Welcome to the world baby!

Here he is! They just don't come any cuter! :) He is a great baby- eats, sleeps and poops really well for Mommy! ;) Thank you again to Chelsy who came and did an amazing photo shoot for us!

Our Greatest Gift! Merry Christmas early to us!

Look at that smile! He loves to smile for Mommy (Daddy hasn't caught many). Maybe it's involuntary, but it happens enough that I'll count it! :)

Our nursery- by Chelsy :)

Chelsy was a WONDERFUL sister and came over when I was about to die (we had a little scare for awhile that baby was coming sooner than later- only lasted about a week :) I guess he just wanted to get ready so he's fully in position (dropped) but not coming yet!). She came and unpacked all my baby things, moved everything else from the room, decorated, organized and fully readied me for baby! Here's the tour!

Welcome to baby's room...

"Noah's Ark" all ready and filled with animals!

Who's trying to sneak in the back there??? Ha ha ha...

Dresser all organized and labeled by age/size! Noah's Ark poster and trinkets.

Closet (no more green light- Yuck!) all organized with blankets, bath stuff, bags etc!

Our reading/rocking/feeding corner! Cute! :)

Thanks Chelsy! We both love it! Plus our bedroom, living room and pretty much whole house (pictures will come when it's actually clean, not just decorated)! She saved us from our poor decorating skills (who say's it's not decorating to leave it wherever they dropped it upon move-in??)

Finally finshed basement apartment!

This would be a whole lot cooler if I'd gotten the "after" pictures before the renters moved some of their things in, but I'm slow so this is what I have! Mike has worked SO hard this past week to get everything finished (I'm not the biggest help, but I sure try!), and we had many WONDERFUL helpers the first few days who got us a HUGE jump-start on the cleaning and painting! THANK YOU!!

The Kitchen: it's hard to tell in some of these pictures. All the walls are newly painted. this one has the new heater vent and the stove is installed (. Plus it's a WHOLE lot cleaner (thanks Mica and Bob for cleaning the fridge! What a mess!)

One of the Bedrooms: New paint (toasted oatmeal) and baseboards

The Living Room: by far the most dramatic with it's new
tan-tinted walls and non-Clifford-red door! :)

Our renters have moved in and like the new features :) They were so patient with us while we worked clear until move-in day and during! They were also good to see through the mess when they came to see it- paint tarps, everything in the way, still needed cleaning. We're excited to have them here! :)

Baby Shower!

Janet (Jeni's mom) and Teresa were so gracious to throw me a baby shower on Oct 17th. It was so much fun! Here's the run down...

Mom and me :) Mom loves to take pictures with me!

Look at that adorable cake! A baby buggy!

The artist showing off the center- blue with Jello! Mmm!

Those who attended...

And my greatest prize? I came away with adorable squeekie shoes! He he he! Thanks Amber. Mike loves them! :)

Bobby is home!

We went to pick up Elder Hale at the airport this past Friday. He was so excited to see the signs we made for him!

And to see all his nieces and nephews in shirts/onesies/bibs that said
"Elder Hale is my uncle!"

Here's the whole gang!

Me and My Gekkika! We ate at Wingers on the way home, one of Bobby's favorite places!

Meg likes to say "Gumsy" all day long-even when she is in Arizona and nowhere near me. But somehow she still knows that Gumsy is my "name". Strange child :) But isn't she adorable!?

I haven't updated anything for a long time. I've been working with Mike at his accounting firm as the receptionist. It's fun, but it's pretty much over (it was a temporary position) which I'm glad for because now I'm sick, and so is Mike, and so is my whole family!

We're pretty sure my sister brought the swine flu up from Arizona with her and contaminated the rest of the family (but we can't be to upset-she's got the worst of it!). I've been VERY cautious keeping me and baby safe, and even have spent the past 2 days only looking at Mike from the other room or at least other side of the room :( I think I may just have a cold, but he definitely has what the others have! Yucky bug! I can't wait for everyone to get through with it so I can feel safe again!

So I'm sitting in bed, eating soy pudding (yeah, my soy milk had a recipe! Don't try to use soy milk in regular pudding! :), waiting to get better. But I think about packing all day because we are moving also!

I guess I should announce our exciting news for anyone who hasn't heard- we are buying a house in Spanish Fork! We should be closing at the end of this month so we will be moving soon. It's great and we have a 2 bedroom basement apartment that we are going to rent out- so if anyone needs or knows someone who needs a 2 bedroom apartment... ! :) Let me know!


That's all for now, I'm going to sleep again. I will post pictures later (yes, my belly gets bigger every day now!) :)

More preggo pictures and my curly hair!

