Semi-Annual Bloggers Category

Semi-Annual Bloggers. Ha ha. That's what cousin Carma calls it when your blog entries start appearing only twice a year... and apparently I have fallen into that category. So much has happened in the last few months!!!

We are gearing up for a new baby, I'm starting a new job (teaching preschool), we've spent some awesome time with family this summer, and Lincoln is getting cuter every day.

Check out all the new posts & pictures below.

Family Reunion

Our annual Douglas reunion was up in Oak City, which is just outside of Delta. It's a really lovely campsite that we used a few years ago - lots of trees, flushing toilets, and a pavilion for all our meals. It ended up being pretty dang cold, but it was a ton of fun to spend time with everyone!

Here are a few things we did:

The campsite was filled with grass and trees and a river,
so we (or rather, Lincoln) did a lot of exploring.

We went on a lot of walks.

We went four-wheeling.

We explored lava tubes.



We went swimming at the county pool.



Lincoln fell in LOVE with Parker's trike.
Looks like we know what to get him for Christmas!

Summer Fun

Summer has been fun this year. It's warm, but not sweltering like Hurricane/St. George so we have been able to actually spend time in the great outdoors. Here are a few things we've been up to:

Eating ice cream. Oh yeah!

Playing at the park with cousins.

Eating fruit snacks and going swimming...


Well, sort of. Lincoln was a little afraid of the water. :)


Playing in the sandbox with friends & cousins.


Making messes! Lincoln loves to drive his cars in "snow" (a.k.a. shaving cream).


Running through the sprinklers.


Just being cute!

Down on the Farm

Back before I became a complete behemoth and refused to travel, we made a quick jaunt up to Richard & Karen's farm. We have been meaning to take Lincoln there forever and he just loved seeing all the animals and riding in the big tractor. His favorite sport was chasing some little ducklings around the yard. It was so funny!

Lincoln sitting in the tractor tire... so happy!

Sitting with mom by some hay bales.

Driving the tractor with his daddy.

It didn't take very long for Lincoln to find the truck toys.

New Baby

We went through IVF again in February and found out in March that we were expecting a new little miracle. Going through that process again was exhausting and terrifying, but of course it was worth it. We are thrilled to be adding to our family!

In July we found out that we are expecting a little girl and we couldn't be happier. She's quite the little spitfire - super active and obstinate during every ultrasound... the techs always comment that she is incredibly hard to get images of because she won't sit still. This is quite the opposite of how Lincoln was so it will be fun to see how this spunky lady acts on the outside.

It's been a mostly uneventful pregnancy, but I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and have had to adopt a special diet plan and test my blood glucose daily. Ironically, this means I have been unable to put on any weight so I am also trying to choke down some high-protein/high-caloric beverages as per my doctors instruction. It's been an interesting journey! I'm officially 30 weeks along now and we've just got a couple of months to go.

Nate is thrilled that I've started nesting and having mad urges to scrub down the baseboards with an old toothbrush and re-organize our linen closet. I'm just gonna go with it because I know I won't be feeling this kind of motivation once Miss Douglas arrives! :)

Here are the latest pictures of our gal:

Profile shot - that's her foot up there by her face. She's very limber!

The tech had a hard time getting a good image here, but our gal was making
all kinds of funny faces and it looks like she is trying to smile here.

Easter

The Monday before Easter had F.H.E. with Melanie & Ryan and dyed eggs with the kids. It was fun, though Lincoln & Trace needed quite a bit of encouragement and assistance! Trace refused to use a spoon to move his eggs in & out of the dye and you'll notice one of his hands ended up a nice bright pink.


We went to a community egg hunt at the city offices and had a great time... it was all about the kids having a good time and I didn't see a single cutthroat parent playing "My kids can get more eggs than yours can" like our unfortunate experience last year. Lincoln was still a little iffy on the procedure of an egg hunt - he wanted to sit down and play with each egg rather than getting more. He did a great job and got to meet the Easter Bunny to boot!


