the doyle family

Homemade potpourri

2011-12-09T13:39:00.001-08:00

Well, it's not really potpourri cause it doesnt have a smell. Except for the slight hint of pine. Maybe I'll ad some cinnamon sticks or something! Anyway, on our walk today, Jaylee and I so many beautiful leaves and branches and things, we had to go home and get a bag so we could collect stuff! I can't believe how beautifully nature fits into the holidays. Just look at all the amazing colors! It was a gorgeous day.

Ho ho ho

2011-12-05T09:18:00.001-08:00

Welllll it's been forever. We got rid of our Internet cause we both have it on our phones and to cut costs a bit. But as nice as having an iPhone is, typing on it just isn't the same. So that's why I have not been posting. Also, nothing too exciting has been happening... So ya know. :)

Except that Jaylee turned two! That was traumatizing for momma. I can't believe how big she is. I wish I could make her stop growing. She's at such an amazing stage. She's so smart and sweet and funny and gorgeous. I don't want her to get any bigger! I guess that's why people have more babies. And speaking of babies, only 6 more weeks! Yesterday was 34 weeks! (or so we think based on her development when we got the ultrasound.) The whole conception/last period thing is really a guess. We suck at paying attention to that. So we only have her development and my measurement to go by, which both aren't very reliable sources. So that's kind of frustrating! Cause I'd REALLY love to know how much longer I really have... But oh well. Nothing to do but be patient! I am sooo excited for her to get here!! I love having kids. I can't believe I'm gonna have two! So exciting :) We've ordered our birth kit and are starting to assemble all the stuff we need. I'm so excited to be doing it at home. My midwife is awesome and I love that I don't have to go anywhere and that I'll be so comfortable in my own home. I hope she comes soon :)

Thanksgiving was great! I made pies for the first time and they were superb. Super super yummy. In fact, I wish I had some pumpkin pie right now!! Mmmmm. The entire meal was soo good, as usual. And my family is awesome. We stayed at my mom's all week and we had a blast.

I'm super proud of myself this pregnancy. I've gained HALF of the weight I did last time. Which was my main goal. Besides being healthy and growing a healthy baby, obviously. :) Our regular diet is really low carb. We don't eat processed foods or bready stuff, so I just stayed with that diet while pregnant. It's been hard because carbs are really what keep you full, so I have to eat a lot and more often. We pretty much only eat fruits, veggies and proteins. It's super healthy way to eat and I've felt so great this pregnancy. So much better than last time. Well, once I got past the horrible 5 months of sickness, of course. :) Also, my midwife told me that eating less carbs and sugars really helps with tearing during labor. So that's good!

Winter finally came and holy moly is it here! Thanksgiving was beautiful weather and then the weekend after, it got cold! It's 34 degrees today and feels like 28. Can you believe that? I was definitely not ready. Especially cause my clothes suck. The warmest thing I have is a light fleece-ish hoodie. I thought that was gonna last me most of the month ok, but not anymore! Crazy Texas weather!

We made Christmas cookies last week and they were SO good!! I finally found a good sugar cookie recipe. They were so delicious and chewy, even the next day! I've probably tried 5 different recipes over the years and they've all sucked. So yay for good recipes! We put our tree and decorations up the Sunday after Thanksgiving cause I couldn't wait anymore! I'm usually the one that hates anything Christmas before Thanksgiving, but not this year. I think I was just so excited for fall and winter this year because of how sucky the summer was that I didn't want to wait! I love our little tree and decorations! Our house is so cozy. Yay Christmas!! :)

Yay for the weekend! Boo for Monday.

2011-10-02T18:58:00.001-07:00

We had such a good weekend! It started with a great BYU win Friday night, and then we headed to my parent's house for the rest of the weekend. I love spending time with my family so much! I'm lucky that Brandon is so awesome and is fine doing it so often :)

The weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL this weekend! In between the Saturday sessions of conference, Brandon, Miri, Dad and I went to a little craft fair/car show that was going on in downtown. It was so fun to just be outside and spend time together! There wasn't much to see at the fair, but the car show was fun. Well, unless you like homemade crafts and gadgets made by, what looked like at least, 10 year olds.... :) Especially exciting was the part at the car show where Miri, without knowing the car's owner was right behind her, said 'this Porsche reminds me of Grandmother!' You should've seen the guy's face. I'm sure that's exactly what every man that owns a 50s classic sports car wants to hear. It was great :)

Then last night Miri, Mike, Brandon and I met up with Katie and her husband for frozen yogurt after priesthood session. It was so much fun to see her! She's just as fabulous as always, of course. :) And it was really fun for me to hang out with another prego! I've never done that before, so it was great to hang with someone who knows how fat and crazy I feel :) There will definitely be plans made for more hang outs in the near future!

The rest of the weekend was filled with delicious food (as usual), my fantastic family and the awesome bits and pieces of conference that we were able to watch with our tantrum-throwing toddler. Seriously, that was apparently her favorite thing to do this weekend. So, I'm pretty exhausted. It's about 9pm now and I'm pressing publish and then hitting the sack. I'm pregnant. I can do that without being made fun of. :)

Xoxo

We're getting rain again!

2011-09-29T19:43:00.001-07:00

Baby girl is a crazy active one. I don't remember feeling this much movement so early with Jaylee. Because I knew what to look for this time around, I started feeling little movements as early as 10 weeks. But she's been doing some intense practicing for the Nutcracker the past couple weeks! My tummy is almost constantly moving and you can see everything from the outside. I bet it looks pretty crazy. And she's also sitting really REALLY low. So that's fun :)

I think we've decided on a name! It's been really hard finding any names we like. To start, we were completely surprised that it was a girl. So we had no names picked out. And then I had total brain blockage on coming up with ANYTHING. All the names we looked at on the Internet were totally common and boring. Or weird. Nothing felt right! Brandon suggested a name a few weeks ago that we'd had picked for Jaylee and I didn't like it. But he brought it up again today and it felt really good! So. For now, I think we've decided on one! And I love it! Yay!

In other news, I had to stop myself from getting Christmas decorations out today...... I want it to be winter and Christmas SO BAD!! I can't believe it's already October this weekend and we're still in the 90s. Booooo :(

My sisters, mother and I have started a tradition for which I am very excited! We'e started going to brunch together once a month! I know it may not sound that exciting, but we never get to hang out just the girls. So it's super fun to talk and eat yummy food altogether! I love it! This month we'll be taking a picnic to the arboretum! Eeee so fun!! :)

Anyway, writing from my phone is a pain, so I'm going to bed!

Xoxo

Falllllllll. PLEASE???

2011-09-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

I have THE hardest time coming up with titles for my posts!! WTC?! (What-the-crap. Not World Trade Center....Just FYI). I wish I could disable that feature. I know I can just not use it, but that empty box annoys me! Blargh.

Anyways! I'm sure all two of you that read this already saw my post on FB, but I'll write it here, too. Baby #2 is a little girl!! I'm soooo excited!!! :) Jaylee needs a sister. Don't get me wrong, I would've been just as happy with a boy and a boy will be so fun when he comes. But a girl right now is perfect for us. Even if you just look at the financial aspects. We'll have to buy a LOT less stuff now that we can reuse. Although we still will need to buy a lot. We borrowed a TON of stuff from Brandon's awesome cousins when Jaylee was little. Bumbo, boppy, carrier, bouncer, jumper, TONS of clothes, etc. The list goes on. So there's still a lot that we'll have to get for this baby, but at least it's minimized some.

On another fun note, my sisters and Mom are gonna throw me a baby shower! Yay!! I'm super excited cause they didn't get to be at the one for Jaylee (it was in Utah). So that will be really fun! And also cause we seriously need some stuff for buba #2. Thanks for the idea, Miri!! :)

We finally, finally got some rain this week! We've been in the worst drought Texas has seen for yeeaaarrrs and it has really sucked! Everything is totally brown and dead and ugly. And we have NO water. The lakes and rivers are sooo low. And the wildfires! Geez. This summer has been a horrible one. Anyway, there's a thunderstorm outside and it sounds fabulous! Let's hope it drops 15 inches on us!

I'm so excited for fall, I can hardly stand it. I want it to be cool already! I want to make yummy pumpkin dishes and to wear sweaters and drink hot chocolate! Mmmm fall is so yummy. It makes me feel so good thinking about it! I can't wait! I already brought up the discussion of Thanksgiving dish assignments at Mom's yesterday. I'm making pies and rolls this year. YUMMMMM. CAN'T WAIT!!!! Fall is almost here. I can feel it.

Ps. Goose talks in her sleep. Brandon heard her in the middle of the night last night say "No! No! *something inaudible* Uh oh!" Hehe I wonder what she was dreaming about!

the art of doing nothing

2011-09-09T10:13:00.001-07:00

I believe that is a book title. Or something. It is also something that I, in fact, have perfected. I feel like I don't do ANYTHING. It's been a rough summer for us. I've been super sick with this pregnancy, up until pretty recently. And the weather has been TERRIBLE. Seriously, it's been the summer from hell. Meaning, we stole the weather from there. So so hot. We've set national records. Ridiculous! So the sickness and heat has turned me into a homebody and I hate it. I miss having energy and feeling well enough to do things! I gained a TON (literally, a ton.) of weight when I was pregnant with Jaylee, despite my healthy eating habits and that is something that I wanted to try to avoid with this pregnancy.

I've always had a serious complex about my weight. I've always felt like I was fat. Even during my skinny times. Which really, I was skinny. And I can see that now looking back at pictures, but at the time all I saw was fat. Growing up in a family of beanpoles played a major role in this, I'm sure. I was the only one with any sort of chub to me our whole childhood. Only once my sisters reached college age (maybe a little younger) did they start getting any sort of curves. But I was a little chub chub kid. I was adorable, don't get me wrong. But my self confidence was definitely affected by that. Anyway. Long story short. I really didn't want to gain so much weight this time around. It's really hard for me to get big. So much that I get really depressed. Really. We eat fruit, veggies, meat and grains 95% of the time. Of course we have our bad days and junky times, but we eat super healthy. No carbs, no processed foods. All WHOLE foods. But with how sick I've been, I've just had to eat whatever I could manage to get down and not be picky. Which has been a lot of crap compared to what I usually eat. So, everything together, I've gained a lot already.

I'm halfway done next week! So exciting! I'm going to try really hard from here until the end to DO things. The weather is finally getting nice so we'll be going on walks. A lot. And I'm gonna try and pick Zumba back up a little bit. The Wii game (which is what I have) is definitely not as hard as the Dvds or classes. So I think it'll be good for me. I love dancing, so it's a really fun way for me to work out! I'm trying really hard to channel all of the emotions and energy I have about getting big into something positive, instead of getting more depressed. It's hard, but I'm trying hard. Wish me luck.