I've had some requests to add some more pregnancy pictures. Here's a little synopsis of my weeks. I'm looking a little the same, or maybe smaller in the last two- maybe I got a little out of control on the eating before the 24th week! :)

4 weeks.......19 weeks......24 weeks......28 weeks (new)


This is me in my dress that still fits! Maybe it was supposed to be for preggos?? It always did fit a little funny, don't you think Mica? :)

Same dress, but this is showing off my curly hair. It's a little wild, but no "triangle head"! :)
Funny face, but it was better than the others. This is my hair curly and straight. I didn't pull it back or anything yet for this picture.

...and they came two by two. I think I'm obsessed!

Many of you may know I was so generously given my nursery theme: Noah's Ark. I say given because Mike's cousin was so nice to give me an almost entire nursery room set! Everything including bedding, decorations and accessories. That was probably a good thing because I can never choose, but since I have it, I'm going with it! She gave me this cute wagon and said that the first person who had it had put two of beanie babies in it to make it Noah's Ark themed even more. I liked that idea and went for it. Chelsy and I went shopping at DI to get started and I've been looking for doubles ever since. I just had to show off my collection so far!

This is what we have so far (spread out so you can see) with buffaloes, blue jays, black bears (yes, Chelsy, I got another black bear so we weren't mixing breeds with the polar bear!) rabbits, pelicans, cows, foxes, ducks, moose, squirrels, lobsters, crabs, and kangaroos! I still have a lonely black lab, white tiger, polar bear, rhino and flamingo. Aren't they so cute!?!

PS- If anyone knows a really good way to clean/disinfect a beanie baby-let me know. Some of these need a little help :)

And I couldn't leave out the bargain I got today at yard sales (that included some of the above mentioned beanie babies!)
A Fisher Price Noah's Ark! How much better can it get?? :)

Open view:

Egg Drop Ramen?

I don't know if you know, but I don't really "follow" recipes. I mostly just look at a bunch, decide what sounds good and put it together at will. Well, my "will" tonight was to have ramen so after searching Google for "ramen recipes" and reading a bunch I decided that veggies, ramen and egg sounded good together. Egg sounds gross you say? Not if you do it egg-drop soup style! :) Well I had to research (on Google of course!) how to properly "egg-drop" and found it was quite complicated, but About.com gave me answers. After sauteing my frozen veggies (I like them to look cooked), adding water and cooking my ramen with oriental sauce, I took out all the solids from my soup and performed what I would have to say was a magnificent job of "egg-dropping". One minute of rapid stirring and then returning all my solids gave me a delicious ramen meal! So much fun! :) so random...

Chopping my hair :)

Before the chop:

After the chop (and some styling from Jessica of course!):

Prego belly!

Jessica's photo abilities: Photo Shoot! :)
I'm so fancy!

24 weeks!

I really feel like this baby has been sticking out just the same amount for the past month, but everyone tells me I'm showing a lot more so I decided it was picture time again!

Here I am at 22 weeks (about 5.5 months) I think he's just looking pointy!

Wow, ok. so if you take a picture of it, I guess I really do look different!
Here I am at 24 weeks (6 months??)
And my new haircut! Jessica is still sending me the "before and afters- I'll post them when she sends :)

I'll tell you what, nothing fits anymore. And by nothing, I mean I've pretty much depleted my pant drawer of pants that fit me, even with the fly completely undone! (thank you Tummy Sleeve!) And I've even retired one pair of maternity pants already (the jeans I'm wearing the the first picture).

Happy Birthday to Alex! :)

Yes, I know my birthday was a little while ago, but I just got around to posting pictures!


Mike and me going out to eat at the Olive Garden. Mike just had me open all my presents a day early since we had so much going on the 8th. So we celebrated the 7th! Mike got me that shirt I'm wearing (can you see- I really am pregnant! ) and he got me a body pillow, sudoku book, jewelery and such. Happy Birthday to me!!

This is mom and me at the play "Fantasticks"
(mom loves this picture :)

Hale family celebrating my birthday with dinner!
Homemade pizzas!

and Chocolate Cream Cheese Dessert!

The Collett family celebrating my birthday- and Braiden's, Austin's, Ellie's, and Amberly's birthdays! :) I don't have a picture with me in it because it's a lot more for the younger kids than for the adults :) Here is Braiden opening all of his presents!

It's a BOY!!!

His leg. Hmm... reminds me of my "other kids" ( the frogs!)

Can you see? It's a boy! :)

Maybe it's an alien? This is his face!

His arm. Cute little arm. I"m pretty sure he just moved it in front of his face, so that round thing to the left is his belly.

The news is in- it's official! He's a boy! And there is only one :) Everything looked good in the ultrasound. Except he wouldn't move the right way to give us the typical ultrasound picture. Oh well, he's ours and these are the pictures we got!