December 23

my due date is here.
yikes!
i'll keep you posted.
the little guy must be right around the corner, right?!

Me and my twin sister, Liz
This is a picture I just came across that never got posted. I love it! And, I LOVE this girl!

Getting into the Christmas spirit

Decorating the tree a couple weeks ago

Decorating Christmas cookies and watching Elf with our friends

I can't wait to...

• sleep on my stomach
• sleep on my back
• put my socks and shoes on without huffing and puffing
• bend over and pick something up easily (I hate when I drop things these days!)
• snuggle close to Ryan
• wear all my regular shoes again (my very swollen feet have few options these days)
• go running
• sleep without a million pillows
• wear my wedding ring again
• walk without my feet aching really bad
• slide between things without getting stuck
• put my seat belt on easily (you wouldn't think such a little thing would be so hard...it is!)
• not tip the scales anymore (even though I know there is good reason for being so heavy, it's hard to see numbers you've never seen before!)
• have more pant options again
• hold my baby and see what he looks like!!!!
  

Dear After Hours Nurse I called last night,
I promise I didn't call just to bug you. Had I known the answer to my question I wouldn't have called you. If I didn't think it was significant enough to call about, I wouldn't have. Trust me, I felt silly enough as it was calling over what seemed like a small thing. But, I had a change in my pregnancy (don't worry everyone, it's not a big deal and everything IS fine) I hadn't experienced before and I wanted to make sure my baby was ok. My medical advice to you: Take a chill pill and give us (first time) moms a break!

Alisa Harrison

ps: I guess in making me feel stupid for calling you did, at the same time, relieve my worrying. So...I guess...Thank you for at least doing that.

quilting away

I'm having a lot of fun working on my baby's quilt! It's definitely coming along!

37 Weeks Today

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a very fun Thanksgiving Break. We went down to Portland Wednesday evening and stayed with the Evans until Sunday night! We had so much fun! The boys played football in the morning. If you can't tell in the picture they were soaked when they got home. The rain definitely didn't stop them from playing and having fun anyway.

Travis built a fire. The kids were mesmerized for awhile. I love a good fire to set the mood.
This is out of order, but here we are displaying our 4 pies. Not my favorite pregnancy picture, but I had to document the 4 pies.
And, here we are eating dinner. It was the Nashes, Evans, Harrisons, and Travis' brother Taylor.
The Nashes left Thanksgiving night and the rest of our weekend was spent hanging out with the Evans. Ryan did some Black Friday shopping (of which I will be the beneficiary, I think--apparently he got some amazing deals), Ryan and I had dentist appointments with Travis (which, by the way, it was very fun knowing my dentist and Travis made me feel very comfortable considering I usually hate going to the dentist), we had a fun visit with mine and Liz's bestie, Amber, who was in town with her family, Liz and I did a little shopping for some Christmas decorations, we watched a fabulous BYU/Utah game, went to church, ate some good food, had a fun game night, and just had fun being together! Ryan especially enjoyed his long weekend, a nice break from his busy work schedule!

I've always known after Thanksgiving the next big thing for us to look forward to is our baby coming! So, here's to 3 more weeks 'til I'm due!

Baby Shower Weekend

A couple weekends ago my sisters and families came up to our place to help with my baby shower here. It was such a fun weekend! Keri and her family came up Friday night and stayed until Saturday and Liz and her family came up Saturday morning and stayed until Monday morning. Unfortunately we wouldn't ALL sleep comfortably in our apartment at the same time, so it was nice to have them on opposite nights. Keri and Ryan ran in a 10k on base on Saturday morning! Keri has been training really hard to become a runner and is doing a great job, so it was fun for her to join Ryan for the run. Matthew, the kids, and I went up to watch the race. When we got there I found out it was a 10k run, 10k inline skate, 5k run, 5k walk. Above you can see the skaters getting ready. I've never seen an inline race like that before. Too bad I forgot to bring my skates that morning....can't you imagine an 8 month pregnant lady on inline skates? Really though, had I known, I may have asked Jessica, my niece, to walk in the 5k walk with me, but I didn't realize it was going on. Oh well...we enjoyed watching from the sidelines.

