Ending 2011

I cant believe Christmas and New Years has come and gone! We were soooo busy during December! it was great to be busy trying to fit everything in, but I'm completely exhausted!  I'm bummed that i didn't take more pictures, but I'll do my best to explain all our little adventures as of late. 

To start off the holiday traditions we went black Friday shopping! Dane came with me to other mothers and we got all these clothes for FREE!! it was so great! Unfortunately we didn't end up going with all Danes sisters but maybe next year

Dane finished the semester with pretty great grades and we are SO glad that its over! The month was filled with basketball practice everyday and 2-3 games a week! so far they have 9wins and 2 losses, but now they start replaying teams so I'm sure they will do great!

i have also learned to crochet and further my skills this year and here is 2 hats i made and was pretty proud of myself to learn to read patterns, which i think is pretty hard because every pattern has a different little lingo

here's my little sisters Aubrey and Olivia with them on :)

We enjoyed many holiday party's this time of year, we did the annual Pence Game night at our house and it was a blast!! Then we had the Ada West Dermatology party and went bowling. We all got put into teams and had to dress up, it was fun to see every ones creativity.  We enjoyed making ornaments with our friends the Doss's and Botkin's. also went to the Rejuv Med Spa party that was fun, funny story they had jars with different candy in them and you had to guess how many, so i told Dane to go put a number down for me and when they revealed the winners someone else won the first one and i lean over to Dane and tell him "way to go, your not very good at this game" (which is not nice, and we did the same thing previously at adawest and he got them all wrong) then who wins the next 2 jars....I did!!! thanks to Dane! ha ha

This year unfortunately we haven't gotten any snow :( so didn't get to do any sledding and Dane hasn't gotten to go skiing, which Bogus still hasn't opened.

Dane went to Vegas for the BSU bowl game! He drove a long ways but said he had a blast! He got to go to the game, eat lots of great food and even won a little money!

We also made gingerbread houses with Cindy and her date, it was really fun. this was our first gingerbread house making experience and i think we did pretty good!

Well on to Christmas Eve,

We headed over to the Pence's to say hello then went over to Grandma Nettie's for some dinner and all the kids then proceeded to act out the nativity which has been a tradition since i was a little girl. After that with all the kids so excited for gifts, my grandparents talked about hero's and gave all the grandchildren a poster of different scripture hero's with a personal letter from the them.  it was really neat and i thought it was a great idea! they gave us a really neat picture of Christ! we then headed over to my parents for the opening of letters.  it was really neat to hear every one's letters to each other.  My parents then gave us our favorite picture of Jesus all nicely framed and such. Then of course the cookies and milk still get set out for Santa and Dane and the boys rush downstairs to start playing video games. When it was time to go up to see what Santa brought, Dane made all the kids stand in a line and wait with anticipation for the parents to get up, it was pretty cute! We opened gifts and then had the famous traditional Cinnamon rolls!! yum!!!

also the best gift of the morning was kourtnee and Aubrey got my mom a little puppy! ha ha she screamed and it was sooo funny!! here is little angel cutest thing ever!

We then headed to church and came back and relaxed! Dane and i headed over to the pence's to open gifts. we then went to his grandparents for dinner, it was so chaotic but so fun! then we got to talk to Austin on his mission! it was so neat to hear his voice and ask him questions. it was really hard for me to say goodbye again but I'm so proud of him and all his hard work, but miss him like crazy!

here's Dane and I with little puppy and also 29 weeks prego

we had a great Christmas! Dane and i  bought a bed with a nice memory foam for the top and so we decided to just make each other gifts. i of course made him a pretty sweet crocheted ear flap hat, and he surprised me and got a cool rocking chair at di and is going to re stain it for me! i was really surprised!

New Years

This New Years i still didn't make it to midnight. We headed up to McCall Idaho for a little get away. we didn't do much other then sleep, watch movies, eat and went to the hot springs! it was alot of fun and very much needed get away with the husband.

