Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving. We are here in South Lake Tahoe, California enjoying the beautiful mountains, redwood trees, Lake Tahoe, Marriott Timber Lodge, and lots of good food. We got here Tuesday afternoon at about 3:30 and don't have to leave until Sunday!

So yesterday we went on a little hike and saw a bunch of trees and dead salmon. Yeah, that was kind of smelly. I guess a few weeks ago we could have seen a bunch of live salmon spawning, but now they're all dead...lovely. Anyway, and then we went up to a lookout of Emerald Bay. We were going to do a little hike there, but it was really cold, so we decided against that.

All the men carrying children:
(Papa with Lydia, Jeremy w/ Cooper, Jon with Ben, Jared with Lucy, and Josh with Catelyn)Emerald Bay lookout:Then we came back to the hotel and it was pie time. I made a whole lot of pie crusts yesterday. Jeremy's mom made an apple pie, Mimi made pumpkin, Becky did pecan, and I did blackberry. But I did all the crusts. It was fun though and the place smelled delicious! We're excited to try them all today. I was going to make a lemon meringue too, but we decided we had enough and we could make that on Friday. Here are the pies:
So today we're just getting ready for the feast! We all have our jobs and mine and Jeremy's is not until later so we're just having a nice relaxing morning. It sure is beautiful here and I will post more pictures later! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails....

....That's what little BOYS are made of!!!

Yes, we are having a boy. Only 8 people were right! (I was not one of them). But we are soooo excited! It's just nice to know, and to know that he's healthy. They checked for cleft palate, club foot, likelihood of Down's syndrome, and he doesn't have any of them. His heart rate was good and he even waved! (Well, he looked like he was waving anyway). So yea for boys! My sister just had a boy, so they'll be about 5 months apart; Jeremy's cousin is due in January with a boy (3 months apart) and Jeremy's other cousin is due just a couple days before us! They're still trying to decide if they want to find out. You should Robert and Melarie!

So here's pictures of the little guy's first photo session:

Nice profile picture; you can see his little nose and mouth!
Yep, it's definitely a boy. He wanted to pose and make sure we knew so his mommy would stop calling him she. Oops!
Another picture of his boy-ness. (Jeremy's proud of his little boy...ridiculous...men).
And another side shot. You can see his arm there on the side.
So we are so happy! They gave me a CD with 28 pictures on it. Pretty cool! They also moved my due date up one day. So, April 17th it is. At first she said the 15th, (they do it based on measurements) but she said one was a bad measurement, so she threw it out. So Friday is my half-way mark. Crazy!

We're so grateful and are so happy to have this little boy inside me. :) Thanks for reading!

Okay people, here it is

I'm finally giving into the requests and posting a "belly picture". I don't know why I've had such a hard time with this, but I am. I'm developing a complex. I keep wondering if I'm showing too much too soon, when I should be in maternity clothes, what other pregnant people look like at my exact stage, etc. I have to remind myself that every body is different and my baby is supposedly the size of a large mango now, so it's got to go somewhere. Still...it's weird to have your body changing. Jeremy is very sweet and tells me he loves my belly and still thinks I'm sexy even though I feel like a whale. :) Anyway, so here is the picture. I even wore a snug shirt so you'd really get the whole effect. I am coping better now, but it's still just strange to look down and see this large protrusion. I'll get used to it. :) (The look on my face pretty much sums up my feelings).

Babies

This week was a fun one. I went up to Boise on Monday to help my supermom sister Amy with her new baby (#4). It was so fun and her baby is sooo cute!!! It made me excited to have one of my one in 5 months. His name is Russell Kenneth Weaver and he was 8 pounds, 9 ounces, 22 inches long.
He's got a bunch of dark hair which is so fun. Her other two boys have very blonde hair, so this was fun to have something different.My mom was there part of the time too. Amy had the baby Thursday morning and my mom got there Thursday night and left Tuesday (the day after I got there) so we had a fun time visiting. Here's me and my mom and Amy (4 days after she had the baby, she looks great!).
And here's the other kids. This is Grant. He's 2 1/2 and is a lot of fun.
And Brenna (5) and Seth (7). Seth is in 2nd grade and Brenna is in kindergarten. It was fun helping them with their homework and reading and all of that elementary school stuff.
So it was a tiring trip but a fun one. It made me glad that I'm not getting 4 kids at once, but that they usually come one at a time. :) Russell is such a good baby and I'm praying for one like that! He hardly cries and sleeps for hours at a time. I know that's unusual though, so I better not get my hopes up.

Speaking of our baby....we felt he/she kick for the first time on Friday! Jeremy picked me up from the airport and we came home and were just relaxing on our bed and I definitely felt someone nudging me from the inside. So he put his hand there and sure enough, the baby kicked another 3 or 4 times. These were solid punches! That was really exciting. Then Saturday night we were at my sister's choir concert and the baby was kicking a whole bunch throughout the concert. Yea for music! We are pretty excited and are looking forward to finding out if it's a boy or girl!

14 days left to vote!

Two weeks from tomorrow is when we find out what we're having! And we'd love for you to cast your vote on what you think we're having. Don't be swayed by others or by my own guess of what we're having (some of you have heard). Go with your gut. :)

Whoa

Those were my words when I looked out the window this morning and saw this:

Yikes! And it's still coming down...

It's November!

It's been awhile since I've blogged, so I thought I'd give a quick update first of how we wrapped up October:

• Ripped up the last of our garden
• Dried a bunch of parsley
• Jeremy's been "Mr. Fix-it" lately, putting new weather stripping on the door, planning shelves for the garage, fixing our laundry closet door, etc.
• Went to the doctor for my 16-week check-up and heard the baby's heart beat again AND I scheduled my ultrasound appointment for November 24th - less than 3 weeks!!!
• Stayed home for Halloween and handed out candy to a bunch of cute trick-or-treaters
• Made yummy pumpkin chocolate chip nut muffins
• Started doing pre-natal yoga (I'm sore!)
• Told my boss I'm pregnant and she said I can work as long as I want until the baby comes - Yea!

Parsley:
Muffins:And...how we've started off November:

• Ward Trunk-or-Treat/Chili Cook-off on Saturday; afterward we had 3 couples over for games and fun
• Had Heidi up for a delicious dinner on Sunday, then went over to my grandparents for their monthly "family night" with the whole family (all my dad's siblings...except for him)
• Made a yummy pumpkin pie in honor of Heidi coming up (and I'd been really wanting pumpkin pie for awhile now)
• Made whole-wheat bread yesterday
• Jeremy's new "auto-clave" (I don't know if I'm spelling that right) showed up yesterday; it's their huge new machine and he's been working hard to get ready for it; it's in their parking lot right now but they're putting inside tomorrow!
  
• Had a good family night about food storage last night and made a shopping list to make sure we have at least our 3-month supply
• We both voted this morning!

Pumpkin pie half-eaten

So we've been doing really well. I've been feeling great lately besides being tired. The weather has been really rainy and stormy lately and the leaves are falling. It definitely feels like November!