2011-08-30T13:35:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted in so long, every time I think about writing, I get discouraged because there is WAY too much to catch up on. SO. I'm not really going to recap the last 5 months, or however long it's been since I've written. We'll just start fresh again! :)

I am prego with baby #2, due Feb. 1st! We are uber excited and find out the gender in 3 weeks! :)

We moved out of our scummy apartment into a HOUSE!! We L-O-V-E it. It just feels so good to be in our own place! No noisy upstairs neighbors, no dog poop on the 1 inch of grass outside.... It's fantastic and we are still riding that high.

We're headed to Omaha this week for a visit and seriously can NOT wait. We miss Grandma and Papa a lot and are so anxious to escape this horrible Texas summer. The weather is supposed to be in the 70s the whole time we are there. GLORIOUS!! Can't wait.

My photography website was just about ready to launch when we decided to redesign. I was hesitant, but it is looking SO great and so much better! Should be ready to launch in the next couple weeks, tops. Yayayayayay :)

Anyway, that's about it for now. Gotta go get some things done so I can run to the library!! Yay for books! Hopefully I'll update again soon. :)

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, by Michael Pollan

2011-04-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

Because of my interest in being/eating healthy, most of this was not new information to me and already in practice. But I highly recommend this book to everyone. Especially those who get sick often, have sick kids, medical problems, are overweight, don't have energy, and just generally want to be happier. I wholeheartedly believe that eating healthy makes you happier. When you're respecting the beautiful gift that Heavenly Father has given you, feeding it only REAL and WHOLE food, feeling healthy and energetic-not sick, why would you not be happy??

Be HONEST, how do you feel after you've eaten half of a pizza and 2 glasses of soda?? I know what my answer is, and it's not happy, healthy and energetic. It's usually sluggish, sick and guilty.

Anyways, I'll keep this short because I have a big post I'm working on for this same topic. So I'll save the rest for that. :) But really, do yourself, and your family, a favor and read this book. Spend a few dollars on Amazon or make a trip to the library. You won't regret it.

xoxo

babies and sailboats

2011-03-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

Had a session this morning- probably my favorite to date!

Go check it out on my photography blog :)

Toasted coconut and piggytails

2011-03-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

First piggytails! <3

The house smells DELISH.

Peel coconut. Grate and bake at 400 degrees for 10ish minutes until dry. Broil for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally until golden.

I'm sure Brandon is tired of assembling things...

2011-03-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

He's had to put together so many things in the past week. Jaylee's crib and dresser, a bookshelf, our new entertainment center.... We've been in the new apartment for a month now, but it took us a while to find all the furniture that we wanted and get it shipped. And everything has arrived pretty much within a week. So that's fun. It actually is, though! It's so nice to finally get everything settled and to feel like this is home. It's been a really busy few weeks, but we are pretty much done! I'll be putting up pictures in the next few days once we get Jaylee's room finished.

My lovely monthly visitor showed up yesterday.... So that's been fun. Such a beautiful coincidence that I got my Food Network magazine yesterday and this issue has a special "10 Minute Desserts" section! Less than 15 minutes after getting home from church, we tried a chocolate cake in there and good glory. It was divine. It was reminiscent of a molten chocolate cake I've had at restaurants. So good. I didn't get to take a picture of it because it was devoured so quickly by some piglet, so I'll have to make it again. Watch for that recipe on the cooking blog soon! (probably tonight.....)

7 foods so unsafe even farmers won't eat them.

2011-03-08T11:05:00.001-08:00

Please take the time to read this article. It will be worth the 5 minutes.

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/7-foods-so-unsafe-even-farmers-wont-eat-them/

There are some seriously scary and wrong things going on in our country and this one effects us in a major way. For your health and the health of your kids, take the time to read this and make some changes.

Hooray!

2011-03-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

Just booked a wedding in August!! I'm SUPER excited! The groom is an old friend of mine and he's found himself a beautiful bride! I'm so excited to be able to document their wedding! Yayayayay! :)

Lime spritzers recipe!

2011-03-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

Check it out!

http://akitchencafe.blogspot.com/

Roses aren't my favorite flower.

2011-03-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

But man do they photograph beautifully.

Photos by Marissa.

All the things I could do.... If I had a little money.... It's a rich man's world.

2011-03-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping that my life will come to a point someday that money won't be an issue. There are so many things I'd like to be able to do and buy to help my business grow, but it's all so expensive! If I could just have $5000, I'd be soooo good to go!

$5000......

How can I get $5000......

Come oonnnnnn brain! Think of something!

Fontastic.

2011-02-28T14:52:00.001-08:00

Hehe. Get it? FONTastic??

Yay! Blogger has new fonts! They may have been there for a while, but I've just discovered them. I'm so excited!

Fakkkeeee.

2011-02-25T18:18:00.000-08:00

Oooooh fake people are one of my BIGGEST pet peeves. Smile in your face, act like they like you and that you're friends then talk crap behind your back.

Dearest fake person,

Do you feel good about yourself? I don't see how you could.

Grow up. We're not in high school anymore!

2011-02-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

This is more or less my new color scheme for my living room/dining room! I'm soo excited! The green here isn't exactly right. I couldn't get the right shade. But this is it for the most part. We're painting this week! I'm so excited to get all my new decorations up and projects finished! I'm making an art piece for both the living and dining rooms and refinishing our coffee table. Let's hope it all turns out as beautifully as it looks in my head! :)

2011-02-14T13:57:00.001-08:00

Jaylee is teething again. Hard core. And it's all of her back teeth now which are harder to break in. Which of course affects her more.... Which equals a very grumpy, clingy, whiney, screamy, throw a fit rolling around screaming on the floor, tired and moody baby. Toddler I guess is technically what she is now.

This round of teething has been the most difficult. There have been lots of fits thrown and lots of not listening. Which I'm really not used to. She's such a good baby normally that I almost don't know how to handle it! It's tiring having to fight her. I'm very grateful that she is not normally like this! Hopefully this round will end soon... :) And let's hope that the past few days are not a glimpse of the "twos"....

Jaylee is a very strong willed person. I can already tell that. She is also SUPER smart. For months now, since she was like 8 or 9 months, I could ask her to take something to the trash and she'd do it. Or to bring me my phone. Or a book. I'd say the name of the book and she'd know which one to get. I tell her not to touch something cause it will give her an owey (sp) and she'll walk away from it. Anyway, I could go on. She's amazing and so smart! She never ceases to amaze us. Sometimes I think I forget how young she is. I already expect so much because she understands so much...

Being a parent is hard work!

MAVS

2011-02-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

Brandon's new job is amazing! He gets paid really well, works with SUPER nice people (welcome to Texas :)), will only have a 15 minute commute once we move into our new apartment, he's doing what he loves AND gets sweet hookups! He started work last week and scored us free tickets to the BYU vs TCU basketball game so we get to go watch the Jimmer!

And then came home last night with tickets to the Mavs game!

We went with my fabulous friend Marissa and her hubby and had a blast! The seats were AMAZING as was the company :) We rode the DART down together and had issues figuring out which stop to get off (usually on game nights they have a special train that takes you straight to the AAC, but it wasn't running. So that threw us off). We ended up going one stop too far (my fault) and had to walk back a couple of miles, but it was so fun! We walked through the West End and beautiful downtown Dallas and loved it. It was a little bit chilly, but a really nice walk. We got to the game right on time, got food (we were all STARVING) and got to our amazing seats! It was such a blast catching up- we laughed ALL night.

I'd definitely say that was a great start to my week! :)

Today has kept with the loveliness- we had a bad storm last night so the roads are super icy and school and work was cancelled! So Jaylee and I get to spend the day with Daddy!

My baby is starting to look like a toddler... :(

2011-02-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

I took new pictures of Jaylee and they're up on my photography blog. They are soooo cute! I have the cutest baby ever! Not to toot my own horn or anything :)

Quick update

2011-01-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

The last month has been crazy for us, which is why I haven't blogged! But I tricked you, because this isn't going to be a full post either. :) I was going to, but Miri and Lana just came over to play so I have to be quick.

We moved to Texas, I have a fabulous job, Brandon found a FABULOUS job so I don't have to work anymore, we found an amazing apartment and will be moving in a couple weeks!

Jaylee is all over the place and LOVES walking. I love it, too. It's so cute. Her teeth are coming in like crazy and she loves the new foods that she gets to eat because of it.

Being close to my family is the BEST. Jaylee loves them so much!

That's all for now :)

I'll write more later today or tomorrow!

2010-12-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

Yay for new blog backgrounds! I love Christmas!!

whining

2010-12-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

I'm a little bit sad. It doesn't really feel like Christmas to me this year... We haven't put up any decorations because we're moving. And also because Brandon has hardly been home at ALL lately because he's so busy finishing the semester. No tree, no yummy smelling pine cones to go in my vases, no stockings, no nativity, no pretty lights..... Also because of the moving and the joblessness, we're not doing presents this year. I'm not saying this to make anyone feel sorry for me, so don't please. I'm just writing. I am 100% totally fine not getting presents. But I miss the GIVING part. The shopping for things that I know Brandon wants and will love, the fun of hiding them from him and lying when he guesses what it is. The wrapping and the watching him open them and be happy....

I haven't had one candy cane.

I have had no christmas cookies.

We did not decorate gingerbread houses like we do every year.

My sugar intake since Thanksgiving has been significantly lower than a regular year.

I miss my family and I am so anxious to home!

We have no one to hang out with in Rexburg and are so consumed with the fact that we leave this horrid place and everything in it NEXT WEEK that it is hard to focus on other things. :)

These things all together have left me without the amount of Christmas spirit that I usually have... Sad :(

On a good note, I will be home in less than two weeks!! That will give us several days before Christmas to immerse ourselves in the spirit and get with the program.

To hold me over, I am listening to way more than my share of Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate by the bucketful.

I can't believe the end is here!

2010-12-04T11:13:00.001-08:00

In 14 days we will leave Rexburg forever!! I cannot even contain my excitement!! Brandon graduates on the 18th and right after we're done, we're driving to Texas! I finally get to move home. *huge sigh of relief* I never thought this day would come... :)

Brandon didn't receive the job offer we thought he was going to get in Cali, so we're headed home to look for work there. We'll be living with my sister Talia and her family for a short time until we can get working and on our feet. Although the circumstances of our move home aren't ideal (jobless), I have missed my family so much. It's so hard raising a child away from everyone. It will be so wonderful to be home again.

This will probably be the best Christmas ever. :)

Christmas List version 2

2010-11-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

- Scene It: Friends Deluxe Edition

- The Hunger Games series

- The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

- Glee: Season 1

- Any and all of the Jane Austen books

-sewing machine

- cardigans

And Brandon just wants tools. :)

Flower hairclips

2010-10-06T18:27:00.001-07:00

I found a new hobby! I love making these for Jaylee AND myself! Totally into the flowers-in-the-hair thing right now. These are some that I made for my cousin. I meant to take individual pictures of them all before I gave them to her, but forgot. So she took this for me. Anyway, so fun! I love it! I'll post some others later.

2010-09-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

I wish I had money to buy clothes. I really love cardigans and have wanted some for forever. But I can never justify spending $25+ on one thing when I need so many other things and can get like 2 or 3 shirts for that price. I want to buy them all.

