Celebrations

We had a couple celebrations this past week! Chris turned 29 on February 13th! It was a great day. He got off work at 8am that day (he goes into work 5am) and I was already off since I don't work Wednesdays. :) So we got to spend the whole day together! We met his parents for lunch at The Great Wall, which is a Chinese buffet here in town. It was really fun. Ate lots of yummy food and had some good laughs. His mom told me all about the day he was born, which was cool cause I love to hear baby delivery stories right now! Lets me know what I am going look forward to soon. :)

After lunch they came to our apartment where we played card games together and I had made a cake, so we ate that with ice cream. And it was a good time! After they left, we just spent the rest of the day relaxing at home. I love it when I don't have to do anything at all! We got some Jack in the Box for dinner, and I had rented Perks of Being a Wallflower, so we watched that too. That was an interesting movie. Probably not what he wanted to watch on his birthday, but he was a good sport since I had wanted to see it. :)

 Valentines Day was great as well. We both worked a full day like normal. Then I headed home, and Chris wasn't there yet, so I got ready to go out that night. When I was all ready, Chris picked me up with some valentine's balloons and cupcakes! He sure knows how to make me happy :) We then headed over to Texas Roadhouse for dinner! It was a good thing cause I had been craving steak all day long! Chris dropped me off so I could go check in, and he headed to the movie theater since it was in the same parking lot and picked up our movie tickets to Safe Haven! When I walked in the door, I could barely even get in! There were TONS of people. Good thing we had called ahead cause we barely had to wait 10 minutes for our table, and there were people who had been there an hour and still waiting to be seated! Last year we attempted to go to Cafe Rio right before our movie thinking it wouldn't be too bad, but after a half hour of waiting in line, we hadn't even made it up to the front so we had to go over to Taco Bell and get some tacos to take into our movie with us :) So we definitely planned better this year.
We went to the movie theater after we ate where Chris's parents met us to watch the movie with us. We only had to wait 10 minutes in line till they let us go find our seats. The movie was SO GOOD! I had read the book a few months ago. I love reading books that get turned into movies, and see how close they are to it. But I definitely recommend seeing it!

And of course I have to add a little bit about the baby :) I have been feeling MUCH MUCH better this past week. I am 15 weeks now and feeling great. 2 more weeks till we find out whether it's a boy or a girl! My nausea has gone WAY down and am actually enjoying eating more! Yay! I am also starting to show more, and I think it's time to buy some maternity clothes cause I can barely button my pants! :)

12 Weeks

This is a few days late seeing how I will be 13 weeks in a couple days, but it's never too late to start, right? I have a feeling that a lot of my future posts will be about my pregnancy/baby, so I hope you don't get too bored. I will try to mix it up every now and then, I promise! :)

These past couple months have been pretty rough. The first few weeks after I found out I was pregnant, I was dead TIRED all the time! It would be 2 in the afternoon and I would want to go to bed. And then after that the nausea and smell aversions started. All day long I would feel nauseous and just thinking of having to cook dinner made me sick. Chris has been really helpful with doing the dishes and keeping the toilet clean for me. Cause we all know that throwing up in a dirty toilet is awful! He has also been very understanding and patient with my sickness, so that's been refreshing.

I have craved a lot of orange juice and lemonade popsicles, grapefruit juice, and cuties. Baby loves the citrus! Working out has been tough too. I used to work out 4 to 5 days a week, and now it's down to MAYBE once. I am hoping in the next couple weeks that changes cause I miss it! It's just hard to do when you have absolutely no energy.

I won't be including my actual weight in here, cause frankly nobody but my doctor and myself need to know those disgusting numbers. But I will just say that I have gained about 6 pounds so far in these first 3 months, yet I feel like it's much much more! :)

We have been busy getting out second bedroom organized and ready to make into a nursery. I want to do all white furniture in there with grey and white bedding/linens. Then once we find out what we are having then I can do the accent color of pale pink or turquoise. We found a super cute bassinet on craigslist for $20 that we will use in our room in the first few months. (Ours doesn't have the mobile on it though)

Through all the sickness and pain, we are super excited for the next 6 months to get ready for our soon to be new addition to our family! We can't wait to meet him/her! And we will take any good recommendations for must haves for the baby if you have them!

Our next Doctor's appointment is February 7th!

