Inside a Pregnant Woman's Brain

I have been doing laundry and cleaning up for the last few hours and these are some of the thoughts bouncing around in my head:

The first is a question to all of you out there-Do you think that someone can become a great writer or are you just born with a natural ability to write? I have not been given the gift of great writing, and just wondered if anyone thinks it is possible to take classes or learn how to get better at it. For example, I think that spelling is a gift. You either have it or you don't. I am a pretty good speller (for the most part) and I didn't study dictionaries. Is that how you good writers feel about writing? It just comes to you? The interesting thing to me is that I can't tell just by talking to someone if they are a good writer or not. Some people that I would never think, can express themselves so well on paper. Okay, the end.

#2 Being a mom is hard work! I wish I had the secret formula for what makes my kids happy and content. It seems to change every day. One day they will be so easy and fun and the next we are doing the same thing and they just can't stop fighting, yelling, whining, etc. I am just glad we get tomorrow to start fresh and try again.

#3 I am not thrilled with my laundry detergent. I don't feel like it cleans my clothes very well, especially my whites. How do you get your whites whiter? I feel like bleach turns my whites grey. Hmmm...

#4 I love the Olympics. They inspire me to be better. I was watching the women's cross country skiing today and was amazed how tough those women are. Cross country skiing is HARD!! They were flying! I just love how if we push ourselves, our bodies are able to do amazing things. Also, Johnny Weir bugs. Nice pink lace up in the back of your costume,weirdo. He is just a little over the top for me!

#5 I have an awesome husband. I know you are all sick of me saying it, but really he is awesome. Today he called to see how I was doing and I broke down in tears. He knows me and knows that when I cry, it must be serious. I know I am pregnant but I am not an overly hormonal person. For the most part, I am pretty even keeled (atleast I think I am-you may want to ask James). He came home from work shortly after the call to deal with the boys without me asking him to. He also went and picked up my phone today which was dropped off at a t-mobile store by a kind stranger that almost ran over it this morning. I know he probably wants to throttle me for leaving my phone/keys/wallet everywhere, but he keeps his comments to himself. After that, he picked up dinner for me and the kids. Love him.

#6 Preston pooped on the bathroom floor tonight. He waited too long while playing in the bath, and couldn't make it the 2 steps to the toilet from the bath. Atleast it wasn't IN the bath right? He also thinks his real name is Prestopea not Preston. He corrects me if I call him Preston.

#7 We bought some pink paint for Claire's nursery and it is SUPER pink. Like bubble gum, pepto bismal pink. I didn't want it to be too light but think I may have gone overboard. Hopefully it will be okay when we get the white beadboard up. Anyone know where to get the best deal on beadboard??

That's it. My thoughts for the evening. Goodnight.

Late Announcement

In case any of you haven't heard, we are having a GIRL!! We are all so excited and can't wait for her to come join our family. I thought I had told everyone, but realized that I had not even mentioned it on the blog yet. I received some baby girl clothes from a neighbor today and it was so fun to see pink! It's like a whole new world! We are naming her Claire Diane (don't tell me if you hate the name please) and are expecting her arrival in the middle of May. Only about 3 months to go!

Christmas Catch Up

Merry Christmas last month! haha I am finally getting around to posting about what we did during the holidays. Lots of pictures, so here we go! Above is our Christmas card picture. If you didn't get one, sorry I am ordering more next year because I was out and kept getting cards! I felt so bad!
This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. The cards!! Thanks to all who remembered us this year. I love getting mail and seeing your cute faces!

I like seeing other people's decorations so I thought I would post the new things I got this/last year. I bought this in the summer on clearance at Gardner Village. It was fun to find it with my other Christmas stuff. My mom has a similar ceramic one that she has had since I was a little girl. I had to get it!


A new nativity that fit perfectly in my shadowbox!



velvet table runner and glass vase from tai pan




Christmas Eve at my parent's house-the grandkids open presents from each other. We did this with my cousins growing up and I always looked forward to it.





Carter got a sweet transformer from Grammy and Grandad. (the cousin that had his name wasn't there that night)






Preston got a lightning Mcqueen puzzle and seems really happy about it!