New cooking blog!

2010-09-20T18:21:00.001-07:00

Go check it out! :)

http://akitchencafe.blogspot.com/

2010-09-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

I think Fall is officially here. Not that they even really had a summer. There have only been 3 days in the 90s this year. How lame. But the high today is 67 and the low is 35. And the highest it's supposed to get this week is 75. Break out the winter clothes! Poor Jaylee is already back in sweat pants and socks every day. She's only been able to be sock-free for 6 1/2 weeks of her life (and that's when we were in Texas). Good thing I love Fall so much, or this would be another really whiney post :)

Things I love about Fall:

-Going to the orchard to pick apples

-making homemade hot chocolate and cuddling with a blanket

-Halloween (including the big costume party/birthday party for Jaylee that we're having this year in SLC!)

-Jaylee's birthday!

-football season

-homemade apple-cinnamon air fresheners

-Thanksgiving

-hoodies and socks

-the leaves changing to beautiful colors

-GRADUATION!!

-MOVING!!

-Christmas

That's a pretty good list. I'm sure I could think of more if I sat here longer. I LOVE Fall!

It's crazy being home with how mobile Jaylee is now. I mean, she was army crawling a lot before we let to Texas, but man is it different that she's standing. She gets into EVERYTHING. It's super cute :) Speaking of which, I need to go because Jaylee is terrorizing the movies and entertainment center.

2010-08-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

We're back in Utah and I'm already depressed. It's so hard for me to be away from my family, especially now that I have Jaylee. And especially because she got so close to everyone while we were there. As soon as she woke up every morning, she was so excited to get downstairs and play with her Safta. She'd smile ear-to-ear every time she saw one of the boys. She'd crawl to follow Miri to the bathroom and then sit outside the door and wait for her to come out. She'd cuddle Talia and Saba every chance she got.

Ugh.

We just Skyped with Mom and she told me that everyone has been really down/grumpy/crying since yesterday when we left, which we saw evidence of on the screen tonight, seeing Miri cry.

I hate having to be away! We won't be able to go for a visit again until Christmas. She's going to be so big by then. 13, almost 14 months. Possibly walking and talking. They'll miss so much.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Anyway, I'm in a really bad mood and writing really crappily. So I'll be done.

My Christmas list:

2010-07-11T22:06:00.001-07:00

-Scene It: Friends Deluxe Edition
-The Hunger Games series
-The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
-Glee: Season 1

Thank you come again.

Side note- I do accept presents early.

2010-07-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

I've realized a few things.... I don't really like putting titles on my posts. Also, it sucks being home by myself without Brandon for an extended period of time! I feel bad that I've left him to go to Texas all those times! He and one of his buddies went backpacking this weekend. They left at 5 this morning and will be back tomorrow night by 9 or so. So it's really not even that long, especially compared to the time I was gone for two weeks. AND I also have Jaylee, and he was just by himself those times. But it's really sad! He usually gets home from school at 3 on Fridays and that's when I started getting sad. I don't like being home without him! It feels really weird. And I also didn't sleep well at all last night, so I'm super tired. Which doesn't help the emotionalness. I've been keeping myself from crying all afternoon. And we're supposed to get thunderstorms tonight, so the sky has gotten really dark and depressing looking. Anyways, I'll stop being a baby now. :(

2010-06-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

OH! I've been having so many people contact me for pictures lately. I've had to turn down 4 weddings cause we're gonna be out of town. And also because I'm not 100% comfortable doing weddings with the equipment I have. It's good and everything, but there are things I need to get before I want to take on that kind of a responsibility. But I've booked 3 sessions in the last week and have a few more I'm still working out details with. So that's fun! And yay for some extra money! I'm doing a family reunion up in Island Park this weekend which will be a first for me. Wish me luck! :)

2010-06-29T14:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, but Brandon and I have terrible allergies here. Never had it anywhere else. Just here. Add one more thing to the 'why idaho sucks' list. So he's pretty sick right now. Which sucks. We can't wait for December! Only 6 months to go! Yay!! It's finally warm here! It's so great. I love summer so much. We took Jaylee fishing for her first time Saturday! We all got some good sun and are starting to get tan! Even Jaylee who was LATHERED with sun screen. She has SUCH beautiful skin! Lucky little girl :) And we're taking her camping this weekend too!! I'm SO excited! We're not gonna go far and we'll just stay for Friday night, but it'll be so much fun! She is such a sweet little baby and she makes EVERYTHING we do so much more fun!

Something sad I realized yesterday. In less time than she's been alive, Jaylee will be one year old. :( My baby is growing up too fast! I want her to STOP right now!! We were so excited for her to start crawling but miss her immobility now! She is all over the place. Seriously you turn around for 3 seconds and she's across the room getting into something she's not supposed to! It's so crazy and it's definitely taking us a long time to get used to it. Also, she seems to think it's HILARIOUS when we tell her no. She laughs so hard every time I say 'No no Jaylee. That's not a baby toy.' I have to cover my mouth with my hand so that she can't see me smiling. It's so funny! She listens really well, though. She'll stop touching whatever I was telling her no about. Probably just because she's too busy laughing at me. Haha. Silly goose.

Two weeks and a day before Jaylee and I are in Texas!! I can't wait! And then Brandon comes a week and a day after that. It's gonna be SUCH a fun break I can hardly stand it! I can't wait to be around my family for such a long time and see my brother who's been gone for two years and just all be together! It's gonna be SO MUCH FUN!!

<3 xoxoxo

2010-06-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

Um and ps I hate the new design thing that blogger added! It changed my template and it looks stupid and I don't know how to make it go back! BOO

Alms for the poor

2010-06-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Being a poor college student is getting really old! There's so much I want to do with my photography but can't because it's SOO expensive to get going. I guess I should just be patient cause Brandon will be done with school in 6 months and hopefully get a good job somewhere that pays well!

I've worked for so many years it's kinda hard for me to just sit at home everyday and not bring in any money. I know that my job at home is by FAR more important than anything else I can do. And I am so grateful that I get to stay home and be a mommy. Don't get me wrong. I just love photography so much and I wish that I could do it more. Photographing weddings is my big dream, but I don't dare take on that kind of responsibility without good equipment. My camera is great and all, but I'm not taking the chance of screwing up someone's memories of their big day by being unprepared. I've had to turn down 3 weddings within the past few weeks. Sad day.

The stupid weather in Rexburg doesn't help my mood either. Where is our summer??? It's half way through June and we've barely made it to 75 degrees ONCE! SOO lame! I'm tired of the dark, gloomy, wet days. I miss my texas.

Speaking of which, can't wait to get there next month. 29 days til Jaylee and I arrive! Hooray! Then maybe I'll actually get to take her swimming and get myself a tan! I'm so excited! Brandon comes a week after we do, once the semester ends. Then only ONE SEMESTER LEFT!! Yayyyy!!!

We got a jogging stroller from one of Brandon's buddies last week (they just gave it to us! so nice! :)) so we've been jogging. I am SO out of shape it's not funny! Well, I've never actually been IN shape... I am just not a runner. I've tried so many times to start running but I get discouraged really easy and always quit. But this is the first time that Brandon and I have really committed to go together, and I think it'll be good! Also, I really wanna be skinny when we go to Texas and I only have a handful of pounds left to go. So I think if I work really hard in the next 30 days I can dent that a little bit. Wish me luck :)

In loving memory...

2010-05-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

We love and miss you Jayjay. <3

Blogetty blog blog.

2010-05-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

Sooo it's been a long time. Like usual! :) And how sad is it that I still don't have that much to write about?? We moved! Just pretty much 6 or so blocks over from our old place. But I LOVE this place so much more! We have tons more storage space (which comes in really handy if you have a hoarder husband), the ward is SUPER friendly and nice (unlike our old ward), there is a ton of grass space and big trees that make it so nice to go play outside (if we ever get warm weather), and best of all! We don't have to pay rent! Woohoo! This complex is government subsidized, which means you pay rent based on your income. And since we don't have any income, we pay nothing! Thank you to all you loyal tax payers out there providing us this luxury! (Jk i don't know if tax dollars pay for it. Probably tho :P) So that's really nice. Cause we're super poor. Huge blessing.

Jaylee and I went to Texas last month for two weeks and it was fabulous! Like always, it was really hard being away from hubby/daddy (and even harder for him), but it was SO nice to see my family. I miss them a LOT. Can't wait to go back in July/August for 5 weeks! Daniel, accompanied by Mom and Talia, is getting home from his mission in Greece at the beginning of August! So there will be lots of fun family times that whole month and I can not WAIT!!!!!

My camera broke. Sad day. It was working Sunday and when I pulled it out Monday, no workey. Not so awesome when you have no money to pay for it to get fixed. Not that I know anything about cameras, but it seems like the shutter is broken. Cause it doesn't open or close when I press the take-the-picture button. But who knows. Maybe some money will fall from the sky so that I can get it fixed! *crosses fingers*

Vat else, vat else?? Jaylee is pretty much the most amazing baby in the world!!! Being a parent is the best thing ever, and we are just having such a fun time with her. She's such a smiley, cuddly, expressive baby. Probably my favorite thing is to go in to her room to pick her up when she wakes up in the morning or from a nap. She smiles so big, starts kickin her legs and flailing her arms, and talks up a storm. EVERY time. She just gets so excited to see us! Makes me feel like a million bucks. She's totally sitting up now. Hasn't fallen over in weeks (and that only happened twice). She's such a strong and smart girl! She didn't like the scare of falling so she learned pretty quick how to not do that! Little smarty. She's talking so much! Two of her favorite words to say "buba" and "dada". She says those all the time. She hasn't associated them with their meaning, but it's still super cute. I love it when we talk to her and her babble response actually sounds like something real! So cute :)

I only have a few pounds to go! My body is awesome and has been really nice to me losing all of this weight. I can't believe that 6 months ago I weighed 60 pounds more than I do now....... 0_0 CRAZY!! I am very grateful for that. It was really hard on me being so big. So let's just say that I am doing and feeling SO much better lately (as I sit here in a pair of my skinny pants) :)

I made myself a cute little recipe book and have been trying lots of new things! Maybe as I try new recipes, I'll post them here so yall can try them if you're interested! (If it turns out good, of course :P) I really, really love cooking, especially when it turns out super yummy! And I've been having a lot of luck lately! So that's been fun. We just get so tired of eating the same stuff a l l l l t h h h e e e t i i i m m e e e.... So boring. So at least once a week I've been trying to throw in a new recipe that we've never had. Fun fun.

xoxo

So long, farewell, I really hate your guts!

2010-04-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

It's so nice to be out of Rexburg! We left Friday and we're in Omaha now, in SHORTS and TSHIRTS with the doors and windows OPEN!! It's so beautiful out. We went on a walk with Jaylee today and she had so much fun! She loves being outside! Man, I love warm weather. And I never truly appreciated it until I had a baby. Being cooped up in the house all day, everyday SUCKS! It's so nice to be able to go sit outside and get some fresh air. Sigh.... so nice.

