The Past Month...

I realize that I haven't posted since the beginning of last month.  Where did February go?!

We have been VERY busy over here (Translation: I warn you--This is a pretty long post). To get a feel of our current available time to just "relax"...Jimmie and I just celebrated Valentine's Day this last Friday.  We're only 2-3 weeks late on that one! :)  School this semester is the busiest and most difficult that I've had so far, but we're making it! I'm getting lots of hours at work, which I'm grateful for, but it definitely cuts down on free time to blog! Basically any free time that I've been getting recently has gone towards sleep.  So apologies on taking so long to get some of these things up!

Here are some pictures of things going on around here in the last month or so.  Most of this will be baby related because even though there's a bunch of things going on, baby stuff's really the only picture worthy things :)

Baby Crafting

Actually made these baby booties in January a little after the giraffe, 

but I never got to post them!

 Most people paint or buy letters to hang above baby's crib.

But to save money, I found a way to make my own...and here's how:

(1) Find a font you like online/download it

(2) Type name & print in size you'd like

(3) Trace each letter onto cardboard & cut using Exacto knife

(4) Paint the letter edges a dark color to hide the cardboard appearance from a side view 

(5) Apply fun-looking paper with spray glue to the letters to decorate

(I used scrapbook paper that I had lying around)

Pretty cool, huh? The coloring is off in the picture.  

All of the letters are actually shades of green and yellow.

 Sketched and painted some animal silhouettes for the walls.  

We chose a rhino, giraffe, and elephant.

This literally took maybe 30-min to an hour to complete.  Super easy!

We did not "craft" this crib, we're not that handy :) 

But our crib did come in the mail and we put it together!

We're still waiting for the changing table that's backordered, but it matches the crib.

We've started to get things in place.  

We scored a mobile, dust ruffle, and crib bumper (not shown)

Matted and hung the wall art & hung the lettering.

Now we just need the mattress :)

 We scored BIG TIME on clothes. A close friend let us in on some information about an event for BYU students.  My friend and I took a Saturday morning and went.

Basically, there were all kinds of things donated and everything's free.  Everything's cleaned, sorted, and organized so you can easily just take what you need. I brought a big black trash bag and got lots of cute clothes ranging from newborn all the way to 18 months.  We got rompers, sleepers, jammies, onesies, bibs, etc.  It was fantastic! Obviously there were some lower quality or dingy looking items that we passed over, but there were so many things that looked like they've never been worn!

What a blessing! Between this and the things from Janelle, we have a whole dresser full of clothes and haven't bought a single thing!

 Jim and I spent a morning talking about how to dress a baby and practicing some things.  This was the end result.  Ha!  Poor little guy.

 In case you're wondering what our baby looks like, apparently this is him :)

Haha! At least according to one of my apps.  They construct the picture based on physical traits of both Mom and Dad that you enter. I found it amusing.  We'll see how closely this matches in about 13 weeks.

Here are some baby bump shots:

I probably should have taken one today since I'm 26 weeks 3 days today.  

I must have gotten significantly bigger in the last week because within the last week I've had 4 strangers that I've encountered (at school, work, etc) ask how far along I am.  So apparently I look noticeably pregnant now!

I'm feeling good though.  More and more uncomfortable as it becomes more difficult to bend over and I'm getting more tired, but the nausea (though still taking medicine at times) has been easier on me.  And I certainly can't complain because I've read so many posts of heartburn and other annoying things to deal with and I've had none of that.  Aside from being a little tired and feeling a little uncomfortable, I've been very blessed to have a healthy and low-key pregnancy so far.

Little man seems to be rather hyperactive and it's a rare time when he is NOT practicing karate or gymnastics inside of me.  It's pretty fun and surreal to be able to look down at your stomach and see little jumps and bumps moving all around.  

I'll be 27 weeks on Thursday!  There's a lot of debate as to where your third trimester actually begins... opinions range anywhere between 25-28 weeks.  I consider it to be 27 weeks, so as of Thursday, we're in the homestretch!

And we hit this mark a few days ago...

So, we're in double digits now!

We've got a doctors appointment next week and we've got our glucose/diabetes test during that appointment.  So that should be... fun!  I'm fully anticipating failing the first test and then passing the second, just as my Mom and sister have.  However, it'd be much nicer to just pass the first test all together and not have to undergo the 3 hour test.  We shall see!

