January: Not much to say about this cold, long month. The new year started off good with a trip down to Georgetown on new years eve with our friends Brian and Amber. We stayed at Amber's parents house and ate too much food and played games. Her parents are really welcoming and made our stay so fun. The next day we watched football, slept in and just relaxed. That night, we met up with my old roommate Katie and her husband Tommy for bowling. It was a blast and we ended the night with dinner at The Parkette Drive In which was featured on Food Network's, Diner's, Drive-In's & Dives. I can always count on Katie to show me where to find good food. As for the rest of the month? Keith spent it either in class or studying (for real I loathe 2nd year of dental school), Kenzie has been building her vocab with phrases such as "Stop it Mom!!" and I spent it sick on the couch.
February has been so much kinder. The weather has been hitting the 60's and (knock on wo0d) we haven't seen snow yet. Blessed sunshine, I've never been more grateful for an early spring so I can let Kenzie out to run around. As you can see above, Kenzie got a new bed. She was SO excited when it came and plays in it all the time. I was really scared for the transition, but she hasn't missed her old crib for a minute. I don't miss it either, her room seems twice as big with it gone and I don't plan on putting it up again for another year. The second picture was just funny. Keith went to check on her a few nights back and that's how he found her. She loves to cram her bed with toys and dolls.

We have continued with our Friday night baby swap. We have 5 other couples in it so our turn doesn't seem to come around too often. Kenz is buds with one boy in particular named Parker. She asks for him almost daily and added his name into a little song we made up about her friends. Keith and I loved the face she's making in this picture.

The Best Christmas Gift

The best gift we received this Christmas was a positive pregnancy test. I woke up feeling like I had morning sickness. I couldn't open anything until I had something in my stomach and the thought of the chocolate I bought for our stockings made me sick. I went ahead and took a test knowing I probably wouldn't be able to get a positive result because it would be such an early result. I could see a glimmer of something on the stick but wrote it off as nothing. A couple hours later the feeling kept nagging me so I took another test and within five minutes I had a very faint positive line. I took it to Keith in a bit of disbelief but neither of us let ourselves get excited, I think we were both afraid something would go wrong. Well the nausea continued day after day and my blood work came back good every week. At about 8 weeks I went in for an ultrasound and everything was good, just measuring a little smaller baby and one very big uterus.

I went in for another ultrasound today and everything looked wonderful! They determined a due date of September 6th which puts me at 12 weeks tomorrow. This ultrasound was amazing to see such a tiny, perfect baby kicking around inside my belly. The heartbeat was nice and strong at 150 BPM. I've been feeling like it's a boy this past month but Kenzie keeps saying she wants a sister and because she's closer to Heaven then I am, she will probably be right.

This pregnancy has been really different from Mackenzie. The nausea started before 4 weeks and continued constantly throughout the day with peak times being about 3-4 hours in the afternoon and sometimes evening. I'm tired but not nearly so much as I was the first time and I've only put on 3 pounds. With Kenzie, I felt sick all day every day for most of the pregnancy with the worst of it being in the first 16 weeks. I'm already feeling much better, just getting headaches now and I'm still having a really hard time working out because it makes me so sick and tired. I feel like my belly's about the same as last time. Even though I haven't gained nearly so much, my stomach is obviously not as tight this time so my jeans have been uncomfortable since week 7. I'm so glad I invested in a belly band because it's really stretched my wardrobe. I am having a hard time with chocolate and sugar just like I did with Kenzie which is crazy for me because I'm normally a chocoholic. I've been craving PB&J's and fast food which I try not to give into often.

This isn't the best picture but I loved Kenzie in it so here was my belly at 10 1/2 weeks. I love winter for the layers, I think I wear sweatshirts at least 5 times a week.
Now that I finally got this post taken care of, I'll try to catch up on January and February.

Christmas Eve

We were able to go to the Olsen's house for Christmas Eve dinner and nativity. Their little boy Nathan was Joseph and Craig and Jaclyn's baby girl played the part of Jesus. Don't let the happy pre-party pic of Kenzie fool you. She was supposed to play the part of Mary but she was being just a little temperamental that night- sorry for the tantrums everyone. I believe Keith was a shepard/wise man. He really rocked that bathrobe. It was a great night!

Christmas in Kentucky

We were so excited to have a white Christmas. We really weren't expecting one but mother nature pulled through for us and we enjoyed this peaceful view all day.

Keith and I woke up about 8 AM and opened our stockings. Mackenzie normally wakes up at 8 but she was worn out from the night before. We got antsy and ended up waking her up at 8:30- check out that sweet morning hair:

It was such a fun morning watching her open her gifts. Keith and I had a lot of fun opening gifts also. Our families were so generous to send packages and so we had a lot of fun surprises.

