Nursery!!!

Today was an exciting day for our household! Taylor is two days from turning 18 months so today was her first official day in nursery at church! It was great and she loved it! She didn't get upset when we left and they never had to come get us from our classes so it was real nice for us. She made the fruitloop necklace she's wearing in these pics. She also drew a "self portrait" which looks like a circle with a few lines around it. :-) The nursery leaders are so great and she just loved playing with the different toys and watching the other kids. Also, our church time changed from 1:30 in the afternoon to 8:30 in the morning and we love it so much! We've had church at 1:30 for the last year and a half and it stinks for Taylor's nap schedule, but we love getting up (Taylor always wakes up at 7-7:30 anyways) and going to church, coming home and having lunch and everyone takes a nice nap. Then Tom has choir practice at 3:30. So, I don't know what we'll think about it when we have the new baby...and what his schedule will be like. I definately think we'll have to get up earlier to get everyone ready. But, for now we LOVE church at 8:30!

Taylor is eating her fruit loop necklace in this picture! Who can blame her?

We had a great holiday break. Tom got off work on the Friday before Christmas at 4:00 p.m. (2 1/2 hours after it had started snowing) so our drive to Arkansas to my parents began slowly. We had to drive about 40 mph and there was lots of traffic. We stopped around 7 for dinner and after about 30 minutes the storm had caught up with us so we just kept on driving and driving and got to my parents around 8:00 a.m. the next morning. I'm usually not a great co-driver (Tom usually drives about 80% of our trips) but this time I had lots of energy so I drove at least half the way and did most of the driving from midnight to early morning! I just turned on music and drove away while Tom and Taylor snoozed. We ended up missing a pretty intense snow storm literally by hours so if we had stopped overnight somewhere like we planned we would have been stuck.

We had a fun time at my parents. My brothers Matthew (just older) and his wife Janette and 3 kiddos and Ben (just younger) were there for Christmas. Tom and I took advantage of the reliable babysitting services that grandparents provide and went on some dates. We watched Enchanted and the Golden Compass (had to see what the controversey was all about for ourselves). I took lots of naps and we just enjoyed being with family. My mom and I got to spend some time together which is always nice. We came back the next Saturday and drove a different route through the Oklahoma panhandle. It was very pretty farmland and not very populated. We stayed overnight in some smaller town and got home Sunday afternoon.

We had a fun new Years Eve. We are big goal/resolution makers so we had our little planning meeting that evening, watched a movie, drank our traditional frappes (that's what we call them-orange sherbet and lemonlime soda) and watched the ball drop at midnight. We are looking forward to making this next year a great one and I hope you all have a great year as well!

Since we've been home Tom went back to work on Wednesday, Thursday Taylor and I drove to the outlet mall a half hour away and got some very cute and very good priced baby boy neccessities, last night we went to our friends for dinner and today we ran errands and now Taylor is sleeping, Tom is at an Eagle Scout reception and I'm getting ready to scrapbook and watch a movie. Well, that's what we've been up to since the last post. 'Till next time!

To catch you up...

Once again these pics are very out of order....oh well! These are pictures before, during and after Christmas. This is me holding the rag quilt I made for our baby boy at my parents. I started it on Christmas and finished it the next day which is record timing compared to the one I made for Taylor (I think it took about 6 weeks or so!) I am not a sewer so I really like making these little rag quilts b/c they're so soft and cozy and it doesn't require any difficult sewing. Just lots of straight lines. Taylor and her friend (at their house). They look so cute sitting in these chairs. This was last Sunday evening. We went over there to check on Maddie (our dog) and have dinner.
This is at the park near my parents on Christmas day. The first few days in Arkansas were beautiful...then it got cold and rainy...

Tom and Taylor at the park...
Christmas evening. Taylor got this apron (and a chef's hat and oven mits from her Grandparents) and these shoes happen to be her aunt's.
While making the quilt. We tried it out on Taylor! :-)


26 weeks pregnant. This was the week before Christmas. Some friends of ours that live in our apt. complex came over and watched a movie right after we put Taylor to bed so Tom and I could go out on a date...It was the best!

Back at my parents on Christmas Eve...this is Taylor and her 5 year old cousin Sophia whom Taylor absolutely adored!
Christmas morning...Taylor eating fruit snacks from her stocking.
Christmas morning. Taylor got a big kit full of toy cleaning supplies.
Taylor loved sitting in this window. She did it everyday we were at my parents'

This video was taken the same night before Christmas that Tom and I were going on a date. Taylor has a very standard bedtime of 7:00 p.m. and is 99% of the time very ready for bed then, but this was about 5 minutes to 7:00 p.m.! She chose this of all nights to be totally wired! Our friends were coming over in about 20-25 minutes and amazingly, she went to bed really easy and they didn't hear a peep from her all evening! (If you haven't already you'll want to pause the music before playing the video...then you'll be able to hear Taylor screaming all the more better! :-)

Family Pictures...

It snowed all day last Saturday and it was really pretty outside so we went to my friend Sarah's, who does photography and she took these pics for us.

At 24 weeks....

Well, I'm actually 25 weeks now, but I procrastinated to get these pics up...they're at 24 weeks. I went to the doctor today, drank the disgusting glucose drink (blahh!) and my sugar levels and iron levels are good! So, that's good. I do get a lot of back pain though and many of the other fantastic pregnancy symptoms that I'd probably rather not mention.... :-) The baby is moving around like crazy. The doc had a hard time getting his heartbeat today b/c he was all over the place. I was taking a bath a couple of weeks ago and saw my belly go sideways for the first time...does anyone know what I'm talking about? It's so alienistic! I was also trying to squeeze in a nap during Taylor's the other day and on the verge of falling asleep I felt a huge kick on my bladder that woke my right up....Well, that's what's going on in my pregnant life these days! Tonight once Taylor is asleep Tom and I are watching Pirates III. We'll see if I stay awake until the end...


