utah trip

this weekend we went to utah to see these bjs brother and brenna get hitched .

the lovebirds:

everything was beautiful and we were happy to be with them on their big day

it was FREEZING outside. i am pretty sure i almost died.

only 1 minor emotional breakdown due to being freezing, starving, and momentarily not being able to find that little purple ribbon that is tied around my waist. these emotional "moments"are getting a little too frequent for my liking.

after the wedding festivities i was able to spend lots of time with these two

saturday night us girls made dinner for all of the boys. 2 of bjs very good friends/comps on the mission came too. it was so good to see aaron and meet greg for the first time. so all you single ladies, these two boys are STUDS and are not engaged yet. one of them may have a girlfriend but really, unless there is a ring, who cares. ha ha just kidding.

we played lots of games...and LOVED IT! we are not big game players but heather may have converted us. we stayed up until after 1am both nights...pretty much a record for me these days. it was all fun and games until the bully (heather) and a few others who shall remain nameless (mckell, nick f and bj) started getting all competitive. their game faces went on and heather quickly informed me that the weak and slow go down fast in the world of games. survival of the fittest. got it, heather, got it.

on the way to the airport on sunday we stopped by the temple to look at the pretty lights.

no lies though, i am pretty sure the arizona temple lights are just as pretty :-).

bffs with our husbands

the weekend was really fun and i am glad we were able to fit so much into a few days. i did forget how cold utah was and that unless you are snowboarding, anything active and outside is kinda out of the question. yet another reason why arizona is fabulous year round :-).

tomorrow we are off to colorado for christmas and the day we get back we find out what we are having...yay!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

hmmm...

life is good. a lot has happened since i last blogged but since my husband likes to steal my camera, i documented none of it. the weekend before thanksgiving my sister caroline and my mom had a layover here so we were able to hang out for a night and that was really fun. for thanksgiving my mom came in for a whole week and it was great to spend time with her. the day after thanksgiving bj caught the stomach flu. the next morning virg caught it, that afternoon i caught it and that evening my mom caught it. sorry to give you stomach flu on your way out, mom :-(.

i finished all of my finals this past week so now i can play for a month! woo! i also finished most of my christmas shopping this weekend. no christmas tree for us this year though. boo. its just hard to justify buying and decorating a tree when we dont have kids yet and we will be out of town for the holiday. next year though, we are FOR SURE getting into the christmas spirit. until today there was not a trace of christmas in our house. we have a few christmasy things in the closet but i wanted it to look complete, not just a few dinky decorations here and there. so naturally, instead of putting up what we do have, i just complained that to the hubs that he was a scrooge for wanting to stick to our budget instead of going all out :-). tonight though, he was in charge of cleaning downstairs and i was in charge of the upstairs. when he was done he called me down to look and sat there beaming while i looked around. not only had he cleaned the heck out of the house but he hung up our stockings on the railing, put out our santa candy bowl, laid a christmas book on the table and hung up this christmas quilt my step mom made me. he is really a rare breed. so cute. and i have to admit, some decorations do look better than none.

oh yea, pregnancy is going well now! right around week 13 i started feeling a lot better! i was still queasy for a few weeks, but nothing like it was. now, at a little over 16 weeks i am feeling like a million bucks and its great.

pregnancy info :

*i am still getting up to pee far too many times a night.

*i am finally starting to show a little

*cravings: hmmm. i am not sure i have any real ones. everything does seem to taste better pregnant. i have always gone on these kicks where i find a food i love and its all i want for a week and then i forget about it... so its hard to tell if its pregnancy related or not but these days i am loving celery with peanut butter or ranch. yum. there was a week where if i could have eaten cheese enchiladas for every meal i would have. luckily i have some self control and only them once. okay twice. ive been working out though, so back off. luckily the enchilada infatuation is over and now i am just trying to eat as healthy as i can around the holidays. oh actually something that IS pregnancy related is sweets. before i got pregnant i was totally a sweets person. if i craved something or wanted something calorie loaded, it was allllways sweets. right now, not so much. ill still eat it if its there but i don't want them the way i did before.

