Christmas events

I can't believe Christmas is already over!! It flew by and we had a great holiday weekend. We had family arrive on Thursday evening. We went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then saw the new Mission Impossible movie. Definitely enjoyed it! Friday morning the boys went running, which had Tyler's legs really sore for a while. We both are excited to get back into shape asap!

We ran some errands, including the purchase of a pack 'n' play for Peanut! Now we have something to bring her home in and somewhere to put her once we get home. 

We had In 'n' Out for lunch and I made some cookies to take to Aunt Sheila's for the family dinner. It was a Feliz Navidad with Mexican food galore in honor of the 3 missionaries from our family serving in Mexico/Peru! Yummy. We went straight from Salt Lake over to Soldier Hollow for tubing! Well, so the boys could tube. I got to relax in the lodge with donuts and hot chocolate while chatting with Gretchen, Aunt Dana, and Aunt Sheila. 

Christmas Eve we had a lazy morning before running some errands- the BYU Bookstore, lunch at J Dawgs, a movie ("We Bought A Zoo"-- HIGHLY recommend), grocery store, and then a nap.  We spent the evening at Aunt Dana's, where we had a delicious waffle bar and did the nativity and everything. I was a very realistic Mary (the only one there who was great with child) and there is Oscar buzz about Tyler's performance as Joseph. It was fun. We played games for a while and and then went home. We made an attempt to watch Happy Feet before bed but were so tired we turned it off!

Christmas morning we had a yummy breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls and opened presents. Tyler and I feel so spoiled by our families! It was a fun morning. We went to church at 11 and then came home and had lasagna for lunch. We talked with my family a little bit and then got to talk to the missionaries! It was so fun to have all 3 of them on the phone at the same time. They all sound so great and that was a highlight of the weekend for sure. The rest of our afternoon was spent working on the puzzle Aunt Dana gave us for Christmas! Christmas puzzles are so fun.

That night we went to Cari and Ryan's for a yummy dinner and visiting with family. Christmas is the best that way! It was such a great day with everyone. 

Monday we slept in and then went to Magleby's Fresh for breakfast. Came home and worked on the puzzle again, and Kim and Sam came over to say hello. We had to get a belly pic since Kim is finally showing a tiny bit and I won't be pregnant for much longer!

Bumping bellies like when we were little- only these aren't pillows under our shirts!

That afternoon we finished the puzzle! I can't believe how quickly it came together- we are basically puzzle pros. 

With the finished product! I look like I have a bowling ball belly.

Weird lighting, but it was a beautiful puzzle! 1000 pieces baby!

We saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie that afternoon (also very good! Love holiday movies) and then ate at Cafe Rio again. Yep, again. I'm not ashamed! It's delicious and it's not available in Houston so there you go. Since we had a Utah dinner, we had to have a Texas dessert! So we went to the Provo Beach Resort, where they recently started serving Blue Bell ice cream. It definitely hit the spot- I ate so much! Actually, I'm pretty sure my next doc's appointment will reveal just how much I ate. 

This morning we said goodbye to our family! It's sad to go back to reality after such a fun holiday. Tyler is back at work today so I'm just chillin' at home- taking down Christmas decor and doing other stuff to get ready for Peanut's arrival. Now we're just playing the waiting game!

He's a dad already

Peanut's not here yet, but you might think she was the way Tyler is these days.

If you peeked in our window you'd probably see him pushing our new stroller around the apartment. Or practicing folding it or putting the carseat in and out of the car. In church on Sunday he leans over to me and asks if we can take our stroller on a walk later? Maybe once we have someone to put in it, dear!

While eating dinner a couple weeks ago, he stops for a minute and looks at my belly and says, "I just love her so much!" 

Pretty sure fatherhood will look amazing on him.

The school years, part 2

Fall 2008: Got a full-time job at Inwest Title as a courier, took a few classes in the evenings. Tyler and I joined an intramural bowling league and loved bowling every Thursday night! So many fun adventures this semester.  It was so fun living with Kim.

