Wa-hoo Look Who's 2!

Call me cheap/lazy but I'm not sending Reese's 2nd year announcement out. I figured everyone who would receive one reads this blog anyways so I figured why bother. I've also included each picture from her announcement separately in case you wanted to print them out. So it's not her birthday quite yet (not til the 28th) but I might as well post it while I'm posting.

So yesterday I decided I better get going on taking her pictures -- got her all ready and made a make shift photo backdrop in our bedroom with a piece of fabric and some batting. Reese was really excited to be taking pictures too. Things were going to great in the beginning she was being such a good poser (actually listening to me) and smiling sooo cute. Then about 20 or so pictures into it I realized I forgot to put my memory card in, and our DSLR just acts normal and takes pictures even without it in -- and it has no internal memory -- so needless to say I was so furious! The worst part I could only be mad at myself! So I quickly got my card and tried to salvage the shoot. Naturally by the time things were going again Reese's cooperation was out the window. Thankfully I was able to get a couple decent pics so it wasn't a total loss, but in my mind I was thinking about all the pictures that could have been. It's just too much work trying to do it another day. I'd have to wait for another really sunny morning -- since we live in the basement the lighting is horrible and in the morning I'm able to open our blinds to let more light in (and pretty much everyday this week has been overcast and gloomy).

Here comes the airplane. Reese tyring to share her mac n' cheese with mom.

Man-No Party and other Christmasness...

Yes, I know it's been nearly a month -- I swear I've been trying to post but our laptop is being really stupid -- so I fired up the ole' desktop to please you few people who actually read this blog. I've been trying to post videos for weeks but it just says they are loading forever and ever so I've given up, but here are a few pics. So one Saturday morning Reese woke up and told us she wanted to have a Man-No Party (in Reese talk that's a Snowman party). Not sure where this little idea came from -- maybe because we keep asking her what kind of birthday party she wants -- anyways, we decided to make some Snowman cookies (which looked more like ghosts), cut out paper snowflakes (which Reese also calls Man-No Fakes), and sing "Once There Was a Snowman" over and over again.

Our B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L snowman cookies. Reese loved putting the baby candies (M&M minis) on for their buttons. They sure were yummy!! Reese was so excited all day about getting to make snowman cookies.

Finally decided I better get working on my quilt for Baby "B" since he'll be here in 7 or so weeks. I've had the fabric for months, but to be honest I've been putting off making the quilt -- since sewing = mucho stress. So I made my squares a lot bigger than what I normally do and I had the quilt done in 2 nights work. Honestly the worst part is cutting the stupid squares out -- especially when you're fat and pregnant. I know it's nothing fabulous but I made one for Reese and thought I better do one for this guy.

So after Thanksgiving we got our tree (which my wonderful mother went up to the mountains and cut down) and had it decorated by the 1st of December. As you can tell we had to stick it in our dining area since there is absolutely no room anywhere else in our apartment. I had played with the idea of temporarily putting our love seat in our bedroom during Christmas in order to have it in our living room but decided that was kind of ridiculous. So instead we are unable to sit more than one person at our table. Which we really don't sit at anyways (I know we're horrible but we are meal eatin'/TV watchers). Don't you just think the electrical box adds to the Christmas decor (yeah kind of an eyesore).

So Todd and I right from the start wanted to begin some family traditions. Every year we get a new ornament for the tree. It started out as buying one for each other but when Reese came along we started just getting her a new one each year. Which we'll do with all our kids from now on -- they will get a new ornament each year from now til' whenever they move out and start their own traditions. These aren't in the right order but I just thought I would share with you our collection so far. Above is the first ornament I gave Todd -- Christmas 05 -- we were engaged then. The significance obviously is the heart and being in love...awwww!

Todd gave me a set of owls Christmas 06 (our first Christmas married) -- I may have hinted to him that I specifically wanted them. The set obviously represents us and our first Christmas -- and they also matched my country/rustic tree theme.

The first ornament Todd gave me Christmas 05 -- he helped me set up some of my Christmas decorations when we were engaged and he noticed I didn't have a Nativity (a very essential decoration for Christmas) so he gave me one in an ornament.