That was it for the pictures of the day. We went to a friends house for a yummy breakfast and then came home and prepped dinner. We had our old neighbors Justin and Neha over along with our good friends Amber and Bryan. We cooked a ham and I finally made a successful batch of homemade rolls. It wasn't nearly as good as dinner at our parents but it was a fun night and we were so happy to have good friends to spend it with.

Pre-Christmas

I have a lot of catching up to do! Keith had almost 3 weeks off for Christmas and we spent most of that time playing the wii and hanging out with different friends in the ward. We were sad we couldn't go home for Christmas but did have a lot of fun starting our own traditions.

Our friends Kameron and Jodie put together a little ugly sweater party with some other 2nd years. We ate some yummy food, played Guesstures and Ashley put together really fun crafts for the kids to do.

Derek proudly took home the trophy for ugliest sweater...fur's in though right?:

This was just a cute shot

Our ward had a Christmas party with Santa Clause and dinner. As you can see, Kenzie sat on Santa's lap for about 1 second. She wouldn't talk to him but she did give him a high five.

I also helped with our Stake Creche. My friend Brandi is on Stake Activities and she was desperate for help so she asked ME to help paint-ha! I really didn't do much but I thought this scenery turned out pretty cute. This was the stable backdrop for the children's nativity. We set up a room for the children to color and make little baby Jesus in his manger and then had this set for them to put on costumes and act out the nativity scene.

Now we'll see if I can get Christmas posted sometime soon!

November/December

I feel like such a slacker with my blogging lately. Mostly our lives have been so full of the busy day-to- day things but it's 11 PM and I'm forcing myself stop procrastinating...ready?

This poor guy is pooped! We came home from YW/Scouts/Tithing Settlement at 9:20 tonight and this is where he ended up after putting Mackenzie to bed. Finals started beginning of December and end the 14th. This semester has definitely been the worst. Not only are his classes a lot more demanding but I've been a bit of a crazy person lately. He's so good to put up with me and study as hard as he does.

On the 3rd, we went to Red Robin to celebrate my birthday. Did you know you get a free burger on your b-day if you sign up for their e-mail? It's kind of becoming our tradition. It was fun to get out and the waiter was nice enough to snap a picture because I seem to never take them on Birthdays. Keith got me a Kitchen-Aid for my b-day/anniversary/part of Christmas. I've wanted one for a long time and finally found a deal on Kohl's for $100 for the classic. I busted it out today and made homemade pizza dough and breadsticks, yum!!
This picture makes her look so sweet and innocent. She is most of the day. She's my best bud and her evolving speech makes me laugh. My favorite phrase is "We're home!" every time we pull into the complex. Today her diaper leaked (again!!) while she was supposed to be napping. When I walked in there she told me "Mamma, poo, stinky, bath!" For once Keith and I are actually considering potty training sometime soon.
I laughed when I saw this picture as I uploaded them. I HATE this dog. Unfortunately, he lives directly above us. I took a picture trying to catch it in the act of leaving his gigantic pile of poo right by my porch that his owners did NOT pick up. This happened twice during Thanksgiving break and I was more than happy to report it to management. I figured the dozen newsletters addressing the issue were warning enough. He also barked for 2+ hours a day sometimes waking me up in the morning, other times just driving me crazy in the afternoon. I used my mom yell on him several times and I was surprised how well it shut him up.
We bought our tree at Lowe's again this year. You can't beat $15 for a 6' tree and it's beautiful! Kenzie loved directing where the ornaments should go:All of my pictures of the tree lit up are blurry so these are the shots you get instead (she's about to attack me in these pictures hence the crazy faces) :

She's so fun
And finally a little Christmas craftiness. I made this with Carlie and I'm so glad I did because it was cheap, easy and I love seeing it every time I pass the front door. Mackenzie however throws a bit of a tantrum every time we leave because she wants a "sucky"
So I cut out scrapbook paper and put it behind each cubby on this shelf from my friend Amber. Do I like how it turned out? Yes. Worth 2-3 hours of my time? Maybe. Worth cutting my finger (including under my nail) with a rotary cutter and having it bleed for a couple days? Definitely not.
And to end this long post, I have to say that nothing makes me happier than sitting by the Christmas tree at night when all of the lights in the house are off except the ones on the tree. It's such a beautiful, peaceful sight. I'm so grateful for this Christmas season. I'm grateful for a wonderful little family here in Kentucky and our extended families back West. We miss everyone dearly but maybe staying here for Christmas will help us focus on the blessings we have and the celebration of the birth of the most important baby this world has seen. How lucky we are to have the Gospel of peace and love in our lives!

Kenzie's 2nd Year

Better late than never.
It's cut off on here so click the little YouTube link on the
bottom right to go to YouTube if you want to watch it full screen.