Tickle Bugs

When we were kids my mom used to whip out her biggest weapon...the TICKLE BUGS! I guess that tickle bugs are hereditary because they seem to come around whenever my nephew, Parker is around. Our niece and nephews stayed the night on Saturday and came with us to church on Sunday. During sacrament meeting the bugs emerged and attacked Parker. Parker thought this was really funny, and his own tickle bugs came out and attacked me! I leaned over to Parker and said, "Parker, you're tickling the baby!" He looked at me and said, "How?!" I told him it was because the baby is in my tummy and that's where he was tickling me. He looked at me almost like he didn't believe me, thought a minute and then tickled me again. After playing along and giggling a little he said, "Is she laughing?" This caught me off guard, and I thought he was so cute, I said, "Yes, she is laughing!" He then looked at me and said, "But I can't hear her!" I told him it's because she is inside on me, and his older brother Cade said, "Yeah, Parker, we can't hear her but Hillary can feel her!" This about made my whole day! I love those kids and they always are making me laugh with what they come up with. Precious moments with the little guys!

IT'S A GIRL!!!

It's a GIRL!!!!

Yup, that's right! We are having a little girl! Totally surprised! I was convinced we were having a little boy, but our little girl was not shy and sure let her mommy know to stop refering to her as a he and him! Our doctors are amazing. Today we met with Dr. Bean. Before he told us he made us promise that we would listen to the rest of the important stuff. He didn't say a word and just typed "FEMALE" on the screen. I was so surprised! I'm pretty sure a "REALLY?!" came out of me. He said, "Were you expecting a boy?" I told him that my maternal instinct must be way off and that I've been calling it a him and he since I found out! He just laughed and said that he's sure she will forgive me. We continued on with the appointment and everything looked good! Her heart and brain, and organs, and EVERYTHING look great! I am so happy that she's is developing healthily and is doing well. While she wasn't shy in telling us she is a she, she wasn't so excited to show us her little face. She was tucked up in a little ball, so we don't have a good picture of her, but we did get to see her little hands and feet - I am glad to report she has all of her fingers! Eric and I are thrilled! We can't wait to have this little girl! However, it's fun having her bump around inside my belly. Eric finally felt her for the first time last night-it's so AWESOME!

These are just some baby belly pictures from the last couple of weeks.

19 weeks

20 weeks

21 weeks

22 weeks today

Some weeks I look more pregnant than others...I don't know what makes a difference. But there you are! Me and my little girl!

Our First "Jam" Session

My cute friend/co-worker, Tori, has three apricot trees in her back yard. If you have ever owned a house with an apricot tree you know how much those things produce! She brought her new baby into work, and brought with her a bag of apricots and invited us all to come pick as many as we want! So after work, Eric and I went over to pick some...and to have an excuse to see her brand new baby... and came home with a few bags. My mom has always made homemade apricot jam and I decided that it's something that I would like to keep up the tradition of doing, because if you have had homemade you know that store bought is just not the same!

Yes, I have a cute husband who will make jam with me :0) ...and do the part I don't like to do...

Eric calls this my Pirate Face...

For those of you who don't know Eric, he worked at a Pizza place for years and is passionate about pizza. He got bored and started to show off his dough throwing skills...so I put him back to work...

While this stuff looks likes just a pot of mush...it BURNS...

"Muscles" sealing the jars.

Jars just sealing. My prayers were answered and eventually the jam set into jam and not syrup!

I had to throw this one on here, just because I LOVE this kids FACE!

Overall, I would say that our first jam session was a success! I just don't know how my mom did it with 4 kids running around. I had Eric's help and no kids bugging me and I still came out with a few battle wounds! Apparently moulten apricot travels a lot further than I thought and burns like nothing else. SO here's to my mom for being amazing! I just don't know how she did it sometimes!

Yay Idaho!

Last weekend we drove out to Idaho for one of Eric's cousins sealings and baby blessing. Cassi, Kobe and their beautiful little girl, Tess, were sealed last Saturday and then Tess was blessed on Sunday. The trip started with a drive out to Twin Falls, Idaho where they were sealed since the Boise Temple was closed. I wore my church clothes in the car so I wouldn't have to worry about changing later,but Eric and his dad wore comfies instead. Why do you car about what we wore? You don't...but it's part of the story. We arrived about 2 hours early for the session and stopped at the Taco Bell in Twin so the boys could change. Eric changed and we headed out to the car to keep the air conditioning going-who knew that Idaho would be hotter than Utah? We waited a few minutes and then saw Larry walking out of the Taco Bell wearing a white shirt, tie, and his sweat pants...? Apparently, hepacked his suit coat, and somewhere in the process forgot his pants

. Thankfully Taco Bell was right outside the mall so we popped into JC Penny's and bought dad a pair of nice church pants-a little more suitable for the temple. Thank Heaven we got there as early as we did!

Here is dad in the dressing room with his tie and sweatpants...and yes we had the

lady at the counter ring up the pants while they were on him when we purchased them.

We then went to the temple and waited what seemed like an eternity for the sealing to begin. It really was a beautiful sealing. The Sealer was short, sweet, and to the point, but the simplicity of his message was what made it so beautiful to me.