 



9 Weeks

We had our first Doctor's appointment when I was about 9 weeks along. My doctor is Dr. Leavitt at Leavitt's Women's Healthcare Center. I was pretty nervous leading up to the appointment. First, I had to wait 5 weeks for it to finally come, and I just wanted to know that everything was ok in there.

But the day finally came! And everything was perfect. We got to see our cute little baby and hear its really fast heartbeat. :) The heartbeat was at 178 and the baby was measuring right on track. It was the coolest thing ever. The ultrasound tech was super nice. We didn't actually meet Dr. Leavitt in that appointment. We met with the P.A. and she was really nice as well, but we should actually meet our doctor at our next appointment, which is February 7th!

Here is a picture of our Little one! :)

Baby Allen!

I found out I was pregnant on December 1st, 2012. I woke up that Saturday morning knowing that Aunt Flow was supposed to make her appearance that day, but I realized that I hadn't had any of my usual symptoms leading up to that day. I usually get really depressed the week before and cramping a couple days prior. But I actually felt pretty good! So I went in the bathroom and took a test! This is how it looked:

I couldn't believe it! It finaly said PREGNANT! Yes, we had been trying for a few months, but I was still expecting it to say Not Pregnant. :) Chris was still asleep in bed, so I went in there, jumped on the bed and told him that I had something to tell him! I then showed him the test and told him I was pregnant. He couldn't believe it at first. And yes, he was still trying to wake up, and pretty sure he was still in shock, so it took him a little bit for it to sink in. Haha

I told Chris that I really wanted us to wait to tell our parents on Christmas Eve, with a cute gift announcing that they were going to be Grandparents. But after the first day of knowing that we were pregnant Chris had already told like 10 people! Don't worry I told a few people the first day too, like my sister Bethany, my BFF Sarah, and Stephanie. We were supposed to go to his parent's for dinner the next night, and I didn't think that he would be able to go through the dinner without telling them. :) After church on Sunday Chris and I had tithing settlement and Chris ended up telling our Bishop I was pregnant too! I then knew there was no way he could keep a secret, and I could also tell that he really was excited about it. So that made me happy, and decided we should tell his parents that night.

We told them as soon as we got to their house, and boy were they excited! There was a lot of screaming and clapping and jumping up and down. :) I was actually glad we told them cause it would have been hard to keep it from them anyway. We can't wait for August to come! And it's so fun cause Sarah is pregnant too! She is 5 weeks ahead of me, due July 7th. We have always wanted to be pregnant together and it's finally happening! Yay!

Christmas

Christmas this year was great! Chris and I went out to Sacramento to spend it with my mom. But the few days before Christmas was spent with Chris's family. His brother and sister both came in town for the holiday so we spent some time with them. The Saturday before we went to lunch at Chuck a Rama with ALL of his family. His grandparents, cousins, parents, siblings, and his awesome wife. :) It was a yummy lunch and it was fun to catch up with family. We then hung out at his parents house playing cards for the rest of the night.

After church on Sunday we went over to the In Laws for a Christmas dinner. We ate lots of yummy food, visited with the fam, and played our favorite card game Progressive Rummy. It was a nice relaxing day, as most Sundays are. :) Chris and I also opened our gifts that his family had for us since we weren't going to be there on Christmas Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve (which was Monday), we met Chris's family over at Perkins for a big yummy breakfast! We hardly ever go out for breakfast, and since it is my favorite meal, I was so excited! Their french toast is AMAZING, and it definitely filled me to the brim. We then spent the afternoon at Esther and Jared's house relaxing, napping, and getting ready for our trip!

Chris and I were leaving that night for California! Yay! I was so excited to get to spend Christmas in California with my Mom. It had been many years since I was able to do that. We needed to be at the airport at 5:30pm to head out, so we stopped at Subway to grab some dinner (Some Christmas Eve dinner, eh?) haha, and then got to our apartment to finish packing. The bad thing was that it had started snowing a few hours earlier, and I mean SNOWING!! Tons and tons of snow and it didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon. I was scared our flight was going to get cancelled. But Chris's mother came and picked us up and took us to the airport. When we checked in we found out that it wasn't cancelled but Delayed till 10pm. Ugh. So we got to spend Christmas Eve in the airport. Waiting.