*i think i have felt the baby move. there are times, especially at night, when i feel this weird sensation in my stomach. its not like kicks but its definitely something. i have never been pregnant before so i cant be sure, but i think that's my little nugget moving around!

*we find out in 2 weeks and 3 days what we are having...cant. freaking. wait.

*now up 2 full cup sizes. and now i would be okay if they stop growing. seriously. enough is enough! bj would beg to differ though.

here are the bump pictures thus far:

2 months

3 months

4 months

yum

i saw this recipe on a cooking website i follow, justcookalready.com. i have been making it the past couple of days for lunch and YUM! it is really good.

so, for your eating pleasure:

tomato, cucumber and avocado salad

3 T fresh lime juice

2 T olive oil

1 T red wine vinegar

1 tsp granulated sugar

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 medium cucumbers, peeled and chopped

2 cups cherry tomatoes

1 large avocado, pitted and chopped

1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

1. prepare dressing: whisk together lime juice, red wine vinegar, Olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper in small bowl. set aside

combine cucumbers, tomatoes and avocado in large bowl. toss with dressing and feta cheese.

chill until serving.

ps. yes, this does mean i am feeling better. much much much better. yay! more on that later.

loved

i am not feeling that great tonight but i wanted to write a quick post to remember how grateful i have been feeling lately. when someone needs help, you just help them. someone had a baby or surgery? sure ill bring them dinner. so simple. but it feels totally different when those people are helping YOU. for the past few weeks i have felt so down and sick, and so many people have rallied around me to make sure i am doing okay. how great is that? i know i'm more emotional right now, but it makes me feel overwhelmed with gratitude that the ones i love, cherish and would do anything for if they needed it, feel the exact same way about me. i have gotten countless calls and texts asking how i am, medicine in the mail, our good friends and neighbors alexis and bj have invited us to dinner so many times, old friends have dropped dinner by my house, my bff has "helped"/written a huge paper for me AND last wednesday i came home to a spotless house and ALL of my laundry done. seriously. that actually happened. my sister in law, marianne, took her morning "off" from being a mom to scrub my toilets and wash my dirty clothes. how lucky am i?!!!?

in addition to that, i cannot express enough how great bj has been. he has eaten quite a few hot pockets and ramon noodles for about 6 weeks now, which really...that cant be good for you. he gets up in the middle of the night for me to let the dog out or get me water, and listens to me whine and cry daily. and doesn't complain.

it makes me feel so good inside that all of these people sacrificed for little ol me. now more than ever, i am so grateful for my knowledge of this gospel and eternal families. i get to be with these people i love (plus the growing bebe) forever and that's pretty darn great.

well, that's all for now. goodnight.

p-p-p-p-pregnant

we're pregnant. yay!

i have been writing in my journal really often because i want to remember this time but i have not been very good about writing on here. but lets see ...we could not be more thrilled to be pregnant. so excited to have our own little family. i am constantly day dreaming about holding this little bebe (currently the size of a kumquat) and living life a family of 3. so aside from all of those obvious mushy feelings----pregnancy is hard. and i am only a quarter of the way through. ha! my mom was only sick with 1 out of her 5 kids, so i just assumed i wouldn't get sick. well ha ha ha ha because i did. throwing up and all. at about week 6 it hit me. i woke up feeling bad one day and i thought "oh this is because i didn't get enough sleep last night. or maybe i have the flu". wrong and wrong. it stayed and stayed and has continued to stay. for the first 2 weeks i cried everyday. seriously. every. single. day. probably 2 times a day. i could not imagine getting through a few more MONTHS of this all day sickness stage. and i would sit there hugging the toilet wondering very seriously why anyone has more than one child, what is wrong with these women! at one point i thought bj was going to bribe me to get pregnant again. now i may have to bribe him :-). and i may or may not have told anyone who would listen to never, ever get pregnant. or at least wait until you could quit life for 9 months. bc that happens so often. in one of the conversations with ashley, where i was warning her, i was telling her all about the little "treats" in this first trimester of pregnancy ..and she was laughing. and i was laughing. but while i was laughing, in my head i realized that someone, sometime had told me the same thing. they tried to warn me. but until you go through it, you just don't know the misery.

hahahha.

okay this post sounds so dramatic. wow. but its true. and maybe all you not pregnant at the moment women have forgotten. but don't worry, during your next pregnancy when this bliss comes rushing back to you, you can cry on my shoulder. i promise :-). anyway, i have some good days and some bad days. i am just sick and tired of being sick and tired. it will pass though and i look forward to the 2nd trimester.

other things about being pregnant:

- i love my long, strong nails!

