Catching Up

We've had a crazy December. It flew by so fast I can't believe it's already over! Here are some of our (photographed) happenings:

The 2nd Annual "Ugly Christmas Sweater" Party

My good friend Chelsea's wedding...she looked beautiful!

Christmas Day Blizzard! This is the view from my in-law's front porch. I didn't dare venture much farther.

Christmas Day '08 - We also got to talk to my brother who is on his mission in Chile. (they are in the middle of summer with 80 degree weather)

And a growing bump! As of tomorrow, the 29th, I'll be 26 weeks! See what I mean by time is flying by?!

A Tag and a Truth

Usually I'm somewhat reluctant to complete a tag. Probably due to the fact that I feel a rush of anxiety when the time comes to tag some of my friends. (HUH? You ask...)

Let me explain:
Once upon a time...in high school my friends and I would have some crazy sleepovers. We'd do the usual girl things. Toilet paper, sneak out, take goofy (great for blackmailing) pictures, make sugary foods at midnight (one of our specialties included cheesecake made with Sprite...naturally what you might use if you ran out of milk...?)

And then there were some not so usual nights.

It seemed like maybe twice a year we'd gather up after making it home by midnight, and for reasons unknown, we would nominate a friend, then everyone would take turns saying something that that FRIEND did that might bother them. (back-stabbed, didn't return calls, flirted too much, haha KIM.)

Yeah, we were a really close group of friends. Or maybe just a group of really mean friends...? (this is why teenage girls are always fighting I guess) Well, until just recently, I found out we weren't the only group of friends who did this. (So there is at least one other crazy group out there somewhere)

Anyways...in case you're still confused, I'll give you an example. When it was my turn for my friends to turn on me (I would brace myself for the worst) and 99.9% of the time they would tell me their biggest pet peeve about me was that I cared way too much about what others thought. Not necessarily that I cared too much about what others thought OF me, just that I care too much about what others were thinking.

Basically, I stress myself out for trivial reasons.

To this day, when I go to a store and I'm walking next to someone, say Nate, and we're walking towards another couple, I immediately see that there is not going to be enough room for the two couples to pass each other in the isle, so I will go out of my way to move in front of or behind Nate, to make sure the other people will have room to get by.

This may not sound like such a bad thing...to be thoughtful of others. The problem comes when I'm doing this for "every one and their dog". In the grocery isles, for the people coming out of the doors, for the people going into the doors, for the mom with 5 kids, etc. etc. etc. It can be quite overwhelming. And let's just say my friends and Nate, get sick of me always worrying.

The worst part is, and it hasn't been until recently, that I realize A LOT of other people rarely show the same kind of respect in return, if at all. That in turn tends to bother me that they are so unthoughtful, and you can see where the anxiety sets in. Silly? Crazy? O.C.D ish? Yes. But I can't help it.

So what does ALL this have to do with a measly Tag???

Well, I can answer the tag easily. But when it comes time to "tag" friends, the caring too much about others part sets in. If I feel like someone would be upset, angered, and mainly inconvenienced that I tagged them, I worry. Believe me, I realize how silly and downright crazy this all sounds. But some of you might have your own outlandish little ticks. Whether it is sanitizing your hands at the grocery store, color coordinating your clothes in your closet, or alphabetizing your cookbooks...this is my weakness.

However, due to extreme blog boring-ness, I will get over my psycho personality trait and complete the tag. And to avoid the anxiety, I won't be tagging anyone! HA.

Maybe divulging too much information when it's extremely unnecessary is something my friends forgot to tell me at the sleepovers...

On to the real reason of the post:

8 Shows I Watch:

1. Survivor!!

2. The Amazing Race

3. The Unit - a recent find Nate and I love

4. Friends (all 10 seasons on DVD will most likely be included in my emergency preparedness kit)

5. The Hills - everyone needs a guilty pleasure

6. Law and Order - SVU is my favorite but Criminal Intent is also great

7. Without a Trace - what can I say, I've been liking the police shows lately

8. Most anything HGTV but House Hunters is probably my favorite



8 Restaurants I Love:

1. Olive Garden

2. Costa Vida

3. Wingers

4. Callaway's

5. Chili's

6. Cheesecake Factory - a Virginia find

7. Panera - another Virgina find that is unfortunately too cool for Utah... sandwiches on yummy bread and extremely over-priced frozen lemonade, but I loved it.

