CHRISTMAS PROJECT

My family always does a Dickens christmas village at our house, but this year my mom and I decided to make mountains for it and put it on a platform....so we did!

This is my mom cutting out the "rolling hills" part of the mountains

We put it in the front room, so we have to take out all of the furniture that was in that room and then build this platform to put the houses on!  It kind of looks like a giant stocking.

Here is where I become the assistant and let my mom take over!  She is so good at placing things where they need to go, so I just hand her the pieces....but look at our fun mountains in the back

This isn't the best shot of it, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like......Oh, and the random little tree on a stand will be replaced by the real christmas tree once we go and cut it down  :)

Just picture this with all of the lights off and there is a revolving santa in the back that you can't see.....it is amazing!

HALLOWEEN!

Halloween!  Nate and I were trying to utilize my belly this year in a fun costume and we thought of this!

Nate was Peter Vankman from the Ghostbusters and I was the Stay Puft Marshmallow man! :)

We threw the costumes together last minute and Nate's was a little snug! :)

I was trying to "get" nate and he was using his special pack to kill me!

Dinner in a pumpkin!  It is a family tradition to cook a meal in a pumpkin and it tastes SO GOOD!

Here is our not so halloweenish table for our dinner in a pumpkin....but it was good and fun!

OUR TRIP TO BOSTON AND THE DIABETES CLINIC

A few months ago we found out Nate had type 1 diabetes....yuck.  But fortunately we were accepted to the Joslin Clinic in boston and we were able to help him get a handle on his diabetes!  It was such a great experience to be out there learning all that we could about how we can help him and his diaetes.  

While we were there we had the opportunity to go out for a couple hours at night to see some of the sights!  Here I am at quincy market showing all of the restaurants inside!  YUMMY!

Here is an outside shot so you know where I am!  I LOVE BOSTON! (but not ANY of their sports teams....sorry patience and chris!)

Here nate is in front of the plaque that says we are at Faneuil Hall....since we didn't get out until after 7:00 it was too dark to take any good shots of the buildings, so this will have to do!

If any of you haven't seen Waking Ned Divine you have to go and rent it!  Nate and I LOVE that movie and so when we saw this bar we had to take a picture of it!  Go out and rent it!  Its an irish movie and we LOVE it!  :)

Here we are in Harvard Yard!  Again since it was dark the only way we could prove that we were there is grab some clothing that said harvard on it and take a picture!  But the campus was gorgeous!

Here we are at our favorite restaurant that we found when we lived in London.....WAGAMAMA'S!  It is so good!  If you have one close by....try it!  We love it!  Especially the dish that nate is eating which is the yaki soba!  YUMMY!

Then last but not least, here is a picture of us and the other participants in the clinic.  Some of them are nurses and doctors, but the rest were there learning right beside us!  It was such a great time and we made some good friends out there!

WE MOVED!!!!

After thinking long and hard nate and I decided it was best for us to pack up our things and move!  We actually are in my parents house right now until we figure out if we are going to be moving out east or staying in utah, but this way I didn't have to find out we are moving with a brand new baby or just about ready to pop!  So this works out great for the time being!

Here is a picture of our house as everything was packed up and ready to take to our storage shed!  Goodness I never realized how much stuff we had!  

Thanks to the strong muscles of our brothers and friends we were able to move everything in our house in less than 2 hours!  Way to go!

Here I am wrapping up our couch...I didn't want anything happening to that!  I love that couch!

As the men were heavy lifting, we were so lucky to have some of our good friends come and help us clean!  THANK YOU! THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  This is venna cleaning our bathroom.....sorry venna!

Here my mom is helping venna clean the bathroom, what a trooper everyone was! 

Also, for those of you who are in our ward reading this, don't you fret, we are still able to come to the ward until the end of the year so yea!  I still get to see all of you!  :)

CONFERENCE WEEKEND AND BELLY SHOTS!

Every conference sunday my family gets together and makes eggs benedict!  Oh, it is such a great tradition!  My grandparents have this great recipe and we all just enjoy!  YUMMY!

Here my grandparents are fixing the hollinday sauce!  That is the best part of the whole thing!

As I was helping cut the muffins for the eggs benedict, nate came up and wanted to take a belly shot!

This one worked out a little better then the other one.  Man I am getting big!  :)

This is a horrible shot so I don't know why I put it in, but here is the beginning stages of the eggs benedict!  

It has become a tradition that we play rock band or guitar hero after the conference sessions are over - what a way to keep the spirit isn't it!

One of nate's favorite songs to do on Rock Band is 'Don't Fear the Reaper' because "he has to have more cow bell!"  If you don't know what I am talking about, look it up on you tube!

This is the only instrument that I could play that night because my belly is too big to play the guitar now!  (and I don't know the words to any of the songs!)  But it was really fun anyway!

A fun weekend at the cabin!

We have a lot going on starting right now in our lives (next blog entry so stay tuned!) and so we thought we would have one more fun time up at the checketts cabin with our friends before life happens!

The first night we got up there we thought that we would have a tin foil dinner!  This is the shot of all of us just about to throw it in the fire!  YUMMY!

Here they are all in the flames!  YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!

We woke up saturday morning and there was a heard of elk in the backyard!  

We each took our turns in making a meal and this night was maria's and she had amazing navajo taco's!  Venna made a good breakfast casserole and janel had some great pulled pork sandwiches for lunch!  We were so full this weekend!

We can't go up to the cabin without playing a few games!  And on top of that, we can't go up to the cabin without playing catch phrase!  I do have to say that the girls beat the boys EVERY TIME!  Ya, we are that good!

horseback riding!

Nate loves horses and he made a goal this year to become more proficient in horseback riding!  So our fun sister in law Mary Martha has a ranch close by with a lot of horses up there.  So we went for a fun ride!  (and before anyone freaks out that I went horseback riding while I am pregnant...my horse was so SLOW that walking is probably more harmful!  :)

Here is Mary teaching Nate how to saddle the horse.

Doesn't he look like a stud up there!

Here is a group shot before we left!  There is Andrew (nate's brother), me, Mary, and then Nate.

See, there was no need to worry about the baby!  This picture was on zoom and I still didn't get them very well in the shot!  My horse was REALLY SLOW!  :)  But it was so much fun to be out there!  Look at that scenery!

Luckily this picture is kind of blurry so you can't see my cheeks!  :)  But here I am riding Sassy!  She was a great horse!