It's a boy!

If you haven't heard, we had our ultrasound on Monday. We both thought of this song because our doctor said almost exactly what it says in the lyrics. Landon listened to it about 10 times afterwards, along with lots of Daddy songs. The nurse commented how he couldn't stop grinning once we heard it was a boy.

The ultrasound was fun, I will post a picture once we get to washington. The baby was loving the camera attention--waving when she took pictures of his hands, kicking and crossing his legs, and even moving his mouth when she checked his lip so that it looked like he was blowing kisses. Both ultrasounds so far they have told us he's an active one! Landon is convinced he was flexing for the camera--like father like son, I guess. But everything looks healthy and normal!

Ticking Off

It's official.  Landon and I have decided that whoever does this pregnancy ticker (above) really doesn't know their fruits very well.  Since when is a peach sized somewhere between a lime and a lemon?! They definitely don't get their peaches from Washington.  And really, avocado tells me nothing about size because you could be talking about the small ones in the stores, or the large ones, or the gargantuan ones in Hawaii.  There's like a 3 inch difference.  I will just say, I don't know how much I can trust the ticker these days.

Rough Week

First, our co-ed volleyball team of siblings and cousins made it to the championships.  (I, of course, could not do much jumping, so I was the setter).  The semi-finals were a close, and hard battle, but we made it!  With a team name of "The Cherry-Pickers", our huddles included motivational talk about the cannery, and other farm metaphors.  Then, on Thursday, we had to duke it out with the final match.  We won the first game, but faltered a little on the second and had to go into a third.  Sadly, we ended up losing by two points.  It was a heartbreaker.  But it was fun, and we represented pretty well. Landon was pretty bummed that he did not get a T-shirt.

Second, while sitting on the couch I noticed our tree sagging a little to one side.  It makes sense, I guess--we put all of the ornaments and decorations on the front.  But I figured it would be fine. Poor Landon walked up later and the tree attacked him.  Well, it started tipping over, but with his cat-like reflexes he caught it, and we were able to get it back up.  Yet, it still seems to lean a little.

Third, while I was driving over to the grocery store (about 100 yards away), I suddenly heard some funny noise every time the tire rotated.  I realized that my tire was going flat.  Luckily I was close enough to walk back home and get Landon to help me, but he definitely had to change the tire in the cold.  I told him he won the "hero of the day" award, if that was any consolation.

It's been a rough week!

Just to give you an idea...

So, I already wrote about Thanksgiving and moved onto Christmas, but I just got these great pictures from Tami, and thought you might enjoy them.

Tami took advantage of my need for an apron and forced me to wear the husky one.
This was probably in retaliation to Landon purposely planning to wear all BYU shirts
while at her house to help her kids "see the light" :)

Michael, in his eternal quest to pick Mom up.  She found a way
to hold him back, for a moment or two...

The beautiful setup

The fam--minus Chris and Lisa, and Dad was taking the picture.

 I said in our last blog that we were engaged in some warfare during the break.  I'm not sure if you know how serious I was...Here are some lessons I learned for survival:

1. Watch out for snipers.  They could be anywhere.

2.  Get yourself some kind of barricade or hiding place.  You will last much longer.

3.  There is no mercy while reloading.  You can still be shot at point blank range.

 4. It's all about the intimidation faces and sound effects.

5.  Never get caught between the uncles.  The side route is much more effective.

Catching up

So, I have put off posting lately because I couldn't find our camera, and what's a post without pictures?! But I have resigned to the fact that the camera is lost for the immediate future, so I will attempt to catch up without it. 

We went to Las Vegas last month to see Michael and Anita.  Since Landon had never been, we figured this was the best time to go while we had someone to stay with :) It was a quick trip, but we crammed as much entertainment in as we could.  Landon especially liked the Shark Reef, which was one of the only things we paid for, along with the amazing goodness from the Ghirardelli place.  Most of the time we were at the free attractions, and we even had free tickets to the comedy magic show--Thanks Michael and Anita! For pictures and details, I will refer you to Anita's Vegas Blog, since it's so masterfully written.  It was a fun surprise to see the Toblers at church!! I love that family. 

We were also able to go home for Thanksgiving! There seemed to be an intense amount of driving during the weekend, but it was worth it. Landon spent lots of time in the middle of nerf gun warfare with the nephews.  I was enlisted as a dragon, a tiger, and a target--depending on how many other people were involved.  Angie and I made pies again this year--which means a lot of loopy laughter. I don't know what it is about making pies, but Angie and I crack up every time. We enlisted Mom, Lindee and Landon to help with the fillings, so it went pretty quickly.  The dinner was beautiful, thanks to Tami's preparations and everyone's cooking. It was great to spend time with everyone again. I realized it had been almost a year since we saw the Cutler family!!