Both of my brothers were able to spend Christmas with us. It was so fun to see them and wish we could see them more often.
Greg with my mom

This year we did things a little different since my Uncle Dan passed away. We ended up going to visit his grave along with my aunt Dona and Uncle Richard. It was bittersweet to be there and we really miss him still so much. Afterward we went over to my aunt Mary's and had dinner and watched home movies of Christmases growing up. We all laughed our heads off, which we needed. We then went and sang at the hospital and got to sing to a little boy who had RSV. His parents had tears rolling down their cheeks and it made it all worth it. Carter and Preston came this year and were actually really well behaved and sang right along with everybody. We got home pretty late but still managed to put out the mince pies, cookies, and milk for Father Christmas aka Santa.

What Santa brought us Christmas morning

Stockings filled

Santa didn't enjoy these mince pies very much

James got snow shoes from his parents which he has been wanting for about 5 years! He was so excited! The boys got this batman castle and are still loving it. We were so spoiled again this year with lots of fun gifts.

This year the brothers and sisters decided to do a white elephant exchange instead of buying each other expensive presents. The deal was that we had to find something from our house that was useable and someone might actually want. Greg got Napoleon Dynamite and just for fun got a little stuffed snowman thrown in with it. Hilarious!

The day after Christmas we all decided to go out to dinner and a movie as a family (adults only). Mel ended up getting sick at the last minute so she didn't come, but everyone else had a great time! We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and then to see Avatar in 3D. The special effects were amazing, the storyline was average and it was WAY too long! Oh well, we had fun anyway.

Lisa, Scott, me, and James

My cute parents

Greg, Shauna, Kevin, and Bethany

For New Years James made an amazing dinner for us to ring in the new year with of beef shortrib, quiche, pork tenderloin, garlic mashed potatoes, and baked chocolate tart. Delicious!! Then we went over to my parents and had a low key night hanging out with my Uncle Andy who was in town from Maryland and my grandparents. We played Scum until midnight and then headed back home. It was actually really fun! James had the week off of work between Christmas and New Years and it was so nice to have him home just relaxing with us. Here's to 2010!

Resolutions

I figure I better get these on here since it is already the 3rd! Here goes:

1. Get all of my digital pictures developed and in photo albums. I have been putting it off thinking I would "scrapbook" them, but have realized that it is NEVER going to happen. I just want to see them instead of having them sitting in a box or a file on my computer. Also I want to print out my blog into a book.

2. Go out to eat less. This is a hard one for me, especially being pregnant! I want to limit it to once a week.

3. Learn 10 new recipes that I can incorporate into my lineup. I am in a rut!

4. Less computer time. How many times do I really need to check facebook in a day??

5. Paint the nursery for the new baby and also paint my bedroom. (That one I didn't do last year!)

6. Sort through and sell all the boys clothes, baby bedding, old toys, etc. DE-JUNK!!!

Looking at my resolutions from last year I did most of them including getting my closets organized, running St. George half marathon, and drinking more water. Hopefully all of the ones on my list this year will get accomplished! Happy 2010 everyone!

Birthday Bash #7

I forgot to include these cute pictures of Preston's 3rd birthday, so I figured this birthday post would suffice. We had a great time going to Thanksgiving Point for ice cream (that is what he wanted to do) and had all the cousins sing to him at Grammys house on Sunday. James made a fun race track cake with Lightning McQueen. Preston loved it! Happy Birthday Presto, we love you so much and are so glad you came to our family. You make our lives way more exciting! :)

It took him about 4 tries to blow out his candles because he had some cousins that "helped" him a little too much!
It is also Halle and Blake's birthday before and after Preston's so we sang to all three.


Now for the Birthday Bash...

Here are your hosts for the evening-complete in ugly sweater with a present zipper, and awesome 90s throwback button down.

Mike B., Shauna, Mom, and Dad

Kev, Bethany, Josh, Mel, and Layne

Carl, Sarah, Cody, Shannon, Megan, and Tim



The fabulous costume of the night belonged to:

Mike Holdaway as Orange Superman-wow, what people will do to try to earn a few points for their team. Mike came in the reigning champion winning 6 years in a row. He was not dethroned and can now say he is 7-0. Pretty amazing.

Tim wearing a shirt of a couple he doesn't know

Cody and his "Hangin' out with the Hurricane Middle School Choir" shirt-loved it!
Sarah found a beauty in her mom's closet-haha

My mom's sweater says "Stuck on You" with 2 reindeer licking a pole. We found the gem at Savers!

My dad's festive button down complete with green undershirt to match-he couldn't find a turtleneck dangit!

Shannon was able to find one with Winnie the Pooh with a scarf. Awesome. She also found a great sweater from her mom's closet!

