Drumroll Please....

Merry Christmas, everyone! Here's the long awaited belly picture! This is at 5 months along. :)
Thanks again, Mandy!

Christmas Picture

My AMAZING friend Mandy took this AMAZING picture of the kids for me today. I was over at her house because after my previous post she offered to do belly shots for me. (They'll be up soon!) Can you believe this is at her house just sitting in front of the tree? I swear it looks like a studio picture. She is so talented! I couldn't wait to share it with the world! Thanks, Mandy! :) Oh my gosh, I just LOVE my kids!!! *sigh*

Joy To The World! No, Seriously!

Lots of good news today! We'll start with the most recent. Yesterday around 5:00 p.m. I looked outside and couldn't believe my eyes. It was SNOWING!!! Yes, that's right, SNOWING!!! I started screaming and jumping up and down like a little kid, I seriously started to cry! The kids were so excited to go outside and play in it. It wasn't very much, just enough to coat everything, but it was still just as exciting! Whitney had fun making snow angels on trampoline and trying to catch them on her tongue (probably not the cleanest snow here with all that pollution...oh well!), and poor Aaron was just getting frustrated that his hands were cold and his pants were getting wet. I tried to put gloves on him and he freaked out...poor little Texan boy who doesn't like the cold. It was even more beautiful after the sun went down and I stood by the window and watched the flakes fall in the light from the street lamps. Ahhhh, it was gorgeous! And hot chocolate never tasted more delicious! (Or could it be that I used whole milk, three scoops of cocoa, Nestle French Vanilla creamer, Amaretto creamer, and whipped topping on top?)

Second, and even more wonderful is that I had such an amazing Fast Sunday last week! That morning I had said a special prayer that I would be able to feel the spirit and would be able to be happy about this baby and Heavenly Father heard me. We had a beautiful lesson in Y.W. about the personality of Heavenly Father and how He knows and loves each of us individually because we are His children. I mean, I know we've had this lesson a hundred times, but it's never really sunk in like this time. And I felt the spirit so strongly! This time it wasn't about how much Heavenly Father knows and loves me, this time I could feel how much Heavenly Father loves this BABY and how He KNOWS this baby. And suddenly it became clear that I'm not just carrying some random human being, I am carrying a precious little child of God! This is a baby with a special spirit who has been saved for the last days and has chosen to come to me because they LOVE me! Suddenly I felt so incredibly humbled and loved and just sooooo grateful! I have had a complete change of heart and it has been so amazing! Every time I feel a little kick I smile. And at night when I'm trying to fall asleep and the baby's hiccups are keeping me awake I don't get frustrated. I enjoy laying there feeling it's every little movement and think about what they will look like, what it will be like to hold them for the first time...allll happy thoughts! :) I am so grateful for Heavenly Father's tender mercies! I've always loved the stories in the scriptures where people have had a complete change of heart and always wondered what that would really be like. And now I know. It really is a miracle. :)

PICTURE TAG!

This is a picture of Whitney when she was about a year old, Me, Grandma Tove, and Grandpa Horst. Wow, this picture makes me miss them soooo much! I haven't seen them in almost three years. *sniff sniff* They are so wonderful and I am so very blessed to be a part of their eternal family! I love you Grandma and Grandpa!!!


Picture Tag!

1. Go to your pictures

2. Go to your fourth folder and upload your fourth picture

3. Post it!

I tag Jessica, Mandy, Callie and Melissa and whoever else wants to be tagged. :)

Hello everyone! I have been so bad at blogging lately! Some weeks it's like I have something to say every single day. But the past few months have just flown by and I just haven't gotten around to the blog. Let's see...where to start. Um....OOH! I went and saw "Australia" with my friends Mandy and Pearlette. It was SOOOOOOO good! Oh my gosh, I think it's my new favorite movie. It was funny, and romantic, and action packed...everything you could want all smooshed into a 2 hour and 45 minute movie. Just remember that it's 2 hours and 45 minutes, and half way through the movie when you swear it's just about to end and you're like, "oh, that was such a good movie! But what ever happened to that one guy???" and then the movie keeps going you won't be suprised. There is the cuuuuutest little boy in the movie, he just melts my heart! Seriously, it was such a good movie. Then, to top off a great night we went to Cheesecake factory for a little 800 calorie snack and called it a night!

