)!

Super Awesome Baby Shower

This weekend Jennie Dean threw me a baby shower, and let’s be honest, showers (of any kind) have a risk of being the most ridiculous things ever, and not enjoyable at all. This however, was not one of those times---it was sooooooo fun. I had a stake nursery deal I had to go to from 10-11, so I came home to Jennie, Brandon, Brandon’s sister Britt, and Jordan decorating the house with balloons, and a great “It’s a Boy” sign, specially made by Jennie. She brought really really really good food---great pasta salad, and to be honest, I don’t like pasta salad, but this was sooooo good! It was pasta made from a box, but it was the kind where you use oil instead of mayonnaise and it was sooooooooo good! We also had these little chicken deals. I don’t actually know what they were, but they tasted like mini chicken cordon bleu’s. We also had chocolate chip cookies, which of course, no one can turn down.
The people who came to the shower were (from the top left, clockwise) Jennie, Kristi (and her baby Braydon), Jordelle, Elisa, Kaiter, Rebecca, me, and Heidi. It was so great to have everyone there. We started out just chillin and then played some games. Usually I hate games at showers, but the ones we had were fun. We played one where there was a list of physical characteristics the baby could have and whether I would want each characteristic to be from Jordan or from me, and the person who matched the most to my list got a prize. We also all got nametags that had words like “crib, diaper, blanket, etc.” and we had to call each other by that word instead of by our names. Mine was “breast pump.” It was awkward—it was funny though to call each other by the silly names.
We then moved on to painting onesies. It was super fun. Everyone’s onesies were so creative, and I’m super excited to put the baby in them! Jordan’s started praying for the baby to “be straight, be a Republican, and like to kill things,” so that’s what I wrote on the onesie I decorated.

Then we opened presents---of course that was a pretty cool part. Everyone was so generous with their gifts and it was so great of everyone to bring something so nice, and there were so many things I wouldn’t have even though of to buy, but now I’m really glad I have them.
All in all, it was a great baby shower, and I’m so glad everyone came, and so thankful to Jennie for throwing it for me. It sure was fun!

Baby Update

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and just an update on the baby--he had a growth spurt! I grew 5 cm in two weeks, so I guess he's growing fast! The doctor also said that he's positioned himself in place to be born! He's in the right position with his back facing outward, so no back labor! (unless he moves around within the next 9 weeks, which is of course, possible) I've had more than one or two strangers talk about how big I am, but the doctor says I'm within the limits of regular (on the larger side, but not huge). I asked a lot of questions about when I should go to the hospital, my options for right after he comes out and what would be most comfortable for me, and about how I'm not going to be pushing for 3 minutes, but that it'll be approximately an hour of pushing. All in all it was a good appointment, and I like that I get to go every two weeks now (every week would be much better, but that'll start in 5 weeks). I brought my friend Heidi with me (she's the girl in the Halloween pictures that isn't dressed up) for this one because she wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat, and it was fun to have her there.

Yay baby!

Weekend in Salmon

I don't have any pictures of our weekend in Salmon, so you're just going to have to go look at Jennie and Brandon's blog to see the pictures. It was a great weekend, filled with relaxation and the wonders of upstate Idaho. The drive was awesome (there are mountains on both sides with snow on top) and Salmon is such an awesome little town. Friday night we got there and chatted it up with Jen's great family, and then Brandon and Jordan argued about politics for like, 3 hours---super fun. The next day, as it says on Jennie's blog, the boys went duck hunting, and Jen, her sister, her mom, and I did crafts. The canvas things they were making were super cool, and Jen painted some huge clothes pins to hang stuff from. I painted some pictures to go in the baby's room. When the boys got home, we shot some clay pigeons outside and then went out on the town. We went to this great restaurant called Bertram's Brewery where we had fish and chips. It was super good. Then we went for a walk around Salmon, and it is a diamond in the rough! It's too bad we couldn't be there more days because it would have been fun to go around Salmon in the daytime when all the little shops were open. Jordan and Brandon fantasized about opening a sporting goods store while Jen and I dreamed about opening a decor (or something...I can't really remember now) store right next door. After an eventful experience at King's (which has really good sales), we went and got a movie called "Run Fat Boy, Run." It was a pretty funny movie. The night ended with a lively game of Catchphrase. The next day was church, a great spaghetti lunch, and an awesome game of "Oh heck" and "Egyptian Rat Race."

