A lot can happen in eight months

 Like my whole body for instance.  Here is my pregnant 8mo picture for all those who were desiring to see.  I don't really like this picture but I figure I'm too lazy to try for another one.  It's like what you see is what you get and here I am, large and in-charge... well sorta.  It's a little crazy that I only have a month left.  I am also proud to say that I have packed our hospital bag and we are ready.  My hair has been changing color (which is weird).  Maybe I'll try for a more glamorous picture after I get a haircut.

Yesterday I went through some of our pictures on the computer I suddenly saw old me.  Whoa!  What a shocker!  I forgot what old me was like. This is just a random picture when I spent 3 hours and plenty of blood sweat and tears to do my hair fancy. I put a lot of loops and bobby pins in it with a cool weaving pattern but it just ended up looking like a 5 min side-pony. I was mildly frustrated but we took a picture to document the effort anyway.  It's crazy that this picture is less than a year old, I look so much different, and now I feel like I have one of those flesh eating beetles moving around in my abdomen from the Mummy (but a very cute flesh eating beetle fyi.)  

And speaking of The Cuteness, I found a little lump the other day that kept on poking and prodding me so I took my fingers and slid the lump over a few inches.  It moved it back, and i slid it over again.  This continued repeatedly until she completely hid from me.   It's probably not interesting to anyone else, but I think it's sooo coooool.  Anyway, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Zig zag quilt for the princess

My Grammy made us all baby quilts when we were born and it was something special that we all horde now.  I wanted to make something for the princess to horde when she arrives.  I decided a zig zag pattern would be just my speed esp, when it comes down to quilting it. 

 All of my pieces cut out and ready to go!  I love then when they are in a neat stack.  I don't know what it is.

 Binding quilts is one of my favorite parts of the whole process.  I love how with one quick flip it goes from "eh" to "Oooo!"  I binded the edges of this quilt with Minky dot.  I had zero problems with the Minky as a binding.  My only regret is maybe I should have done the binding a dark green or grey color.   Maybe she will love it so much she will wear out the binding and I will have to replace it later and then I will switch it.  

 So here she is all finished!

 Please take notice to the zig zag stitches on the back of the quilt.

 And whala! All done and ready for the princess.

Now I am ready to move on with projects.  Unfortunately there is an adorable fabric that I would love to make a car seat cover with but it is a ripoff... $15 dollars a yard?!  Who do you think I am Miss Quilt shop lady? That's alright, I have Christmas to worry about first and then I'll focus on that later.  Anyway, I will talk to everyone later, bye!

Oh and P.S.
And just a little bit of randomness but my favorite songs lately have been Good Feeling, Holly Jolly Christmas, 5 Oclock, Party Rock Anthem, and I'm Sexy and I know It.  But do not look up the official music video of the last song because it will disturb you for life.

McKay likes Kids and Electric Feel by MGMT, Young Blood by The Naked and Famous, and anything by Miike Snow

Ok, now for real bye

Fall drive in West Virginia

Fall is my favorite season of all time.  I forget how much I love it because I haven't been around for fall in a very long time.  I love Idaho but this is the one thing they are missing.  I always told McKay that I would love to live here, Jackson Hole, or Swan Valley.  I haven't really decided yet though.

 Here's an old hotel that you can stay at that is right across from this view.  Sharon, doesn't this hotel remind you of a building that could be in Mystic Falls?! oh yeah!

 We were about a week early for the peak colors but I had to work so it was now or never.  I regret not taking more pictures during fall (this is all I have), because i have become a lot more lazy (being pregnant) and I no longer have the desire to climb to the highest peak, or lie down in the lowest ditch to get the most interesting shot.  So this is it people.  I will make up for it next year!

Thanksgiving at grandmas

This Thanksgiving Aunt Lucinda, Uncle Doug, Amber and her family all joined us in Maryland.  This is the first Thanksgiving I have had with my family in six years, there was a ton of food and we had fun spending time with each other.  Heather even came out from Idaho too. My mom baked a million pies, like she does every year because everyone likes different pies. 

Pecan-my favorite

Strawberry- Adam

Apple- Mom

Pumpkin- Aaron, Grandma, and McKay

Cherry- Aaron

Chocolate silk- Amanda, Mom, Keith

I think that is it.  Although we may start having a blueberry as well some time in the future.

Free chipolte

My brother and sister dressed up as farmers for Halloween to get free burritos at Chipotle.

