The Word Is Out.... Baby #2 Will Join Us In January!!

Well, a ton of people already know this piece of information now so I thought I'd update our family blog/journal real quick. Yep, we are expecting our second baby!! And we are soooo excited :) My due date is January 11, 2013. 

On one hand that seems like forever away because my due date isn't until the year 2013. But on the other hand it seems like it's going to come up so fast because summer is just flying by. And after summer we dive right into the holidays. So our anniversary is September 2 and then in October there's Halloween. November  is Thanksgiving and then there is Christmas! And whoa, when you look at it that way it just seems like January will be here in no time at all! 

So I didn't have a scanner so I took a some pictures of the ultrasound pictures, which is why they are kind of blurry. Oh well. The first one is of the tiny little baby. On the right is the head and on the left is the body. The second picture shows the heartbeat which was 185 beats per minute! 

Again, we are just so thrilled and excited about this little baby that's going to be part of our family! And Kimbri is so excited too. Haha :) Just kidding, I know she doesn't get it yet but I think it will be so fun for her to have a sibling so close in age. January 2013 here we come!

June Is Almost Gone...

Well, I haven't been much of a blogger this month. I've only done a few posts. It's just been a little crazy lately, I guess. Also, sadly enough, this is going to be a no picture post. I have not been so good at taking pictures lately. Oh well. 

Towards the end of last week Kimbri came down with a nasty cough and it just kept getting worse so finally early Sunday morning we called the on-call pediatrician and they suggested to give her some Infant Tylenol and to call back later in the morning to schedule an appointment. So we scheduled Kimbri to be seen at about 11am. The doctor diagnosed her with the croup. Ugh. My poor girl. Her coughing sounded so awful but I was very grateful that they were able to figure out what it was and get her on some medicine. 

Funny side note: the doctor asked if we wanted to just inject the medicine in her via a shot or if she would be okay with an oral medication. Well, first of all, Kimbri loves to put pretty much anything in her mouth!! Even dirt, which she did just the other day. Second of all, early that Sunday morning when we gave her Infant Tylenol she slurped it right up! She loved it! So when the doctor asked whether to do a shot or an oral I thought, "Oh, an oral would be just fine!". Yeah, little did I know that this medicine Kimbri would not like. That she in fact would hate it. And sadly, we had to force her to eat it. And she did not like that... :(

But we only had to give it to her a few times and it started to clear up and she could breath so much easier. She still has a little bit of a cough but she's doing tons better! 

Unfortunately, as soon as she started feeling better I started feeling sick too. I thought it would just be a minor sour throat and cough that maybe I had picked up from Kimbri's croup. Well, it didn't seem to be getting better and yesterday I woke up feeling really crummy...crummy enough that I wanted to go to the doctor, which means I really was feeling crummy. Anyway, Rick called and got me an appointment. We went in and the nurse said, "Let's test you for Strep Throat". What?! I didn't even think of that. And I am sooooo bad at getting my throat swabbed. I have the worst gag reflex ever. So after three attempts, yes, three, they got it and shortly came back to say I was positive for strep. Ugh. 

So they gave me some medicine and I'm feeling better than I did but I'm still trying to get feeling better. I'm just very grateful for Rick. He has been getting up with Kimbri in the mornings, feeding her breakfast and entertaining her so that I can get some extra rest. Like today, for instance, I slept in until 9:45. Yes. I know. That is really late. But it felt sooooo good to just keep sleeping. Rick said that Kimbri was even playing the piano at one point but I did not hear a thing. I was so so tired and way out of it. So thanks a ton, Rick, for being so supportive!! I love you :)

Also, my family has been out of town on a vacation to Yellowstone and Nebraska so we've been going down to Spanish Fork everyday to feed the animals and water my dad's garden. We are trying hard to keep the plants and animals alive! Haha. But it's been really fun. Kimbri loves playing with all the many different toys in my parents playroom! She could be entertained for hours in there. Plus, it's been really hot at our house so we've been hanging out in SF a ton. 

While Kimbri and I have been sick lately, Rick has still been working hard on the Texas secondary applications for medical school and getting trained down at the Payson hospital to be a scribe for a doctor in the ER. He also is still working at the MTC and is now a Zone Coordinator. He is working so hard for our family and I really appreciate all that he is doing! 

Other than that we are having a great summer so far and are really looking forward to our camping trip in July!!!

My 23rd Birthday & Father's Day!