We were really glad we went to Salmon and can't wait to go again when it's nicer outside.

Halloween

I don't have time to write about the party itself, but here are the picture from our Halloween party---it was a blast, and I'm really glad we did it.

Jordan was "white trash" and I was an "unemployed geisha."

Baby / Guest Room

I'll put up picture of Halloween later, but for now, here are the pictures I'm putting in the baby/guest room. Click here and put in kes04006@byui.edu. The animal pictures by Picasso I'm going to paint to have some color on it instead of just being plain. I'm also not using the actual Andy Warhol pictures, I'm taking pictures of me and Jordan and doing it for our family, but it's in the same style, with similar words on it. I'm also using the colors from The Very Hungry Caterpillar to do the colors for the rest of the room. The colors are bright and vibrant, so it'll just be a nice room to be in.

Enjoy!

My Great Husband

This morning while Jordan was at work he was told that a not-so-small project was due at the beginning of the day tomorrow. So, he started working on the project. At 6 at night I brought him fajitas for dinner, and then at 11 I brought him a donut and cocoa from Maverick for a break while I worked on a computer program. These are pictures of when I left at 12:30 am (technically the next day), and right this second it's 1:13 and he isn't home yet--that makes it a 16 hour day so far. He's a great man who gets the job done because he's reliable and letting down his employer is uncceptable to him which makes him so awesome at his job.

Yay for great husbands who love us enough to work long hours so we can eat.

Pumpkin Custard Profiteroles with Maple Caramel

If someone would make these for me and bring them to my house I would greatly appreciate it.

Another Weekend with Ladie

Brianna, Ladie’s sister, who’s living in Portland right now decided to spend the weekend in Rexburg to visit some friends. So, Ladie came up with her! She got here at 7 or so Friday night, and since we were all starving, immediately left for Snakebite in Idaho Falls for dinner. It’s one of all of our favorite restaurants. We’ve never been disappointed with the food before, and we certainly weren’t disappointed this time! Jordan and I both got the Teton Burger (mine in a lettuce wrap instead of a bun), and Ladie got the fish tacos (which she said were fantastic). When we got home, we made a gluten-free yellow cake with pumpkin cream cheese frosting.
That was absolutely amazing. The two didn’t really go together, but separately they were both really good, on their own. While we were eating the cake, we watched Baby Mama, which Ladie and I saw together in the theater when I went to Portland for the research conference. It was funny then and it’s just as funny now. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are just so funny, especially together. The next morning, I went to a baby shower for my friend Jordelle (which was super fun), came back, went and got construction paper for Ladie’s school lesson on homophones, and came back to chill for a bit. After Ladie was done with her lesson she left to spend the rest of her weekend in Rexburg with her sister, but the chilling for Jordan and I didn’t stop when she left. We kind of chilled for the rest of the day. Jordan didn’t change out of his pajamas all day, or go outside. Neither of us wanted to leave for lunchtime so we ordered a pizza (something with a lot of meat from Domino’s). We just watched tv all day, and were planning on leaving, but just didn’t end up getting out of the house. Jonathan and Rebecca Monson came over for a couple house at 10, where we watched the end of Reign of Fire (with Christian Bale), and then the last 45 minutes of Notting Hill. It was a pretty nice Saturday, and super good to see Ladie, again for the second weekend in a row.

Sooooooo funny

This is the funniest thing I've ever heard about Halloween---it's exactly how it is...it's so funny.