I went to the doctor this week and everything looks good. I'll be getting the "BIG" ultrasound here in a few weeks so that's nice! I have to admit that this pregnancy has been a hard one. I thought I'd be really connected with this baby already like I was with Whitney and Aaron. I used to talk to my belly and lay in bed just so happy to know that this sweet little baby was going to join our family. I haven't felt that with this one...I don't know why. I really struggle with being pregnant again and the change that's going to come and I just hope that the baby doesn't know that I feel this way. Anyway, I'm hoping that after I have the ultrasound I won't just picture this little alien looking creature taking over my belly and I'll get excited about a new son or daughter and find joy in pink or blue. Oh, and I've been getting a lot of requests for belly pictures. Um, about that...yikes! As a Christmas gift to all of you I'll put one up. After Mike gets me a camera for Christmas! (Got that, Michael?)

We had a nice Thanksgiving. We went out to Dallas to spend it with some of my relatives and it was nice to be with family! The drive went really fast and it was so beautiful! It actually LOOKED like fall! The trees were orange and red and yellow, it made me so giddy! The food was soooo good and we had fun playing the Wii and Guitar Hero and looking at the Black Friday adds! We had to cut the trip short, but I'm glad that we got to spend Thanksgiving with them! Thanks Chris and Brant! :)

The kids are doing pretty good. I babysat a three year old boy for one of the ladies I visit teach last week for 10 hours and his mom didn't happen to mention that he was sick with a cough and cold and needing breathing treatments because it was so bad. So, when he showed up and I heard him hacking up a mucus storm and snot flowing freely from his nose I was soooo close to telling her that I was terribly sorry but I just couldn't babysit him like that because of Whitney's lung problems. And I should have! Now, Whitney AND Aaron have it and I had to start breathing treatments on Whitney last night because she was wheezing and said she couldn't breath. It was a long night. I hope she can get through it okay...grrrr.

Other than that, they're doing good. Every day Whitney asks if it's Christmas yet so I think it's going to be a long month. I went and bought one of those advent calendar things so help her to count down the days to Christmas and that seems to have helped. I got it from Target and it's super cute! It's this one:

which also matches the colors of our Christmas ornaments this year! (by the way, are you supposed to count up to 25 or count down to 1???) There. Now I've added a picture to my blog and I feel complete. Well, there's the update for ya! I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and are now enjoying the fruits of your leftovers! :)

URGENT GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING:

DO NOT SWALLOW YOUR CHEWING GUM!

See what happens?

Time Out For Women

I just found this post in my drafts and realized I totally forgot to hit "publish post"...


This weekend I got to go to San Antonio for this years Time Out For Women with a group of friends from my ward. I have to say, Satan worked on me pretty hard to try to get me to back out of going, but I stuck to it and went and I am soooo glad I did! I had one of the best times of my life!!! The talks were all really good and I learned something from each of them. (Accept for the one guy who had the really soothing voice that I slept through...but that was mainly from the 3 1/2 hours of sleep we got the night before). Hillary Weeks was there and I had heard a few songs from her, but didn't really know anything about her. She was absolutely amazing! I was just in awe every time she sang. Plus, we got these SUPER cute tote bags from it...always a plus.

San Antonio is such a beautiful city! I'm looking forward to getting to go there again to play tourist. "REMEMBER THE ALAMOOOOO!" The streets are sooo confusing though. Seriously, they have an upper level highway and a lower level highway, so you just have to sort of take a gamble to see which one goes where. Here's a shout out to Mandy for getting us there alive! If I were driving, I'm pretty sure we would have arrived there dead...which totally doesn't count as getting there...so again, Mandy, YOU ROCK!!! :)

We got there Friday night and the Friday night events didn't get over until 9 p.m. (and oh my gosh, it was FREEEEZING in the convention center!!!) so then we went to the hotel after that and we were hungry. So, we ordered some pizza from some random place and it took them an hour to get it to us! We didn't end up going to bed until 1 a.m. and then the alarm from someone's watch went off at 4:30 a.m. (which now we all laugh about...not so funny that day though). I was already up, because I had been dreaming about Santa Anna's armies taking over the hotel...and something about all the bathrooms backing up so I wanted to get up to take a shower before our shower backed up...I don't think I was quite awake and sane yet. To make a really long, drawn out, incredibly detailed story short...it was a great day! We were all tired and cranky by the time we got home, but we still couldn't stop laughing. I didn't get to take any pictures, as usual...but I know some of the other ladies took some. Maybe I can bribe them to email me some...