Movin' Out

Dec 16-18 and 28: organized, packed and cleaned our apartment

Dec 29--packed the moving van; stayed the night with Grandma and Grandpa Nufer; got LOTS of snow which made packing harder
Dec 30--left Provo; snow stopped us in Rock Springs, WY; shared a hotel with the Millars; discovered that Joshua wouldn't sleep unless little Lincoln was wailing (strange...)
Below is Joshua's little hovel. We put his pack and play back there and blocked his view from everything. We all appreciated the noisemaker that night.

Dec 31: roads opened in the morning and we left as fast as we could. Got stuck in Laramie, WY for about 2 1/2 hours--spent the time in Wal-Mart. Just as we were getting ready to stop for the night, we were informed that the roads were opened. We got out of there! We stopped just before midnight (wished each other a Happy New Year in the car) and slept for the night. We were entertained that we were in room 111 of our hotel on 1/1/11. The Millars drove until 4ish in the morning when the stopped at Camille's aunt's house in Council Bluffs, IA.

Jan 1--woke up early to drive several hours to meet up with the Millars in IA. Josh REALLY loved their dog!

Also on the 1st--made it all the way to our apartment in Chicago. Starting at 10p, Jason and Steve unloaded all of our stuff to the 3rd floor of our apartment! Go guys! They finished at about 12:15am when we toasted the New Year with sparkling cider and headed for bed.

Jan 2--Steve and I attended our new ward's sacrament meeting and were pleased with the welcome we received. The Millars headed to Camille's house in Fairborn, OH. After church, we headed out to Columbus to be with my family. We were glad to see Karl and Chrysta Richards and Mark and Ada RIchards (my mom's two youngest brothers and their families). Dad was wonderful in saving us Chinese food from their New Year celebration. He must love us!

Jan 3--spent the day with the Nufers. Got to see Ada a bunch and go bowling, eat pizza, and watch my family dote on Joshua.

Jan 4--drove to Hershey, PA while my family took care of Josh. Toured the factory and ate yummy peanut butter cookies. Camille's aunt had us over for the night. The ham dinner was perfect and we enjoyed playing Wii with the kids!

Jan 5--drove the rest of the way to Boston. Jason and Steve unloaded the Millar's things while Camille and I got permits from the traffic office. Driving there is NUTS!!!! No street signs and weird traffic rules! We had dinner with my cousin Sherie and her family and stayed there for the night.

Jan 6--Sherie escorted me and Steve around the city while the Millars got going on their new home. Enjoyed the sites!
Old North Church

Fanuil Hall with its grasshopper weather vane

The Millars joined us for lunch at the oldest restaurant in America. Definitely recommend the clam chowder!

Katherine had a lobster give her a post card. She was thrilled!

This is the site of the Boston Massacre

Steve got to ride the subway for the first time

Toured the USS Constitution--so cool!

Jan 7--drove all the way to Ohio from Boston. 12-hour-drives are SO much shorter without toddlers!
Jan 8--spent some time in the morning with my family, but spent the majority of the day with Chris and Laura Coons. They just had their baby Elizabeth and she is just beautiful--just like her siblings!

Josh didn't seem to mind staying with Grandma and Grandpa Nufer. We loved getting back to him and enjoyed watching him pull himself up to the piano to sing and play for people. We sure love him.

It seems that life is just now getting back to normal. We have settled nicely into our apartment in Chicago and we love it here! We feel so blessed to have Steve at a job that he loves and to be in an apartment where we feel safe and where we can have the Spirit to help us teach Joshua about the gospel.

Baby update

This isn't what is supposed to come next in my blog-athon, but due to numerous requests, here are my latest 'baby' pictures.
Dec 24: 24 weeks along

Jan 10: 27 weeks

Jan 30: 30 weeks

We are 2 days away from being 32 weeks and we are getting excited to welcome a baby girl to our home!

Christmas 2010

Alright, so it seems slightly ridiculous that I'm trying to do this, but I still feel like I wanted to post all the fun pictures from the last few months. This post is going to be about our fun Christmas with Steve's parents, but I'm going to probably give many fewer details than I would like.
Here goes:

--After finals, we spent 3 days packing our apartment up: we were so proud of all the junk we got rid of! I'm also so proud of Steve for completing his Bachelor of Science in Food Science with a minor in Business Management!
--Kevin and Kristen had us up in early December. It was her due date that day (the 5th maybe) and it was so fun to see them! They had their sweet baby Allison a few days later.



--Joshua got his first official haircut and he LOVED the place we went to: he looks like a little boy now and not a baby


--We got to see Kevin and Kristen's baby for the first time just before heading out for the holidays: when Joshua saw her, he went right over to her and kissed her on the top of the head. ADORABLE! (both the kiss and the sweet little girl!)
--Flew to Spokane and spent a terrific week with Steve's parents!

• Joshua never got onto a good sleeping schedule, so Steve was nice enough to get up with him each morning. To compensate for the lack of sleep, we got him Super Mario Brothers Wii so that he'd have something to look forward to when he got up.
  
  • 
  • As a graduation gift, Steve's parents took us to the Davenport Hotel for a nice dinner, paid for a babysitter to watch Joshua, and then took us out to see the 3rd Chronicles of Narnia movie. It was such a fun evening!
  • The decorations in this hotel were GORGEOUS!
    

We played in the snow a little with Joshua. He hates to have snow gear on, but he liked it once he realized how very cold it was outside!

This year's Christmas picture
Playing with Grandpa Monson: while we were on this trip, he learned how to say "Grandpa" and would say it every time we heard dad come home from work.

More of the Davenport

Josh also got lots of Dad-time. We showed him how to duel with wrapping paper holders and he loved how Steve was very dramatic in dying.