On Friday we headed over to the Rowley cabin and enjoyed some snow-shoing, and I watched as Landon went sledding and snowmobiling. All the kids definitely got our groove on with the Wii dance game, which never ceases to amuse me.  We were even able to watch Brent's football team win the semi-finals (and they have since won state!). It was a fun trip!

Now we are getting into the holiday gear for Christmas.  We had to buy a tree this year, which is ridiculously expensive.  Guess who we ran into at the tree lot!!

Tow Mater!

After some disagreements on how the lights and ornaments should go, we finally got it all up and decorated! 

And here is me and my belly, at 16.5 weeks!  I had a picture at 12 for comparison, but that was lost with the camera.  I'm sure you can kinda remember how I was before, right :)  All of our tests so far have come out great, so this baby is healthy so far. 

Cravings

I always thought that cravings while pregnant were a myth.  But I definitely am "one of those women" who gets them.  So far the biggest one has been boiled eggs. In any form, really. I have had several egg salad sandwiches lately, and a couple of just boiled eggs mixed with butter and salt. Apparently I need more protein or something. Landon is totally perplexed by it. "You haven't eaten a boiled egg in over a year of marriage, and now all of a sudden that's all you want?" he asks. Aside from that, pickles have suddenly been very appealing, as well as pizza (I'm not sure that one's unusual, just more extreme).  And somehow sweets like chocolate, to which I'm usually an addict, don't really call to me. Well, I should clarify...not quite as much, but I still splurge more than I should.

Halloween!

I know this is a little late, but I have to post the pictures :) So this is the last of our Halloween posts.  On Saturday our ward had a Skeleton Bowl (Kinda like a turkey bowl, but for halloween).  It was a football game between our Elder's quorum and another ward's, and they had to dress up.  Our team was the scalawags, (or pirates).  I was impressed--they went all out with wigs and costumes.  We definitely won, which was good because the team organizer already made us shirts saying "skeleton bowl champions", ha. The whole thing was pretty entertaining to watch.  Landon won the MVP of the game.  I feel cool by association :) He even got a sweet trophy!

You can click to see some of the costumes.

The Skeleton  Bowl MVP trophy

The MVP himself. Arrrrrgh!

For the ward party, Landon dressed up as Wolverine.  I thought it turned out pretty good--especially since he's been letting his hair grow for weeks.  Our only regret was that he had to shave for the intramural game earlier that day, so he couldn't have the beard.  Since I helped Landon get his two costumes together, I didn't seem to have time to find one of my own.  But it was fun watching him, anyway.

On Halloween night we carved some pumpkins. Landon did a pretty impressive pillsbury doughboy and I did a haunted house. We were excited to be in a complex with children this year, but it turned out we only got two teenaged trick-or-treaters. Slightly disappointing. So we have lots of candy sitting around--it's a good thing I'm allowed to gain weight right now, ha.

In other exciting news, we went in for our 11 week appointment a while ago.  They were supposed to let us hear the baby's heartbeat, but it turned out they couldn't find it. So they took us in for an ultrasound.  Everything is great. The doctor said the baby was just moving around so much, he couldn't seem to catch it on the Doppler device. It's true, the baby was doing flips and moving all over the place on the ultrasound. But it looks like a healthy little alien right now, which I'm told is all normal :) Plus, my nausea has greatly subsided, so things are good!

Masquerade

I have been singing the song from Phantom of the Opera all weekend. Not because I have heard the song lately, but because I went to my first masquerade ball, so I sang it for fun and it got stuck in my head. But yes, we went to a masquerade ball put on for charity last Thursday.  It was a fun reason to dress up, and we got to wear those fun masks. Landon didn't love his because it greatly limited his field of vision, but sometimes you just have to sacrifice.  We decided on our way to the dance that we needed to eat first, and drove up to the Burger King window with our masks on.  It was great to watch the guy try to hold it in, while the girls behind him were laughing.

I just threw this one in cause Landon's face makes me laugh.

Anyways, we saw David and Becky, and Whitney was there with friends. Landon always comes up with some crazy dance moves, so that keeps things exciting.  I think my favorite quote of the night was while we were sitting down and eating cupcakes.  David turned to me and said, "I think my dancing embarrasses Becky," ha. I told him she'll just have to teach him, like I've been doing with Landon. We have lots of dance parties at our house to practice.  I must admit, there has been improvement. We have a good time, which is the important part, right?  Anita and I have discussed this several times.  Honestly, I think it all has to do with how confident you are when you pull off your moves. There are plenty of people out there who aren't really on beat and look ridiculous, but nobody notices because they do it with such confidence. So our goal is always to dance with flare!

Hayride!

