thanksgiving

we got to have thanksgiving dinner with kennedy this year. we were very excited to have her in utah. we celebrated wednesday night because that was the only night she was allowed to be with us. after stuffing our faces, we got everyone together for a group picture/video...

then mike got so excited/nervous that he pushed the pause button on the camera. but what he said was "on the count of three, everybody say cheese. 1...2....carly's pregnant!"

 

and here are the reactions we got:

 

 

then he realized he pushed pause and started recording again...

 

 and in case you can't hear, he said "oh, and there's more news...it's two."

 

so yes...we have more than ever to be thankful for this year! i am 17 weeks and due may 11, but will likely deliver in april, just a couple of weeks before we finish building our house. life is about to get really awesome around here.

 

while i am so excited i can hardly stand it, my heart hurts because i know some of you are praying for the same miracle. i'm praying for you too. i'm so sorry if this announcement brings pain or sadness. i've been there, and i don't think i'll soon forget what infertility feels like. you are not alone, and i know God will answer your prayer in His own time and His own way just as he has ours.

 

sun valley 2012

hard to believe the annual excursion to sun valley has already come and gone.

we look forward to this trip every year.

it's a family reunion of sorts mixed in with games, swimming, ice staking, eating, golfing, walking, shopping, late night chatting, biking, and making memories.

my grandparents are two of the most generous people i know, and i'm thankful that they make this trip possible.

birthday girl

the fam got together this weekend to celebrate paige's 14th birthday. while we were planning to go miniature golfing, the rain had other plans. no complaints here--the cooler air has been heavenly and has me so excited for fall. anyway. instead of golfing we stayed close to home which meant taking pictures of ourselves and jack, because really, is there anything cuter?

happy birthday paige!

 

 

saint george

we had a fun weekend away in st. george with my family.

highlights of the trip:

*driving through a smoky but beautiful sunset. it made me so sad to see the mountain burning.

*playing in the pool

*jack's swimming suit, sunglasses and adorable hat

*playing catch phrase. "what comes out of a milk's utter?" and "this is something you do in gym class..." were our favorite clues

*kennedy and paige trying on the most stylish one piece ensembles 

*farmer's market at tuacahn

*a smiling camel named jorge

*driving home with no a/c

it's awesome how a few days of vacation can send you home feeling like a completely different person. we are both feeling much better than we were when we left.

jack

i have a new nephew! baby jack made his debut january 17. he has a perfectly round face and squishy little nose. hard to believe that my little brother is a dad, but he will be a good one. jack is lucky to have such awesome parents! i sure love them.

"last christmas started this way, with me getting crapped on."

name that movie!

christmas didn't really start with me getting crapped on, but for some reason that hilarioius line keeps popping in my head.

christmas was actually really great again this year. i won't bore you with play-by-play details of how we spent the weekend, but i would like to say:

• new tradition: sleepover with the sisters on christmas eve eve.
• christmas should always be on a sunday. it really put the day in focus to start out by praising and worshipping God, thanking Him for the gift of His son, and contemplating the miracle of His birth and life.
• it took us until 1 pm on christmas day to finish eating/opening presents. i loved dragging it out.
• my mother is the best at giving thoughtful gifts.
• coco nearly shredded my little sister's bike tire because her ball got stuck behind it.
• i love when i get to spend full days with mike.
• i also love giving gifts and seeing the surprised/excited expressions on others' faces.
• just dance on the wii=hilarious. my dad playing just dance on the wii=no words.
• i suppose not having snow made for nice travelling weather, but what is up with this smog?

a few of my favorite photos from this december:

 



what it's like

this weekend was pretty great and typical for the weekends we enjoy as a family of two (plus a dog). maybe one day i'll have a hard time remembering what it was like with only two. for memories' sake, this is what it's like:

+weekend trips to logan

+coco taking up the whole back seat of the car and all her stuff filling up the trunk
+barbeques with the family wherein i can enjoy laughing, eating, playing with the other babies and only occasionally worry about keeping the dog away from the chickens

+waking up for church with plenty of time to spare and still showing up late. i am always late even though i only have myself to get ready

+staying up until 2 am watching prison break

+sleeping in until 10:30
+eating corn dogs and nachos for sunday dinner
+day trips to park city

+splurging on a new coat that i really didn't need

we did a little laboring over the weekend, too, and we have 20 pints of salsa to show for it. yay for being domestic!

on saying goodbye

i took a little road trip this weekend with my parents to drop kennedy off at college. we drove through herds of buffalo, deer, and a few grizzly bears to get to wyoming where she'll be playing basketball for the next couple of years.

it still makes me cry that she's living 8 hours away. gosh i'll miss the convenience of having her close! thankfully she plays a few games in UT and we have christmas to look forward to. i just have to keep reminding myself that november is not THAT far away.

i'm so proud of my little sister for chasing her dreams, for not taking the easy way out by going to school where it would be more convenient or easy. she set her mind to playing basketball and getting her schooling paid for and she made it happen. she reminds me that i should be more quick to do what i love rather than what's easy.

she left me a list of rules about borrowing the clothes she left in her closet. i really only have one rule for her: STAY AWAY from those wyoming cowboys unless they plan on making utah home.

reminded

i was reminded this thanksgiving in a very real way about what's most important to me and what i'm most grateful for. just after we finished our thanksgiving feast, my dad got a call that my grandma allen had passed away.

everything else about the holiday quickly became unimportant. two things mattered: my family and my loving savior, jesus christ, who designed families to last forever.

i am grateful we were all together as a family, and especially grateful that my sweet grandpa was with us, when we got the phone call. i am thankful to know that i will see my grandma again. i am thankful that she didn't suffer but passed away quietly and peacefully. i am thankful for the life she lived, for the children she raised, for the mother and wife she was. she has always been an example to me and especially recently, she has shown me what it means to happily endure to the end and make the most of your current situation. how lucky am i that she was part of my life for 24 years!