Baby update

Wow i have officially hit 30 WEEKS!!! this is big for me, more mentally i think. but we are so excited to finally be able to start counting down and start really getting ready for this little miss to join our family! We cant be more thrilled! It is a little scary thinking about all we need to get and the little money we have to afford everything, but we definitely have lots of love to give her! I'm excited to start my little sewing projects if i ever find the time to get them done! We have been working like crazy people. Dane starts student teaching first half of this semester at Capital High School. Our Birthing class started last Tuesday and goes for the next 6 weeks. even though we have only been to one class it was AMAZING!!! so much information, and we are so glad to hopefully calm our fears and get a great experience from the birth with the knowledge she provides.  The heartburn hasn't been as frequent and comes and goes which is nice. Last Saturday i experienced for the first time swollen ankles!!! AHHHH i had been working on my feet all week and I'm scared that its only going to get worse. also for the first time i have noticed that my body cant keep going like its been able to, working 2 jobs so i have to keep telling myself that i can do it! We had our last apt the end of December and they took my blood to test my iron and such, well they called and told me that my iron is low and i need to eat more protein! this has been hard for me to eat more protein when I'm limited to so many foods as it is. but I'm determined to stay positive and hopeful that I'm eating enough.  it has been so fun to feel little baby moving around, she will have days where she doesn't move a ton and days where she wont stop moving.  the neatest thing is whenever I'm at any of Dane's basketball games she doesn't stop moving, and i know she is cheering her dad on (hopefully cuz Dane tells her she doesn't have a choice not to like sports ha ha) Dane gets to feel all her movements and the best is at night in bed when we just watch my belly just go up and down and we try and guess/imagine what she's like in there. its pretty cute too, to watch Dane whisper things to her and talk to her about what life is going to be like. He is going to be a great dad and i cant wait to experience all this with him. I have had the opportunity to be apart of quit a few births including siblings and cousins and for Dane this is all foreign, and to see the look on his face at our class when were watching birth videos is pretty priceless! but I'm glad that he is willing to learn all this with me!

we are so excited for all that is to come and cant wait to see how it all unfolds! but we are so grateful for all we have and are excited to make new goals for this year. its amazing the power of writing down goals. We looked back at all our goals from last year and we hit all but one, which was to finish the Book of Mormon but 2012 here we come! We cant wait to see what the year brings!

Time of Thanks

Thanksgiving time!!

What a wonderful time of year, yummy food, great company, and time to reflect!

We decided this year to start taking turns with family for the holidays, since both of our families have traditions and both live here in Boise.  So this year we went to my grandmas Nettie's for the family feast! There were a total of 40 ppl including kids. my mother decided that we needed to have real mashed potatoes and not the pellets mixed with water kind and volunteered me to make them! :) it actually was pretty fun and a good experience for me! i ended up having a whole bag of red potatoes and then 12 very large brown potatoes! and i must also add i made them all by myself no thanks to Dane (playing football with his brothers) or Kourtnee who slept over to supposedly "help", and they were pretty dang Delicious i might add. anyways i was really proud of my self. Dinner was great and so fun to be with all my extended family! we even gathered around at the end to play a game kinda like sharades! it was memories ill never forget!

 mind you this a VERY large bowl

 here we are getting ready to leave for dinner

BABY update! here i am about 27 weeks

 Things have been going great compared to how things started out! i had to buy my first pair of maternity pants, stretchy jeans!! so wonderful, i can breath when i sit down! ha ha the heart burn has come on but thanks to friends who have gone through it before have helped me find things to settle it a bit! but honestly i thought i had heartburn before, but that was a joke compared to how bad it has become! i know now, but for awhile i would get it so bad while trying to sleep that i started vomiting through the nights, which was not very fun at all! but now i know what food to avoid and how important it is to eat dinner at a normal time and not wait for dane to get home around 9. So far i haven't felt swollen either. I have more energy and as long as i make sure to eat im a happy girl!
Dane is still doing basketball and his team is doing really great so far! He is finishing up his last semester of classes and is a little stressed with finals coming his way but i keep reminding him that he is almost done and that seems to help get him through this crazy time!

