Lara's Shower

Andrew and I met Mark and Lara on one of our first Sundays in our new ward after we got married.  We were instantly friends, and we've stayed close friends these past 2 years.  Making woofums is one of the first things we did together, but we've have many fun times since, and Andrew and I are so grateful for the Schlerfs!  Lara is also having a baby girl, and she's due in just one month!!  Even though she's 3 months ahead of me, it has been so fun to be pregnant at the same time especially since we're both expecting little girls :)  I threw her a baby shower last weekend, and we had a lot of fun!

Congrats Lara!!  I'm sooo excited for your little one to get here in just a few short weeks!  And even more excited that our daughters will only be a few months apart.

23 Weeks

I'm getting bigger!

I've seen these pregnancy highlight questionnaires on some friends' blogs, so I thought I'd mix it up and fill one out for this week :)

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 23 weeks 3 days

Due date: September 2nd

Size of baby: Pomegranate - About 11.5 inches and 1 pound!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: 11 pounds 

Maternity Clothes: Yes and no.  I still fit into a lot of my regular shirts that are more flowing.  But the form fitted ones - no way.  Some of my pants are completely out of the question, but I can still wear some of them using the rubber band trick.  But my most comfortable clothes are the maternity ones.  I really do love maternity pants :)

Gender: It's a GIRL! (Just in case you somehow didn't catch that fact before ;)) 

Movement:  I feel her move all the time now (right now, even).  I love it.  Andrew often lays down by me and starts talking to her and she'll start kicking.  That girl already loves her daddy!  

Sleep: I still sleep great!  I've had a few nights where I was pretty uncomfortable a while back, so I was nervous this was something starting for the rest of my pregnancy.  But maybe it was just a growth spurt or something because it hasn't been a problem since.  I have been noticing that it is getting more difficult to roll over, however. 

Cravings:  Hot cheetos.  I've been craving them for a few weeks now, and it just keep going!  Ice cream and popsicles might be on the list too, but they've probably always been :) 

Symptoms:  I still feel great, and I've had a ton of energy lately.  The only real symptom I can think of is that I have to go to the bathroom ALL. THE. TIME.  And this isn't really a symptom, but my belly button doesn't look like my belly button anymore!  It's flat!  

Best moment this week:  Twice in the last week complete strangers have asked me about my pregnancy!  This hasn't happened at all before, and then all of a sudden, it started happening!  The first time, some lady at women's conference said, "So, do you know what you're having yet?!" And then a few days ago, when I was checking out at the grocery store, the cashier said, "When are you due?!"  Both times I was thrilled!!  I'm finally out of the questionable stage.  I look pregnant!

A Crazy But Wonderful Weekend

The list of things I need to blog about is piling up quite quickly.  So I'm going to combine three rather large events into one post.  They all happened in one weekend which made for an exhausting few days!  But it was wonderful.

It started with graduation on Thursday and Friday.  Right after graduation on Friday, we all headed to Andrew's parents house for a BBQ to celebrate!  It was so nice of Alan and Lori to open their home to my family, and it was great to have both families together.

As always, Lori went all out with the decorations and food.  Everything was amazing.

The next morning, my little sister, Kirstin, went through the temple for the first time.  It was such a neat experience to be there with her.  She decided to go through the Logan temple which was really fun because Andrew and I had never been in that one.  It was a gorgeous day and such a wonderful morning.

The girls

My family

The whole group

After the temple, we all went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant in honor of Kirstin's call to Japan :)  Yum

Right after lunch, we all headed back down to Sandy for my baby shower!  I'm still not very far along, but since family was in town for graduation and because Andrew and I are moving so soon, we figured it was the best time to do it.  Again, Lori threw a beautiful party.  The decorations were darling, the food was delicious, the games were fun, and the company was great :)

We got so much fun stuff - mommy and baby were definitely spoiled :)  And it was so much fun showing Andrew everything when the shower was over.  We're beyond excited to use everything when our little girl gets here.  Thanks so much to everyone who came and especially to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for throwing such a fun shower.  

So that was our crazy weekend, but the craziness hasn't stopped!  It actually won't stop for quite a while, so hopefully I can keep up with the blogging!

Graduation

It's official - Andrew and I are both college graduates!  The thought of it still seems absolutely crazy.  We've been going to school our entire lives; can we really be done forever?!  It's a little scary, but we're both thrilled for the next chapter in our lives.  We're moving to Arizona the end of May, Andrew starts his full-time job in June, and baby comes in September!  We're so excited for what the future has in store for us.

