Week 11- New Years Eve

New Years Eve is always one of my favorite days of the year and this year was no exception.  Usually I love the idea of a fresh start and setting new goals for the year, and promising myself this new year would be better than the last.  This year I knew 2013 would be our best year ever but also one of our hardest, so I only made one resolution, to survive :)

The day started off really great with a doctors appointment first thing in the morning.  We got to hear the heartbeat for the first time which was completely amazing.  Check out the video below.

 

I know it's quiet, it's actually a recording of a recording because I don't know how to have audio only on here but if you listen close at the end you can hear the doctor telling us the heartbeat is fast and that can mean it's a girl according to an old wives tale. 

 

After the appointment, Ty had to go to work and I headed up to Sandy to be with my family to pick up my cousin Kristopher from his LDS Mission in Mexico.

 

After the airport Ty and I met up at his parents house for a yummy Skalla family tradition fondue dinner.  We were also planning to tell them about the baby that night and I was just bursting! 

Our original plan was to have Roy give a toast but then we thought it would be really funny and fitting to play the charades game that the Brown's invented (inside joke) and have Tyler act out, "Ali's Pregnant" and see if anyone was bold enough to guess!  However, Anna Kay, Ty's sister was sick so she skipped dinner and I was so sad she'd miss it all so when she walked in just to say hi for a minute, I leaned over to Roy and told him he had to do it now!!! He gave a beautiful toast about how much he loved all of his grandkids and was so excited to welcome a new grandbaby to the family in July.....and then everyone just kind of stared.  Finally Anne busted out, "Ali are you pregnant!?!?"  When we smiled and said yes all the cheers and hugs started and it was a really fun time and a great way to everyone.  Thanks for letting me put you on the spot Roy! 

The rest of the night we played games and had tons of fun until midnight when we watched the ball drop and celebrated with lots of confetti, and silly string.  The aftermath is below.

 

Week 10: Christmas

For Christmas this year we headed up to Boise, ID to visit Jenn and meet Adalynn for the first time.  I was so excited to finally see her and also to tell Jenn and Ryan about our baby. 

 

We were going to wait until Christmas Day and then we decided Christmas Eve, and then I just couldn't wait any longer so we told them the day after we got there.  When I was born Jenn got a cabbage patch doll named Natalie to take care of while mom took care of me.  We thought this would be a good way to tell them so we bought Adalynn a cabbage patch doll and wrote her a letter from our little baby.

 

 

I think Jenn was a little speechless at first, she was the only one that I knew had no idea!!  Ryan pretended to be surprised for a little bit but it finally broke that dad accidentally let it slip to Ryan just a week or so after I told them.  They swore him to secrecy but I didn't really care that he knew. 

To tell Brad I had sent him a Christmas package a few days before that had a Christmas present and a puzzle for him to put together that said "You're going to be an uncle....again!"

 

 

When we talked to him on Christmas Day he told me he totally knew what was going on the second he saw a package "with all kinds of directions and puzzles to put together" lol.  Now I want to send him a puzzle that just says, "Have a good day bud, love you!" :)

 

The rest of the weekend was full of yummy food, snuggling Adalynn and just having some good old family time. 

 

My mom warned us that this was this generation's last year with "Grandma-Great Jammies" and the new grama-great got to take over.  

Adalynn was too little to go see Santa this year so Ty put on his Santa shirt to get as close as we could.

 

Her shirt says "Santa Loves me" but I'm not quite sure she loves Santa quite yet!!





Weeks 8 and 9

Week 8 was pretty uneventful, Tyler and I were called to help with the Ward Christmas Party at church and that kept us pretty busy.  It was a lot of fun and a good way to get to know people in the ward. 

Week 9 was fun because we got to tell my grandparents.  Since we live so close to Grama Joan and Papa Doc we waited to tell them in person.  I felt bad though because we kept having to change the time because of work and other things and I was just dying to tell someone!!  While we were on our cruise we bought two photo albums in Jamaica and ended up only filling one.  We decided that the extra album would be a fun present for my grandparents because they just got back from a 50th anniversary cruise to Jamaica with all of my aunts and uncles.  We filled it with pictures from their cruise but the last one was our little pregnancy announcement.  When we finally got up to their house my grama was making caramels for Christmas and was stuck at the stove stirring them for about an hour.  I was dying to just tell her but waited for her to be done.  All the while my mom was in Boise with Jenn and Adalynn texting me, "Did you tell them yet? Did you tell them yet?!?!"  Finally when she was done I let them open their present and they took FOREVER looking at every picture!! Again, I was dying!!!  Finally they got to the last page and they were so surprised!!! 

