Turkey Day

Keeping it short and sweet. Thanksgiving was great. Mom and dad were able to come up and we spent the week with them at grandma and grandpa's. It was great. I'm kind of lame and didn't get any pictures, minus the ones of the me and the hubby.



And an updated baby bump...21 1/2 weeks

I think this picture makes it look a little bigger than it actually is but that's okay, because I guess sooner or later I'm going to be HUGE!!!!

Happy 1st of November

Just a little update. We went to the Drs. today for our 18 week ultrasound and they confirmed that our little one is definitely a boy. He's measuring a little bit bigger than 18 weeks though. From what I could see from their little notes on the u/s screen was that he is closer to 19 weeks +a few days, but they haven't officially changed my due date yet. But Baby looks good and healthy, which is a big relief!
I haven't felt much baby movement yet. I think I feel him occasionally but it doesn't feel like "flutters" at all. More like bubbles? Or tapping? But I hardly ever feel anything b/c he is facing towards my back, so when he kicks I have a harder time feeling him. At least for now...
As far as my baby bump goes, I don't feel like it's quite a bump yet but it's definitely getting bigger! And I caved in and finally got some maternity jeans and I'm so mad at myself for not doing it earlier. They are seriously the most comfortable things I have ever worn. It's like wearing leggings/sweats all day. I would highly recommend them to any pregnant woman. Heck, I may even wear them after I have the baby as my "going out to dinner" pants.
Here is me at 18 weeks. (Figured I should document this kind of stuff)


Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. Ours was extremely low key. I spent the night baking cookies and cupcakes. But hey, I'm not complaining. It was sooooo worth it.
Here's what my little creations looked like at the end.


And for those of you who don't know this yet... These tiny, beautiful, magical, drops of heaven are now available.

Cadbury Christmas eggs!! Time to stock up!

It's a BOY!

We are excited to announce that our little baby is a boy!
We went for an early scan (16 +5 weeks) b/c my Dr. wouldn't see me for a gender scan until I'm at least 18 weeks and my mom was in town and wanted to be there for it. It was probably one of the most exciting days I've ever had. I'd have to say the best part of it was seeing our baby move around...all over the place! She had a hard time seeing between his legs because he would not stop moving. but after a few minutes he was still just long enough for the tech to get a quick picture and determine that he is definitely alllll boy! And after his first shot of between the legs, he was not shy! It was really cool to see him b/c the last time we saw our baby for an u/s was when I was only 6 weeks and he was just a little white dot.
It was so amazing to see him move his arms, fingers, and legs. And we saw him yawn, and stretch, and gosh... every little thing he did was so wonderful and amazing to watch. It was crazy to see him moving that much, because I can't feel any of it. I think I've felt him move around a few times but it's not very consistent. It was funny b/c while we were watching him he gave me a big kick right to my side but I didn't feel a thing.
I'm just so in love with him already it's ridiculous! I crave to see him again. And luckily, I have my 18-20 week appointment next Monday with the doc so I get to see him again in just one week! And we'll get to bring a DVD to record the ultrasound. And I'll probably be watching that 30 times a day, everyday until he's born.
Here are the pictures that we were able to take home with us.
This is his cute side profile. I love that nose of his!

Here is the front view (kind of looks a little alien-like)

And here's his little boy parts :)

And here is his cute little hand as he was turning over

And lastly, his cute, little, tiny foot! I never thought I'd be so obsessed with a foot! But his is definitely obsession worthy.

Happy baby days!!

A cheery update

So cheer has taken over my life!! It's like I'm back in high school all over again, except instead of having to do all the work, I get to tell everyone else what to do. But I love it! It's been really interesting to see the difference of how they (Payson) cheer and we (Hart) cheered. It's completely different! Hart cheer was more about the stunting and competition, where as Payson cheer is all about dancing with some tumbling and some stunting. Like their routines are 99% dancing and that 1% is split between tumbling and stunting. It's kind of an adjustment getting used to that but I actually love that they haven't done much with stunting b/c that leaves more room for me to help out. I've been able to teach them a lot and they're improving everyday. I can't wait to see where they are next year.
This last week they did their halftime routine at the football game and it looked awesome. Just thought I would share it b/c they worked so hard and I want them to get worldwide recognition :)

Oh and this last week has been awesome with injuries! We had a girl get a minor concussion and another girl got her eyebrow split open and had a small fracture in her nose. Go us...
In baby news, we had a 14 week check up today and doc said baby sounds good. Her/his heartbeat was between 150-160 and sounded very active. We could here baby moving around, it was the coolest thing. I can't wait until our next ultrasound. I haven't seen our baby since I was only 6 weeks! I'm dying to see what baby looks like now :)