College Roommate Weekend

(make sure to click on all of the hyperlinks---they're good ones)

I blame it on pregnancy and also spending the whole summer by myself, but when 5:30 pm Friday afternoon rolled around, I did not want to spend the weekend alone. I’m usually ok with being by myself—-I can eat, watch, read, and do whatever I want. It’s usually pretty nice to spend some time by myself, but Friday night, that was not going to fly. So I called Ladie and Kate (who was going to be in Utah for the weekend) and we figured that I could stay at Ladie’s for the weekend (and follow her around a bit) and be able to see Kate sometime. This turned out to be the greatest idea ever. I was nervous about going, because I didn’t really want to drive down by myself (or really at all after all the summer driving), and I knew I had a lot of homework that needed to get done. After I had gotten done packing up and was in the car, but not out of Rexburg yet, I saw that during the time of calling other people I had a missed call from my physics friend Heidi. I listened to her message which said that she had just made dinner and wondered if I wanted to come over, eat, and do homework together. I wasn’t even to the highway yet—it wasn’t too late to turn around and do the smart thing! My solution was to call my mom (who was the one to first convince me to drive down to Utah in the first place) and asked her to convince me the best thing was for me to go to Utah. That was a great idea—she did it and there was no turning around! I got to Ladie’s house at midnight and she and I happily fell asleep talking in her bed.

The next day we happily woke up between 8 and 9 and made a batch of pumpkin pancakes with one of Ladie’s friends Taylor (who brought over that milk in a glass because he didn't have--and I quote "a sippy cup to bring it in." .

They were the most spectacular thing I’ve ever eaten. I’m sure it’s the pregnancy, but I just love pumpkin right now and they were extraordinary! They were gluten-free, because Ladie can’t eat gluten, but they were super super super good. I’m making them tonight with whole-wheat flour and they’ll hopefully turn out. While we were eating them, we watched a few episodes of Arrested Development (funny as ever), and snarked down the whole batch of pancakes. After we were done eating, Ladie and I went to a yoga class that Ladie goes to almost everyday (a real one, not one at BYUI, and not on a tape), and it was one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. It was nice to stretch my body and put it in different positions that aren’t in my regular regime of sitting in a chair and taking notes or sitting on my bed and doing homework. This is the room it was in, only it isn't a lounge anymore, it's a yoga room. The walls are the same color though, and there's still a window in the back. We did a lot of breathing which was really nice to just focus on breathing and not think about anything but the air circulating through your body. We did a lot of “sun salutations” and so I got a hang of them after a few sets of those. There were a few parts where I couldn’t really do because of my belly, but it wasn’t awkward, and I just did something else instead. It was a 90 minute class, which I didn’t think I’d be able to get through, but I did! I learned that my arms are really weak and that my abs have gotten pretty weak after not working out since school started. My arms, shoulders, and abs are pretty sore today, but it’s a pretty nice kind of sore. This morning while I was getting ready to go to school, I decided it would be kind of nice to do some yoga, so I did a couple things I remembered from the class and it was really nice! I really like using my body and keeping it active. It only took my 15 minutes to do everything I remembered, so I’m going to make an effort to get up an extra 15 minutes early so that I’ll be able to do it.