We also were able to get a table from Craig's List a few days before we moved.  So we've had it for a while now, but I don't think I ever posted a photo on here.  I probably posted one on FB though :)

And there's this little girl...

 Look at those eyes. Maybe I'm biased, but I think she's about the prettiest pup there is!

 Nala has been doing fantastic with her training!! 

We had our second meeting with our trainer, mid-February, and started working on some other great things.  She has learned "place" very well.  Basically when we say this it has her go to her designated spot (her mini trampoline, in her case) and stay there until we tell her to come.  It's to be used for when someone comes to the door, when we have guests, when we're eating dinner, etc.  Any time we need her out of the way or to not freak out over something, she goes to her place.  AND she listens! That's the amazing part.  I had my visiting teachers come over the other day and they were amazed.  She placed when they knocked on the door and just sat there and watched as they came in, visited, and left.  

The trainer said she is one of the smartest dogs that he has ever seen.  And he's been doing this for a while! The hard thing..she's almost too smart.  It's very easy for her to outsmart us or kinda catch us in a loophole if we're not perfect with her training.  So far so good though! She's been just a little angel!


In other news...

Jimmie got a new job!  He starts his first day of training tomorrow.  He'll be working at Bluehost, which is a web hosting company, as a retention specialist.  It's only a few miles away in Provo and he is very excited about the possibilities at this job!  Computer type stuff is what he really likes anyway, so this will be a great way to get his foot in the door, learn new things, and get a bit of a feel for the computer world.  It'll be very nice because it's not only significantly closer and saving us a lot in gas money, but his start pay is also a raise from what he was making before.  We're excited for the opportunities here!

I'm still working at the Cocoa Bean and will continue to until about mid-April when the semester ends. I've been lucky enough to have a lot of hours and I also just got a raise as well.  Being as it's a physical job, I can feel it becoming more difficult as time wears on.  Obviously, if it were to become to much I would stop, but we're not close to that point yet :) I think that stopping in April will be just about perfect for what my schedule and my body can handle.  It has been a wonderful job and if given the opportunity and it's in the cards, I would love to work there again some day.  Obviously, not any time soon though.

On a random note, I had to share this for my family...

Recognize it?  For those who don't know, this little baby is an EXACT replica of a couch we had growing up in my family.  It's a great little piece of furniture.  So the story is, I went to D.I. to buy some maternity slacks for practicum, and saw this!  The best part is? It's not a couch...it's a love seat! It is literally a mini-replica of our couch.  I would have checked out how much it was selling for and possibly bought it if there as not a woman standing there and guarding it with her life! Apparently, she really wanted it as well.  But how funny is that!? What are the odds.  It made my day.

I also started practicum this week!

 First day of school shot! This practicum I'll be teaching 4th grade at Franklin Elementary.

Conveniently, it's about a block and half away from our apartment.

A little different than having to drive the 45 min that I had to last practicum!

No this isn't a computer lab.  It's our classroom! It is a Title I school, but in grades 3-6 they have some kind of program that makes it so they all have computers in their classroom! We have 28 students and 18 computers.  They literally share a computer between 2 students as their desk. 

We also have the capability to have every student use an iPad if I wanted and we have a Promethean board.  Holy Technology!  It will be fun to figure out how to integrate the technology and the Common Core that the students need to be learning. 

 The fourth graders are very different from the first graders. 

I've already got a whole page of funny quotes they've said!

The other day I did a "Get to Know You" lesson to introduce myself to the class.  

After I'd finished I did a little Q&A session for any other things they wanted to know about me.

We had the standard questions of... 

"What's your favorite color?"

Me: Green

"What's your favorite food"

Me: Probably pizza

(The whole class cheers!)

...and then

"What are your parents' first names?"

Me: Uh... Jill and Steve... next question?

Haha! So glad we cleared that up.  That'd definitely be my first question to get to know someone.  The things that 4th graders feel they need to know.  It will be an interesting month.
-------
And for those of you who don't know, I found out some news a few weeks ago that will make the upcoming weeks even busier, but life much easier in the long run.  Originally, the way the year was going to play out would be to finish my last semester of classes mid-April, end work at the end of April,  have a month or so to prep for baby, organize, and relax, have baby in June and then do my Student Teaching this Fall semester from end of August-December.

