Video (or Rodeo as we silly adults call it)

Last week, we went to the Denver Stock Show with the MacLennans and Dan and Kippy. Just as last year, they loved the animals (and the horsey ride) and loved the rodeo for the first hour(ish). After awhile, though, Karly and Graham were done with the animals. 

Karly pushing baby Audrey in the stroller

 This was the only picture I got where you could at least see the front of both of their faces.

 Enjoying the rodeo!

 Holding their tokens for the horsey ride!

 Train ride

 Audrey's free horsey ride

Baby shower

My awesome friends/young women in our (now old) ward threw me a baby shower for Mr. Boy. I was so excited at how many people got to come and overwhelmed with all the amazing gifts to help us get ready for this little guy! We literally had almost no clothing for the poor kid - I'd been too focused on house stuff to be spending much time thinking about baby stuff (which is probably good since I'm already overly anxious for him to be here!).

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the day. Thanks to all of you who were able to come and your amazing gifts!

The AMAZING cake my amazing friend Lacey made. So cute. And SO yummy. My gluten intolerant sister-in-law even ate it, knowing the pain she would be in later. It was THAT good. :)

 Just some shots of the people who came...

 And of course the big sis! She was very helpful at opening presents, of course. :)

 I tried to find a semi-flattering shot of me, but let's be honest. I'm huge and VERY pregnant. Flattering shots don't exist of me (though I have seen some cute ones of my pregnant friends and cousins - why can't I look like that when I'm pregnant?!). I'll try to remember to take a standing one soon, so I at least have a decent picture of my measuring big belly (at every dr. appt. I measure at least a week big, but we did an ultrasound and this little guy is measuring right on track - it's just me that's big).

It was so fun to get to spend the time with so many friends and feel so loved and blessed!

Responsibility?

All of the sudden, I feel like an adult.

I own a house. With my husband. And we have (almost) 2 kids.

That's what adults do, and it's really weird and kind of still surreal (mostly the house thing. I've had 9 months and a constant reminder to get ready for the 2 kids thing).

So as a quick update (because in about 9 days or less I have a feeling I won't have/want to take time to blog about this kind of stuff), we are officially homeowners! We closed on Jan. 12 and moved in on the 13th. Nate was actually out of town for work for the actual closing, so I had got to do the closing all by my lonesome. I had to do power of attorney for Nate, which basically means on every document, I signed not only my name, but "Nathan Frakes by Alisa Frakes as Attorney in Fact." EVERY document. You ever closed on a house? There are a LOT of papers. I got really fast by the end.

I need to give a shout out to Dan, Kippy, Lindsey, Connor, Mike, Blake and Nellie for helping us move/take care of Karly/unpack our house/fix things. We have had a ton of help and its' been great!

The house we bought was a foreclosure and is 30 years old, so there has been plenty for us to do since moving in. Poor Nate, who is in the midst of busy season has been working like 12 hour days and then coming home to work on the house for 2-3 hours. Most of it has been pretty basic stuff, but STILL. He's superman. We have about a million ideas for projects and paint colors and things to change, but a lot of it will be waiting until after March (busy season) or just summer. We love it and are so excited to be here! And we have an extra bedroom (with a real mattress in it) and an entire empty basement, so guess what? You can come visit. :)

I took pictures of the whole house shortly after we moved in, just so we had "before" shots of everything. Here are a few of them:

Kitchen/dining room

 Family Room

 Living room/dining area (that we are still trying to decide what to do with for now since we have the other dining area)

 Backyard/1000 Sq. foot deck (that is being ripped out as the morons who built the massive, orange deck didn't even put the thing on cement pylons)

 Basement

 One of our many projects (master bedroom "closet" - there is a walk in closet on the other side of that cedar planked wall and this one has a cable connection and outlet. And cedar wood. And gold, full length mirrors. It's all gotta go.)

 Master bath. This project is actually already almost completed. Ugly, dirty gold doors are gone, replaced by a cute shower curtain. Bottom tiles have been regrouted and sealed and we are working on finding a way to get the base cleaner...

Not on my list...

I have about 10 million things I should be doing instead of this, but I'm stressed and I'm hoping that writing on here for a minute will help. I told Nate I was stressed and didn't know why. His response? "packing, baby, moving, house? busy season? pregnancy?" 


Oh yeah - maybe those things. 


I haven't mentioned anything on here about the packing/moving/house stuff - that really deserves it's own post - but for today suffice it to say, we will be closing on a house next Thursday! We are SO excited and I'll try to post pictures and a more detailed story of the process in the next few weeks (or months, depending on when Mr. Boy decides to make his debut...). I wanted to make sure I posted about Christmas stuff, though, before it got too late and never happened. 