Y Hike

After the championship- Go Ducks!

Same story for Winter 2009: full-time work, part-time school. Tyler and I got engaged this semester! We also played intramural tennis and had fun, even if we didn't do very well...

Country-swing dancing... mid-laugh, it looks like

We both went home to Houston for the summer. Tyler had an internship and I had random odd-jobs, including babysitting, teaching swimming lessons, and running a couple tennis camps. We planned our wedding and had a great summer with our families.

Swimming- Memorial Day 

Astro's game 

Lagoon with Tiffany and Tyler- finally!

Wedding August 8 2009! We went on a cruise for our honeymoon and got back a few weeks before school started. I found a job as a receptionist at AMP Security and took the year off of school so we could save a bit. I also worked at Stevens-Henager College at night. Tyler worked part-time at Pinnacle and went through the jr. core. That was a blur of a year! We took a trip to Houston in October for our open house, and drove down for Christmas. Well, attempted to.

Family pic before open house

Sledding on my birthday

Baseball game with Heidi

Tyler had another internship in Houston that next summer and I stayed in Utah for work. I ran my first 10k and first half-marathon with Aubrey! Tyler came back in August and we went to Zion's for our anniversary.

A most attractive post-race picture

Fall came so fast. We both went to school full-time that semester and it was busy busy. We managed to squeeze some fun in though!

Basketball game with Randall and Crystal

Thanksgiving with the Juergens

Winter was another busy semester that year- we both worked (Tyler at Pinnacle, me at the School of Music office) and went to school. We loved having Garrett and Mitchell here at BYU that year!! It was so fun to spend time with them. Tyler played on an intramural basketball team with them as well as Adam, and they had so much fun. We got in a car accident in March and spent the rest of the semester getting that all taken care of. 

The Dunkin' and Covenants. So hard core!

Valentine's Day party with some of my best friends from high school

Poor car! 

We went down to Houston for Tyler's last internship at the end of May. He worked hard at his internship and I did a few independent study classes. We went to the Juergens reunion in June and loved being with our families. We had a great summer!

At Annie and Mike's wedding in May

Canoeing down the Colorado River with Kevin and Amy

Camped in Moab with Austin and Giselle before heading down to Houston

Fall '11... my last semester and Tyler's second-to-last! It flew by. Tyler was my hero and worked on top of school and taking care of a wimpy pregnant wife. Jeff got home from his mission just before school started and it was fun having him around. We had lots of family visit from out of town over the course of the semester and loved it!

I know I posted this recently...

Tyler's the best uncle!

 It's hard to believe I'm done with school! I feel so blessed to have been able to finish. It will probably feel more real once Tyler's done and we walk at graduation together. 

So congrats to me. And to anyone who made it through these 2 super-long posts! Just as impressive.

A campout... of sorts

Tyler and I celebrated being done with the semester with a little campout! Well, kind of. We camped the way you would being 9 months pregnant and in the winter.

Substitute a tent and sleeping bag on the cold ground for a comfy mattress in the living room,

Switch a tin-foil dinner for chicken and mashed potatoes,

Christmas tree lights instead of a fire for light,

And exchange star-gazing for a laptop Prison Break marathon!

But keep the happy campers. 

The school years, part 1

My alarm went off early this morning. Tyler had to be at work at 6:30 and my last final began at 7, so we both had multiple alarms set just in case. I stayed in bed for a few minutes going over the day in my mind- my last day of college! Then I went back to the first days and ran all the way through. So many good times!

My first semester began in April 2007. I left high school without walking at graduation and never really looked back! That first semester at BYU-I was quite an adventure. I ran myself ragged with school, dating, tennis, and working as a figure model for some art classes (I know, embarrassing). But Tiffany and I were roommates and just had way too much fun- junk food, getting extensions in our hair, etc. I also got to spend lots of time with Lindsay and Kenny and little Ty! Well, he was little back then.

