The Tuckett Family

Update

2011-05-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ava and her friend Blaine playing.

Ava and Blaine sitting in a chair. They are only 6 days apart. We like to joke that they are going to be married some day! They are so cute together!

Ava is almost 15 months old and she is getting smarter every day!

She can say: Hi, nana (banana), baba (drink), bow wow (dog, horse, or basically anything with 4 legs, while pointing at it), and uh-oh! She is pretty good at communicating what she wants. She is really good at pointing and making gestures until she gets what she wants. She loves to read her books and talk on the phone. Right now she loves to climb on things. Once she gets on top of something she stands up so tall like she is so proud of herself! Another things he likes to do dance. She puts her hands above her head and twirls around like a ballerina. She absolutely loves to talk on the phone! She will put anything small up against her ear and talk. She says "hi" and then jabbers and then she will start laughing for no reason. It's pretty entertaining to watch.

In other news, we are moving to Payson to live in my parent's basement. We are excited to have some more room to ourselves. Blake has 2 treatments left (we hope) and then possible radiation. We are hoping to be completely done with treatment by July. His tumor has shrunk by 50% which is wonderful news! Unfortunately we are going to have to pay for everything on our own. We have done everything we can to try and get help from insurance and the state and it looks like we are on our own. We are going to have a huge yard sale at the end of June so if you have anything you would like to donate towards paying off our bills that would be wonderful! I will post more info later when I know more.

Chocolate cake

2011-05-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Grandma Tuckett made some chocolate cake one Sunday and we decided to give Ava some because she never had the chance to eat chocolate cake on her own. Since she had bandaged hands on her birthday.

As you can see she loved it!

The bib she is wearing is Blake's. I really like it because it covers everything and keeps her really clean. Can you see her pig tails? I was finally able to do that to her and I think she looks so cute!

Ava's 1st birthday!

2011-05-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

Eating cake as well as she can without hands.

I had to cover her bandaged hands with socks so that I didn't have to change her bandages again.

She loved her chocolate cake!

This is Ava and her cousing Danica. We had a little party with a few family members. She got a couple of outfits, a baby doll and some money. She had a good birthday, she was a little confused by what was going on but that's ok!

February

2011-02-20T19:38:00.000-08:00

Ava is a professional walker! As soon as we moved in she started taking off walking. She doesn't even want to crawl any more. She was really sick in the beginning of December. She had croup and bronchiolitis. It was so sad to see her suffer.
Since she is such a good walker here's a good story for you...when I was over at my mom's house, I was cutting my brother's hair and so she took her down stairs to keep her our of the hair on the floor and to keep her from hanging all over me. After I was done with the hair cut, I started sweeping and I heard screaming coming from down stairs. So I run down to see what happened. My mom was holding her and said "she touched the fire place and burned her hands". I saw these huge blisters on the palms of her hands and my mom said to call the doctor because they look pretty bad. We go the doctor's office and they make us wait for about 30 minutes before one of the nurses comes in to give her medicine. Then about 15 minutes later he comes in. She was screaming the whole time! I felt so bad. He said that they look pretty bad and he wanted me to come in on Monday (this was Friday at the time) and cut off the dead skin. So he bandaged her up and sent us on our way. He said that it looked like 2nd degree but he wouldn't know until he saw the skin underneath.
The next week we go in and he cuts off the dead skin and he cried the whole time. It was so sad. He said that if she touched the fireplace a second longer than it would have been 3rd degree. We were so relieved that it wasn't worse than that. We have to change her bandages every day, and she still hates it. She cries and whines the whole time. I feel bad every time that I have to change them. Here is a picture of her below, you can see her bandaged hands.

You can't tell in the picture, but her right hand has her 4 fingers sticking out. They weren't burned as bad and so they healed super fast. That has helped out tremendously with her every activities of getting into everything. She can actually grab things and use her fingers. Her left hand was much worse than the right and so it's still bandaged up. We go the doctor again tomorrow for Ava's 12 month appt and so we are hoping that one of her bandages will be taken off and that her fingers on her left hand will be able to come out.

Can you believe that she is a year old? I can't believe it! She has grown up so much! She is having a party tomorrow and I will definately post some pictures of that.

January

2011-02-20T19:29:00.001-08:00

Ava loves bath time! Here are some pictures for your enjoyment because she is so stinkin' cute!

On January 15th, we moved from our home in Palmyra into Blake's parents house in Spanish Fork. He started his treatment in the beginning of January and so he quit working for a few months during that time. He gets treatments every other week and so during the week that he gets treatment he feels pretty sick. His main side effects are fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and a metallic taste in his mouth. On the off week he feels pretty good, just tired.

December

2011-02-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

In December we met with the oncologist. Our first visit with him was about 2 hrs. They talked to us about treatment, what the side affects will be and what to expect. They wanted to get a bone marrow biopsy to make sure it hasn't spread and they got an x-ray of his abdomen to make sure that it hasn't spread to other parts of his body. Luckily, his bone marrow is cancer free and his abdomen is also cancer free. So that still put him in Stage 2.

We felt like our world was turned upside down. At first we were very bitter and upset about the whole thing. Mostly I was, Blake was handling it better than I was. Then we felt like "why me?". Then after a looong time I started to finally accept it. They wanted to start the chemo after the holidays so that he would be feeling good.

Ava was 10 months old on Christmas. She took her first steps by herself on Dec. 17! She would only walk when no one was looking and when she didn't realize that she was doing it by herself. When one of us would say for her to walk to us, she would go down to the ground and crawl. What a silly girl. Sorry, no pictures this month. I was lame, and didn't feel like doing anything the whole month. It's a miracle I even got my family anything for Christmas, but just because life sucks doesn't mean that I shouldn't have my family be happy.

November

2011-02-20T19:03:00.000-08:00

Ava is 9 months old and she is trying to walk, she will walk along furniture but can't get the courage to walk by herself.

November was the start of the reason why I have not been blogging. In July Blake felt a lump in his neck, he thought it was a swollen gland or an infection or something and so he thought it would go away. He also had a cough and noticed that when the cough would go away so would the lump, but then the lump would come back when the cough came back. He didn't have health insurance at the time so he didn't want to go and have it be nothing. I kept bugging him about it and telling him to go to the doctor and every time I would ask him about it he would say "well, the lump isn't as big anymore".