Christmas 06 I gave this to Todd to represent our First Christmas Tree we hiked up and cut down together. This was before children and demanding work schedules - sadly we haven't been able to do it again and my mom has always had to cut ours down for us.

Christmas 09 - This is the ornament Reese got this year. She loves Elmo! It also plays Elmo singing "Jingle Bells" so that adds to the fun for her.

Christmas 07 Reese was due the 21st of December and I had held off buying a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament just in case she wasn't here in time. Good thing -- because she wasn't. So I bought this I think on Christmas Eve -- since she was still a little spirit somewhere... and hadn't quite made it to our house for Christmas yet.

Christmas 08 - "Baby's 1st Christmas" nothing too significant -- just thought it was cute.

Sorry if that was incredibly boring for everyone - but it's something I look forward to every year when we start decorating the tree. Reminder for anyone doing this: write the year somewhere on the ornament because even though we've only been doing this for 5 Christmas' I had a hard time remembering for sure which year each one was from.

Better late than never...

Just a few random pics from the past few weeks. Haven't really gone anywhere and done much of anything but here ya go... Above: Reese and Mom after decorating her Christmas tree. We got some pink lights, and some silver and lime green balls and called it good (oh and of course a silver star to top it off). Reese is so proud of her little tree and it stays lit up most of the day in her room. We were going to use it as her nightlight too but with all the lights it's a bit too bright in her room for her to go to sleep.

Just some random pics...

Reese eating some popcorn (her favorite snack) and watching some Caillou with her baby. This is actually the only way to get her to sit still long enough to do something with her hair.

I know she looks a little shaggy here - but I wanted to snap a pic of her and her gingerbread house before I forgot -- so it just so happened to be this morning while she still had a little case of bed head.

Yesterday while Todd and I went shopping we left Reese with Grandma Z and they decorated gingerbread houses. Grandma showed her how to "glue" candy onto the house with frosting. She was so excited to show us her house when we got back.

Before Halloween my mom bought Reese her very own pumpkin -- here she is posing with it -- she loves it very much. For a while there she would cart it around everywhere she went.

Just a few funny faces... Sorry they are a little fuzzy I always forget to check and see if there are little fingerprints on my camera lens (thanks to Reese who loves to take pictures with Mommy's camera).

Well figured I better post at least one baby bump pic this is like 28 or so weeks with our little guy. I'm 30 weeks this week. I feel humongous of course -- already bigger than I was with Reese... and it's not the cute perfectly round bump... I'm kind of round all over... ugh. Last Dr. Appt went well -- passed my glucose test and the baby is measuring ahead of schedule (which I've heard before -- probably really means another big baby).
A quick little clip of Reese showing us her tree.

No big plans for Thanksgiving. We will be going to Preston this year -- we were supposed to go with Todd's family this time but Todd has to work Wednesday really late and Friday really early so we didn't want to travel all the way to SLC. I might actually hit up the early morning after Thanksgiving sales (which I've never done) and there are a few things that I can't pass up.

Recent projects...

Here's a couple projects I had recently. It's been nice to have a couple things to work on. I get really bored at night and my friends were happy to pass along to me some work. It kind of makes me miss being in school and having constant things to work on. One of these days I should get ambitious and design my own scrapbook kits, but thinking about it kind of makes my head spin. I should enjoy my free time while I have it -- in a few short months I'll be busy busy. So for the next 3 months feel free to send me something to do. P.S. this is out of the goodness of my heart (that and I don't own the copyrights to these scrapbook kits so I can't charge). One year old announcement for my friend Jen.

A birth announcement for my friend Kate.

Trick or Treat

So for Halloween we were in Downey. I spent the previous night in Preston but since my mom's ward doesn't do the trunk or treat anymore we went to Grandma Zinda's to go actual trick or treating. Earlier Halloween day we went to a birthday part for my friend Jen's little boy and then we headed over to Grandma's. Grandma Z had lots of fun things waiting for Reese. Reese loved doing the bean bag toss Grandma brought home from preschool. She really only actually threw the bean bags like once or twice-- she thought it was more efficient to just walk up and put in the bean bags in the pumpkin holes -- but either way she loved it. Grandma had candy and creepy spider rings for Reese too. Reese went as a tap dancing ladybug this year. I found a pair of tap shoes at the DI and she was in heaven (in case you're wondering LaDawn the pair you gave us is still too big). I needed a pair of black shoes for her costume and everywhere else a pair of black shoes were like $15 (not worth it for just a costume) - so $4 was much better. She loved showing everyone her tapping too.

