Baby Shower Pictures!!

                Here are the baby shower pictures!!  Special thanks to Ashley, my cousin and co- host of the shower, for taking them!  Unfortunately, we didn’t think to gather everyone together for a big group picture before people started leaving.  Isn’t that the silliest thing ever?!  Oh well, Ashley managed to snap this one of the majority of our party.  I love some of the faces everybody’s making- he he he. 

                You can see below the amazingly yummy (and healthy) foods brought to us by the lovely Kelsie, the other co- host.  We enjoyed baby carrots, celery sticks, grapes, apple slices, homemade humus and water with lemons AND limes … fancy, huh?  I mean seriously, did you have humus at your baby shower?  Did you have water flavored with lemon and lime slices?  I didn’t think so.  You can also see the delicious remains of the adorable pink and white cupcakes that my dear friend Judy made.  Is YOUR mouth watering?  Because mine is just remembering them.  I wish that you could have seen them- I swear Judy is a cake master!  I mean the icing on every single cupcake was a perfect swirl.  And lastly, I am afraid that you can’t see it because it is gone, was the chocolate covered popcorn made by Ashley.  People, she coated the popcorn first in white chocolate and then drizzled a little milk chocolate over the top of that.  It looked so amazing I hardly wanted to eat it but then I tried it … and I really wanted to eat it. PS: Can you see the beautiful decorations?!  Be sure to notice the flags in the other pictures- they were my favorite.

Samuel really wanted me to get them down.  Not happening Buddy.

We also had balloons ... in a tree.  They were there to mark our spot.  :)

 

                I received so many wonderful gifts for my little Lily- thank you so much everyone!  I greatly enjoyed your company and we all had some great laughs.  Thank you Grandma and Aunt Vickie for coming all the way over to Provo to celebrate with us!  You guys are the best.  Oh!  I forgot to mention that all these ladies must love me because this was not the park we had originally planned to go to.  30 minutes, I kid you not; before the shower was to begin we had to switch locations from the park on 4^th North and 4^th East to the park on 5^th North and 5^th West.  And all these wonderful people still showed up to party with me, even though it was a drive.  I was so happy!

Jelly shoes, people.  JELLY SHOES!!

First year scrapbook calender- genius.

Two adorable baby beanies- handmade, HANDMADE.

Diapers- seriously one of the best gifts!

Baby food and baby cereal.  (She better love it.)

And lots of adorable outfits!!  Thanks ladies.

                To those who contributed to the car seat fund- you are live savers!!  We couldn’t have brought Lily home without it … well we still haven’t brought her home because she hasn’t come yet, but you get the idea.  And in case you were curious this is the one we bought and I love, love, LOVE it!   Seriously, I am so thrilled with it.  Should I say it again?

And I just HAD to include this picture of Samuel.  I mean, this kid is seriously SOOO cute.

 

Funny Samuel Stories #3

March 7, 2012

                This morning I decided to make Samuel pancakes for breakfast; I thought that he would like that.  Like usual I tore up his pancake into bite size pieces and then poured some syrup on his plate so he could dip them.  (This kid LOVES to dip things.)  Just like normal after Samuel had eaten his entire pancake he was sticky as can be.  But today just washing his hands and face was not enough.  He insisted that he needed a full on bath.  Which I didn’t mind, his hair needed shampooing anyway.

The "poofs"

                 So we filled the bath and gathered a bunch of toys- he was getting so excited!  I undressed him and he scrambled into the tub as fast as he could and quickly started to play.  After a while all the toys we had gathered weren’t so fun and he wanted to play with Mommy and Daddy’s shower poofs.  I told him that he could play with one, so I gave him the blue poof because I could reach it.  This made him happy until he realized that I wasn’t going to get the pink one down; so he started pointing and asking for it again.  To which I answered that he can play with one, and asked if he wanted the blue one or the pink one?  To my surprise he pointed at the blue poof and said, “One.” and then pointed at the pink poof and said, “Two.”  All that counting we do is paying off!!  I couldn’t resist- I gave him the pink poof as well.

March 8, 2012

Can you see all the forbidden movies?!  They are tempting.