Things that bother me

"Bothering me," is putting it nicely. What I really want to say is "Things that absolutely annoy me to the point I want to kick you." I feel the best way to release some of the tension is to "blog it out." Now, I hate to sound negative, but I have to get this off my chest or I might just explode!
Aly's list of things that are really bothering her:
1. People telling me what to eat when I'm not asking for the advice. Only if I ask you, do I seek your thoughts.
2. People touching my belly. It's not like I have a huge baby bump yet! It's just bloating and fat, so please stay away from it.
3. People judging for those who choose an epidural. Not saying I'm not pro-natural, or pro-drugs. I just haven't decided. Both are great in my book.
4. People asking me what names we've thought about and then giving me weird looks b/c they're not "creative" enough. I didn't ask for your input. And sorry I don't want my child to be made fun of for their whole entire life b/c their parent's wanted them to have some bizarre name to be "different" from everybody else. Who cares.
5. People telling me that my pregnancy is soooo easy b/c I haven't thrown up. I know I've been blessed with a fairly nice pregnancy, but feeling nauseous 24/7 ain't no walk in the park.
6. Wearing anything but my sweats. Any kind of pressure on my lower abs makes me so sick.
7. Sitting for longer than 30 minutes. Same as above, it makes me feel sick if I sit for too long. I guess I have somewhat of a legit reason to lay in bed all day :)
And I think that covers my list. Thanks for listening!

And Baby makes 3!

Yes, that's right. Our family will be growing from 2 to 3. We are so excited for our little one to join us. As of today I am 10 weeks and 3 days in. Our expected due date is April 4, 2011! I found out I was pregnant around the end of July! I must have only been about 2-3 weeks along though. I thought I was further until I went to the Dr.s and he said I was only 6 weeks instead of 8. That was kind of a bummer but I can't complain, I'm just happy our little guy is sticking in there. So far it's been fairly easy...and by easy I mean, I haven't thrown up once. Although I am tired, nauseous, hungry, emotional, hungry and hungry. I never thought I would say this, but I am so sick eating! I need to eat about every 3 hours and it's just become a hassle. But other than those symptoms, life is good.
Is it gross to show the actual pregnancy test? If so, sorry!

And here is our little one at 6 weeks. You have to look really hard to see it!

That tiny white "dot" at the bottom right is our baby!
We just had our 10 week appt a few days ago and was hoping I would get another ultra sound but no such luck. But we were able to hear it's tiny heartbeat on the doppler. It was the greatest feeling in the world to hear that. It's crazy to think that something so tiny already has blood pumping through it and it has a heartbeat. I think I'm addicted to hearing it beat away. Oh and Doc said heartbeat was at 160 and baby sounded healthy :)Happy day! Anyways, that's it for the update.
Oh P.S, one of my best friends is pregnant too! She is 4 weeks ahead of me (lucky) But I'm just so excited that we get to have our babies around the same time! It's been something that we've always talked about, since we were in like 7th grade, and now it's really happening! Congrats to Kelli and Kirk Lindahl.

Furniture make over

When we first got married, my parents were so kind to give us their old bedroom nightstands. The only problem with them was that they were this (no offense mom) ugly peachy pink color.

But they've always just been in our room where no one ever sees them so I never thought to do anything with them. Then I came across this blog http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/ I believe it's some woman that lives out here in UT and she re-dos, makes-over, and re-upholsters old furniture. Some of her stuff is a little too much to handle but she has some great ideas and is super talented. So I decided that since I'm out of school now, Oh yeah, I graduated from hair school finally but I'll get to that later, I'll re-do our nightstands and eventually get around to re-doing our dresser. I spent all morning today sanding, priming, painting, and glazing. And here is my process of it and final outcome.
Freshly painted with an "Almond Satin"

Here is the glazing

And here is both finished nightstands, still a bit wet though.

Now, I'd like to say that this was the most fun project I've ever done, but to be honest, I think I hated it. It was too hot outside, the paint stinks, my back hurt from bending over, and the glazing was the biggest pain in my butt. But I guess it's worth it to have cute furniture and only spend $20 to achieve it. Maybe someday I'll get my dresser done, but don't count on that any time soon.