- i love day dreaming all the time this little bebe

- i am up more than a full cup size. which is awesome.

- i am alwaayyyyys thirsty. always. right now i am on my 3rd liter of water and i feel like i could drink a whole pool.

-having to pee. allll the time.
-i love reading on baby center about the things my baby is going through that week. then going back almost everyday that week to read it again....in case i missed something or something new shows up.

-bj is a champ. he has comforted me while i cry, sat with me while i throw up in the middle of the night, and has gotten me anything i need/want. what a good boy i have.

well that about covers it for now. i love my sweet husband and our little growing baby. this is a sweet time in our lives and i am grateful we get to experience it.

ashley comes to visit

my bff ashley and her husband, lance, came down to visit this weekend. it was so nice to have them here!!!

the first morning they were here we went to visit virg at work. virg was leaving that afternoon to go on the trail for 4 days, so that was the only time we were going to see her all weekend. sad. i love these two a whooole lot.

after that we went and met bj for lunch at 5 guys. lance and bj went to shoot guns that afternoon while ashley and I went to the mall :-). that night the four of us made dinner and just hung out.

saturday morning ashley and lance made us delicious crepes. YUM. lance served his mission in france so they were pretty legit ;-). my favorite was the really thin ones with cream and fruit inside.

after stuffing ourselves with crepes we went to hike camelback mountain. its a pretty popular hike in the valley but for some reason i had never done it. the hike was really pretty but harder than i thought it would be. perhaps the 107 degree weather had something to do with it. we took toby with us and about halfway up he kept laying down, so we decided to turn around. when the weather cools off i want to go again and hike the whole thing. you'll be happy to come with me, right ash ;-)???

lance has a really good friend that lives here, so that night he went to see him while bj went to an asu football game with a friend. ashley and i went and saw 'you again'. it was a cute, lighthearted movie. afterward we got froyo and chatted it up.

this morning we were sad to see them go but hopefully we will see them again soon. love you guys!!!!!!

happy birthday nick and bj!

yesterday was bjs birthday and tomorrow is his younger brother, nick's. happy 25th and 20th, boys! we love you!!

its always so hard for me to decide what to get bj for his birthday. he is such a boy and doesn't like little things... only big, complicated toys. i asked him what he wanted this year and he said a gun. but he told me he didn't want me to buy the gun. i asked him to show me which one and he gave me a print out of the gun with a picture and the nearest vendors to mesa, az. really, that happened. haha. i convinced him i was not buying the gun bc i wanted to surprise him with it. that didn't work though bc i left my email up with the confirmation email on it. blah. someday i WILL surprise him, with something!

tonight our family (that lives here) came over to have cake and ice cream. bjs favorite is cookie cake but the one i made last year turned out nasty so this year i let paradise bakery make it. i am happy to say they did not disappoint.

happy birthday beejster! you're the best and i am so glad your all mine, love you!!!!

date night

am i the only one who feels like we (as a couple) have endless ideas for fun dates and really good intentions to go on those dates...but life always seems to get in the way? for us, it always ends up being the same type of date weekend after weekend. movies, dinner, grilling at home, renting movies, watching sports on tv....ect. at the end of a long week the last thing we really want to do is put a ton of effort into thinking of some creative date. even though we know it would be tons of fun to do AND create great memories, we never seem to get around to it. sad. well now "we" has turned into just me because tonight beej pulled through in the fun date department.