And, off they go....
Ryan coming in strong...
Keri, not that far behind....
The runners.....
The Nashes...
The Harrisons. Please notice my belly poking out, I like it....
After the race we went home and got ready for the shower. It was a fantastic shower!! Liz and Keri helped my friend Stephanie with the shower. Stephanie did an amazing job and went all out! I feel so grateful for everyone who came and helped us with baby items. I got some great things! I looked through all my treasures many many times, I couldn't get enough of them. Below are just a couple pictures from the shower.
Here I am opening the wipes I got from my friend, Jessica. It was perfect! I got lots of wipes and diapers, both of which I had none of before the shower.
After the shower all of us hung out at our place for awhile before the Nashes headed home. We hung out with Liz and Travis for the rest of the weekend which was a lot of fun! Thanks everyone for coming and helping us get started with our little boy on the way!

This morning I turned the calendar and saw this...

Oh my gosh! The month we've been waiting for is here! I can't believe it!

A different perspective

It's funny how I used to look at this picture feel a little heavy for myself


and now....
even though I am enjoying being pregnant I look forward to looking like that again!:)

In Baby News...

• I will be 35 weeks tomorrow! The pictures above were taken tonight. I don't usually look at myself from the side. Seeing these pictures makes me feel like my belly really is sticking out a lot!:) (Even though people still tell me I look small...trust me, I don't feel small!)
• For a long time Ryan and I have narrowed names for our little guy down to 2 but all of a sudden I've come up with about 3 more that I really like! Ryan isn't a huge fan of any that I've added to the list.
  
• We've been getting the baby room ready, slowly but surely. Below you can see a dresser that Ryan turned into a dresser/changing table! It's a dresser my parents let us take. I didn't want to buy a changing table but knowing how much my back aches I thought it'd be nice to just put a changing pad on top of the dresser. So, Ry added a few sides to the top of the dresser. I think he did a great job!
  

• I've been busily working on a quilt for Baby Harrison. I've been shy about mentioning it or showing any part of it because it's my first really big sewing project and my first ever quilt. I'm hoping it turns out ok, but the more I put it together the more I like it! I'll show the final product when it's all done. I'm really enjoying working on it.
• I went in this week to do a 3 hour (for those who know what this is) glucose test. My doctor was concerned that I may have gestational diabetes, so I had to go take this 3 hour test, which is not fun! I passed with flying colors, so thankfully I'm not dealing with the diabetes!
• Our baby is supposedly about as tall as he'll get (approximately 20 inches) and is weighing in at about 5 1/2 lbs. Perhaps when I go to the doctor this Monday for an internal exam she'll be able to give me a better idea if this is accurate or not for our little man.
• Ryan and I just had our third of three child birth classes last night. We're really glad we took the class! For the most part I felt like it was information I had read about or heard before, but I definitely did learn a few things I wouldn't have been aware of had I not taken the class. And Ryan, for sure, is now much more educated on the whole thing (which I'm happy about). It was also nice to get a tour of the hospital as part of the class.
• My friend from the ward and sisters who live here in the NW are throwing me a baby shower on Saturday which I'm very excited about!
• I'm feeling many Braxton Hicks contractions lately. My hips are aching quite a bit too!
  
• I mentioned before that we got our car seat and stroller! I asked Ryan to pose below to show off how excited we are to use it.
  

In Other News...

• Ryan is working long hard days at work! He has just been given a handful of new responsibilities which has made his day extra busy!
• My sisters who are helping with the shower are coming to stay with us this weekend! We're really looking forward to this! Keri and her family will come up Friday night and be here for the shower on Saturday. Liz and her family will come up Saturday morning for the shower and stay Saturday and Sunday night!
  
• Ryan and Keri will be running in a 10k on base Saturday morning! Ryan has been doing a good job of keeping up with his running to prepare for this.
• We're looking forward to Thanksgiving down in Portland in ONE week! Can't believe Thanksgiving is already here (bonus: one of mine and Liz's best friends, Amber, will be in Portland for Thanksgiving! We're excited to see her!)
• We have definitely hit our rainy Winter season!! Thankfully this morning we had a beautiful partly cloudy morning! It was really beautiful! It has rained every day for who knows how long....a week? For a couple days it literally never stopped raining, hard raining!
• My umbrella is my new best friend. However, I'm realizing I totally look like the "new kid" around here. People don't really use umbrellas! A lot of people just head out and take the rain, others have a good rain jacket with the hood up! I'm looking forward to getting a good rain jacket once my belly is out of the way!
• We did a little clothes shopping for Ryan (It probably sounds silly to post about this, but trust me, it kind of is a big deal. Ryan doesn't really shop for clothes). When we walked in to Target last weekend, for a few non-clothes items, Ryan pointed out a pair of jeans he liked so I quickly grabbed them and started showing him a few shirts that would look nice with them. Pretty soon he walking out of the dressing room with a few new clothes!

That's all! Other than these things we're just up to our normal daily things! Hope you're doing well!