However, now I'm going to be able to start my Student Teaching immediately after this semester of classes ends.  (Literally though, they want me to start my first day of Student Teaching the day after my last final and work up until the baby comes).  This way I'll be able to get about 6-7 weeks of my Student Teaching completed before baby arrives and only have about 6-7 weeks to finish up in the Fall.  This will be so much nicer in so many ways!! It will be hard to push through these next few months as I'll be busy, busy, busy and probably increasingly tired and uncomfortable.  But it will be SO worth it.  So we're very glad that the education department was able to work with me on this one. And of course, once I finish up my student teaching, I'm done with school all together!

We're so looking forward to meeting this little guy and to finishing up with school.  All of these hard, crazy, busy times will all be worth it in the end :)

We're Moving!

For those of you who don't know, we're moving!  We were going to move last weekend, but that was put on hold so that the landlord could get the carpets and apartment cleaned and ready.  Didn't hear about it?  You're not alone.  We didn't actually even know we were moving until a week ago.

Here's the story...
Our lease for this place was supposed to end at the end of June, at which point we were looking for another place to move, for several reasons.  Our apartment now is feeling a little cramped, and the one and only bedroom we have is freezing in the winter.  Everywhere but our bedroom has central heat and our poorly installed swamp cooler in the window just makes it feel like the window is open 24/7.  Despite our space heater's best efforts... it just can't quite keep up.  So with a baby on the way... we decided it would be much better to not sign another year contract in a drafty and cramped apartment.

Seeing as we'd have a < 1 month little guy at the time of the move, I didn't want to be touring apartments and stressing about where we're moving too around that time so I kinda got a jump start on apartment searches.  We looked at several different apartment complexes within the area and weren't overly pleased with anything.  On a whim, I got onto Craigslist, just to look around at price ranges, what's available, locations, etc.

I clicked on an apartment just to look at the pictures and loved it.  It was one of the cheaper apartments that I'd seen listed, had plenty of space, and looked very nice!  Available February 1st.
I thought to myself...
Me: "Well, that's a shame.  Too bad we can't move now!"
Looked at the address...
Me: "171 South, 500 West, Provo, Utah? (We're 165 South) Jimmie... Isn't this right next to us? Which house is 171?"
Jimmie: "It's the apartment right across the hall in this building, why?"

And so it began.  We emailed our landlord that night explaining our situation and asking if he'd rented the apartment out yet or if he'd be willing to let us move there and try and sell this place.  He called us early the next morning and said that it would actually be perfect for us to move there because he likes us and our current unit has always been easier to sell because it's cheaper and unique.

Current tenant moved out on the 1st, cleaners have been in and out for the last week, we'll meet with our landlord tomorrow to sign some papers to switch over to the new place, and then we can move in! We're VERY excited. We like it better, it covers everything that we need, and will make things much much easier to be able to move now instead of later.

So that's what we'll be doing this weekend.  I'll get some pictures up once we finally get things in place over there, but we were able to take a video tour of the place before we into the process of moving.

So here's the video for you:

[So to clarify my confusing ramblings through part of the video... What I was trying to say is that the apartment has central heat.  The 1.5 bedroom on the side doesn't have the heat, but it stays nice and warm if you leave the doors open to the rest of the house during the day.  The problem in our drafty other room here is that it's installed poorly so the cold outside air creeps in.  This room has a swamp cooler (which is a type of A/C for you east coasters), BUT we're able to close the window over top of it and seal off the room.  The swamp cooler in the other room is installed properly and sealed super well and does have central heat.  Hence the heat issue being fixed :) ]

There's been a good deal of things that I've been meaning to post on the blog.  Plenty of baby prep, craft projects, etc.  I think that stuff will all come after the move though.  I know you're just can't WAIT to read more of my ramblings and see my pointless million pictures I take, but you'll just have to wait another week ;)

That's all for now folks! I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty very soon.

"I Think We All Need a Pep Talk..."

Well, nothing too new or exciting has been going on around here recently, but it's sure felt overwhelmingly busy.  This week was probably the longest and hardest of weeks even though I only had 3 days of school with MLK Day--but we made it!

I found this video at the end of this crazy week and thought it was SO funny and adorable... not to mention true.  I posted it on Facebook...but if you didn't watch it--you need to!  Everyone can use a pep talk every once and a while:

Here's some random snapshots from throughout this week.

This week, I'm 21 weeks.  This means--"Woohoo! Over half way there!" but also... "Wow. I'm only half way there."  I can't imagine what 30-40 weeks will be like... I'm already ready to have the little guy here!  I'm feeling pretty good overall, just anxious to meet him :)

I have an app on my phone that sends funny messages "from" the baby each day that kind of go along with what's happening in the pregnancy/his development.  Lots of them are kinda dumb, but I thought these ones were pretty funny:

...yes.  Yes, I do.  

