Halloween Baby Shower!

Justin's Aunt Jo and her girls offered to throw me a baby shower for his side of the family in Idaho Falls. Aunt Jo was so funny. She wanted to know if it could be a Halloween themed baby shower because she really wanted to have a Halloween costume party. Ha ha ha! Of course I agreed!
The party was wonderful, the food was wonderful, the company was wonderful, and the games were wondeful! It was a lot of fun and I truly appreciate all the hardwork that everyone put into making the day so great for me!
Here are some pics from the evening:

I'm Allergic to the Baby?!?!?!

Who ever heard of such a thing?

At any rate, I am definitely allergic to our little guy. I have a somewhat rare rash all across my stomach that has spread down my legs and up my arms. It is INCREDIBLY itchy and super uncomfortable - similar to having poison ivy. The worse part is that nothing will relieve the itch except having the baby.

It's called pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy symptom or PUPPPS. It is actually an allergic reaction to male fetal DNA.

Ha ha ha. I guess if I have to have some sort of pregnancy complications, this is one I am willing to have since it does not affect the baby or me, other than irritating the heck out of me.

I do have to take Zyrtec to help with the reaction, but it just minimizes the itching, it doesn't get rid of it. Oh well!!!

Group One Baby Shower

Do you ever leave a situation and realize how blessed, loved, etc you really are?

My company threw us a baby shower and the result was just that. It was so apparent how much love and support we truly have from those who I work with! The agents and staff members at Group One really made me feel wonderful. They pooled together and almost completely bought out everything that was on our baby registries. In addition to this, they gave us some cash to spend and threw the party itself.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!! Thank you to everyone who helped contribute to such a wonderful day and for making my feel so loved!

Maternity Photos!!!!

Okay, so one thing that I have really wanted to do is get maternity photos professionally taken. I know that there is a lot of controversy over these photos. My opinion is that motherhood and pregnancy is a very intimate and beautiful thing. Because of my love for photography, I feel that this is a time that I really want to capture for myself and for my family of the beauty of this moment, but it has to be done just right.

I seriously must have looked at every single maternity photographer in Southern Idaho looking for the right look and style that was within our budget. We were incredibly fortunate to be able to find a photographer that we can afford to do both the maternity photos and Ryker's newborn photos!

So here they are, some of our maternity photos! If you don't like them, I'm sorry....I guess you don't have to look at them :)

Baby Shower!!!

Mom and Ariel threw me my first baby shower! It was a lot of fun! We had it at Grandma Waite's house and ate yummy pumpkin pie and cream puffs...mmm!!! Several people showed up and it was just great to feel so loved. Ryker has no idea how lucky he is to be coming in to this family!

I have some pics that I will have to post a little later (Justin has them on his laptop)

Thank you EVERYONE for coming and making me feel so special!

Surprise Jason Mraz Concert

So a little while ago I mentioned to Justin that I would LOVE to go to the Jason Mraz concert since he was coming to the Idaho Center. After looking at ticket prices though, Justin and I both agreed that we couldn't really afford to go to the concert. So even though I was bummed, I moved on.

Well, on Friday night, Justin took me to the movies and we went to see something he wanted to see...not something I was really wanting to see (that's how it usually is even though he'll say the opposite) Anyway, it was all good. As we were sitting in the theater he laughed and said that I really do love him for being so willing to go see his shows. That's when he pulled out the tickets to the concert!

I was stoked! Granted, we probably really didn't have the money to go, it was a wonderful surprise!

The conert was great! Jason Mraz is a great performer and really comes across as being pretty down to earth and with the audience...not stuck up like some performers. I had a blast and Ryker really liked the music too. He was sure moving around during some of the more fun songs.

Ha ha, that was Ryker's second concert already! (I was about 10 weeks along when we went to the Dragonforce concert for Justin's birthday)

This kid better come out loving all kinds of music, cuz Dragonforce and Jason Mraz are on pretty opposite sides of the music spectrum!

Anyway, I love my husband and all that he does for me! I truly feel blessed to have been paired with such an amazing man who still knows how to be a kid :)

Time to Upgrade

With the baby on the way, we decided that we really wanted a 4 door car, rather than our awesome 2 door Accent. The stipulation in finding one was that it had to get as good if not better gas mileage and our monthly payments had to be the same or less.

We found our car! It was located in Walla Walla, Washington, but it was worth the drive. Justin and my dad drove up one Saturday to pick it up. Our new 2003 VW Jetta TDI gets about 55 mpg and our monthly payments are about $50/month cheaper than what we were paying!

On top of all that, Tony and Monse bought the accent for what we owed on it. Great timing for everyone!

The trunk and back sit are a little tighter than the Accent, but it's all good. I'm excited to be getting about 700 miles per tank and super excited that I won't have to try to put a car seat in a 2 door rig!