My 24th Birthday & Halloween

For my 23rd birthday, I went to the ER and passed a kidney stone.  Then I came home and sat on the couch while hosting a Paparazzi party for a friend.  It wasn't...my best birthday.

This year, I was a little nervous that I would miscarry on my birthday...officially making it the worst birthday imaginable.

But no.

On the 26th, I brought in cookies to the kids in the preschool and they sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  For the rest of the day, the children would just randomly say, "Happy Birthday Teacher Katrina!"

I hadn't told any of the kids at the preschool that I was pregnant yet since you don't want to have to un-tell preschoolers about a pregnancy.  It is kind of a big topic for them to handle.

During their lunch time, I had to head to a doctor's appointment for my 9 week appointment.  Right before I left, this sweet little girl came up and handed me this huge picture that she drew.

I asked her who was in the picture and she said, "This is you...............and this is your baby!!"

I almost started crying.  It was the sweetest thing in the world!  It made me feel like this appointment was going to go well for me even though I was really nervous about it.  Like...the best good omen ever.

Hopefully my baby won't be green though....I would hope.  And of course, I stuck it on my fridge.  I have so much children art on my fridge and throughout my house.  It is crazy.

The appointment went really really well.  I couldn't have asked for better.  The baby was measuring at exactly 9 weeks 1 day.  This was important because, since we had no idea when I got pregnant, any discrepancy in growth rate could have spelled the beginning of the end for this pregnancy.

But exactly two weeks after we were told 7 weeks 1 day, we got a 9 weeks 1 day.  This baby is growing right now target!  Still had a good heartbeat and was even wiggling around inside of me.

That boogled my mind.  This baby was moving around inside me but I couldn't feel a thing.

For my 24th birthday, I was going to have a Murder Mystery party....I kept planning it and rescheduling because I couldn't stay healthy enough to get the house in order or get the party organized and planned.  Eventually it just got cancelled but I invited some friends up to hang out.

One of those people was my brother Markus, who was still in the dark about the pregnancy.  When he drove up and got out of his car, I was holding up this sign.

Yeah....and he made that face.  He looked at the sign and smiled and I said, "I'm pregnant!"  And he laughed and said, "yeah....I kind of got that."  Then he got on the porch and gave me a big hug and said congratulations. 

It was great having friends here for the weekend.  I put them to work getting our Halloween decorations finished up with.  Aaron, Geoff, and I worked in the front yard to get it good and scary.

Morning sickness was making move slower and making it hard for me to really celebrate the holidays but it was good to get in the mood with these buddies.

Plus, it really puts you in the Halloween spirit when you see things like this outside your house.

That particular ghoul really scared a dog in our neighborhood.  My neighbor came to ask me something and her dog refused to come up our pathway to the door and he started growling at that frightening figure in the middle of the yard.

This is my favorite "fabulous" skeleton.  He always goes in front of the sparkling grave because he is such a flamboyant guy!

We love how much our house has changed over the years and this year, I LOVE the extra flower bed.  It made it easier to space out decorations.  And our path of lights made it easier for trick-or-treaters to not step on the decorations.  I wish that the leaves had fallen earlier or later though....but this is what we had this year.

While we decorated, Clarise worked on making a Halloween skirt and cuddled with my pups.

To finish off my birthday weekend, we watched a horribly budget movie, and a HILARIOUSLY budget movie called Troll 2.  Markus had never seen it and so my friends and I enjoyed watching him watch it happen.  Poor guy is probably burnt out on awful cinema for awhile.

This birthday was awesome and it makes me think that this year is going to be the best one yet!!!  I'm so excited to see what this year holds!

UPDATE: Halloween was a success.  I was horribly miserable the whole day....but we passed out candy and I sat most of the evening counting the people who came to the house.  We ended up with about a hundred and eighty people.  We will have to remember that when we buy candy from now on because our street is CRAZY busy.

"Harvest" Season and The Death of Our Yard

I know that you guys have been dying to know how our garden ended up this year.

Well....our garden has just been dying...so...yeah.

This year I really wanted to have an awesome garden.  Last year we spent most of the growing season working on changing up our backyard so we ended up with the raspberries and a couple hand fulls of cherry tomatoes.

Well, for 2012, we got........are you ready for this?

Raspberries, zucchini, and parsley.

End of list.

Oh...and I guess we ended up with two mandarin oranges.

Remember all that stuff that I planted at the end of February?

Yeah....it died.  Pretty much all of it.

Tomatoes burnt up in the intense sun we got this summer.

Pole beans were doing AMAZING until I started over watering them in an attempt to help them grow faster/better/stronger.  They molded from the inside out.  I didn't even know that that was a thing.

Sunflowers burnt up in the sun.

Onions......also....burnt up in the sun.

Also, our mint and chives that we had kept through the winter of 2011-2012.....you guess it....burnt up in the sun.   And people said I couldn't kill mint.  Just watch me.  I even tried to shade it under the raspberry bush.

The Oregano?  I don't even know.  All of these tiny little sprouts came up and were growing, so I thinned them out....and all the ones I left in promptly died.

In fairness....

The Zucchini died too...and I had to replant it and that is what we finally got zucchini off of at the end of the year.

As you might recall, later I bought a basil plant at the store.

Yeah....that got moldy and died.  Totally died.

