Say Cheese!

Alright, it's picture time!  Taken at 14 weeks, I know that I have a long way to go still, but sometimes I feel big even now.  Then again...

Look at me from the side.  Do I look different to you?

See Nat.  I TOLD you I was jealous...  Okay okay, so maybe I don't quite look this far along.  Not yet anyway, but someday you'll see a picture of me pretty similar to this!  However, I do look a bit more like...........................................

...............................................

................................................

This

Then again, maybe this is just my good side and it's all just an optical illusion! .......  er somethin'.  Not too much of a baby bump goin' on quite yet, but some days it sure seems bigger than others.  I'm hoping for a basketball baby, but I guess we'll see in which directions 'Out' decides to go.

Can You Hear Me?

"Baby, baby, I can hear your heartbeat.  You're the one I love..... you're the one I love."
Yup, I heard the baby's heartbeat this week!  Blake wasn't too happy that he wasn't there for it, but maybe next time. :)  Seeing baby in the ultrasound was amazing, but hearing the heartbeat was even better.  I even heard baby flop around a little bit; made some funny noises even though I still can't feel it.  Only a couple more weeks now though and I should be able to!  It will be 14 weeks this week and I can't believe how fast time is flying by. Let's just hope that 15 is the magic number for the lousiness to be gone...

On a different note, our ward council had to host the stake's youth dance this year.  Primary and Relief Society were put in charge of the food/couple activities to get to the food.  For a fairytale theme we had some fun ideas, but after a few budget cuts, we ended up with some really really good fruit.  Mmmmm fresh pineapple...  SO GOOD!  The decorations were awesome too.  However, on to the point of putting this in the blog.  One of my counsellors and I were put in charge of the activities, so we had pin the lips on the frog, quiots (ring toss), and about 30 fairytale questions for the kids to answer.  The best part of all, we are both at the same point in our pregnancies!  Luckily she's been mostly hit with just the energy loss, so we didn't have two sickos trying to keep it up all night.  Chairs came in very handy though and we got to chat the night away about our ever changing lives.
Question.  Since when did the youth get so big?!  It may be that we were trying to think we were way past that stage in life, but some of those kids...  However, the youth go to the dances up until they are 18 whereas the region dances back home you stopped at about 16.  Ah well.  But, as this was a fairytale theme, some of the kids did dress up.  One of my favorites (2 girls did this) was a glowstick fairy.  These girls used lots of glow sticks and connected them into rings and then used something like velcro or laces or something to space and connect about 8 rows of rings as their skirts and then had glow stick antenna headbands and wings.  They wore all black underneath, so it looked really cool.  As a leader I was supposed to dress up as well, but didn't want to go all out as I had very little energy/desire to do so.  So, peasant look for me!  Every fairytale has peasants doing the royalty's dirty work, so I figured it would count.  Now, I've worn this outfit before, just in a different way to make it normal.  For one, the skirt wasn't inside out and the tank top was under the puffy shirt.  But, I think it worked out pretty well with what I had, don't you?

This is also your very first pregnancy picture, although there isn't much of a bump to see quite yet.  (real reason for this second half of the post)  We'll get a real side shot here soon though.  Hopefully a clearer one as well. :)  Oh, and possibly a less messy house shot too!

Celebrate The Good Days

In a French accent singing, "Those unsick days, where have zey gone?  Where diiii...........iiiiiiiid zey go?  Eh bien, eat your crackers, for some unsick days......."

Okay, so it's not really 7-years-of-famine depressing, but a good day would sure be nice!  For those who haven't heard, yes, I am pregnant!  So far, I'm at 12 1/2 weeks (due October 21st), but unfortunately no let up from the quote/unquote morning sickness quite yet.  We're hoping for it to pass here quickly though.  Blake has been amazing through it all and has taken over the kitchen duties so I won't get sick more often than necessary.  Something about smells........?..... ;)

We are getting more and more excited as the threat of miscarriage lessens with time and get to tell more and more people the fun news.  It will be Blake's family's first baby and so far the only other kids in his extended family are his cousin Jodi's.  She has 2 1/2 boys, so if we happen to have a girl, I think she'll be pretty spoiled from all around.  If we have a boy, he'd get pretty spoiled from my side of the family as we have only had our special angel Solomon for a short time and no other boys.

As we have been asked by quite a few people that have found out, we have picked out some names, and I think the only thing that may change them is if we meet the baby and find it doesn't quite fit.  However, the plan is: Boy - Mark Lyle, Girl - Charlotte Marie (aka Charli).  We both have an idea of what our Baby Sprout will be, but to make things fair, we'll let you vote as well.  Upper right hand corner if you will.

Acrophobia Mixed With Some Vertigo = ...

