There's no place like home...

We had a great trip to Las Vegas this last week, but as nice as it is to get away, it's always so much nicer to come home! We left Tuesday morning at 6:30 AM, ugh! We got to Vegas in time to start setting up for the trade show. As soon as we got all the stuff in the booth, the boss's wife, Jenny, who is also pregnant, asked me if I wanted to go get a massage with her. Uh...let me think about this one...yah! It was my first massage and it was so relaxing! We had a lovely relaxful afternoon while everyone else got to set up the booth. I guess there are perks to being pregnant. That night, as is tradition with trade shows, we went to a 5 star Steakhouse for dinner to get a jump start of motivation to work hard. Yummy! Wednsesday morning 10:00 am was the beginning of the 3 day ARA Trade Show. Here we are getting last minute things ready in our booth before everyone comes.


The show was a big success for us and probably the funnest one I've been to yet. The time went by really fast for me because I was just entering in the new orders that came in. They were sure to take care of me since I'm pregnant. I got to sit at the labtop and remote in to the system at work to take care of the orders we took so it wasn't such an overwhelming job when we got back. Good thing I used to work there and new how to use the system.

We started a new tradition last year of going to a show while we are there. This year we saw a magic show, Steve Wyrick. It was amazing, it was fun to try and figure out how he might be doing some of his tricks, but others still have us baffled. Like his big finale, he made a jet appear on stage in seconds! There is no trap door for that and it was literally seconds and there it was! No idea. I kept thinking about the movie, "The Prestige" while I was watching the show. Seen the movie? We all got our pictures taken with him after the show, so here is Brad, Steve, and I.


The Monday morning before we left for Vegas Daylen was pretty whiny and it just didn't seem like he was feeling all that great. I was trying to get all of my last minute things done before picking my mom up at the airport, so I put on Daylen's Nursery Rhyme DVD that he has recently come to love, thanks again mom! Then I went up to shower and get ready real quick and when I came back downstairs this is what I found. Luckily he hasn't gotten the nasty flu that's going around, he just needed a little more sleep still. He had a great time with grandma and aunt Rachel while we were gone. I was very anxious to see him again by the end of our trip and just glad to be HOME!

Las Vegas here we come!

The time has come again for trade show season with Brad's work. Every year we go down to Las Vegas for the ARA Trade Show for some work, food, and fun. My favorite part is the fun we have after the work. It's tradition to go out for a nice steak dinner one of the nights, and this year we are going to go see a magic show. I'm super excited for it! Last year we got to see the Blue Man Group, and it was so fun! There is good, clean fun in Las Vegas, you just have to look a little harder to find it. I definitely don't care to see the strip and the casinos with all the smokey atmospheres, it is pretty ridiculous to see how many people fill up those slot machines at all hours of the day or night. There is one place at the strip that I love to see every year and I never get tired of it, the Fountains of Belagio. It is the most beautiful, elegant, graceful water you will ever see dancing to the music. The waters really take on the character of the song they are dancing to, super creative, I just love them! It's always fun to get away for a few days. My mom is coming from Washington to stay with Daylen, thanks mom! I love it when she babysits cause then I don't worry about Daylen while I'm gone, I just miss him. It's a fun trip for her too cause she doesn't get to see Daylen as often as she would like.

A bunch of Random

I made our favorite dinner, lasagna, for Valentine's Day which we ate by candle light, mmm.....how romantic huh? Well, it probably would have been a little more so without Daylen in the background, but oh well.

We have been having a hard time getting Daylen to drink milk, he always makes faces and spits it out. I'm lucky if I can get him to drink some of the milk in his cereal bowl once the cereal is all gone. For some reason he was willing to give it another shot. He wanted the lid to his sippy cup gone so he could drink it like mom and dad and he didn't spit it out! We were so excited we started cheering and he loved that of course so he would drink a little more then start cheering for himself while we joined in.