8. Firehouse


8 Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Slept in way too late

2. Went to work

3. Tried not to loose my patience at work...Is a short temper a pregnancy thing? I'm just going to say it is.

4. Wandered around stores cause Nate has been living at the library due to finals.

5. Talked to Kimi on the phone while I wandered

6. Bought Baby Buttars some cute new pants for the 6 month stage

7. Watched Law and Order for I won't say how long (it was a marathon)

8. Blog stalked

Don't judge me on how unproductive I was. Not everyday is like that... :)



8 Things I Look Forward to:

1. April 6th, 2009!!

2. Learning how to be a mom

3. Watching Nate be a dad

4. Christmas! Duh.

5. Nate graduating in April

6. Going to Disneyland with the Buttars clan in January - even though I might be pouting a fair amount of time because I won't be able to go on all of my favorite rides.

7. Cade getting home...hahaha I know.

8. Living somewhere for more than 6 months



8 Wishes:

1. That I will indeed be able to live somewhere for more than 6 months

2. That Nate will get a good job in this scary economy!

3. That I will be a good mom

4. That our baby girl we be healthy

5. That I could magically loose my baby weight instantly when I'm done being prego

6. That my family was how "it used to be"

7. That I was in Hawaii right now...instead of my sister

8. That I didn't have to work tomorrow!!

And obviously I won't be tagging anyone. Hahaha!

A Fun Week?

1. Carrie Underwood in concert. Floor Tickets.

2. Twilight Premiere.
(If you're wondering what I thought, I think it was very true to the book (as true as it can be for a 2 hour movie), a few cheesy parts, but overall WONDERFUL.)


You do the math.

Taking Care of Business

This post is a miss mash of things.

FIRST - a quick and easy TAG my sister-in-law tagged me on:
RULES:
1. Go to your pictures
2. Go to your 4th folder and upload your 4th picture
3.Post
Aww, how sweet. Haha, this is one of our engagements taken at the bottom of Tony Grove.
Now I tag... Kimi, Traci, Nahomi, and Alisha. It's ok, it's easy!

SECOND- some very late Halloween pics.

My friend Stacey hosted an "Amazing Race" Halloween party. It was very entertaining and also very creative. She did such a good job making clues and tasks. Way to go Stace!I'm sad, this picture doesn't show my steal-of-a-deal eBay poodle skirt, but as you can tell we were a rockin' 50's couple. We even found Nate some sweet black "chucks" shoes.


The second party was a Murder Mystery party our friends Jon and Anna hosted. If you've never attended/participated in one, I highly recommend trying them! Everyone is given a character before the party, and you dress up like them. A few people really got into character while trying to discover who the murderer was. There were lots of secrets, bribes, and accusations flying around but it made for a very fun night!I was Elizabeth Rochester, wealthy daughter of the murdered millionaire. Nate was Neal Worthers, my father's personal driver (hence the white gloves and little cap) and also my boyfriend who dumped my sister to be with me. As the night went on we learned that the reason our parents didn't approve of our scandalous relationship was because we were half brother and sister! Haha, and (dun...dun...dun) Neal/Nate was in fact the murderer!!!

Last but not least...for anyone wondering...
YAY! :)

Yes People...We're Still Alive

So why such a blogging drought?

I guess you could blame it on lack of wireless internet access, lack of excitement in our lives, or just pure lack of motivation on my part.
But seeing as how my last post was over a month ago (holy cow!!) I've been feeling a little pressure to update. I won't mention any names.
We've been home from Virginia for more than two months and after over-staying our welcome in my Dad's basement, we finally found a different basement to invade. Ok, it's actually a small apartment in Smithfield, but what can I say - I guess we're bound to be basement dwellers. We just unpacked our last box and we're slowly settling back into a routine.
So, without boring you too much, I'll attempt to catch up on our lives. (Kysha, if you read this I'm admitting to copying your style right now. I liked how it was to the point)

Nate has been:
- very busy with school (because he graduates this spring, a few of his classes are very demanding, and the rest are so undemanding (is that a word??) that he feels attendance isn't quite necessary a lot of the time)

- job hunting. for something part time that would work with his class schedule. he actually found a promising marketing company that is just getting it's start in Cache Valley and will hopefully start sometime next week (hooray! a job that deals with all this school we've been paying for).

