Baby #2

After some trouble with insurance changes and having my ultrasound postponed for more than a week, we finally found out what we're having! And it's a sweet baby girl :)

Are we excited?  YES.  Totally excited.

Is Nate excited?  He doesn't really get it.  But he'll love her.

Due date?  April 7th.  That makes me 21 weeks and 3 days along.

So everyone says that Nate is a little mini-Steve.  It'll be interesting to see if our girl is a mini-Janae or another mini-Steve, but a girl version.  Either way, we're happy to have another sweet baby join us.  

I'm excited to even up the teams at home so we can play boys vs. girls during family home evening :)

My First Cyber Monday Experience

I know I haven't posted about Thanksgiving yet....which was before Cyber Monday, but I keep forgetting to call my dad to have him send me the pictures that were mostly taken on his phone.  I can't post without pictures!  So...just know that it was awesome and we'll be posting pictures soon.

But as for AFTER Thanksgiving... I did go shopping on Black Friday but it was at 3:00 in the afternoon, not 3:00 in the morning.  And it was still successful, I got one thing, but it was a dang good deal!  As for cyber Monday, I've never been much of an online shopper.  I look sometimes, but rarely buy anything online.  But I ended up getting some KILLER deals and I'm super excited.  However, I'm going to leave you hanging.  I can't very well post about the details because this is Steve's blog too ;)

But I can report on my deals for Nate.  Nothing huge, of course, but I was really proud of my deal.  And it's just clothes...which he doesn't care about, but I can't wait to put him in the practically free "rich kid" clothes :)

Very handsome Tommy Hilfiger sweater

Izod Corduroy jacket

And a pair of Nike Basketball shorts (he's gotta start young!) 

All for--------------- $3.92

I know it's not a big deal, but I felt good about it.

More amazing deals yet to be revealed after opened on Christmas day.  

I'd like to thank my super cool mother for teaching me her secrets to finding the bargains. 

She's always been good at it.

Family Pictures

I've been wanting to get our family picture taken since Nate started smiling...so a long time.  We got some pictures at JcPenney a while back, but Nate had just started smiling and he wouldn't give in that day.   We had some pictures taken too when we got Burrup family pictures and he slept in our arms the entire time. Now that he's older and we know some tricks, I've been wanting to get some pictures before my big belly starts showing :)

However, one little problem I have is I just can't get myself to pay a lot of money to get a professional photographer to take my family to a beautiful orchard while the sun is setting to get a picture of all three of us looking better than we do in real life.  Someday I will...but right now, I just can't do it. So, Nikki and I decided to take pictures of each other :)  Sunday was beautiful weather and we headed out to the park and pretended to know how to take pictures.  Nikki did a great job and I really like how they turned out!  Steve looks amazing in all the pictures, but it's funny how Nate and I can never look good in the same picture!  It's either him or me making some weird goof smile.  But we managed to get some good ones :)  So here are a few:

I had to post this one...This is his "Don't make me!" cry

A quick turn around to his happy smile :)

I cropped this one so maybe it's fuzzy :(  and I messed with the color a little.  I'm pretending to know what I'm doing...

Cute cousins!

He's a natural at posing for pictures :)

I loved these ones with that pretty tree back there...but this was the best of Nate.  He was a bit distracted with that leaf.

He loved this spot.  He stood there and just danced, which you can see his moves in the next few pictures.  Sadly, his dancing ended with a biff.  He now has a red scratched up nose and lip.  Poor kid.  

The Hobbies of a 1 year old Boy

Our Nate is quite the boy.  He's such a busy kid.  Today especially I was impressed at how much he accomplished.  

Here is a list of what he did in just one day:

• Climbed the desk and knocked my computer off to play with all the pens, pencils, scissors, and glue sticks
• Climbed the dresser to get to my make-up.  Dumped my blush/bronzer powder all over the floor.
• Found the chair close to the "pantry" (a bookshelf with food on it) and poured the crackers out.
• Found the pack of wipes open and began gleefully pulling the entire package out one wipe at a time.
• Climbed the toilet to the bathroom counter and sink to get to my toothbrush and chewed it till it was dripping with Nate slobber.
• Managed to poke me in the eye with his toe...how did that even happen?
• Went to the doctor and got 4 shots, plus a blood draw.
• Discovered the bottom/underneath part of the fridge.
• Found the card games and emptied the boxes.
• Opened the oven, climbed on top, and took out two of the stove's heating units.
• On the brighter side...He took tons of steps today.  He's finally truly attempting to walk! 

This sweet little boy is very busy and keeps me busy as well.  But it's hard to get mad at such a sweet boy, who when he senses the least bit of frustration in me, he looks up and smiles or throws out a giggle squeal.  He is anxious to learn, how can I get mad about that? However, I have come to the conclusion that I really need to get serious about toddler-proofing my home, but with a climber, will it really do much?  

Haha, I truly do love this life and I love that little boy!

Our little Jimmy Neutron

Halloween this year was very exciting.  We saw an ad for Papa Johns and fell for it. So we got pizza and watched Alvin and the Chipmunks Werewolf movie.  That's my kind of Halloween movie.  We had 2 trick or treaters and one backwards trick or treater--our friends stopped by and brought us candy :)  And that was our Halloween night.