We'll be in Texas on Thursday!! I can't wait! It'll be even more beautiful than here! Of course.... I'm so excited to see my family and for them to get to see Jaylee! The last time they saw her she was still so little. It's been three months and let me tell you, three months is a world of difference in baby time. She so big and SO much fun to be around. Seriously, being a parent is the best thing ever. We love it.

Brandon finished the semester great! I'm so proud of him! Only two more to go!!! Yay!!!!!!!

I took maternity pictures for Sheila and they turned out great. She's so beautiful and such a cute preggo mommy! I can't wait for jr to get here!

Ummmm that's all for now. :)

Moulin Rouge

2010-03-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

I feel like watching that today! We'll see if I get a chance. I haven't watched that in FOREVER. Love that movie. Jaylee is to the point where she can play and entertain herself (by rolling all over the living room) for longer periods of time. She played for 45 minutes today before getting fussy! It was fabulous! I got to eat breakfast, do the dishes, and pick up the house a little bit. Thank you to my little girl for that. It's so nice that she's getting more independent so that I can get things done. And now she's playing in her jumper while I blog! Yay!

So we're moving! Nothing exciting, like out of Rexburg. But we're moving to another complex just a few streets over. We'll be in the same complex, and ward, as two of our couple friends, so that's exciting for us! Also because one of the couples has a little girl a few weeks younger than Jaylee and the other couple is having a baby in June! Lots of babies! It's super fun. So we'll be doing that sometime within the next week and a half.

So my battle with the last 10 lbs has not been successful so far. Up until now, all of the weight that I've lost has come off on it's own. I haven't worked out at all, to be honest. Well, I have gone jogging a handful of times. But that's been part of my attempt to get the last 10 or so off. My body just got rid of the rest itself. So that's been nice. Because I suck at running. I eat really healthy though. So technically I have been doing SOMETHING. I don't eat sweets, breads, pastas... Anything along those lines with lots of carbs. So that's paid off. But I wish that I didn't hate running so much. Any suggestions that will help with that?

Only a week and half left in the semester!! Yay!! I am SO proud of Brandon. We've had so much going on this semester and it's been a really stressful few months, even for me. But he's done so good staying on top of things and working hard when it would've been so easy to use everything that happened as excuses to not get things done. He'll come away from this semester will all As and Bs. He's disappointed because he would've had all As, but I am so proud of him!!

We left Jaylee with a babysitter for the first time yesterday. When visiting family we've left her with our moms, but I guess this was just different for me because it wasn't family. Sheila and Jeremy have been offering to watch her for a while now and I never felt up to it. Not because of them. It's just hard to leave her! We were only gone for an hour or so, just ran a few errands around town. We figured we need to get her used to babysitters before she gets to the really clingy/separation anxiety stage. (Although mommy is already in that stage :)) I took Jaylee inside and got her out of her car seat to give her a hug and kiss bye, and pretty much had to leave immediately after that because I was starting to get really emotional and the tears were coming in huge waves! I cried it out for a few minutes in the car, but then was ok once we got going and had distractions. Yes, yes, it seems pathetic. But you mommas know what I'm talking about and you that don't have kids will know soon enough :) Sheila said Jaylee was happy and great the whole time! So I say it was a success from all angles!

We leave for Omaha next Saturday! I'm SO super excited to get out of Rexburg for a while and see family! We'll be in Omaha for 5 days and then Jaylee and I are headed to Texas for almost two weeks while Brandon comes back to start another semester. I feel bad that we'll be in Texas for so long because I know Brandon will be missing his baby girl so much. But we have webcams, so that helps a little bit. Sheila will be in Texas for the last week that we're there, so at least Brandon will have a lonely Jeremy to keep him company. Hopefully it won't be too bad for him. :/

Anyway, Jaylee is out so I should go get some packing and things done!

xoxo <3

Post, Post, Post

2010-03-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

So, I don't remember what movie we were watching, but one of the previews was for the restored version of Sleeping Beauty. The voices are TOTALLY not the same ones! So lame. Good thing I didn't buy that. I would've been thoroughly PUT OUT.

I have ten pounds of baby weight left the lose and they are ANNOYING! Up until now, I've pretty much not done anything except eat really well and the pounds have been falling off. But these last 10 are being difficult. I hate running, and it's difficult to coordinate with Brandon's school schedule to find time to go. If I had a jogging stroller and if the weather was nice, it'd be so much easier. My goal was to get the rest of my weight off by the time I go to Texas next month, but I don't know if that will happen. I'm still gonna try hard! So we'll see.

The brackets are in and we're ready for the games to begin! This is the first time I've filled out a bracket for March Madness and I'm pretty excited! I love basketball, but never really got involved with it. So it's fun to get in it and hope for my teams to win!

I've finished the Luxe Series and the "Gemma Doyle" series, as they call in on the back. Both REALLY good series that I loved, with STUPID STUPID endings that I hate. I am hereby firing both of the authors. Dummies. I need to find something that has the fluffy, lovey, ride off into the sunset endings that I like. :)

Jaylee beautiful and amazing and I'm the happiest mommy in the world. <3

Excited to go to Texas next month! Not much else to write about for now. :)

My book came in!!

2010-03-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting for a book at the library for almost a month, so I am obviously incredibly excited that it finally got returned! We went the library yesterday, when it still wasn't available, and I picked up a couple of random books. I'm excited that I get to finish this series now! The book I've been waiting for is the middle book in a series, so that has sucked. But don't worry, I snagged the last book a couple weeks ago so that we wouldn't have the same problem. Brandon, the sweetie that he is, ran to get it for me in the hour he had between classes this morning. Love that guy :) Yes, I know I'm a nerd. Thank you. :) Anyway, I just thought I'd write this and let ya know that I won't probably won't be blogging til I get the books done. Which very well may be tomorrow if I get to read a lot. :) YAY!!

xoxo

Updated the photography blog!

2010-03-06T10:19:00.000-08:00

Go check it out! :)

http://photographybydafni.blogspot.com/

PULEASE

2010-03-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

Can I have this hair?? If I get a perm, do you think mine could do this? Oh I want it!

Hooray! I made my goal!

2010-03-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging tomorrow! Well, tomorrow from yesterday. Which is when I was trying to get it done by :)

So I got a hair cut. Nothing too different or exciting, just some long layers and THINNED which is my favorite thing ever. It's so much easier to handle. Not that I really do it very often. But now it only takes me 10 minutes to blow dry instead of 25. Ridiculous, I know. That's how thick and annoying my hair is! So at any rate, I seriously enjoy the thin hair for the few weeks that it lasts. Oh and I got bangs too. I haven't had bangs in a few years, so it's been an adjustment. But I'm getting used to them!

We have this little baby sling that Brandon puts Jaylee in while he plays football on the Wii. It's pretty cute seeing them together like that, and Jaylee really doesn't mind it. And apparently Brandon gets a pretty good leg work out bouncing her via calf raises. So that's good for him :)

We've been pretty good on our diet/exercise program! I can't wait to be skinny again! Jaylee went and worked out with me the other day. I couldn't jog like usually cause I think that'd be a little too much bouncing for her, so we walked. And it was fun! I definitely could feel a good burn after that work out. Especially in my tummy. The extra 13 1/2 lbs was good help!

What else, what else? Jaylee's new favorite thing is to try and put her feet in her mouth. She loves playing with and analyzing her feet. She looks at them so intensely and then proceeds to use it as a chew toy. She's so cute :) She's rolling over alot now from tummy to back. She does not like belly time and she has discovered that tipping herself over gets her quickly to her back. Smart little girl! We're gonna start giving her some solid food this month! They recommend starting between 4-6 months, and when they start showing signs of being interested. i.e. She drools over and attempts to steal our food every time we eat! Little chunk. Haha :) It's super cute. Anyway, I'm excited about that and will post a report and pictures of the first experience!

Brandon has a project for a Business class that involves us driving to Pocatello tomorrow to visit the university there. It's only a 45 minute drive there, but I'm a little wary about going. Jaylee either loves the car, or hates it. We'll see which she decides on tomorrow.

I'm super excited to visit Texas in April! I miss everyone alot and it makes me sad that my family doesn't get to see Jaylee growing right now. Pictures and videos just don't do her justice. She's such a funny, smart little girl and I wish we could live closer to them so they could be around more! It'll be great to get out there for a few weeks to visit :)

I've been out of the photography world for a while due to being hugely pregnant and having a tiny baby, but I'm excited to get started again! It's finally starting to get a little warmer here, and sunny days aren't so scarce. Which makes me very happy! I love summer and can't wait to get out with my camera. Also, super excited to be able to play outside with Jaylee! And having a round-the-clock model is awesome. PLUS, she looks amazing in natural lighting :)

Anyway, I think that's all I have for right now. OH! I'm reading The Luxe Series. SO good! I love it! I'll be finished with the last book tomorrow and I'm sad! I started reading A Great and Terrible Beauty (Miri got it for me for my birthday), but the second book of the series has been checked out at the library for almost 4 weeks! Stinkin slow reader... Hehe :) Anyway, I started The Luxe series just as something to do while I was waiting for Rebel Angels, but I totally have loved it. And I'm now hoping that the very slow readers who have Rebel Angels checked out will have it back in by the end of the weekend! I won't have much time to read between now and Monday, so that gives them plenty of time. Let's cross our fingers.

xoxo

Hold please....

2010-03-02T07:44:00.000-08:00

I will be posting today! Or maybe tomorrow.... Hopefully. If I get a chance. :)

Stay tuned.

2010-02-22T10:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry I have not been good at blogging. My time is limited and I usually find something higher on my priority list to do in my down time than blog. Like taking a shower. Or eating. :) Anyways, not much going on in our lives right now. Brandon is doing well in school this semester. Only two more after this! I'm so excited! We're SO ready to be out of this little college town and in the real world. Not gonna lie. So that's something exciting to look forward to.

We went down to Utah last weekend for a visit. We got to meet Martha's boyfriend who seems like a really great guy. And we had a little family get-together for my birthday which resulted in some very yummy food and fun games. Brandon and I aren't huge on Valentine's Day, especially when we don't have money. So we didn't do anything special. Just hangin out as our little family was fun enough for us. :) It seems like everything we do together now is so much more fun because of our baby! She is such an adorable little sweetie! Here, I'll show you!

