Arkansas

May 31-June 7, I got to go home to Arkansas. My parents live there and I grew up there. I'm not sure how long it will take me to not call it home. My little brother is going on a mission for the church at the end of June, so he went to the temple for the first time to receive his endowment. (see Mormon.org for more information) It was beautiful. I am so proud of him. He will be a wonderful missionary.

I got in to Little Rock at about 3:30. Then, my sister and friend threw me a baby shower! It was so fun!!

Here's the picture of the gifts I got. 

We visited, ate yummy things, opened presents, and decorated onesies. They all turned out so cute!!!

Friday, Mom, Liz, Meg, Lu, and I went to lunch. It was very yummy burgers. Oh my word yummy!!

Here, Lu is throwing a penny into the fountain. Meg threw hers in before the camera was turned on. :)

After lunch, we went to Charming Charlie. Best accessory store EVER. It's HUGE, has everything you need or want, and it's all organized by color and quite affordable. I got a beautiful scarf and an awesome watch.

Here's me with Meg (6) and Lu (3) with fun hats on

Lu LOVES sunglasses. She always has a pair and will wear them inside if she wants to as well. She said she didn't mind the lines in these glasses. They looked pretty sweet on her. And Meg put on a pair and did a pose. :)

This is most of my family. MMae and their kids stayed in Little Rock while the rest of us drove to Memphis for the temple. It was a beautiful, spiritual time to be there with my family. I loved it. Sam is the one with the pink tag. So handsome.

Mom brings in flowers from outside and they tend to bring bugs with them. This one has a pretty cool spider web on it. Instead of getting rid of the web, we took a picture. :)

Tuesday that I was there, we went to a baby shower for MMae and baby Eden. It was so cute! Yummy treats-best icing ever- great company, and cute gifts.

Eden is one of two. Her twin brother didn't develop normally. He was very far behind and much smaller than her. A couple of weeks before birth, he passed away. It was a very heartbreaking time. It was especially difficult to mourn because here was this beautiful girl but her twin brother wasn't there. Gabriel is definitely Eden's guardian angel, though. He stayed around until the last possible minute so that she could be healthy. She didn't even need a trip to the NICU.

I got to meet Eden on this trip. She was born in March, so she's starting to smile and be more aware of her surroundings. It was lots of fun to play with her.

This rose was set out at the shower to remember sweet Gabe.

My mom and Sally with Eden.

Sally was like a drug to this girl! She would hold her and seconds later, Eden would be asleep! It was impressive! Sally said it's because she's her visiting teacher. :)

Maria Mae opening gifts. I gave her a swimsuit to match the cute little swim hat she got before. It's adorable.

Here's little Eden Joy. She looks so like her brothers!!

This picture is definitely my favorite of her. So cute and cuddly. When I took the picture, however, my camera made a shadow. I sent it to my sister in law to see if she could edit it. Et voila! She did a fantastic job! You can find her work/contact info on Facebook under "Laney Photography."

Eden all sleepy :)

My mom made this quilt for my baby. It's got sock monkeys all over it! So cute, huh?

Check out cuter pictures and my mom's blog about it here.

Also, for the nursery, I'm doing an alphabet wall. It's the whole alphabet with different sizes, patterns, all that good stuff. It's going to be awesome. My mom did the ombre O, I did the Q, and my sister did the F. So fun and cute!!!

The week was awesome. Lots of swimming-got a little tan line- :) lots of family time, great bonding time, shopping for maternity clothes, getting DRENCHED in a torrential downpour, getting nails painted with gellish, a hair cut, it was great.

Sweet House!

It's been a while since we've been in our new house, but I still haven't put up pictures! I took these before going to Arkansas so that I could show my family. I uploaded them and thought they got onto my ipad, but they didn't. And I didn't bring my computer with me, so I ended up without them.

This is the master bedroom. We don't have anything hung up yet, because we're still working on deciding what to put up. We put up the ceiling fan ourselves. It's beautiful. But poor J hits his head on the pull string thingy almost every time. He's still learning to avoid it. 

 These are the beautiful new nightstands we got. They're kind of antiqued black. We got them at Hobby Lobby. I love my new Bride Scentsy with the pretty roses. Then the lamps we got off of Craigslist for 75 for all three!

This is opposite the bed on the other wall. Maybe eventually I will put something on the cabinet and make a throw pillow.

Turning left from the above picture, you have the way to the rest of the house through the right side, our dresser and my jewelry, and then the master bathroom through the left. If you kept on turning to your left, you'd be back at the first picture with the bed. The master bedroom is nice and big. It's great.

The jewelry I want to put on a board with knobs and stuff so that it's organized and off of the top of the dresser. I really like that idea (c/o pinterest) but I just need to get started and I have other things I want to do more.

Then, we have the master bathroom. Dual sinks, lots of space underneath, good drawer space, a great shower with a curved rod for more space. It's awesome. On the right is a doorway to our walk in closet.

I love walk in closets. I'm now organizing my clothes into "doesn't fit" and "does fit." At the very back is a shirt that will not fit for a very long time. :)

This is the dining area. Just outside of the picture to the right is the way to the master bedroom. The sliding doors overlook the back yard. It was bright outside, so the picture's a little dark, but you get the basic idea. It's nice and spacious.