I went home for the break, about 7 weeks. My body pretty much shut down and I spent most of the break recovering from mono! No fun. Fall 2007 Tiffany and I moved to a new apartment and had 4 new roomies- again, way too much fun. That was also a busy semester, and I loved every second of it! I worked for a telemarketing company, selling satellite. Hated the work, loved the people! My calling as FHE "Mom" was a blast and we had such a fun group. This post deserves so many more pictures of Tiffany and I- we had so many adventures! Sadly, most of those pictures are on my old computer, and I can't seem to find a good way to get them off. But seriously- Tiki was the reason my early college years were so great!!

Halloween 2007

Tennis team-- go Titans!

Cheering on our FHE brothers 

Roomies Fall '07

Winter 2008 I was off-track and actually transferred down to BYU Provo. This was kind of a hard semester for me! I always had a weird fear of BYU growing up, like I wasn't good enough to go there or something. I remember calling my mom crying on the first day of classes, so lost and so overwhelmed. But despite being scared, being in a long-distance relationship, taking 16 credits, and working 35 hours/week for the same telemarketing company that had just opened a Provo office, it really was an awesome semester. I loved living with Michelle (we always talked about it growing up!) and we had a great ward.

With Jess and Michelle- we're all related!

Not really sure...

Summer semester 2008 I went back up to Idaho. This semester is a bit blurry in my mind! I took lots of credits, worked at the Sno-Shack (one of my favorite jobs ever, no joke!), got engaged, got un-engaged, played lots of tennis, and got extensions again (Tiffany deserves an honorary hair degree for all her work on me over our time together)! Oh college.

Making jam with Saylor 

Tiffany taught me to longboard!

Playing at Rigby Lake 

Roommate dinner

I went home again for the 7-week break, unsure of what my next move would be. Provo or Idaho? Enter Tyler!! He got home from his mission that June, and when I got back from Idaho in late July we began dating. I worked for my now father-in-law at his chiropractic office (again, one of my favorite jobs ever!) and had such a great summer. I decided to go back to Provo a few weeks before school started and am so glad I did!

Tyler's first Blue Bell trip!

Pool with Botzy and AJ

Beach trip!

This is getting a bit lengthy... I'll save the rest for another day!

Quick note

All these statistics formulas just aren't sticking in my brain right now... too much other fun stuff bouncing around in there!

Cari and Aunt Sheila had a baby shower for me on Saturday. The theme was "Hello Peanut" and we feel so spoiled by everyone's generosity! We had a great time and Peanut's room now looks like a cute pink bomb exploded in it. Pictures to come soon, hopefully.

As of yesterday I am dilated to a little over 1 centimeter... which I know doesn't mean much but it's still exciting to me! Tyler is so cute, telling me to lie down all the time. He brings me water constantly and is trying to take over cooking like I'm crippled or something. It's adorable! I think he'll be less worried once I'm done with my last final on Thursday and Peanut still isn't here.

2 finals down, 4 to go. Tyler is 1 down and 4 to go. Tonight we are giving a presentation together for our humanities class. How fun is that? Our assignment is to cover the whole class in 3-5 minutes... wowsers. So we're going to talk about various people we have learned about and what they did and why we would or would not name our child after them. Gotta use the pregnant factor for creativity points, right? Hopefully it'll go well and I won't drag Tyler down too much- he is really good at this kind of stuff!

We sold back almost all of our textbooks yesterday and are super-happy with how it went. We may have even made a little money this time around! Take that, bookstore. Thank goodness I have a genius husband who knows how to beat the system.

I guess it's back to stats....

A magic number

My favorite number today is ONE.

It's the number of times I woke up last night to go to the bathroom. Maybe because I only slept for 4.5 hours, but still! It was so nice not to be up so many times.

It's also the number of days of classes we have left, and the number of tests Tyler and I have left to take before we can focus on our finals. 

One is the number of months until Peanut's due date. That's right- one month, people! She'll be here before we know it!