I can't believe I'm 23 years old. It's crazy how time flies. For example, Kimbri is going to turn 1 year old next month!! Ah! I can't believe how fast she is growing up. Well, I began my 23rd birthday by sleeping in. It was super nice. Kimbri was a little angel that morning and slept til after 8. It felt good! 

After getting up and having breakfast, Rick went and dropped Kimbri and I off at the Riverside Country Club so we could watch Enoch at his swim meet. Meanwhile, Rick had to run some 'errands'... errands meaning birthday shopping. Haha :)

Enoch was really nervous to do the backstroke but he totally won his heat! 

Enoch is the one in the second lane from the front of
the picture, with his arm diagonal in the air.

The finish. It was a close one but he won! Enoch is on the right. 

Proudly showing is 'Heat Winner' ribbon. Good job, Enoch!  

After sitting out in the blistering hot heat....so maybe it wasn't blistering but it was really, really hot... I called Rick to see what his plans were. He was still getting ready so we drove back to Spanish Fork. Before we left Provo we stopped by our house to pick up some extra food and formula for Kimbri. To my surprise Rick was home! I thought he was out doing errands! So it was a surprise for me and for Rick when I started unlocking the door to come in. He stopped me with a smile saying, "You're not supposed to be here!" Haha. So I told him the things I needed and he gathered them up while I waited on the front porch. 

So Kimbri and I continued on our way to Spanish Fork with my parents, Olivia and Enoch. We hung out there, played outside, ate lunch, played in the playroom, etc... while we waited for Rick's phone call. After a couple of hours he came down to Spanish Fork to pick up Kimbri and I. We drove on to Salem to drop Kimbri off at the Stone's house to be babysat. Thanks so much Sundee for watching Kimbri for us! Then we got to go on a long date together for my birthday. 

First we went straight back to our house in Provo. When I walked in I saw what Rick had been up to! He had washed all the dishes and cleaned up a bit along with surprising me with absolutely BeAuTiFuL and amazingly smelling roses. They seriously smelled divine! Along with the roses there was a "Happy B-day Alina" sign made from little pieces of paper. 

Here's a closer up shot...

Under each letter of "Happy B-day" there was a surprise/birthday gift. 

Wow. I have such a creative husband. :) 

H = Hefty amounts of red things. 

I love these little red gummy ball things (on the left side of the picture below). I don't even know what they are called but around Valentines they sell red and pink ones and throughout the rest of the year they have a bunch of colored ones. Rick went through the bulk candy bin and picked out all the red ones for me. Haha! Love it.  

A = Activity of your choice.

I'll tell you more later in this post about what we did.

P = Particularly clean dishes.

As I already mentioned, Rick did all the dishes!

P = Poco Loco, or wherever you need to go to buy a swimsuit and cover.

A gift certificate to Poco Loco.

Y = Your very own birthday card.

B = Beautiful roses.

And they were definitely SO beautiful! 

D = Dinner with me. 

Meaning with Rick.

A = Apparel from JC Penny.

A gift card to get a new shirt or something. 

Y = Yogurt from Spoon It Up 

Gift card. This is kind of a birthday tradition. A year ago for Rick's birthday when I sent him on a scavenger hunt, Spoon It Up was one of his stops and he had to eat the whole container of yogurt to get  his next clue. Such a yummy place!

And the 'Alina' part of the 'Happy B-day, Alina' was a birthday card from my sweet husband, Rick. He is so good at writing cards. I have quite the collection of cards from the love of my life that I will always cherish! I love going back and reading them.

So here is the result after opening all the pieces of paper:

After doing that we took off to JC Penny to use my birthday gift card to buy a new shirt or something. Well, I didn't really find anything in particular that I wanted that day so we ended up getting something for Dawson and Stacie's baby that is due in about two and a half months! I would post a picture of how darling the new outfit is but I don't want them to see it yet :) 

After going to JC Penny we ran over to Home Depot since it was really close by to get my dad a saw for Fathers Day. 

By the end of that little excursion we were both super hungry! Rick was so kind to let me choose where we went. Ha! Since it was my birthday and all:) I decided on Los Hermanos. One of my all time favorite restaurants. Yummy. Their chips and especially their salsa is sooooooo good. Wow. Even when I think about it, it makes me want some. My aunt Donna got a Los Hermanos t-shirt when she was out here in Utah going to BYU. For those of you who don't know, having a Los Hermanos t-shirt acts as an 'Eternal Coupon'. My aunt Donna used it many years ago and when she moved out of state she gave it to me, and I'm still to this day using it. Now, if you don't know, you may be wondering what you get if you wear the t-shirt when you go to Los Hermanos. You get a FREE specialty drink! So a while after Rick and I got married we decided to invest in another t-shirt so we could both get a free specialty drink when we go to Los Hermanos. It was $14.95 for any of you who may be interested in purchasing one. Haha:) Or....if anybody wants to borrow ours they are more than welcome. 