Round 1 was Top Chef Relay. I love the show Top Chef so we decided to do a little "quick fire"and have a race between teams. First Leg was seeding a pomegranate.


!

Second Leg: Dicing an Onion

Third Leg: Grating a block of Cheese (no pictures because they were too fast!)

Final Leg: Seperating egg whites then beating them to a stiff peak.
Bethany was the only one to do it correctly and not get half the yolk in with it. She wanted to just say she won because her arm was getting tired, but Josh would not give up even though he had more yolk than white in his bowl. So awesome!
Another fun round we did was the Human Bridge. People started on a chair in push up position then had to manage to get 3 other members of their team across and whoever could put their cup down the furthest won. Here is the winning team with Mel's legs and Layne's half naked back!
Bethany crawling over Tim. He had hurt his wrist the day before so was wailing in pain but never quit!
Here is my mom starting to fall off! She didn't make it far!

Other rounds included: Record breakers, So you think you can dance music, Britney Spears trivia, Lines from Romantic comedies, and the awesome lightning round. Thanks to my awesome husband for always making my birthday parties so much fun. This might have been the best year yet!

As for my actual birthday, I went to lunch at Paradise Bakery with my mom and sisters, aunt Chris, and Grandpa Stephenson and Cherrill. It was so neat to have my grandpa there! I love my family so much. Then for dinner James took me to the Porcupine Grill up the mouth of the canyon. It was so delicious! We then went to the mall and I got some new maternity clothes which were much needed. I was a little late, but managed to also go to my friend Summer's "mocktail" party with a bunch of girlfriends from the neighborhood. We had a gift exchange and did a trivia game about Christmas songs. Guess who won? Of course, me, the queen of listening to Christmas music!! Okay, so 4 of us tied, but I picked the number closet to the one she picked out of 100 and won some knock off Juicy couture perfume! Not bad! Great party, great birthday, great start to the last year of my 20s.

Grandma and Grandad English come to visit

The Brits are back! James' parents came to visit from Nov. 22-Dec. 5 and we had such a good time with them here. The boys miss them so much and constantly ask me when they are coming back. Hopefully they will be back when the baby is born next summer. We jammed a lot in while they were here!
First on the agenda was the dinosaur museum. Our membership to Thanksgiving Point ran out so the boys have been going through withdrawals! Then we had Thanksgiving with my family. That night James and I got to go see New Moon together and it was a much needed date night! After black Friday we spent the next day putting up the Christmas decor. Outside lights, Christmas tree, decorations, all of it...I was exhausted by the end of the day!

Grandad helping Carter put the star on top-we have another picture of this about 3 years ago when Preston was a new baby.
It took 3 English men to finally get it up there!

The kids were so spoiled doing fun things while the grandparents were here. On another day they took them up to Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. We had never been there so I figured it would be a new and fun thing for them. We could have stayed there all day! They loved it. Here is Carter as the cashier ringing up Grandma's groceries.

Preston liked the pretend play area and dressed up as a turtle

Chillin in the old style car with his groceries
Carter let Grandad know that this horse was definitely not real-kids crack me up!

Preston being a builder

and the highlight of the trip...the helicopter. Both boys were in heaven!

Even Grandad got to be the co-pilot with Carter for awhile

After the museum we stopped for some dinner at Olive Garden (I have been craving pasta with marinara and cheese!) It was delish and then we walked over to temple square to see the Christmas lights. It was freezing but beautiful!

Grandparents are the best!

Another night they took the boys to see the lights at Thanksgiving Point and to get some ice cream afterward. They had some reindeer hanging out outside of the shops so we had to take a photo op. This was the best I could do, Preston did NOT want to look at the camera. He thought he was being so funny.

Grandma and Preston with his bubble gum ice cream with gummy bears. Nasty! But not as bad as Carter's mix of Berry sorbet with peanut m&ms.

Here they are eating more treats but this time at the Festival of Trees. The boys were actually surprisingly good and loved looking at all the different trees and how they were decorated. They even had a little area for kids to do crafts and they made some reindeer ears, stain glass windows, and painted some ceramic ornaments.

Some other things they did with the boys that I didn't get pictures of were Kangaroo Zoo, Cabelas, visiting Santa, and many trips to the park. Didn't I tell you we had a packed 2 weeks? Thanks Mum and Dad for all the fun, the boys haven't stopped talking about it!