January 2013

January...... sitting here blogging with baby sleeping on the couch makes me think that January was a pretty uneventful month when you compare it with February..... and while that is true (pretty hard to compete with birthing a child), we still had some fun and eventful things happen in January. 

For starters, my dad took the time and effort to come down and visit Philip and I even though he could only stay for a couple of days. We were super happy to have him come and I had a really great time with him being here! We went to a BYU basketball game, walked all over campus (even though it was freezing!), ate at some yummy places, went sledding (I just watched), and just enjoyed each others company. I love my daddy =) 

Another eventful thing from January is that Philip had his last first day of school (for a semester) at BYU! Sort of anti-climatic since he will really have his last first day at BYU for spring term, but starting his last semester is huge!

Philip on his last first day of the semester

 We also spent time with friends this month. Philip has had some good friends at BYU that he has known since high school and since his freshman year here at BYU. Coincidentally, he and the two friends pictured below all married girls who are the same age, and we all ended up pregnant at the same time and due within 2 months of each other! In January our friend Jason (who is the one who introduced me and Philip) had a baby themed birthday party with epic baby challenges. Imagine a baby shower planned by a boy, lots of competitions... who can change a baby the fastest (no real babies were used... just dolls), who can empty a bottle the fastest, who can melt an ice cube the fastest without touching it, baby word charades.... Even though I didn't come close to winning anything, it was really fun! Philip did win the bottle drinking contest though!

Maddie (due in April), Me (due in February), and Brooke (due in January)

Tyler and Maddie McLemore, Philip & I, Jason and Brooke Alleger

Well, that's January for the most part! Oh, I should mention that Philip attended a landscaping conference called STMA for a week in Florida. I was here alone and freezing while he walked the beach and swam in the ocean...... yes, I was jealous. He had a good time though and I got some sewing done! Well, baby is hungry, so I better go!

Pretty sunset at the temple.... just a pretty picture so I wanted to include it!

Christmas 2012

 Philip and I unexpectedly ended up having a quiet Christmas alone this year. We were planning on spending the holidays with his parents, but due to different circumstances (one of which being that I didn't want to fly anywhere at 32 weeks), we ended up having Christmas by ourselves at our apartment. I was worried about it being lonely and just not feeling like Christmas since it would only be us, but it turns out that we really had a beautiful Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. It may be the only Christmas we have with just the two of us ever! Or at least for a long time..... Here are some ways we spent our Christmas season:

Yes, Philip's gingerbread house is the big one.....

This boy loves making gingerbread houses! 

The lights at the Riverwoods mall, so cold, but so beautiful!

The light trees on a lake in Salem by where I did my student teaching. It was so beautiful to  see the lights reflecting in the water.

Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, no Santa presents yet!

This is Buster. He is our friends rabbit who we baby-sat (?rabbit-sat?) over the break while they were away. Buster isn't scared of the vaccuum, he likes small spaces, and he poops a lot. 

Christmas Eve dinner, we made a cornish hen! Just the right size for two!

Christmas tree waffles! They didn't turn out so cute (you can't see it so well in this pic, but they were mostly brown from cooking rather than green), but they still tasted good!

So Philip's big (big as in took a lot of time and planning and preparation, not big as in expensive) Christmas gift from me were super daddy-to-be supplies! I got the idea off of pinterest and made it my own... a lot of time and planning went into it, but it was a lot of fun to put together and Philip loved it! =)

Philip likes Super Man and Batman the most..... so that is the theme for this box. Super Mommy t-shirt, Super Daddy t-shirt, and Daddy's lil' sidekick onsie all with the superman symbol on them (which you cant see in this picture). I bought plain t's and a plain onsie and did print off iron on's to make the final product. I think I know what we will be for Halloween this year! On the right is his batman themed stuff. A bib that says "These fools put my cape on backwards", a changing pad, a burp rag, and a little carry bag all with the batman symbol on them. All sewn by me and they symbols were also iron on printables. 

More super daddy supplies

More super daddy supplies with two little pee-pee -tipi's

 For Christmas dinner we drove to the Morris' (Philip's sister's house) and had a delicious Christmas dinner. We took a picture with their tree cuz it was so dang cute! And Tall!

Merry Christmas!!!

Ultrasounds

11 weeks pregnant

20 weeks pregnant

32 weeks pregnant

The Happenings of Autumn

While we spent a lot of time just relaxing this past fall, we did do some things, so here's a picture summary of autumn! [No baby stuff here - I'm preparing to post one big baby blogpost soon!]

Anyone who has been in Provo during the fall knows just how beautiful it gets here when the leaves and weather start to change. We like to go up Provo Canyon a few times when all the leaves are changing so that we can enjoy the unique beauty of Utah. 

My lovely friend Ashley who was visiting!