And by the way, my favorite specialty drink is the El Tropico...just in case you were wondering:) So after drinking our drinks and eating tons of chips and salsa we got our meals. I was pretty full by that point. Rick got the combo burrito and I got my favorite, a baked chicken chimichanga. I was only able to eat a few bites of my meal because I was so full off of the chips and salsa and my El Tropico. So I had a ton of leftovers. But that's okay because leftovers are the best! Oh, and since it was my birthday, they gave me free fried ice cream. I, as I just mentioned, was already stuffed so they put it in a to go container and we came home and put it in the freezer for Rick to eat another day. You just can't pass up a free dessert, right?!

After such a delicious and incredible meal we decided to go bowling at Fat Cats. I got in free for my birthday! So we only had to pay for Rick. Here is a random picture of Rick's bowling shoes. Size 11. I got size 7...just to compare a little bit. Haha. And we got so in to the game that I totally forgot to take pictures of us actually bowling! It was way fun. I was ahead the whole entire game! And then on the last bowl Rick got a spare so he got a bonus bowl and passed me up..... by. ONE. point. I couldn't believe it. I thought I had that game in the bag. But nope. My wonderful husband won it all. But we had a blast anyway. It was way fun! 

Final score = Alina at 111 and Rick at 112. 

After that we decided to go see a movie at Spanish 8 Theaters. Well, I think it's called Water Garden Cinemas or something like that now. But either way, we had a buy one get one free! We went and bought our tickets cause we were about 40 minutes early. The sun was setting and it was gorgeous!. 

Then I told Rick that I wanted him to give me a ride in a shopping cart. Hehehe. I had to do A LOT of convincing!!!! I hopped on in and he just looked at me and laughed. Then he asked for my camera. I told him the only way he could take a picture is if he gave me a ride:) So he did. We walked down to Kmart and went right on in the store. I think Rick was pretty embarrassed. And after seeing someone that I knew (but she didn't see me) I decided that I was kind of embarrassed too. So Rick pushed me right on out of the store and back toward the theater. We went down the ramps and over to the grass to the side of the theater and just watched the sun set some more.

The colors got even deeper from the pictures I got earlier and it was so pretty. We just sat there and got to chat for a while before the movie started.

Yes. There is the famous shopping cart in the background. Rick purposefully wanted it in the picture :)

We also had a buy one get one free for popcorn and drinks. I had been wanting movie popcorn for so long so for $6 we got two LARGE popcorns and to LARGE drinks. Wow. That was a lot of popcorn and a whole lot of drink. Needless to say, we had a whole lot of popcorn left over. We took it to the Stone's house when we went to pick up Kimbri and they got to enjoy the rest :)

Oh, and by the way, the movie we saw was called "October Baby". It was so good. I would see it again. And again. I would probably even buy it. You should all see it. It leaves you with a really good message and makes you think about forgiveness and the need to always forgive others.

The next day was Fathers Day! Happy Fathers Day, again, to all you great fathers out there! After church we went straight to Spanish Fork. Okay, back up. Rick was reading over my shoulder and said, "What about before church?". Haha. Well, for his Fathers Day gift I gave him a new electric razor before church so he could use his gift for Fathers Day. His old one was just that, old. And it took him forever and ever to shave. No offense, Rick:)  But he would agree with me. So, he got to use a nice new shaver and he looked way good for church on Sunday;)

Anyway, we spent a few hours at my parents house having dinner with my family, my cousin, Eric, and my grandparents. After dinner my dad made homemade cookies 'n cream ice cream in honor of my birthday! Oh is was sooooo good. And he also made strawberry and blueberry pies. 

Here is Uncle Zach with Kimbri on the grass outside while the boys were cranking the ice cream. 

Here is my dad and Nolan, hard at work at that delicious ice cream! 

And here are some more pictures of Kimbri playing in the grass.

Daddy-Daughter pictures on Fathers Day with the cherry tree stuffed with cherries in the background.

Here is when they were whipping the cream to go on top of the pies. And we let Kimbri have a little taste. And oh boy did she LOVE it!! I probably took too many pictures. This isn't even all the ones that I took! But oh well, it will be fun to look back on them later.