This picture kinda makes me look bigger than I am.

But I realized I'm getting bigger when I was watching a YouTube video for an assignment, went to bend over to get something for Nala, and my stomach clicked the trackpad on its own and paused my video.  That's always good. 

Also starting to get quite a bit of "Aww, look at your cute little belly!!" which of course is followed by people touching it.  I never realized how weird that was until everyone started doing it to me.  (I imagine that only becomes more frequent as time goes on as well )

Kinda funny!

----------------------------------

We also have had some CRAZY weather over here this week.  We have not seen grass or driveways in over a month with the snow because it's just stayed on the ground. 

 On Thursday we had some rain because things were "warming up".  False.  It was like deadly freezing rain and was slick as anything!  I'd say probably at least 3/4 of the Provo population (especially students walking to campus) fell at least once that day.  I think every other person I saw walking on campus that day fell over.  

Luckily I had an early class and got to campus before it got too slippery out there and just decided to stay in the McKay building where all my classes were and just get homework done in between breaks and snack on vending machine food + what I brought from home.  By the time I left at 5, it had warmed up a little bit and was a little more manageable to walk on.  

The poor people who had to take the ramps to campus ended up holding onto the railings and sliding down.  Several people made the best of it, went to DI, and bought some ice skates.  3 or 4 girls in our building fell on campus and had to go to the hospital.  One of them hit her head on the way to class, thought she was fine, and then passed out in the middle of class so the paramedics surrounded the McKay building.  Very very dangerous day!

This is how I managed to get around campus on Thursday:

I'm just very grateful that I didn't fall, and Jim didn't end up in an accident like these poor people did:

 Because the roads were pretty slick too.

----------------------------------

It was a pretty great day overall though! Because I was stuck in the building all day, I got all kinds of homework done.  My brother-in-law Scott was out in Provo to recruit at BYU's career fair!  (Or I guess this one was called the "STEM" Fair.  Same concept overall I think.  )

Either way, we were lucky enough to be able to find a time that we were all able to get together for dinner at our house with Geoff and have a nice evening together! 

It was really good to be able to catch up with everyone and just relax on Thursday night.

This picture looks like no one is paying attention to each other, but I think they must have just been looking something up on their phones haha.  Thanks for coming guys!

----------------------------------

We've also been training Nala for the last week.  We had our trainer come last Wednesday so we've had about a week and a half of training with her and she's been so good.  He gave us so many helpful Do's and Don'ts with her and what we really need to work on with her.  I didn't realize how much she thought she was in charge until we started working with her.  She is such a diva! But she's already well on the way to becoming a perfect little dog.  

My only problem is... she's adorable.  How do you say no to that face!! We're not supposed to comfort her when she's in her "resolve" stage after being corrected.  Aka when she looks tired and sad after throwing her hissy fit and not getting her way.  :( Poor Nala.  It will be so good for her though.  And I guess it's good practice for when the baby comes :)

And sometimes life is just really hard.  She's not allowed on her futon anymore, but he said her little trampoline is okay to still give her domain over. Sometimes, she prefers to just hide under it instead, even though she's way too big for it...I have no idea how she gets under there hahaha.

And we've been doing a lot of this as well.  Jimmie's been playing for the Ward basketball team.  They won on Saturday! Way to go guys!

Baby Prep

Recently, I've picked up crocheting.  And by picked up, I mean... I saw something that I wanted to make on Pinterest, bought some yarn and crochet hooks, and used Google/Youtube to be able to read the pattern and learn how to crochet. Let's be realistic though, that's how I learned most of what I know about making cakes too!  The giraffe jumped out at me because 1) I LOVE GIRAFFES 2) Because of that love...cute giraffes and baby jungle animals have kind of become our "nursery theme" even though we don't have a room for a nursery :)  It's still fun to have a theme.

Anyway, I wanted to start making stuff for the baby, but most of the things I want to make involves a sewing machine...which I don't have.  So I figured I'd try to make as much as I can through yarn :)

Here's the stuffed animal giraffe I made.  As you can see, he's basically the height of my pillow when sitting.  He's pretty cute, if I do say so myself, and I was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out considering it was my first project and the lack of experience.  

