Well, since it seems that this baby is never coming, I thought I would post the pictures of the nursery while I continued to wait. My original idea was to do a red and grey theme since I already had the red rocking chair, but when we started registering they had all this really cute yellow and grey stuff. I still was probably going to go with the red, but so many people actually got me what I registered for at my baby shower that I didn't need to. The yellow and grey really turned out I think.
I even had my first Ebay purchase with the net canopy. I got it for $5.50 and that includes shipping! It was awesome! I can kinda see why people get addicted to bidding on that site. The anticipation is thrilling!
The red rocking chair is still there, but I think it adds a nice pop of color.
These ties were actually left over from my baby shower and I think they worked perfectly!
My crowning achievement. Aunt Becky gave us some old pictures of Bryan as a baby and I suddenly had this idea to blow up the pictures of us and hang them in the room. Aren't we just so darn cute!
So it is a little small, but then again, it is just a baby, right? Now I can't wait to actually put my baby in here.
I really can't believe that my baby is due in less than 3 weeks. It's a little nerve-wracking, but exciting at the same time. I am ready to have my body back though. It's kind of annoying not being able to bend over or get in and out of the car easily. Funny how you take those things for granted. Anyway, this past Saturday was my baby shower!! My great friend Samantha threw it for me. (She's the blonde to the right of me.) Props to her! She is becoming the go-to person among her friends for parties like bachelorette, wedding, and baby showers because she does them so well. She got together with Emily to plan the whole thing out and it went splendidly! They were even trying to surprise me at first, but obviously I had to be told at some point. It would have been really random if Sam suddenly wanted me to come over on a Saturday morning and to dress up cute.
It was a tremendous success! We had a nice brunch with fruit, chicken salad sandwiches, brownies and some lemonade cupcakes that I made from Pinterest. Sam even went as far as to wrap the bottled water with little baby print. I was most happy about how many people showed up! I wouldn't say that I have LOTS of friends in Utah, so I was worried that we would do all this planning and then 5 people would be there. I only had 20 people on the invite list to begin with! So when practically everyone came--let's just say that it made my heart all warm and fuzzy! A big 'thank you' for everyone supporting me! The only sad part was Mom Moon was supposed to come (had the flight and everything) but her uncle past away and the funeral ended up being the same day. But my daddy came! He was the only man there, but I think he pulled it off well.
We all ate and chatted for a while, introduced ourselves and how we all knew me, and we had everyone fill out a place on a calendar of when they think the baby will actually come. Whoever is closest will get a gift card! Everyday for a week before and after my due date was filled out, except for the due date itself. But apparently less than 1% of babies come on their due date, so actually I guess it was in everyone's interest not to choose that date. Even I didn't! (I'm secretly hoping that it comes early, but then again, doesn't everyone?)
We then opened gifts! I got almost everything from my registry! Everyone was so nice and generous and the nursery is so stinkin' cute now. The colors are grey and yellow with duckies--nice and gender neutral even though we know it's a girl. I'm just being proactive and thinking of the next kid I guess.
Sam and Me
My ginormous 37 week belly.
This was a nice shot of my swollen feet and cankles. I can't wait for those to be gone too.
I just thought my face was funny in this one.
My new friend, Macy, from the ward, her mother hand made these little moccasin shoes!
Some of the attendees!
After all the gifts were open I was saying how hot I was (although it was cloudy and kinda cold outside).
Sam and her mom went through all the trouble to make a diaper cake. Apparently it isn't easy.
Me making out like a bandit!
I can't say how happy I was about everything! And I was so worried about having a shower in the first place. But, like I said, everyone was a huge support! I do actually feel like I am somewhat ready to have this baby now. My next blog might even be about the birth. Scary....
This past Monday Bryan decided to buy tickets to the Real Salt Lake vs. BYU Men's Soccer game--somewhat on a whim. I'm not that big of a fan of soccer, but Bryan enjoys it and I like tagging along with him. It was chillier than it has been recently since it was practicably the one day it rained, but we enjoyed ourselves. I'm sure that if I wasn't 35 weeks pregnant I would have been freezing, so I guess this big belly is good for something. The Real beat us 1-0. (Hence one of the reasons I don't get soccer--they can tie the game and it is so low scoring. Totally not fun to me.) But the real point is that we had fun!
This past weekend Bryan and I went down to Vegas to once again play (I would say compete, but is it really competing when you automatically lose because you don't play on Sunday?) in the Trouble in Vegas Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. We decided to go down a day early since driving 5 and a half hours both ways (especially with a pregnant wife) isn't that.....relaxing. And since we were going, we might as well make a vacation of it!