Baby GIRL!!

Wow i cant believe how times fly...even in the moment it feels like im never gonna get any closer to have this baby with us! But Halloween was a GREAT day this year! we had our ultrasound appointment set up at the usual time, at noon (our lunch break from ada west on Mondays) we wanted this event to be really exciting! so we had originally planned on having the nurse write down the sex of the baby on a card, and from then we would take the card to the baby store in the mall, we were gonna pick out a boys/girls outfit have the cashier look at it while we leave and wrap up the which outfit depending on the sex of the baby. then we were gonna go out to dinner to Barbacoa (my favorite place) and open the box/card! well....plans changed, we went to our appointment and they were totally excited on keeping it a secret, although Dane swore he heard them accidentally saw "he" acouple times...i think he was just hoping! haha everything went well at the appt. they said the baby was healthy and doing GREAT! its still wee little thing only 7 oz! it was cute though, the baby was sucking its fingers and its little tongue was moving around haha.....well since it was Halloween and the Doctors we work for all took the afternoon off we got to leave as well, and didn't have to go back to work after our appt. so all our adventures ideas soon became me saying "Well im really hungry NOW!!!" so what did we do we grabbed some Wendy's and headed to my parents house to eat lunch! but we aren't really good at keeping secrets or anticipating the wait! ha ha so with my mom and my little sister Olivia we opened the card reading ITS A GIRL!!!!!!!! AHHHHHH! my mom recorded us opening the card which was really neat! so even though we didn't make it according to plan it was still fun to work up the anticipation, oh and dont worry we still went out and celebrated at my favorite place to eat!! and maybe next time we will be able to wait longer! :)

so here she is! those are her little knees squished in there and i guess her little ankles were crossed too!

then on the bottom, she had her arms crossed over her face so we couldn't get a good face shot! little stinker!

here is us in our 80's outfits! and no dane is not a painter! haha with all the girls from work! also, no worries we went to our appt dressed like this! haha so funny!

Alright so as of now im finally 23 weeks! hooray! im starting to look pregnant instead of have the nasty love handles due to the baby still so low! i can now say that i need to be going to the gym! i can feel my abs moving and its getting harder to sit up! sad! but im still working so much that i dont have time! oh well its all worth it!

here i am at 20 weeks

here i am at 22 weeks!

as far as other symptoms changing im always hungry and can NEVER get full! i feel like im eating constantly! im energy is slowing down but i think thats because i work so much and have so much going on im just tired! as far as sickness goes, i've only been sick at nights while im sleeping which is good, and even that is easing off slowly so im a happy girl! oh and the baby movements are more defined and its so neat to feel her moving around. although i wish dane could feel it but hopefully soon! also my "fat" pants still fit but its getting tighter to sit down in them so bring on the fun maternity clothes!

Well i feel the countdown on! we cant wait to meet our litte girl! We have a feeling her name is Makenna Rae, so hopefully as Dane says little baby kenna will get healthy and strong so that we can have her in our lives! im just counting down the holidays so that we will be that much closer!

we love this little girl and are SO excited to meet you! we love talking to you and thinking about what life will be like when we can hold you! we know you already have a sweet spirit and cant wait to get you all the cutest clothes ever! :)