I've been told it's not being scared, it's a medical condition called vertigo.  Sure.....  According to wikipedia (which we all know to be a very accurate source of information...): "Vertigo" is often used, incorrectly, to describe the fear of heights, but the correct term for this is acrophobia."  Now I do have a small issue with heights, as in I don't think it would be beneficial to my health if I fall from a great height, but my dear hubby feels otherwise.  When we lived on the 10th floor of our apartment building, he was rarely on the balcony unless he was sitting down right by the door.  So, I want you to imagine being up on the 77th floor surrounded just by floor to ceiling windows.  How well do you think that went over? ;)  

View to the North

View to the South

Matt playin at being Spider Man

Blake secretly holding on to the pillar and running inward as fast as possible after. ;)

Matt gazing dreamily at the many islands and huge houses on the waterways.

Oh, and where he'll place his future home... on Paradise Island.

The blue arrow is where Blake's nana and grandad used to live (before they built 2 houses in it's place).

"X" marks the spot on where we live.  See the mountains too? :)

And the boy's tryin to look tough.

Oh, and do you like my photoshopped picture? :)

My hair isn't that light, tank top didn't match my shoes, oh, and I wasn't sitting there. :)  We took a couple pictures to try and "fit" us all in and then I had fun.  That's why my hubs doesn't look too cuddly if you will...

We also have 1 picture to prove we went to Wet N Wild for an entire day.

Didn't even get burned thanks to loads of sunscreen!

And now you all know a little bit more of what it looks like where I live.  We even discovered new fields and islands that we never knew existed.  

Commercially Enforced Celebration of Love

Not that I'm really complaining or anything though. :)  As V-day was on Sunday, and Matt is here, we didn't go too all out with the love shapes and what not, but we started the process.  I don't know of a much better way to start out either.  Check this out.

By the way, that card down at the bottom.... Yeah, back massage and a facial.  I think he was trying to get me over the whole, "You've had one and I haven't," idea.  No complaints. :)

He's not very picky himself, so I got him........ drum roll................

Krispy Kremes!  He loves them (as you can tell with one missing before I could even take a picture).  

I think we've done our part for making sure we've supported the commercial love.  Here's looking forward to the rest of the week and hopefully year worth of celebrating!

I Once Was Lost, But Now I'm Found

Time has quickly been slipping away, and I have failed to stay up to date!  I do apologize for my slacking, and also for the extremely long post ahead of you. :)  To play a little bit of a catch up for time gone by, Christmas was great.  We bought a house and moved in.  I lost one of my counsellors and gained another (so still at 2).  My youngest sister-in-law was baptised, my slightly younger than me sister-in-law went through the temple and got married yesterday, and my mum-in-law went back to the temple after decades of being away.  We also went to a Taylor Swift concert last week.  Oh, did I mention my brother is here to visit and play as well? :)  So, amidst all this, I hope you don't mind my slacking.
I don't want to completely gloss over all these major events, so here are some summations and pictures of what I have.
Brittany's baptism-
YAY!!!  I'm so proud of her!  She has been living life the way she wanted to and never really had much interest in the church.  However, one Monday a few weeks ago, she was talking to me and asked how she could learn more.  Stunned silence ensued.  Quick prayer, deep breath, and told her I could introduce her to the missionaries if she came to church that next Sunday.  She came, met them, and set up an appointment for the first discussion at our place.  By the time they came (only a couple days later) she had already read multiple chapters of the Gospel Principles book.  Better than most of the rest of us eh?  They gave her a Book of Mormon and she dived into that as well.  We had a few more discussions and she was baptised!  This all being of her own choice.  I have loved watching her transform and grow in peace, love, and understanding as only the Spirit can bring to her life.  Congratulations Britt!

Taylor Swift

This was a fun date night for us that had been planned since October.  Tickets across the country were sold out (mostly to young girls and moms) so we were lucky to know ahead of time and bought some good seats.  Her song Love Story is, corny as it may sound, Blake and my song.  It was our first dance when we went up to Logan for country swing.  It came on the radio constantly while he was out visiting me.  And it pushed us in the direction of getting engaged.  We are frequently caught listening to her music while doing other things and couldn't wait to see her in concert.  I personally think that she's probably the most down to earth star there is, especially at her age.  To hold on to her own personality and to write her own music and play the guitar while singing/performing takes a lot of talent.  And guts.  They wouldn't let anyone bring in a camera with an attachable lens, so I'm pretty proud of the pictures I managed to take with my camera.  Not too shabby for being on the opposite side of the stadium eh? 

Yes, we look fried.  That's cause we are!  You'll find out why later down.

She came to the back of the stadium to perform as well.  How sweet huh!

This is her Love Story costuming.

The very last song had words spelled out in the falling water.  It was really unique and pretty awesome.

It was a fun night spent together although it was a very very long day and we both wanted to immediately fall asleep.  Luckily he stayed awake long enough to get us home to sleep in our comfy bed.