Tom told me to stick my belly out as much as I could....Goodness, it's huge!
my little cutie...

little disclaimer...

So, for the post below where I discribed the bad date out with the guy and his ex. (You may need to read below to catch on) I just wanted to say that "Mormons" (that is really just a nickname for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints) DO NOT practice polygamy...it's just a highly talked about misconception and that's why I said it was ironic. Just want to make sure that's clear and doesn't confuse any of my non-Mormon friends...

By the way....

Well, I know most of you already know this....but we are pregnant. Tom and I are pretty big secret keepers and we've kept this quiet for quite a while b/c we thought it would be fun to tell his family when we saw them at Thanksgiving. It was fun and nice to be able to tell most people in person. Anyway, we went to the doctor two days before leaving for Utah (November 15th) for the big ultrasound and found out that my due date would be changed to March 27th (10 whole days sooner!! I'll take it!) so I'm 23 weeks and we found out we are having a BOY! We are excited although I was totally hoping for another girl...I even picked out a name for her...Cambria. But, it will be so much fun to have a little boy and girl. I hope he is just like his Dad! He may very well be named after Tom (Thomas Maxwell) ...but we'll wait until later to name him for sure.

Here is a video of us telling the last brother/sister in law about being pregnant and having a boy. We'd been around them for a few hours by this time, but b/c Taylor was sick we didn't get a chance to tell them until later in the evening. We were trying to do it in a sly way by me showing my other sister in laws green and teal flannel I had picked out to make a blanket for him. They totally didn't get it at first, but finally caught on. I was being pretty quiet at the time b/c this was when Taylor was feeling sick...you can see her cuddling on my lap.

I've been tagged again!

My friend Wendy tagged me, but I'm not going to follow the rules exactly b/c it seems like almost all the people I blog with have already been tagged at least twice...but if I do tag you at the end of this list 6 things about yourself....

So about me:

1) I love to read about health and nutrition and lately have loved reading the YOU books by Dr. Oz and Dr. Morohmat (sp?). They are really good and really interesting reads so check them out!

2) I've met President Clinton at the White House (in 1998) and heard/saw President Bush speak in person in Springfield, MO in the fall of 1999 while he was campaigning.

3) I spent two summers living and working at the Missouri State Fair- the second summer I was a superintendent for the FFA building. I also spent a semester interning for radio station reporting the farm news.

4) I've been on a fair share of strange/awkward/bad dates. Two of the worst were once in high school I went out on a date with this big guy named Tyson...we drove to Springfield, Missouri to Christmas shop and he cut off this guy with his family in a minivan. The guy got mad at Tyson and was pulling up next to him (on an exit ramp) making faces and saying stuff to him. Tyson didn't like that so he pulled out a pistol from under his seat and started waving it at the guy!!! I was in the passenger seat in between Tyson and the guy in the minivan yelling at Tyson to put his stupid, illegal, concealed gun away. That was the only date with that guy...

5) The next bad date was right after my mission with a guy that I was interested in dating (I'll refer to him as B). He invited me to an OSU basketball game and said we would be meeting up with some other friends at the game. Well, right before leaving for the game we met up with his ex girlfriend (whom I was good friends with and who still had strong feelings for B). I was totally perplexed by this and during the game was placed in between this girl and B...my date (or should I say "our" date). After the game we went out to eat with two other couples (yes, his ex girlfriend was still with us riding in the car with us--he opened the door for both of us) and at the restaurant to other two couples sat in a booth and then this girl and I sat in one side of a booth adjacent from them and directly across from B. He paid for both of our meals and I never wanted to go out with this guy again but I also thought it was ironic that I was Mormon going on a date with a guy out with two girls at the same time!!! Never again!!!

6) I drink tons of ice water and wake up craving it and I love to eat Kellog's raisin bran and I even like it soggy.

Okay, there you go...now I tag Kristen, Mar, and Nancy.

Hey everyone! Sorry it has been a while since I've posted. We went to northern Utah to visit Tom's family for Thanksgiving. We had a great trip and it was great seeing everyone but Taylor got really sick in the middle of our visit with some sort of flu virus. It stinks being away from home and being sick. Well, it just stinks having her sick anywhere...she did a lot of throwing up and it went on for almost a week so it was sad...but she's doing better now and hasn't thrown up since Sunday night. Here are some pictures and videos from a couple of weeks ago just before leaving on our trip: Tom and Taylor in front of the chapel at the Air Force Academy
Taylor was so tired and ready for bed she just layed in her Dad's arms on this pillow
Taylor loved carrying around my purses...
Taylor with her cousin Isaac in Logan...

I'm not sure if the 1st video is going to work...we'll see. Be sure to double click ob play

Our favorite fall recipe...

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

I made these this morning (it's not the first time this fall ;-) and I thought I'd share them with you. They are easy and are so good!

1 1/2 cups flour (whole wheat works great too)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp salt
" baking powder
" baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves (or I subsitute pumpkin pie spice)

*mix all above dry ingrediants together then add:

8 ounces or 1 cup canned pumpkin
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter...or you can add 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup applesauce (it's healthier and takes just as good)

*mix it all together and then add about 1/2 bag of chocolate chips or 3/4 a cup....sorry Kristen! I know you can't eat chocolate, but they taste really good without the choc. chips too!

Topping (optional for more gourmet looking and more calories):

mix 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour and a tsp. of butter with a fork until crumbly.

Put muffin mixture into muffin pan and sprinkle topping on each one then bake at 350 degrees for 20-22 minutes. I hope you enjoy!