Missing

Wow, another month and a half has gone by since my last post and I've been missing ever since. I still haven't found the cord for my camera, so no pictures, again. Maybe I'll give that job to Michael so that I can get some pictures up. First off, Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic day, we had a nice little Christmas here at home and have just been relaxing all day. I made an awesome lasagna for Christmas Eve dinner (I got a picture) and then we slept in until about 10 this morning, so nice to just lay in bed. I was too lazy to get the tree and everything else out of the attic, so I improvised and I think it is way cuter than a Christmas tree, I have a picture of that, too. We got some fun stuff and Michael wrapped ALL of my presents seperately, a lot were little things that probably just could have gone in my stocking (like a bottle of root beer or a little thing of chocolates) but I will give him major credit for wrapping it all. Now I am making a pork tenderloin for dinner and we might head out to see a movie, we'll see.
On another note, there are a lot of other things that I have been missing lately. Things like: sushi with raw fish, brushing my teeth without gagging, caffeine, lying on my back, lunchmeat, and lately I've missed being able to fit into my regular pants. Yes, you guessed it (or at least I hope you did after all those clues), I am growing another human being. 'It' should be out around June 2, just a couple more weeks and we'll have reached the halfway point! Michael and I found out at the end of September and it was quite a little shock, we weren't expecting it to happen so quickly and it still hasn't really sunk in yet but we are excited. I didn't have much morning sickness, I would feel a little queasy right after waking up but I only threw up a few times. Which is good because Michael kept telling me that I was 'faking' it, apparently it doesn't sound authentic enough when I gag. He's lucky I didn't barf on him. We finally told all our family today so now I can tell everyone else. It has been pretty easy to keep it a secret, I'm still really not showing all that much, thanks to the chub I was packing beforehand, but on the other hand, I have actually lost two pounds so far, so things could be worse. I go back to the doctor in a week so hopefully we'll set the appointment for the next ultrasound, it will be fun to see what 'it' looks like now compared to the first one we had when I was about 6.5 weeks. TMI but because of my crazy monthly cycles after coming off birth control we had no idea how far along I was so they did an ultrasound to get an accurate date, definitely awesome. We got to hear the heartbeat and everything, most people don't have an ultrasound that early so they have to wait until 10-12 weeks until they get to hear it. It was very surreal. However, like I said, it still hasn't really sunk in yet, since I am not showing and haven't felt it kick yet I'm still not quite sure there is anything in there. :) We have also decided that we aren't going to find out the sex of the baby until it's born, so we're doing it a little old school in that respect. We have also moved my computer and craft area out of the spare bedroom downstairs so that we can start working on the room. Of course, when we were working on the floors a couple months ago that was the only room we didn't finish. So there you have it, what we have really been up to lately. This blog is going to get a lot more interesting!

Really?

Four months, really? That is how long it has been since I last posted. I thought it was only a month or so ago. Oh well, we have been keeping busy around here. I was going to go through and update everything, but since it's been so long since I last posted I can't remember how to download pictures from my camera and I can't find the cord either. So hopefully this week I'll find the cord and remember how to get the pictures on here. Posts are no fun if there are no pictures. Some things to post about:

-My birthday, 27! Man, I'm getting old.

-House projects (mainly the floors)

-A new pet (that makes us a family of 9 now)

And probably lots of other stuff that will come to me eventually.

I am sad summer is gone and not looking forward to winter. Summer started late and ended early this year. I am getting excited for the holidays, though, I think this year is going to be a lot of fun. Although we didn't do anything for Halloween, didn't even put one decoration out. Michael worked and I went to dinner at Kaytes and when I got home I turned off all the lights and watched tv. The dogs bark like crazy anytime the doorbell rings or someone knocks and I just didn't want to deal with it. Maybe next year?

Oh, I am cooking our Thanksgiving "warm-up" meal tonight. Cooking a 15lb turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, rolls and some sparkling apple cider. Mmmm, why wait until Thanksgiving?

Our Hero

I have to brag for a minute about Michael. This past week he got to go to lunch in Portland with some other AT&T people. Why? Because he was #1 in his store for this past quarter! Pretty awesome for a guy who has only been with the company for 4 months. He was ranked #6 out of the entire Northwest. He even came home with this fancy certificate. The puppies (and I) are sure proud of him, keep it up honey!

Not only does he work hard at work, but he works hard at home too. Recently he called to tell me that our lawnmower had died. I wasn't too disappointed because it's an electric mower and I think it's stupid. But, I said check it over anyways to make sure it's not something small that we could fix, I would rather not spend a couple hundred dollars on a new mower. Well, we went and bought a new mower and here he is mowing the lawn. I only got a couple pictures before he noticed and started making obscene gestures (and in front of the dogs, too!).

Oh, and the electric lawnmower? It wasn't really broken, the outside outlets got tripped somehow soon after he started it up to mow the lawn. So much for taking a look at it to make sure it was really broken. Oh well, I still love him. We will just sell the electric one because have a gas mower is SO much better.

One room down...