Now he has the milk mustache to prove he actually drank more than a sip! The next night we were babysitting for his friend, Rylan, who likes milk, so when he saw Rylan drinking milk he actually wanted me to get him some as well! 2 days in a row so far, lets see if we can keep this up. His cousin, Ivan, is coming to visit this weekend and he loves milk so hopefully all this exposure will keep Daylen going in the right direction.

Daylen and Rylan had so much fun playing together, they were cute to watch. They got up in the rocking chair together and just laughed and laughed! So here they are having fun. We started trading off babysitting on Friday nights with our friends Janell and Kevin (Rylan's mom and dad) and so far it has been awesome!

5 months

First of all Happy Valentine's Day! Brad surprised me by bringing Bajio home for lunch to share, yum yum! Unfortunately since I've been pregnant I tend to eat lunch earlier than normal, so I was just finishing it when he walked through the door. I still ate some and now I have a delicious lunch waiting for me tomorrow! I love my thoughtful hubby!

Alright, so yesterday marked 5 months, and here I am for all to see how big I am getting! The weeks are going by so fast, I just hope this keeps up as I get closer to the end and the very uncomfortable stage. As I look at a picture of myself it actually doesn't look as big as I feel when I look in the mirror, maybe it's just the shirt, but hopefully I really don't look as big as I think I am.

Jumpin' Jack

Yesterday we ventured to Jumpin' Jack in Springville for the first time. We went with my cousins Nikki and Lindsey and their kids. Before we left I asked Daylen if he wanted to go jump and he was all excited about it. However, when we got there this first picture shows exactly how much jumping he actually did...

He much preffered pretending to drive a car, watch the dads who were there shooting hoops, and roll around on the ground. And I enjoyed getting out of the house!

Large Shoes to Fill...

Daylen loves shoes. He gets that from his daddy. In getting ready to go anywhere I just have to tell Daylen to go get his shoes and he will go get them and sit down so I can put them on for him. Sometimes he will just go get his shoes so I can put them on even if we're just staying home. The other night he got Brad's huge basketball shoes and was trying to put them on, so Brad helped him step inside. They were about as long as he is tall! Daylen definitely has some large shoes to fill in more ways than one!

Boy or Girl???

We had our ultrasound today! I was excited for it and excited to find out what we are having of course, but I have to admit, it wasn't as big of deal to me this time. With Daylen he was the first, everything was new and exciting, finding out the gender was a HUGE deal! The first child, what's it gonna be? I anticipated the ultrasound for days. This time I new it was coming up, but I've had other things to think about. I have Daylen to take care of, and it kind of snuck up on me. Once we were in the ultrasound room and we got to see the baby and see the little heart beating and the legs and hands and everything else you try to decipher what's what, that same excitement I had with Daylen came back. There's just something about really seeing your baby for the first time. It's amazing! So after looking into everything and making sure all is well healthwise with the baby, which everything looks perfect thankfully, we finally got to find out the gender. The doctor pointed out the 2 legs we were looking between, which I remembered doing with Daylen and he was very obvious. She asked if we could tell what it was and this one was not so obvious so my conclusion was it must be a girl! I was right!! We are having a little girl this time and we are so excited! This a relief to me because I've already been calling her a she and by her name, Kate, so I would have felt bad if I had been calling a little boy, Kate. This pregnancy has been different for me so I had suspected it would probably be a girl, but you just never know! Now we do!

Mommy's little helper

Lately Daylen has really enjoyed helping me unload the dishwasher. He doesn't care whether they are clean or dirty, he just likes taking them out and setting them on the counter for me. I found him like this the other day, just happy as can be, standing on the dishwasher and one by one emptying all the dishes, which were dirty at the time of course. Oh well.

My Little Car Washer

Back in September when we went to Boston we had a bunch of pictures already on our camera we hadn't downloaded before we left. In order to free up space so we could take as many in Boston as we wanted, we downloaded them on to Rhett's computer thinking we would make a CD before we left. Well, we forgot. So we finally got the CD from Rhett this last weekend of our old pictures and I was looking at them today and wanted to put these of Daylen helping me wash the car one day. He had watched mommy do this many times already that summer and decided he wanted to help. So on his own he went and grabbed a sponge, the "bug sponge," and started washing the bugs off the front! Grandpa Goodwin would be so proud! It's in his blood, he's a natural car washer.

