Summer Update….

So I’ve been meaning to blog for a while…I keep getting on and reading everyone else’s blogs but I’ve yet to update mine…so here’s my update…hopefully not too long.

So at the beginning of the Summer, Me and my mom went to a Yanni concert! I’ve always loved listening or playing his music on the piano and when I found out he was coming to Salt Lake, I had to go! It was great and wonderful to hear his music live! He is a great musician/composer and his music is always uplifting. He said in the concert he always tries to write songs that sound happy and positive, and he doesn’t like songs that sound sad. If you have listened to his music, that is definitely how is music is!                               My mom and I at the concert

Yanni! (picture is not the best quality…it was dark!)

Andrew and I hiked up to the Battle Creek falls with some of his cousins in June. Sasha got to swim in the deep part of the creek and had a blast but she was scared of the waterfall hehehe.

 

The waterfall and Brooke and Jason

Sasha playing in the creek

Brandon and Sierra

Kayla, Alex, Andrew and I at the falls

We also went to the Strawberry Days Rodeo with Andrew’s family. It’s a tradition every year.

The mamas and their colts

Over the 4th of July, we went camping with some of Andrew’s cousins up near Strawberry Reservoir. We got an awesome secluded camping site so the dogs were able to wander around and have fun. The site had an awesome view of the Reservoir but I forgot to get a picture of it! It was great to get away and go camping. I’m glad it is something Andrew and I both enjoy. Just beware…I LOVE my dog and so the next few pictures may have a lot of Sasha…

 

Andrew and Jason enjoying the nice cool day

Sasha, Diesel and Roxy all playing

And now they’re pooped…

At the lake

Sierra and her “crazy eyes”

Andrew and Katie playing horseshoes with Jason and Brandon

Sasha and Roxy became new best friends

In July, we got to celebrate my Grandma and Grandpa Smith’s 50th wedding anniversary. They rented a huge mansion for the whole family to stay in for the weekend and we had lots of fun playing games, going swimming, and had a nice sweet program to celebrate my grandparents.

The BEAUTIFUL cake my Aunt Michelle made for my grandparents and those flowers are edible!

Here are some pics of our goofy family Karaoke to love songs from the past 50 years for my grandparents. The picture above is my uncle Lyle, Andrea, Katelyn, Erin, Jana, and my Aunt Judy.

Uncle Bryant, Aunt Taryn, Addison and Cameron…(the rest of their kiddos are hidden)

The Michelson Family + the Burgis: Kaylie, Stacey, Nate, Eric, David, Sam, Uncle Bruce and Aunt Shauna.

 

Alyssa, Uncle Derek, G & G Smith, Aunt Michelle, Emmily, Lyndie (Kyla is hidden)

 

Aunt Kim, Lacey, Jacob, Brianna, Brendon, Uncle Stuart

And then lastly, I guess an update on me. Right now I’m at 34 weeks. I’m starting to “waddle” everywhere now heheh. I’m really “enjoying” the summer and swelling up like a balloon with the summer heat…but thankfully it hasn’t been too bad. My weight is staying right on track and the baby is sounding healthy and moving a ton! That is one thing I am going to miss once he is born. I love to feel him kick and move.

My mom and Andrew’s mom came over the other day and helped me paint the baby’s room :) it looks great. I can’t wait to get pictures up once it is all done.

Here I am at 32 weeks…Please ignore the messy hair and tired face…I was getting ready for bed.

20 Weeks! Half-way there and……

I’m 20 weeks preggo this week and we got to have an ultrasound to check how the baby is doing and find out what we are having We are happy to announce that we are having a baby BOY! We really didn’t have much of a preference either way but we are happy to know what our baby is so we can start planning and buying stuff! We are also glad it is a boy because we only had 1 name that we agreed on and it was a boy’s name so we won’t have to worry about a girls name until the next time around. The name we want for our baby is Rex (Middle name still undetermined) Wilkins.

Here’s the best ultrasound picture from our appointment. Sorry it is not the best quality, its a picture of the actual picture.

Baby Rex laying on his back. You can see his facial profile and his belly. The grey blob in his chest is his heart and if you look closely you can see the chambers.

I was going to post a pic of the baby boy “proof” but I' don’t really want that posted all over the internet to humiliate my child later in life…You’ll just have to trust me on this…or come to my house and I’ll show you the pics :) All his measurements were good and in a healthy range and his heart was beating at 154.  He was a bit fidgety and was moving in all sorts of directions from laying on his belly, to his back, to his side, to his belly again…It was cool to see him moving around in there!

Well I’m halfway done and I can’t believe how fast it has gone by! It just scares me that before I know it, my baby is going to be grown up! I’m able to feel his little kicks every day now even though they are just light “taps” or “nudges” but it is getting stronger. It’s not strong enough yet that I can feel it from the out side, I can just feel them inside me. Hopefully Andrew will be able to feel him soon :)

 

Left to Right: Belly at 20 weeks, 15 weeks, and 8 weeks

My belly is slowly getting bigger-Some days I feel huge and other days It seems like I’m hardly showing. I’m pretty sure my belly changes size/shape as the baby moves cuz In that 20 week picture I look huge and I definitely don’t look that big all the time! When I’m laying down and I change positions to my side, it’s weird to feel my whole belly “plop” over and sometimes I can feel the baby “plop” inside of me too! All these pregnancy things are so awesome and cool and it is still weird to think that I have a little human growing inside me but I’m so excited to me him in a few months!