last night bj told me he had a date planned for us on saturday night. i admit i was pretty doubtful that we would actually end up doing whatever it was he had planned. he reminded me of it again this morning and when i went to the store this afternoon he told me to be back by 6pm. when i got back he told me to put on closed toed shoes and get in the car. so i did and thirty minutes later we pulled up to indoor kart racing in Phoenix. we raced twice for 15 minutes each time and it was so much fun! the kart things got up to like 45mph. of course bj won both times but the second time i almost beat him. he said he had a different kart the second time and that it was "much slower" ;-). during the second race he was also hating some guy who kept cutting him off and running into people. so that may have distracted him a little. either way, i almost won! haha.

after we finished racing we went and ate at 5 guys burgers for dinner. SO yummy! we came home and bj pulled out some mint chocolate chip ice cream he secretly bought earlier that morning. sneaky little devil. while we ate our dessert we watched how lose a guy in 10 days. i love that movie, i swear i laugh harder every time i watch it. "so you think im some sort of CRAZY PERSON!?!?"...hahah. anyway, when the movie was almost over bj told me to go look in his dresser drawer where i found this book:

what a smarty pants. a date night scrapbook so we can turn our good intentions into real dates and keep memories about them. how cute is he??!? while we finished the movie i put our date from tonight in

i had no idea bj was putting so much thought into our date tonight. i appreciate him more than he knows. i have been feeling kinda blah lately so this was just the pick-me-up i needed. what a sweet boy.

looks like its my turn to plan the next date...i have great idea and cant wait to plan it out. stay tuned!

so long sweet summer

JUNE:
-we celebrated our 3 year anniversary! yummy food, pretty jewelry and camping gear were exchanged. no pictures from this one...one day ill be better at taking pictures.

- i chopped all my hair off! I've never had short hair but i had been flirting with the idea for a while so i just did it. i have a love/hate relationship with it. bj loves my hair short but sometimes i miss a good ol' ponytail. or maybe i miss that long hair hides 2nd day grease much more effectively than short hair.

my favorite part about short hair is that its so versatile. when i blow dry and straighten it, it looks styled and cute (see above ). but if I'm feeling a lil loco and want to change my look up, i simply let it air dry and BAM! it takes on the Sean wave (see below ). don't be jealous. i mean, he was always the hot one. and of course i look equally as dreamy with the sean wave as sean did back in the day. like you even had to ask on that one.

JULY: went to Texas for a week! it was great to see my family and spend time with my mom, Liz, Tristan and Jonathan. I had not see Jonathan since my wedding 3 years ago! crazy. unfortunately, i once again forgot to take many pictures.

me and my favorite 6 year old ever! i had too much fun with this kid. i wish i could remember all of the hilarious things he said in our conversations. he is the funniest little guy ever.

at the 4th of july breakfast at the church with my beautiful sis, Liz, and Tristan. i didn't get any pics of my mom but she was there too.

while we were in Texas our dog, duke, ran away! he was at bjs parents house with bj and we think the fireworks must have scared him away. bj and his family looked all over town, put up flyer's, and called all the humane societies but they couldn't find him. bj was devastated.

a few weeks after we got home and realized duke was gone for good, we got this little guy:

toby! he is a cute little lab and we are liking him a lot. except we call him duke all the time. oops. and yes people, i realize this is our 4th dog in 4 years. we will try to be more responsible with our children. i cant make any promises though.

AUGUST: Young family reunion! everyone in bjs family had not been together for 3 years. with so many people it's hard to get everyone in one place, at one time. for a week we all ate, talked, laughed and played a lot. a good time was had by all!

what a good lookin' bunch

-in august we also went to Hawaii with these guys (al and Jeremy) for 10 days!

we stayed on the north shore of Oahu in the turtle bay condos. we went cliff jumping, Bogey boarding, lots of swimming, ate yummy food, went to pearl harbor, hiked to a waterfall, did a little snorkeling, read and did lots of laying out. Hawaii is beautiful and i am so glad we were able to go!

that's our summer in a nutshell. i didn't take any classes so it was nice to be on vacation mode for 4 months. school has started again and i am really enjoying my classes. i am happy to say i will be graduating at the end of next summer! yay! i have most definitely taken the scenic route with school but i am glad i am finishing.

