Christmas

 We got an Elf on the Shelf this year.  I had seen them on Pinterest and thought it was a great idea, but I thought $30 was way too much to pay for one (it does come with a hard-bound book).  My sweet visiting teacher gave us one.  The girls really loved looking for him every morning, and Claire would be extra well-behaved because she knew he was watching her.  She would talk to him and tell her she loves him.  It was so cute.

 Blake finally let me get a pre-lit tree with white lights.  I've been asking for one for years, and I love it!

This year we had planned on visiting Utah right after Christmas.  We were going to leave December 25th right when Blake got off work at 2:00 pm.  It turns out the weather was going to be terrible, and the roads between Wyoming and Utah can be awful with the ice and wind.  On the 23rd Blake arranged with his work to take off the 24th and 25th and we left within an hour of changing our mind about the date.  Since Blake is a federal employee, the government gave them the 24th and 25th both paid this year (hopefully that's not to soften the blow if they lay off after they figure out the budget).  He would have gotten double time if he worked this year, but it was so worth it to not be driving in snow. 

We stayed at Lyndsy and Levi's house for a couple days, and my mom and Kevin's for the rest, including Christmas.

Christmas morning with Grandma.

 Jayce and Claire got to be in the Sirrine family annual nativity play.  Mary and Joseph look a little bit uninterested...

It snowed almost the whole time we were in Utah.  Jayce and Blake got to go sledding a few times.

 Slick track at Planet Play.

We got to go swimming with the Clowards at their hotel.  Claire had a blast jumping to Uncle Rye Rye.

At home after the holiday was over. 

Six months pregnant.  My uterus is measuring two cm large (two weeks ahead).  I wish he would be two weeks early, but he'll probably just be a big boy.  Blake and I still can't decide on a name.  I really dislike his top name choices, and he doesn't like most of mine.

Family Pictures November 2012

 Blake's very talented sister, Lyndsy, took these pictures for us in Orem by Utah Lake.  She always does such a great job.

 I'm about five months pregnant in these pictures. 

Some More November 2012 Pics

 Our little buddy that we get to babysit sometimes.  The girls adore him, and it has been to good for Claire to get used to having a baby around.  At first she was jealous when I would feed him and rock him, but she understands now.

 Crazy hair day at school.  Jayce chose to have a bun mohawk with tails.  We made them stick up, but by the end of the day they were limp, and it actually looked even cooler.  She her teachers all loved it, and she liked her hair the best.  I guess it was worth waking up at 6 am.

 Five months pregnant.  At this point I had been having headaches every day since I was about 13 weeks along.  I had morning sickness right away from the day I found out I was pregnant until about 16 weeks.  The headaches let up for a little while, but I'm in the third trimester now and six months along, and they've started up again.

Another crazy hair day picture.

 This was the first snow we experienced in Wyoming.  It was actually in October.  The first thing Jayce did was build a fort outside of our apartment.  It really hasn't been too snowy here, just extremely windy.  It makes it feel so much colder than it really is.  I guess that is one advantage of living in an apartment.  It was really windy in Pueblo too, and we always had to worry about things blowing off our house (we had shingles blow off, a/c cover, rain gutter, and much more).

My mom and Kevin came out to Wyoming to visit us after we found out we were having a boy.  They couldn't come to the "gender reveal luncheon", so they were so sweet to visit us the next week.  My mom and Jayce threw me a mini-shower.  Jayce was so excited about it.  It was just me, Jayce, Claire, and my mom.

 Kevin took us all to Red Lobster for dinner.  He let Jayce order whatever she wanted, and she really took advantage of the situation.  She ordered an adult portion of lobster tail and steak.  I kept telling her no, but Kevin insisted.  She ate all of it, too!  Kevin really spoils her. 

Here is a picture of Jayce after she had eaten chicken wings in ghost pepper sauce.  Ghost peppers are 1,500,000 on the hotness scale, while habaneros are 500,000.  Her mouth was swollen after she ate them.  She is a little show-off!

Gender Reveal

Blake really wanted to be surprise about the sex of this baby, but I said no way.  As a compromise, we had the ultrasound tech not tell us the sex.  We had her just print a picture that showed it and put it in an envelope.  We were going to wait until Christmas to open the envelope in Utah at a party with all of our family.  I couldn't wait six weeks, so we took a trip out to Utah the next weekend.  We had a luncheon at Chili's, and we opened the envelope with all of our family that could make it.

It's a...........BOY!!!!

Blake and I are both still in disbelief.  Everybody kept telling us they thought it was a girl.  Even my mom, who has guessed right on seven of seven of her previous grandchildren, was wrong.  She now claims she was right because she accidentally called him "he" one time instead of "it" or whatever. 

Here are a few more pictures from that short visit.

 Blake with his favorite treat- the Tippetts Family's famous fudge jumbles.  Blake likes them so much that we have him say "fudge jumbles" to get him to smile in a picture.

 Darling cousins.

 Football with the Yaks.