[.new blog post.]

New location and I actually blogged!?

moving...

Since blogger says I have reached my photo limit, we're taking it to a new location.
 

[.never give up on what you really want, the person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.]

This last week has been entirely too busy, and I have a lot to catch up on! But I could not help myself from working on this video!

Jake asked me a while ago to help him surprise Jenna for when he came home from his mission in Tonga.  It is a miracle she had no idea.  I told her she is either very blonde, or the Lord played a big part in helping keep this secret!

Makes me cry.  SO happy for them both!

<3

[.sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.]

You can't go the month of December without decorating "ginger bread" houses, or graham cracker houses for that matter.

Being the competitive person that I am, Brooklyn and I were bound and determined to have the better graham cracker house, or at least I was [brooke helped by coming and eating a skittle here and there, or decorating the ice cream cone trees].  Watching Jenna and Isaac struggle at first I was confident that the "strong foundation" of my house would stay right in place.

At least for a minute.

Yes, that blow dryer was what I was using to harden my frosting more quickly.

Isaac and Jenna at least had four hands to keep the walls in place :)

 

 

Right after I finished my shingled roof, it caved in.

Luckily Kevin's engineering skills were put to use and he helped Brooke finish up the house so that I could go to tithing settlement.

 

 

Our semi-finished product!

 

 Brooke named our house Gingy and both Isaac and Jenna named theirs Dopey, because it was dope! Oh boy!

I think they both turned out really cute!?

But hey, it was fun!

[.no one has ever become poor by giving.]

A couple days ago I entered to win a birth story!  Whichever picture on her site has the most likes will win.  I am currently in second place!  I can't believe how close I am to first place!  We have until Christmas Eve to make every vote count!
This would be the VERY best Christmas gift we could ever ask for!
I can't believe how much love and support I have seen from our friends and family already.  I am overwhelmed with love and am completely grateful for those I have in my life who love and support us.

Here is my 27 week baby bump photo of Miss K!
 

 

If you would like to help us win, click on the picture and be sure to LIKE it on facebook!  Your vote definitely counts!

 

On the other hand, we just got back from our 28 week appointment today.  Everything is going well.  We now go in for appointments every two weeks!  I can't believe how FAST time is flying by!

Enjoying every moment getting to know this little girl!

[.life is better when you're laughing.]

I just couldn't help myself.

 

I can't help but think how cute her little bum will be wearing these!

 

Baby girl moves like crazy and loves to keep me up all night long.

Actually the other night was the first night in a while that I didn't sit there for hours, looking at the clock, waiting for my alarm to go off.

 

Friday Jenna and I went to Lance's parents to work on a quilt and then went to the What A Woman Wants expo.  We were there for about two hours and finished it off with a free ten minute massage.  Afterward we went to Fashion Place mall to see where Jenna could spend her shopping spree [from work] money.  By the end of the day we were both a little slap happy and just wanted to go home and get in our beds!

 

Saturday, I helped my friend Sarah host a baby shower for a girl from our work having twin girls.  With full intention of brining my camera, I completely forgot to bring it to the shower!  It turned out really cute and it got me pretty excited to start having some of my own.  I started to realize how quickly time has gone and that it will only go faster from here on out.

 

Sarah, Jacinda and I went to Playing for Keeps after the shower.  It's usually tradition that we go to Zupas before a movie but since we just finished with the shower we vetoed that idea and brought leftover snacks instead.  I always love going out with these girls!  We always have such a good time. I will miss Sarah while she is on her mission in freakin Paris but Jacinda and I will be sure to keep up on tradition.

 

Also, this last week, Lance and I bought an upright freezer!  It is weird but I am seriously so excited about it!

I can't stand living dinner-to-dinner, not knowing what to make and not having much on hand to just throw a dinner together.  Sounds crazy, but this freezer is my motivation to precook meals and have them ready to go for Lance when he has to work.

I'm planning to spend one day a week [then, hopefully only once a month] to prep all of our dinners ahead of time!

I'm hoping I can come up with plenty of clean [not clean as in washing the vegetables before..] recipes that will freeze well!

 

Last but not least, I have to brag about my husband for a second.  I've always told him that I wouldn't ever push him to eat the way I would like him to.  I feel that by doing so it would just make matters worse.

I know that when people would always criticize me or make comments when I was eating horribly that it would only make me want to hide what I was really eating.  So that is the last thing I would want to do.

The last couple weeks, I have noticed a change in him.  He may not love it now or may not even stick with it forever, but it makes me happy to know that he is trying and doing awesome!

I was SUPER happy when I made a fully clean meal and his response was that he loved it!  I'm hoping to make more and more meals that I can get that same response.  It makes me excited to start cooking meals that both of us will eat!

[.you are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice.]

For Thanksgiving this year, we were able to spend time with Lance's family.  It's a little difficult sometimes to try and spend as much time with every single family I have, so Lance and I have decided that we make it a point to spend the whole day with one family and then just trade off the other years.  To start off the morning we went down by Utah lake to go shooting.  All the boys brought their guns, clay pigeons and ammo.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, dinner was amazing!  I'm pretty sure I was in a food coma for about an hour afterward.

It didn't help being sick and not eating for 2 whole days before Thanksgiving, then to "all-a-sudden" have an appetite for everything in sight.

I ended up making lunch lady peanut butter bars and pumpkin cheesecake pies for my dessert.  They were both experimental recipes and I was pleasantly surprised with both :)  Jenny made yummy apple pies and Tori made both a chocolate pie and a cheesecake, cake.

 

 

 

 

 

Once we let our food settle, we all hit the 8 o'clock Walmart black friday madness.  It was a bit ridiculous, but entertaining none-the-less.  As if Walmart wasn't enough we decided Target would be a good choice afterward.  It was funny seeing the boys get all hyped up and cheer on the crazy shoppers.

 

I'm glad we were able to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with Lance's family.

 

Since we already did the black friday deal Thursday night, Friday we Lance and his brothers helped Tim and Kamie move out of their apartment.  I felt a little useless to help but at least Miss K was cheering on the movers the entire time!

 

I guess maybe I did do a little black friday shopping?  Kind of.

It wasn't really a black friday deal, but I thought it was a good deal:)

We bought our crib and I absolutely love it!

I'm hoping it is only as pretty in person as it was online!

 

Lance and I spent Saturday morning up in Wolf Creek cutting down our Christmas tree!  We actually found 3 trees that we liked and just had to decide which one would be best!

Hopefully we made a good pick!

 

I wanted to get home quickly so that I could start setting up Christmas decorations (the small amount that I have).  I always seem to forget how long it takes me to put lights on the tree.  This year I feel like our tree looks like a Dr. Seuss tree and I'm happy with it!

As much as I miss the huge, bushy, prelit, stack the top on the bottom kind of tree, I really do enjoy going with Lance to find "the perfect tree".  I told him that next year we are going to work hard for our tree. Hike our butts deep into the mountains to get it.

He just rolled his eyes, he knows he loves me :)