The Holidays (better late than never :)

I am finally getting around to posting about the holidays. The holidays are so long gone I debated even making this post. It is an understatement saying I haven't had any time and even less energy. But, my baby in my belly and the stresses of life are making falling asleep difficult these days so I figured instead of laying in bed wide awake doing nothing I should at least be productive. So, here is a brief glimpse of our 2010 holidays.

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Miss Harli knows how to spend holidays! She does enough sleeping for both Sheldon and I. Yes, we envy her.


Looks like she has such a tough life huh? She actually should be in trouble here because she is on my carpet and not on her bed, which is like 5 inches away from her! I swear she lays on the carpet instead of her bed to spite me. Anyway, I couldn't get mad at her...she just looked so comfy and cute.


Again, Harli knows how to celebrate the holidays! (don't worry, we don't give our pup eggnog just the empty bottles:)

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We kicked off the holiday's with Nicole and Jake's annual Ugly Sweater Party. We helped out by holding the party at our place and we had so much fun! We are so lucky to have such an amazing group of friends!

Sheldon and I in our ugly sweaters (and Sheldon's gangsta hat??? not sure what that was about)


Playing Minute to Win It

We also had a Wii dance party. I love the faces on these girls in this pic. They all look like they are experiencing pure joy! Especially Danielle there in the front, she is having too much fun :)

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We spent Christmas Eve with Sheldon's family and had tons of fun watching the excited little ones. Here they are opening their Christmas jammies.

My darling niece, Scotti and me (and Dave, her daddy there in the corner of the pic)

We spent some time with my family on Christmas. This pic is of my handsome nephew Kyson and my mom. I just love Kyson's face of surprise as he is opening one of his presents in this photo.

My brother Andrew and his family.

We gave Kyson Gator Golf for Christmas and I am pretty sure Sheldon played with it more than Ky did.

My dad cutting the prime rib...yum!

My handsome hubby and me on Christmas day.

My siblings

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And finally we brought in the new year with our good friends, Nicole and Jake and Danielle and Alex. We went to a nice dinner at Bistro 258 (I think that is what the place is called) and then we celebrated at Jake and Nicole's.

Jake and Nicole's satellite froze (why do we live in Utah again?) so we couldn't watch the ball drop on TV. We thought of the next best thing which was to watch the ball drop online. So, right before midnight we started setting up the computer to get live footage to watch the ball drop. Shortly after we realized we were looking up LIVE footage of the New Year's Eve Party in New York and the ball had already dropped long before because of the time difference...oops. So, about 5 or 10 minutes after midnight we did our own count down and then jammed out to Mariah Carey's awesome New Years song. It was pretty funny...but maybe you had to be there.

Our first kiss of 2011!

Jammin' out to Mariah Carey...we are awesome :)

We hope your holidays were wonderful and you are having a good 2011 so far!

Exciting News!

First, after 6 years of school, a few internships and over 2 years of professional practice as a therapist I am FINALLY an LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker)!!! That probably doesn't mean much to a lot of you but I had to share my excitement because it is a big deal in my world. I am finally fully licensed and love it. My goal was to have my license by the time we had our first baby and I am relieved I was able to do it!

And for the BIGGEST news yet. A few weeks ago we found out what we are having. Sheldon and I knew that we would find out what we were having right before Christmas but we had to lie to everybody (sorry about that) and tell people we weren't going to find out until after Christmas because we wanted to surprise our families with a gift on Christmas announcing the sex of the baby. So for those of you who don't already know we are having a ......

BOY!

We are so very excited. I was kind of surprised because I thought we would have a girl, but I am not disappointed in any way! A lot of other people kept telling me they were convinced it was a girl too. However, Sheldon was guessing that it was a boy and he was right! We know we will call him Crew but we have not decided on his full name yet. We have thought about Sheldon Crew and calling him by his middle name but we are not sure if that will create problems for him. If anyone knows what is like to be known by your middle name rather than your first, or knows someone who does will you please leave a comment with some advice. Is it annoying to always be telling people you go by your middle name rather than your first since all records usually have the first name on it? We have also thought about Crew Alexander, which I love, but it is not sentimental in anyway since there are no family names in it. So, then we are left with Crew Sheldon which we don't think flows very well. I guess we will see. I will post some pictures of the recent ultrasound which show an actual human baby! (unlike the first ultrasound pictures). We hope you all had happy holidays!

TSO

We are keeping up with our tradition! We went to the Tran Siberian Orchestra concert again this year and loved it as usual. This year was especially great because some of our good friends Jake and Nicole decided to join us. Also, Luck was on our side because after a major mishap our seats were upgraded for free!

We went to dinner at Z'tejas at the Gateway before the show. (I LOVE this place simply because of one amazing salad they have...and of course now I can't remember the name of it to tell you but it is the only chopped salad on the menu. Try it if you have the chance.)

I snapped the rest of these during the show. I am not really sure why they have the no camera rule since EVERYBODY, including me had a camera there. I am glad I was able to get some decent shots even with my crappy camera!

It is one of the best shows I have ever been too! If you have never been you must go at least once. If you love music and have an open mind, you will appreciate it!


I also have to share these pics of my dear Harli. She had the time of her life this year during the first snow of the season. She ran around so fast in the backyard I was afraid she was going to hurt herself because she was slipping and sliding around everywhere. She LOVES it!

If you look really hard in the back ground, past the snow flakes, you can see Harli running around.