In November, he came home from work one day and was just not feeling well, so he he finally decided to go the doctor. He said he was tired of feeling sick and tired. The doc wanted him to get some x-rays. Then when we got the results of the x-rays the doc said that something didn't look normal and so he wanted him to get a CT scan, so we waited over the weekend and on Monday he went in to get a CT scan. On Tues, we met with a pulmonologist (lung doc) to get the results. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving he was told that he had Lymphoma. He has a tumor in one of his lymph nodes in his chest and his neck. They wanted a biopsy to determine what type of lymphoma it is. We waited unil the next week to get the biopsy, we found out a few days later that it is Hodgkin Lymphoma, which is the malignant kind and that it was stage 2 cancer. The size of the tumor in his chest was 16cm! We couldn't believe how big it was! They didn't know it was that big until they went in for the biopsy. They said that treatment is chemo and radiation. His symptoms were: night sweats, weight loss, cough, and swollen lymph nodes in the neck. Who would have known?

I know...

2011-02-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

It has been an extremely long time since I have written and I have been going through a lot lately so that's been the main reason why I haven't written in a while. This is going to be a long post just so that you have been warned...

Ava was a tiger for halloween. I think she was the cutest tiger ever!

Picture overload!

2010-10-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures that I promised!

This is Ava with a milk mustache. She wanted to hold the camera.

This is her before coming over to me to steal the camera. She has the intent in her eyes!

This is what she has been doing constantly for the past week. Standing up next to furniture.

Huh? Such big beautiful blue eyes!

We call this the "wounded" picture. This is what happens when your kid is learning to walk. I feel like everyone thinks we beat her or something...

Daddy loves his baby girl!

This is a bad quality because it was taken from my phone. We thought this hat looked adorable! She wore this on Sunday and got so many compliments. Her Grammy Connie made this for her and she was finally able to wear it!

This is just plain funny. We think she just gave us a cheesy grin to humor us. Do you like her little fohawk?

Big mouth grin!

Another big mouth grin!

8 months!

2010-10-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

Ava is 8 months old and she is getting into everything! She loves to pull herself up to furniture and stand. That's pretty much all that she wants to do when she plays. No matter where she is, she always reaches toward the coffee table or the couch so that she can stand up.
She weighs 17 lbs and 6 oz. and is about 27 inches long. She is still a skinny little thing. We bought her some pants for the colder weather and they are size 6-9 months and when she is wearing them she crawls right out of them! It's so funny! The length is normal, it's just that she is so dang skinny! She has started crawling, but she still prefers to do her army crawl. She has two new teeth! We are so glad they are finally here. She would be kind of crabby when she was cutting her teeth. I'll add pictures later, I'm not able to get them on my computer from my phone right now, maybe I'll do that tomorrow...

7 Months!

2010-09-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

Ava is 7 months old! She is so much fun to watch and play with. I'm not sure how much she weighs or how long she is but here are her accomplishments:

Gets up on her hands and knees
Scoots all over the place
Babbles
Likes to hear her voice and likes to scream when she is excited
Leans toward a person when she wants them to hold her
Likes to wave (don't know if she knows that she is waving but we think she is)

We call this picture the "Big Girl!" picture. It shows how big she is getting.

Right after this picture she fell over. I guess babies tend to do that when they look up at something when they are sitting up.

Another "Big Girl" picture

We call this picture "The little lady" picture because she just looks so ladylike and innocent.

6 Months!

2010-09-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that Ava is already 6 months old! Here are some things that she has accomplished over the last month. Also, here are her statistics from her last doctors appointment:

-Weight: 15 lbs. 4 oz. (25th %tile)
-Length: 26.5 inches (72nd %tile)
-Head Circumrence: 17 inches (67 %tile)
-Tries to get up on her hands and knees
-Scoots all over the place
-Recognizes mommy and daddy in a crowded room
-Loves to play and laugh
-Likes to sing
-Sits up a lot better
-Holds her bottle all by herself. (which is really nice!)

This is her reaction to seeing herself in front of the mirror.

I snuck in her bedroom to see what she was doing and this was the position that I saw her in. She's so funny! She must have been really tired because the stairs to her room are really sqweaky and everytime I go up there she wakes up. But this time didn't.

This is her concentration face.

We had her pictures taken on Labor Day and when we get them then I will post them on there.
Ava is growing up so fast and we love her so much! She is very curious and into everything that she can get her hands on!

New Job

2010-08-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

In a few posts back I mentioned that I had finally finished school. I have still been working at Install Pro a few days a week. I have just been doing hair out of my home and trying to save the money to get all of my salon supplies. Well, last Monday a girl from my school that I graduated with called me and asked me if I was looking for a job. I explained that I wasn't really looking for one exclusively but I just wanted to work maybe one or 2 days during the week. She said that the salon that she is working in just opened up and she has been super busy and the owner was looking for a dependable and hardworking stylist to work only a few days a week. So I called her that same day and talked a bit about when I would be working. I had an interview with her that afternoon and by Friday she said that I had the job. I will be working at 56 West Boutique and Salon. It is located in Spanish Fork, in a pretty good location. I will be working on Friday and Saturdays from 10 am to 6 pm. I am excited to start this new career and be able to actually make money for what I love to do! Here is the website if you want to take a look. www.56westsalon.com

5 months!

2010-08-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Ava is 5 months old!
Here are some things we would like to remember about Ava at 5 months old:

~Weight: Approx. 14 lbs.
~Height: Approx. 25 inches
~Starts to grab things and put in her mouth
~She loves to laugh!
~Trying to sit up, can stay sitting up for about 10 seconds before she falls over.
~Loves to roll over. As soon as we put her down, she is already rolling all over the place!
~Likes to look at herself in the mirror

Chubby face

This picture looks exactly like Blake did when he was a baby. Unfortunately we don't have a picture to show and compare but as soon as I saw this pic I thought of him!

This is her in her walker. She loves to play! Such a big mouth grin!

And this pic looks exactly like I did at 6 months old! She is a complete mixture of Blake and I.

Ava is such a fun baby to be around. We love her to pieces and could not imagine our life without her.

Other good news!