- getting over a weird 24 hour flu/2 week cold.

- catching up on his college football dynasties (or whatever they're called) on the Playstation. In his words, "The Aggies may suck in real life, but I'm determined to make them good on here."

- and being very accommodating in the meal preparation area when almost any smell would make me gag.

Laci has been:
- cherishing the days I don't wake up nauseous. (I'm actually feeling 100% better lately, as long as I eat every 4 or so hours)

- enjoying the semester off school! I'll go back...someday.

- anticipating the start of the Jazz's new season. (just so I can watch Kyle Korver again!)

- keeping busy at work in the special needs/speech/behavioral preschool. Kids REALLY DO say the darndest things. Side note-funny story:

The other day it was my turn to take the kids to their bathroom break. When I went to help one little boy with his zipper after he'd done his business, I was shocked to see he wasn't wearing any underwear. "Uh...Gavin, what happened to your underwear???" I asked trying not to sound too alarmed. "Oh, (sigh) my mom didn't have any for me," he started, (moms usually get blamed for anything and everything, and most times -like in this case- you can tell the kids are trying to blame mom for a mistake on their part) "and I'm such a big boy now I didn't think I needed to wear any today." He said matter-of-factly. "Oh, well even big boys wear underwear ALL the time." I emphasized. Thankfully he's been wearing it since!

Baby has been:
- growing and growing! and is almost 17 weeks old.

- growing so much in fact that only one of my pairs of pants now fits. (I've just recently tried some maternity pants (heaven) but still don't feel big enough to wear them too often.)

- accumulating furniture to be painted, and even a cute new diaper bag! (the first thing I've dared to buy before we find out what it is)

- preparing to be identified as male or female on November 3rd!!

And in other family news:
- My sister Bekka finished her varsity tennis season as a junior playing 2nd doubles. She and her partner went undefeated in region play and went on to place 2nd at state!! Way to go Booie!

-Elder Cade completed his two months in the MTC and arrived in Vina del Mar, Chile 2 weeks ago. For all the extended family out there (or anyone interested) - I'm starting a blog to share Cade's emails, pictures, etc. As of right now it's just a website but check back and I promise I will try and update it regularly. eldertcwinchile.blogspot.com

- Allie, my littlest sis, is enjoying her 5th grade year so far and especially playing softball at recess. She informed us the other day that she hopes our baby is a boy so she can "teach it to play catch".

- Dad has been missing his #1 farmhand and dare I say realizing how much he took Cade for granted. Nate, however, has volunteered to "cowboy up" and is excited for winter so he can learn how to feed the cows. It might be a long 2 years :)

Hopefully that wasn't an overload of boring information! Now that we're moved in and settled I'll have to dig out my camera charger so I can be ready to take Halloween pics to post. It won't be another month, I promise. So until then...

As Cade says when he finishes his letters-
"Paz!"
Spanish to English translation = "Peace"

Pity Party for Laci

I just want to say:

I now have a new found respect for all you moms out there. Meaning, if you are a mom, chances are you had horrible cases of the dreaded "morning sickness". (which in fact for me is morning, mid-morning, lunchtime, afternoon, evening, and all night sickness) You all deserve an award.It SUCKS. (speaking of moms, my mom would have shot me a disapproving glare for using SUCKS, but that is pretty much the best word to describe the wretched retching)

However, like my sister-in-law reminds me, being sick is a good sign that everything is still progressing "normally". And I do want that...I also want the nausea to cease after the 12 week mark.

Here's to wishful thinking. And sorry to be a complainer. (a little sorry)

Guess What??

Our little "kumquat" (that's supposedly the size right now...but who even knows how big a kumquat is?) is 10 weeks old.
We had our Dr.'s appointment last week and he said everything looks great, and we also got to hear the heartbeat! I know it's still a bit early, but since the Dr. said everything is "normal" we're crossing our fingers. So if all goes well, April 6, 2009 will be the special day! (or sometime around there)