One of the great things about Harli is that her fur is water resistant because she is a water hunting dog so we can just brush the snow and water drops off her and she is not even wet! But that feature makes baths hard; we have to drench her several times before we can soak her down.


We hope the holiday season is going well for you all so far! I have just been working on the house like crazy and Sheldon is finishing up the semester. We recently went to the doctor again and heard baby's very healthy heartbeat, which was a joyous sound! Next time we will find out if we are bringing a boy or girl into the world! I, along with my parents, most friends, coworkers and our Sunday school class believe a little girl is cookin'. However, Sheldon and his mom think it is a boy. We shall see, we shall see! BUT I can't stress enough that Sheldon and I don't care what we have. Our instincts are not indicative of what we want, just what we think. We have waited so long to start our family and that is what we want is a family, not a baby with a certain gender. But now that the reality of the pregnancy is setting in I am getting the biggest itch to shop and decorate!!! It would probably be wise for my wallet not to find out what we are having until it makes it's entrance into the world, but let's face it...we all know that is never going happen. So far we have been very laid back and sometimes forgetful that we are having a child because it has been so long with just the two of us. We have not even bought one single baby item, which I think is impressive being almost 4 months. But as soon as we know a gender, decisions will start to be made, especially regarding a name (as many of you know choosing a name will be a dilemma for Sheldon and I) and baby items will start to accumulate in our house. So, we will keep you posted.

FREE Shutterfly cards (I knew the word FREE would get your attention!)

Oh my…I can’t believe it is that time of year again! I feel like Christmas has snuck up on us. Christmas time means holiday cards! Since Sheldon and I have been married I have made it a tradition to send out Christmas cards every year in order to send holiday messages of love to family and friends. In my search to find the perfect card this year I fell upon a fabulous promotion from Shutterfly. They are generously offering 50 FREE Christmas cards for bloggers…yes I said FREE!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all of Shutterfly’s products, but especially the variety of cards they have. They have such an awesome selection between their Christmas cards-http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards and their general holiday cards- http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards I love all the unique designs and I am struggling to just choose one! Plus they have so much more than just cards. I also love their calendars- http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars which are great for gifts around Christmas time. If you have never used Shutterfly you must give them a try!

To get in on the action all you have to do is go to http://bit.ly/sfly2010 to learn how.

Happy Holidays!!!

Yes, it is true! For those of you who care and thought this day would never come...well it has. Sheldon and I are expecting our first baby right after I turn 27 and just before our 7 year wedding anniversary, talk about the best birthday and anniversary present ever! I am around 13 weeks and we are due June 5th. We are so thankful and very excited :)

Here are baby's first pictures as a little peanut.

This is my second test...I just bought the Walmart brand tests and the positives were VERY VERY faint. So it was very hard to believe that there was anything growing inside me until sickness set in (just a little bit, nothing unbearable) and I went to the doctor. If I would have had it my way we wouldn't have told anyone until Thanksgiving, BUT it's funny how things have a way of slipping out and getting around without you knowing! Plus Sheldon can't keep a secret for his life!

This is my sister's reaction as she found out, first very confused and then excited. I think this picture was snapped during the confused part.

If you know my sister you know that the whole attitude saying totally fits.

This is how we announced the news to our parents. We bought pies and put signs and binkis in them and then put them back in the box. Then we took them over to our parent's houses and told them we brought dessert to share. When my mom opened the box and saw the pie she said with a very confused look "What kind of pie did you get?" (haha, come on mom get there faster) And then when my father-in-law saw the pie he was very confused because of the 2010 part. Oops, that was my bad! I wasn't really thinking when I typed up the sign. I totally spaced that it would be a new year when the baby actually came.

So that's the news! Yipee!

Time and energy is hard to come by these days, hence the lack of posting! Anyway, I decided to upload all the photos on my camera and thought I would be ambitious and do a post while I was at it so here we go!

We had a blast celebrating Halloween! Some of our friends threw a murder mystery party. The setting of the murder mystery was the 50's so we didn't dress up as anything specific just the characters we were playing in the game. We have some of the funniest and most creative friends as you can see.



Just in case you were wondering, Nicole (far left) is demonstrating what Snooki would have looked like in the 50's. I just look like a nerd, but Danielle (far right) is one of the only girls that can make those glasses look good!

Sheldon got a little too much into his character.

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Next, is pumpkin carving. My parents had a little pumpkin carving party a couple weeks before Halloween and we discovered that we rock at carving pumpkins. Unfortunately, I don't have the end results to prove it because my camera has been having an attitude lately (darn, guess that means new camera shopping :)

This is my adorable nephew Kyson (oh, and my mom). He was so over pumpkin carving as soon as he saw the pumpkin guts you have to take out before you start carving.

Handsome hard at work.

My brother and dad taking short cuts, and Stephanie (Andrew's wife) cracking up in the background.

I know my pumpkin doesn't look like much here but it turn out awesome, thanks to Sheldon and my dad for helping!

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And finally, the last glimpse of summer. Way back in September we went to an annual family reunion and enjoyed the last days of summer. We were able to take our Harli with us and she loved it because she got to explore and swim, which is her favorite. I wished we lived closer to a pond or lake so we could take her swimming more.

Harli in her kennel ready to roll.

Our nieces getting ready to canoe.



I love how extra cute Harli is when she is wet...haha, I love my pup!