She's such an angel!! I'm not an obsessed mom or anything :) But how could you not love this little girl? She is so amazing and I can't even imagine my life without her. Sometimes when I was pregnant I would think about having another person in our lives and someone I'd have to share my time and attention with and I would get worried. I loved spending time just Brandon and I and being able to do anything we wanted, whenever we wanted. And I liked having all of Brandon's attention :) I was afraid that Jaylee would take up all of our time and that Brandon may even love her more than he did me. Such silly things for me to be worried about! I love this little girl SO much and love spending time with her! Brandon is the best daddy in the world and I don't care if he would love her more than me! She is worth it! She is worth everything that I had to go through to get her here. The 10 months of severe uncomfortableness, the massive weight gain, the stretching and distorting of my body, the constant hunger and nausea, the exhaustion and pain of labor and delivery. Everything. There's nothing in the whole world that would not have been worth it to go through for my daughter! Life is so fun with kids! I love this little cutie sooo much!! :)

I'm doing pretty good on my weight loss! I have about 13 lbs to go! Considering the fact that I have not being working out at all, that's pretty good! Also, I started running last week, so that should speed things up. My goal is to lose those last 13 lbs by mid-april when Jaylee and I go to Texas for a visit. I want it to be sooner, so I'm gonna work really hard. Brandon and I are also trying to eat really healthy. We're cutting out all sweets and I'm cutting out breads. Every time we slip up and eat something naughty, we have to run an extra mile that day. It's good to do stuff like this together so that we can help and motivate each other. We both want to get back to the way we were when we got married. So we're working hard!

I'm tired of my hair! I love it long, but I have nothing to do with it! It's such a chore to wear it down, and also is starting to get ripped out of my head when it's within reach of my little baby's hands. So I hardly ever wear it down. And when it's up, it sits in a frizzy, ratty mess in a bun at the back of my neck. And my bangs have grown out. And it's so long and heavy that it goes totally flat on the top. UGH NASTY!! But I don't want to cut it. Cause I ALWAYS regret it when I do. So I'm stuck!! GRR!! I really really like this hair cut, but it's so short and such a drastic change. And I also don't have a personal hairstylist to do it for me every day. So I know that it would never actually turn out this cute. And my hair isn't naturally straight. And this cut would probably look stupid curly. Thus, my dilemma.

We got my wedding ring re sized so that I can fit it again. It took them two weeks to get it done, because they messed it up the first time we sent it in. I've had the ring for just over two years and I've had to take it in to get the stones tightened like 8 times. AND, I just got it back a few weeks ago and there's a huge crack in the side of the ring. I'm so annoyed and disappointed with this ring and their service. So now we have to drive down to IF for the third time within the month to have them fix it. I wish they would just give me my money back for it and I'd go get a ring from someone else. Dummies.

I can't wait for summer to be here! We're finally starting to get some beautiful, semi-warm, sunny days! Brandon and I took Jaylee for a walk in the stroller last week and it was fabulous! I can't wait to be able to go sit outside on a blanket and play with Jaylee in the beautiful sun or take her swimming! It's so nice to get outside and get some fresh air. Next week it's supposed to be up to 40 degrees! Hopefully it'll keep going up and we won't have anymore snow! That would be so great!

Anyway, I think that's all I can come up with for now, and Jaylee is waking up from her nap. So, perfect timing. Once again, I promise I will be better about writing!

:)

Well it HAS been forever!

2009-12-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

I'm posting! It's been forever and so much has happened, but I'm posting! All of you that used to read my blog probably don't even check it anymore. But it's ok. I'll still post :)

I had my beautiful baby Jaylee on November 3rd at 11:12 p.m. She was 20 3/4 inches and 8 lbs 12 oz. She is a sweet little angel and we are so glad she's finally here! I can't believe it's been almost a month since she was born! Time goes by WAY too fast! She's already so different from when she was born. It makes me sad. I don't want her to grow up :( As of last Friday she was 10 lbs 15 oz. and 22 1/4"! She's a growing girl and getting more and more beautiful every day! (If that's even possible :)) I would put more info and post some pictures, but all of you that read my blog are also friends with me on facebook. So you've seen it all. That saves me the hassle of being repetitive :)

We went to TEXAS for thanksgiving and it was a blast! It was so much fun seeing all my family meet Jaylee for the first time. They fell in love instantly and were fighting over who got to hold her the whole time. It was very sad to leave. It's much harder being away from home and everyone now than it was before. BUT I'm going back in a couple of weeks, so it's ok! The plan is for me to go home about every 2 1/2 months until next december when Brandon graduates! So time should FLY with me having the milestones to look forward to! I'm so excited!

We're headed down to Utah today! I can't wait to leave! I definitely need a break from Idaho. This is not my favorite place... :) Brandon finished all of his finals yesterday and he did SO great! I'm really proud of him. He kicked butt this semester despite having a 9 month pregnant wife and mother-in-law here the first half and a brand new baby the second half. Good job babe!

We'll be in Utah until January 4th, which is when I fly out to Texas to stay until the 14th! I'm so excited to spend Christmas with Brandon's family!! Although, of course, I will miss mine extremely. (This is my first Christmas away from home... :(.) But I do love Brandon's family and am very excited to be a part of their holiday traditions this year! It will be a blast!

Jaylee is doing so great! She's growing and developing so well! She's really holding her head up alot lately! Every time I lay her on my chest to burp her, she whips her head up and looks around. She definitely likes to be involved in whatever is going on, so she doesn't like her face being down on my chest where her view is obstructed. :) Smart little girl. About 60% of the times that she sneezes, she lets out a little toot too from the pressure. I <3 that. So cute. She's growing so much! None of her clothes really fit her because she's kind of inbetween newborn clothes and 3 months. Neither fit. So she doesn't have much to wear! Good thing she and I don't go out much- it's too cold here to! I think she's growing a little differently than other babies... She's growing more up and down than side to side. So most of her clothes are way too big in the tummy and have to be streeetched around her bum. I hope she's gonna be tall! That's what it's looking like so far! :) But hopefully we don't have this issue with clothes her whole life...

I got 7 hours of sleep last night! It was fabulous! My body woke me up at 6 and I felt great. Guess my required hours of sleep are slowly diminishing. Thus is the life of a mom I guess! I don't really care how many hours it is though, as long as I feel good. And I did today. So no complaints! :)

Alrighty it's time for me to go wake Brandon up so we can get a move on! I can't wait to see all of my family, both sides, within the next few weeks! I love all of you very much! (Friends, too :)) I hope everyone has a FABULOUS Christmas and a wonderful New Year! See you in 2010!

xoxoxo

Update.

2009-10-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

Not that there's too much to update on! We're still waiting! I'm progressing, but nothing monumental yet. I'm getting really ansy for sure. My aunt has a friend that was due a few weeks after me and she had her little guy on Monday! I'm so jealous! I just want my little girl to be here already! :( I'm not a patient person and not good at waiting. So the days are getting a little rough for me. I'm just so ready. But, I shall be patient because she'll come when she's ready! And I am ok with that. I just have to keep reminding myself..... :)

I'll post more when there's news! Say prayers for us! :)

xoxo

Fall <3

2009-10-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

I love the fall. It's my favorite season! I love the colors, the smells, the activities.... Too bad Idaho doesn't believe in the 4 seasons. We've kind of jumped straight from summer to winter. We're already getting snow and down in the 20s at night. Not my favorite! But I won't complain too much! I can handle the winter coming this early because of the holidays! I LOVE the holidays! We're headed to Texas for Thanksgiving with my family and then Utah for Christmas with Brandon's. I can NOT wait! I love all the family time and snuggling and yummy food and hot chocolate. Ahhhhhhhhhhh

Fall and the holidays make me so happy :)

Today I feel tired....

2009-10-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

I'm extremely tired today for some reason. Brandon and I got to bed before 11 last night, and I slept until 11 this morning... I guess subtract the potty breaks every hour during the night and the 5 - 10 minutes it takes me to fall back asleep once I'm in bed again, and the 30 minute break I had to take to eat somthing around 7 because I woke up almost vomiting I was so hungry, and that = a pretty restless night. And that last sentence = a pretty long run-on. But you catch my drift. I feel like I don't get any rest at night! It's frustrating. It's gotten worse the last week or so. I used to only be up 2-4 times. Now I am literally up EVERY hour, almost on the dot. What's up with this? Is someone shoving water down my throat while I sleep that I am unaware of? Where is all this liquid coming from?? Wierd. Oh well. Maybe my body is just preparing me to be up feeding at night. Which is good I guess! Hopefully that'll happen soon! :)

So I'll be 38 weeks this weekend. Last Friday at my appointment I was 37 weeks, measuring 39! Doesn't it seem like she should be coming soon??!! I think so my friends! I'm putting my money on next week sometime. Which is SOOOO crazy!! I can't believe it's here already!! I feel like I've been pregnant my whole life and that it is never gonna end! Haha. But the light at the end of the tunnel is coming into view. And I can't wait to get there and meet her! :)

Mom comes in tonight! I'm so excited! Which definitely means Jaylee will be coming soon. With all of Mom's positive and encouraging mind power, she'll probably come TOMORROW!! Haha. :) Which I would be totally fine with. Brandon and I are so excited. You have no idea :)

Anyway, sorry I don't have anything exciting to say! I'm gonna go take a shower and hopefully this terrible headache and sleepyness will leave me alone! :)

xoxo

On How to Be Lovely... A new blog!

2009-09-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

Check out this blog in my blog list. It's a project that's just been started by my sister and two of her friends. It's an amazing idea and hopefully will be able to inspire women of all ages all over! I won't go into too much detail because it is explained much better there! Take a minute and check it out ladies!
<3

Nothing much.

2009-09-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

I've obviously been slacking lately. So shoot me. Nothing too exciting to report! Our birthing class is going GREAT and I'm SO excited to have this baby! Shouldn't be too much longer now. I'm 35 weeks this weekend. Can you believe that?? I can't believe it's almost over! I can't even remember what it's like to not be pregnant. Haha. I feel like I've been pregnant FOREVER. Is that wierd? I really can't remember what it's like to be skinny and have energy and not feel sick. :) I am very excited to get skinny again. A few pictures for those of you who have forgotten that I was once smaller and not pregnant! :)

See!! Proof that I used to be skinny!! Haha ok I know I'm crazy. I'm done with that tangent for now... :)

So I love oldies music. Like OLDIES. Like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin... etc. I love this stuff. It makes me so happy! I think it would've been fun to live in the 20's-40's. Really. Not just for the music. How could you not love this fashion??

Sigh... That would be wonderful. I love it.

So we have all baby stuff set up and ready! I think we're as prepared as we possibly could be! Except we still need a video camera... But besides that, she could come tomorrow and we would be READY!! :) We're very excited if you can't tell. It's gonna be so great! She's gonna be beautiful! I made her some little headbands the other day. I did the headbands in neutral colors and then I have like 10 different colored flowers that you clip on. They're SUPER cute! I can't wait to dress her! :)

Anyway, BYU game on this weekend that we are very excited for! We love football season! Can't wait! That's all for now. :)

"Saturday is a special day, it's the day we get ready for Sunday"

2009-08-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

For some reason, for the past several weeks, I get that song stuck in my head EVERY Saturday.... Who knows why. That'll probably be one of the annoying mom things I do for my kids. Haha

Anyway. So it's been a while. I'm huge. 32 weeks today! 8 or less weeks left! Hooray! I'm ready to be done and to have our little baby! :) We took some maternity pictures if any of you missed them, but I deleted the post from this blog cause the pics are too big. If you wanna see them you can look on my photography blog.