Basically pivoting 90 degrees from the last picture, we have the kitchen. I LOVE this kitchen. It's fantastic. I have a window into the back yard, a disposal, a dishwasher, counter space, oh it's glorious! And I'm having a lot of fun with the red. I have a red kitchenaid, a red apple rug in front of the sink, a red trash can, red dish towels, red flowers above the sink...It's a lot of fun.

Turning left is the living room. The door in the far end is the front door. We got the brown couch from J's aunt and uncle. We really like it. 

This ceiling fan is new, too. We couldn't use any of the lights in the previous ceiling fans because some smart person cut the cord to the light. We figured out why in the living room. The light switch turns from on to on. It flickers a little when you flip the switch, but that's it. So J is the only one tall enough to turn on the light. Otherwise, I open the blinds or get a chair. :)

This view is standing by the red couch in the window nook. The hutch is J's great grandma's. Another hand me down from his aunt and uncle. I love having a hutch. It's very beautiful.

If you go down the hallway in the pic above and look in between the two rooms on either side of you, there is a bathroom. We've gone with a blue and green theme. It's very pretty. We have a poster of a sea turtle on the back of the door right now. I want to get a frame and put it on the wall, because it ties it in beautifully.

This is the baby's room. It's in the back of the house and definitely not finished yet! I took this picture before coming to Arkansas, so now there are a lot more things on the floor. I'm loving getting ready. 

Today, we're getting a free crib! I'm super excited.

This is the front room. It's always a work in progress because it's the office/guest room. We'll hang up more things and get it more organized, but it's going to take a while, probably. I'm just glad I have a filing cabinet. It was one of the first things we got for the new house. I was done with my expandable files.

 This is the other side of the room where we will put a twin sized bed for guests. It'll definitely help the room look more complete. The pink trash can is going to be spray painted and put in the baby's room.

It's a wonderful house. We love it and enjoy having our own place. I'm really excited to have it look more and more complete with pictures on the wall, a guest bed, the nursery all finished, and a little boy to complete the group!!

Very exciting!!

27 Weeks

27 Weeks (taken June 3)

Had my Glucose test at the Dr appointment this week. Yuck. I don't like blood draws. I had to fast for 3 hours before going to the clinic. Then, an hour before, I drank this glucose drink that tasted like a really flat Sprite. Not too bad, but on an empty stomach...horrible.

We had the Elders over for dinner and I made bolognese. Yummy. It's strange to realize that I'm now older than the missionaries. For so long they were older than me, then they were my age. Now I'm older!! Weird.

I subbed 1st grade the second to last day of school. In other words, I babysat while they colored, watched Rio, asked for cough drops, fought over erasers, bugged each other, cut, glued, all that good stuff. It was a long day full of arts and crafts and the boy who always ALWAYS cries. This time, he cried because I gave him the wrong coloring paper. I went to go get it back and he got mad at me because he wanted it...what?

Thursday, I got to go home to ARKANSAS!!! Oh, how I love that place!! I got there at 3:30 and had a baby shower that evening. It was so great!! (more to come later) I got to go swimming, play with nieces and nephews, meet the newest addition, Eden, go to the temple with my baby brother, eat Japanese food, go maternity clothes shopping, and go to my sister in law's baby shower! (and that leads me to the end of week 27 which was Tuesday.)

My mom and sister think that I got a bunch bigger over the week that I was there. I think I agree, but some lots of people still are amazed to hear that I'm 6 months along. :)

26 Weeks

I remember feeling pretty good in week 26. (Picture taken May 27) It was a crazy week, though. I finally contacted my Visiting Teaching Companion and we went teaching. But I scheduled the meetings right after school and right before my appointment at 5:30, so I was exhausted and crazy afterwards!!

I subbed 5th grade that Thursday and Friday (the 24th and 25th). They were PSYCHO!! Oh my word! They drove me crazy! We had a good time, but man, they were difficult! I had one kid trying to climb out the window at one point. Twice. (so I guess that's at two points) But they did really cute things too. They were making papers about each other where it has your name and then attributes about you like "awesome, cool, nice" written all over it. I got one hand written and it said stuff like awesome, cool and nice, but it also said "Watermelon stomach" and "I hope your water doesn't break in school." Such thoughtful kids. :) They also made me a t-shirt for their kickball tournament and it said "Best Sub Ever." So sweet!

Then, Memorial Day weekend was nice. Rainy for the Saturday, but Monday, we got to play outside for a bit. I don't enjoy running while pregnant. My belly bounced all over the place...awesome visual, I know. So we did a version of soccer that has less running. It was fun, but I got really really warm and worn out, so I watched while they did batting practice-kind of like a home run derby. That evening, we played Dungeons and Dragons. J is the dungeon master in a group of me, his dad, his mom and his little brother. When his sister moves back for the 7 week break in August, she'll join for some of the games. 

It was fun. 

My character is awesome. 

That is all.

25 Weeks

On May 20th, I was 25 Weeks along. I'm planning on catching up so that I can blog weekly with my weekly pictures. :)

This week, I had a crazy busy week. I subbed two full days and a half day, I went to a really long, but still really great band concert, and J and I sang in Sacrament Meeting.

We sang "I Need Thee Every Hour." What a beautiful song. While we were singing, baby boy kicked a time or two. :) I think he was telling me "this is true. Heavenly Father sends His love."