Saturday afternoon we had the Thayer clan over for an Easter lunch which was very yummy and then we spent time with the Douglas clan on Sunday - Lincoln opened his Easter basket there and we had another egg hunt with the cousins. He had really got the hang of it by that time!


Good food, good friends, good times!!!

Happy Birthday to Dad!

My dad turned 60 on Feb. 26th and we were able to throw him a semi-surprise party at The Painted Pony restaurant in St. George. I say semi-surprise because my mom can't lie to SAVE HER LIFE (but only because she's so pure of heart)... he totally knew there was something going on!

The food was delicious, of course, as well as beautiful. We left all the little ones with babysitters and we were all able to relax and have a nice dinner without food ending up on the walls or floor! It was wonderful!

The birthday boy
(Sorry for the eating shot mom! This was the only smile shot of Dad I could find)

The beautiful presentation
(and Nate claims it's the best meal he's ever had)

It's so nice to have a night out!
(and everything was so lovely... the restaurant, the food, and the company!)

So what was Lincoln doing while we were gone?
Learning to break dance of course!
(I just wish I had a better shot - they were so funny!)

New year, New look

So I finally got caught up on my blogging and decided it was time for a new background & design. What do you think? I love the picture of Lincoln in the header... he was finally all warmed up and giggling his little heart out while Nate tickled him. The pictures are all from our family photo shoot in November by Abbey Khyl, whose photography is both affordable & gorgeous! We used one of her pictures on our Christmas card & I don't doubt we'll use her mad skills again when that time of year rolls around again.

Here are a few others I love (and sorry if they are a little grainy - I had to compress the heck out of them to get them to load on my slow computer):

Happy Dirtbeats!

Lincoln is 2!! His birthday was the day after we closed on the house and was much more low-key than last year because we were up to our eyeballs in wallpaper remover. We took him out to McDonald's for his favorite meal (chicken nuggets & apple slices) and let him play in the playplace for as long as he wanted.

We had a few people over for cake a couple of weeks after we moved in and I managed to make Lincoln a passable tractor cake though the majority of my cake decorating stuff was still packed up. I wouldn't say I was pleased with it, but Lincoln thought it was grand and that's all that mattered. His big present from Nate & I was a little rug with roads on it to drive all his little cars. He loved it!

We are just so incredibly lucky to have this little guy in our lives. He is sweet and loving and SO funny. Happy Dirtbeats Link-meister! (For those that haven't heard him, "dirtbeats" is how LJ pronounces "birthday")

The cake

Yum! The best part was driving his tractor through his cake...

Playing with his new rug

Say "ESCROW"!!!!

Our Moving Mess!

After waiting 4+ months, we had the best Christmas present ever in getting a closing date for our new home. We signed the papers on January 8th and moved in on the 16th. We couldn't believe the welcome we received as Elder's Quorum members, neighbors, and family poured in to help us out... I'm sure we had over 10 big, strapping guys to do heavy lifting.

We actually had the unlikely problem of not having enough big, heavy items to keep the mensfolk satisfied. Just try & direct them to a box labeled towels and they'd roll thier eyes like "Puh-lease! Give me a real challenge lady!" I think a fistfight almost broke out over who got to move the last bookcase...

Anyway, we are in the house and loving it! The luxury of having a REAL closet is almost beyond comprehension and the novelty of having a FULL bath (not to mention more than 1) won't be wearing off soon.

Seriously, the ward & neighborhood are the most welcoming and friendly we've ever been in, though they didn't waste any time in getting us callings! Nate & I were set apart yesterday to be Sunday School teachers for the 14-18 year old class (which happens to have 18 (yes, 18) students in it and we were asked to speak in Sacrament meeting on Valentine's day. We're a little nervous about Sunday School, because of size and other special challenges, but it will be fun serving together and we have some great ideas to get everyone involved and excited.

The infamous "handprint" room... that's the second coat of
some ultra expensive primer going up. Yikes!!!

The lattice coming down.
(so it wasn't the first thing I did after all, but we're quite happy with the results)

Wallpaper removal mess.

We even conned some family into helping.