I left work early on Thursday to go to a spa. Yeah. Bryan got me a mani/pedi and facial package for my birthday and it was expiring that weekend. I knew I wanted to wait until the last moment so that I would be as pregnant as possible so that reaching my feet was difficult. Don't worry, we have definitely reached that point. Since it was a spa (and not some little Asian place in the mall) it lasted almost 3 hours! It was heaven! I could get used to facials and mani/pedis. I felt so relaxed!
The next day we spent going around some places that we've been meaning to see in Vegas. We don't really like 'The Strip' so instead we went to Gold and Silver Pawn--from PawnStars. It is a show on the History Channel and is actually really cool and funny. They get all this really cool, old, historical stuff. There was, of course, a line out the door to get into this place, but it moves really quickly.
Waiting in line
I kind of wanted to buy something just to say I had, but seriously, since SO many people come to this place, everything they have is really nice and like over $500. They did have some gift shop type stuff with the show on it, but I don't know if I really would wear a shirt with PawnStars on it. I'm a little more traditional than that. Still, this place is almost like a free museum and it's fun to see something on the shelf and say, "Hey, I watched that episode!"
We had this awesome shot of Bryan sitting on the bench looking all cool, but somehow it got corrupted. I'm so sad!
After that we went in the completely opposite direction to the new-ish Hoover Dam Bridge. Although that is not what it is called. You don't even realize you are driving over it since the sides are about 5 feet tall, but they have a place that you can stop and walk on one side to look down. It is pretty darn awesome. And a little scary.
Looking down from the bridge. And you can see the awesome shadow.
It was funny to see how empty the actually rode over the dam now is. It was always so crowded with cars and people!
On the bridge.
My handsome husband.
This is the medallion saying you've reached the middle of the bridge!
That night we had dinner with Mom and Dad Stiles and Chris and his fiancee, Erica, at a Hawaiian BBQ place that was sadly closing. The food was pretty good too. Service was a little slow, but isn't that the Hawaiian way?
The next day was tournament day. The guys (The Killjoys--which is basically a BYU alumni team) haven't played together since October of last year at their big Florida tournament. Which sadly I just noticed I never blogged about......oops. Well, that's why Bryan is now a "contributor" to my blog and he can write his own dang posts! Still, half the guys hadn't even picked up a frisbee in that long and they still won 4 of their 5 games. One was even again the BYU college team where they won! It's pretty amazing since the average age of the BYU team is probably 21, maybe 22 and Bryan's team is an average of 29. They just have better skills I guess.
Awesome bid--sadly by the other team.
Great catch by one of our guys.
Sadly the only picture I got of Bryan.
The best part about this whole thing. The weather. It was a wonderful 70 degrees! I can't wait for Spring and Summer to finally arrive in Utah. Even Bryan is tired of the winter and he usually loves it! Maybe it's because this Winter was a little too crazy for everyone. -10 degrees, seriously? Very unnecessary. Anyway that night we went to the movies with Chris and Erica to the that Jack the Giant Slayer movie. It was entertaining and worth it since we got to see it for free with some passes.
The next day we reluctantly woke up, especially Bryan's tired body, and drove back to Utah. Always a pleasure Vegas....always a pleasure.
I know that it is really late in the game to be posting Christmas, but I thought I might as well do it as not. I sadly can't even remember most of the details of the day other than Bryan and I made out like bandits. Still, it was great fun as always! Here are a few pics:
Dad was super excited about his gift. A BYU golf bag--and an uber nice one at that.
Christmas omelets at Grandma and Grandpa Twitchell's. Always a crowd!
I couldn't but help take this picture. Three brothers all playing a zombie-killing game together on tablets. They liked it just a little too much.
I thought I should finish up the last days of Christmas. It's been a few days so I don't remember them all, but still, I think we did pretty good considering.
Day 11 - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
One year for Christmas my boss gave everyone a book/DVD combo of Longfellow's Christmas. It was a clip from the Christmas show that the MoTab and Orchestra at Temple Square do every year. I actually really love this song, it was cool to find out some of the history behind it. Plus it's not too long so it works as a short little video for FHE.
Day 12 - Christmas Lights
On Tuesday we drove around looking at all the Christmas lights around the town. We went to the rich areas thinking that they would have the best lights. Sadly it was not true. I was surprised at how many people didn't put up lights. The best neighborhoods were the more modest ones. The maybe weren't the most pretty, but they certainly were the most festive.
