November 2007

Here it is the end of November and I feel I've hardly had time to think over the past few weeks. Time has gone by so quickly! Jeff just returned from hunting for 10 days in Jackson Hole, WY where he and his dad got the elk in these pictures. He was pretty happy to have gotten a decent elk after having seen almost nothing for almost 8 days.

Ryan turned 5 the day before Thanksgiving and we had a little party for him at Gram & Grandpa's house. He was pretty thrilled with the 10 one dollar bills that Uncle Craig gave him & the 20 dollar bill that Kat-Kat (my aunt) gave him. He was also excited when he got another dollar from Uncle Craig at dinner for eating the GIANT piece of chocolate cake that Uncle Cory & Uncle Craig bet him he coulnd't eat in one bite...oh ye of little faith. He definitely takes after his uncles when it comes to portion size and eating: the more you can fit in at once the better.

Since Jeff was in Wyoming, I went to St. George for Thanksgiving. It was a nice break, but when you go away, you always appreciate home more. I did a little shopping, but my extra weight prevented me from really be comfortable walking around much and I was kind of too slow for everyone. Besides that, it wasn't really that much fun having to find the restroom twice in every store we entered. Any day now this baby will be off my bladder. If he doesn't come by Saturday (December 1st) we're getting induced.

October 2007

We spent basically all of October hunting & camping. I'm not really much of a camper (especially at 7+ months pregnant), but I'm not sure if you can consider it camping when you stay in your camp trailer with heat, showers, and a kitchen. Whatever the case, we spent a lot of time outdoors and four-wheeling. We made it an all-out family affair on the Elk Hunt. Both of my brothers came, my mom & dad, Jeff's brother, and Jeff's parents. We had a really fun time, but it snowed everyday and it was pretty muddy & gucky (I love to get dirty). The downside of the trip??? Rex & RaeMi had just purchased their new motorhome and immediately upon arrival at camp, it quit working. The guys spent a significant portion of each day trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Just when they thought they had it narrowed down, they would find something else that could possibly be causing all the stress. In the end, Rex ended up calling someone who worked on diesel engines a few hours away to come work on it. A lesson learned about going to far when you've purchased something new.

We did go to a Halloween party the weekend before Halloween and I was one proud wife when Jeff started getting dressed up in drag for the party. He insisted that he was always a drag queen on Halloween and his friends would be disappointed if he didn't dress to impress. He won the costume contest for his creativity! I especially liked that he even wore nylons the entire evening.

Ryan announced on Halloween morning that he wanted to be Spiderman again for the third year in a row. The outfit was getting pretty tight, but he wore it to Preschool anyways. By evening, we convinced him to be Mr. Incredible as planned. He was pretty excited with his 18 treats that he got while out. 18 was plenty for Mom & Dad and we didn't encourage him to go out for more. We were done with the whole deal by about 6:00 that evening.

September 2007

School has finally gotten back into session & I couldn't be more relieved. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely wouldn't trade being able to stay home for anything...but (can you imagine) Ryan is very social and needs someone besides me to chatter to all day long. We're also excited because when school starts, so do the BYU football games. Can't wait to go to a few games this season.

Ryan is so proud that he finally saved up enough quarters, nickles, dimes, and dollars to trade it in at the bank for a 50 dollar bill! We counted his money every day for months now, even when we didn't add any money to the jar. He earned nickles while learning to read from Gram, he earned a whole handful of random change from Uncle Brett by "helping" him at work, he helps Grandpa George pick vegetables out of the garden, and he always like to help Dad around the house if it involves getting paid for it. We took all of his savings down to the bank & counted it out for the teller. We couldn't just put it through the money counter, so the people behind us were a little put off (they did get another teller to come help them while we spent a good 15 minutes at the counter). At last we had counted it all out to 50 dollars and the banker gave a brand new bill to Ryan. She thought she was pretty clever in asking him what he was going to do with his 50 dollars and Ryan quite simply told her, "I'm going to save for a 100 dollar bill!"

August 2007

So, we found out we're having a boy come the end of November! We actually let the doctor tell Ryan, that way we were not the bad guys. We're all pretty excited to have a new addition to our family. It will be kind of weird because now we're all set in our ways and we're spoiled with our time and what we do with it.

We've finally finished the basement of our house & it is so nice to have done. I told Jeff that I'm done with projects for a while. He's just excited because 1) we won't have to spend every spare minute down there working and 2) he now thinks he has somewhere besides the garage to put his various animal mounts. I can deal without the mounts in the house, they're creepy & I feel like they're just about to eat me when they are just there lurking on the wall.

Summer is almost over and it feels like it just began. I wondered to myself what we would possibly do with the day once school let out for summer and now it's about to start back up again. I think we're all ready for Ryan to have something to fill his day besides which games Mom will play with him today. You know, I can only play Go Fish & Candyland so many times a day and the neighbors really don't need him at their house by 8:10 in the morning. At 4-years old, Ryan can swim better that I could have imagined. When we go to St. George to visit Gram & Grandpa John, we start the day with swimming & end it with swimming & we swim in between. Usually by 8:00 am Ryan wants to be in the pool. He loves to show us flips and dives. The first time he did a front flip off the diving board, we asked, who taught you how to do that? His reply: "My Uncle Craig!" Not surprising because Uncle Craig loves to rough Ryan up in the pool and always persuades him to do pretty daring stunts.

July 2007

So many people are bloggin these days. I love being able to keep up on everyone without emailing individually. I'm not sure about everyone else out there, but I love to hear about the happenings of everyday life; makes me feel more normal.

Right now I'm spending my days soaking up the sun. I LOVE being home each day and having the opportunity to be Mom! We go to the pool quite frequently, but Ryan just picked up that awesome parasite that has been going around all the pools in Utah County. We've been fighting it on and off for almost 4 weeks. When will it ever end?

Jeff is at his busiest these days, but we all know that he'll make up for it when hunting season comes. He drew out for an Elk Tag in Wyoming in November...can't wait! The business keeps us all very busy and sometimes even a little too busy.

*Winter Snow Coat: $40.00

*2005 Halloween Spiderman Costume: $25.00

*2006 Halloween Power Ranger Costume: $25.00

*Snowboots & Hat: $30.00

*Old Batman Cape: free from Grandma RaeMi

*Watching my 4-year old dress up in it all in July in 100+ degree heat: PRICELESS!

June 2007

I've decided to get with the times on this whole blog thing. Remember when (back in the day) everyone wondered why they needed cell phones? Then we all wondered why would ever need email? Yep, that was me with the blogging! I just couldn't imagine why anyone would blog. Who would read it? Who would care? After checked out tons of friend's blogs, I decided it was time. So...here goes nothing!