Think we bought some tomato plants at the store and they also straight up burned up in the heat of the sun.

And how did our second year go with the blue berry bushes?  Did they finally produce fruit?

I found one flower early on in the growing season.

A couple weeks later, I found a shriveled and burnt up berry clinging to the branches of our scorched blueberry bush.  Excellent.

I would say, for the amount of work we put into the garden....it was a total bust.

We got about 3 zucchini from the plant in September/October.

We got tons of parsley that I didn't really use for anything...because I don't need THAT much parsley.

But the raspberries that require no real attention from me, bore fruit twice this year.  That was a plus.

What is that thin vine all on the ground around the zucchini plant?

I'm glad you asked.

That is bind weed.  Also called wild Morning Glory. We have it all over our flower beds.

It also moved into the yard.

It moved into the yard and covered up the grass so that it couldn't get any sun.  They it took all the nutrients from the ground and MURDERED our  backyard.

By the time Aaron poisoned the Morning Glory, it had killed all of our grass.  Aaron raked all the dead stuff out and so now we are left with bare dirt and some grass and weed clinging to the ground barely by the roots.

Not only was our garden this year a bust....but our whole yard also died in the process.

The Preschool & The Best Days

I love my job.  I completely love it.  There are some days that are really hard because I feel like I spend most of it telling children to stop doing things or I end up repeating myself over and over again.  But most of the time, it is about playing and watching the kids play and learn to be big people.  It's exciting work.  When kids start being able to talk about their feelings and expressing themselves without screaming and hitting...that makes me feel like the repetition is totally worth it.

Today, I got to build this track...you know...for my job.  My adult job.  The boys told me where they wanted it to go and got me pieces and added to it.  And they put the houses where they wanted.  I told them that houses don't normally go in the middle of the road...but they didn't care.

See the helmets in the back of this picture?  That was for the "space theme" dramatic play area.  The boys would put on their helmets and say, "OUTER SPACE!  OUTER SPACE!  OUTER SPACE!" the whole time that they were walking around "in space".  I wondered how many astronauts do that.  Float around in space going, "OUTER SPACE!  OUTER SPACE!  OUTER SPACE!"  I bet a lot of them do that.

This is me as an astronaut.  OUTER SPACE!  OUTER SPACE! OUTER SPACE!  This boy next to me is the captain of the ship.  He made me watch what I assume was a training video for space (it was a astronaut calendar that he made me stare at for about 5 minutes).

When I'm a mom, I really want to have a sensory table for my children.  It is messy...but the kids love it.  These are counting frogs.  Don't worry...the red one in the back is just leaning back going, "Wow....back off me bro!"

Doing this job makes me think that being a mom would be an awesome job.  Hopefully this will be good training....so far, it is just  a lot of fun.

New (to Us) SUV

Aaron had a co-worker who was trying to sell his Montero Sport.  This guy had 3 kids and their car seats don't all fit inside of this 5 seater so it was time to trade up to a mini van.

Aaron has been looking at different SUVs for awhile.  We needed one.  For all of the home improvements that we've done.  For transporting the dogs better on our trips down to Provo.  For a second car to encourage me to try driving again.

I told him that it was his choice to make and I would try to back him up on it.  I didn't think we were ready for a second car...but he is a big boy and I trust him to make important decisions.

So we got it.

I'm sure that we will get a lot of use out of it and that it will be worth having. And I'm glad that Aaron is happy with it.

Plus, when you fold down the backseats, there is enough room for a mattress...if you know what I mean....

CAMPING TRIPS!

September BBQ

We had a BBQ at my grandparents' house as a send off for Daniel.  Our family decided that since this could be the last time that we were all together for about 3 years, or who knows, we should get a family picture taken.  They decided that it would be easiest if I was the photographer.  Fair enough...good thing I had a remote control.

I was trying to set up this photo and I told everyone to scoot closer and my dad wasn't listening...so Markus is helping him.  And Daniel decided that by "scoot closer" I meant, "lean in like a creep".

I also took some pictures of everyone having fun with each other.

Aaron decided that he was going to get me back for all the times that I "photo bomb" him.  I love how demonic he looks here.

It was also Markus' birthday so we also took the time to sing to him and present him with fire on a confectionery...because we love him.

Happy Birthday Markus!!  And good riddance Daniel!

Quick Family Hike

On September 29th, my family was in Ogden (minus the Radleys) because Daniel was headed to the MTC on the 3rd of October. We decided to go on an easy family hike (not including my mother...probably because she had a headache or something) on the Birdsong Trail.

This is one of the easiest hiking trails that Aaron and I have found in our exploration in these mountains and foothills.  As we got up the first hill, I was telling my dad that this was usually where we would see deer.  Either in the lower valley or climbing up the side of the hill.

We look down and what do we see?

My brothers asked my dad a question about the dirt on the side of this hill and then they started posing because they saw me pull out my camera.

I love the mountains in the fall.  I'm so happy that Utah has 4 seasons for me to watch and enjoy.  This is the first place that I've lived where I get to witness that.

Look at those leaves....and that majestic woodland creature. 

I'm really lucky that I got to grow up with these guys.  We've laughed so much and I'm going to miss getting together with all of them.  But in a couple years, we will all be back together again.  I'm also glad that my dad made up enjoy nature so much.  I don't enjoy rocks...or find them interesting but I do love going on hikes and being out in the woods.