So, you may ask why it was such a long day.  And why we were so fried.  Two words: Sea World.
We bought my little brother a 14-day pass to the 3 local theme parks and hit up Sea World as it's a pretty easy going park that you can go through in a couple hours.  We didn't want to get worn out before the concert, so we went there instead of one of the others.  It was a lot of fun and Matt enjoyed it, but we sat in direct sunlight for about an hour.  Let me tell ya, we were all hurtin.  Iced aloe spray here we come!  But I will have to say, I am getting quite a good Aussie tan. :)  Here are some pictures of our day at Sea World.

Waiting for the dolphin show.  It was such a long wait.... like 1 minute. :)  Good timing if I say so myself.

The pretty dolphins.  I get a little emotional every time I watch them.  They are amazing creatures!  

Then where we got our lovely red war paint.  It was a pretty fun show with acrobatics and diving and such.

Luckily there is about a 4" wall between us and that sucker.

All in all, it was a pretty good day; even though long.  We'll just have to make sure we smear on the sunscreen for the other parks!

That's not all we've done though.  I also took Matt and Britt to Currumbin Sanctuary to see all the "wild" aminals.  Britt had never gone, so it was even a first for her.  We pet the roos, held a koala, fed the birds, and looked at some crocs.  It was great fun.  Matt even made a friend and named him Squishy.

Lorikeets are very pretty birds.  Just takes a while for them to warm up to you and come down for food.

This fella came right over and wanted some attention.

This lady is a very large salt water croc.  In other words, don't mess with her.

And for all of you freezing your patooties off, here's some greenery.

And last but not least, Bree got married!  It was a great day and the rain even held off until just after the ring ceremony.  Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Men giving them an entrance.

The back of the custom made dress.

And the front of the dress.

Britt lookin all pretty in her bridesmaid dress.

Me laughing at all the people taking pictures....

The boys and their toys...  They enjoyed those swords way too much.

Kimmy looking very pretty with her fancy makeup and hair and clothes and such.

Branch/flower wreath at the entrance to the ring ceremony at the beach.

The bridesmaids and flower girls coming down the beach.

Bree getting escorted to her hubby.

These are my favorites cause I think they are more unique pictures.

The fancy decorations at the reception.  It was an enchanted forest theme.

The sweet place setting poem.

It was a beautiful wedding and I'm very happy for Bree and Xander.  It's was a great start to a new life together.  And if rain on your wedding day is a sign of good luck, they got buckets of luck for a present from the man upstairs.

I'll try to keep a little more updated with the rest of the fun things we'll be doing over the next couple weeks.  It should be lots of fun and great to spend some time with a member of my own family!

♫♪ Tradition.... tradition. Tradition.... tradition ♫♪

So one MAJOR tradition with my family is making graham cracker houses at Christmas time.  Every year we have about one normal "house" and then the rest are more of graham cracker creations.  These range from Mater to a plane to San Fran (yes a likeness of the city).  Now that Blake and I are on our own and I can't just hop on a plane to make a house and then come back we decided to give it a shot ourselves.  Let me tell ya, another ingredient search for sure.
First thing you need is a big box of graham crackers.  Well, sorry folks but no graham crackers in this hemisphere...  However, they do have some similar tasting crackers.  That's what matters right?  Only issue is they are only slightly rectangular with completely rounded corners.  But, what's the point of making a creative creation without having to be creative all around?  Bought.
Second is the icing.  Now this is very important as it has to stick to the cracker as well as harden relatively quickly so your creation doesn't completely collapse within 30 seconds flat.  Lucky me, my mom put the final result from years of practice and suggestions in our family cookbook.  Sounds good to me.  Now where to find meringue powder...  Checked a few stores, nada.  Thought about maybe trying a new recipe, but when you have something tried and true you don't want to vary from it.  So, off to ask the helpful store clerks.  Guess what!  Nobody has even HEARD of meringue powder.  Luckily, one smart manager was passing and asked if it wasn't the same as pavlova.  Of course!!  So, instead of coming home with a can/box of meringue, I come with this funky egg-shaped pavlova magic container.  Whatever works though, right?
Third is candy.  Okay, I'll be honest, no real issues there. :)  Not many of our standard materials at home, but m&m's and chocolate chips and the like go a long way.
I also decided to be super creative and make some fondant for cut outs and the like.  Now I'm sure you think that is pretty impressive, but it's pretty much straight marshmallows with powdered sugar.  Works for me!
Ready... Begin.
Go Blake Go!  For a first timer, I will admit he did a pretty good job.  It never really collapsed on him and I know for a fact that that has happened to just about everyone in my family at least once (one wall fell and one ceiling tile went crooked).  Here's his creation during, well, creation!

And here are my intermediate steps:

And of course, here are our completed creations:

It was a fun adventure (although it took me much longer than Blake....).  Hope you enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas!!