Our ward party, however, was this last Saturday.  It was postponed because of the crazy hurricane Sandy storm.  The young men and women put it on and they did a great job.  We ate hotdogs and ramen (they had a HUGE pot of ramen, it was awesome.)  They had games and then a trunk or treat, which Nate totally loved.  He ended up with only a handful of candy because he really doesn't eat candy yet, but he got so excited whenever someone gave him a sucker.  Plus Steve and I need some candy since the ward kids depleted our big bowl of Butterfinger and Twix.  

We went as Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and Jimmy Neutron.  I know Jimmy has nothing to do with muppets, but look at that hair...I couldn't resist.  Steve's hat is actually a hat my cousin Cassy made for Nate as a newborn :) good thing it stretches!  I love dressing up for Halloween, I plan on doing it forever, no matter how old I get :)

He loves slides :)

Happy with his daddy!

Not quite as happy in the picture with his mommy...but deep down inside, I hope he's happy with me too :)

And the decision has been made...

Gee whiz...I'm starting to feel like I'm actually finally in real life.  Even though we're not quite there yet, I feel it coming!  We are having to make decisions and Steve is almost done with his first half of law school, which means he'll have a real job and we'll be normal, non-student, people pretty soon.  We haven't been that...ever.  So it's kind of exciting.  So we'll just have to enjoy and eat up the last year and half of student life. 

But...I feel it coming because we had to decide where Steve would work this coming summer.  He had two offers.  Booth Udall, the firm in AZ that he worked for last summer and loved and Stern Kessler, which is a larger firm here in DC. We had trouble deciding because we had a million reasons to stay and a million reasons to go back to Arizona.  But after a lot of prayer, discussion, and advice seeking from wise people, we decided to stay in DC for the summer.  

We feel good about the decision and we're excited for Steve to experience the patent work at this firm.  They do cool stuff, like some patent work for Adidas, Reebok, Google, and Apple.  We are sad to miss out on being so close to family again. Thank heaven for skype and all the technology we have these days!

  

Happy Birthday to our little Nate!

Sunday was Nate's first birthday and we loved singing Happy Birthday to him and we laughed a lot as we remembered every little detail about that night/day/2weeks in the hospital.  He is a special little boy.

So, if you haven't seen him in a while, here's what he's like at age 1:

He loves clapping (especially when watching football), dancing, motioning "come here" or "I want that," laughing, and going outside.  He loves waving hello and goodbye to everyone.  My favorite is every time we pass a mirror, he has to wave at himself.  He's not walking yet, but getting closer.  He'll walk around holding a finger and he's tried a few time to take steps, but I think he just gets impatient because he's such a speedy crawler.  He loves taking things out of their containers and putting them back in or getting in himself.  It's amazing what he can fit in--boxes, bowls, corners, shelves.  He loves giving loves and we love getting loves from him. He still has an obsession with computers, phones, and cameras.  Both our laptops have suffered from his obsession. My keyboard is currently missing the "B" key and the I just sort of fixed the "H" key and the space bar.  My next job is to fix the CD thing, which he ripped off the other day.  No matter where we put it, he finds a way to get to the computer.  He loves to climb and he is fearless. He's a goof and cheeser and he's so much fun.
He doesn't like going to bed. That may be the only thing he doesn't like.

He is a joy to have in our family.  

We celebrated his birthday with a little monster theme party.  It was fun to have some friends over and to celebrate.  Sunday we opened gifts and chatted with family all day :)  That's another thing he loves, Skyping, he has to have the computer on his lap too when talking to someone. 

Here are a few pictures of his big day:

Good mornin' Birthday Boy!

I'm so disappointed in myself, I forgot to take a picture of the cake!  I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but it was a cute blue monster.

Hmmmm, what is this?

"You want me stick my fingers in that blue stuff?"

A little unsure still

 

 He never really got too into the cake.  I had this vision of him digging in and going crazy and getting blue all over and loving it...but alas, he took only a bite or two.

I also forgot to take a picture of all my monster cupcakes!  There were more, but at least there was one left so you could see :)

These are the presents that we gave him.  He doesn't looked THRILLED in the video...but he was.  He loves his new birthday toys.  He also got some fun stuff from Grandmas and Grandpas :)

Okay... So I was REALLY proud of myself for making these mouths.  Maybe it was way too much work for how little they were actually used, but I'm saving them forever because I thought they turned out so dang cute :)

And here are the cutest little monsters.  We're glad Nate has cousins so close.

The birthday turned out great.  I know he won't remember his first birthday, but it was fun to celebrate anyways.  We are so blessed to have him and can't wait for many more birthdays to celebrate our Nate :)

Recent Fun Stuff

This post is going to be pretty random.  There's not much of a story to any of it, other than I had a few cute pictures I wanted to share and I'm really proud of my recent cooking accomplishments :) So enjoy a moment of random bits from our life.