Christmas Eve, we had a very, very tasty ham dinner complete with holiday potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, and Christmas punch. Afterward, we took pictures and sang carols. Once Josh was in bed, we also enjoyed "Muppet Christmas Carol".

Christmas morning was so fun! We enjoyed giving and getting gifts and loved watching Joshua open his!

While we were there, the basement was a wonderful place to be. Joshua was trapped down there, so we could take our book and sit and read or talk while he wreaked havoc. Somehow, he always managed to spread the toys evenly throughout the entire room.

We had a wonderful Christmas and a great break before all the moving began. Thanks mom and dad for letting us be with you for the holidays!

Make Yourself Comfortable

This morning, Joshua decided to climb up on top of me and read his book for a little while. Luckily, because he was so quiet, I was still able to get a few more minutes of sleep.

Surprise!

We're moving to the Windy City: Chicago! Steve has been offered a position with a company called Kerry Ingredients. His title will be Spice Specialist. (Isn't that fun to say?) We are madly hunting for an apartment, but do you know how hard it is to find a place with washer/dryer hookups? Its been exasperating.

After the Christmas break (which we are spending in Spokane with Steve's parents) we will be packing up and heading out on the 30th. Its been so crazy, but we feel very blessed for getting this job! We are excited to be sharing a moving van with Camille and Jason Millar (headed for Boston) and we're excited to get to see my parents as well. It should be fun!

And our baby is...

A cute baby girl!!!

During the ultrasound today, our little princess was very ladylike. Although it irked the sonographer pretty badly, she kept her legs crossed so that it was hard to find out the gender. We're glad that she already has manners. :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all! I have to say that I'm a fan of Halloween, but not the creepy, spooky Halloween. Ours started out with a pumpkin. Steve thinks its funny how excited I get about the pumpkins when they first start selling them at grocery stores in the beginning of October. But I love it and its just fun to get excited about things.

Josh liked it too!
We have decided that every October that I'm pregnant, this will be our design. Emily said that she was having a hard time getting any sort of reaction from her kids about Halloween things until they saw our pumpkin. The reaction? "Eww".

We were also happy that our neighbor's dog didn't eat up all of the entrails.

Our costumes this year were the 3 Musketeers. I finished making the little tunics a few days before our party and was quite pleased with them! I think the little French mustache looks best on Joshua. What do you think? Oh, and Josh wasn't supposed to have a sword, but he always managed to get one.

On Saturday the 30th, we held our Halloween party. We were pleased that the Gibbons kids weren't sick like last year. The costumes were lots of fun! Matt came as a superhero, Emily was a Frazzled Fairy (she has a little wand in her pocket), Lia: the Frog Princess, Quinn: Lightening McQueen, Mikayla was a character from Winnie the Pooh (but I don't know the character's name, sorry!) and Mr Colin came as a pumpkin.

I was sad to miss a picture of all of the Mosbackers and mom and dad Monson, but here is our little pumpkin patch: Colin Gibbons and Nathan Mosbacker.
Mike and Elise came as Frankenstein and his bride. I've got to say that her hair was AWESOME! Shauna and Mom as witches

My brother, Scott, brought a friend of ours from Ohio: J'neen. They came as Life pieces, including the car and little seats in the back for babies.....

We were quite surprised when Jon Updike showed up with Alisha. He's currently working in Washinton DC, so we were a little shocked that he was here!

When Joseph and Greg walked in, Alisha's first thought was "Who is Joseph's ugly ugly date?"

Greg also shocked us, but in a different manner. He came complete with heels.

Four of the Elms 214 roommates: Joseph Sowa, Greg Sorensen, Steve Monson and Jonathan Updike.

Probably my favorite costumes of the night go to Camille and Jason Millar. They brought little Lincoln who was almost 3 weeks old and they were a ref, the football player and the football. SO cute!

Besides stuffing himself with lots of yummy food, Joshua loved the clean-up stage. We pulled down all the streamers and let him run around the apartment with them.
Okay, so we try not to brag about our food, but our pumpkin soup turned out amazing again this year. So for anyone who wants a new Halloween tradition, this is what I suggest you make:

Bachelor's Creamy Pumpkin Soup

1 10.75 oz can condensed cream of potato soup

1 1/4 cup water

1 15 oz can pumpkin puree

2 Tbsp butter

1 cup cream

1 tsp salt, or to taste

1/4 tsp ground black pepper, or to taste

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp ginger

1 pinch paprika, for garnish (I don't think we used this either year)

1 cup seasoned croutons (I don't think we used this either)

Directions:

1) In saucepan over medium heat, combine the cream of potato soup, water, pumpkin, butter and cream. Season with salt, pepper, garlic and ginger. Stir until blended, and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.

2) Remove from heat and pour into a tureen. Garnish with paprika and croutons.

Its SO easy and very tasty!

Anyway, we hope you all enjoyed your holidays and we're definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving!

Baby Comparisons

For my own entertainment, I wanted to compare pregnancies. This first picture was taken at about 14 weeks when I was pregnant with Joshua. We are now at 15.5 weeks for baby #2 and I thought I would log it. Here we are!

Lets see which baby I get bigger for!

Go Cougars!

So our BYU homecoming game was this last weekend and even though Steve had to work, Joshua and I watched the game together. When we were scoring, I put my arms in the air and yelled "Go Cougars!" Well Joshua, who is in the stage of copying the things that we do, put his arms up, waved them around and started yelling. Although this video is not during the actual game, we got him to do it again for the camera. Its pretty cute.

We've also tried to deck him out in BYU garb. Unfortunately, Josh won't keep hats on and the little BYU Cougar shirts are just too expensive, mostly because he'll grow out of it WAY too fast! But here is how we are making do: