Happy New Year!

We are looking forward to all of the fun, exciting and challenging things to come in 2010. Every year I am amazed at what we have accomplished and how much we have experienced!

This year our family:
-Celebrated Little's 1st birthday!
-Completed another year of Post Graduate Work
-Applied for numerous jobs
-Went on a trip to California for work
-Went on a whimsical/spur of the moment trip to Yellowstone
-Moved for the 4th time during our marriage
-Served as librarians for our ward
-Served as teachers at church
-Taught 2 University courses
-Recieved a national award for research with a nice little $ perk included
-Started taking pictures as a hobby
-Took photography more seriously and photographed weddings and portraits
-Switched from Nikon to Canon
-Experienced another miscarriage (#3)
-Had a family reunion
-Found out we were expecting child #2 and that said child is a boy :)
-Rejoined the gym for another year
-Found out I can and did jog 5 miles in an hour at 23 weeks pregnant! :)
-Knitted and crocheted many things including barbie clothes, scarves, booties...
-Started an Etsy Shop
-Took Illustrator classes and started teaching myself Flash CS4
-Survived the "morning" sickness of pregnancy
-Watched Little become a little boy and develop an amazing vocabulary (including "Satin" as Santa ;)
-Heard and cherished the words "Wuvooo" from our Little
-Finished the Book of Mormon

Just a few of the things we have experienced this past year and in one day we can start our list again!

Happy New Year!

Now we know!

We had our gender ultrasound and found out that our house will be blessed with another little boy. They seem to be what we do well. Little is growing and making me laugh every day as his vocabulary explodes and he bosses us around. It will be interesting to see how he interacts with another little dude!

It will be nice expense-wise. We have boy stuff and now I can just replace things that were too soiled by Little to be recoverable and get some additional blankets and extras that Little still uses so that our new one will have his own. We also will be looking into getting a crib/changing station for our room so that while the baby is small and in our room we have somewhere to change him that won't disturb Little in the middle of the night (oy!).

I am enjoying this pregnancy now that I am over the sickness part for real. It literally took until about 18 weeks for me to get back to a good energy level and now I am back jogging at the gym and feeling good. I was intent on taking a picture every week during my pregnancy this time around, but there is so little development from week to week in the belly area that it is fruitless and we are taking them every 3 or 4 weeks until something really starts popping out there. Plus pregnancy hormones lead me to feel fat, not pregnant so pictures are not my favorite :).

Little just told me he is wearing his "u-e-u-e-u" shirt. BYU. Adorable I tell you!

Wait for it...Wait for it...

We are coming up on the most exciting day of this pregnancy, except the whole having the baby thing. Tomorrow we get to go and be over stressed by a mid-pregnancy ultrasound where they look for all the things that may possibly be wrong with your child in-utero and then at the the end they just happen to tell you the gender of the baby if they can find the correct parts among crossed legs and smushed face and lots of amniotic fluid. It is exciting and very stressful at the same time, I dare say that most pregnant women feel the stress of worrying whether their baby will be perfectly healthy or have some abnormality that they will deal with as a family or as parents. We pray that everything is right, and that is all we can do - and wait in excited and yet for me slightly panicked anticipation for the moment when we know that all is well with our growing baby.

Little is talking more and more every day! He now exclaims "Fix it!" or "I want more..." and his vocabulary is skyrocketing. Yes some of is very hard to understand, like last night when we were going through his bedtime routine and singing "I am a child of God" and afterwards he started saying something in a sing-song voice. It took Husband and I about 3 full minutes of laughing and trying to figure out what it was to realize he was singing "I am a child of God"! It was just in a very garbled 21 month old way. :)

It is awesome(and somewhat daunting) to think that in 20 more weeks we'll be parents times 2 and have another little person (boy or girl) to play with and chase around and learn from. I've been working on baby projects for different genders so that I'm prepared in some way for either one and have baby gifts for others in any case.

We will know more tomorrow, maybe....

Cinnamon and Sugar

Last night, spur of the moment, I decided to raid my mothers pantry and make lovely cinnamon sugar breakfast muffins. They are from the pioneer woman blog and she calls them french breakfast puffs. I decided to take the light way out of all the butter and only butter the tops and then dip them in cinnamon and sugar. They are divine and pioneer woman doesn't lie, they freeze and reheat in the microwave beautifully! Sorry no picture, it was late - I guess I'll just have to make them again! :)

We are enjoying the turn in the weather and I am finally starting not to feel like a faker when I put on a maternity sweater :). As long as it is pretty fitted - there just isn't much showing yet and I know that later I'll be grateful for that. I have felt this baby jamming since thirteen weeks every now and then and now at 16 weeks I'm finally consistently feeling movement during each day and it makes it all more exciting and real.

Any guesses on what the gender will be? We won't know for a while, but we sure are excited to find out!

Well, was that a long enough break...

I couldn't bring myself to post until the world had heard the secret I was keeping. I felt like somehow I was lying by acting like I wasn't feeling like I would rather die than stand up due to nausea. But the secret is out and No. 2 is in the slow cooker. Little and I are on house arrest due to swine flu risk and can't even go around most family members, young ones especially, because symptoms are dormant for 3 days while you are contagious and no one would know they are picking up a horrendous virus. It is especially risky for Pregnant Women and children under 2 so alas, Little and I can't go anywhere except to visit Nana and Papa and everyone has to use hand sanitizer!

Still nausea is constant and exhaustion is overwhelming, but we take it a little at a time and so far we've gotten through. I am knitting again and working on the cutest pair of leg warmers you've ever seen! And if you have the chance to go to Heindselman's yarn store in Provo, run as fast and as far as you can because you will walk away with more beautiful yarn that you "just had to have" than you thought possible.

Fallin'

I walked outside into the crisp, cold air and decided that Utah has finally found Fall. I was ecstatic and went inside to find a long sleeve shirt! I love when it gets cold and we can wrap up in blankets on the couch (one of Little's favorite activities right now) and watch movies and nap. Little yells "Baimpet!" when he wants a blanket to cover up with and then he lounges like he owns the place all over our loveseat. He likes company and snuggling with us as we relax in the evening. These activities are usually full of Little's elbows all over in Husband and my sides and stomach as he moves to get perfectly comfortable. I love those little elbows and the kisses that we get intermittenly as he moves around.

VOTE VOTE VOTE

Go vote for Adam Moore here:

www.yourheartout.com

He has the chance to win an awesome scholarship to a Film Photography workshop. Forward this to all your friends and ask them to vote too! Thank you for your help and support!