Maternity Pics

One of my good friends I met while we were living down in Houston, TX recently started doing photography so I had her snap some pics of us.  I love how they turned out and it was so fun doing it!  Thank you Bug!!!  This is me at 35 weeks.  

Crafts Galore!

So when I am not cooking, cleaning, or nannying, I spend my time crafting and working on projects.  I figure I will probably never get this free time ever again so I might as well enjoy it right?  Well here are some of my favorite projects as of late.

Halloween Wreath

Fall Wreath

Copycat from Potterybarn

Paisley will be so cute!

More Hair accessories 

Had to make something to hold all her headbands and clips, but I didn't want to display it so this hides perfectly behind the door

Painted my old mirror, looks way better!

Jewelry holder

Welcome to Idaho!

We finally have internet!!!  I have felt so lost without it this last week.  Well, we have officially moved to Nampa, Idaho, just West of Boise.  Chris is still getting into the swing of things at H&R Block and is  now the Assistant District Manager over 16 offices.  Luckily, this is still just a learning experience so we will be back next May.  We are all settled and I am currently on the lookout for a job.  I had to quit my two jobs back home that I absolutely loved!  I have worked as a Hygiene Assistant at Lexington Heights Dental and a coach for Celtic Storm Soccer Club for the last 3 years and loved every minute of both jobs!  I was so sad to leave but I am so excited for the next stage of life and our little girl to get here!  Here are some pics of our new apartment:

Our lovely kitchen, living and dining room- feels like home!

The bedroom, 2 bathrooms, the office/soon to be baby girl's room, and the awesome view from our balcony!

1.6.13

We were so excited when we found out that our first baby is coming January 6th!  I was so nervous to take a pregnancy test that I waited almost a full week and finally took it on on May 3rd and it was definitely positive!!! 

We have had multiple ultrasounds already because of my history, but so far everything seems to be okay!  This ultrasound is from mid June, but you can see it's little head and body!  It is so cute!  We find out on Friday what it is so I will have to post again!  What do you all think???  Boy or Girl???

Our Jackson Experience...

For those of you who don't know, we moved up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in January so Chris could manage the H&R Block office up there.  Although it was only temporary, we had a lot of fun and were able to do some fun things while we were up there!  

Chris' parents and 2 of his younger siblings came up and spent a weekend with us.  We ended up having quite the adventure!  We first went to the elk refuge and took a sleigh ride out and learned about them.  There are thousands that come every winter.  We also decided to rent some snowmobiles and go snowmobiling on Saturday.  It turned out to be the worst day ever!  It was so snowy, windy and cold but we decided to go anyways!  We went out to Togwotee Pass which is about an hour outside of Jackson.  You have to drive through snow fields and with the wind it literally creates a white out on the roads and you can't even see 2 feet in front of you!  There was no way to turn around so we continued on and went snowmobiling.  It was cold but fun.  Once we were done, we loaded back up and headed back to Jackson.  At Moran Junction, there were tons of cars lined up waiting to turn towards Jackson.  They had closed the road and we waited for over 4 hours before they finally decided they wouldn't open the road that night and tried to figure out sleeping/food arrangements for all the stranded people.  The owners of the Signal Mountain Lodge were very generous and opened up their Summer Lodge to all of us and even cooked dinner.  Most everyone slept in the foyer but we decided to make our own private arrangements in the laundry room.  We spent the night there and they opened the road early Sunday morning, just in time for us to make it back for our talks at church.

We had tons of other visitors while up there.  Our friends Sean and Ariel came and stayed, my sisters all came, and my parents.  When Sean and Ariel came we went to dinner at the famous Million Dollar Cowboy Bar and saw the movie "The Vow".

Melissa, David, and Sharissa came up St. Patrick's Day and we went to the Pond Skim at the Snow King Resort.  Basically everyone tries to get enough speed to get all the way across the pond without getting wet.  There were a couple of young kids who were really good!  People started getting more drunk and try more crazy things ha!  People went down on tubes, snowboards, waterskis and tried doing all sorts of flips and spins.  And yes, there were girls in bikinis.   

Our last weekend up in Jackson together, they had the snowmobile hill climb.  It is a huge snowmobile competition where people come from all over to compete by getting to the top of the mountain the quickest.  It was such a warm day, they were basically going up in mud.  There were a couple good wrecks where you could see the sleds tumbling down the mountain.  It was totally redneck and absolutely hilarious to see some of the people there.  We sat and watched for a while and once we got home, Chris had fried his face!  

Girl's Trip

Back in January, the Fab 4 went on a girl's trip to Vegas for the Celine Dion concert!  It was a quick trip but we had a blast.  It has been too long since we have all been together.  There was a lot of singing at the top of our lungs, a lot of shopping, and a lot of laughing!  Celine was AMAZING, of course!  She sounds even better live than on her CD's.  She was so entertaining and is not only a talented singer, but is also such a nice person as well.  She really is such a genuine person and cares about others.  We sat clear up at the very top of the colosseum but we still had a great view!  Here are a few pics from our adventure: 

Life Lately...

Sooooo much has gone on over the last couple of months I don't even know where to start!  Well... for starters, Christmas was awesome and we had so much fun that we didn't take any pictures!!!  The good news is that we got a new camera for Christmas so we can now take hundreds of pictures!  So the latest and greatest in the life of Chris and Jen, WE MOVED!  It is temporary, but we are currently living in Jackson, Wyoming for the next 3 months!  Chris got the opportunity to manage an H&R Block office up here so we put life on hold and headed up here for our next great adventure!  So far it has been really good,  we actually get to work together which is tons of fun.  I work at the front desk answering phones while Chris is preparing tax returns.  I just got here this week so we haven't really been able to explore and see what there is to do up here, but we love this little town and are excited.  The bad news is that we were over a half hour late to work yesterday because of two fresh feet of snow!  We are probably the only people up here who don't have a 4-wheel drive car or snow tires.  I was very sad to have to put our lives back home on hold, I love my jobs and miss my family but it will be good for us to be on our own for a while. 

Chris digging out our car with our window scrapper

In the midst of this big change, we have been struggling with some health scares.  We don't know everything yet but the doctors think that Chris has a hole in his heart.  It has been very scary going through all these different tests and things but we had to put all that on hold as well to come up here so we don't have any definite answers yet.  Not only has Chris been having some scares, but one morning right before Christmas I actually had a seizure out of the blue.  We ended up spending my mom's birthday in the ER, all of my test results came back completely normal, but I literally scared Chris to death.  Although everything seems to be alright, I am not allowed to drive for the next 3 months which is the worst part!  Through all this, we have learned to be very grateful and rely on the Lord.  We know that everything happens for a reason and I know the Lord is only trying to teach us and help us grow.  We are so excited to get away for the next couple months and spend some time alone without the stresses of life.  That being said, we have plenty of room and would love to have visitors!  It is such a beautiful town up here and there is actually SNOW!

Chris hooked up to all these heart monitors, running on a treadmill 

Me in the ER (I was completely out of it obviously!)