Day 13 - Cable
This wasn't really a planned Christmas activity, but we got our cable installed. Bryan was going to try and do it himself, but luckily he randomly found this guy online who was selling a rail mount (which we needed). We bought the mount from him and found out that he actually was a DirecTV installation guy and asked if he would come and install it instead. It was cheaper and caused us a lot less of a headache. He had it working in an hour and I'm sure Bryan would have been out there for a lot longer if he had tried it himself. A small blessing that we randomly found this guy.
Day 14 - Aaron's Birthday
On Friday we made the trek up to Bountiful to Melanie's house for Aaron's second birthday. Too bad there was a crazy amount of traffic due to 2 wrecks and we got there super late and probably missed all the fun. Still, it's always nice to see family, no matter how short the time.
Day 15 - Mexican Tacos
(We look drunk or something. I don't know why.)
Nothing says Christmas like Mexican Tacos. And not just any tacos, the Longoria tacos. They taste so fresh it's crazy. I like them WAY better than anything else I've ever tasted. They are made with small tortillas, beef, some kind of Mexican cheese that I can't remember the name of, lime juice, avocados, sour cream and I'm sure I'm forgetting some else. Still, delicious! We were so glad they invited us down to have some. Plus we had cupcakes and horchata--Mexican hot cocoa. And don't ask me why I gave Bryan that look, I don't know. I'm sure it was something he said.
Day 16 - Talks
Nothing says Christmas like Sunday talks either. We went to tithing settlement and came out with talk assignments. Actually, I could feel it coming. That Sunday in sacrament I was thinking how I was so glad I wasn't the one giving a talk and then I suddenly get this feeling that I'll be next. A few hours later, Bishop is telling me that he has this feeling to ask us to speak. Well, at least I know he follows the spirit. I gave mine on Elder Holland's The First Great Commandment and Bryan on Elder Anderson's Trial of Faith. Bryan likes switching it up though and spoke first. I've never really been a last speaker, but I think it all went really well. I was surprisingly not that nervous (a FIRST for me) and afterwards we got a whole lot of compliments on how we both are such "natural" speakers. I wouldn't say that for me, but I'm glad that everything went well. It also got us our new callings in the Primary teaching the 5 year olds. The primary president heard us speak and knew we were the ones she wanted. Yay for us.
Day 18 - Game Night
Like I said, it has been awhile and I can't remember what we did on the 17th or 19th. But on the 18th we had another game night with our new friends. We played Settlers again while eating a whole bunch of snacks and somewhat watching The Muppets: A Christmas Carol. I'm not too bad at that game. I tied for 2nd on the first round and won the second. It was such a blast hanging out with Josh and Macy too.
Day 20 - Ah. Thursday. Today we had our ultrasound and found our that we are having a baby girl!! What is more exciting than that. Enough said.
Day 21 - The Drive
Friday was our drive down to Vegas for Christmas. I was able to get off of work early and so we left in the afternoon and were able to make good time. I don't know if we did anything specifically Christmas-y, but since the drive was for the holidays I'm going to count it anyway.
Day 22 - Mini Golf and Dinner
On Saturday we had time together as the "kids." We went to King Putt and played miniature golf. It was actually kinda cool with lots of fun holes....even one where you shot the golf ball out of a gun. Plus it was glow in the dark and had an Egyptian theme. That night we took Mom and Dad Stiles out to dinner at Claim Jumper. Weird name, but actually a pretty nice place. It was our treat to them. So of course they treated everyone else and spent more than if they would have gone out by themselves. Isn't that just the way of the world?
Day 23 - Cantata and Dinner
On Sunday, Matt, Bryan and I sang in Dad's Cantata during sacrament. They always have a really great choir and I always enjoy myself. And that night was had dinner with the family. The Stiles family is definitely growing. They used to be able to fit around a round table and now look at us. And half of us weren't even there.
Day 24 - Golfing, Friend Lunch and Engagement
The day before Christmas, Bryan and I went to lunch with some of his Henderson friends. They are some of the funniest people! We always have fun with them. After lunch Bryan and I went with Dad to the driving range. I haven't golfed since Nathan tried to teach me forever ago and I whacked him in the head with the club and gave him a goose egg. But Dad and Bryan were great teachers and I wasn't doing too bad by the end. I even kept up when we had a putting "horse" game. The only downside? My arms were killing me for the next 3 days.
Lastly for that day, Chris got engaged! Bryan and I made dinner for the family that night which hopefully eased some stress for Mom and Dad who helped with the engagement. Still, it was fun since we all knew it was coming except Erica (obviously). I think she was truly shocked and was actually speechless when they came to tell us all that night. We are so happy to have her join the family!!
Welp, that is one long post. I will save Christmas for another day.