At the trunk or treat with Grandma - picking out some treats (and she wasn't shy about taking more than one either).

She seriously loved every minute of it. She caught on really quick that you had to say 'Trick or Treat' at each stop.

We caught up with my friend Jen and her little boy Brody too. Reese loves little Brody.

After we made the loop there were doughnuts and cider waiting. Usually Reese doesn't like eating cakes and cookies and things like that but once she had a bite of my doughnut she decided she needed her own. She was covered head to toe in glaze by the time we got home.

All done, coming back to show Grandpa all her goodies. She didn't hesitate when it came to eating her candy either. Todd had to work on Halloween so he missed out on the Trunk or Treat, but I left Reese in her costume so she come home and show Daddy. She knocked on the door when we got home and told Daddy "Trick or Treat" and he had a whole bowl full of smarties waiting for her since Todd had only one trick or treater the whole night. It's kind of sad it's over already. I can't believe it's already November!

So pregnancy update... everything is going great so far (minus getting more and more uncomfortable) this week starts the third trimester, 3 more months and we'll be a family of four!
It seems like forever ago that we found out we were pregnant - but kind of crazy to think he'll be here in a few months. He is very active and I can feel him rolling and kicking around numerous times during the day. We still aren't set on a name - which kind of stresses me out, but at least we have a couple we kind of agree on - so we're making progress.

Pumpkin Walk

Reese, my mother and I stopped by the pumpkin walk in North Logan on our way home from shopping one day. I haven't been since probably elementary school. I thought it would be a really fun thing for Reese to see since she is currently obsessed with pumpkins (and by this I mean she points out everyone she can see with her little eyes and shouts "Pumpkin, Pumpkin" over and over again). I'm not going to lie - I was a little disappointed. There were only a few displays that I thought were really cute -- some looked like they were whipped up in 5 minutes (sorry but if all of them were as cute as the really cute ones it would have been really good). I'm sure some are offended by this remark but oh well.

Don't mind the random children that popped in while we were trying to take a picture. Which was extremely difficult since Reese was constantly distracted by the tennis players right next door.

Reese loved the pigs in this one.

She was more intrigued by the straw bales than the actual display.

Her favorite part was probably all the cut out they had there to take pictures in.

Even thought it didn't quite live up to my expectations it was still something fun for us to do and Reese liked it - and that's all that really matters. I'm sure we'll be back again.

Look I'm actually blogging...

I know, I know I've been a horrible blogger lately. For the longest time I didn't have much to blog about but there have actually been a few things lately. I really didn't take as many pictures of everything that has been going on but I guess something is better than nothing. So 2 weeks ago we spent the whole week in Downey. Todd's brother Tim came home from his mission to Tonga and we had lots of family up.

Playing some basketball with Daddy and Uncle Tyler.

Making a 'Welcome Home' sign for Tim. We had lots of help.

Notice all the yellow marker -- that was Reese's contribution.

Watching Tim come off the plane in Pocatello. It's a very small airport so there aren't really "terminals" so we saw him land on a smaller plane and have to walk from the plane to the actual airport... it was quite cold that day too - a bit cooler than what he's been used to the last 2 years. I love Reese and Annagrace (her cousin) in this picture.

Tim meeting Reese for the first time (didn't get that great of a picture - thanks Tyler for being in the way - every time I tried to take a picture). I was pregnant when Tim left for his mission so it was fun for Reese to meet another Uncle.

This was the first time in who knows how long that Todd's entire family was together (never in the 4 years we've been married). One brother's family lives in Georgia and another in Colorado so it's almost impossible to have everyone there at once. It was fun spending time with everyone, especially for the little girls (there are only 3 grand kids -- all girls) and they were able to all play/destroy together.