Now for this whole graduating school thing. I finished up the last of my 2,000 hours on Monday. It was such an awesome feeling to be DONE! Done with school, forever!!!! I will never ever, ever, ever have to go back to school to get a degree (unless I want to but a BA/BS won't get you very far these days unless you've got some sweet hookups, which I don't but I'd be willing to take if anything came up :) )So now that I'm done I guess it'd be time to get a "real" job right? Well, that would be the case if salons were actually hiring! It seems that the only salons that are hiring are booth rent, or they want you to have years of salon experience and a full clientele. Kind of sucks, but I'm hoping that an opportunity will open up soon. Keep your fingers crossed and in the meantime, if you or anybody you know, needs to get their hair done, my prices are super reasonable!
That's about it over here. Peace!

Sparkling Strawberry Slushie

These have become our new addiction

The hubby works long, hot days, 6 days a week. So when he gets home from work the one thing he craves is something cold to drink. Ice water started to get boring so I decided I should make some sort of flavored iced drink. So I went to the freezer and saw a bag of frozen strawberries and some ice. I threw it in a blender with some sugar and added some sparkling water to it, and what happened next was magical...it was like an explosion of deliciousness. And it was super easy to make and literally took no more than 5 minutes to make. So I thought I'd share this wonderful summer drink with all of my many many readers :)

Sparkling Strawberry Slushie
Serves 4
3/4 cup raw brown sugar (or white, whichever you have on hand)
1 1/2 cup water
Half a bottle of sparkling water
10-15 frozen straweberries
A few handfuls of ice

Throw all ingredients in a blender and blend it up. Pour into 4 glasses and drink up. Pretty easy right?

As for our weekend, our 4th of July was pretty uneventful. I spent 10 hours at the Freedom Festival for school doing up-dos on gross, dirty hair. I learned that apparently personal hygiene isn't practiced very often in other households. Every head of hair that I touched was either un-brushed and extremely knotted or greasy and smelt of who knows what. So please, if you ever go to get your hair done, whether it's for free or going to the salon, make sure it's somewhat clean.
Then on Sunday we had a nice brunch that consisted of hummus and rice crackers, scrambled eggs, some kind of chickpea salad, and this South African sausage that I can't spell or say.

And for dinner I made homemade chicken tacos with fresh pico de gallo, cheese, lettuce and black bean salsa.

Hope you all had a great 4th!

"Yes I can...get sick now"

My brother-in-law showed this clip to me and it's hilarious. Just thought a few of you would enjoy this :)

And here's a sneak peek at my cheer squad...

It's still no where near where it needs to be, but we'll get there...slowly but surely.
Sorry, still nothing to update about :(

Cheerleading!

Do you remember way back when, when I did a post on how I wanted to coach cheer? Well, I am now! I'm so excited for it. Last week was my first week and I'm in love! It's super early in the morning, but it's okay, because my squad is awesome. They make it easy to be there at 6:00 am. I didn't really know what to expect of the girls when I started but they've impressed me so much. Everyday I just become more and more surprised with how good they are, not just talent wise, but attitude wise. It's a breath of fresh air, seeing as how all I knew was Hart cheerleaders, and well, I don't think we had the best attitudes, especially towards coaches...so I'm really relieved they don't treat me the way some of my old cheerleader teammates responded to our coach. We have a few girls that are newbies but are working their butts off and doing great. This is will be their first year competing and so it should be interesting and exciting. They do things a little bit different up here than what I'm used to, so I'm learning to adjust but seriously, loving every minute. I'll keep you updated on our progess :)

But besides keeping myself super busy with that, I've decided to change my hair. I decided that I really wanted to do a block color, so I did. And here's how it looks...

Just kidding, sort of. This was the beginning process of lifting a section of my hair to the level of lightness I wanted it. I was SHOCKED when I saw this color on my head. I just about had a heart attack when I looked at myself in the mirror. It was NEON ORANGE! Not like a subtle orange,but it was like someone had poured some sort of toxic waste on my hair and it was glowing. But we put a few colors in it to tone it down and it looks a lot better. There's still one little area that's a bit orangey, but I haven't had the time to tone it down yet. Anyways, so that's what's new with me. Hope everyone is having a great Spring/Summer season, because apparently where I live, those seasons don't exist. It will be Winter forever!!!!

