What we've been up to....

Sorry for the picture overload. We have been pretty busy the last month. Here are a few things that we have been up to.

We have taken lots of fun drives and enjoyed the beautiful fall weather. Here are a few pictures from our drive up to our cabin.








Matthew loves to mow the lawn with his dad! Or help in any way!




Darin's Garden did AMAZING this year. Here is a picture of one of his cantelopes! It was the best cantelope I have ever had!



My Young Women are doing awesome in volleyball and dress up funny every week. This was ugly dress week.

We've had some fun playdates with friends.

Matthew has moved out of the crib and into a big boy bed! And this is the last picture of him with a binki!! He is finally done with it!

And here a few (or a lot) of cute pictures of Matthew:









We also had a fun time up in Mueller Park Canyon;








We have also been busy making changes around our house. We moved the crib into the old office, the office down the the basement bedroom, the basement bedroom to Matt's room, the weight room to the storage room, and added a new bed to the weight room. Did you follow all of that? If you did, I am super impressed. We have also been doing a lot of painting. We changed our front door from white to black, our garage and our house address from brown to black, and our lanters from gold to black. (Yes, I am slightly gothic). I am also slowly working on doing our little baby girls nursery. Pictures of all the changes to come.

Wonderful Weekend, and BIG surprise!!!

We had another wonderful, exciting, and eventful weekend!! It started on Thursday, when my brother Ben and his wife Kristy had their baby Eliza!! She is sooo stinkin cute!! We are so glad that mom and baby are doing well!! Congrats you new family of three!!




Friday morning Matthew and I went down to Thanksgiving point with our friends Kendra and Alayna! I couldn’t believe how fun it was! I sure love being a mom, and watching Matthew’s reaction to every animal!! He LOVED the cows, and couldn’t stop saying “moo, moo, moo!” He loved feeding the animals, or more watching ME feed the animals! He oinked at the pigs, quacked at the ducks, and even got to ride a pony!! He was a little nervous at first but by the end he loved it and cried when we had to leave. After seeing all the animals we had a little picnic lunch on the grass. Unfortunately, Matthew was only interested in Alayna’s food and not his own. It was just a wonderful morning!! Thanks Kendra for the fun day! Here are a few pictures, and a video of Matthew riding the pony:







After Thanksgiving point we headed back to Bountiful for a doctor’s appointment. As you may have read in a previous post I was POSITIVE this baby was a girl. When we went to find out, and we saw the little baby on the monitor I said, “Oh look how cute she is.” To which the doctor responded, “It’s not a she! You’ve got another little boy.” I will admit, I was a little sad, and it took me about a month to get excited about the idea of having a boy. Well, Friday when we went in my mom said, “there’s your little brother Matthew!” To which the doctor said, “This isn’t a brother, it’s a GIRL!!”

For those of you who don’t like to read all of my details on the blog and just come for the pictures, I just said…

WE ARE HAVING A BABY GIRL!!!!!

I was really excited, still trying to get used to the idea, but am absolutely THRILLED!! Here is a picture of our cute baby (that Darin likes to call Stella—but don’t worry, this baby will NOT be named Stella!! Sorry to all the Stella readers out there).



Friday night Darin played in the ward golf tournament while I went to a baby shower. When we came home we watched a movie and ate cereal for dinner. (A slightly less exciting part of our day).

Saturday morning, I went to run my first 1/2 Marathon!! Aren’t you so proud of me!!?.....well, don’t be. I didn’t finish.  It was actually really hard for me not to finish because I knew that I could push myself and do it, but I was having stomach pains and I didn’t want to hurt the baby. Especially since I do less than 3 miles everyday, it was a pretty big jump. I did make it 8 ½ miles though, and the exciting news is that my mom did a FULL MARATHON!!! WAY TO GO MAMA!! I had my dad come pick me up on the 8 ½ mile marker, and then he took me out to Denny’s!! That made it worth not finishing!! Thanks poppee!!

Here are a few pictures from the race:


Aunt Rosanne, Mama, and me. (And I know I look like I am 21 months prego instead of 21 weeks).


As you can see, it was a WONDERFUL weekend, unfortunately it ended not so wonderful. Matthew has loved coloring lately. Unfortunately, we had our first off paper masterpiece:
Yes, that is blue violet, and violet red crayon all over our wall! Thank goodness for Magic Erasers!! :)

Labor Day Weekend!

We had such a fun Labor Day weekend!! Friday night we got together with some friends (John and Laurie, and Adam and Cami) from our old ward to do a “70’s Night.” What great friends (and what a wonderful husband) I have to put up with my dumb theme night parties! But, it was a BLAST!!! We had some yummy food (fondue, Jalapeno poppers, yummy chips and dip, and “marijuana brownies.”)
Then we played “whipping cream twister” and it was so FUN!! I haven’t laughed so hard in such a long time!! Everyone got pretty messy, but I think that poor Laurie got the worst of it though!! What a good sport! Darin brought me goggles just to be funny, but I am glad that he did because they came in handy! After twister we watched “We are Marshal (which took place in the 70’s). It was such a fun night! Thanks again for coming you guys!! Here are a few pictures from the night! Oh and thanks a bunch Heather for the twister game!















Saturday Darin and I went down to Provo for the Story Telling Festival with my parents! It was really fun too!! They had some interesting music to start with and I thought it was going to be weird, but it was really fun, and they had some really great performers!! Darin and I are still laughing about it!! Thanks a ton mom and dad for taking us, and thanks a ton Heather for watching Matthew for us so we could go!



Sunday was pretty much a normal Sunday except I decided to try a new recipe. Is it just me or has “Pho” been everywhere lately? I swear I have heard it like 3 times on TV in the last week so I decided to give it a try. It was pretty good. If you want the recipe it should be on my food blog soon.



Monday we went up to Woodland to see Darin’s brother Rick and family. They were doing a little kids rodeo and it was so fun! Our nephew Luke rode a cow and did a great job! Noah road a sheep and made it across the whole arena! Matthew and Eli ran a little race together, and got a soda for trying! Luke and Noah also chased chickens and a pig, and if they caught it they could take it home! Even though neither caught one, I think they still had a great time! Olivia and especially enjoyed the little shops, and both dream of the day we will have a girl to make cute stuff for! Thanks Rick and Olivia for the fun morning and the yummy lunch!!

Matthew and Eli's Race:




Running after that chicken!

Matthew and Eli:




After Kamas we headed back down to Bountiful for a swim and after mom and dad had us over for dinner!


My favorite part of the pool was Rachel wearing her winter coat over her swim suit!


Oh, and you can’t go to the pool without getting a yummy popsicle from Grandpa!