Halloween! To celebrate Halloween this year we went to our ward Halloween party (where we were the runner up's for best costume - maybe didn't look so good, but I think it was a great idea ;) ), and we went to a corn maze! I hadn't been to a corn maze in forever and we had a really good time at this corn maze. They had a clue-style mystery you could solve while going through the maze - you would look for clues in the maze to solve the mystery - by the end of the maze we had found all the clues except one, so Philip ran back through to find the last clue, and alas the mystery was solved!

I'm a gumball machine and Philip is a quarter. Put a quarter in and get a little baby Roberts out!

Some random things from this past fall......

There is this GINORMOUS outdoors/sports store in Sandy called Scheels and we went there with some friends to explore.... they have a ferris wheel inside the store!

The amazing Tanya Mills had her book 'A Night on Moon Hill' published this year and we went to a book signing she had here in Utah. Look her book up! It gives you a great perspective on how life might be for someone dealing with autism. 

Philip wanted to earn extra credit for one of his classes and so he made a special kind of jam.... the extra credit was to make a food item from one of the plants they discussed in class... and so Philip decided to make Pyracantha jam.... That name may not sound familiar to you, but I guarantee you have seen the bush before, especially if you have ever visited BYU, its everywhere! And surprisingly (actually not to surprising when you consider how much sugar the jam has in it), the jam was pretty dang good!

Pyracantha berries on the bush

Sorting through the berries and getting rid of the yucky ones

Washing the berries

Making the jam

Voila!

 Philip had to do a bug collection for one of his classes this fall..... that means we had dead bugs hanging out in our freezer and sitting in jars of alcohol for weeks.... I was glad when that finally got turned in!

We got another niece!!!! Philip's sister Charlotte and her husband Lowell welcomed baby Natalie into the world a month early. Her stomach and intestines were not connected when born, but thanks to modern day medicine they were able to operate and correct the problem and today she is doing just great! 

In NICU... so tiny!

At Christmastime.... still so tiny!

Thanksgiving! This year for Thanksgiving we drove to Washington and spent it with my family. I hadn't had Thanksgiving with my family since my senior year of high school, so it was wonderful to get to share it with them! Even if it was a short trip! While there Opal threw me a baby shower, and I am so grateful to her for all the work she did to put it together, to others who brought things to make the shower a success, and to all those people who were able to come, I appreciate the love and support so much!

Spoiler alert! We're naming our son Enok! Not going to super officially announce it till he is born though =)

The wonderful ladies at Enok's shower!

I completed my student teaching this fall! Yay! I was at a Jr. High and taught 8th and 9th grade math.... I really enjoyed it! I had an awesome university supervisor, cooperating teacher, and an extra awesome student teaching partner. My favorite story from the semester is probably when a week before student teaching ended a student approached my student teaching partner and asked her if I was pregnant..... where had he been the last 3 1/2 months????? Oh 8th grade boys, at least he asked someone else instead of just asking me in case I wasn't! When I told my students I was pregnant I had been teaching them for a few weeks and they all said, "That makes so much sense, we thought you were, but we didn't want to ask!" More common sense than I would normally attribute to Jr. High kids...... A student gave me the following picture on my last day..... the funny part about it is that neither Emily nor I were sure which stick figure at the bottom was who.... neither of us has bangs.... and one of those stick figures definitely does...... lol.... but I think I'm supposed to be the one with bangs.....

So one night I was sitting at home watching something on netflix (probably white collar) and the dryer is running and suddenly I hear this pop and start smelling a burning smell.... Philip wasn't home, so I kind of freaked out, but I just went and turned the dryer off.... Well Philip was too busy with school to get to fixing the dryer for 2 months..... luckily when we lived in Russia I got used to living without a dryer, so we were able to survive.... but he did finally get it fixed. When he opened it up there was a bunch of burnt dryer lint on the bottom - so glad it didn't set fire to anything else! [Check your dryer and clean the lint out!] It turned the exhaust pipe had gotten disconnected inside of the dryer and so all the extra lint was piling up on the bottom of the dryer and the hot air was getting blown on it instead of exiting properly through the exhaust pipe.... Took some cleaning up, and a small clip had to be replaced so the drum wouldn't squeek, but Philip got it fixed! I was proud of him for taking initiative and taking apart the dryer and getting it fixed even though he is no expert on appliances, but now he has some dryer experience!

This was our kitchen for two days.....

After finals and before Christmas Philip and I took a quick trip to visit my grandpa Burch in Idaho Falls. It was really great to get to visit my grandpa and have him share experiences with us that are dear to him. While there I also saw my cousin Cryshel, who is  my only cousin that is my age, and who happened to pregnant too!

Me and Cryshel, she was due like the next week!

Me and Grandpa Burch, I have so much love and respect for him!

Well those are the highlights of autumn for us! Actually, the real highlights involve the cute squiggly baby boy growing in my tummy, but he'll get his own dedicated post soon!