Almost Christmas!

I am officially done with work for the year and Brian is officially done with finals. Its a great feeling to have! Theres only a few more days till Christmas and I have finished all of my shopping!! Today is a day to relax, clean, and work on our Sunday School lesson. We don't have a specific lesson to do so to me that makes it a little harder. We will probably do the Christmas story and bring some cookies or something. Have a little Christmas party. Most wards around here are only having sacrament since so many people are gone. There was a rumor going around that our church was doing that but the Bishop never said anything about it. :-(

I really should be cleaning, packing, ect, but Brian isn't here to help motivate me. :) We are going to my Aunt and Uncle's tomorrow with our rats and M'Kay is taking us to the airport REALLY early Monday morning. They are so good to us. I am so thankful that I've had family around here willing to do things for me. Especially when I was single and really needed to get out of my apartment, they would come pick me up and I would spend the weekend with them. They are awesome and I love them like crazy!!

The real reason I got on to post (besides procrastinating the inevitable) is that for the past two nights I have been up late (like 10:30-11) and for the past two nights Brian has felt the baby move! I guess she is really really active late at night. Most nights I'm asleep so I don't feel her. Last night it was 11:30 and we were catching up on the Office and she started kicking me so hard that you could see my stomach move. Weird huh? Brian thought it was a little creepy. I just thought it was weird because I am really not that far along. Who knows though. I did tell her that she needs to get with the program and be active during the day and sleep at night. Think that will work? haha.

3 more days

So 3 more days of work before Christmas break and I am so excited. I really need a vacation. I dont really sleep well at night anymore. I do until about 2 and then on and off the rest of the night. Lack of sleep does not help when talking to patients who want to argue. Very hard to be cheerful when getting an earful. However, I try, because I learned at Firstline Security, that when emotion goes up, intelligence goes down. So, people arguing have low intelligence. To put it nicely. :-)
On a nice note, I think I'm feeling the baby move although its not very consistent. Sometimes I think I dont feel anything for a day or so. I mostly feel things at night after I have eaten and I'm lying in bed or sitting on the couch. Last night in bed I felt something pronounced enough that I almost called Brian in to come put his hand on my stomach to see if he could feel it. I think I fell asleep though before I could act on it. Brian came to bed 10 minutes after me and I was out. I cant wait till the baby gets stronger and I absolutely know that its our little girl! Which sounds pretty weird. I'm really glad we have had good examples on parenting because sometimes it's a scary thought.
Anyway, here are some pictures I took of some things around the house. I was going to take pictures of the house but I think I will wait until things are a little more picked up.

I bought this at Deseret Book when my momma was here. It was a little bit of money but I love it. Its of the Mesa Temple. Isn't it gorgeous?


Brian's Aunt Marla gave this to us. Its the only Christmas decorations we have up, or even have in that case.


Brian is amazing and is helping with dinner. He also does the dishes. He was raised very well! Props to Mom McEwan!! I love his guts. :-)

This is the outfit we bought the day we found out we were having a girl. Isn't it cute with the onesie, pants, and little jacket?? I love girl stuff! I am so excited to have a girl first...then I welcome all boys. :-)

Graham Cracker houses

Brian and I went on a date the other night with his mission friend Jeff (they served in Novosibirsk, Russia) and his girlfriend Janelle. I may or may not have spelled that right. We went out to Chili's and then we were going to go to this free thing at 7 Peaks. It was freezing by the time we got to 7 Peaks and the line was INCREDIBLY long. I had no desire to wait in the cold for an hour just to get in and neither did anyone else. Jeff and his girlfriend ran to the store and bought graham crackers and some candy and we made graham cracker houses! We took a few pictures.


We put on some Christmas music to set the mood, made some frosting, and got to work. Brian really wanted to build a house with some height to it. I was a doubting Thomas and did not think that it would hold up. Brian proved me wrong however and made a four story tiered house. We used candy, marshmellows, and pinto beans. Yes, pinto beans. Something we have in high quantity at our house since we get them on WIC. We used them for the chimney and a stone walkway. I thought it turned out quite nice. In the morning the house was so unbreakable. The frosting we made really worked.

This is my impression of missionary pictures. You point to whatever you are (obviously) taking a picture of and do a thumbs up. I think sometime I will get around to scanning some of Brian's missionary pictures and putting them up here. You will see what I mean.

Pretty impressive huh?

This is Jeff and Janelle. They are way cute together. Jeff is from California and Janelle is from Nevada. It was a really fun date.

I think what they ended up saying their house was was that it was a barn with solar panels (the foil) that moved. And the little red thing on the side was a tree? or fire...I cant remember.