Graduation was last Thursday and Friday, and both of our families came to support us.  It was a lot of fun to be able to graduate together (and a lot better for our families so they didn't have to sit through 2 graduations :)) I graduated with my Bachelors in Computer Engineering, and Andrew graduated with his Masters in Accounting.  I was so proud of my Masters student!  Here are tons of picture for you to enjoy :)

My Family

Andrew's Family

Our good friends, the Cooks :) 

Some of the guys Andrew worked with throughout his major

And some of the guys I worked with

Getting ready to walk together!

My parents found us!

The building I spent all my time in

And the building Andrew spent his time in

We've both absolutely loved our time at BYU, and we'll always look back with fond memories. Next stop: Arizona!!

21 weeks (a week late...)

I'm 22 weeks pregnant, so this picture is a week old.  We took the picture last Sunday, I added the words, and then things got too crazy for me to post until now.  (Family, graduation, sister going through the temple, baby shower, etc.  One long post about our weekend is coming :))  But nevertheless, here it is :)

I'm really starting to feel pregnant lately!  I feel like I'm to the point where I actually look pregnant, and our little girl moves around constantly.  Andrew and I cherish the moments when we both lay there and feel her move together.  Andrew loves talking to her, and I love the bonding between the two of them.  The other day I was laying down just waiting to feel her move, and I was getting nothing.  Andrew came over and started talking to her, and all of a sudden, she was all over the place!  I loved it :)  

My mother-in-law threw me a beautiful baby shower for all my family this past weekend (full post coming soon), and all of the gifts made Andrew and I sooo excited.  We can't wait to use all of the baby stuff we have!  I actually had to pack all of the baby clothes in a box because I was getting too excited looking at them all of the time :)

Overall, I've been so blessed throughout this pregnancy!  I'm feeling great, and I'm constantly overwhelmed with gratitude for this amazing miracle in our lives.   

Happy Easter!

This post is seriously a month late... but I was flipping through pictures and realized I never posted about Easter!  And our Easter was wonderful, so I didn't want to miss the opportunity :)

On Saturday, we drove up to Andrew's parents house and spent the evening with his family.  The big event of the evening was dying Easter eggs.

We later found out that we dyed quite a few eggs that had not been hard boiled... oops.  But we had a lot of fun doing it :)  

On Easter morning, we found surprises from the Easter bunny outside our door :)  Easter baskets full of candy, and presents for the baby!  The Easter bunny was too nice to us.  We got two adorable newborn outfits, some bibs, and a fun baby toy.  I look at the outfits daily and can't wait to dress our little girl in them.  

Easter morning was filled with all of us helping in the kitchen to create a delicious breakfast.

Jordan was the waffle pro

I'm super upset I forgot to take pictures of dinner, but let me tell you, it was quite grand.  Lori prepared an amazing meal, and we had a lot of family over to celebrate.  It was so wonderful to spend time with loved ones while enjoying a delicious meal.  The only picture I got was of one of the tables before any food was on it...

Easter was wonderful.  Perhaps the best part, though, was going to primary at church!  Andrew's mom was in charge of sharing time, so we all went and watched.  It was so touching to see the children and their knowledge of what this special day means.  It truly brought the spirit of Christ into our day. 

A few weeks later we had another quick Easter celebration with some of my family.  We dyed Easter eggs again and even had an Easter egg hunt!  We then enjoyed dinner together.  

Andrew and I have been lucky to be close to so much family since we've been married.  It's been so fun having my brother, sister-in-law, and sister at BYU with us and having my aunt just down the street.  And we've loved having Andrew's parents just 45 minutes north.  We're really going to miss it when we move to Arizona! 

Dress #2

I recently finished my second dress for our baby girl.  This one was a little more complicated, but it was a lot of fun to work on.  I made it the right size for a 6 month old... I'm a little bummed she won't be able to wear it right away, but I wanted to spread things out a bit (the last one was size 3 months).  I really love how it turned out, and I keep daydreaming of how our little girl will look in it :)

The front:

The back:

Buttons on the sides for taking it on and off.  There are also buttons on the inside of the front for the straps to connect to.  

Depending on the weather, she might wear it under a little onesie like so:

The little shoes I made to match (what are the chances that the shoes will fit at the same time as the dress...  we shall see):  

The dress with the accessories. You can't see the bow very well, but it's made with an eyelet fabric similar to the white ruffles on the dress.  

And of course, the bear dressed in the outfit :)  Sadly, the shoes wouldn't fit on its big feet.

P.S.  We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday, and it was amazing!  More details to come, but we loved seeing our little girl :)  We sure love her a lot already!