It actually didn't take long at all.  I would work on him during some of my long lectures or while I watched any movies/TV shows.  

He has a nice little line around his nose because when I first made the head, I must have messed something up up, because it was very long and no proportionate.  Being lazy... I just cut out part of the middle and joined them.  (Hence the seam) But it's a neat seam, and I kinda liked what it added.  

Here's a link to the free written-pattern I used!

You should give it a try :) It took a little while to understand what all the abbreviations meant and how to read it...but like I said.  Nothing Google can't fix!  This lady also has a moose and a sheep pattern as well as some other things like scarves, balls, etc.  If you go to give it a try, and get really confused or can't figure something out, just ask me.  Some things were more confusing than others.  

In other news, I decided to start a baby blanket and also plan on making baby booties & a newborn hat.  We were able to find a great carseat/stroller travel set that was barely used and being sold for very cheap!  The baby stuff is already starting to accumulate and makes me very excited!  

Let me know if you have any suggestions of great things to make!  I'm always looking for more ideas :)

A Busy New Year

Even though it's only the 17th, I feel like so much has happened already this year! I've just completed my second week of school and I feel like it's been at least a month already.  I can tell you for sure, I've done at least a month's worth of work :)

Aside from classes and a lot of homework, I turned in my student teaching application--which was kind of a feat to complete.  Next thing to do--apply for graduation! Practicum Feb 28-March 27, taking the Praxis test in March, Student Teaching from end of August-December then finally graduation.  Though it's all happening this year, it all seems so far away.  So much will happen between now and then...I'll feel pretty accomplished by the end of it all.  For now... I'm just going to focus on completing my daily/weekly assignments and exams.

We had an ultrasound right before we left to come home for Christmas.  Since we've come back, we've had two!  One last week at our doctors office and our last was on Tuesday for our (apprx.) 20 week anatomical scan at the hospital. While at the hospital, we checked into some of the classes they offer...but they've skyrocketed in price and are just not worth it.  We got the basic hospital information we need, a quick tour, and pre-registered at the hospital.  As we left, the labor and deliver nurse said, "Okay great, well, we'll see you soon!!"  ...soon? That was enough to shake me a bit, because I don't feel like it will be "soon".  But hey, I am half way through today!

Overall though-- the result of anatomical ultrasound: Everything looks good, healthy and normal as far as she can tell.  He was, once again, rather active and it was pretty fun to see.

Here are some of the pictures from the anatomical ultrasound.  There are captions of what you're seeing in the ultrasound in the bottom middle of the picture.

 Waving hello

 (This one's more like toes, seen on the right side)

 4 chamber heart, working great, with a normal heartbeat

 Leg side view

He was kind of difficult with getting a good profile shot...

 But we got a few :)  [waving] "Hello, everyone!!"

In other news... within the last week, I've started to be able to feel the baby move!  It's been pretty exciting and cool.  It took a little while to be able to determine what was actually baby movement, but it's becoming pretty clear now.  

(This is part of a pregnancy app I have that you keep track of baby kicks on.  I think it's to use if you want to make sure everything's okay if baby isn't moving too much, but I just used it to count little movements.  It didn't like that too much though...after I recorded 10 kicks within like 6-7 minutes it told me "Your baby is just fine, come back and count tomorrow" haha.) 

We thought we'd take a couple pictures before church on Sunday because I guess we really haven't taken many.  And people keep asking if I'm "really big" yet or if I'm "showing".  They're not really the best pictures, but hey...they're pictures! I wouldn't say I'm big, but I'm definitely showing.  I feel really big when I go to get off the couch, bend over, or put some clothes on... but everyone I see tells me every day "you don't even look pregnant!" ...which I guess is a compliment?  I don't even really know.

Speaking of church... this year our ward starts at 11 instead of 9.  And we're SUPER stoked about that, especially since many Saturday nights I work until close and don't get to sleep until about 1 am. Yay for sleeping in a little!

We're super excited about Nala getting the help that she needs.  Yes, it does sound like we're having an intervention or something...which we kind of are!  Nala's behavior has been really bad and just getting increasingly worse.  Obviously this is something we have to work out before the baby comes so after continually trying a million different techniques and training classes, we got a professional dog trainer to get this straightened out.  We were a little skeptical at first but it has a full money back guarantee and lots of awesome reviews.  We had our first meeting the other day and it was awesome. The trainer comes to our home, really gets to know Nala, works with us one on one and we can call, text, or email him 24/7 with any questions or concerns we have.  We have a lot of homework and it's going to be difficult, but it is AMAZING what 2 hours of training has already done for her.  Within the 24 hours of the training, she is already listening so much better to everything and really behaving.  