We got home, got ready for the night, and Enter Kate! She and Nic came up from Provo and the four of us went to Sawadee, the greatest Thai restaurant I’ve ever eaten at! Ladie’s been there a ton of times and really enjoys it and she was certainly right about the quality of food! The service was also super super fast, and the only solitary thing I would complain about was that every time they filled up my water glass, they kept adding ice so by the end of the night my glass was just full of ice. The pad thai was the best pad thai I’ve ever eaten, and I wish I could eat it every day. It was a little different than I’ve had before, in that it was a little sweeter, but it was absolutely spectacular. Our friend Greg loves this restaurant, but he had already eaten, so he just stopped by and talked to us while we ate. We got a lot of other dishes, which were all good, but the pad thai was certainly the best. That man with the spectacular beard is Greg, and it is has the most interesting texture to touch...I don't mind it even a bit. I'll put pictures up of Jordan's beard next. He shaved it off a few days ago, but I still want it to be recorded that he had one. After that we went to a great chocolate place that is run by a midget, but I guess he had surgery a few weeks ago so he hasn’t come back to work yet, so only regular sized people were there. It certainly didn’t change the quality of the food, though! I got a dark hot-chocolate, and I could have drunk it all night long. It was super super super thick, and exactly the way that hot chocolate should taste. It’s a good thing I live 4 hours away from that place or I’d be tempted to go back much more than necessary. (The following is an actual picture from the actual chocolate place) After that, Kate, Ladie, and I went back to Ladie's for a sleepover!

The first snow had fallen that day, and I had some of their Christmas presents in the back of my car so we had a little Christmas! The following is a video of it---I got Kate a Katherine Hepburn book and Ladie a Musée D'orsay picture book. It was a good idea and very fun.


The next day was kinda chill. We slowly got up and ready for the day, I drove Kate down to Provo and then got to see Rachel! We went to a restaurant called Carabba's Italian Grill and it was a very very very enjoyable meal. I got some kind of chicken filled with cheese (super good), with grilled zucchini. She got a smoothie and I got a frozen lemonade, and they came in these super sweet glasses that are in the picture. We also got dessert which were cheap and came in these super sweet small containers. We each chose two to eat, but I wish I had only gotten one because they were super rich. They were super super super good though, and very asthetically pleasing. It was super good to chat with Rachel and see her after a good long time of not seeing her (coming down to Utah just doesn't happen as often as it should).

After that I drove home! All in all it was a super good weekend and I'm so glad I did it! Every part was great and the lower gas gets, hopefully the more often it'll be able to happen!

Countdown

I'll be writing about my spectacular weekend hopefully later tonight, but I just wanted to point out that we're in the double digits for the baby countdown! I love being pregnant and am definitely going to be sad when I'm not pregnant anymore, but I also am so ecstatically excited for the baby to come that it doesn't seem like it'll be soon enough that he comes.

Love love love you all!

Autumn

Autumn is here!

All the spices that go in pumpkin pie are my favorite spices of all time, and autumn is when we use them the most, so I love autumn! You can already see that there has been a change to the format of the blog to celebrate the autumness of the time.

I started getting excited about autumn when this picture was posted on Kate's blog. It just looked so absolutely spectacularly autumn that the only thing to do was to get excited about the fabulous time of year. I've already made pumpkin bread pudding and they have pumpkin pie ice cream at Maverick, but just in case you don't have a handy Maverick nearby, you can go get Edy's Pumpkin Ice Cream . I also made pumpkin bran muffins which were super good even though they didn't really taste like pumpkin. It seems like I've made more autumn things lately but I can't for the life of me remember what they were. I think I'm going to make pumpkin bread though within the next couple of days when I get the chance. I also plan on cooking up some beef stew this week and I'd like to make some lentil soup sometime too.

Autumn is all so nice--all the fall smells of the dying leaves (not super happy if you think about what's coming up), raking the leaves and then the smell of burning them, and all the rest of the things that go along with autumn.

To celebrate autumn and the holiday that's coming up we had FHE with some friends and carved pumpkins! We did one that looks like Ironman and it just looks so awesome. Jordan and I both cleaned out the pumpkin, and then Jordan had the Ironman idea and I drew the outline of his face from a picture online and then we just taped it on the pumpkin and made it happen! We think it looks super awesome and I'm super glad Jordan had such a great idea!
We also baked pumpkin seeds which turned out better than Jordan and I have ever made them! It's because Katie (the the girl in the middle) pretty much did the whole thing and made sure not to burn them (that's always our problem). They tasted oh so good and I've been eating them all day at school!