Jeff bought some Kit Kats but those are too good to waste by putting them on something you are just going to throw away...I think most of those got eaten.


Fun times. Today we have a Ward Christmas party to go to. I actually signed up to bring a side dish. We are also deep cleaning. Brian says its my nesting urge but I just really want to clean out, DI, and throw away stuff before we go to Christmas. I love coming back to a clean house. I also went through our medicine. Most everything was expired and tossed. Poor Brian, he's such a trooper but definitely looking forward for next week when I'll be at work all day and he will be home by himself. He only has two more finals left and has done very well on everything so far. One more semester!! Whoo hoo!

Thanksgiving Trip

This year for Thanksgiving we went down to Arizona to spend time with some family. We went straight down by Tuscan because my grandpa, dad, and brothers were down there hunting some quail and dove. Brian went to go hunt (his first time ever!) and I went to go support my hunters :-) Here are some pictures from our trip!

This was the first quail of the trip.


I love my dad!



The first thing my grandpa said to me when he saw me is 'Dang girl, you are white!' Yes I am white but I work from when the sun comes up to when the sun goes down in an office with no windows. I can only say I will probably never die of skin cancer.




They heard the birds and started running. I was so scared someone would shoot someone else.


This is a deadly cactus that jumps out at you sometimes.


My husband is not a hunter but he didn't do so bad.


He is a little goofy however :)






Cleaning some quail...



This was our campsite. I was the only one who got to use the bathroom inside. The boys had to use the outdoor toilet...aka....a bush.


There were a lot of bones around. My dad and brother Logan were sword fighting with them.


This was one of the most random things ever. We were in the middle of a desert and in the middle of this desert there was a random stream and in the middle of this stream there was a random island and on the middle of this island there are 4 random watermelons. Weird huh? I have no idea how that would have happened.



Cleaning the doves. They kept them in their vests in the back. Yucky.


Pretty sunset. And you can see the tent where I slept one night. Between my husband snoring and Jordan talking in his sleep and grinding his teeth, Logan thrashing around, the cows going crazy, and the coyotes yipping, I could not sleep at all!


Daddy!



Brian made a pretty fire.


One the way to Thanksgiving dinner in Mesa with my cousin Jasmine. We were back from hunting and showered and clean!!


My Grandma McGrath and her dog Murphy.


We had a lot of fun down in Arizona. I also went with my Grandma Leslie and my Mama Miller to see the Rockettes, the real Rockettes, do a Christmas program. It was really good. Its amazing how in sync they all can be.
It was great seeing all of our family again!

And so it begins.....

So I decided to start a blog. Yes, I know. I stink at updating these things. I tried one in high school, I forget what they were called, but everyone had one. Besides, who will want to read what I say? I figure though that I should have more exciting things to put up now. We shall see. I told Brian that I wanted to start a blog and he just rolled his eyes :-). He said I would have to be the one who writes everything but I think that he will enjoy it too. He is a lot funnier than I am so once he starts getting bored with what I am saying he will probably jump in.

I guess I will start my first blog by talking about my first ultrasound appointment. It was on Friday the 7th. Brian and I went down to the room and the first thing the lady did after bringing up the picture was to ask us if we wanted to know if the baby was a boy or girl. After the emphatic YES on Brian's part she said she was 99.9 percent sure that we were having a girl! I was surprised. I though we were going to have a boy. I was way excited. Girl clothes are just cuter than boy clothes.

She had a hard time with measurements and such because the baby was curled up in the corner and refused to stretch out. The lady kept poking at her with the instrument and pushing it into my stomach trying to get her to move. The baby just yawned. She didn't want to move from her oh so comfortable position that included having her head on my bladder. She also kept her feet above her head most of the time. It was so cute.I guess maybe we are having a gymnast. Finally we got the measurements we needed. The baby is right on schedule and is weighing 9 ounces. Her heart and blood flow look good and it doesnt look like she has a cleft palate or anything. We know that she has 5 fingers on at least one hand and she is pretty active. Since the lady was pushing on my stomach so hard I would see the baby kick and feel it too! It was one of the coolest things Brian or I have done! It is amazing to see that there is actually a baby in there! We kept smiling the whole day and had to call everyone to tell them the good news! I am now 19 weeks, almost halfway done, but it still feels like it is going to be forever....
We are now looking at baby names and are open to any suggestions. We like old fashioned names the best. We are so excited for this baby and are very thankful (nervous also) that we are going to be parents.
(On a side note, we went to the mall after our appointment to celebrate by buying an outfit and noticed everything we are NOT going to let our girl do. Some of the little girls these days just blow my mind. What are their parents thinking??)

A few more pictures :)