well....the end!

yum.

one too many buffets together........or the fatbooth app on the iphone?? you decide.

the best entertainment you will ever get for .99 cents.

do it.

not normal

i am usually a big believer in "to each their own"...but i will judge you if you eat this:


KFC's new Double Down Sandwich, 1228 calories of artery clogging nastiness. yuck.

colorado and 24

for my birthday weekend we flew up to Colorado to see audrie and her family. it was so much fun! audries new baby, addyson (love that name), is the most adorable baby i have ever seen. she has the prettiest eyes and she was smiley the whole time. i love her. i really hope that when bj and i have kids the Young family genes pull through because they make some very cute babies/toddlers. way cuter than the ones that you are related to. haha. just kididng. but not really. and actually, the Ingrams have great baby genes too. tristan, hayden and zealand are/were all super adorable. so really, i just hope that our kids don't get baby genes specific to me. bc i was one UGLY baby. this is a fact. im sure my family will comment on this post with the validity of that statement. i was hairy. all over. and bug eyed. and the hair that was actually on top of my head and not all over my body was really thin, wispy and always a little matted down. that phase lasted till i was 3 or 4. or maybe 13. poor, poor future babies. ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

highlights of the trip:
- chatting and laughing with aud (girl time really is the best)
-bj getting to go snowboarding
-sledding!! SO FUN.
- chance (6) wanting to shovel snow off the driveway to be like daddy. so. freaking. cute.
- kenedi and anything came out of her mouth. "thats FAIR MOM!". her fake laughing when we laughed while aud and i watched tv. the fact that when she walks she struts like she is off to somewhere very important. her dancing to chipmunks and asking bj to fill up her sippy with milk so she didn't "run out of gas". haha.
- addison the new bebe. i love her.
-there are more things to do with her kids but i will stop as to not seem like a child obsessed creeper
- making the boys watch new moon and eclipse for my birthday. muahah.
-the jcrew outlet right by audries house. jealous.
- yummy benihana and funfetti cake for my birthday.
-discovering snuggies

it was a great trip and i am really glad we went. i am excited for May when audrie and her kids are coming to stay with us for a week..right, audrie? right??? ;-).

in additional birthday news, i am now 24. and 24 sounds kind of old to me. but 24 is gonna be a good year. i can feel it.

this year i hope to
-run a half marathon. i can now run 3 miles continuously. don't judge. it used to be 3 minutes.
- a bunch of other stuff that i don't care to write out. clearly its all very important though and will definitely be accomplished
- and get pregnant!!!!!!! yes its true. and yes the only reason for this list was to say that. i can not contain myself, i am so excited. i am not off birth control quite yet..but soon-ish i will be. TMI? don't care. i will probably sing it from my rooftop the day i stop taking it. sorry about your luck neighbors.

now im off to make some cadbury mini egg chocolate cookies. those are hands down my favorite Easter candy. addictive little devils.

mom comes to visit!

this past weekend Bj was in canada for work, so my mom used that opportunity to come visit me in az. it was SUCH a great weekend. much needed mom and daughter time. since we live so far away i forgot how great it is to have my mom around. i didn't forget how wonderful she is, i just forgot how nice it is to have a moms suggestions, comfort, helpful tips and laughter around. there really is nothing that compares to that good ol' motherly love. saying that i loved having her here is an understatement. i wish she would move here tomorrow. really.

we had a blast shopping, eating, laughing, having girl talk, getting pedicures, enjoying the beautiful az weather (before it got cold and rainy), seeing a moving and laughing a lot more.

highlights of the trip:
-the hobbit sweater
- my mom crying from start to finish when we saw the blind side. great movie. she loved it. i knew she would.
-shopping
-having someone around who loves sweets as much as me.
-coming home to a spotless house on monday. baseboards. blinds, fans, everything. and ALL of my laundry done. perfection.
- finding clothing that was NOT black and white ;-)
- the adorable heels we found for her at dillards that were normally $120 marked down to $29.99. turns out it does pay to have unusually small feet :-)


low lights:
-finding out how much it costs to custom frame a wedding picture at hobby lobby. i walked in thinking it would cost about $35 to frame our 16x20 wedding photo....wrong. way wrong. it would be $150. and that's half off. barf.
-only taking one picture together the whole weekend

favorite quote of the weekend:
kat: you can go ahead and shower in this bathroom.
mom: okay go out
kat: mom. you can shower with me in the same room. i have the same parts you do.
mom: yes we do. but i don't want to depress you when you see what your future holds.

hahah.


love you mom, come back soon!