2010-06-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention something else about Ava. She was in the Freedom Festival Cute baby contest and she got 3rd place in the 0-3 month category! Go Ava! They not only look at how cute they are but they look at their personality too. I think she would have gotten 1st place if she had smiled right off the bat but it took her a while to warm up to the judges. She was concentrating on her feet and didn't pay attention to anything else around her.
So is so cute!

4 Months and Good News!

2010-06-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

Ava is 4 months old! I know I say this every month but I can't believe how fast she is growing! Here are some highlights that we want to remember about Ava in her 4th month.

-12 lbs. 6 oz (24 %tile)
-24 1/2 inches long (61 %tile)
- Head circumrence 16 inches (41 %tile)
-Rolls over from back to belly and from belly to back
-eats 6 oz.
-eats every 3-3 1/2 hrs.
-loves to look at people from a distance
-easy to make her laugh
-loves her daddy, always looks around for him when he is home

Ava is such a good baby. She is still sleeping about 10-11 hrs at night. And takes frequent naps throughout the day. Which helps me out a lot so that I can get stuff done. She tried her first bowl of rice cereal. She is not sure how she feels about it. She gave us a funny face when I gave it to her. It was so cute! But she is learning to like it.

Now for the good news for me...I finally finished school! Hallelujia! I have taken and passed all of my tests and now I am just waiting to receive my licence in the mail. I am now a licenced hair stylist! I am working out my home. So if you would like me to do your hair make an appointment with me and I would love to do it!

Random pictures

2010-05-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some random pictures of Ava...

Mommy and Ava

We caught her with her pouty face. The cutest face ever!

We like to do different faces on her

Another pouty face. Usually that means she is hungry, and sometimes it means that she is sad...

So cute!

I entered Ava into a cutest baby conference. Please vote for her!

http://todays1065.clearcontests.com/front/OpenContest.asp?Action=Login&SurveyID=72123&zx=294

She is number 140. The voting closes on Friday June 4th. Thanks!

3 Months!

2010-05-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Ava is now 3 months old! She is getting bigger and bigger every day! We just love her so much and love to play with her all day long. Here are some things that she has accomplished.

-11 lbs. 7 oz.

-23 1/2 inches long

-loves to talk to you

-giggled for her first time on Thursday. (video to come)

-she can stand with help

-likes attention

We don't have any pictures of her at 3 months yet but I will put some up soon.

Graduation!

2010-05-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

I am finally done with school! It has been a long road but it has finally arrived. I actually finished school a couple of weeks ago but my graduation was last Thursday. It was fun to see all of my friends at school.

I felt stupid standing on the stage all by myself so I had to have Ava with me. Isn't she cute?

2 months!

2010-04-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

Ava is 9 weeks now and last week we had a little photoshoot. My friend Hailee from school took these pictures before she moved and I think she did an awesome job! Here are the accomplishments for the past month:

Length: 22 1/4 inches 44.53 %tile

Weight: 9 lbs 13 oz. 25.76 %tile

Head Circumference: 15 inches 29.88 %tile

Loves to laugh!

Makes eye contact and follows you around

Can hold head up for longer periods of time

Loves to play

Loves to splash in the tub

Sleeps 8-9 hours during the night

Tries to roll over

Ava is growing up so fast and we fall in love with her more and more each day! We think she is the cutest baby and we love to play with her every day.

One Month!

2010-04-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

This is a little late but Ava is one month old! Time has gone by really fast and it doesn't seem like she is only one month old. She seems a lot older... Here are her accomplishments for the past month.

She is 8 lbs. 12 ounces and 22 inches long.

She will smile and laugh when played with or when you are talking to her.

She loves to be held!

She is a picky eater. She won't eat a certain kind of formula and when I try to feed her with the bottle she won't eat it unless it is warm...

She loves to be held!

She is a good sleeper. She wakes up about once during the night to eat and then again around 7 or 8 am.

She will look at you when you talk to her.

She loves to take a bath.

She loves to play with her daddy.

Here she is in her bouncy chair. She likes to play in it for about 10 minutes and then she gets tired and cranky so I have to take her out.

Blake was lucky enough to get this picture of her. She loves to stick out her tongue and lick her lips.

This is a little "photo shoot". I love this little dress on her. She looks like such a girly girl. This picture she is starting to get fussy. She only cries when she starts to get tired and so I couldn't really get very good pictures of her.

Everything is going good with Blake and I. I am going to start going back to school on Monday. I am going to go back full time so that I can be done in 6 weeks. Luckily my mom lives close by and she is going to take care of her while I am in school until Blake gets off of work. Last night Ava slept through the night! I couldn't believe it! Hopefully that will continue and I can get some more sleep at night. What a good little baby I have!

Update

2010-03-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of Ava in the past 3 weeks. She is almost 1 month old! I can hardly believe how fast she is growing up.

This is one of her favorite sleeping positions...

Picture of mommy and baby

This is her in her car seat. She loves to go for rides in the car!

This is her in the bouncy seat. She likes it for about 10 minutes. Then she gets tired and cranky and I have to take her out to put her to sleep.

This is her after having a bath. She loves to take a bath!

Baby Ava

2010-02-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

So I know that this post is long overdue but I have been really busy and really tired to post it. As most of you already know...baby Ava was born on Sunday, February 21st at 12:52pm. It was a pretty long labor and almost ended in a c-section.

It started out on Saturday morning at 12:55am. I woke up to a little gush of water while rolling over in bed. I got up, went to the bathroom and it looked like I had peed my pants a little bit. I put a pad on and went back to bed. I was so worried and excited that it could be my water and so of course I couldn't sleep! So a few hours later, I woke up again to a little gush, got up, saw that my pad had a little pink tint to it. Changed my pad again, went to bed and woke up around 5 am to the same thing. So I called labor and delivery, told them what was going on, and they said to come in. So I woke Blake up, and we headed to the hospital. While there, they ran some tests and said that it wasn't my water. What the heck?! They think that because I have a bad cough that I must have coughed and peed a little bit without even knowing it... I thought that was pretty retarded but whatever...anyway, they sent me home and I was so sad and disappointed. So since I didn't sleep at all during the night I went straight to bed when we got home around 8. I got up around noon and as I was rolling over to get up, my underwear was soaked all the way through and there was a huge wet spot on the sheets! So I called Blake and said that I needed a witness that I really wasn't crazy and that it wasn't pee! I needed to redeem myself since I felt stupid for going to the hospital only to be sent home again. So I called my mom, told her what had happened and I called my sister Sarina because she had her water break with two of her pregnancies and she said that it sounded like it really was my water. So I called Labor and Delivery again and they said to come in. So we loaded up the car once again with all of our stuff and headed back to the hospital.

