To Whom it May Concern...

Baby Aliyah decided to come to her family December 23rd at 12:27pm, weighing 6 lbs. and 13 oz., 18 inches long! We are pretty sure she is the most perfect baby ever born...ever. Here are some pictures of the last few days.

Checking into the hospital--my water broke a couple of hours before this...


The most wonderful experience right after she was born. I got to hold her for the first time...and it was just me, Dave and baby Aliyah


Our new little family


Baby Aliyah (we originally were going to spell it Aliah...but we think (and hope) we like it with a "y" better--Dave says it's for the Cougars!) How do you like all that hair and all those cheeks!


We came home Christmas Eve...a pretty good present under the tree!




Christmas Day


It definitely was not expected to have her come 9 days early, but we are SO glad that she is here and healthy. We LOVE her!

2 Weeks...

In a row that I'll have posted something...pat on the back for me right!? Oh and 2 weeks until baby is due...but who's counting?

Here are a few things that I am looking forward to post-pregnancy:
Slouching
Bending over
Doing sit-ups
Wearing normal clothes (and not constantly pulling on my shirts to make sure my belly is covered!)
Sleeping on my back
Not grunting to stand up


Here are things I will miss:
Feeling her move
Her hiccups
People staring at my belly while I walk around stores

I have enjoyed this blessing of being pregnant! But I'm look forward to having a baby in my arms and not in my belly! 2 weeks...maybe!

Some Updates...Kind of

So we are officially "full term." Yesterday we were 37 weeks and now I'm basically a ticking time bomb. My belly has continued to grow...thank goodness...and to put it in perspective here is my dad's comment, who I hadn't seen in almost 5 weeks (they are true empty nesters and leave when they can), of when he saw me: "Oh wow!" Thank you dad. The following pictures are within the past month and a half or so and also document the evolution of our nursery:

mid-October


beginning of November


beginning of December


It's been fun to prepare, but we are now on the home stretch and definitely have a few more things on our list to do! Good luck to us during this busy holiday season too!


In the past month we also celebrated our 3 year anniversary of our first date--cheesy huh? But I loved it. Plus we've been trying to take the advice of others and spend a lot of good quality time together before the baby comes. So we did dinner at Macaroni Grill and went to the Hale Center Theater to see the Scarlet Pimpernel. It was fun to reminisce and reinact our first date and the first three years of being together. Dave made the night very special and I love him for his thoughtfulness.



Well, let's be honest, the next post will probably be with baby...and she might be a year old by then too! Let's hope not, but until then...

I LOVE Fall

If anyone wants a fun fall tradition to start...go to The Red Barn in Santaquin. They have a hay ride, a little maze, pick your own pumpkin, AND the best part...apple cider doughnuts! SO, SO good. We went with some of the my family. Cute kids, fun times and delicious doughnuts.




Stake Flag football. Dave loves fall simply for all of the football. Yesterday he played flag football (2nd picture is of him throwing a touchdown pass) and we went to the BYU game to watch football. Thank goodness they finally won! We needed it.


AND I'm officially in the third trimester! 12 weeks to go.

(we just painted the "nursery"--how do you like it?!)

Scrabble

I want to best remember the moment in telling my parents we were expecting, so I thought I would share it on the blog.

My mom is a really, really big scrabble player. All growing up, whenever my mom and Grandma Downing would get together they would play scrabble what seemed to be all day long for two weeks straight. My mom is professional. So, Dave came up with the brilliant idea to announce our pregnancy to my parents through a game of scrabble.

For father's day we invited my parents over for dinner. We set up a scrabble game as though Dave and I were in the middle of the it when they came over. Dave spent about 10-15 minutes coming up with this:





We had it planned that when my parents came I would tell mom that she needed to help Dave because he was trying to put a word down that didn't work--"baby" in the lower right hand corner under "first." We knew that would get her looking at the board and try to come to his rescue.

We made sure to hide a camera so we could have the classic reaction we knew would come from my mom.


Then showtime. As soon as mom knew Dave was in need of her expertise she was ready to dive into the game. She laughed at Dave for trying to put "baby" at that place, because "ib" isn't a word. (note that the word Dave was trying to put down was BABY!!) She then went on to tell us that you can't put January down because it is a capital word. We asked, "so you can put mom and dad, right." That was fine. She was looking all over the board trying to find a different place for Dave to go--she even told him that he had horrible letters. Finally, I asked how are our other words. She looked around the board and said, "Oh, 'expecting' is a really good one." and kept looking. Finally, (she said it was when she read toddler that it clicked) she looked up suddenly and basically yelled to let us and my dad know, "You're going to have a baby...in January!!!!" It was such a classic moment. We couldn't have planned a better reaction.

I'm now 22 weeks along, but here I am at 18 weeks (I don't have the 20 or 22 week pictures on my computer!)

It has been fun to begin the fall going ons with Dave starting to teach again and beginning his Master's program and I am teaching at BYU and my sister's studio. Time will fly by and we are excited for the future!

Liars

Dave and I have been deceiving people in the blogging world for quite some time...do you remember this post http://thecardstricks.blogspot.com/2010/03/whoda-thunk_22.html (I'm not smart enough to link it). Although all documents were true and deserved there's been a bit of a change in plans. Some already know, so this might be anti-climatic, but here's the real scoop:

Dave will actually be attending the University of Utah (I can hear my brothers and mom squirm) to get his masters Instructional Design and Educational Technology. It has been a rollercoaster ride to get to this point, but we feel that it is perfect for Dave what he is doing and what he wants to go on doing. We're really excited despite his absence in the home!

As for me. Even though I had sent my letter of intent to attend the U...we just felt that two of us would show a betrayal...just kidding. Something more important came up! After a lot of prayers and hoping, we are finally expecting...a baby. No, really we are. I am 20 weeks along, due January first and we just found out that we will be having a baby girl. We are so excited and understand even more of how miraculous of a gift it is.

I will post pictures of such events at a later time...but for now these words of good news will have to do.

And that's 7 days of posting!

Conclusion of Our Trip

Continued from "yesterday," our trip really was wonderful. Along with seeing all the wonderful sights we spent a lot of time with this good couple.

A lot from this angle...

We laughed a lot in the car, cried a little ;), and talked. Dave and I have plenty of one liners from my parents that are pretty priceless--which were helped my dads hearing aids and my mom's guileless nature. In addition to the good times, Dave and I were able to see a lot more than we would have if we'd gone on our own. A wonderful blessing to have them with us.

A few of the days we were able to stay with family in Indiana. Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of people...just the important stuff--BOWLING. My mom's side of the family owns a bowling alley in Indiana so when we go visit we do A LOT of bowling. Dave bowled 5 games in a row one day. We very much enjoyed ourselves...especially when we were with my aunts and uncles and cousins!!

Great Form, right?


Dave's score


AND MY SCORE!!!! I beat my mom and had to document it. This was the first game we'd played and I never got close to that score again, but that moment was definitely a moment of glory.


Tomorrow's post...updating this month and more!