17 weeks and counting

I am overwhelmed with so many thoughts and feelings of being pregnant at the moment.  I am so sick at the moment i couldn't make it into work so as i lay here thinking i don't know how to describe in words how I'm feeling.  i finally have made it to 17 weeks on Friday and am so excited to find out the gender of our little "it".  Dane Counts down every day till we get to find out on the 31st it is so fun to see him get so excited! all week long i have been feeling almost great minus the wonderful heartburn, but we were jumping for joy that the sickness is over.This week i got so much done, i cooked dinner, cleaned the house, i organized so much stuff that has been sitting in piles the last 4 months, decorated the house for fall, ran errands, worked with lots of energy all 6 days, went out to dinner and crafted with Michelle! it was so GREAT!!  until i got sick again yesterday and it brings back the memories i tried to forget all of the awfulness of being sick! Although i was informed that as we count the weeks of pregnancy, i guess i have to give myself a 2 week window of not really being that far along due to the doctors not really knowing when the baby was conceived. it was great to hear this that maybe i wont be one of those ladies that are sick their whole pregnancy, but it would have been nice to know this along time ago so I'm not counting down the days till the next week with so much hope! So i guess the fingers are crossed and my prayers are slowly being answered that once 20 weeks come this can be over and we can start really getting ready for you little one to join our family! Even though you little baby are making your mom so sick we are thrilled to meet you! we have so much love waiting to share with you! Your dad cant wait to hold you and he is even making sure we get your crib and things all perfect for you! Weather or not your going to be his little football player he is so excited to teach you all he knows!! i can honestly say even through the sickness and the negativity that tends to come with it this will all be worth it and may be happening for reasons we don't know, but come what may and love it!

Summer Ending

Well i suppose i better document our summer adventures before its too late, so back in August for my birthday we had the pleasure of going to Lagoon for our work Staff fun day! It was alot of fun, even though i couldn't go on rides and it was hot, oh and we took the bus but thank goodness Heavenly Father helped me to keep all my food down! So sweet Dane invited my family and his parents over for my moms crepes and my favorite rice crispy ice cream cake!! Dane did it all and even got me all that i had hoped for and more! Also he surprised my with Michael Buble tickets the week before! it was so fun! I am so grateful for all he did and making my day so special even though i wanted to curl up and not do anything. 

Dane and his cheesy smile :) he couldn't keep his eyes open haha

We didn't get out like at all for along time but I gathered up the energy to make it down to the Boise Balloon classic. It was so fun to get all snuggled up and watch all the balloons. this has been a family tradition for along time so it was great to finally share it with Dane. After my sweet grandparents had breakfast all ready for us. Then we even ventured out to the mall and shared some yummy wetzels pretzels! it was fun to have a day out with the hubby it had been over due!

Also another update on the wonderful joys of pregnancy, i will be 16 weeks tomorrow. we heard the little baby's heartbeat again on Monday and heard it kicking, so that was really neat! it was a good reminder that all this is worth it! i have still been loosing weight but not a ton like before, even though i cant button my pants im very pleased to be able to wear my little sisters jeans i must say this is very exciting and i will take it for all its worth now before its going to be along time before i can do this again! haha i have noticed that i have gotten some energy back in spurts which im oh so grateful for.  Sweet Dane still is doing most of the cleaning and dishes but i have been able to make dinner acouple time which is very gratifying! Oh and i have been feeling little flutters which the nurse told me is baby so for me i thought that is really cool! we get to find out the gender on October 31 which is Halloween so im still trying to find a cool costume that would tie in with a baby, but so far no ideas. but yes we are "chickens" as some would call us for finding out the gender, but i call us planners and wanting to be prepared for what we need to get and try and be ready for a little one. 

other good news, we have callings in our family ward! Dane got called to teach elders quorum

once a month, which is a great calling for him and consumes very little time. as for me i got the great calling of being in the Young Women's! im in with the beehives but im so excited! they have lots of fun exciting energy that is so fun to be around!

thats all the new news i can think of but we are excited to see what fall has in store :)

drum roll...

