We have one... so why not TWO?

Yes folks, that's right... We are expecting baby # 2. We are still a little surprised ourselves, but since I'm 11 weeks along, and (I guess) already starting to show - I thought I'd let the cat out of the bag so people would stop giving me the "is she or isn't she?" looks. Lucky me has been able to hear "I was wondering if you were pregnant - but didn't want to ask" by three men already. Gee thanks, just what I was hoping you'd say! ;)

For those of you that are thinking "They are crazy!" I will remind you that I had some issues getting pregnant last time and by the time everything was figured out and we got pregnant with Nixon, it had been over 2 1/2 years of trying. So needless to say, we didn't know for sure how long it would take us the 2nd time around so we figured we should start trying sooner rather than later just in case. The crazy thing is that we hadn't even really started trying yet. On our first month of not protecting...surprise! Prego!

I am due July 17th but will probably end up delivering via C-section 2-3 weeks early like with Nixon, at the end of June. That'll make my babies about 13 1/2 months apart! Anybody who's been there have words of advice or encouragement? Wish us luck on this next fun adventure!

Love/Hate

For the last little while I have been having a love/hate relationship with blogs. Mostly mine. I LOVE reading blogs, hearing about my friend's lives and seeing pictures of what everyone is up to. BUT I have been feeling really unmotivated to blog myself. I don't know what it is... I'm just feeling really complacent and uninspired. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the monotony of my days, or the fact that I've been a bit sick, who knows... but i'm going to try to be better. To try to use this blog as an outlet for myself to be creative or funny or just give me a little hobby to do every now and then that doesn't require much effort. I think I might try to do something with a theme to get me back on the band wagon. (Like maybe the 15 day challenge - just not on an everyday basis - maybe with my own twist). Wish me luck. But for today, since I'm in kind of a complaining mood I think I'll leave you with a few tidbits of the love/hate I feel on a regular basis.

Love: afternoon naps while Nixon is sleeping
Hate: if Nixon has two good naps one day, the next day he has two crappy ones. it's a vicious cycle no matter what I try :(

Love: my (I mean Nixon's...) awesome, stylish PegPerego highchair
Hate: that the number of poopy diapers each day has quadrupled since starting "solids"

Love: seeing my cute little boy get excited when I put him in the highchair and watch him gnaw on a cracker
Hate: spending 45+min. to get him to eat any semblance of a meal of baby food

Love: shopping (ever so conservatively) ONLINE
Hate: getting subsequent Visa bills

Love: watching Nixon go to town and jump FOR-EVER in his jolly jumper. HIL-AIR-IOUS!
Hate: now he WILL NOT stand normally - always wants to jump wherever he is.

Love: that I have good friends nearby that I can get together with and do girly things to break up the monotony of the week
Hate: that we have all been homebodies for the past couple weeks and have barely gotten together. I'm getting bored, people.

Love: that Nick is almost done work and we can have time together for the holidays!!!
Hate: in the meantime, he's working a ton and our Christmas lights are not up, and the walk continues to be unshovelled (i know, i know, i could just do it myself - but it's cold out there!)

Love: Christmas
Hate: about Christmas? nothing! especially since I'm all done my shopping, wrapping, AND stocking stuffers :)

There! I did it - I posted on my blog, and didn't even hate it.

Sunny Arizona

What a WON-DER-FUL vacation! I could honestly leave it at that, but I know you'd rather see some pictures and hear a few of the details...

We flew down Nov. 4th and pretty much had non-stop fun. On the 5th we were able to be there for Cam & Sheri's sealing in the Mesa Temple (separate post to come). The first few days it stayed over +90 F so we loved being able to hangout outside and soak up the SUN. My parent's place has a great backyard with a beautiful pool, and we had a blast enjoying it. You should have seen Nick and Cam - they were like 8 year old boys running around, doing tricks off the slide, and playing all sorts of games in the water. Hilarious.

Nice action shot, huh!

I loved getting Nixon all decked out in his hat,
flip flops and sweet shades. Too cute!

We also decided to give Nix his first taste of rice cereal...

If I had to guess, I'd say he loved it...

ha ha! Yeah right.

My awesome Dad bought us tickets to go see the Phoenix Coyotes play the Pittsburg Penguins and the game was SO much fun! Nick and I were definitely cheering for the Penguins (umm hello... Sidney Crosby???) plus our buddy Melvin (who was also at the game) is best friends with the Penguins new rookie, Mark Letestu, so it was fun watching someone we'd actually met before. And the best part was that the Penguins came from behind to tie the game, go into overtime, and then onto a shoot-out where Mark scored the game-winning goal! We were cheering so loudly that it scared Nixon half to death and he started bawling....oops. After the game, Nick & Melvin got special passes to go down to the team area and visit Mark and see a few other players. Nick LOVED it (to say the least...).

The seats were super steep, but it was a GREAT view!

Nick, Nixon and I - first family NHL game

My parents after the game

Just chillin after the game waiting for Nick.
Nixon was O-U-T

One day we drove out past Apache Junction to see some cactus's (cacti?) and check out a quaint little 'ghost town'. The buildings were so rustic and they had a bunch of great little shops where I bought myself some authentic souveniers.

Nick, Nixon & I
ps. baby carriers are the BOMB.

The last 6 or 7 days of our vacation, the weather cooled down to more average temperatures for this time of the year (+70s) so we just relaxed outside, read, watched movies, did some shopping and ate at a bunch of yummy places.