St. Patty’s cake

So I was browsing the web for and I happened upon this and it made me so happy just looking at it that I just HAD to make it myself for St. Patrick’s Day. The 17th also happens to be my Father-in-law’s birthday so I made the cake for his birthday too…

So here is the pretty cake batter in the rainbow colors

  Here is the cake in the pans before it is cooked. It looked pretty cool(I was trying to do a double layer cake)

After they were cooked and cooled, I tried stacking them but the top layer fell apart :( I’m pretty sure this is my first time baking a cake like this and I just don’t have the skills. But the crumbles all still look pretty :)

So here is Darrel with the cake I made…only 1 layer but it still worked. Please ignore my decorating skills. I had nothing to write happy birthday with and so I bought this pre-made “frosting” that was more like clay and was a pain so my letters look pretty stupid. Little did he know what it looked like inside…

SURPRISE! My Awesome Rainbow cake! Doesn’t it just make you smile? I mean it’s a freaking RAINBOW! And rainbows are just happy :)

Someday in September….

We are happy to announce that we are having a baby! Our baby will be due around September 19, 2011. We are so excited and have waited quite a while for this to happen. It was a harder road than we expected but we made it and we are so happy. We got to have our first ultrasound today and it was awesome to finally see the baby and know that it is really happening! We heard the heartbeat on Tuesday and it was beating nice and strong at 180 :)

Here are some pics from the ultrasound. He/she is about the size of a lime or plum :)

The baby from the side. You can see a little hand above his/her belly

The baby from the top. You can see the belly with the arms/hands up by his face (which you can barely see)

Thankfully I haven’t had any morning sickness, only food aversions to practically everything except sweets/carbs lol. But I eat anyway since I know the baby needs it. And I’m not “showing” yet…just getting a bit “pudgy” and clothes are getting tight although I haven’t gained any weight yet.

In keeping with family tradition, we want to do a guess-the-gender-and-other-random-things-about-the-baby-contest. Friends are welcome to participate as well. If you guess something right you get an awesome feeling and maybe a hug if you’re accessible :) So comment or email or send me a facebook email with your guess on the baby’s Gender, weight, length, and day he/she will actually be born, and hair color.

Just fyi, yes Andrew and I both have brown hair but I was born with a TON of brown hair and Andrew was born very blonde! (surprise huh?! His hair darkened over the years to his now almost black hair!)

My Wonderful Husband

It's been a while since I posted last and I plan on catching up soon, but I just wanted to dedicate a post to my wonderful husband. I love him so much and every day, even after almost 4 years of marriage, I still wake up and feel so blessed to be his wife and to have him in my life. I am grateful for his testimony and the "foundation" he is for me in my life. I have a tendency to worry about things and make my self sick over things and he always does such a great job at comforting me, calming me down and putting things into a better perspective. I'm grateful that he can give me blessings when I feel I need them to help give me the comfort I need.

I love being married and there are so many wonderful things about marriage that I love but one that I appreciate more is that with him, I know that I never have to face any trials by myself (yes I know I have Christ) but having him personally by my side is such a comfort to me. I love having a best friend to talk to every day. I love having someone to make me laugh and I'm glad I can make him laugh too.

I'm glad that my husband is going to school and still works 5-6days a week to support our family. Even though it means that I see him less, I know he is doing it for us. I'm grateful for the work he does around the house, cleaning and fixing things and also our cars. That he can save us a bunch of money by fixing our car problems him self or with his dad and brother.

I am grateful for all the cute things he does for me "just because" like bringing me flowers at work or doing the laundry every now and then because he knows I hate it. I love that he loves me and makes sure I know that. :) I love that he makes me feel beautiful and thinks I'm esspecially cute when I wear his basketball shorts and a t-shirt. I love him SO much and I hope that I make him feel the same love as he does for me.

Pumpkins!

It’s pumpkin carving time! Yesterday we carved pumpkins with Andrew’s brothers and our friends Jordan and Lacey. This year we bought the actual pumpkin carving knives because last year we attempted to carve pumpkins with kitchen knives and surprisingly (and luckily) kept all our fingers! It was quite a dangerous feat doing it that way!

Jordan and Lacey

The band of Brothers

Me! (Lacey took a picture for me cuz I’m always the one taking the pics.)

The finished products from left to right: Andrew, Lacey, Alex, Alyse, Anthony and Jordan (the one with the glowing eyes you can barely see)

And here are some close ups:

This is what Jordan’s actually looks like. It is only carved through the skin, not all the way through and it glows pretty cool but the picture just didn’t show up very well.

Our New addition…..

We recently decided to add another dog to our family. Sasha has become a bit of a spoiled brat being an only child ;) and so we figured if we added another furbaby to the family now, she would get used to us splitting our attention between her and another creature so that when we get a baby of the human variety, she would deal with it better. So far, it has been fun with the new addition. We adopted a beagle from the animal shelter and named her Cassie.

Cassie is a total snuggle bug and we have come to call her our damsel in distress because if we ignore her and give our attention to Sasha, she gets very jealous and whines a lot like she is being tortured. Sasha is our Drama Queen. She likes to bug Cassie and if Sasha feels like Cassie is getting too much attention, She will go and SIT on Cassie! Like literally go over to Cassie and try to sit on her head! Needless to say we have had our fill of laughs this past week between the two dogs and I’m sure we will have many more. She likes to burrow into blankets

Cassie, with Andrew and his brothers

Me under the dog pile

Oh and last Saturday, I decided to attempt and walk both dogs by my self. I was nervous that it would end up being both dogs trying to walk me and that it would be just a joke trying to deal with the both of them but I found out that walking two of them is actually better than walking one of them! it was so much easier for some reason. Any way I was quite proud of myself. :)