We showed up at the hospital around 1pm and they ran tests, all came back negative. What is going on? I was so frustrated! They wanted me to stick around until I had another gush come out so that they can use that to test. Then around 4pm they finally said that it was my water (no kidding!) and that I was staying. By this time I still was not having any contractions...I was having some cramps though. They said that the reason why my tests came back negative was because it was a high leak and so not very much was coming out to test and it was mixed with mucos and other stuff. Gross I know...but anyway, they started me on pitocin around 5pm and they checked my cervix and I was only 1 cm and 60% effaced. They checked my a few hours later and we I was 1 1/2 cm and 70% effaced. I was having some pretty bad contractions and so they said that I could have the epidural anytime. I took advantage of that really quick! So they said that I was just not dilating and they were going to try a few things to get my cervix to open and if it didn't work then they were going to have to do a c-section. So they put in a tube and it was like a baloon and it was supposed to get me to dilate. While he was doing that my water broke and they were hoping that I would dilate because of that too. So when they checked me two hours later I was only to 2 1/2 cms! So disappointing! They continued to check me periodically throughout the night and I trid to get some sleep. Around 8 am my doc came in and checked me and I was only dilated to a 4. He said that he was going to go to church and that he would come back afterwards to check on me. Only in Utah would that happen. At 9am they checked me and I was dilated to a 5 and 90% effaced. At 10 am I was dilated to a 6 and 100% effaced. Then at 11am I was dilated to a 9. I went from being dilated from a 6-9 in one hour! Then at noon they checked me and I was fully dilated and were getting things ready for me to push. They had me on oxygen because the baby's heart rate would go down when I would have a conraction. Also, Ava had a bowel movement inside of me and so they said that I wouldn't be able to hold her as soon as she came out. I started pushing at 12:14pm and my doctor comes in, still dressed in his Sunday clothes and says "Is this the girl that I left 3 hours ago and was only dilated to a 5?" He left to go and change his clothes and came back and the baby's head was already crowning. He expected me to push for about 2 hours but I suprised him once again! I was able to feel the contractions on one part of my body because the epidural was acting weird so I knew when to push. Ava came at 12:52 pm and she was absolutely beautiful! After 24 hours of labor (I count from when I was admitted into the hospital for the second time, even though my water had broke 12 hours before) and 45 minutes of pushing she was finally here! She weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz and was 19 inches long. Blake and I instantly fell in love!

So far she is a pretty good baby. She will tell you when she is upset or uncomfortable. She has a big set of lungs! I know that everyone is dying to see what she looks like so here are some pictures Ava Susannah Tuckett. Enjoy!

First time mommy and baby meet.

Poppy and Ava

Daddy with Ava.

Baby room

2010-02-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Here I am at 37 weeks! I have been feeling a lot of pressure and pain in my lower back and my hips feel like they are going to fall off! No one has asked me if I am having twins or anything like that but I do feel like I am huge! I don't think my belly can get any bigger! I went to the doctor last week and he said that I wasn't dilated or effaced at all. He just said that my cervix was just a little "squishy". My mom thinks that I have "dropped", I have felt a lot of pressure down there so who knows. My doctor says that she is head down but really nothing else... hopefully this week I will have some kind of progress that says I will go into labor soon. I had my baby shower a couple of weeks ago and so I will have to get those pictures up soon. Everything is done and so I finally feel like I can have this baby now and everything will be fine. I'll keep you all updated on my progress!

The babies room is finally finished! I'm so glad that it is done. I feel like if she decides to come now I am ready. The walls are a little bare and so we might get some more wall hangings to tone the yellow down a bit.

These curtains really help with the lighting in the room. During the day the room is really bright. My mom made them and I think they turned out really good!

Our dresser with blocks that my friend Suzi made that say "Ava". They are so cute!

A few wall hangings that are right above the stairs.

2010-01-11T21:41:00.000-08:00

Here I am at 34 weeks and I feel like a big fat cow. It's especially comforting when I get told how big I am! Oh the joys of pregnancy! I am feeling like this pregnancy is flying by and she could come at any moment. I am getting the baby's room ready and getting last minute items together. We are super excited to meet our little girl!

Another update... This is a video of Cierrar walking. I saw her just last night and she was crawling all over the place and now she is walking! We are so proud of her and we are still looking hopeful that she will continue to progress.

An Update on my Niece

2010-01-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I figured it was time to give an update on my neice Cierra. A few months ago I posted about what happened with her and the Swine Flu. She has made some amazing progress! Everytime I see her she has made a huge improvement from the last time I had seen her. She can sit up, she doesn't thrash around at all anymore and we think she understands us when we talk to her. It was really hard on Christmas though because she wasn't excited about it at all and that was really hard for everyone to see. Especially for my sister, Angie, because she saw how all the other kids were acting on Christmas morning and Cierra just sat there...but on a happier note, I just saw her tonight and she is taking baby steps! Literally, she will stand and shuffle her feet. She will stand up but she is still not strong enough to stand on her own. She was laying down on the floor and then she got up and sat up all by herself. What a big girl! She is making such great progress and we are so proud of her! It still breaks my heart to see her like this. I look her in the eyes and she still doesn't see me...I think that's what hurts the most. She loved me, everytime she would see me she would run up to me and hug me and say "Auntie Britty!" and now when I see her she doesn't react. I can't wait for the day when I can look her in the eye and have her look at me and she will actually know that it's me. I know that day will come and when it does I know that miracles do happen.

Our Christmas and New Years

2010-01-01T19:51:00.001-08:00

I know everyone just loves to see pics, but I'm lame and never take any! So this post is going to be pretty boring...sorry!

For Christmas we went to Heber City and stayed in a cabin in the woods. It was a lot of fun. Blake was especially excited to go for the snowmobiling. It didn't snow at all but he still had a lot of fun. It was fun being with my family. I haven't spent Christmas with them like this in a long time. For Christmas, Blake and I got a nice video camera. Exactly what I asked for! Blake got a few shirts and a pair of pants. I also got a Tim McGraw CD and the movie "Fools Gold" from Santa. It was a pretty good Christmas and it is hard to think that this is the last Christmas that we will spend together without a baby! Two more months! I can't believe it!