This is an official announcement to the world that Dane and I are expecting our first baby!! we are absolutely thrilled!! it was definitely something that we were wanting but leaving into the Lords hands on the right timing for our little family.  When i started noticing that i was late and pregnancy could be an option i was secretly freaking out! How could this happen to me? Its not the right timing, how are we going to do this? but slowly my little fears have been calmed and I'm starting to get excited! as of today I'm 13 weeks and 2 days along. i will admit that this pregnancy has been one of the hardest thing i have ever had to go through, although I'm trying every day to remind myself that this is an experience of a life time and that in the end i will be so grateful for this experience but right now its so miserable! i have been sick like this in the past but nothing like this that NEVER goes away! it has been full of throwing up multiple times through the day and night, losing 10 pounds with in a week and half, hating to eat food, not being able to enjoy anything, everyday consist of work and going straight to bed, migraines like I've never experienced before and lots of emotional times! ha ha but i cant tell Dane thank you enough, if it wasn't for him i don't know what i would do! he cooks, cleans, does laundry, grocery shops on top of his full time school, coaching and working part time. He even goes to bed early most times with me, and wakes up in the middle of the night to take care of me.  it has been a blessing that my work has been willing to work with me and lets me come in a little later and for the most part i can make my schedule doing the hair thing. I'm so grateful for modern day medicine that sometimes helps, im excited to start using essential oils that i get on wednesday that are amazing that will hopefully ease the nausea. so we'll see how the rest of this pregnancy goes :)

It has been fun to share the news with our families.  we told my parents and some of the older kids when my little brother Austin called home when he was at the airport leaving the mtc and heading to the phillipines, towards the end of his phone call we told him that he is going to be an uncle! and my mom freaked out! haha my dad was speechless for a couple days.haha it was an unreal feeling to announce to them but it was a fun reaction.  then we told Danes parents at the all boys birthday party and at the end dane had a frame wrapped up with the #12 on it because our baby will be grand baby #12! it was fun to tell them. Then when i told my grandparents and extended family, it was my grandpas birthday party and we wrote him a creative card to tell them that they are going to be great grandparents for the first time! everyone freaked out and it was a fun reaction from all of them!

Summer FUN!

Alrighty so the last month or so has been quit eventful! we have had so much fun and i have been to sick to update our adventures so here we go.......

4th of JULY

we had a Great holiday weekend filled with camping with friends and ending it with Boise fireworks down at the park with the big Nelson clan!

we went camping, like legit camping! we had our tent that we got for our wedding that barley fit our air mattress in which by the way had a slow leak in it, but no worries because we only paid $5 for it at a yard sale! so needless to say i slept great cuz Dane went to the bottom and kept my side filled up! :)

Here is our group, friends for life

Here are the boys

and then the girls

 

we played all afternoon down at McCall beach and later cooled down with some yummy

ice cream alley

 the boys of course had to bring up monopoly credit card style...their games get pretty intense

it was such a fun trip! we really enjoyed the Botkins and kiddos and the Doss's and Jack and Lula so much FUN! thanks for the great memories!

the next weekend... CAMPING with the Nelson Family

So this was quit the ADVENTURE!!

we decided to head up to northern Idaho, we have never really been up there and my mom really wanted to ride our bikes along the Hiawatha trail and go to silverwood park since they didn't get a chance to go to Lagoon this year. so we were going to leave morning ish on Wednesday and didn't end up leaving til 4 in the afternoon, also previous to this my parents 10 passenger van broke down the week before so we didn't know how to fit everyone in another vehicle. so my all the kids rode in my parents truck pulling the camping trailor and Dane and i drove with 3 other kids to pull the trailer with everyones bikes in it!! which our car did fabulous! so we didn't get to our campsite til about 3:30 AM and since the RV park was dark and quiet and everyone was sleeping we ended up staying at a near by gas station parking lot...and Dane and i slept in the car..which wasn't too bad! so great start off!! well Thursday we didn't have a whole lot of energy and ended up laying around and playing in the creek next to our site...and of course my mother had to take Austins place and start the water fight! Olivia was NOT very happy about this event becuase she had a broken ankle (but we didn't know at this time it was broken we just thought she was milking the sprain for all it was worth) poor girl. well Hyrum got all comfy on his little chair in the water and some how (probably Spencer had something to do with this) his chair slipped from under him and he got all wet. it was the funniest thing i've ever seen! He was so upset, to make the picture better he was wearing swim shorts that probably could of fit little porter and he is 2 1/2 hahaha :)