Nate had the Friday before Christmas and the whole week after off work, plus this past Monday. Needless to say, Karly and I were spoiled by having him around all day and going through withdrawals now that he's back at work. It's only going to get worse since we're entering busy season too! Nate made good use of the time he had off and spent TONS of time playing with Karly. It was awesome. 


Christmas Eve morning, Nate and Karly built a gingerbread house village. Gingerbread houses were never really a tradition in my family, but they were in Nate's and one he definitely wants to continue (though he did say next year he wants each person to have an individual house - I think the OCD came out in him with Karly trying to decorate with him...). 

Later in the day, Nate and Karly built a snowman and Dan and Kippy's house (there isn't really anywhere by our apartment to do it properly - next year it will be in our own back yard!). It was actually more like Nate building a snowman while Karly ate snow and told him to put eyes, a nose, mouth, hat, etc. on "Frosty." 

(Little Miss I'm-done-taking-naps had cold feet and a total meltdown when we took these pictures. Still cute though. :) 


The Monday after Christmas, we went sledding. Karly didn't seem to be having fun at first (might have been the face plant into the snow), but quickly warmed up to it and she and Nate ended up going the next day again while I was at the dentist. 

We got to do Christmas morning in our own place for the first time this year and we loved waking up in our own beds, getting up with Karly and seeing what Santa brought and opening presents together. Despite totally missing my family in Arizona, it was so nice to be home. We'll just have to make sure we spend good quality summer time with my family! 

These are not the best Christmas morning pictures, but we were having too much fun watching Karly open all her presents! 

It was a great Christmas break and, like I said, so nice to have Nate around so much, especially since he'll be pretty absent for the next couple of months. 

On to the craziness! 

Maybe now I can go get something accomplished....

Topo Giogo!

Did you know that's not actually a name for Santa Claus? Dang Tim Allen. see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topo_Gigio)

So anyway, Santa Claus came to our ward Christmas party. Karly has been watching Christmas movies for a few weeks and was thrilled to actually get to SEE Santa and sit on his lap and tell him what she wants.

The problem is, once she got up there, this is what she did:

Not a word came out of that girl's mouth.

When we ask her what she wants from Santa, her response is usually "a blue hippo." Huh? I seriously have no idea where she got that idea. I'm hoping by Christmas morning she will have forgotten about that or will at least be content with a pink piggy bank. :)

Are we there yet?!

I feel like I've been pregnant for.ever.

And I still have 7 weeks to go! And I can't even hope and pray this little guy makes his debut early. In fact, I'm probably supposed to be praying he comes RIGHT on his due date. Since our attempt at planning when to have a baby didn't go exactly as planned, we are having this little guy right, smack dab in the middle of busy season for Nate. In fact, Nate will be crazy busy with one particular client until February 3rd (also happens to be my due date - coincidence? um, yeah it actually is). So anyway, I'll continue waiting not-so-patiently to not be pregnant anymore (funny how last time I LOVED being pregnant. this time I only love the reason I'm suffering the heartburn and sciatic nerve and getting fat and mood swings and not being able to bend over).

 30 weeks

Amazingly, so far this pregnancy, the only thing (besides my stomach obviously) getting significantly fatter is my face. Last time at this point, I was pretty much huge everywhere.

See?

31 weeks with Karly

Okay, so maybe it's not THAT different, but I definitely feel less huge. I do still have 7 weeks to go, so we'll see....

My mom and sister came to visit!

and guess how many pictures I took?!

Yeah. None.

Actually that's not true. I took a few when we played at the park, but they were on Suzie's camera and she still hasn't sent them to me (hint, hint, wink, wink).

Karly loved having "grandma Cox" come to play - she called her "grandma Cox" for the first day and a half until we convinced her she could just call her grandma if she wanted. :)

We really didn't have much planned and were kind of boring, but it was SO good to have them come for a few days! One day we spent 4 hours at the mall and the only thing we bought was a pretzel. Then we went to Deseret Book and the only thing we bought was hot chocolate. That's what they get for hanging out with a pregnant woman!

On Saturday while they were here, we went to Estes Park/Rocky Mountain National Park to hear/watch the Elk bugle (that word looks wrong, but it's not - I checked). We drove around for awhile and didn't see/hear anything and started to worry we wouldn't. We decided to stop at one point and just go for a little hike and ran into a herd of probably 50 or more elk with 6 or 7 bulls herding their women. :) We got to hear a little bugling and see a little antler clashing, so it ended up being worth the trip. I think my mom got some good pictures. I, once again, did not. So you'll have to imagine it. Or google elk bugling in Estes Park, CO.