The next day I called Grama Judy and Papa Dean.  I called them first and told them to check their e-mail but first I had to make sure they were by themselves, (sorry if I made Grama be rude Bart! lol). I sent them our announcement and they were very excited too.  It's so fun telling people, it got a little more real each time.  I'm kind of glad we were able to drag it out for a while and tell people at different times.  I know my Grama hated keeping the secret but it made it really fun for us!!

Week 7: First Dr Appt and a cousin!

Week 7 brought my very first doctors appointment and I was so excited and nervous!  I was sure we'd get there and he'd be like, "Uh, you're crazy, you're not actually pregnant!!"  But everything went well and was progressing as it was supposed to.  It was fun telling my mom about everything because she was at Jenn's in Boise to be there when Adalynn was born.  I just texted her a thumbs up and she called later and told me she lied and told Jenn I was at the doctor because I had the flu (which was also true) and we talked in code so she wouldn't figure it out.  After the appointment Ty's mom took us to Kneaders to celebrate.  Sara, who is living with Marcy, thought this was a little fishy, (especially when Ty was suddenly fascinated with her bottle warmer when we went to pick her up) and I started to get paranoid she was cluing in.  Although this was nothing new, I was constantly worrying that everyone already knew!

The next day my sweet baby neice, Adalynn, was born and I was SO excited!!  She is my first neice on  my side of the family and just the cutest thing ever!  I'm so glad my sweet baby will have so many fun cousins to play with and look up to. 

Week 6: Thanksgiving

It was really hard to keep our secret over Thanksgiving.  We were lucky and got to spend a lot of time with family but I was sure they would all figure it out!!  We spent Thanksgiving morning with a lot of my aunts, uncles and cousins on my dads side of the family and we had a ton of fun hanging out and catching up.  Thanksgiving dinner was at Anna, Ty's sister's house and it was fantastic.  After all the kids were in bed we ventured out for some black friday shopping and man my sisters-in-law are a force to be reckoned with while deal shopping!!  We had loads of fun and I loved getting to help out Santa.  This week baby is the size of a blueberry and looks more like a little alien then a blob of cells.

Week 5: Telling our Parents

November 16, 2012

We told my parents tonight!  We were going to wait but I just kept getting more and more restless, I flipped back and forth, wanting to make sure the timing was just right.  When I couldn’t sit still during our movie Ty said, just tell them already!!!!!  So we whipped up a cute smilebox video and I texted my mom to make sure she and my dad were together and alone.  Of course….they weren’t.  Dad was meeting with the missionaries, he’s the ward mission leader, and she didn’t call me for like an hour and I was DYING!  I thought she’d catch on but apparently she was clueless and sort of worried that what we needed to talk to them about was something bad.  She called and I told her I decided just to write it out in an email and to check it. 

When they opened their email, this is what was waiting for them

Slideshow design made with Smilebox

 

 They were so excited and I was surprised that they were surprised!!!  We talked for about an hour and I convinced them to send our Christmas present a little early to help make sure Baby would grow healthy, and our blend tech showed up on our door step a few days later.  I love using it to hide the healthier things baby needs that I can’t stand the taste of.  These days no food really sounds good so the smoothies have really helped.  It was so fun getting to tell them and it made the whole thing more real and made me even more exciting.  We did realize that I’m due within 10 days of Brad’s last transfer so that could get interesting for everyone.  Everyone pray Brad comes home a little earlier than we are thinking and baby stays put until his or her due date or later!

November 18^th

Since telling my parents was a little spur of the moment, we had no idea how we wanted to tell Tys parents.  This will be grandbaby number 14 for them so it felt a little anti-climactic and I didn’t’ want to make too big of a deal out of it.  We invited them over for dessert this Sunday and Ty and I made a cake that said “#14 July ’13.” At first Marcy was a little confused thinking it was something to do with Ty’s birthday but she quickly got it and started dancing around the living room, you can always count on Marcy to be your biggest cheerleader and it was not anti-climactic at all…..They were both very surprised and apparently everyone really did believe me when I said we wouldn’t be having kids for a decade or two!!!  Now the hard part is not spilling the beans to everyone else!!!  Since I have been pregnant, Anne has brought me a diet coke completely randomly and Anna was sweet enough to have some for me for Thanksgiving dinner,  I knew if I told them I wasn’t drinking it they’d catch on pretty quick so I’d take it and give it to Ty.