Our last three nights were spent at Cam & Sheri Watkin's house so we had a blast hanging out with them. It was nice to just hangout with no agenda. Getting to sleep in, eat MORE great food (In N Out, Cafe Rio, Cold Stone, Texas Roadhouse etc....) and just spend quality time together was all a girl could hope for. Oh - and a bit more shopping ;) Thanks for showing us such a good time!

My Mom gave me this outfit, it was one my older brother,
Shane, wore when he was a baby (circa 1978). SO cute!

Nick & Nixon

Nick & Cam enjoying some 'Big Buck Hunter'

While waiting for a table we noticed this sweet picture and
were reminded of our good friends, Tyler and Erin. Ha ha

Cam & Sheri and Nick & I at Texas Roadhouse

Oh and ps... My baby travelled like a dream. He is amazing!

A Few Frustrations

So the other day I mentioned how sucky our Halloween weekend had started out to be and here's why. (Disclaimer: this is mostly for me to vent a bit....don't judge) Out of the past 21 days, Nick has worked 20 of them. And previously to that he's been working more than normal as well. Now this is not just a cushy 9-5pm job, but he's leaving the house at 5:30am and getting home at 6pm. Because his days are so long he's usually pretty tired when he gets home and doesn't want to do much. He usually ends up falling asleep on the couch by 8pm. I get it, I really do - and I appreciate all his hard work. But for someone who's home all day and just wants to spend quality time with her husband, it's been a hard pill to swallow. It's been tough feeling like I've had to do 99% of everything for Nixon and keep our home running smoothly all alone. I have so much respect for all the single moms out there.

Don't get me wrong - we are glad he's been busy at work and has been able to pick up some overtime. I know this job isn't going to last forever, infact he'll probably be starting somewhere else before the year's done. But.... it just gets a little lonely sometimes. I'm a big fan of holidays, and pictures, and traditions so I was pretty excited to be celebrating Nixon's first Halloween and had a few plans (which I had cleared with Nick). But when he got home from work on Saturday he crashed on the couch and said he had had a particularily tiring day and didn't want to go anywhere. Now a good wife would have probably rubbed his feet or something and said nothing, but I didn't. I'd really been looking forward to going to our ward activity to see all the cute kids in their costumes and to socialize with some of our friends. I wanted to have fun with Nick and get out of the house. I was really disappointed and didn't want to just take no for an answer, so we ended up getting into a huge argument and fighting about it. Needless to say we ended up just staying home and I was mad at him for half the night. Why?

I don't know why I have to be so stubborn sometimes. I hate that I got so bent out of shape and let the issue ruin my night. But I am thankful that I have a tender hearted husband who is a great communicator. I'd say that 9/10 times Nick is always the first one to apologize and be the peacemaker. After we talked later, Nick decided that he wasn't going to go in to work the next day. It was a double time pay day, but he decided that it wasn't worth it. When he doesn't work the weekends, we never fight. We just needed some good old fashioned time together and I'm grateful we had it. It was so nice to just have him around to talk to when he wasn't tired or edgy, and I wasn't worn out. We did infact, have a Happy Halloween.

Here's to learning from our mistakes and moving forward. As well, we are infact going to have a FABULOUS November. We are heading to sunny Arizona for 10 days to spend some time with my parents and visit some of our bestfriends, Cam & Sheri Watkins. It is going to be such a fun trip and I am SO looking forward to days and days of uninteruppted, restful time with my husband and son. Here are a few of the other perks I'll be enjoying:

Mesa Arizona Temple

A Hockey Game!

Phoenix Coyotes vs. Pittsburg Penguins
GO Crosby!

These are just a couple examples of my absolute favorite foods (found only in the glorious USA)

Hockey and Halloween

I know there are going to be about 50 million blog posts about Halloween in the next 24 hours, but too bad. Here's another one. But at least I'm throwing in a little hockey for good measure...

Nick is back on a Men's League Hockey team this year and couldn't be happier. That boy sure loves himself some hockey! A lot of his games are later in the evening so when Friday's game was at an earlier time, I decided to pack Nixon along so he could watch his Daddy play. It was fun to get him dressed in his new winter coat and his fuzzy mitts, booties and bear toque (I'll have to get a picture of that later...).

Watching Daddy play hockey

Getting a little tired.....

All tuckered out between the 1st & 2nd period - perfect time for a nap.

Nixon & Nick

We love watching Nick do what he loves!

Now on to Halloween. For reasons that shall remain undisclosed at this time, our Halloween weekend started off and continued along pretty sucky. Nick was supposed to work the whole weekend, which is super lame. But he decided to not go in to work today and we were able to salvage a little bit of the holiday spirit. After church we came home and had a relaxing afternoon while Nixon napped. I even had a cat nap myself. I was about to bail on the whole idea of carving pumpkins this year, but since I'd already bought them I figured I should get off my butt and just get carving. Nick was a little skeptical too, but we both ended up having fun.

The Voravongs invited us over for a delicious early dinner and we had a great time stuffing our faces with yummy carrot soup, homemade buns, and lots of other finger food. Thanks Bishop family for letting us crash your par-tay! After that we stopped by Nick's parent's house quickly and came home to hand out candy. Nick's mom stopped by after work to get her Nixon fix - and we loved seeing Nick's little cousins when they came by trick-or-treating. In the end, Nixon's First Halloween turned out pretty great :)

Halloween Family Pic

The fruits of our labors..

The fruits of Nixon's labors landed on Nick's pumpkin.... ha ha

Jaylin, Kyla, Nixon and Uncle Brad