Anyway, overall it was a fun weekend with my momma and sista. I'm so glad they made the drive and hope they felt like it was worth it! We sure thought it was! :)

2nd night in a row I've been up past midnight.../Halloween

I actually wrote a blog post last night while I was not sleeping, but didn't post it. Maybe I still will. Maybe not. We'll see. I figured since I'm unable to sleep yet again, I might as well do something useful. Like show you the cutest cow you've ever seen.

She does actually smile for the camera. The problem is she says "cheese" with a big grin and by the time the camera takes the picture (.7 seconds later) she's done. And so is the smile. Unless the picture is blurry because she moves while she's saying "cheese." It might help if I knew how to use my camera a little better...

Halloween was pretty awesome this year since we got to take Kar trick or treating. She had to be prompted at pretty much every door to say "trick or treat" loud enough for anyone but her to hear, but she really could have just stood there saying nothing and the people still would have handed her candy. She was so stinkin' cute (totally unbiased opinion).

Am I a bad mom if I went through her candy and took out all the stuff Nate and I like and put it in a separate bowl? She still has a LOT of candy - just no Twix or Snickers or Peanut Butter Cups....to name a few I took...

Bugged

I figured out a great cure for inability to sleep. Have your spouse talk to you about something you have absolutely NO interest in talking about. Works like a charm.

Oh, you thought I was talking about me? No, that's how I helped Nate fall asleep tonight. And now I can't sleep. Do you think it would be rude to wake him up and ask him to tell me about spreadsheets and macros? (In case you're wondering, I talked to him about Survivor and The Biggest Loser)

Since I'm up I thought I'd post about something I've been thinking about for a few days. When I was pregnant with Karly, I think I got really...I can't think of the right word...sappy? clingy? emotionally attached? loving toward others? Something like that. I don't know if it's that there's a boy in me this time or what, but I'm basically the opposite. Let's see if I can think of this word: annoyed. I get annoyed SO EASY and feel like I have this whole pregnancy.

I hate it. It annoys me. Ha.

I've been trying really hard to stop letting people/things bother me that never would have before, but that's like telling an overly emotional pregnant woman not to cry during a sappy commercial. Oh, speaking of overly emotional pregnant women, I'm not. Things that would have made me cry before I was pregnant don't even phase me.

I hate that too.

Not that I want to cry all the time, but most days I swear I don't have tear ducts at all right now. So anyway, back to things bothering me: I feel like, especially since I married Nate I've gotten better at letting things roll off my back - I've gotten more patient or at least better at seeming patient. Except the last 6 months. If you're bugging me, you probably know it.

So, I guess my point in writing this is as an apology to all of you that I've interacted with in the last half a year. It's not you, it's me (or baby boy - can I please just blame him?). You can just pray with me I return to my normal self after he arrives (or before - I'd be okay if it happened now).

Oh Moab, how I missed you

Did you know we haven't been to Moab since Karly was t-minus 2 weeks old (meaning I was pregnant in case that didn't make any sense)?

That's almost an unforgivable sin, you know. Moab is our place. I missed it. It was so good to go back.

We went with Nate's parents and brother Jordan and his wife and kids. We rented a little condo, which was good considering it got to like 30 degrees at night. Camping would have been miserable. We had a blast. Karly loved playing with Adi, except when - heaven forbid - Adi should touch one of her toys! We really need to work on sharing...

So the first hike we did was to Delicate Arch - I wanted to make sure we got that one done at the beginning of the trip in case my pregnant body kept me from doing any later hikes. At one point, Dan showed Karly how to put rocks on top the Cairns, so every time we passed one she wanted to put rocks on the tower. Nate said "this is like heaven for Karly: we're outside, there is dirt, there are rocks and she gets to make towers with the rocks." Those are literally, some of her most favorite things. If we could have incorporated pennies somehow, she may never have wanted to leave.

This was actually how she started the hike though:

There are several probably better pictures from Nate's phone, but I can't figure out how to find them on the laptop...

Also, can I just tell you how stressful that was having Miss Karly on the edge of that ledge up there? I probably spent way too much time on this trip stressing about her falling, but that image scares me too much to relax. But she didn't fall. So life is good.

The other big hike we did was Devil's Garden, which ended up taking WAY longer than I thought it would. I guess with two 2-year-olds, I'm not sure what I was expecting. Once again, they were in heaven just to be outside for hours at a time.

This is wall arch - or was I should say. It collapsed in 2008, which is a sad day because not only did a cool arch break, but it totally ruined the easy way to get up to the other arches on this trail. Bummer.
Navajo arch (I think?)
Proof that this little guy was there, making hiking a little precarious for me.
So sometimes when Nate tells Karly to look at him, she does this weird sideways glance. It's hilarious and I've never caught it on camera before, but I kind of got it here. Nate got it on his phone too, so it's double awesome. Silly girl.

