Carving

I love carving pumpkins! It's a work out for your arm but worth it when you see the outcome. This year we added a new pumpkin to mix, its a tummy pumpkin.

Can you tell which ones are the real pumpkins? :)

wrong address

Ya I spelled the websites name wrong. I am the worst speller ever. It's uddercovers.com. Good luck!

(almost) free nursing covers!

This is for real guys! I got an email today from a friend saying that this website was giving away free nursing covers, all you have to pay for is shipping. So go to the web site uttercovers.com and pick wich one you want, they are all super cute and put in your shopping cart and then enter the promo code 1free and you get it for free! The shipping is $8.95. But that is so worth it for a good nursing cover! These are $32! So go get yours now, I don't know how long this offer is going to last!

PUMPKIN PATCH!

We went to Hee Haw Farms this year which is exactly 2 seconds from our house. The kids had a blast and it was a perfect day. We went with our nieghbors the Martini's.

On the hay ride

Rylie and Mckenna on the hay ride

Rylie on the huge swing, its a big circular contraption that swings them in giant circles

You can see how excited Davis is to take pictures with me. He will only smile if you bribe him with gum, and I ran out.

Carmel apples

This year we thought it would be fun to do carmel apples. We had our neighbors over to help out. They are really fun to make...not so fun to eat. Very sticky and messy, but yummy!

First we dip.......
Then we eat!!!

update

I asked my doctor today about the no visitors thing and it is definitely in effect. No visitors in the hospital. Period. No children or parents until you are discharged. He said he didn't know how long it will be in effect but most likely it will still be enforced when my baby comes. Bummer! As far as my check up goes, it was interesting. I am having heart flutters all the time and he doesn't like that one bit. I have an apt to see a cardiologist and get an EKG. And I have to wear a heart monitor for a while. Usually heart flutters are not a big deal but my mom had major heart problems with all her pregnancy's so its a way higher risk of me having heart problems. Also I'm already having Braxton Hicks contractions which is way to soon. I usually start getting those after 25 weeks or so, so he is a little concerned and told me I'm not allowed to do any cardio work outs or get to stressed out because this brings on more contractions. Great. A four year old and a two year old are all about stress. Hopefully I don't get put on any kind of bed rest because I have absolutely no help with my kids and that would be a nightmare! Other than that, the baby is healthy and normal. I have my ultra sound apt for November 18th so I'm excited to find out what we're having!

no visitors

So there is a new nation wide policy that went into effect this month that are to be absolutely no visitors in the hospital when you have a baby. No moms, sisters, nothing. Only the husband is allowed in the room. Not even your other kids can go in. It's all because of this swine flu epidemic. I am super bummed about all this! So this means my mom can come out here but can't even see me or hold the baby untill I'm discharged from the hospital. My kids can't even come in the room to see the new baby. They can only look through the glass and see the baby in the nursery. I have a doctors appt tomorrow and I'm going to get more details about it but I have heard from several people that this is really happening. I guess your mom can be with you during labor but as soon as the baby is about to come out they have to leave. I'm so sad! Getting visitors is one of my favorite parts! It's such a special time and its really fun to share with with family and friends. I guess waiting til you get home will have to be good enough. I'll get more information tomorrow and update. But as far as I know, the hospital is closed off to everyone!

Family Pictures

My Darling Sister in law Christine is an amazing photographer her blog is Christineolsonphotography.blogspot.com. She's awesome! She took some family pics while we were in St. George a few weeks ago and these are the ones with me in them. We couldn't take a whole lot of pictures outside because it was fiercely windy as you can see. But she still did an amazing job. She lives here in Salt Lake if anyone ever need a really good photographer.

This is my favorite picture. It's our wedding date that he has tattooed on his finger. It has a lot of sentimental value to us and its just a cool picture!

Rylie was so excited about her new boots!!

My little family

My big family



The sisters are reunited once again!


We had to get a full shot of Katie wearing her sweat pants.

Potty diaries

Rylie came running in the front room the other day and told me that she helped Davis go potty in the big boy potty and he came running out with no diaper on all excited. So that was good! So a few hours later I took him in to go again and he was really excited about going, which is a huge step up from being terrified of the little toilet. So he sat on it for a few minutes and nothing happened so I told him he could have a little treat just fro trying and we went into the kitchen and while I was getting the treat I felt something hitting my foot.......I looked down and he was peeing on my foot. I said "No, lets go in the potty!" and had Michael take him in and sit him down and he finished going in the toilet. It was pretty funny. I'm still trying to figure out how to do this with a boy because when he sits down his...business is pointing straight up and that won't work. I try to tell him to push it down and he doesn't get it. I need to teach him to do it standing up I guess but that seems like a mess too. We'll figure it out. I asked Michael if he thought we could get him potty trained before the baby came and he wasn't very optimistic. But we'll see.

