Baby Shower!

My Utah Walker Aunts (aunts from my Dad's side that live in Utah) threw me a baby shower on March 20th! I could not believe how much fun it was, and how delicious the food was!

These were the cute invitations they made! One of the cutest ideas I have ever seen! =>

Liann directed a fun matching game! All the words had something to do with pregnancy, and if you got the match you got the candy that went along with them. (ex: Breastfeeding=milk duds, Umbilical Cord=twislers, Conception=fun dip, Third Trimester= Chunky, etc etc) So fun!Some of my Pommerville aunts (and cousin) that came!

Some of the delicious food! (Probably the best chocolate covered Strawberries I have ever had!)The cute quesadilla makers!Look at that delicious dessert!! So Yummy!!!Present time! Our little one got so many cute things! I am so excited to use them all!! These were the gifts the Utah Walker Aunts got the baby. What a cute way to display them!!All the attendees. Thanks for coming! You made me feel so loved! =>My Mom and one of her sisters! They look so happy, I love it!Me and my Mom! She came up from CA for this! I am so grateful she could make it! I LOVED having her there!Me and my four aunts that threw the baby shower! (and little cousin). Thanks so much again! I really appreciated it, and had a blast! I love you all!! Now if I can just get this baby out to use all the cute baby things! =>

Sunbeams!

Last Sunday Jared and I substituted one of the sunbeam classes (our ward has 5). We got a class with four 3yr old boys.

The lesson was on the creation. So how to teach three year olds about what God created..... Jared's iPad to the rescue! He was so excited to use it! We Googled all sorts of animals, insects, and stuff having to do with earth (sun,etc) and made a slideshow-ish thing out of them. The game was to have the kids say what the picture was of (ex:lion, ant, hippo, etc) and sometimes even make the sound of the animal. Then we would ask "Who made the __(insert animal)__?" and they would answer (super excitedly) "Heavenly Father and Jesus!"
It seriously was one of the cutest things I have ever seen! I couldn't stop smiling the whole time they were playing the game! And in the middle of the game one of the little boys decided he was brave enough to touch the screen to change the picture (you just run your finger along the screen and the next picture appears. Again, the iPad is frickin sweet!) That brought a whole new level of excitement to this game! And Jared was cute and let each boy take turns changing the picture on the computer.

I don't know how much these little guys got out of our lesson, but it was fun to attempt to teach them! And I love seeing Jared play with kids! He is AMAZING with kids, and that makes me excited to have one of our own and get to see Jared play with her all the time! =>

Chocolate Easter Eggs

I might be a tad addicted to the DIY blogs out there. => And a couple weeks ago I came across an article on how to make a "grown-up" Easter treat ( here http://www.howdoesshe.com/easter-tradition), and it looked sooooo good, so I decided to make it. =>

The first step was to dip balloons in melted chocolate. Not that hard. => I then put it in the fridge to have the chocolate harden faster. The problem came when we (Jared and I) tried to take the balloons out. I guess we should have sprayed PAM on the balloons or something like that because there were definate pieces where the balloons would just not let go of the chocolate (but I couldn't really blame them, this chocolate was goooooood).
Out of the eight balloon eggs we did only 2 made it complete enough (with just minor holes) to be able to hold things in. The original recipie/blog post put chocolate mousse in the egg, but I wanted to put fresh fruit in it. So I bought some strawberries, but sadly they did not last long enough to make it into the chocolate eggs (I ate them => )
Jared came up witht he idea of filling them with bananas. It was yuummy, but something was missing. It lacked that "OMG!" part of it.
We will keep working on this because it is actually pretty fun, and one day we will have out little treat hit all the spots and be oh so delicious!