4 Months

So, yesterday I passed the 4 month mark in my pregnancy. I thought it would be kinda fun to post a new picture with each month to show how big I'm getting. The growth has definitely happened faster this time around. Rachel asked me at Christmas, "So are you sure you're not having twins?" Thanks Rach, that makes me feel better. Rachel also got engaged over the Christmas break to Tyler Hair, whom our family is very excited to have join us. We're all very happy for them, my only problem is they have decided to get married May 1 which puts me at almost 8 months along. I'm really excited for those wedding pictures!

Playing in the Snow

This last Saturday morning brought yet another blizzard of snow to Spanish Fork. I don't remember the last time we didn't have snow on the ground. It was great packing snow and Brad was itching to get outside. So...after shoveling our driveway he decided to make a snowman. Not your average 3 balls of stacked snow with a corn cob pipe and a button nose and 2 eyes made out of coal, no no no...he made this lovely monkey playing the cymbals. Brad is always thinking of the creative way to go about doing something and I think he did a great job, don't you? Unfortunately as you can see it is kind of "leaning," well, that afternoon bought the strong winds and toppled our poor snow monkey to the ground. But we have the pictures to prove he really did exist!

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas in Walla Walla with my family this year. I was not excited at all about the lengthy drive, but it was definitely worth it. The whole reason we even decided to go home for Christmas was because my good friend from home, Candice, got married on the 21st. We decided to go for her wedding and we might as well just stay for Christmas while we were there, so we did. She looked absolutely beautiful, it was so fun to be there and see so many friends and family.

While at home we discovered we have a little Beethoven in our family, Daylen found the piano and loved to play it! He did pretty well too, I mean he wasn't spouting off any concertos, but he didn't just bang the keys he actually played it nicely. It was so cute because he would play for a little bit then stop and throw his hands in the air and yell, "Yah!!"

When Brad's parents moved to Alaska, Karen let my mom have her old high chair she used for her kids and was then using for her grandkids. My mom wanted it to in turn use for her grandkids. So Daylen got to use the same high chair his daddy used when he was a baby!

The Sunday before Christmas we got to go to visit Grandma Murray in Waitsburg, Wa, just about half hour away from Walla Walla. We spent a few hours with her and Daylen had a fun time playing with Grandma's toys. She had just gotten a bat and ball set, and Daylen LOVES balls so he had a great time. Plus, Brad and I then knew he would like his Christmas present because that is exactly what we got him!

On Christmas Eve we took a drive to Othello, Wa to visit my grandparents. This is where my mom grew up and I'm related to more people than I know in that city. If the last name is Gilbert you can bet I'm related. It was good to see them and visit for awhile, it's so hard to see your grandparents get old. I'm not sure my grandma even knew exactly who we all were, but luckily grandpa is still doing great in the mind area at least, he knows us and appreciated the visit. I especially enjoy getting to see him. My Grandma Goodwin is also living in Othello now at an assisted living facility. She lived with my parents for the last year, but she has dementia pretty bad and needed more attention and care. They had a piano in the eating area so my sister, Lori, sang "O, Holy Night" for grandma, then we all stood around while my mom played and we sang Christmas Carols for grandma and whoever else cared to listen. It was fun to sing with my family again, it's great to have husbands now to sing the men's parts, before we were pretty much a female choir as my dad always jokes about what a great lip syncer he is.

When we got back home that night the kids got to open 1 present, pj's of course. We tried to take pictures of them by the tree and they were a bunch of monkeys, they all had to have a banana. Daylen really enjoyed opening presents Christmas morning, and he was good at ripping that paper away.

Daylen was so cute with baby Kayla, he loved holding her. If someone else was holding her he would go up and put his hands out to hold her. He would watch her and touch her little fingers, he would hold her for quite awhile. When he gave her back he would have a big smile on his face, it the cutest thing! I think he'll be a good big brother.