We read magazines, watched people, and played cards waiting for our plane to arrive. Our plane finally arrived at 10:05pm. We waited for those people to get off the plane, and then we finally got to get on! It had stopped snowing, but had to wait for them to de-ice the plane and do paperwork before we could finally leave, which was 11:15pm!! Holy cow. 5 hours later than it was supposed to. It was a pretty smooth flight and we arrived in Oakland at 12:15am and my Mom and Lee were waiting for us when we got there. By the time we got in the car and drove to Sacramento it was almost 2am. What a long night. We totally crashed as soon as we got to Mom's house, and it felt really good to actually be there out of the crazy weather.

Christmas morning we woke up about 9am with breakfast waiting for us that my mom had made. And then we opened presents. My mom was really good to us giving us gift cards and candy and scarves and socks. We also got some nice things from our family who couldn't be there with us. It was a modest but really nice Christmas. One thing that Chris and I gave to both of our parents was this:

Yep! That's an announcement for exactly what you are thinking, but I will get to that later :) The rest of the day we relaxed, ate lots more food, went to the movies and saw Parental Guidance and then played Rummy for a few hours before going to bed. It was a great Christmas and fun to show Sacramento to Chris since he had never been there before.

The next day we went to the movies AGAIN and saw Les Miserables. It was pretty good. Good music, good actors, but it was kind of long. And LOTS of singing. :) haha We walked around the outlet stores for a bit afterwards, grabbed some Burger King on the way home and hung around the house the rest of the night playing more cards and eating ice cream and brownies. Yummy!
 
Our flight back to Idaho Falls was leaving on Friday, but Chris and I were staying at a hotel down in Oakland the night before so my mom could get back to work on Friday. We wanted to spend a few hours in San Francisco, but by the time we got up and got ready for the day and headed down there, it was pretty late in the day, and we didn't want my mom to have to drive through a bunch of rush hour traffic. So instead we got checked into our hotel, ate lunch at a restaurant across the street from it, and said our goodbyes. The trip went SO FAST!! It was sad to already have to say goodbye and hopefully it wouldn't be too long till we can see her again. Chris and I hung out at our hotel the rest of the night. Went swimming, watched movies, ordered pizza, and ate a bunch of candy we had gotten at the gas station earlier. We love hotels and it was really nice to just relax and be together.

After we got up and ate breakfast the next morning, we got ready to go, and then our hotel drove us to the airport for our flight! We were there a few hours early since our flight wasn't till 3pm and we had to check out of our hotel at Noon. So we ate lunch at the Chili's restaurant there and hung out till we had to board. Chris loves getting to airports hours and hours before we have to board cause he worries that something is going to happen, so he likes to be there super early. So, our flight was on time, and we said goodbye to warm California, and got off in SNOWY Idaho :( It is so cold here!! Boo!! But it was definitely a nice Christmas and I am very grateful we got to make the trip. It was totally worth it. The only bad thing is I didn't take any pictures while I was out there! I need to get better at this picture taking thing. :)

Apartment

Well, it's been 2 months since Chris and I have moved into our new place and I just realized I haven't posted about it! It's pretty exciting :) We lived with Chris's parents for our first year. It helped us pay off a lot of debt that we wouldn't have been able to, and save up for our own place! And after a long time of looking at many different places, praying and trying to figure out where we are supposed to be (for a moment we thought we should move to either Vegas or Boise, but we ended up not feeling good about those places), we found an apartment that we love!
At first we actually didn't want to look in this area cause we wanted to live on the other side of town, but when Chris got the job at the University, we thought it would be a good thing to live next to where he worked since he has to be there so early. And that's how we were led to the Park Place Apartments!

Our friend Melissa lived in these apartments for 4 years and told us that she loved it, so that made our decision more clear. And when we came to look at the building, we knew we wanted to live here. The hard part was trying to decide whether to go with the 1 bedroom, the smaller 2 bedroom, or the big 2 bedroom (which comes with a balcony). :)
We finally decided on the big 2 bedroom! Yay! It has a lot of space, washer and dryer hook ups, dishwasher, and a storage unit. And we are also 2 blocks from the Temple, our church building, and the River! Walking around the river is one of my favorite things to do!
Here are some pictures of our place! :)

This is what you see when you walk into the front door:

Our Dining Room/Kitchen area:

Rest of the Kitchen:

Our cute little bathroom:

Our bedroom:

 

And our spare room (which is a storage room right at the moment. You like the curtains? haha):





And this is our pretty christmas tree that I am super excited about! Our first tree! Target was selling 6' pre-lit trees for $30 on Black Friday and I am so glad we got it! It was difficult trying to decide what kind of decorations I wanted to do, but I love them!