For New Years Eve we spent it at the Tuckett's house. We ate and played lots of games. If you remember my post from last year, with all the funny pictures, that was pretty much how it was again this year. Man, people get weird when it's late at night! I was mostly ornery because I am not a night person...I'm not really a morning person either...but I was so tired last night! But we had fun bringing in the new year! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year celebration! We sure did!

30 weeks!

2009-12-15T21:47:00.000-08:00

Here is my 30 week picture. It is hard to believe that I have 10 weeks left! I am hoping that this baby won't come sooner, I am not ready for her to come yet. She is very active and loves to lay right on my sciatic nerve when I least expect it. Other than that I am feeling pretty good. I stay busy with work and school and so I am just extra tired by the end of the day. I will try to keep everyone posted on my progress!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T16:56:00.001-08:00

Sorry I didn't take any pictures of our Thanksgiving but we did have a lot of fun. We had it at the Tuckett's house this year. I was in charge of the candied yams and lemon pie. I was a little nervous making the candied yams because I hadn't made them before. But everyone said that they turned out good. After we stuffed ourselves with food, I hung out and watched tv and talked and Blake went shooting with the men in the family. They were gone for a few hours and when he came back we went over to my brother's house to see what they were up to. We played some games and watched the ending of "Home Alone" and around 9pm I was exausted so we went home. Then we went online and tried to decide if we were going to try to conquer the crowds of "Black Friday" and decided we could get the same deals online! So we ordered some Christmas presents that we needed to give to people and slept in on Friday morning. Well, kind of... Blake and I both had to work.

Well, that was our Thanksgiving and I hope that everyone else had a great one!

Update on Cierra, she is gettins stronger every day. She is rolling around and she is able to hold her head up and can stand with some help. We are continuing to pray for her full recovery!

Swine Flu Awareness

2009-11-16T15:09:00.000-08:00

My life has been crazy for the last month. It started off with a phone call from my mom, letting me know that my neice, Cierra, was being rushed to the ER. She was on her way home from Idaho and asked me if I could go to the hospital to be with my sister. When I got to the ER, my neice was hooked to wires and she would thrash around and would not respond or look at anyone. It was the saddest I have ever seen. My nephew, Cierra's older brother Christopher, was sick the day before with a fever, sore throat and a cough. The doctors said it was the swine flu and gave my sister a prescription for Tamiflu. The next day Cierra started showing the same signs, so she called the doctor and he said to give her the Tamiflu. About 3 minutes after taking the medicine, little Cierra started have seizures and her lips were blue. That is when she was sent to the ER. They then sent her to pediatrics to try to get her stablized. She quit breathing and then they life flighted her to Primary Childrens in SLC.

She was in a coma for about a week, when she woke up we were suprised of the outcome. She didn't know anyone. She couldn't talk, walk, respond, nothing... You would look her in the eye and she would look at you like she didn't even know who you were. It was heartbreaking.

After 3 1/2 weeks in the hospital she was able to come home Thurday. Her eyes are open and her ams and legs have movement/ She will squirm while being held if she is uncomfortable and will let out a weak cry. As of yet there is no noticeable response to anyone. The bottom line is that they don not know when or if she will recover. The flu and pheumonia caused brain damage.

At first they told us that the MRI's did not show any brain damage. After the secon d MRI we were told that there was no large localized brain damager but there were speckels of damage scattered throughout her brain. Wednesday they admitted that since she has not fully awakened from her coma that they can only conclude that she has more damage than originally thought. They do not call it a coma any longer because she is somewhat awake. She has a feeding tube in her stomach, and she now has to re-learn everything she has been taught. She is practically like a newborn. It has been really hard on me to hear this and then I saw her on Friday for the first time and it was heart breaking.

My parents say she has made wonderful progress. She makes sporadic movements and is looking stronger every day. This has been really hard because this only happens to people on tv. You see it on Dateline or 60 min. But for me this is real life and I have a hard time accepting it.

I know this is a depressing post but I feel like people need to know what the Swine Flu can do. We are continuing to hope and pray that we will get our little Cierra back. She was so full of life and she loved everyone. She loved Dora the Explorer and that won't even get a reaction out of her. She is the sweeting little angel and I hope that one day she will come back.

Updates

2009-11-06T20:21:00.001-08:00

Sorry it has taken me a while to update you all on my life. I've been really busy lately. Last week I was really sick. I don't know what I was sick with, but I would say I have never been so sick in my life. Last week I was able to get the h1n1 vaccine so I am good to go now! Here is a recent picture of my 24 week belly. I feel huge already and I'm not even that big!

Yesterday I had my OB appointment and when the doc put the doppler on my belly to listen to her hearbeat she kicked it really hard! He laughed and asked me if I felt it, and I said "yep!" and then she kicked it about 3 more times. Then this morning around 6:45 I woke up to lots of kicking. I was laying in bed for a bit and put my hand on my stomach. I counted about 20 kicks in 5 min. Then Blake's alarm went off and I told him the baby was kicking and asked him if he wanted to feel. Of course he said yes! We felt the baby kick about another 8 times in the last 2 minutes that his hand was on my belly. A few weeks ago Blake felt her kick, but it wasn't very strong and it just felt like a little flutter. But these were really hard kicks and there was no mistaking it was a baby! This was the most that I have ever felt her move since I have been pregnant! I think we have a gymnast on our hands!

We finally have our room painted! I want to wait until we have everything set up before I take any pictures. Then you can get the full effect of what it will look like when Ava gets here. We are very excited to meet our little girl!

Who will she look like?

2009-10-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

Who do you think baby Ava will look like? Both of these pictures are of Blake and I at 6 months old. Aren't we cute?

Wasn't too happy to get my picture taken. As you can see...
Isn't this the cutest baby you have ever seen? I always tell people that Blake was pretty much the cutest baby. He was so fat and chubby, I hope our baby is as chubby as he was! This is the picture that gave him his nickname "Buddha". So cute!

Ultra sound pics!

2009-10-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Here are the ultrasound pics of our baby girl! I tried to eat something sweet before so that baby would be active. She was the opposite of active...she was asleep! How rude! The ultrasound tech measured everything and she looked good! She weighs about 13 oz. right now. Enjoy!