Landon and I decided it would only be fitting for us to make a visit to the Rowley Red Barn this fall. It is owned by cousins of Landon's Dad, and the farms are where Mike grew up.  Plus, we heard they have hayrides and fresh apple cider donuts, so really, that's all we needed.   We packed up in the car and drove the half hour to Santequin--which seems to be a sketchy town in my opinion.  I've only been there three times, and every time I run into same-sex couples, and Landon tells me there are polygamists down there.  But that's besides the point.

We went inside and looked around to find that it is a lot like "The Country Mercantile" at home.  They have some delicious ice cream, and the aforementioned donuts.  I think we were the only ones who watched the whole video playing about how they make their cider, complete with commentary from Landon about what was different from the farm at home. We talked about wanting the apple butter and cherry salsa, but we're too cheap to actually buy any. And then we headed outside to the hayride.

I'm not sure you appreciate how excited I was for the hayride.  I have never been on one, you see. And you can't get to adulthood without having experienced a hayride, in my opinion.  I was a little let down when it came and there was no actual hay--they were too high class and had actual benches instead.  Landon, being allergic, was perfectly happy with that trade.  But on the way back we got in the wagon with the hay, so I was satisfied.  When our tractor driver was a little delayed, I had to hold Landon back from hopping on and taking over.  We got to pick our pumpkins, went through a maze made out of apple bins, and took some fun pictures.   Landon even got to meet a couple of the relatives.  All in all, I would say it was a fun day.

Landon was just sure this was one of Grandpa Rowley's trucks.

Not sure what these faces are about, but I'm pretty sure they have
something to do with ghosts.

Edible Art is the Best Kind!

 One of my coworkers, Brian, was nice enough to invite Landon and I over for dinner last week.  He is from Peru (born in Puno where Chris served), so he made us an authentic dish, which was fun. Afterwards, we brought dessert.  Since he has a little boy named Ethan, we thought it could be fun to decorate cupcakes for Halloween.  It's amazing what you can do with the right colors of sugar :) Brian made a cyclops, and it must have been good because he ate it too fast for anyone to get a picture.

Ethan was pretty intense while making his scary monsters.

Landon holding baby Gabriel so Brian could do a cupcake.

Brian's wife Valerie

Relief Society Activity

Gotta love Relief Society.  They are the only reason I have any decorations in my house for holidays other than Christmas (because those are a necessity, of course). We had a fun activity the other day where we dipped leaves in wax and threaded them to make garland for fall.  Then we painted pumpkins, and made a leaf-covered candle holder.  I have decided modge podge is one of the greatest inventions ever.  Relief Society uses it for pretty much every craft these days.  Anyways, it was pretty fun and inexpensive--just pick up some colorful leaves from outside. I was happy with the result :)

Weekend with the Fam

Uncle Landon showing Darwin the remote control car

  We were so excited to have Michael and Anita come visit us this weekend!! They are doing a short rotation in Cedar City, and Michael had a couple of days off so they came up to see a football game and hang out.  We got to go out to lunch on Saturday.  We ate J-dawgs for old times sake, and then got some more at Zuppa's to top us off. Both Landon and Michael call it "rabbit food", but I thought it was great!  We fit in some swinging with Darwin, and softball to enjoy the weather outside.  Michael had some great barehanded moves that kept us all laughing.  Like usual, getting a little too close to hitting a car made us decide to do something else.

Playin the guitar.  He seems to like bar cords...

Can you tell how delicious these floats were by the mustaches?

Covering his ears for the cannon. He didn't seem too
phased by the noise as much as people grabbing his head.

The football game was awesome.  Just like old times--Michael yelling crazy things in his emotional fan voice, Anita and I trying to growl like a cougar, with the addition of Landon's frustration at stupid plays and refs.  All that along with a winning game--Great combination. We ended up in some pretty awesome seats.  But we were also right next to the cannon, so we had to be on the ball and make sure we covered little Darwin's ears every time we scored.  Darwin was a champ.  He only whimpered a few times when the crowd went in uproar, and the rest of the time he was just chilling and smiley--even slightly after bedtime :)  Landon was supposed to be able to fire off the cannon, but it turned out they didn't score enough to make it to his turn.  Bummer.

Go Cougs!

On Sunday we got to visit Grandma, and she finally got to meet little Darwin.  As always, he won her over in seconds.

When we got home, we may or may not have ventured to make another music video--bringing back the old D Thugs N Harmony, ha, and adding Landon to the group.  I'm pretty sure I was laughing most of the time.  It was a hilarious workout.  These were the pics for our CD cover :)

Sadly they had to leave Monday morning. Poor Landon had to get up early to finish a paper (since we didn't give him any time before), and Michael had to work a 12 hour shift today with less than 8 hours of sleep.  But we had a blast!