New toys

a few weeks ago "we" got some new toys. they are "ours", just like when i buy home decor it is for "us" :-).

bj is such a guys guy and loves all things boy. i really didn't care if he did or didn't get them but i do admit i have had more fun watching him with them than i thought it would. he is so dang cute with how excited he gets about going out on them and getting all the accessories for them.

last week bj and i went out so he could show me how to ride "my" quad (the sliver one). i have been on one a few times before but in my family there are 4 girls and only 1 boy so we didn't really do these kind of things that often. i wasn't expecting it to be lame but i had no idea it would be so much fun! i was probably going super slow bc its a new thing for me and i was nervous but bj was so patient and was happy we were just out playing together. we played hide and seek on the quads and that was one of my favorite parts. except when bjs hiding spot was way better than mine. haha.

here they are:
ps check out that beautiful scenery, i love where i live.



bj with the toys

after hide and seek we found this little baby jump and bj taught me jump over it. he is a pro and had no problem clearing it.

this is my first try...try to ignore how incredibly attractive i look. i know it may be distracting for some.

this is after a little practicing. ignore bjs doubting commentary in the background...i think i'm a natural ;-)

love day

i love valentines day. i love that its whole purpose is a celebration of love. and i love it because its the day bj proposed to me :-). every valentines we go eat at Maggiano's little italy and as usual, it was delish. their cheesecake is super yummy so we got it to go because we were both too stuffed to eat anymore. after dinner we made our way to the hotel suite bj booked for us to stay in that night.


bj booked our hotel online, so neither of us had actually seen it before....and our hotel "suite" didnt end up being quite what we thought it would be. the street we stayed on had 3 or 4 hotels right next to each other. so, we pulled up to the hotel we thought we were staying at and it looked great. i was so excited to get out and find our room! then we realized we were at the wrong place. ours was the hotel next door. so im thinking, oohh okay im sure it will be great too. we drive over to the correct hotel. hmm. it looks a little dingy but im sure the inside will be beautiful. we get our things and go in. not quite the plush hotel we were imagining. hmm. im sure its fine, maybe the lobby is just a little outdated and the employees are aloud to have wrinkled clothes. sure. check in, walk upstairs. sweet 1980s carpet on the way up. our room will be great though, im sure. walk inside....and no, it wasn't so great. it was just like the rest of the hotel. it wasn't a cheap room and it was in a nice area so we just stood there a little confused. it was already paid for though, so we got over it and made ourselves comfortable. i wish i could remember exactly what the description of the "suite" was on the website bc as we were walking through the room bj was quoting it to me and i was laughing so hard!! the descriptions could not have been further from what was actually in front of us.

an obviously pleased bj showing off our room

and here she is

the modern popcorn ceiling

the huge bathtub..

one thing i DID love were the mirrors!! you knows those mirrors that make you look like a much taller, more slender version of yourself?? they had these all over the place. and i loved them.

bj showing the huge tv that was slightly bigger than his hand

sweet furniture

and it wouldn't be a holiday if bj didn't ruin a perfectly good picture

despite the hotel mishap it was a really great valentines day. we got to laugh about the hotel all night and morning...and it still makes me laughing just thinking about it. haha. it was also kinda fun to just spend the night away from home.... even though we knew our bed at home was more comfortable :-). bj gave me some really pretty earrings and i gave him a nice pen with his initials engraved on it (that still has not come in the mail yet..what the crap).

thanks for making it a very memorable and special valentines, beej. love you!