Baby Baking Update

Well this baby is cooking nicely, I am now 9 months pregnant. It feels like I have been pregnant FOREVER! But I hear the end is in sight.... i guess its just not clear enough in sight for me haha. I went to the baby doctor on Friday and found out I was 1cm dilated and 50% effaced. While that is fun to say, pregnant women can stay 1-3cm dilated for a month. I will not be a happy camper if that happens haha. But I have lost my mucous plug, I know that is no tell-tale sign but hopefully it means our little one will come soon! We are anxious to see how much I progress (if at all) when I go back to the doctors next week. And hopefully this little one will come out soon (but not so soon that my Mom is still across the pond =>) We (ok mostly I) would love an April baby =>

Lazy Boy..... Person

My Mom and three youngest brothers came up for my baby shower a few weeks ago (my baby shower was on Sat. March 20th). The friday before was our "errand" day, we were going out to buy a sewing machine and a lazy boy chair. That morning we were telling the boys the plan/schedule and when we got to the lazy boy chair Kaden commented "Oh I am so offended". That brought the other boys to actually listen (because lets face it, we know they were not really paying attention). Then the comments became "Why does everyone assume that just because we are boys we are lazy" and "As boys we are not lazy, we do PLENTY of active stuff" and so on and so on. And for the rest of the trip, and probably still now, they refused to call it a lazy "boy" chair and instead renamed it a lazy "person" chair. =>

Just FYI, the shopping day was a HUGE success!! Not only did I get a great sewing machine, I got the comfiest lazy "person" chair in the WORLD! Just look at it, how can you not just long to sit in it? It even rocks and reclines! Oh, I might be in love.... and I definately know Jared is. HE is a big fan of this chair! Thanks again Mom! (and baby shower pictures will be up as soon as I get them. I forgot to take pics so I have to get them from my Aunt that took some =>)

R.I.P

So this morning was one of the most traumatic mornings of my life, I committed a double bird-icide. =< I have never run into any animals with my car before, and today my car decideds to hit TWO of them! I swear all the birds are out to get me now.

The morning started off ok, I was at least out the door on time (6:15am, a great accomplishment) and I was driving to work minding my own buisness. When I get off the freeway and start going down the long street to my work building there was a line of about 10 cars a little ways in front of me. I may sound like a nerd but that made me very happy; because the only people who drive down that street that early in the morning are people I work with, and since I saw a lot of them that meant I was on time/early (which is an AMAZING feat). But then these two birds fly right into the middle of the road (i think they were too busy flirting to pay attention) and I couldn't miss them and they didn't fly away. I ran right into both of them with the front of my car (heard big thunks) then ran over one with my wheel. The other one was the most traumatic one. It bounced up onto my hood then bounced again and hit my windshield before it flew over my car.

I screamed for dear life and then started shaking and uncontrollably balling! I have no idea how I managed to drive into the parking lot of my work, but somehow I did and I was hysterical. I called Jared and I am sure I freaked him out. No one in the world could have possibly understood what I was saying thru my huge sobs, but as soon as he established that I was ok he let me cry-talk and even told some random jokes to get me to not think about it and calm down some. Then he was able to get me to understandably talk and tell him why I was crying. He is such a wonderful husband!

So eventually I calmed down, and what started out as a promising day of me being early to work actually ended as me being six minuted late => And all day I was worried that some part of a bird would be stuck to my car when I got out of work and birds would be sitting there waiting to attack me. Luckily my car was bird-less, except for blood on the windshield (I will make Jared clean it off when he gets home) and no bird gangs. I have no idea why that made me cry so hard. I blame these stupid pregnancy hormones that have been showing up lately. And I have had a headache all day because of my little over reaction. Oh well, at least I didn't try and hit the two nearly mating birds. Serves them right for doing such inappropriate PDA haha. But seriously, it truly freaked me out, and now I am sure all the other birds are out to get me; if not peck me then definitely poop on me. I just hope thy take compassion on this hormonally challenged pregnant lady haha.

Boys Session

My family has a tradition of taking each kid to Salt Lake to watch their conference session when they turn 12. (girls go to the YW session there and boys go to the Priesthood) In Febuary Kaden turned 12! Holy cow he is getting so old! But that meant that he, my Dad and Trey came up for the April conference!! They were going to stay at the condo in Park City, but Jared and I (and probably mostly my Mom) were able to talk them into staying with us => It was so much fun! I LOVE playing with my family!! I miss not being so close to them!Here are the boys off to big old Salt Lake for their Priesthood session! I love that they were all able to go! And I think the height stair step is funny (Jared = 6'6, Dad = 6'4, Trey = 6'1.5, then Kaden...... still int he 5 foot range) => They enjoyed conference very much, and Kaden loved that he was big enough to go! While they were at their 'boy' session I went over to play with my aunts at Nikkis house! I had a blast! We just love family!!

