Preparing for Florida

Well, Spring Break is finally here!! I decided to go over to Mom's school after my school got out for the day (I wanted to make sure she wasn't still sick). I had the good fortune to arrive about half way through the 3rd and 4th grade Talent Show. Let's just say the highlight of the entire program was the jump roper and the bagpipe player, I didn't exactly see any future American Idol contestants in the group... but at least mom and I had a good laugh. Is it terrible of us to laugh at 9 & 10 year olds? I'm sure I was in at least one or two bad productions of my own at that age. I seem to recall all of us girl cousins somehow convincing Matt to be the boy part in all our silly plays. How sad were Chelsea and I the year that Mandy and Matt said they were too old to do plays with us. And the year we tried to do the Christmas story with Mackenzie playing baby Jesus but she wouldn't stop crying so we had to substitute her with some doll (it just wasn't the same). I think that the older I get the more I miss all those family get togethers. It will be really fun to have all the girls together again at Whitney's wedding. How far have we all come from the giggling girls that used to skinny dip in Aunt Marcia's pool, now we are all going to college, getting married, and having babies! Well, enough waxing nostalgic- Nate and I leave for Ft. Lauderdale in three days and I still have SO much to do. My house has been suffering from my lack of energy (love this pregnancy thing) so I need to do some major spring cleaning. I still haven't packed anything- in fact I haven't even tried on any of my summer clothes, who knows if they even fit anymore? Oh well, maybe I will get a shopping spree out of it! The forecast is for scattered thunderstorms on Tues. and Wed.- is it wrong to pray for sunshine? I really don't even care, I just want to sleep in with my husband for five days straight and not have it be 40 deg. outside. I am sure we will be posting lots of fun pictures after we get back so stay tuned for pictures of my lobster tan...

My Baby Bump

I can't believe I am actually posting a picture of my large white stomach but it seems like people become very interested in how big you are once you become pregnant. So here it is, the 12 week baby bump... Nate and I went to our second doctors appointment today and we got to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time! It was a little strange, you know that you have a baby inside you but it all of a sudden becomes very real. It took the doctor a little while to find it and then after she found it the baby moved and she had to spend another few minutes looking for it again, I guess our baby likes to squirm! It was really fun, I can't wait till our first ultrasound!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Nate and I had a great St. Patrick's Day. We slept in, cleaned the house, ate lunch at Potbelly's (I don't know if you all have these out west but it is a GREAT sandwich place), and then went to visit our new apartment complex. We have finally given in and decided to move to a new place. Unfortunately, our current apartment has smokers next door and underneath us. With all the smoke that is coming into our apartment through the ventilation, we just didn't feel comfortable having the baby in this apartment. So we found an apartment complex just a few miles from our current place. The nicest part is that the new place is 200 sq. ft. bigger than what we have now and there is a seperate room for the baby. So we came home from the new place and baked shamrock cookies (a big deal since I am not exactly a frequent baker). Nate did a very good job frosting the cookies. After our cookie baking extraveganza, we went to our friends the Pulsiphers to eat pizza and watch the basketball tournament. It was so nice to have a relaxing Saturday...it was rejuvinating. Now if I could only get the rest of the week to go as fast as the weekend.

Thanks!

I saw these countdowns on Mandy and Susie's blog and thought they were too cute... thanks for the great idea! I'll have to help mom set one up to track her weight loss.

When will summer vacation get here??

So I am at school right now but since we have Illinois State testing this week, I have absolutely nothing to do. I am finding that a lot of teaching is finding things to do to fill your time. I went to the temple with our youth this week, it was the first time I have ever done baptisms as an adult leader and not a youth. I got to be the towel lady, it was kind of fun! I was truly bummed at American Idol last night. I am beginning to feel bad for Sangyay (sp?)- you can tell that he knows he doesn't belong in the competition but he can't kick himself off. Last night everybody booed him- it is sad that people are just voting for him as a joke! We have our second doctor appointment on Monday, we are hoping to hear the baby's heartbeat but it may be too soon. I'll let you all know if we do... St. Patty's Day is on Saturday!! I am so excited (since I am now an Irish-in-law). I am going to make Nathan green waffles and Mom is making cornbeef and cabbage, I can't stand the smell right now so mom volunteered to make it so her house would stink rather than mine! If anyone has any good St. Patrick's Day traditions I would love to hear them. Enjoy your Thursday!

Go Cougars!

Well, Nathan and I were very excited to see that BYU has made it into the NCAA basketball tournament (they are an 8 seed in the South bracket). We were kind of hoping that they would be in the Midwest or West bracket so they could play here in Chicago but no such luck- their first game will be in Lexington, KY. Maybe Jon and Mandy will go and tell us all about it! In other news, we bought our first baby item yesterday. I dragged Nate to Target to look at a new swimsuit for our trip to Florida. I think I am just going to give in and buy a maternity suit, even though I don't need one yet, because I don't want to have to buy another one this summer. Anyway, of course I wander into the baby section (I love being able to do that now!) and I just wanted to buy one thing. It is weird how you don't really feel like you are having a baby until you start buying stuff. But since we don't find out what we are having for a couple more months, we had to figure out what to buy that could be unisex. We settled on a really cute Eddie Bauer diaperbag. It's black, so Nate can carry it and still feel manly. I made him carry it around the store a little, just to make sure that he would be comfortable with it, it was kind of weird to see him carrying a diaperbag! So we bought the bag and it is now sitting on the new glider (my Valentine's Day present), we have officially started our shrine to the baby. I can't wait to start buying clothes! How much longer do we have to wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl? I don't know if I am patient enough for this parenting thing! I guess time will tell...

Our Apartment

I know most of you are probably not interested in what our apartment looks like but I promised Christa a while ago that I would send her these pictures and posting them here is a lot easier! What is now the dining room will soon be turned into the baby's room (it's going to be quite a tight space!)

I hate winter!!

I am only posting this picture because it is the last time I remember Nate and I being at all tan (not like I have ever been one to tan)! I am so sick of the winter! I'm tired of snow and cold, I cannot wait until our trip to Ft. Lauderdale- only two more weeks. Spring Break is the one nice part about being a teacher!

New to blogging...

So mom and I thought this would be a good way to keep in touch with all of our family and friends. With so many exciting things happening this year we wanted to share our happiness with those we love the most. Hopefully mom will be able to do this without me looking over her shoulder (she has never been that handy with computers but I guess that is why our school employs a technology superintendent!) It should be fun to download pictures of my ever expanding waistline for our whole family to see!