                Samuel has been able to reach the movies on the bottom shelf of our TV stand for a while now.  But recently he has learned how to climb up the TV stand to reach the movies on the second and top shelves.  Tricky boy.  And it seems that with his new ability to reach virtually all of the movies he thinks he can get into them whenever he wants; which is NOT the case.  When I leave the room Samuel will pull a movie, or two … or three, off the bottom shelf and start playing with them.  This usually creates sounds; such as the pop of a DVD case opening or a DVD clattering against plastic.

                 When I hear this I head myself straight into the front room, saying something along the lines of, “Samuel you had better not be touching the movies.”  And I usually walk in on a scene something like this:  A DVD or two scattered on the floor along with their cases, and Samuel struggling to put a DVD case back on the shelf with all the other movies as fast as possible.  But he is completely unable to get it into the organized line because he is so frantic about me seeing him with it in his hand.  So he is flailing around with a movie, practically hyperventilating from fright.  It is SOOOO hard not to laugh, and to punish him with a straight face.  Sigh, I love that kid.

This picture is just too cute to not post it.

Pregnancy Miracle: Home-made Maternity Pants

Not comfortable.

Comfortable

                Do you see these maternity pants?!  (And the preggo belly?)  I made those … this is where I could say, “all by myself,” but that would be a lie.  My mom helped me because she is awesome like that, and we enjoy sewing stuff together.  (And AJ helped with the belly, but anyway. . .)  Maternity pants have always been a nightmare for me.  1. They are WAY too expensive for the short amount of time that you wear them.  2. If you can find a cheap pair, they are just plain ugly.  3. The pairs with the waist-band are beyond uncomfortable.  AND … I am sure that I could come up with more if I tried.

Least embarrassing picture I could find.

                My first pregnancy I just endured the horrible pants until I was 34 weeks, and then I just wore pajama pants everywhere.  I had no shame.  But this time around I wanted to be comfortable, but I also wanted to be cute and confident.  And pajama pants didn’t fit the “cute and confident” agenda.  So, I did some research and stumbled across home-made maternity pants tutorials- GENIUS!!  Check them out!  Here, and here.  :)  This was going to be too easy, and it was.

are cool too. :)

Samuel's pants . . .

                I went to Saver’s and bought 3 pairs of cute pants that were 2 sizes larger that my pre- pregnancy pants.  I was already over 30 weeks along so it was super easy to find pants that would fit me comfortably WHILE I was pregnant.  I think it is a lot harder to shop for maternity clothes before you are big.  Because you never know how big, or not big, you are going to get.  My suggestions when picking out pants are; make sure the legs and waist are loose enough.  You don’t want the portion of the pants that goes around your waist and butt to be too tight, because then you have the same problem there was with the regular maternity pants.  And the legs need to be loose because the swelling in your legs will fluctuate, so you will need to be accommodating. So, now I had my pants.

I wouldn't go smaller than 18".

I should have done 23" or 25".

                For the belly band portion of the home-made maternity pants, I chose to purchase about a yard of stretchy, white material from JoAnn’s, but you can use an old t-shirt.  Check out this tutorial HERE, if you are interested in using a t-shirt.  This is the part where my Momma helped me.  We cut the fabric into three 18 inch panels.  (My panels were 18 inches high by 60 inches long, but I wanted my belly band to be doubled, for extra durability.  So I folded them in half to be 18 inches high by 30 inches long.)  Then we hemmed one of the 30 inch sides on all three panels.  Then we sewed the two short sides together creating a circular belly band.  I tried it on my preggo belly and it was awesome- I was so excited!

Hemmed and sewed together.

6" measurement.

                To start, we had to remove the belt loops off all of the pants.  Then we cut off the waist band from the back side of the pants.  On the front side we measured 6 inches up from the cross seam in the crotch of the pants and marked our measurement with a small line.  Next we connected the line we just drew to the cut at the waist band on both sides.  (It is optional but you can leave the zipper in the pants or take it out at this point.  If you take it out though you are going to have to sew the fly shut.  I chose to just leave the zipper, and I forget it is even there.)  Now we had a pair of jeans with a scoop shaped cut out in the front, perfect for a preggo belly.  Please check out the links for pictures- they are very helpful!

