Tender Mercies

I have been so blessed these last few weeks, and it is incredible how lucky I am. I have been having a super rough time with pain the past few weeks, and I find myself thinking, "seven more weeks... make it through finals, have a baby, then graduate..." Now mind you, those are HUGE but it must be done. My little blessings are as follows!

My cute MOM came to see me for lunch when she had a layover in SLC, and I really needed to see my mom! Sometimes I can be so needy. She came just in time!

Debbie Debbie bo-Bebbie...


Then to top it off, my sister SUE came to visit me, she was on a business trip in Canada, and decided to come see me on her way home! Yea!! We had a blast, we watched TV, relaxed, and went on a hunt for a cute stroller... To add icing on that cake, my nephew RYAN decided to visit from BYUI to BYU and we got to have him the whole afternoon and evening! (weird, my nephew is in college.. I am OLD!) It was awesome! What a weekend!

Skip to my Lou SUE!!


The hunt is complete! We have a stroller people!


My little Nephew, RYAN all grown up!


It gets better!! My friend CHARLI brought over a gift for Maddie, one that I have been daydreaming about for MONTHS!! No joke... I really really wanted Maddie's newborn photos in a hot pink tutu...

Behold! TuTuS!!!!




I literally CANNOT wait to see her in these!!! So so so cute!!!

Last but not least! A visit from my friend from home KARA came to stop by on her way to MOab! You would think I won the lottery!

KARA dropping in to say HELLO!!


These little things are helping me keep going--I am very excited for these last few weeks! They have delightful lately, and I feel very blessed!

Baby Updates...Let the count down begin!

Madison Mae will be her name! Or Madison Michelle, sometimes I just can't decided. Yes I said "I" not "we" Neal doesn't particularly like either middle name options, but I figure after I go through the trauma of having a baby, he will let me name her whatever I want!! :) But we have jointly agreed that Madison will be her first name. I posted a few pictures so that you can see what Neal and I have been working on :)

Ha! That was funny! We worked on a baby, and now we are getting ready to have her come out and play! But not too soon, she needs to bake for another 6-9 weeks. (I am hoping she comes between my winter and spring term of school so that I can have 4 days of rest before school starts... but I am never actually that lucky :) but I can dream!

Here you have it! The bump growth: I am making some serious progress!


27 weeks


30 weeks

An update on her new bed, we decided to go with a pack 'n play as we will be moving this coming December. This was the cutest we could find! Neal loves putting these together wink wink...


Neal hard at work...


The final product! It even has a little changing station attached, convenient!

Here is her closet space to hold all of her super cute clothes! I wish I could post all of her new little wardrobe now, girl clothes are SO CUTE!!! I will wait and have her model them for you--that would be best! But here is her little section of the closet thus far...





And of course I need a few projects to work on, so here are my latest adventures!

Here is a diaper bag I made last August (before we even knew we were pregnant!) with Neal's cousin Lila. I LOVE this bag and I am excited to put it to good use!



I saw these online and I HAD to try them! I am working on these, I will let you know how they turn out... I can hardly wait!


hook candy crochet patterns

And I am making a car tent like this one... except on the two handle grips I will have ribbon flowers with a little button. But you can imagine what it will look like when I am done :)


This pattern..

with this fabric and ribbon :)


We are very excited in preparation for Maddie Mae's arrival, and hopefully I can find time to do these projects and graduate in the meantime!

A Very Merry Un-Birthday!

To me! This year I was able to celebrate my 6 1/2 birthday! Who knew such intelligence could come from a 6 year old. Its true. 6 years old = SMART. Neal was brilliant this year and surprised me by celebrating my "un-birthday" early and taking me to TCBY to get my beloved white chocolate mousse. I LOVE that stuff! Best gift ever! Not to mention the beautiful flowers that he specially selected for me :) I am one lucky girl, seriously! TCBY, roses, and Neal. That is the perfect present!


Beautiful!!


Delicious!

I also made my favorite homemade pizza thanks to Pam Prete and her AWESOME recipe she shared with me! Yes ladies and gentleman, I made this lovely creation... Smothered in cheese, pepperoni, and sausage. (I do believe I am a meat lover pizza kind of girl...greasy, fatty, yummy)I don't mess around with pizza!



Our good friends Maddie and Og (yes his name is Og) had us over for family home evening the week of my birthday and Maddie made me a homemade ice cream cake! It was so delicious. They also surprised me with gifts, which I was totally not expecting! It was a surprise indeed!

What a great birthday! I even did SUPER well on my midterms! And mind you, these are not "piddly" classes, these are the real deal, calculus and matrices algebra have been my friends this week :) I am still in shock how well I did. Happy un-birthday to me!!!

The "Slinky Cake"

Okay, so I don't have any photos of this event... and oh I wish I had them! I still laugh about this and it happened a month ago. For some reason I always associate a "blog posting" with "I have to have a picture" but I suppose that I do not always have to have a picture. So I will get on with the story. :)

I decided to make a spice cake, I love to eat them. I also LOVE cream cheese frosting. These days my brain is a little off, and I accidentally doubled the amount of vanilla in the recipe, so naturally I doubled the entire recipe. (Yum Yum!) Needless to say, my cake finished baking, I let it cool, then I frosted that thing like nobody's business. It was very top heavy. (My mom would be so proud!)

My dear unassuming husband sees the top heavy cake, gets excited, cuts a slice, places it on his plate and then I hear, "OH NO!" it totally lobbed off the plate frosting side down onto the counter! So Neal scrapes it off the counter (ewww) and then notices that some icing was on the bottom of the plate from the cake's disastrous tumble, so Neal tries to LICK it... needless to say I hear "OH NO!" again, and the cake lands on the counter, same spot, same position... frosting side down! All I know is that my husband was COVERED in frosting, and his cake was a mess on the counter. I was laughing so hard I forgot to breathe!

Then to be cocky, ;) I decide that I want a piece of cake. I gently cut a piece of cake, place it on my plate and AS I am holding it in the air to gloat about how "my cake didn't fall" it tumbles onto the stove top, and frosting oozes into the wire heating coils. Dang it.

The next day, I see Neal successfully eating the cake, and he says, "Wow, I love this slinky cake!" Now, this notorious cake has a name.