it's been a while.....

Sooooo.......it's been a while......how bout we just pretend like that whole 3 month plus hiatus never happened and pick up where we left off shall we?  

If you haven't heard, we're having a baby!  The blog is a little late to the party considering I only have about 3 months left (crazy!).  I'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that I get to be a Mom....we had been waiting and waiting for this to happen for sooooo long that it's kind of hard for my little brain to change from the mind set of "I want a baby" to "I'm HAVING a baby!"....ahhh those are beautiful words!  

This little boy Smith (we're having a boy by the way!! wooot!) has been having quite the growth spurt since Thanksgiving. I think all that turkey must have been a jump start to his system or something because I feel like we're growing so fast!

I was pretty nauseous for the first trimester but it wasn't anything that a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from McDonalds couldn't fix.  Eating one for breakfast was the only way I could be guaranteed a nausea free day, very strange especially considering how healthy I was eating before getting pregnant...all healthy eating was out the window!  No green smoothies or almonds would touch my lips for the next few months....when you feel sick you do what works I guess.  Most of my second trimester was awesome!  I felt great, was sleeping a full 8-9 hrs a night straight through, and got my appetite back which was great.  Sadly that wonderful streak only lasted a couple months and I've moved on to the "uncomfortable" phase....the baby seems to have a penchant for squeezing off an important blood vessel because sitting down longer than 10 min., and laying down on any side but my left, are no longer relaxing or comfortable.....aaahhhh the days of sleeping on my back, how I miss those.... He also seems to have Joel's appetite because my body now REQUIRES me to get up at least twice a night to eat. I have never experienced anything like it, I wake up with a pounding heart and a horrible feeling in my stomach that will not go away until I've had my protein fix. Caaarazy..... thank goodness there is a cure for all these maladies called childbirth :).   

Despite these not so fun things, I know things could be much much worse and the fact that we get a baby at the end of all this more than makes up for any discomfort. We feel so blessed to be looking forward to our little baby arriving and are so thankful for all the prayers and fasting done by our family and friends, it really is a miracle.

 

Weeks 17-20

Weeks 22-25

I'm stll a blogger!

Blogging has definitely fallen off the map in our family, but I still believe!  So, to prove I still think blogging is relevant, and just so we don't have 2 straight Anniversary posts (4 years next week!), I will post a few cool pictures I have taken lately.  On occasion I take Kalli's backup camera and take some pictures of my own.  So here they are:

The Smith family goes on a hike every Labor Day.  These first ones are from that hike up Alta Ski Resort.

I love the slip-on/velcro fad!

Over the summer we went to My Aunt Sue's Wyoming ranch and had a blast.  This was the starry sky we slept under for a couple nights.  Me and Kalli stayed up late and got this beauty!

These next pictures are from the Heaps/Heugly camping trip to Strawberry Reservoir over the Summer

 The camera loves this guy!

Yep, we ate them!

3rd anniversary

We had such a fun anniversary, I wanted to do a little journal post to remember it.
We went to the SL Temple that morning to do sealings and then went to the Lion House Pantry for lunch.  I don't remember what we had but do remember it was gooooood. . 
I did a photo shoot up Big Cottonwood Canyon that evening so we stayed up there after and ate dinner and had a fire. 
This cave was right above our site, it was huge inside and totally freaky!  Joel went in, I did not. 

Joel started the fire while I took pics of rocks.

 We wanted to make things super low stress so we ran to the store at the mouth of the canyon and bought a bunch of easy stuff.  We cooked biscuits on roasting sticks, baked apples, roasted hot dogs, ate fizz candy,

 and popped our first jiffy pop!  yum. 

Joel, you are my favorite.  I love you.

baby camera gets her glory day in the hot sun

We take our little point and shoot with us when we don't want to carry my camera around. I was going through the photos we've collected a while back and found that we have taken a lot of random pics.  You wanna see some???!!! :)  Joel thinks not, but I think YES!

First up.....this amazing photo of us.  This has caused many a laughing fits at our house over the past few months.  Ladies, this is what a wacky wide angle point and shoot lens will do for your ego.  I look like Elf when he sits on Poppa Elf's lap.  I. am. ginormous.
Please see exibit A:

  to prove I haven't grown 2 ft and my head isn't the size of a watermelon...........exibit B:

 We went to the Festival of Trees with Katie and Eric back in November and found this beautiful crocheted toy in the gift shop.....what's that?  You don't know what this is???

 Why it's a Crocheted UFO Spaceship of course!  Complete with bonnet wearing six eyed aliens.......  "I wont that"

 We saw Santa in his summer home.

 and many beautiful wreaths.................... so this photo isn't that random, but I am still feeling ginormous and need validation.  My outfit rocks, right? ;)

 Guess what else is ginormous?  This sweet potato (or yam...whatever).  Joel appreciates my awkward hand angle. 

I think he will also appreciate me posting this photo of him.  hehe.  HOT

Still Winter!!

It's about that time of the season where I have to stop and calmly convince myself that it is still winter and it is still going to snow multiple times.  And it will still be cold enough that the snow will stick and stay around for a while so I can play in it.

Yes, call me childish, weird, or down right crazy, but I cannot get enough of that beautiful white stuff!!  And yes, when it snows, I still get my snow clothes on and go out and play in it (just ask Kalli!).  Who knows, when we have kids, I just might be more excited about playing in the snow than they will be.

You might say I'm almost 30 and shouldn't be "playing" in the snow anymore.  But you might just be jealous that I still like to play :)  So let's all enjoy these SNOWY pictures together as we think about how much we LOVE winter and how it is still going to be around for a long, long, time!!!  (Julie, maybe you shouldn't look)

If you didn't stay up late like we did, as these last few pictures show, then you might have missed the "Blizzard 2010".  It came and went so fast, no one really noticed it.  But for those of us who braved the storm in the middle of the night it was awesome!!

Someone's having fun!

"Christmas past is past"

Just a few memories from Christmas.  It goes so fast I barely remember having it!  But January is here and another year begins.  Now if only I can get over the flu!

It is day 5 of achy muscles, a fever, sore throat, runny nose, terrible sleep.  I now know why people want to get a flu shot - they've probably had the flu in the past couple years and remember how bad it is.  I hadn't had it since I was little and I'm thankful that I went as long as I did without it.

This is two straight New Year's Eve celebrations down the drain.  Last year we were at the Heaps' cabin and I got the stomach flu!  Not that we celebrate the holiday that much anyway, but HERE'S TO A BETTER NEW YEAR next year!! 

 

Larson Cabin 7/10

Just found these in our files and realized I never posted them!  We had such an awesome trip to the Larson cabin this year.  It was so gorgeous up there and it was the most relaxing trip we've had in a lonnng time.

Joel played Frisbee golf with Stu and Brianna and their kids and me and my mom hiked along with them for fun. 

See if you can spot Joel in the above left pic.

I was having fun checking out all the flora.  This is a wild pea!  How cute is that!  There were tons of gorgeous wild flowers.

It was so fun being able to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and have them all to ourselves for a couple days!  Grandma even taught me some new crochet stiches.

We had fun fishing and enjoying the beautiful views

Joel's catch

Grandpa and I at the Ferrin Reservoir circa 1989

Grandpa and I at the Ferrin Resevoir 2010