We started putting the new floors in about a month ago and have just about finished the entire upstairs. Here are the before and afters of the guest room. We love how it is turning out.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

'New couches'

We got new couches about two years ago and when we moved into the new house last October I really wanted new couch cushions. For my birthday (or was it Christmas?) my mom said she would make new cushions, woo! The next time she was in town we made a trip to the store to pick out the fabric and all that good stuff. I love the new cushions and they look so much better with the paint we chose.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Picky eaters

Because Petree has his pancreatitis we have to feed him prescription food. Since we are too lazy to insitute a 'feeding time' and instead 'free feed' the dogs, everyone gets prescription food. It's low-fat. However, it's not all prescription food, we mix it half and half with regular food. I recently found some new stuff that is supposed to be really good food so we decided to try mixing it that in with the prescription food instead of the regular food we used to buy. Well, they love it. Love it so much that when we put a new bowl of food down they will go through and pick out the non-prescription food and eat that first. This is usually what it looks like shortly after a new bowl gets put down.
They pick out the 'good stuff' and set the other stuff nicely on the floor so that they can find more good stuff without having to dig so much through the bowl.

Wedding Surprise

I decided to send Michael a little present before the wedding so he would know just how excited I was. I think he loved it- I wish I could have seen his face when they delivered it. I picked the balloons out special for him. :)

The balloon on the left says "Love you something wild". I didn't think to take a picture of them until after I had sucked all the helium out.

Our Wedding Day...

I have done a ton of posts today and yesterday with a bunch of our wedding photos so make sure you keep scrolling down to see them all! I love all of our pictures, it was hard to decide which ones to post. Major thanks to my sister, Colleen, who did all of the pictures. Check out her website at http://www.colleendonovanphotography.com/, she's amazing!

We had so much fun on our wedding weekend, it was very busy but Michael and I had 6 days off together which I don't think has every happened before. The days before the wedding were spent picking up the tux, rings and food items. We rented an suv to make it easier to get everything from our house to the church and while we were at the airport to pick it up there were two fighter jets doing practice runs, it was amazing to watch, I will have to post those pictures, too. They gave us a brand new suburban, it was huge. While we were busy with last minute stuff we also had lots of time to just relax. We went to lunch, went to a nursery to look at trees we're considering planting and just spent time together. That night I went to the airport to pick up my good friend and my first college roomie, Sidney, she flew in from Michigan. It was so good to see her and she did an awesome job of keeping me sane for the next couple days! Friday morning we did get up early because we were doing our pictures with Colleen. We went to a lot of places around Bend and did the majority of our pictures. It was so fun and the weather was perfect. After that my mom, Kayte and I went to get pedicures, who doesn't like a foot massage? We were supposed to get into the church around 2pm in order to start decorating but due to some missed communication we didn't get into the church until about 8pm. It was a long night and I was so tired because we had gotten up really early that morning, but we got the church decorated and it looked great. We were very greatful to have all of the help that we did, even if Michael did make the comment "If your mother tells me to 'snap to' again, I'm going to snap something". Haha, let's just say everyone had a long day. :)

I had to planned to make the cake on Friday night but since we had the issue with the church I had to do it Saturday morning. At first it wasn't going the way I wanted it to and was having some problems with the fondant but once I got the bottom layer done the rest came together pretty easily. And with a few strategic flowers, you couldn't tell I had messed up in a couple places. After that we went back to the church for a bit to fill up all the candy jars for the favor table, deliver all the food and put the finishing touches on everything. Then it was time to get ready! We were doing all the family pictures before the ceremony so all of my and Michaels family met and headed to a really pretty park for those. Once all the family pictures were done Colleen took some more of just Michael and I. We even found a snake to take pictures with, but it peed all over Colleen so we let it go. Ha! At one point Colleen had me go back into this little field area with a bunch of trees, it had been raining off and on the past few days so the ground was pretty wet. Well, when I walked out, I looked at the train of my dress and it was covered in mud spots, big ones! I think Colleen had a little panic attack, haha! We headed back to the church where Colleen and Kayte washed the back of my dress in the bathroom sink, all of the mud came out so it looked great for the ceremony. The ceremony was perfect, short and sweet. Our bishop hadn't done many weddings so I think he was a little nervous. Once I walked up to the aisle and Chad handed me off (I'm sure that was the highlight of his life! :) ), usually they would tell everyone to be seated. But the bishop forgot, so everyone stood for the entire ceremony, good thing it was short! We had so much fun at the reception, we were able to see some people that we hadn't seen for a long time and it was so fun to celebrate with all of our close friends and family. After the wedding we helped clean up and headed home, it had been a long day! The rest of our days off were spent just relaxing and hanging out with our puppies, who had been feeling neglected for the few days before. :) This picture is towards the end of the reception, it had started raining outside (which is good luck!) and there was a rainbow. How romantic...

More wedding pictures.

Buddy Love

My little brother, Bud, is in the Navy and got sent to Guam a few weeks before the wedding. We didn't think he'd be able to make it because of this but he kept popping up everywhere at the wedding, we were so glad to see him!

Nice dress, Bud!

reception fun

Reception/ceremony location and set-up

Not bad for not getting into the church until about 8pm the night before the wedding! It was a long night but I love the way it turned out.

Food!

Favor Table

Yeah, the bags were made before Michael decided to change his name, and I wasn't about to go back and re-do them all. :)

For favors we decided to do a candy buffet, I think everyone really liked it. :)

Cake

I made the cake myself, the bottom two layers are actually styrofoam and the top is real cake, turned out pretty good for my first time, I thought so, anyways!