This is her, "Don't you dare take that away
from me!" and "Give me more!" face. Ha:)

Then everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and I had to blow out three candles. Why three? I guess because I'm turning 23. I don't know. But it was good. 

Here was everyone that was there! Plus my Mom, but she was the one taking the picture. 

Pretty sure I've said this before, but Kimbri loves to eat.

It was a great Birthday and Fathers Day weekend! Next year my birthday will be on Fathers Day. So it will be one big ol' party!  It's been a great 23 years! 

She Breaks Her First Dish

As I'm sure many parents have experienced a child breaking a dish or something else breakable and probably not so fixable, I can now say that because of Kimbri I, too, have experienced it :) 

Often times Rick and I will sit on the floor with Kimbri when we eat breakfast. Well, this day in particular we decided to give Kimbri her own bowl and spoon to try and distract her from ours. Otherwise she tries to crawl up in our laps and eat our cereal the whole time. 

We only thought this would be a great distraction...

...and this is what became of this so called distraction. Ha!

So here's how it happened. It's kind of one of those stories that it's just better to have been there. But I'll try my best to help you imagine how this all went down. So when we gave Kimbri the bowl and spoon, like times before, she went right for the spoon and started lightly tapping on the bowl. Loving that she was making noise and she thought she was such a big girl for doing so. Just imagine an almost 1 year old little girl sitting there proudly TAPPING her bowl with a sly LITTLE grin on her face. Hehe :) 

Well, now you should imagine an almost 1 year old little girl sitting their proudly BANGING her bowl with a bold HUMONGOUS grin on her face!! Right after she started the banging part I said allowed, "Woah, Kimbri. You better watch out or you're going to break that."

 I guess I jinxed her because one more bang 

after that statement and this is what happened:

Rick and I just busted up laughing in unbelief that, that had just happened. Even more funny that it had happened right after me saying such a thing. I guess you just had to be there. But we sure thought it was funny! 

And so for the rest of the day Kimbri innocently played and sucked on the spoon she used to break the bowl. From now on, she will only get to play with a spoon and not a bowl. Haha :)

She Winks!

Okay, so I may have over done it on the pictures but she was just acting so stinkin' cute! And she is only in a diaper because as I mentioned in a previous post, our house has been sooooooo hot. So Kimbri got to sport the diaper outfit;) And she totally loved it.

Also, Kimbri can wink!

She seems so happy about it too. And as a side note...you can kind of see her hair fluffed up in this picture. There's proof! She DOES have hair. Just not very much:) But it's growing.

She likes to play with my sunglasses...and wear them too. 

Another wink!  

And another one...what a cute face she has! 

She makes me laugh. And smile. A lot.

I think I mentioned a couple posts back that Kimbri always crawls over to the piano and stands up to reach her little fingers up and play the keys. But I don't think I had a picture when I did that post so here ya go. And also, look at those chubby legs! I am in love.

She just had to stop and wink at me again. Haha! I can't get over how adorable she is!

That facial expression just cracks me up every time I see it!

She has learned a new trick and just loves showing it off!! Keep on winking, Kimbri. I love you! 

Summer Fun!

Well, I guess this first picture is not so fun... Our house has been soooooo hot. And I was beginning to melt. Although it is fixed now, (our landlords finally had someone come put in the swamp cooler) that long while where our house was too hot to be in, Kimbri and I went to Seven Peaks several times! And  spent several days in Spanish Fork because I was just miserable in our 85 degree house. 

Here's proof:

So we met my mom and some of my siblings at Seven Peaks and after a while of being in the sun we went back to sit in the shade and to give Kimbri a snack....a snack consisting of partially frozen strawberries but thawed enough that they were soft for Kimbri to eat. 

And she loves to eat! Can't you tell?! Haha:)

Well, that cute face above soon turned into this extremely sour face! And no, she's not crying or screaming, she just must've gotten a sour bite of a strawberry and made this hilarious face!

Still a slightly concerned face but still willing to eat them, because like I said, she LOVES to EAT!

 

And just look at the beautiful eyes! She's so adorable:) And yes, I know I'm biased. I can't help it. I'm her mother.

Another day we went to my parents house and my Mom set up the little pool on the deck for Kimbri to play in. And she loved eating the watermelon while playing in the pool :)

And I'm sure we have many more fun adventures coming our way this summer! Many days will probably be spent at Seven Peaks, taking Kimbri to play in the fun kid pools, the wave pool and down Flash Floods - she loves that one!