If you can tell that this is a girl, then you are smarter than me. I just know that it doesn't have what boys have. The ultrasound tech was 100% sure that it is a girl! Not a very good picture of it though!

This is the foot. I hope that she has very chubby feet! I love chubby babies!

This is kind of an interesting picture of the leg and arm. The ultrasound tech said that the baby's head was down and the legs were up.

This is a neat picture of the baby's back and spine.

This is a picture of the baby's profile. You can't see the outline of the baby's head because it was hidden in the wall of my uterus. You can see the outline of her nose, lips and ear!

We have a picture of the baby's face but it is a little scary looking and so I didn't want to post it and scare all you! Hope you enjoy seeing these pictures as much as we do!

Surprise!

2009-10-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this late because I just got home from school. Just wanted to let everyone know that it is a girl!!!!! Blake and I are super excited to see our baby girl. I will post some ultra sound pictures hopefully this weekend. The ultrasound tech said that the baby weighs about 13 oz. but she said that she couldn't tell us how long she was. I'm going to bed now and hopefully I will have more time this weekend to show off the pics! Thanks for the votes everyone!

Update!

2009-10-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

Blake and I find out what we are having tomorrow! I hope that everyone had a chance to vote! I will keep you all updated!

18 weeks!

2009-09-20T21:14:00.001-07:00

This is my 18 week picture! I really don't feel as big as this picture makes me look! They say the camera adds 10 pounds! Haha! 2 more weeks and we find out what we are having! Be sure to vote on my poll! I want to know what you all think!

2009-09-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

I've heard that this is a really good book to read while you are pregnant from a couple of people. So I ordered it off of Amazon.com today and I should receive it soon. Has anyone read this? If so what are your thoughts?

Our current project

2009-09-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

Since we are renting, I didn't think that we could do anything with the second bedroom. In the pictures it is kind of hard to see, but that is winnie the pooh wall paper. It it really old, had rips and stains. So Blake mentioned taking the wall paper down and painting it. So I asked the landlords if they were okay with that and they said that they have been wanting to paint this room for a really long time! So if we are willing to put in the work, they will take it off of our rent! Here are some before pictures.

Yesterday we started taking down the wall paper. I have never done this before so I didn't know what to expect. It's a good thing that Blake know's what he is doing! I would be so lost without him! Anyway, we started yesterday and we have a little section left to take off. There are 4 walls altogether, and it was really weird... two of the walls were really easy to take off, they just peeled right off. And the other two were more difficult, they came off in little peices. But we are bound and determined to get this job done!

Next on the agenda is spackling and texturizing the walls. That will be a big job too. Then when that is done, we will paint it. When we are done, I will show you all the finished pictures!

An update on my pregnancy, I find out what I am having on October 6th! Do you think it is a boy or a girl? We don't have any preferences to what it is, we just hope that it is healthy and chubby! I am 17 weeks and have no morning sickness. I think I have been feeling the baby, but not positive. I just feel little flutterings and tappings. I will try to keep you all updated a little bit more on my life!

A lot has happened...

2009-08-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in the last month. I had a birthday last week and Blake got me flowers and wrote me a love letter. Then he took me out to Chilis and then we went to see The Proposal. I got ear rings from my mom and a gift card to the mall from my mother and father-in-law. It was a pretty good birthday.

My sister and her family are visiting from Connecticut for 2 1/2 weeks. It has been fun seeing them. We don't get to see them very often.

And the best news of all... I'm pregnant!!!!! Yep! It's true! I am 12 weeks and I am due Feb. 22 2010. We are super excited for this new adventure!

Tuckett Reunion

2009-07-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went on a family reunion to Durango, CO. It was so much fun! Here are some pictures of what we saw on our trip!

We went on a Hummer and train ride from Durango to Silverton. On the hummer ride we road all over the mountains! It was gorgeous! Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

This picture was taken on the train.

This is the silverton train that we got to ride on!

Our tour guide drove us to the top of this mountain. It is over 13,000 feet above sea level. This is a picture that was taken on the very top of that mountain. Isn't is pretty?

This is Mesa Verde. It is a place where the pueblo indians lived a long time ago. These two pictures are of the same place, this is the Cliff Palace. It was amazing to see how they built their homes and churches.

This is where we stayed. It's about 20 miles northeast from Durango. It is called Lake Vallecito. It was breathtaking! This picture just doesn't do it justice.

Updates

2009-06-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a month since I've last posted so let me update you on our lives! A lot has happened! Blake had a birthday on May 21 and he got a barbeque (from me!), a couple of gift cards and I took him out to dinner! So on Memorial day weekend we went and used those gift cards. We went to see 2 movies over that weekend. Star Trek one night and then Terminator: Salvation on Memorial Day. Then we went shopping. He got a gift card to JC Penney and we still had one from our wedding so we spent $100 between the two of us at JC Penney. Then we went to Best Buy with his other gift card and bought 4 movies. One was "The Newsies" (that was my choice) and then Blake got "The X-Men Trilogy". Then we went home and roasted some hot dogs on his new bbq. Then the next day we both had to get back into the swing of things...which can be really hard when you have a 3 day weekend... but Blake didn't go to work or school that day because he had food poisening! I was sick too but not as bad as he was. I felt so bad for him! We think that it was from the hot dogs, but who knows!

Then this past weekend we went camping with a couple of friends up at Strawberry Reservoir. It was cold and windy the entire time! On Saturday we fished all day. It turned out to be "Free fishing day" but Blake got his fishing licence just for this weekend! Oh well! We fished in 3 different spots, there were 4 fishing poles and 4 crawdad traps and we only caught 2 fish, and 4 crawdads! We were so disappointed! Apparently this is a really good place to fish but we figured it was only a good place if you had a boat... not if you fish on the shore...I got a really bad sunburn on my face because it was so cold and windy that was the only thing showing. We fished in this spot that charged 5 dollars. I think that was a waste because we only caught 1 fish there. I did have a fun time though even though I was cold the entire weekend. Oh and did I mention that there were no bathrooms where we camped??? Ya, me and another girl loved that because we had to go and pop a squat in the middle of the woods and make sure that no one else saw us... that was a bit uncomfortable...