It's movie time

Just a quick little update on what's going on. For school, I've been given the opportunity to work a full feature film called "For Robbing the Dead." Now, the only thing I really know about the movie is that it's about a grave robber from 1860 named Jean Baptiste (pronounce with a French accent). And then there's some older lady whose daughter dies and she's not taking it so well, and some how it ties into the whole grave robber thing. SO anyways, there's actually a few "well known" actors in it. Jean Baptiste is played by an actor, David Stevens, he played some character in Punch Drunk Love (never seen it). And the old lady is played by Margot Kidder who played Lois Lane in Superman with Christopher Reeve. And the other actor that seemed to be familiar but I have yet to meet/see is the old guy who plays the Grandpa in Gilmore Girls. Some of the other girls working on the film say he's not so kind, but I haven't meet him yet. Anyways, I'm really excited for this movie to come out. It's been a lot of fun but also kind of stressful not knowing exactly when and how long we'll be needed for. They've been filming at the LDS Motion Picture Studio and up in SLC. We have about 2 weeks of filming left and then I have no idea how long it actually takes for the final product to be released. So that's it for now. And I'm also on a Glee kick right now. I LOVE the show and watch it every week and for some reason, I've been obsessed with listening to them for the past few days. Just thought I'd share this video because it's amazing.

The big 2-2!

It's official, I'm over the hill. I turned 22 at the end of April and I can already feel the aches and pains :) So for the big day we decided to do 2 things, first thing was, talk to a jeweler about getting a scissor charm necklace made and the second thing was go out to dinner at a new restaurant. We went to a little Italian restaurant called Gloria's Little Italy. And oh my gosh! It was soooo good. All the food was made from scratch, fresh, everyday. If you're given the chance to go there, do it! It's one of our new favorite restaurants for sure. And to top the night off, I made a fruit pizza for dessert. All in all, it was a gooooooood birthday! I only have a few pictures but hopefully they will suffice.
In front of Gloria's

The in-laws and us at dinner

And for dessert, fruit pizza!

I also got into another one of my "Martha Stewart" moods and decided to embrace my inner fabric florist.

This is a belt that I made and I can't wait to actually wear it! I also made some super cute necklaces. I sent these ones to my sister for her birthday and I'm in the process of making myself a powder blue one. If you guys are interested in one let me know, I'll give yah a really good deal :)



In other news, not much else is going in our lives. Except for the hubby finished school about 2 weeks ago and is now starting back at his dusty, yucky job next week. And I just hit 1,650/2000 hours last week. I only have 350 left to go! Ah! I'm kind of freaking out. But so excited to be done. Sometimes it angers me though, because if were to be living in CA I would have been done with school 150 hours ago. Ugh, Stupid state that I live in. Oh well, I don't know if I'd feel quite ready if I were to have finished a month and a half ago. Anyways, that's about it for now. Peace, love and happiness!

2 years of marriage...what?!

Can you believe that we've been married for 2 years?! It's crazy to think that it's already been that long. It feels like I just got married yesterday. So to celebrate our 2 year anniversary we spent the day at Gardner Village in West Jordan. It was the cutest little place I've ever been to. It had all of these old shops and restaurants, which we ate at and it was AMAZING! If you are ever in the area I suggest you stop there, you won't be mad, I promise. We also stopped at our other favorite little shop in Sandy called PirateO's. They import foods from all over the world and sell them here and I think I could honestly spend all over our money there and not even be mad about it.. We stock up on all of our favorite "English/South African" goodies. But they don't last very long in our house... Other than our splurging on food, the rest of our celebrations were pretty low key. We just saw a movie and hung out. And those are definitely my favorite kinds of nights. Here are a few pictures of our day together

Here is us infront of the Protea Shop

And here is the hubby with his super long hair at Archibald's (the yummy restaurant at Gardner Village)

So that basically sums up our 2 year anniversary. Lots of food and lots of time together, wouldn't have it any other way :)
Now, do you notice how long the hubby's hair is? Well all of that came off today! He finally let me cut it off. He's been growing it out since Thanksgiving and it's been driving nuts ever since! He came into my school today and we played...mwahahaha.


And now it's short and beautiful! Pictures to come at another time.
And one last thing, for Easter this year hubby and I decided to make homemade ribs. We both have never cooked ribs before so it took some planning to get the job done. After 4 hours of cooking they were finally ready to serve. Here is the final product...

We had 3 HUGE racks that we spiced, cooked, and basted...all from scratch! We made a homemade rub and homemade bbq sauce. And they were delicious! Best ribs I've ever had, and not just because we made them, but because they were just that good :)
Anyways, that's it for our update.