Little nudger

I don't care how many babies you have, the first time you feel that kid kick is an absolute miracle. I've obviously known there's been a baby in there for quite some time but up till now all I've felt it do is make me sick sick sick. Today I was in the bath and I was poking around the baby and I was holding my hand pushing my fingers on my tummy and the baby totally kicked my fingers! It was crazy! The I felt it squirm around a little and then it stopped. That was the first real time I've felt it move. I know in a few months I will be begging this baby to STOP moving but for now it feels pretty cool to know there really is something alive in there. Did anyone get the Twilight reference in the title? C'mon!

What to do!!

I know I'm freaking out about this WAAAAY to soon but it is something that needs attention. Okay so my due date is April 5th, for now anyway, (it may get moved up) and I will be induced by March 29th.....Easter is on April 4th this year along with conference weekend and that would be such a perfect weekend for the fam to come up and see the baby and do the blessing......but its only 6 days after the baby will be born...that is cutting it very close I would have just gotten home from the hospital 3 days before that! What do I do? It sounds like such a stressful event. I would love to have everyone here for Easter but I will be all fat and bloated from just delivering a baby. Just as a precaution I reserved our clubhouse for Easter Sunday, just in case. You can do baby blessings outside of church, you just have to get permission from the Bishop, we did it with Davis, its way better because you can do it in your own house and its way more personal. I know its 6 months away but these things need to be planned. Any suggestions?

sick day

Today has been interesting. We woke up this morning and I was feeling pretty good so I decided to clean my house, which was in desperate need of some attention. After I was done I was feeling pretty sick. I tried to eat and to no avail, I felt worse. So I fed the kids lunch and put them down for naps and had a relaxing afternoon of doing nothing. When the kids woke up I was still feeling pretty bad. Michael informed me that he was going fishing with a buddy and I knew I had the rest of the afternoon to battle these kids. When I'm sick, their behavior is awful. They know they aren't getting attention so they turn on "turbo irritate mom mode". I had to think fast because I knew I didn't want to spend the afternoon yelling. So I set up the kids tent in the family room and turned on a new movie, "Monsters vs Aliens" and let them watch it in the tent. They sure had fun and I still got to lay down. It worked out pretty good. now of only I could fix dinner.....I'd say that's not going to happen.

calling all food storage enthusiasts

For Christmas this year I am putting together a food storage cook book for all of my family and friends. I want the recipes to be simple enough that anyone can use them, yet good enough that you will actually eat them. I would like them to be made out of simple food storage items. I am also going to configure a list of the items that you would need to buy to make everything in the cookbook. So its okay if the recipe calls for dried onions, I will just add that to the list of things you need buy. Does that make sense? So I need anyone who has some good recipes to please leave them as comments or email them to me at andrea.tao@hotmail.com. I would like to include who the recipe is from if you don't mind. So please feel free to contribute, I really need all I can get!!! I have become obsessed with food storage but don't always know what to do with things I have, so I think a food storage cookbook would help. I need some ideas as to what to do with the 100 lbs of wheat I have or it will just sit there while we will starve! :)

bad timing

I forgot that I ordered these jeans before I found out I was pregnant. They were back ordered so I didn't know exactly when I was going to get them. So I got them today and I can pull them up but definatly cannot button them. They are so stinkin cute and now I'll have to wear a belly band to keep them up. And I'll have some motivation to fit back into these size 4 jeans after the baby comes.....we'll see!

Weekend in St. George

We had a good time in St. George. It was fun to see the changes in the city since we left. I figured out that I lived there for a little over 4 years. Rylie really wanted to see the temple that mom and dad got married in so we took her by, unfortunately there was a huge wind storm that day so we couldn't get out to take pictures. I love this temple though. It's my favorite, not only because it's where I got married, I just think its really cute and small and sweet. The floor creeks when you walk through the celestial room. We lived about 2 blocks from it and when Rylie was a baby we spent hours and hours AND HOURS walking around the temple grounds and surrounding neighborhoods because she would not stop crying. St. George has some bitter sweet memories for us.
The real reason why we went down was because my dad runs the marathon every year. This was his 9th year running this marathon and probably his 25th marathon all together. He's insane. But it is a tradition every year I go down and massage him and his buddies who run with him. This year my whole family got to come. My sister had just gotten home from her mission in Kirkland Ohio the day before so it was fun to have everyone there.

This is my parents house that I lived in before I got married. We had to go back to see it. We actually got to walk through the house and see the basement since they had finished it. Its actually a foreclosure so If anyone is interested in a 7 bedroom house with a 2500 sq foot 2 bed 2 bath basement apartment and theater room, you can buy it!

While the boys went to priesthood, the girls went shopping and to dinner. Davis ate 2 lemon wedges at dinner, I don't know why.

All and all it was a really fun weekend. Aside from no sleep and tired kids it was really fun to see my family.