this is the first grandparent i've lost, and i will really, really miss her. i'll miss stopping at the nursing home to visit her. i'll miss her humor, her stubborn personality, her stories about packing up the kids and heading home to elko when their heat money ran out or when she just needed a hug from her mom, her to-do lists for my grandpa, and her sincere love and care for all those around her. i am sad that my kids will never know my grandma allen; she would have loved them. in the last few years, she often asked me where my kids were. hopefully she's hanging out with them right now and teaching them the important stuff, like how to knit, how to survive the cold cache valley winters, and how to make marriage last for 60 years. and i hope she'll give them a little encouragement and prodding to come here quickly!

mr + mrs

we began celebrating the wedding on tuesday night. after setting up orchids and picture frames as center pieces at the coppermill (tangent: and i didn't help do any of that because i was frantically hunting for red jewelry...thankfully a wonderful lady in smithfield makes and sells cheap and cute jewelry and she had red! august is a hard month to find anything red.) so after everyone else set things up at the coppermill, we were hoping to take leslie out for dinner and a movie while the boys went golfing. but we couldn't steal her away from everything she had going on, so my mom, didi, paige, and i had a bachelorette party sans the bachelorette.

didi and paige slept over tuesday night. it was a big party trying to get 3 girls and 1 boy ready wednesday morning. mike simply asked for 20 minutes in the bathroom to shave + shower. i am proud to report that he got what he wanted, but not a second more.

the spirit was so strong in the wedding ceremony. i think everyone left feeling uplifted. we were reminded how wonderful drew and leslie are, how much they are loved, and how much lies ahead for the two of them. i know the sealer wasn't talking to me, but as he told drew and leslie how loved they are, i felt the same way: i am loved. i am a child of god. i know this is true.

their reception was held outside and the weather couldn't have been better. it cooled off nicely and it didn't rain! i thoroughly enjoyed their reception- i got to catch up with many dear friends who came to support them. my feet were blistered and swollen by the end of the night, and we went home exhausted, but it was all worth it. it was a great day.

unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe....

BLONDE. although she looks like a misfit in our family (short, blonde, skinny little thing) we love this spunky lady. i am beyond thrilled to have her as my sister. the wedding was fabulous. photos coming soon.

oh what do you do in the summertime?

california

we are always looking for reasons to go to california. mike feels it's his second home since he served his mission there. my cousin ashley got married last weekend so we had the perfect excuse to go. it just so happened that one of my favorite bloggers, marta, was in attendance at the wedding. she is just as adorable and sweet as i imagined. i kept telling mike that i felt like i knew her, yet i had never met her before. i guess that's a sign of a great writer. i'm pretty sure i acted like a deer in the headlights when my cousin introduced us; i want to be like her when i grow up :) in addition to beach time and family time, mike and i went to an angels game to cheer for the opposing team, the a's. mike informed me that the next time we go to california, we should go to oakland so he can see them play on their home field. baseball is not my favorite sport, but it was a bit more exciting in real life :)
and the reason we went: ashley and peter. weddings make me cry. happy tears, of course, and this was no exception. they are darling. the wedding was exquisite: pink, tiffany blue, flowers, a big band, delicious dinner and hand-dipped ice cream bars for dessert, dancing and sparklers to end the evening.
and just for giggles, my cousin's adorable claire, who decided that she really wants to be a pole dancer when she grows up.

we hope it doesn't take 3 years to make it back again. thank you, california, for sending us home with color to our skin, less stress in our heads, and a skip to our step. you really rejuvinated us.

the graduate

he did it! i'm so proud of my hubby who is a first-generation college graduate. he has worked hard to get here. we tried to drag out the celebrations over a couple weekends. last weekend, amanda hosted a get together with all the kropfs and we were glad to have bethie and jacki there. last night, my parents treated us to dinner at maddox, and tonight we have one final shin dig to finish off the parties. way to go, mike. sure am proud of ya ;)

i probably should have prefaced my last post by saying that i honestly wasn't fishing for compliments. as i reread it, it sounds a bit like i was walking into a room saying "do you like my new shirt?! VALIDATE ME." anyway, thank you for your sweet words. i was simply trying to say that i think we all feel inadequate at times, and as several of you said in your comments, the challenge is to find ways to use our insecurities, imperfections, and inadequacies to become better rather than allowing them to make us despair.

i am hosting dinner for my family this sunday. my grandparents will be joining, and talk about nerves. you can't prepare enough for having the two most OCD women in the world over for dinner in one little, dirty house. at the same time. oy. and they are both excellent cooks; what do you cook for them? a trusty pioneer woman recipe, of course. she promises that drip beef means scrumptious. crowd pleasing. yummy. i made it once before and it was all of those things. don't fail me now, pioneer woman.

happy friday! image found here

there's something about a man named michael that makes my heart swoon.

both this one:

and this one:

i would gladly fork out $100 to see him in concert again. he puts on the best concert. he is so entertaining, humble (you can read more about that here), and his voice is amazing. my favorite may have been this song:

he made a comment that the hardest songs to hear/sing are often the ones that touch us the most. how true that is; music has a way of saying something that can't be said any other way. he closed the show by taking out his ear piece and singing the final song with no microphone- just him standing in the middle of the stage and belting it out. my mom, kennedy, and i had a grand time.

then and now

i'm searching through old photos for an upcoming relief society activity and feeling all sentimental after finding these cute and not so cute pictures. thankfully we've all come a long way since some of these were taken :)

family then....now....cousins then...

now.... puppy lovers then.... now....sisters then....now.... best friends then....now...