This is just a picture outside of the temple. (I was taking pictures with other people's cameras of the family, and it wasn't until now I just realized that I have no pictures of Cassi, Kobe and Tess! I even jumped on facebook to see if I could steal one or two and they haven't posted any either! LAME!) Yes, I know...I'm getting bigger. My skirt fit when I was standing or sitting but it was just a little tight when I tried to bend over. While we were in the temple Eric had to help me put on socks, and later put my shoes back on. While the lady at the temple said, "Don't you feel like Cinderella?" I turned to Eric and said, "Oh no, it's happening already. You're my grandpa and I'm my grandma." (I've watched my grandpa put my grandma's shoes on for her several times over the last few months, because she has a hard time doing it herself sometimes. My grandpa is my hero.)

After all the pictures were done and we went out to eat, we drove down to the Shoshone Falls. I have been to Twin Falls a couple of times, but had NO IDEA that these falls were there. They were absolutely gorgeous. It's amazing to me how beautiful our world is! I love waterfalls. If you ever find yourself in Twin Falls, spend the $3.00 and 20-30 minutes to go and see! They are so pretty!

After the Falls we drove another two hours to Boise, where we stayed the night with Eric's cousins Jason and Jen and their five kids. We had a blast! It was such a fun trip for me because I haven't had much time to spend with the Smart family. It was so good to go and get to know them better.

The last thing we did before we left on Sunday was go "get" and ultrasound. Eric's cousin, Crystal, works for an OB and had access to and ultrasound machine so she took us to play around with it. We had a blast! We couldn't get a tech to come out so we spent nearly an hour playing on the machine and learned that it does require some skill to utilize it properly and an experienced eye to know what you are looking at. We were hoping to be able to see whether we are having a girl or a boy and while it seems like it would be easy to tell we still have no idea! We have two picture of it's lower end (we think!) and one looks like it could be a girl and the other a boy...so I guess we will still just have to wait until Tuesday!

Oh BABY!

This is no secret, and many of you already know that Eric and I are expecting our first baby! We are thrilled and cannot wait to add to our little family. It's hard to believe that we are almost half way there! The baby's official due date is December 13th and we are so excited! The doctor's appointments have all gone well so far, a pattern we pray continues, and we will get to have the official ultrasound on August 9th to find out if we will be having a boy or girl...it seems to far away!

So far there is nothing super reportable-well other than this being the coolest thing ever! Pregnancy has been pretty easy-not really any sickness, and the exhaustion went away when I hit the second trimester. My belly is getting bigger-slowly, if you didn't know me you probably wouldn't be able to tell I'm pregnant yet, and I haven't felt the baby move yet. But it has a heartbeat, and it likes to kick the microphone when the doctors is listening for it. So it's there and alive and as far as we know healthy and I could not ask for more!

Eric's New Job

Most of you know that Eric has been working full time while going to school year round, full time as long since he's been home from his mission! He's a hard worker and has done so much for our little family, we decided to take a break and go to Mexico this summer. Mexico was amazing, we had a blast and thanks to that trip Eric took his first much needed break from school this summer term. He was getting all geared up to go back for the second summer term, when we heard of an opening as a Psych Tech at the Utah State Mental Hospital. While Eric had a fantastic job working with troubled teens, that he loves, we decided to go ahead and apply for this position at the hospital. Because he is AMAZING and has had so much experience he was offered the job! This means a little better pay, awesome health benefits, and a little longer break from school as training is pretty crazy the first few weeks. We feel extremely blessed for this opportunity and are so grateful for it! Tomorrow is his first day, so we will keep you posted on how it goes.

This One is For Katherine and Diane

I would be lying if there wasn't a ton to update you all on these days. I never feel like I have anything to write about but thinking back over the last few months we have done a ton, our lives have changed and will continue to do so as time goes on. There are several things, and so I'm going to post them separately. However, this post is dedicated to Katherine and Diane, two of the best friends a girl can have.

Katherine, Diane and I met in High School. To this day it's hard to say what brought us all together, but some how we all wound up in Katherine's bedroom making the infamous "contention scarves" for our friends for Christmas one year and the three of us just "clicked". From sleepovers featuring midnight light shows, and frizbee at 5:00 am, or sleeping on the trampoline, to late nights at any park just chatting away, to flying kites out of car windows-these are the things that highlighted our high school days. As time has gone on we have been through a lot together, a lot of fun, and a few tough times that life is bound to have. No matter what life has thrown my way these are the girls I knew I could always turn too. We have all grown up now and started to go down our own paths, and though we don't see each other everyday like we used to, every time we gather (especially at our meeting place The Chocolate) it's like no time has passed. Everyone should have friends like these!

Yesterday, I said goodbye to both of these girls. Diane is leaving this coming Wednesday to serve a year and a half long LDS Mission in Chile. Knowing Di she is going to be one of the best Sister's that Chile has ever seen! I am very proud of her, and hope that she loves every second she will be out there. Katherine and her husband, Matt, are moving on to their next big life adventure-GRAD SCHOOL! Grad school will be taking them to St. Louis, Missouri. I am very excited for them, and wish them the very best. Matt has always excelled in school and is bound to rock the program out there. And Katherine has a lot of opportunities out there for her! She has some job interviews already set up that I am sure she will nail and once she gets settled, she'll be so busy with her new life and friends that I'm sure I'm going to be the one nagging her to update her blog more often!

It's a bittersweet thing, this growing up business. While I will miss these girls a ton and was sad to say goodbye, I am very excited and happy for both of them and what their lives will bring. They both mean a lot to me and I love them as if they were my sisters. Though we'll be states and countries away, I want these girls to know that I will always be here for them, no matter what. And I will always be grateful for their influence in my life.