And then I attempted to make my own tree skirt. I found a tutorial for a no sew ruffle skirt, and since I had a bunch of table runners from my wedding that needed to be used up, I decided to try it! It took a lot longer than I thought it was going to take. The girl who did the tutorial said it only took her 5 hours to make, and it took me like 12! I must be super slow or something. But I think it turned out not so bad! :)

Our Sealing

When Chris and I got back from our Cruise, guess what was waiting for us?? OUR CLEARANCE LETTER! We couldn't believe that the process was finally over and we could go to the temple to be sealed. It had been a long process that brought a lot of stress and frustration, but it also helped us grow closer together, and prove our faith, patience and love.
We had thought about waiting till the new year to do it after all the winter weather had gone, but then decided NO WAY! We had been waiting for this for so long, we just wanted to get it done. :) You never know what can happen and we wanted to make sure we were definitely going to be together forever. I called up my family to see when would be good for them to make it and figured out they could be here in 3 weeks, on October 20th! So I scheduled a room at the Rexburg Temple and was super excited.
I was so happy that my sister Bethany, my Mom and Lee, and my bestest friend Sarah could all make it up here. I know that Idaho isn't the most exciting place to visit, but I am so grateful for my family who is always there for me, supporting me. It made me so happy!
Bethany was the first to arrive here. She flew in from Vegas on the 18th and brought her cute little Owey! We got to spend the day together, just the 2 of us while Chris worked. I took her to my salon where we colored, cut, and deep conditioned her hair. We then hung out at my apartment till Chris came home, and then we headed to TEXAS ROADHOUSE! Whoop Whoop! That was Beth's one request while she was here, was to go to Texas Roadhouse :) It's pretty crazy that Vegas doesn't have one of those yet, but I will take any excuse to go there. I love their rolls! We had a great dinner together and filled our stomachs to the brim.
Friday, after Bethany and I got ourselves ready for the day we headed over to the mall to see if I could find a new dress to wear to the temple. After looking in about 5 stores, I didn't find a thing I liked! So I decided that I didn't need to have a new dress, and I would have to wear something I already had. Then of course we needed to go get a cupcake from Cocoa Bean! Mmmm I love that place, and it had been a LONG time since I had been there, so I was definitely excited! We got a mint oreo cupcake and a smore's one and split them so we could try them both. YuuuummmmmY!
I really enjoyed having my sister up here with me. I hate not being able to see my family very often, so it meant a lot to me that she made that trip up here to Idaho. :)
That night Chris's parents were going to come over for dinner, and my Mom, Lee, and Sarah were all supposed to arrive around dinner time as well! So I wanted to have a yummy dinner ready for when they all got there. I decided on doing the homemade Cafe Rio sweet pork to make burrittos with it. My sweet mother-in-law helped me make the pork and the cilantro ranch, while I got the rice and all the other fixings ready for them. :) Everyone arrived at our apartment and it was so fun! Catching up, playing with the babies, and eating delicious food! Bethany and Sarah stayed at our apartment while My Mom and Lee stayed at Esther and Jared's.
When we woke up Saturday morning, Mom and Lee came over and we had a big breakfast together and visited till we needed to head up to Rexburg! I couldn't believe it was finally our day! We had waited so long for this and it made us so happy to be able to be sealed for eternity. :) We arrived at the temple and it was SO WINDY and COLD!!! I was glad it wasn't our actual wedding day cause that would have been miserable. It was such a wonderful sealing and so many people that we love were there to support us. The sealer was really funny too. I feel awful that it's only been like a month since our sealing and I can't even remember most of what he told us! All I know is the spirit was very strong in that room, Chris was super nervous about it, and I just felt so much peace knowing Chris and I could now be together forever. :) After the ceremony, we took a QUICK photo outside the temple of all of our family who were there. I wish we could have taken more pictures, but it was FREEZING!

Then it was time to go to Chuck a Rama! We sure do love that place! Yummy buffet with lots of food to choose from. It was so nice to catch up with our family and see some good friends we hadn't seen in a while. Overall, it was a beautiful day and we appreciate everyone who were there with us! We love you guys!