We made a trip down to Arizona for a big family reunion a few weeks ago and it was great! We had a blast and it was so much fun to see family that I hadn't seen in years, and for Brandon to finally get to meet people. I was so tired/swollen/hot the whole weekend that I really neglected my camera. So not much to show you picture-wise besides these few from the drive down before I was too tired :) Sorry!

Isn't the Arizona landscape beautiful?? Haha :)

My baby shower is this weekend! I'm so excited! We head down to Utah on Wednesday or Thursday to hang out with Martha for a few days, then Mom, Dad, and Beni get in on Friday, then baby shower Saturday! Then the BYU vs. Oklahoma season opener game Saturday night, driving back up to Idaho Sunday morning with Mom, Dad, and Beni and hanging out til Wednesday! Busy, FUN weekend! I can't wait! Then the boys start school that Thursday, the 10th. Time is going to fly by so fast with all that we have going on. Jaylee will be here before you know it.

We start our birthing class next Wednesday and I am VERY excited! I've been a little nervous lately because I don't really know that much about labor and delivery and I'm scared I'm gonna have her early and not know what to do! So I'm really glad this class is starting.

Well we sold Brandon's laptop because we hated the size (it's like a 20" screen. HUGE) and because we figured we didn't need two laptops and we already have mine. And then, of course, my computer starts freaking out. Turning off randomly, beeping, freezing. Awesome. So we dug into financial aid money and come up with some to buy a new laptop. We went with a Macbook and I am super excited! I've been wanting a Mac forever! AND we found a deal that if you're a college student and order a new Mac, you get a free IPOD touch with it! How cool is that! So, needless to say, we jumped on that. They should be here this week. I'm excited.

We love watching the FoodNetwork and there's a new girl on there, I don't remember her name... But her show is called 5 Ingredient Fix. I really like it! She only uses 5 ingredients in each dish, so it's usually pretty do-able! I love watching all the cooking shows, but rarely attempt the things they cook because they're always so complex and detailed. So this show really fits me. I love it. Today she made a YUMMY dessert! It's a frozen lemon whip with blueberry sauce and Brandon and I decided to make it! It turned out great! We aren't huge blueberry fans, so we substituted raspberries instead. And we also added about 1/2 cup more sugar into the lemon curd than the recipe calls for because we didn't think it was sweet enough. You decide how sweet you like it :) But I highly recommend trying it and then making it for dinner parties or when you have company over! It's super easy to do and presents itself BEAUTIFULLY. Take a look:

Try it! You won't regret it!

Anyway, I think I've gone on long enough. There's my little update! Hopefully I'll pick back up and be good about writing soon :)

I want a DEW!

2009-08-03T06:52:00.001-07:00

I started work at 4am and all I can think about is an ICE COLD MOUNTAIN DEW (only in a can)!

Date night!

2009-07-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

So Sheila and I decided that we should plan a fun date for our hubbies and surprise them! Friday night, we had the boys go fishing so that we could plan and set everything up. They went on a little scavenger hunt around Rexburg to spots that were meaningful to each of our relationships to find their clues. We really didn't do anything big at the end, just went out to eat and stayed out and played at a park and WALMART until really late at night. But it was so much fun! We all definitely have a blast together. :) And we've been wanting to get dressed up lately. So it was great. Here are some pictures!

Haha good times. We laughed so hard all night, it was great! Let's see.... What else is going on? It's the break between semesters now, so the town is pretty dead. Which is kinda nice to have a break from all the dumb college kids. :) Jk. But seriously. Sheila and Jeremy leave this week also for Texas, the lucky dogs! So needless to say, Brandon and I will be pretty bored the next several weeks! But we have a few trips down to Utah planned, so it shouldn't be too bad.

We had Andrea over for dinner last night for a YUMMY meal. MMMM is was good! Then Jeremy and Sheila came over and we all played games and had YUMMY dessert! It was a fun night! Except that Andrea's car broke. The boys tried to go fix it, but it's more than they can do. So they drove it to a shop so that they could take a look at it today. So I'm playing mommy and driving her to and from work til they get it fixed! :) Hopefully it won't be too expensive for her to get it fixed...

Pretty much my whole family is coming up for my baby shower in September! I'm SO excited! :) Mom, Dad, and Beni were originally the only ones coming because it's the same weekend they are dropping him off for school up here. But then I had the brilliant idea that Miri and Talia should road-trip it up, and they're going to! Mike is coming also because his family lives in Orem, and Joseph doesn't wanna be by himself all weekend. So it's just gonna be a party! I'm so excited! :) I'm gonna be so huge by then... I already am and I still have over two months! Crazy! I'm 27 weeks now, so this weekend I'll be 7 MONTHS! YAY! I can't wait for October! I'm ready to have this baby :)

Anyway, that's about all I have for an update right now. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summer! :)

Love you all!

xoxo

Quick post

2009-07-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

To all of you who have been slacking on posting lately, STOP IT! I know of plenty of things that are going on in all of your lives that would be VERY post-worthy. So do it! Share with everyone please! :)

That is all.

xoxo

26 weeks and 2 days

2009-07-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest. I took a bare belly pic for my mom and I look WAY bigger than with my shirt covering my belly. I'd post it, but I'm not really into everyone seeing my naked big belly. Sorry :)

Stranded at the drive in.........

2009-07-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

Branded a fool!

Ok not really. But Brandon has had that song stuck in his head for days and days. So we thought that'd be a good title! Especially since we went to the drive in Friday night with Sheila and Jeremy! I love drive ins! It was alot of fun! The boys threw the football around for a little while and Sheila and I got some good girl talk time. Then we played Last Word which is a really fun game! We had lots of snacks and camped out in our chairs with blankeys and had so much fun! Although the movie selection was pretty lame... It was a double-feature, like usual. The first one played was Up! which was really cute! We liked that one alot. But the second one was Ice Age number 6349217 or something... We weren't impressed with that one. It's sad that people make really good movies, such as the first Ice Age, and then can't just quit while they're ahead! And there was alot of sexual innuendo! Not like really bad. But for a cartoon kids movie! Come on! Oh well.

Up!- we give ****
Ice Age- *

Anyways, Brandon got a job! Hooray! It's not the most ideal job in the world, but money is money. And when you don't have money, but you need it, you do things that you wouldn't normally.... Haha jk it's nothing bad. He's working on campus on the early morning cleaning crew. Very early morning. He works 4am-7am everyday except for Sundays. AHH! I would hate that. But he is a trooper and is willing to do not fun things for us. He's a sweetie and a hard worker. The extra money is much needed and will be very nice!

What else.... Waiting on Mom and Dad to buy tickets so that we can set a date and time for my baby shower! Brandon's mom and cousin are throwing it for me in SLC. They're sweeties. I'm so excited that my mom will be able to be there for it! I'll send out invites in a week or so once we know. I know most everyone won't be able to make it down. But that's ok. It's nice having Brandon's family so close so that I can have a shower with family! Jaylee has been kicking like crazy lately! I can see my belly move when she kicks or punches now. Brandon just saw it for the first time today. It's so exciting! :) We also signed up for a childbirthing class! I'm so excited to start! It starts in the first week of September. I can't believe I'll only have one month left at that point! CRAZY! We're so excited for October to get here. We want this baby girl to come out and play already!! :)

Anyways, I think that's it for now. We've been in a bready-dessert mood lately and have been baking lots of yummy things! Things we're making this week- banana bread and cornbread. We got the cornbread recipe from Brandon's Gpa and it is SOOO good! Best cornbread I've ever had. Wish me luck! :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Ready for a new week!

xoxo

MY BIG FISH! (BRANDON NOT DAF)

2009-07-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

So here is my big fish story. I have been wanting to go fishing a lot lately. I took Daf to a spot near our town here the other day and the fishing was not great. We only caught two small ones, nevertheless it was fun! I decided to wake up early and go fishing again this morning. Due to the lack of gas money, I decided to go back to the same river. I was a little disappointed because I didn't think it would be too successful. Well who would have thought that I would bring out a big Hybrid Trout. This little guy gave a really good fight, he jumped a few times and was a lot of fun to reel in. When I got him to the river bank, I realized that he had straightened out my hook. As normal, I hit him upside the head with a rock to kill him. I put him in the river on a stringer to keep him fresh. I put the stringer on the bank with a couple of big rocks on top of it. This little fish came back alive after fifteen minutes of floating in the river on his back. Within five seconds, he jumped out of the water (still attached with the stringer) so hard that he flipped the two rocks off and took off swimming. Without thinking, I jumped into the river head first and I grabbed the end of the stringer just in time! I obviously was not thinking too much because my phone, wallet and keys were in my pockets. I was wet head to toe. But now this 3 pound 19.5 inch trout is getting ready to be our lunch! YUMMMM

My new workout

2009-07-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

We went swimming tonight! Hooray! It was so much fun! We are gonna go alot more. Cause I love it. And also, my midwife told me today that she's heard of a few girls that helped their babies turn from being breached by doing headstands in the water! Crazy huh! So we tried it. I didn't feel her turn, but I'm not really worried about it. She'll turn when she's ready! But it was fun to try :) Anyway, we did several laps and it was tiring! Swimming is such a good full-body workout! I love it! I'm very excited about that.

ummmm.... I don't know what else to write about right now. I'm pretty tired. I haven't been sleeping well... It's getting kinda uncomfortable to sleep, which is very saddening to me. Because I LOVE to sleep. Oh well. Just a few more months..... And then I'll get tons of sleep, right?? Haha. Darn. Maybe some day. :)

My brain is dead. Therefore, I must end. :)

xoxo

Selling stuff!

2009-07-15T14:13:00.001-07:00

Brandon and I did a deep cleaning today and went through all of our junk. We found a ton of stuff we don't need anymore, so we're selling stuff! Check out our blog and see if there's anything you want!

http://getthingsgone.blogspot.com/

Session tonight.

2009-07-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to think of new things to do with the family I'm shooting tonight(sounds violent, but it's really not). I've been out of it for too long, I feel a little unprepared. I took two weeks off for the 4th and just relaxing time, and this is my first being back. I was feeling a little overwhelmed before my little vaca cause I had about 8 sessions within a two week time. AHHH! Haha. It's alright, I made it out alive. That's just the reasoning behind my time off. Anyway, back to it tonight! It just started sprinkling, so hopefully that'll stop soon. I need to check the weather and see if it is going to, and email my client if not. Wish me luck!

Kyle Swallow comes home tomorrow and I am so excited for his mommy!! She has started her countdown and is keeping me updated. Love you Carol :)

Martha, Donna, and a couple of Brandon's cousins are headed up to Yellowstone this weekend for a small trip, so we get a short visit Thursday morning on their way up! We're excited! We haven't had any family to our apartment yet, so it'll be a nice first.

We made some BOMB pumpkin bars yesterday to take as a dessert for dinner at a friends. They were delish, but the recipe made a HUGE amount. So we saved half of the batter and are hoping it will be ok to make more tomorrow. Brandon wanted to send some with his mom for their car trip Thursday morning. He's such a sweetie! <3

Tacos for dinner tonight cause I've been craving them for two days. MMMMMMM.