My Weakness

I have many weaknesses, and I will be the first to admit it, but I am pretty sure I can tell you my biggest fault......stress. I stress about anything and everything, but the thing I am most anal about it cleanliness. I HATE dirty! I am a complete stress-freak when it comes to cleaning my house, and this can drive Jared crazy. Although I am not perfectly cleanly (what can I say Im pregnant, work at a physically demanding full time job, and am lazy) I dont deep clean my home on a daily basis (which I probably should) but whenever anyone comes over my house HAS to be spotless!!! And whenever we go anywhere for a vacation, no matter how long, my house HAS to be spotless!!! And if its not..... well you don't even want to go there.

Due to this "condition" of mine, Jared deals with a lot of my anal crap at times. For example, I don't mind having people over for dinner or a game night, in fact I LOVE it, but when Jared pops the fact that some people are coming over in an hour its like a switch goes off in me. I start cleaning like a mad woman and get super stressed, and if Jared tries to talk to me, I am afraid I am not very nice. But as soon as the guests get here (and the house is clean) I am back to normal.

I do not know why this is. And I do not know how I can "fix" myself to not freak out if one little thing is out of place, or if I have not vaccumed or dusted before friends come over. I suppose I could steadily clean every day (I already do it every Saturday) but lets face it, I am too lazy for that. As for now, I am working on evening out my stress-cleaning monster. But I am so grateful for a husband that does not take it personally, who does all he can to help me, and who shows me how much he appreciates that I value a clean house. Hopefully I will be better soon and I can take the stress monster down to a lesser weakness =>

Jared and his Ipad

Today Jared came home with a little toy..... and Ipad. (picture is of him configuring some programs)

His company is going paperless, so they needed a tablet for customers to sign contracts and collect payments. He and his buisness partner have been researching many different brands of tablets (Archos, Blade, HP, etc) but Jared did not want to go to Mac (he is a die-hard PC), I on the other hand think Macs are way cute, therefore I am an advocate. => After trying various tablets they just were not cutting it. So Jared and Jermiah decided to just look at the Ipad.....
Needless to say, thye fell in love. It is far superior to anything they had previously looked at. Jared brought his home and is practically in heaven playing on it! I have to say, it is dang cool! I played with it for a little while and I was in awe! And I have brought Jared over to my side-knowing that Apple stuff is amazing! One of these days I will make a post using the Ipad, as for now, I will let Jared have quality time figuring out his new buisness toy. =>

Dear Hormones.....

Dear Hormones,
We have had a good relationship throughout these almost nine months; you dont come out except in sad movies/songs and you remain mild/almost non-existent the rest of the time. What happened to that? You dont go around making me cry in the middle of Wal-Mart because they no longer have my Easter candy, nor do you go and make me get upset with Jared for having a different view on things than I do. I would appreciate it if you cut the excess-make me crazy crap and return to normal. Thanks.

New Craft:Cute Wipes

So, I like to think I am crafty but the sad truth is I am far from it. I like to look at the craft blogs and say "oh yeah, I can do that project, no big" (I forget that the women that write those blogs are insane and not human) Well I tried one the other day. I see these cute decorated wipe holders everywhere and figured they were easy enough to make. They are definately not hard, but they are not as easy as I thought. haha

To start out, stores are dumb and organize thier products strangely. I went to at least four stores looking for portable hard wipe cases, and none had them in their baby section! Finally, at my fourth store I called my mom to enlist her help in looking at her stores. She informed me that the hard wipe cases (not the plastic portable packs) are in the travel-sized section and not the baby section. Why? I have no idea, but there they were. So I bought three, just so I wouldn't have to go on the hunt again =>
I have only decorated one and this is how it turned out.
It is not exactly how I invisioned it, and it took me about five times longer to do than I had anticipated, but I do not think its that bad for my first try. => And at least I have two other cases to perfect my cute-tening skills on =>