Friday we take our time getting up and getting ready. it takes awhile getting 12 people ready to go on a long bike ride. so by 2 in the afternoon we head out to the Hiawatha trail. Which is a old railroad trail that used to be the only and first train that went to Chicago, they since have torn up all the tracks and left the gravel to ride on, the cool thing is there are lots of mile long tunnels that you need head lights for. the lady at the beginning said that if we make it to this certain tunnel that we would only be going 14 miles round trip, so that we didn't have to pay the extra $80 to ride a bus back to the top and she said "it's only like a 2% incline so you'll be fine" YEAH RIGHT!! so we went to the half point taking lots of little breaks and enjoying the scenery. Dane and i took up a tandem bike which was lots of fun on the way down, but as we got the the half way point and started going back it was defiantly NOT only a 2% incline!! when we finally got back with ache legs we clocked the miles on the way back and one way was 11.2 miles! our 14 mile ride turned into a 22 mile ride with my mom pulling a trailor of 2 kids and food, dad pulling hyrum on his bike with a rope on the way back and Dane and i trying to ride a tandem bike up hill! haha it was a memory i will never forget

here of course are the boys showing off their muscles from the bike trip!

Saturday we went to Silverwood park and it was fun, we split up and did what we all wanted to do! we have pizza for dinner at a magic show, porter fell asleep (at the time he is obsessed with the movie cars) and at the end of the night they had a real live size animated mator at one of the booths that talked, it was the funniest thing to try and wake him up from a deep sleep to a talking mator which we were sure glad we did because that's all he can talk about,  and we  rode the train until the park closed!!

Sunday we started our LONG drive home, and got to stop and see a lady that my dad taught on his mission that now lived in Coeurd'lane. i have lots more pictures to post later but  it was a trip that i will never forget and it sure was an adventure, but how can it not be an adventure with 10 kids!! miss you Aussie we love you!

the next weekend..... we got to be counselors at Boise Youth Spectacular

BYS as we call it was a experience i will never forget! i always loved going to BYS and EFY's growing up and the last 3 years i have had the joy to be a counselor. This year will probably be our last year doing it and we couldn't have ended it better.  It was the best year i have ever been to, the speaker were amazing and our kids were so great!

we had Michael McClain come and he gave the most wonderful talk ever the power and the spirit was so strong you just hope that all of the kids are feeling whats going on. there was GREAT speakers from couple different seminary teachers, John Bytheway, the talent show, concert by Eclipse, fun activities in the park on a HOT day :), and there was lots more but it was a great experience and having siblings and lots of people that feel like my siblings i just hope they had a great experience and enjoyed and took advantage of the wonderful opportunity.

here are the pretty girls

the boys

and the group being funny :)

thanks to all our kids in our group for making this year so special! 

then we had.... DANERS BIRTHDAY!!!

which if you know Dane he loves his birthday and it truns into a 2-3 week event! which is always fun and filled with family and friends that love him! so since i haven't been feeling very great it was alot of energy to put things together, so on his birthday day i tried to make him a football cake, but when i went to take it out of the pan it cumbled so he got bsu colored cupcakes that didn't really turn out either oh well... i blame it on the sickness :)

Dane hates Katchup like HATES it, so spencer thought it was funny to wrap

up a big bottle for his birthday! but my parents got him a cool ice cream maker that takes no effort!!

funny story i forgot candels and my mom for got to bring some

so dane got to blow out matches

the Holdaways took us to the lake on their nice boat! Dane has been asking to go all summer and we surprised him and just showed up to take him! he was so excited!

 Dane also got to do some shopping with his Brothers, and had a Pence birthday party the next week!

hope you loved your birthday, and i promise next year i'll have more energy..hopfully! :)

love you daners :)