 I made these awesome apple mouths and they were going to have raisins as the rotting teeth but improvised with nuts.  They are more of a joke snack than an actual delicacy. 

 Farmers with rotting teeth...

$5 Halloween costume

I love Halloween, it's one of my favorites.  This year I made a shirt I liked off of Pintrest but just used white fabric paint and a black tee from walmart.  I tried to quickly draw it out and have it in time for the trick or treaters so sorry if it is lacking in skill.  They have an iron-on like this for $15 dollars or something but i couldn't rationalize spending the money.  But yeah, i enjoyed being festive.  McKay was supposed to be a regular skeleton with me but it didn't end up happening b/c of our procrastinating skills.

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened -Dr. Suess

 There are many things in life that make us just wonder "why me?"  The thing is, no one is perfect and everyone is going to struggle with something at one time or another.  I guess it's just what you do with it when it's your turn. 

So what are you going to do with those lemons?

Moving day

So here we are, moving comes too soon. The couch that we spent 3.5 hours getting up the stairs was destroyed so we could get down the stairs easier.  We were very sad to see it go but it wouldn't fit in the moving truck (b/c apparently 16' Penske trucks are a lot smaller than 16' Budget trucks) and we didn't want to spend another 3.5 hours sweating and straining over getting the couch down the spiraled staircase again.

 My brother Aaron came out and made moving a breeze.  Before we left we took him to Sam La Grassas , the best sandwich shop that we have been to in Boston and it was good even though it was our last time.  Their best sandwich is definitely their Chipotle Pastrami and we had some of their Clam Chowder too.  Yum!

 Our last sad view of Breed St.  We will miss you!  And here's our good old moving truck, this one had a cd player and didn't break down on us

 Our truck filled with our neighbors and friends.  We wish we could take you with us.

 And then we drove down to Maryland, definitely bittersweet.

Goodbye summer

Good bye flowers, and hello crisp cool air, you are my favorite and I'm ready!

Gourmet night-Oct

My lovely downstairs neighbor, Rachael, belongs to the gourmet dinner club in the Cambridge ward and invited me to help her.  We used plastic leaves from the dollar store to set up a cool leaf chandelier.

 Rachael carved holes in the tops of apples perfectly sized to fit tea light candles.  These look so cool when they are burning.

 I got a few stems of flowers, leaves and berries at the dollar store and tied them together with raffia at each place setting.

All and all I think setting up for the party cost less than $20.  The ladies escaped from their refuges in Cambridge, trekked over to East Boston, and brought their dish to fit with the theme: Apples and/or Cinnamon.

 It's actually been a while since we had the party so I don't remember all the food that was there but there was apple goatcheese tartlets, a yummy squash soup that had cinnamon croutons, wassail, a spicy mexican chocolate cake that had cayenne pepper in it and topped with cinnamon whipped cream, yummy salads, and cranberry apple sausage stuffing.  

It was awesome and I was ready to burst by the end which kinda stunk b/c I couldn't eat the rest of the apple tartlet thing which was SO amazingly good. But I really wanted to eat it all!

Apple Picking

The weather was perfect and so Emily, Brigham, and us (and apparently everyone else in Boston) decided to go apple picking yesterday.  We had a great time eating cider doughnuts, hotdogs, and tons of apples. An apple orchard is the perfect place for a pregnant lady who craves apples.   Nom nom nom!

 Meet Emily Appleseed.  Ancestor of Johnny.

Conference and Good Food

General conference calls for a special breakfast, homemade sticky buns. Yum! Once I finished making the sticky buns we invited some friends and they came over for breakfast.  Here are some pictures of their pre-baked goodness.

 Here is our breakfast club.  Emily brought over some yummy taco soup for lunch and Rachael and Job brought a delicious apple-berry pie for afternoon snack.

 Here was our set up for prime chillage for six people in the living room.  We also played some Scatagories and us girls re-did our fingernails.  It was a really fun and inspiring day.

Sanders Theatre

Our neighbor Job, who goes to the Boston Conservatory of Music, invited us to one of his concerts that happened to be held at the Sanders Theatre at Harvard.  This building has the same dining hall (Annenberg Hall) as the one in Hogwarts.  It was pretty cool, but not that cool b/c they don't allow pictures or anyone to go in.  

 Inside the Sanders Theatre

 I took this picture so you can see more of the seating

 The foyer