Fashion show! Fashion show! Fashion show at lunch

Well, 2 weeks ago I was given the opportunity to do hair for a REAL fashion show. One of the designers was a girl named Devani Weaver, a designer from AZ I believe. I guess she got designer of the year at Scottsdale Fashion Week. But anyways, her stuff was crazy! Here's her Etsy site if you'd like to check it out http://www.etsy.com/shop/devaniweaver. I only have pictures of 2/4 models I did. I couldn't remember who the other 2 were so I have nothing to show for them. I wish I had a few more views of their hair but I guess the event was about clothes and not about the hair. Buuut, I had so much fun doing it! It was a great experience and gave me a lot of practice on how to whip out a 20 minute up-do.




And just another update, my niece is world wide famous now. Yeup, that's right. She is the official Dillard's 2010 baby girl/infant Spring model poster baby thing. So if you happen to be in a Dillard's, make sure you look for this little cutie

And, by the end of this week we should have a new nephew! My sister is already having baby #2! I can't believe it's already time. I'm so excited for her and her family. Love you Bree!!!
Anyways, that's it for now. I'll update again when I have pictures of Bree's little boy. Good night.

Gah! Nothing to blog about...

Well,I don't really have anything to blog about at the moment, so I figured I would just share a few of my favorite clips from some of my favorite shows. Hope you guys like them too :)

Tosh.0
Fire In The Hole
www.comedycentral.com
Web Redemption 2 Girls, 1 Cup Reaction Demi Moore Picture

On this next one...I'm sorry for the 2 bleeps. Please don't be offended.

Tosh.0
Web Redemption - Home Shopping Fail
www.comedycentral.com
Web Redemption 2 Girls, 1 Cup Reaction Demi Moore Picture

And lastly...this.

Happy "fatty"tines day

Valentine's Day is officially known as Fatty Fatty Fattytine's Day to me. I'm not a huge fan of this day but I do love and will accept any excuse to go out to dinner. We celebrated early Friday evening by going to my favorite restaurant ever...Cheesecake Factory! I got the spicy cashew chicken and a strawberry lemonade to drink. It was to die for! But as usual, I was too full for cheesecake by the end of our meal. After dinner we headed back home and just relaxed. Then Saturday, we ended up "splurging" on our favorite treats which would include, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, salt and vinegar chips and mini cadbury eggs. We then proceeded to watch a lame ninja movie and a surprising even lamer New Moon. I have come to the conclusion that the Twilight series is completely over rated and Vampire Diaries dominates. I have an obsession with this show. It's actually kind of sad. I feel like I'm back in high school by watching it, but I don't even care. I LOVE it! But anyways, that was pretty much the highlights of our day. And then Sunday morning we woke up and the Hubby surprised me with this super cute box of chocolates. We told each other we weren't going to get each other ANYTHING so I kind of felt bad that I really didn't get him anything. Whoops! But he was so cute. He picked out this specific box of chocolates because its wrapping paper had the same colors as our wedding. SO presh. But I guess I made it up to him by making his favorite breakfast meal, biscuits and gravy...and all from scratch :) It was a good, hearty, FATTY meal. SO I guess all in all, it was a good weekend but I now need to step onto that elliptical and start working it all off.
Here are my cute heart shaped biscuites...



And my first attempt at making fortune cookies...

And some heart shaped sugar cookies...

And by the way, I have the BEST sugar cookie recipe if any of you are interested. It calls for a small amount of ingredients and requires no "chilling" time.
And lastly, here is Dezzi passed out on the hubby's face. So adorable.

LOVE this song!

For those of you who are watching American Idol may remember the contestant Didi something. Well she sang this song last week and I loved it. But they only have the 30 seconds that she sang so I decided to find the original version by judge, Kara Dioguardi. And I had no idea that I would actually enjoy listening to her singing, but I loved it! So, I thought I would share it. I hope you like it :) Oh and I would skip the first 1:45 because it's just them rambling on about something.

Crafty nights

Last night I was "inspired" to learn how to make those cute fabric rosettes. I've been wanting to figure it out for awhile now but I have been too lazy to actually do it. So I spent a lot of last night, through trial and error, figuring out the cutest way to make these roses. And I did it! I was so proud of myself. I hand stitched them and everything! And okay, so this may be ghetto, but because I decided to do this at like 10:30 pm I didn't have time to get fabric so I ended up just cutting some old shirts that I never wore. And 2 hours later I had a "new" cardigan and new headband :) And I've always wanted to make my own headbands and sell them but never had the guts to do it.So I'm hoping now that I'll actually be able to do it and be successful at it. But anyways, I thought I'd post my pictures of creations. Sorry about the quality of the pic. My Iphone camera isn't the best quality but it gets the job done. And I'd like to get your opinions if making/selling headbands would even be worth it or if they're even cute enough to sell. I'd like to hear what you have to say. Thanks!