Pregnancy Week 4

I found out I was pregnant on Nov 10th, I had actually taken a test on the 4th but it was negative.  I still thought there was a chance so I randomly decided to take another one, just in case.  I was half asleep and groggy when I looked down at the test and saw a faint second line forming.  My heart started to race and I yelled for Ty who was still in bed.  He says he instantly knew what was going on even though I hadn't told him I was taking a test again.  The daddy to be came in and confirmed for himself that there was in deed two lines.  First there was some hugging and jumping up and down and then I panicked.  I was a slightly bitter after that first test and hadn't been taking my prenatal s and had been drinking a lot of diet coke.  Suddenly I was a mom and I was terrified I hadn't been making the best decisions to help my baby grow strong and healthy.  I asked Ty to give me a blessing and it was one of the best I've ever had, so sweet and comforting.  Next we headed to the store for another test...or two... and again it was positive!  I downloaded every pregnancy app I could find and fell in love with our little bundle of cells and learned that baby would be here around July 17, 2013.

At this point baby was the size of a poppy seed so we went and ate some poppy seed muffins to celebrate.

That night was my nephew Brock's wedding and we had to be around tons of family!  It was so hard to not spill the beans and I was sure one of us would slip!  Luckily we made it through the night and had a ton of fun, and it was more fun than usual playing with my little neices and nephews.



Halloween

 

A few days before Halloween we decided to carve pumpkins 

....some of us were better than others...

we had to angle the picture so you couldn't see my first attempt at a super complicated design.  Ty was done with his and I had hardly made a dent so I flipped it around and decided to do an easier one.  Ty's pumpkin is the ghost and mine is that cat.

Tanner and Anne always host a fun Halloween party.  This year Anna Kay helped us with our costumes and we went as a police officer and inmate.  The cute kitty is our niece Katie Claire, Tanner and Anne's daughter.

On Halloween night we went to Springville to Trick-Or-Treat with our nieces Emma and Ashlyn.  We even got to see our Great Niece (uhm yes I feel SO OLD! lol) Halle.  She was thing 1/2 and her parents were Things 1 and 2.

The Cruise

My parents took us on a cruise in October for my graduation and it was AMAZING!  We had so much fun playing and relaxing and our ship was unbelievable.  It was like a floating city, I still day dream about it!

 Playing beach volleyball in Labadee, Haiti

We got 2nd place medals in the tournament!

 Our ship, the Oasis of the Seas

 We also went jet skiing while in Haiti and it was so much fun!

 The ship had everything from rock climbing, to a zipline, basketball court, mini golf, the world's only park at sea, a merry-go-round, and ice rink (with a very impressive show I must say).

 One of our favorite activities was FloRider, they had 2 on the back of the ship.  One was for boogie boarding and the other had surfing.

 

 

 In Cozumel we walked around the city and shopped.

 One of the best things about cruising is eating dinner in the gorgeous dining room and always having the same waiters who get to know you and your "excellent choices"  Mine quickly learned to bring me a kids menu and that I liked everything plain!

 Jamaica was a blast and probably my favorite port on the cruise, if you made me pick. 

We ziplined in the Jamaican jungle and climbed up Dunns River Falls, which was incredible!!  You are literally in the falls and the guides are very funny.  You get soaked head to toe so we don't have any pictures (although my mom got the video which I'm still dying to see) and I found this picture online to give you the idea.  However, it is one of those things you have to do yourself to understand how amazing it is.

 

 

Thanks for an unforgettable trip mom and dad!!



New Job

In September I started working at Gowns by Pamela and I LOVE IT! I had missed working at Celestial Bride in Denver and have always loved weddings and playing dress up so this is the perfect job for me!  I mostly do sales but I've also been helping a lot with marketing and social media.  I still coach in the afternoons and just work at GBP in the mornings and sometimes the evening.

 



Jenn's Baby Shower

I had so much fun throwing my sisters baby shower with my cousin Emily last weekend.   Jenn is having a baby girl in December and I cannot wait to meet my new niece! For her shower we literally and figuratively "showered" her and it was so much fun to plan.

 

 

 

My mom made this adorable fruit baby....I'll let her tell the story of her and my dad "practicing making the baby"

 

My wonderful grandma made the chicken salad sandwiches and the "fruit pizzas" I got the idea from THIS blog (and other inspiration from THIS blog if you're interested)

I was so happy they tasted as good as they looked!

 

 

 Cutest baby bump ever!

 

4 Generations

We were so glad my Grandma Judy made the trip from Colorado to come!

 

Marissa, Gal, Capri and Ami

Andie, Jessica, Nataly and Syd

McKenna, Aunt Kristi, Grama Joan, Kandiss, Trudie and Kellie