Happy eating and happy night to everyone. <3

xoxoxo

One more thing

2009-07-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

New background. Cute? Or no? I don't like the template. I want a whole new template that's not a blogger one. But my brain isn't working right now so I can't figure it out. Also, pretty much all of the pictures that I have posted are so huge that half of them are cut off. Annoying, I know. But I'm not gonna go fix all of them. So just don't look if it bugs you. From now on they'll be smaller and fit, promise.

xoxo

So sleepy

2009-07-10T23:14:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written! I wanted to leave the post of the compy at the top because we are trying to sell it and needed it front and center for those who came to the page to look at it. But I'm frankly tired of seeing it every time I come to my blog! So here is my post. Posty post post. I'm SO tired! I haven't been sleeping well lately. It's just so hard for me to get comfy at night anymore, so I'm tossing and turning all night, half awake. Then my body kicks me out of bed at 8:30 whether I am done or not. Not very nice if you ask me! So I then have to take a nap already by about 9:30-10. Sad, sad day. Anyways, I'm hoping that because I am so exhausted right now I will be able to sleep well tonight! We're going to the lake tomorrow with some friends and then to the demolition derby! Should be a good 'ol redneck fun-filled day! More later!

xoxo

laptop

2009-06-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

pavilion dv9000

Swallow ladies

2009-06-18T12:23:00.001-07:00

The Swallow beautifulness has definitely been carried on with these girls! We had alot of fun despite the constant distraction from some bugger ducks :) And you can see where Ashley gets her beauty from also! Thanks for letting me photograph you and your family Ashley!

I'm back!

2009-06-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

Being home was a blast! I'll post pictures in the next few days, right now I'm busy editing! I almost have everything done, so everyone keep your pants on(Carol...)! :) Here are some of Miki and Ed. Beautiful Swallow ladies will be up tomorrow! Hope everyone is doing well!

xoxo

Off to Texas!

2009-06-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm cleaning and packing and shopping and things today to get ready to leave tomorrow morning at 6am! I'm trying to make sure Brandon has everything he'll need while I'm gone. All the laundry is clean, dishes are clean, fridge stocked... Anything else?? I'm trying to make sure I think of everything so he doesn't have to go anywhere unless he wants to. He's doing a lot better! He still very tired all the time and gets exhausted easily if he tries to do too much, but he's holding down his food and not in too much pain! Yay! Good news! Anyway, I'm not taking my computer because I'm packing light. I don't want to have to check anything at the airport... Too much of a hassle. And I hear they're charging for it now! How crappy is that! Oh well. So I won't be posting for a good week until I get back. And once I do get back, I'll be editing like crazy! Three shoots while I'm down! Brace yourselves :) Have a great week everyone!

xoxo

heather and brandon

2009-06-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

these two were so much fun! we had a blast even though we kept getting rained on! :)

Sad day for Brandon

2009-06-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

So Brandon hasn't been feeling so hot this week. Well, he's actually be feeling really hot. He's had a high fever since Sunday night. That's when it started. Then Monday he was feeling really achy and tired all day, on top of the fever. Then that night we noticed that his left tonsil was incredibly swollen and had pus-pockets all over it.(sorry for that disgusting picture) So he started taking some vitamins and things to try and help, but by Tuesday he was even worse. So we called to get him in at the doctor's office and when we went, the doc said he had strep. So that was pretty crappy news. They put him on penicillin and told him to gets lots of rest, drink lots of fluids, and he'd be better by the weekend. Not the case my friends. This morning, two days later, he was drastically worse. His right tonsil had swollen up to and resembled the same look the left was sporting. And his fever was higher, chills and hot flashes were worse, sleep was happening less, achy body worse, appetite nonexistent, and on top of that, he was throwing up really ugly looking stuff. So we went back in to the doctors today and they gave him an IV and ran some blood work, which came back positive for mononucleosis aka "mono". NO! Bad news when you're in school for sure. The main symptoms of mono are sever exhaustion and the worst sore throat you've ever had, as the doctor put it. The regular recovery time is as much as 2-3 MONTHS until you're feelings all the way back to normal and up to handling your daily activities without collapsing from being tired. NOT GOOD WHEN YOU ARE IN SCHOOL. So we're hoping for a speedy recovery so that Brandon will not have to deffer this semester. The doc excused him from his classes this week that he's missed and told him after that, it was up to Brandon to decide how he was feeling and whether or not he could go to class. Rough time for him, huh? Visit to the eye doctor last week resulting in $350 glasses being bought, then double-whammy with strep and mono this week. Man the money will be gone before ya know it. I feel so bad for him! Poor baby. He looks so miserable. Anyway, a couple of guys from the ward are coming over tonight to give him a blessing, so I'm praying extra hard for that help. Your prayers would be appreciated as well :)

On a not so depressing note, the sessions are rolling in! Booked 4 since yesterday! Hooray! :)

Love you guys!

xoxo

Oh! Hmm. The thought just occurred to me that if Brandon is in as crappy shape as he is right now, I don't know if I can leave him by himself for a week while I'm in Texas... Yet another reason for me to pray hard he gets better!

beautiful angela

2009-05-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

This girlie was is so much fun! We laughed almost the whole time. Here are just a few from the day. Thanks Ang!

busy times!

2009-05-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wish there were more hours in the day?? I do! Sometimes. Sometimes 24 is WAY enough :) In the next few weeks I have so much going on! Graduations, traveling, family time, engagements... so many shoots and so much to do! I'm so excited! The next 3 weeks are gonna be a blast! I can't wait to get to texas! It'll be so nice to shoot in Texas. I've been gone for too long! Glad I have a few sessions to do down there. Anyway, I may not be posting much cause I have alot going on, but as stuff happens, I'll keep ya'll updated. Don't worry! :) Much love! I miss you all!

xoxo

mmmm strawberries!

2009-05-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

we <3 strawberries! how would you like 16lbs of strawberries for $12??!! nice huh? there was a fabulous sale, so we had to take advantage! we like to make all-fruit smoothies, and now we're stocked up! yum yum!

xoxo

and this is the finished product!

2009-05-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

almost at least :) they still need to trim the posts all to the same level and stain it, but isn't it beautiful! i'm so proud of brandon! he's so talented! but everyone worked so hard and we got it done in one weekend! hooray! :)

and this is the latest!

a few from this weekend

2009-05-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

I love these kids! We had so much fun playing in the dirt all weekend, had to get a few shots. Aren't they adorable!

Gone to Utah for the weekend...

2009-05-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Happy early Memorial Day! Thank you to all of the men and women in our armed forces that risk their lives to protect ours. You are loved and never forgotten!

We love you and miss you Jay. You are always in our hearts.

Talk to you all next week! Hopefully I will come back with some beautiful brown summer skin :) Love you and have a fun and safe weekend! :)

xoxo

i <3 the library

2009-05-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna go check out the library here today. I'm excited! I love libraries! I decided that it's really important for me to read so that I don't go dumb. With not working, I feel like my intelligence is suffering. I went to get an idaho driver's license so that I could get a fishing license and I had to do the eye test thing. Ya know where they say, ok read me line 4, and you have to read the letters. Yea. I could see them all perfectly fine, but I would say them wrong, or stutter, or say zero for O. Gah. I felt like an idiot. I think that I can credit some of the dumbness to pregnancy, cause I've been pretty loopy and ditzy lately. It sucks. I feel like a moron. So I've decided that reading regularly will be helpful with this. Thus, I will be going to the library in a little bit!

We went fishing on monday with our new fishing poles! It was exciting! Especially because mine is pink and black. How cute is that?? :) We were trout fishing in the snake river, but the dang fish weren't biting. Seriously we were there for like 4 hours and between the 4 of us(we went with some friends), we had like 5 bites and only caught two. Brandon caught one and the other couple caught one. Boo. So that kinda stunk. And it was INCREDIBLY hot and there was NO shade. So we got a little bit sunburnt. That's the first time I've really felt the drastic effects of being pregnant. I was sweating like a fat pig! Haha I have never been that hot before. Probably also because I haven't been in the heat while pregnant, in my current underwear(that would be Gs for those who didn't understand :) ). So yea. It was fun :) And then on the way home we stopped at this yummy little burger joint. Brandon and I ate their 1 lbs burger together. Haha. And some yummy fries. And ice cream afterwards. Healthy, huh?? Don't worry, they put lots of lettuce and tomatoes on it. :)

So we're headed down to utah again this weekend. I was really looking forward to being able to stay home and have a long weekend together, but Brandon's cousins just built a new house and they're putting up a fence around their yard and need Brandon's expertise. So, we will be going down. Don't get me wrong, I love his family and especially these cousins are so much fun to hang out with. I just hate driving. We've driven so much in the past few months that I just wanna stay put for a while. Being in the car doesn't sit so great with me since I've been pregnant. But oh well. We'll just look forward to having a fun weekend with family, and I'll take a pillow and sleep on the way down. That'll pass the time quickly :)

I can't wait to get to texas! I'm so excited to see my family! I miss everyone so much! It's always great to be back in texas. I'm there for almost a week, so i have plenty of time to play! Can't wait! :)

Anyway, I need to get something to eat and then get my tushy over to the library. Love all of you and hope you're doing well! :)

xoxo

<3

2009-05-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

us at a friend's wedding that the photographer captured. i love my hubby :)

i have to wait til next monday for my camera to get here... :(

2009-05-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

Why does everything have to take like 6x longer to get here?? Dang Rexburg. So secluded from the world. Oh well. It'll be worth the wait! I'm so excited to get my new camera and lens! And 2 extra batteries, an 8bg memory card, uv filter, and a coupla other things.... I can't remember! But I'm so excited! I would've been totally fine keeping my D40. It's a great camera! It's pretty much the most basic dslr. But ya know,a good photographer can take killer pictures with a disposable camera! It's all in the photographer's eye! But my friends were set on my camera, so I had to sell. But, i didn't have to pay anything extra for my new camera and lens! I sold alot of accessories with my D40, so it came out to the same price as a D60 body and 55-200mm lens. Plus that other stuff. Sweet, huh?? I'm stoked :) It's WEIRD being without my camera! And I don't like it. I have a coupla shoots coming up FAST, so that little baby needs to get here :)

We bought my plane ticket home last night! YAY!! I can't wait! We found a killer deal from Idaho Falls! So I don't even have to go through all the crappy drive down to salt lake, staying with someone, having them drive me to the airport, bleh bleh bleh. So I'm super stoked. And it only cost us like $10 more than the flight from salt lake. Woohoo! If you don't know, tickets from the idaho falls airport are usually like crazy expensive cause it's kinda a small airport. The last time I checked a coupla weeks ago the lowest I found from there was like $600. CraZY!