Then when we got home yesterday afternoon we were pulling into our drive way and I saw a grey furry ball in ditch in front of our house. I didn't know what it was so I got out of the truck and looked at it and it was a tiny kitten! So I got Blakes gloves (I didn't know what kinds of diseases it could have been carrying) and I jumped down in the ditch, well it saw me and took off running. I chased after it for a while and finally caught up to it. When I was carrying it I could feel it's bones. I was so sad for this little kitten. So then I gave it some cat food and the other cats did not like her. They were hissing at her. So Blake and I got a box and cut a little hole in it (so it could get out if it wanted to) and put in some rags, a bowl of water and some food. We put it in the garage so that the cats wouldn't get to it. This morning when I was getting in the car to go to work I saw that box was tipped over, and the rags were dragged all over the garage. I looked for her in a couple of places but couldn't find her anywhere... I don't know if the other cats got to her or if she ran away. I was really sad. Hopefully we will be able to find her again. This is a picture of what the kitten looked like but it was much smaller and it always curled up little furry ball. And it had really blue eyes. It was so cute!

Photo Shoot

2009-05-01T21:23:00.001-07:00

I received my last two photo shoot pictures last week. These 3 are supposed to be "Manhatten". The other two are "color me beautiful". This is my sister-in-law Norma. Troy's hott wife!

Anniversary

2009-05-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

We just celebrated our 2nd anniversary on Tuesday night. Monday night when I came home I saw this!

Then on Tuesday Blake and I both worked all day, and I got off of school. We both met at home at 5 and then he took me out to Outback Steakhouse. Then we went to Cold Stone and had some yummy ice cream. After that we got home and watched "What happens in Vegas" and had some popcorn and some sparkling grape juice. It was a really nice night to just relax and be with eachother because I don't get to spend very many nights at home with him. Tomorrow we are getting a couple massage and we both can't wait!

Our Home

2009-05-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our house that we moved into a couple of weeks ago. Sorry it took me a while to post them.

This is the back door and food storage.

This is the laundry room

This picture and the picture below are the 2nd bedroom. The doors are being used as storage right now.

This is our bedroom. Behind the door is Blake's closet

This my closet. I love how big it is!

Bathroom

This is the family room, pantry, and office. It used to be a bedroom but they made it into a family room. That is a hide a bed and a tread mill. There is also a fire place but it doesn't work. Hopefully we will be able to get it working by winter time.

This is the kitchen

This is the dining room. I love how open and bright the room is with all of the windows!

This is one side of the living room.

This is the other side of the living room with Blake watching a Jazz game.

As you can see we are all settled in and I am so glad. Hopefully we won't move for a few years...

The New House

2009-04-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

We finally moved in this last Saturday and I am so glad it's over. I hate moving! We got all unpacked on Saturday afternoon, turned in our key to our old apartment and then Blakes parents took us out to eat. When we got back we were so tired to do anything so then we just relaxed the rest of the night. The next day we went to our old ward because I was asked to sing in church about a month ago before I knew that we were moving and Blake was asked to say the opening prayer. After that, we went to our new ward and we only stayed for sacrament meeting becuase we wanted to finish unpacking and my sister-in-law Angie invited us over for dinner. We finished unpacking everything that afternoon and then had amazing hamburgers and fries. Came back home cleaned the house up a bit and then relaxed the rest of the night. It feels so good to finally feel like I'm at home and not living out of a box (that's what it's been feeling like for the past month). I will try to take some pictures and post them on here so you all can see what the house looks like inside!

2009-04-13T21:43:00.001-07:00

I have been really bored with my hair style lately and I asked my teacher last week what I should do to my hair. She came up with the idea to give me a straight bang. I thought about it all weekend and today I was just getting my hair styled and on impulse I said "lets cut my bangs!" So I did, and this was the outcome. I love it! It took a few hours to get used to it but I still like it. Now I have to learn how to style my bangs in a different way so that they don't poof up from my cowlick. What do you all think?

This picture was right after I cut them.

This is after I came home from school. I didn't tell Blake that I was doing it, I just walked in the door and he gave me a big smile!!! He thinks it's beautiful! This is the picture that he took of me because he loves it so much!

2009-04-02T14:52:00.000-07:00

So I am finally able to get a picture of the house that we are moving too. We are moving in April 18th, but they said that we could start bringing our boxes this weekend. So we will get a key on Sunday night and so then we can start showing it off to people!

This is the side of the house and the driveway. If you look at the back, you can see the red shed in the back, it can be used as a garage if we want to.

This is the other side of the house. You can't really see the garden spot because of the snow but it is over by the white fence. I love how big the yard is!

And this is the house. It's cute and the perfect size. The cealing looks pretty bad but they said that they are going to re shingle the roof this summer. I'm so excited to move in!

We're Moving!

2009-03-16T11:15:00.001-07:00

Quite a bit has happened in the last couple of weeks. So last night my sister-in-law Angie was telling us about this house that is for rent in Palmyra. We looked into it last year but were turned down because there was someone else that was interested in it sooner. Anyway, they are moving out now and it is available and they said that we could live in it! It is $550 a month, and it has a huge yard and huge vegetable garden, 2 bed 1 bath, living room and family room, cute kitchen, and a nook. We will probably move in around the middle of april. We were not even looking for a place to live and then this fell right into our laps and our contract ends in April so that works out great! They were actually thinking about calling us to offer the house to us but said that they didn't dare because they rejected us last year. They also said that they regret not having us live there last year because the people didn't even mow the lawn and were not very friendly with the neighbors. So those are the two requirements that we have to have. I'm so excited that I can't stop talking about it. I tried to get a picture of it but it won't work for some reason. So when I have a chance I will take a picture of it with my camera.

The other thing that is exciting is that we are having stake conference on Sunday and Elder Holland is speaking! I'm really excited about that too!

Husband Tag

2009-03-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

This is a chance to see how well you know your husband...
1. He is sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen? M*A*S*H, Discovery channel, or history channel
2. You're out to eat what kind of dressing on his salad? He'd have a ceaser Salad
3. What's one food he doesn't like? Celery and Radishes
4. You go out to eat and have a drink what does he order? Dr. Pepper
5. Where did he go to High School? Spanish Fork
6. What shoe size does he wear? 10
7. What is his favorite type of sandwich? BLT
8. What would he eat everyday if he could? Tacos
9. What is his favorite cereal? Chocolate Pebbles
10. What would he never wear? my clothes
11. What is his favorite sports team? I don't think he has one???
12. Who did he vote for? McCain
13. Who is his best friend? Me!
14. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't? Leave my bobby pins and pony tail holders out. He hates that!
15. Did he play sports in high school? Yes. Tennis
16. What could he spend hours doing? Tinkering, spending time at home with me
17. What is one unique talent he has? No matter what he can always make me laugh!