Why can't I look this cute...

when I just put on some random clothes and throw my hair in a ponytail?

Oh, because she's cuter than me. She's got her daddy's genes too!

Happy Birthday Nate! We love you!

Baby, baby...

Funny how I used to say this pregnancy was so similar to Karly's.

I am only 24 weeks, so I still have a ways to go, but lately things have felt quite different. The only similarity is that both of these kids REALLY like to move. I swear he has not stopped today since 5:50 (which is when Karly woke up, so when I started noticing his movements). Please bless he gets my sleeping genes and not his daddy's ridiculous ability to function on 6 hours.

Ahem, 'scuse the tangent. So differences: I feel like I am carrying him very differently. First of all, he likes to hang out as low as possible, which - let me tell you - is VERY comfortable. So you would think since he sits so low, I would feel like I am carrying lower, but I feel like as a whole my "gut" is sitting higher than it did with Karly. However, I just looked at pictures from Kar's pregnancy and they're either similar or he is lower. Maybe it's just that I've gotten bigger faster this time.

Another difference is in terms of movement. With Karly, if I hadn't felt her move for a few hours, I would eat something and she would be moving like crazy within 30 minutes. With this kid, all I have to do is NOT eat and he starts moving. He's always moving when I'm hungry, like he's saying "HELLO! I'm hungry in here!" I hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

Speaking of hungry, I am. All. the. time. I love that doctors say "Don't eat for 2. You really only need 300 more calories than you did before." Cool. I totally get that. But seriously? I'm STARVING. (This actually may not be a difference. I can't remember)

Sciatica. Oh my hip hurts. This is actually not completely pregnancy related because I think I injured it before I was pregnant. It has just gotten worse - like to the point where I've been going to physical therapy because I couldn't walk and would get stuck in certain positions because I couldn't move my hip due to pain (hello run on sentence). It was fun. But it's getting better.

I'm a little scared this time. With Kar it was just pure excitement, but I'm a little scared of 2 kids. I'm scared of neglecting Karly. I'm scared of leaving the house with 2 kids. I already forget to buckle Karly's carseat sometimes (don't worry, she remembers) - can I really remember 2 kids? Also, I'm scared of boys.

So anyway, we'll see if I notice any other similarities or differences in the next few weeks. And maybe I'll post something interesting on my blog one of these days...

More Karlyisms

Last night Nate and I were exchanging funny things Karly had said to each of us recently and he reminded me I need to be writing these down. I should probably write it somewhere a little more permanent than a blog (like her baby book) - maybe I will eventually, but this is quick and then you can all share in her funnies.

*We went to McDonalds one night to get ice cream just for fun and we told her where we were going. On the way there Nate said "Karly, where are we going?" She said "To the farm!" We laughed and wondered where on earth she got that idea. Luckily, Nate figured out how that cute little brain was working - we were going to McDonalds...Farm...E-I-E-I-O.

*Nate was having a breakfast burrito one morning and Karly said she wanted to help him make it. She told him she wanted to help put the "sour ice cream" on. By the time it made it from the container to his plate, about half of it was gone.

*Another time, she was dishing herself some sour cream while Nate and I were focused on eating. Suddenly we hear eating noises and see her pretending to eat the sour cream right off the spoon, after which she says "mmm, Delicious." I need to try to record how she says "delicious" because it's stinkin' cute!

*Karly was looking at our big Book of Mormon with pictures and I hear her say "And it came to pass..."

*I'm not sure if I've mentioned on here how obsessed Karly is with pennies. She is. Completely obsessed. She carries one in her hand, she sleeps with one, the first thing she asks in the morning is "where's my penny?" One morning after Nate got home from Seminary, she came into our room asking where her penny was and said to Nate "I check your ears" and started sticking her finger in his ears. He asked what she was doing and she said "checking your ears for my penny."

*During General Conference, Elder Scott was speaking and Karly said "he's not happy." We laughed and Nate said, "maybe he's just being serious." Karly cocked her head to the side, looked at him like she had no idea what he was talking about and said "Are you kidding me dad?"

*Kippy was watching Karly one day and apparently several times, she cocked her head to the side and said to Kippy "Seriously?" (this one I will acknowledge as totally my fault. when I ask her if she has to go potty and she says no and then pees on the floor literally 3 minutes later, I say "seriously?")

*One day Karly was being dramatic, so I said "Karly, are you a drama queen?" She laughed and said "yeah mom, probably."

*When she's in the bath or watching a movie or something and I tell her it's time to be done, she will say "Two more minutes" while attempting to hold up 2 fingers (she usually just holds up one, but we're working on it).

I am sure I am missing tons of funny stories. I need to be better about writing these down. Maybe now that I've made somewhere to put them, I'll be better.