We made mom's yummy strawberries and sour cream yumminess tonight. It's SO dang good. But the sour cream isn't sitting well with either of our tummies :( That makes me sad. I've become a little bit lactose intolerant since I got pregnant. I can handle a little bit of dairy, but I can't throw down cheese and ice cream like I used to. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! It's ok tho. Cheese is pretty unhealthy and fattening anyways :)

Anyway, we're watching the Lakers and Houston game 5. Consider yourselves lucky that I'm not gonna go on a tangent about how CRAPPY the nba is and how much they have screwed the Mavs out of so much this series when WE ACTUALLY WORKED OUR BUTTS OFF FOR IT AND DESERVED IT!!! And by we I mean the Mavs players of course. Gah. Stupid old fart conspirators.

xoxo

i love going to the gym

2009-05-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Well, not just the gym. I love going for walks and riding my bike outside. I love being outside! Especially when Rexburg decides to give us good weather. Love it love it. I got my prenatal yoga video yesterday. So I'm doing that too. I've decided that I'm going to stay fit all the way through my pregnancy. It'll make delivery easier, and I wanna be able to lose the baby weight afterwards pretty fast. So yea! We're goin to the gym, or on a bike ride, and yoga regularly. I feel great :) Off to play outside! :)
xoxo

.

2009-05-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

I don't like that you have to put a title for every blog. Maybe I don't have a title. Or maybe I just don't want to put one. EH eh?? So I didn't. Anyway, went to the gym today. Walked/rode a bike for a few miles. Felt good! I like walking outside better tho. We went for a walk last night and it was SO nice out! It's been super windy this week, like 50mph winds. So that made it a little difficult. But it was lovely. I love being outside. I wish summer would just come already! Go away mr. winter!

My house is a mess and I don't feel like cleaning it. Well, it's not terrible. I just need to do the dishes and some laundry and sweep.... Bleh. And people say to women, "you just stay at home all day? psh what do you do?" Excuse me to those people. Your houses would fall apart if it weren't for a woman taking care of it. So quit with the degrading comments!

Haha I'm not really upset right now. It sounds like I am. I'm in a wierd mood. It's just really draining feeling like crap all the time and having to focus on not barfing. Blah. I'm tired of that. Oh well.

Goin to the temple tomorrow night! Can't wait. Then we're doing dinner and a movie/games with some friends. It'll be fun. Mmmm we're having tacos and guacamole and chips and salsa and mmmmmmm all that yummy mexican stuff! Sounds so good. I wanna make it and eat it now!

Soooo some friends are looking at buying my camera, and I wish that they'd decide no. I just wanna keep it and get a good lens. I don't need to upgrade right now cause a D60 really isn't that big of a difference. And I don't have the money to get a D80 or D90 like I would like to. I'm gonna have to save up for those. I decided that while I'm here, I'm not gonna charge people to take pictures for them. I just wanna build up my portfolio really well so that when we get to texas I can start with some serious stuff. There are SO many photographers up here, it's not even funny. So it's a race to see who can have the lowest prices and get the most people. So HA! How bout free?? How ya gonna get any lower than that my friends?? And some of these photographers aren't even good! I was looking at their websites and I was like, um, people pay you money for these?? Some of them are good of course. But I'm thinking it'll be good for my portfolio building to not charge. Whatcha think?

Anyway, I should go clean my house and get stuff done.

xoxo

A friend's wedding

2009-05-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

Here are a few shots from a friend's wedding a few weeks ago. Beautiful couple!

Scammers suck.

2009-05-05T12:46:00.001-07:00

So I've decided to upgrade my camera cause I was planning on buying a new lens anyway, so I figured why not do the whole thing. Especially because I won't even have to spend extra money on it with how prices are right now. So I put it up on craigslist here in idaho and immediately got an email from some guy. He said he was out of town(to the UK) taking care of his sick grandma, but wanted to buy the camera for a friend that needs it. He was going to pay me extra for shipping cost to NIGERIA and blah blah blah all this stuff. He wanted to pay me through paypal, which woulda been fine. I received two emails from paypal saying payment had been received and i just had to submit a tracking number before the money would be credited to my account. I had a bad feeling about it because #1, there was no record of any pending transaction on my paypal, and #2 the emails from paypal were written horribly and had tons of grammatical errors. SO, i called paypal and they verified my feelings that it was a scam. Jerk. I'm so uspet cause I was really excited to get my new camera. Boo. And it's scary that I almost got scammed out of my camera and an extra 100 bucks. Why do people do that?? It is SO not nice! Grr. So that was not a very nice start to my day.

Utah was fun this weekend! We got to spend lots of time with Martha and some of Brandon's cousins. We went to see The Ghost of Girlfriends Past and it was pretty funny!

There's a fair amount of sexual innuendo and a little language, but not too bad. I'd recommend it!

Ummmm, I don't have much more to say other than I really hope I can make it to Texas! I should be able to, but it's just crappy that it's SO expensive! The cheapest tickets I've found are like $300+. Gah. So let's hope all of that works out. Anyway, I need to go grocery shopping!

<3xoxo

Happy birthday Martha weekend!

2009-05-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

We're headed down to Utah to spend the weekend with Brandon's mom for her birthday!
Yay! Minus the driving. I don't feel like getting in the car for more than a 5 minute drive after the past few weeks. But oh well. It's only three hours. It should go by pretty fast. Anyway, just wanted to update and let you know! I probably won't have a chance to write again until Monday when we're back, so see you then!

Don't forget to watch the Mavs TAKE OUT(hopefully) Denver this weekend! Round 2 of the playoffs, game 1. WHOOP WHOOP! :)

Oh and one of our friends brought us a starter for Amish(which is really said Omish. And that's how I've always thought it was spelled. But it's not. It's Amish.)bread. Anyone had that before? You have to let the mix sit for like 10 days. You give it a little squeeze to mix it up every day, add more flour, milk, and sugar one day and then bake it on day 10... Today is day 10! The recipe sounds really yummy... So I'm excited. Don't tell mom or Einsohn or I'll kick your butt.
<3xoxo

Baby Doyle!!

2009-04-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

So the doctor's visit went great! Well, I actually have a midwife, not a doctor. But ya know. Same idea. She's a nurse midwife, so she has a masters in midwifery and all that. I love her! We hit it off great, so that makes me feel good. I'm 14 weeks and 5 days along. My expected due date is October 26th. Hopefully I'll be early so we don't get some wierdo Halloween baby... :) haha jk!! They did an ultrasound and here is the picture!! I've labeled it(obviously) to be helpful.

You can see the eyes and nose and mouth. It looks like a skeleton face right now. But you can see some ribs and the little bones in the hand. The baby is laying on their side with their hands up by the face. I think that is SO cute cause that's how I sleep. :)But it was so sweet to be able to hear and see the little heart beating away. The baby was squirming around and stuff too. It was like, "would ya quit pokin me! i'm tryin to sleep here!" hahaha It was so cute.

Anyway, that's most of it. I go back in 4 weeks for a regular visit, and then at 20 weeks(in 5 weeks and 2 days) I'll have another ultrasound and we'll find out what the baby is!! Yay!!

We are beyond excited right now :) What a little blessing :)

<3 xoxo

Living room pics

2009-04-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

So.... I LOVE our living room! It's kinda lame, cause we can't paint our walls. So they're just boring white. And I still need to get some curtains. But hey, I did the best I could with what I have. Here it is!

Everything together!

Susie gave us this lamp. We painted it and custom lamp shade by muah

Entertainment center we bought from some guy for $40 bucks. Painted it black

Custom table by MUAH

Susie gave us this vase too(I think it came in a set with the lamp). Painted it and I did the arrangement

Today....

2009-04-30T09:58:00.001-07:00

Well, I've been up for less than an hour cause I stayed up late watching Practical Magic. And I already do not feel good. Usually I get an hour or two of feeling ok, and then the nausea hits. Not today. Felt it first thing when I woke up. :( I have my first doctor's appointment today. When I think about it I'm not really nervous. But I'm trying not to think about it that much... So maybe I feel so crappy cause of my hidden nerves... Who knows. Anyway, I just need to think positively about it. I'll finally know officially how far along I am and I'll have a due date! Yay! That's exciting! I wish we could know the sex today. But I still have a coupla weeks before that.

Mavericks advance to Round 2 of the playoffs! They totally killed San Antonio in Round 1! Haha I loved it. I do not like the Spurs, especially Tim Duncan. So that was a great win for us. Now we play the Denver Nuggets. Although, based on previous years, that does not sound threatening, I think it's gonna be a pretty tough series. Every time we have played the Nuggets this year, whether at home or away, they have beat us... Most of those games have just been by 2 or 3 points. So it was close. We'll see what happens tho. Post-season is a whole different game. And we've been playing really good! Anyway, I'll stop talking about that now because I don't think any of you that read my blog are actually interested in that... Maybe if Dad got on or something :)

Dang I keep forgetting to take pictures of my living room! Ahh! I'll try and do that today. I have alot on my mind, so we'll see if it happens. :)

Brandon is liking school! He's been in for almost two weeks now. He has a couple really tough classes tho. He has to take trig, accounting, and a construction estimating class(which is math) all in one semester... Stinks, huh?? The construction class he'll do fine in. Trig is hard! I help him with his homework(as much as my math-retarded brain can) and we figure it out together. But it's alot of stuff to memorize and just ridiculous stuff that he's NEVER gonna use. It's frustrating for him. But he'll be good. He's gonna get a study group going. So that'll help.

Anyway, that's all for now. I should probably go eat something and try and keep myself from throwing up...

<3xoxo

Pictures

2009-04-29T21:09:00.001-07:00

Few pictures from random shoots, etc. I deleted my photo blog, so I'll just be posting here when I do stuff.

New blog!

2009-04-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

For some reason, before we got married, I set up an email and our blog. But then we wanted an email address together, but I couldn't find a way to transfer the blog to our joint address. So long story short, I just deleted it! And this is our new one!

So it's been almost a 6 months since I've written... My bad :) Well, we've moved from Omaha back to Rexburg, and we're so excited to be back! Although it's just days til May and we're expecting snow on and off all this week.... That part I do not like. Oh well. Sacrifices, right? It's great to have our own place again! And I LOVE our living room! Pretty sweet decorating on my part :) I'll post pictures...

Doctor's appointment on Thursday! I'm excited! Hopefully they'll say, oh dear! You're really 27 weeks along already! That'd be awesome, huh?! Haha. I only say that because the past few weeks have been filled with some pretty nasty nausea. ALL the time. :( So that's no fun. I'd love to be almost done with the pregnancy. I just wanna have the baby already :) It still hasn't really hit me that we're having a baby. I mean, I understand that I am pregnant, yes. But we were talking today about how old the baby will be when Brandon graduates and we move to Texas. 9 months old. Ahh!! That's CRAZY!! It just still feels weird. Not a bad weird. Just different. :)

Anyway, I'm waiting for some warm weather so I can start a doing a few shoots here and there again! I can't wait for summer! I have a wedding booked for the end of the year. It'll be fun! Road trip to AZ! The bride is from Gilbert. So that'll be great. Brandon can finally meet some family! Well, assuming we have any time that weekend.... Watch the photography blog for new pics!

I'm feeling rather sick right now and need to start dinner. Hopefully I'll be better at writing from now on!