When the trainer first met Nala, he, like many others, was fooled by her beauty and adorableness.  He believed us, but once we actually started working with her, he had to admit.. she was a lot worse and much more of a dominant diva than he ever expected with one of the worst food aggression problems he's ever seen.  Nothing that's not 100% trainable, but it's good to know what we're up against.  He said we should for sure have her to being an awesome dog well before the baby comes.  They've never had a circumstance where they couldn't train a dog and had to give the money back.  I really think this program is going to work for all of us.  And I sure hope so!

We also went to a Miami Heat game the other day!  They come around here about once a year, and because they're playing the Jazz... the tickets are pretty cheap.  We went up to Salt Lake on Monday night and had a blast!  Last year, if you recall, we somehow, unbelievably, lost to the Utah Jazz.  Thinking surely this couldn't happen two years in a row, we went in fairly confident.  By the time it got to the half...and we were down by 15, we were both dumbfounded.  This time however, recognizing the pattern, instead of getting my emotions overly invested in the game only to be utterly crushed at the end, I decided to take half time to find myself some nice ice cream.  I decided to eat my feelings instead :) and I don't regret an ounce of it.  

They started to close the gap again in the 4th quarter but came up short.  It was literally as if we were just watching last years game on repeat.  Pretty unbelievable! But good for the Jazz.  And this time it was easier.  We has a great time, enjoyed each others company, I enjoyed my ice cream, AND we got a free Jazz blanket.  What more could you want :)

We got there early so we were able to watch some of the players warm-up:

Mario Chalmers taking some 3's

Rashard Lewis practicing free throws

(Should have had more players do this!)

Shane  Battier, still recovering from an injury,  didn't play

Miami Heat fans crowd around their entry portal in hopes of getting some autographs

Make no mistake, if we go again, and I'm not pregnant...we're pushing to the front of that crowd :)

There were actually a ton of Heat fans there

 But let's be realistic... these are our real seats :)

Heat Fans... Loud and Proud!

  But the view's still pretty great, and the company, even greater.  

All in all... we've got a busy year ahead of us! But a really good one at that.  

Christmas 2012

We were able to spend our Christmas vacation in New Jersey this year!  It was so nice to be able to see so many family members and good friends.  I didn't do a very good job of getting a lot of pictures and videos like I wanted too, but that tends to happen when you're busy having fun and squeezing things in!

To save room, I put some of the pictures of events in collages.  If you want any of them individually though, I can of course send you a copy and if you can't see all of the pictures clearly, try clicking on them to see if that will help.

(Left-Right, Top-Bottom) The Foulk Clan: Janelle, James, Megan, Emily, Jim, Marc, Stephanie, Alan, Scott, Mom (Jill), Ginny, Dad (Steve), Geoffrey, Evan & Nathan

Yup! That's a lot of people! 

Which is probably why... we could barely fit our stockings up!  But we managed :)

Here's one with Grandma Foulk, opening the quilt that we made for her for Christmas!

It was so nice to see Jim's side of the family because they all live in New Jersey, too!  It was nice to be able to play games and spend time with everyone.

 Left-Right: Emily, Jim, Mom (Carol)

Left-Right: Emily, Jim, Marc

Some Christmas Vacation happenings...

 We got to go to Lana & Marcus Corbitt's beautiful wedding!

 Celebrate Christmas together!

Go on a fun Christmas hayride & go out for dinner!

Play with some super cute nephews!

Play some fun family games!

See Les Miserables, finally!

and have nearly everyone get very sick...

 ...which did not make us very happy--especially little babes on Christmas!

I don't think I've ever used as much hand sanitizer as I did this vacation, but it was so fun to see everyone, sick or not!

The good news is that no one was sick the entire time.  And even little ones who were sick at the beginning, seemed to be feeling much better towards the end:

Too cute, right?! 

...And of course, it's always good to be back.  And I think this little pup was pretty happy to have us home :)

Thank you so much to all of our family and friends who made our trip enjoyable and unforgettable!  

We're excited for 2013... it will be a big year for us!  At the very least we know two things:  Our family of 2 will finally become 3 and I will finally graduate from BYU! We look forward to the adventures to come.