I tag who ever wants to do this!

A day of friends

2009-02-21T14:18:00.000-08:00

So, a couple of weekends ago I spent the day with friends. First I went up to Salt Lake and went to lunch with my to friends that I grew up with, Colette and Mary. That was a lot of fun. Then that night Blake and I went on a double date with my friend from college. She was married last august and is still in the newlywed mode. It's okay though! They are cute together!

Ben, Melissa, me, Blake

Here is a picture of us at Red Robin!

In this picture is me, Colette Coulsen, and Mary Lumpkins

School

2009-01-31T07:50:00.000-08:00

So every other month at school we have to do a photoshoot. Every photoshoot has a theme and so I wanted to show everyone a few pictures from my photoshoots that I have done.

This is my very first photo shoot. It was in August and the theme was "Back to School". This is my neice Elise and think she did a really good job! Look how cute she is!

This photo shoot was in October and the theme was "Fantasy". I searched the internet for ideas and I found and idea. I decided to do a mermaid/sea nymph type thing. So I decided I needed a cute girl with long blond hair and my dad said "hey, I work with a girl that will be good for the job!" So luckily she did work out because I didn't meet her until a few days before the photo shoot. She did a fantastic job!

2009-01-30T21:46:00.000-08:00

Everyone needs to do before they die
I have marked the ones I have done in Bold! (put * by “sort of” ones)
Started your own blog
Slept under the stars
Played in a band
Visited Hawaii
Watched a meteor shower
Given more than you can afford to charity
Been to Disneyland
Climbed a Mountain
Held a praying mantis
Sang a solo
Bungee jumped
Visited Paris
Watched a lightening storm at sea
Taught yourself an art from scratch
Adopted a child
Had food poisoning
Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Grown your own vegetables
Slept on an overnight train
Hitch hiked
Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
Held a lamb
Gone skinny dipping
Run a Marathon
Seen a total eclipse
Watched a sunrise or sunset
Hit a home run
Been on a cruise
Seen Niagara Falls in person
Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
Seen an Amish community
Fired a rifle, shotgun or pistol
Seen Michelangelo’s David in person
Sung karaoke
Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
Bought a stranger a meal
Visited Africa
Walked on a beach by moonlight
Been transported in an ambulance
Had your portrait painted
Gone deep sea fishing
Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
Kissed in the rain
Played in the mud
Gone to a drive-in theater
Visited the Great Wall of China in person
Started a business
Taken a martial art class
Visited Russia
Served at a soup kitchen
Sold Girl Scout cookies
Gone Whale Watching
Got flowers for no reason
Donated blood, platelets, or plasma
Gone sky diving
Visited a Nazi concentration camp
Bounced a check
Flown in a helicopter
Saved a favorite childhood toy
Visited the Lincoln Memorial in person
Eaten Caviar
Pieced a quilt
Stood in Times Square
Been fired from a job
Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
Been on a speeding motorcycle
Seen the Grand Canyon in person
Published something
Bought a brand new car
Walked in Jerusalem
Visited the White House
Had chickenpox
Sat on a jury
Met someone famous
Joined a book club
Lost a loved one
Had a baby
Seen the Alamo in person
Swam in the ocean
Owned a cell phone
Been stung by a bee
Seen Mount Rushmore in person
Learned to play an instrument
Held a tarantula
Touched an iceberg
Changed a baby’s diaper
Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
Had a food fight
Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
Ridden a roller coaster
Visited all 50 states
Taken a road trip
Milked a cow
Been in a movie
Crashed a party
Made cookies from scratch
Gotten a tattoo
Rafted the Snake River
Performed on stage
Been to Las Vegas
Eaten shark
Bought a house
Been in a combat zone
Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
Touched a sting ray
Broken a bone
Ridden a horse
Eaten sushi
Had your picture in newspaper
Gone back to school
Eaten fried green tomatoes
Killed and prepared an animal for eating
Dyed your hair
Caused a car accident
Saved someone’s life
I’m passing this tag onto: Those who have time and are interested in it.

New Years!!!

2009-01-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

I know this is a little late...but here are some pictures from New Years Eve.

This is my father-in-law. This is what happens when he stays up too late!

This my sister-in-law Julie and her fiancee Mike! They helped ring in the new year with us!

ME!

This is Blake being silly!

Christmas

2008-12-29T21:28:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Christmas this year at home. We spent Christmas Eve with the Tucketts and then had Christmas morning with just the two of us. We then went to Angie Hansens house and had a delicious breakfast! Then I got a call from my dad letting me know that my mom was in the hospital again with pneumonia! She must love that place. So then I went to my brother's house and opened gifts there and then we went to the Tucketts house again and opened presents with them. They got us a box full of meat, a gift card to Maceys and a gift card to Red Lobster. I was really happy about the meat! That will save us a lot of money for the next couple of months. Then we went back to my brothers house and played with their new wii until it was time to go home. I wasn't able to visit my mom in the hospital that day because she was too sick to see anyone. I ended up seeing her on Friday and she was feeling a lot better. She was able to go home on Saturday and hopefully she won't be back there until she goes in for surgery! Here are some pictures of our christmas below:

Blake got me an entire outfit. Jeans, shirt and a sweater. He did a really good job picking it out without me knowing about it! Thanks Sweetie!

I got an iTunes gift card. That was pretty exciting... I also got gum, which is pretty funny because he got me the gum that HE likes because he knew that I would never buy it. It was pretty good gum. I think I will stick to my old kind though.

Blake was very tired when we opened presents. He got the movie "The Dark Knight". He was pretty excited, even though you can't really tell in this picture.

We received a "Mr. Coffee" hot chocolate maker, a blanket, stephens hot chocolate, marshmallows, mugs, blueberry pancake mix and blueberry syrup from my sister-in-law. It was a very nice present. We love the hot chocolate maker. It makes the best hot chocolate.