 Nate LOVES going down slides.  He'll climb his way up and go down on his belly.  This particular playground is pretty high and that slide is mega steep (I even get a little nervous going down myself). So we don't let him go alone on this one, but he squeals the entire way down.

 Outdoor screen showing a family movie.  

We caught only the end of a Bugs Bunny film.  But it was fun to be outside and we got free hot chocolate :)

 (Nate's eyes are a little creepy here.) 

I have to confess...we didn't go to a pumpkin patch.  I just wanted it to look like we did.  So I saw this wagon of pumpkins and took a picture :)  Pumpkin patch will have to wait till next year.

Shopping at Target

These stuffed toys are $20. If they were $5, I would have gotten him one for his birthday because he was in love. Since we already got him a cool gift for his birthday, I resisted. He was hugging both Spiderman and Batman as if they were his favorite people in the world. This kid has no toys or anything related to either one, this was his first exposure to both.  How is it that boys are just naturally obsessed with these two super guys?

Eggs in a basket...pumpkin shaped style. 

This dinner was a major success.  We had our friends over and I made a copycat Olive Garden recipe of the Zuppa Toscano Soup (thanks to my sister Kirsten for the recipe.)  I also made homemade french bread (which by the way is super easy and super yummy.)  Call me crazy for photographing my food...but I was happy it turned out!

 And of course, the temple, instagram style.  Sorry that tree is right there, but I took the picture from where our car was parked.  It was awesome to go to the temple with my favorite person ever, Steve.  It such a wonderful thing to be able to go and enjoy the peaceful spirit there.  And the grounds are GORGEOUS this time of year.

Nate's Heart Business

As Nate's birthday has gotten closer I've reflected a lot on when he was born.  It was such a special time for us for many reasons.  The biggest reason is of course that we were becoming parents for the first time and welcoming a beautiful baby boy into our family.  Nothing beats that.  But it was also special to us because of Nate's heart surgery.  It was a time of spiritual growth, a trial of faith, and a lesson on service.  I grew closer to the Lord in those 2 weeks at the Children's Hospital.  If you want to see what I wrote about that a year ago, you can click here.  But I have been grateful all over again for so many people and experiences.  

I watched a mormon message the other day about a little girl who had a liver disease and was dying.  The family had been in the area for a only a few months when they discovered her illness so they didn't know anyone.  The message was about all the people from her neighborhood and from her LDS church that came together to raise money and help out the family in any way possible.  It touched me so much as I watched it because I remembered all the people that helped our little family.  We had been in the area for only 2 months and didn't know a whole lot of people.  People were so good to us.  People we didn't know were fasting and praying for Nate.  Someone made Steve lunches for school since we were staying at the hospital.  They provided us with big meals.  They offered whatever help we needed.  These people were truly showing me, Steve, and Nate the love of our Savior through their actions.  So thanks again to everyone who made that experience much easier for us! 

And...to top it all off, we had a check up with the Cardiologist last week.  And she was so impressed with how he's doing.  His heart looks great.  The little problems he had at his 6 month check up look MUCH better and he has a healthy heart. 

He loved the waiting room this time!

For his echo we had to put him in this cute little robe.  I wanted to take it home with me so bad.  

They monitored his heart for 24 hours so the poor kid had to carry that thing around all day and sleep with it.  I tried a lot of different ways to strap it on him and he didn't really like any of them.

There it is without his clothes on.  Haha, I think his face totally expresses what he though of it: "Are you kidding me, Mom?"

Sweet little boy.  We love him.

Trademark Expo for families

The United States Patent and Trademark Office hosts a trademark expo every year.  It's a family event and is just filled with booths to help people understand trademarks better.  Does that sound boring?  Well, it was actually VERY interesting and SUPER fun :)  I learned a lot.  The most interesting, yet disturbing, thing I learned was a booth about illegal products.  So all the fake stuff that people make to look like the real deal.  I couldn't tell the difference with most of the products, even with them side by side.  They looked exactly the same.  I had the questions in my mind, "Of course I don't want to buy something illegal, but I wonder if the product's quality is that much worse than the real thing...because if it's way cheaper, why not buy the illegal thing."  Bad way of thinking, it was just a though that I had for a moment.  And then we chatted with this man about the perfume.  Ready to be grossed out?  They distribute the real perfume into 15 bottles or so and then fill the remaining space in the bottle with urine.  I guess that it brings out the perfume smell more so it lasts longer and is stronger.  YUCK.  So if you see perfume for an outrageously cheap price, don't even think about it, it's probably illegal and is full of yuckiness.   

Okay, sorry I shared that story, but I hope it helps anyone if they are tempted to buy too cheap of perfume.  

It was actually really fun and we got lots of free stuff.  And we got pictures with all the cool characters going around.  Nate was terrified of them.

The Geico gecko

He thought this was the coolest thing EVER

Of course I took a picture with Barbie

Mr. Crayon

Bob the Builder

We had our stroller so we used the elevator.  Well, we rode an elevator with the 5-hour Energy man (he's in the back), the Cheeto cheetah guy, and the Idaho spud man.  Now that doesn't happen every day.

Steve's favorite