Inside

Seam

Outside

                Next, I put on a belly band, adjusted it to where I wanted it, and slipped on a pair of jeans over that.  I chose to have the belly bands on my jeans come up practically to my bra.  I decided this because I didn’t want to be continually pulling it up if it slipped down my belly, and it would give my pants more support.  Pregnant bodies are the perfect shape for pants to slip right down and I do NOT like that.  Anyway, I adjusted the jeans to where they fit comfortably and my Mom marked where the top of the jeans met the belly band with little dots.  I took off the jeans and the belly band, and we pinned then together according to the marks on the band.  (Pin them right side to right side.)  Lastly, we sewed them together, cut off any access material from the belly band and WA LA!!  We had a pair of home-made maternity jeans- that are comfy and cute!

There's an ELEPHANT in the room

                This adorable little stuffed elephant was the beginning of Samuel’s obsession with the animal.  But there is a story behind this little bundle of stuffing.  When my Mom, Samuel’s grandma, was around 14 years old, she took a sewing class, and one of their assignments was to sew, by hand, a stuffed animal.  This cute elephant that my son adores is the stuffed animal my Mom made.  My 14 year old mother didn’t know what to do with the stuffed animal after it was graded, so she gave it to my Grandma Gurr, her Mom and Samuel’s Great-Grandma.  Grandma Gurr kept the little stuffed elephant for over 30 years, and when we brought Samuel down to visit her, she gave it to him.  So Samuel’s Grandma made the elephant and it was given to him by his Great-Grandma Gurr.  (It also happens to match perfectly with his safari bed spread that Great- Grandma made for Samuel as well.)

                Since Samuel has fallen in love with this new stuffed animal he has begun to notice elephants EVERYWHERE.  I had no idea that we had so many elephants in our house.  His favorite books all have elephants in them:

Can you find the elephant?  I read this book a million times and never saw it.  It was the first thing Samuel pointed out.

 Some of his favorite movies just happen to have elephants in them:

 Even his shampoo has an elephant on the front- I didn’t even notice!! 

Samuel is not one to let the elephant in the room go unnoticed.  *Wink*

Funny Samuel Stories #2

Sunday, February 5, 2012. 

Ok, so this is me, not AJ, filling out our tithing.

Are you going to give it to him Samuel?

                A few weeks ago, we were 20 minutes early to church.  We went in found a seat, and AJ started to fill out our tithing.  Well, Samuel noticed and became really eager for Daddy to finish, because he always gets to hand the envelope to the bishop.  After AJ sealed it, Samuel quickly took the envelope from him and started to run up to the stand.  The problem was, we were early, so the bishopric wasn’t even in the chapel yet, but there was a brother sitting on the stand because he was going to be talking during Sacrament meeting.  And our little boy was headed straight for that brother, to give him our tithing.  Luckily, AJ was able to catch Samuel in time and explain to him that he wasn’t the guy he was supposed to give our tithing to.  Reluctantly, Samuel waited but every new brother that walked into the chapel he started to run to.  A while later Samuel decided that he was going to go find the bishop and ran out one of the side doors, just as our bishop walked in the other.

February 24, 2012

                 Samuel has two closets in his room; one he can open and one he cannot.  Last night AJ shut himself in the closet that Samuel can’t open and was fake screaming and crying for Samuel to save him and let him out.  Well, poor little Samuel is too little, and can’t save his Daddy from the closet.  I am in the other room and Samuel comes running up to me sobbing and grabs my hand to follow him, in order to save his Daddy from the evil closet.  Poor kid was traumatized.

2011 Family Pictures

                The Relief Society presidency in my ward sends out a weekly email, which includes: a list of women who have requested prayers, announcements, available apartments, who’s moving/ having babies … all sorts of information.  (I love the weekly emails.)  Well one week, there was a message from a sister, requesting opportunities to practice her photography- she needed images for her photography classes.  And I thought, “Awesome!  Free family pictures.”  So, I let her know we were totally interested in being her guinea pigs.  We set up a date, October 21, 2011, and she chose the location and BAM!!  We were set.  These are some of the shots she got of our family.  I ADORE them- especially the ones of Samuel.  His face was different in every single photo- hope you enjoy them!!

This was my all time favorite of our family from this photo session.

"Vroom, vroom, vroom!!"

"Hi ... hi.  Hi, down there."

"I.  Love.  DIRT!!!"

"I don't like it up here."

"You can't catch me."

"What is in your mouth Samuel?"

BA HA HA HA!!!

Nemo for Halloween

Trying to look casual while holding Samuel down.

Of course he wasn't looking.