Don't worry

We have entered the last week of classes! My last week of classes for probably my whole life. Do I seem sad? I'm definitely not. I love being in school, but I love that I'm almost done with that stage of life! 2 tests this week (who does that right before finals??), 5 finals and a presentation next week. Bring it on. I'm just trying to not stress about anything so Peanut will have a better chance of staying put at least 2 more weeks. Bob Marley keeps coming into my head this morning- Don't worry, be happy. But just in case she doesn't hang in there, our FHE activity tonight is going to be looking at/maybe purchasing a carseat and putting together a hospital bag! Everyone at church yesterday kept asking us if we were ready, if we had everything we needed, etc. and I started to freak a little bit. Uh, no... we have a few outfits we could put her in when she's a few months older, and a diaper bag (cutest diaper bag EVER... I love it), and a few other random things. So tonight is Peanut Preparedness night at our house. I laughed so hard as we were walking into the hospital last week to figure out what was up and Tyler kept saying, "We don't even have our camera with us! She can't come yet..." So now our cameras are all charged and sitting in a designated "grab and go" spot. It's funny how you realize what is important to you at certain times. 

Wasn't the Christmas Devotional the best?? That's one of my favorite broadcasts all year. It kicks off the Christmas season for me. Jeff and Robin came over to watch it and we had popcorn and hot chocolate- it's fun to have Jeff back! We've loved that every year we've been here at BYU we have had at least one sibling living close by. We'll definitely miss that when we leave. We read a book this weekend for our Humanities class-- that's right, a whopping almost 400-pager. Doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're reading out loud, it takes a ton longer. We're pretty proud of ourselves.

Our ward Christmas party is this weekend and I need to think of a fun dessert to bring. Any suggestions? I want to try something new!

Thanks

We had a great Thanksgiving! It was nice to stay here and relax a bit. Tyler and I both had lots to do school-wise, but we had fun and enjoyed a break from classes. We had Thanksgiving with Aunt Dana and the gang- a small gathering with just 7 of us, but it was so great. We even went up to Park City and did some other Black Friday shopping- our Christmas shopping is finished!! I'm pretty sure I won't want to be waddling around the mall after finals when I'm 3 weeks away from having a baby. No thank you! So it's nice to be done with that.

Now all we have to focus on is finishing the semester! 8 days of classes left and then finals week. I'm pretty sure it was just September, but I'm excited to be done.

We had a little scare yesterday, thinking maybe Peanut was as anxious to meet us as we are to meet her. As anxious as we are, we're glad she decided to stay where she belongs for the next few weeks. I was told to take it easy from here on out and come back if these contractions get any more intense or painful. Peanut, just hang in there a bit longer! I want those cheeks nice and chubby and kissable. And I'd like to at least get through finals without going into labor. Okay? Okay.

p.s. I FINALLY saw The Help on Saturday with Dana and Natty and Gabby... why did it take me so long? I loved the movie. Made me want to read the book again. So good!

33 weeks, with Lindsay

It was so fun to have Linds and Kenny and their adorable kiddos here with us on Friday and Saturday! We only wish they lived closer so we could see them more often. We were busy having fun together and neglected to take any pictures, except right before they left. Had to get a belly picture, right?? It's so fun to have sisters that are pregnant too! If only Kim would have been there to add her belly to the mix.

Our dad always used to say "Back to back!" whenever we talked about our heights. We thought we'd look at width this time instead of height... 

We had a fun weekend with them here. We ate some Cafe Rio and had BYU Creamery ice cream- something they don't have out in Cleveland and we just like to eat. Other than that we just enjoyed visiting and being together! Ben and Charlotte came over for a bit on Saturday and it was great to see them. 

p.s. I had another dream last night that Peanut was a boy. Should I take these seriously?? I'm tempted to ask for another ultrasound... dreams are so funny. He was a super-cute little boy though! I also had a dream this week that I was in labor and Peanut started twisting around and around and I could see her twisting from the outside. So strange!