The Big News Reveal

Well its been a crazy past few months as you remember from our last posts and if you haven't heard already some of our crazy-ness has come from finding out we are expecting! Our baby is due on September 8th and we couldn't be more excited. Its been quite the long process for us to get to this point with lots of prayers and thoughts in our behalf. Here is the way that we announced to most people. Our family has known for about 6 weeks prior to us announcing it to everyone else, but we thought this was kind of a fun way to announce it to the rest of our family and friends. Derek whipped it up in just a few short hours and he did really really well for just the short time he had. I have a very talented husband.

I have one more week until I am officially out of my first trimester and it has gone by really quickly thus far. We are so excited and already making some plans for our new arrival. :) Thank you to everyone for all of your support to us as we have gone through the process of Dr. appointment after doctor appointment and the ups and downs of it all.

This past week we celebrated my moms birthday. She just got her whole house remodeled recently because of all the water damage that happened to it (if you don't remember that it was in a past blog...long story...but if you would like to read that you can search through and read all about the damage done there). Anyway...She has done a lot of remodeling and redecorating. They have totally re-done the upstairs with a new look and feel. Its a fun game room/TV room with a cool big new entertainment center and such. I made this canvas painting craft so she hang it in her newly redecorated room. I thought it turned out really well.

In the process of making...

Final product. 

Until next week...Thanks for reading!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Wow! What a whirlwind this past month and a half has been. Things have just gone by so quickly and here we are a month and a half later and no blog post. I'm very sorry to all our avid readers out there (I'm not sure how many of you there are out there...) But we are finally back and kickin' in the blog world. So let me catch you up on a few highlights of how 2013 has been for us so far.

Awhile back we went to the Annual Marriage Symposium that our Stake holds every year. It is always really good to go and listen to all the great speakers and apply and learn some great things that we can put into action to strengthen our own marriage. It was great to go, plus we always have fun with our friends there and get free breakfast and lunch.

We took a trip to Delta a few weeks ago to go and listen to one of our favorite cousins (Kelli) give her farewell talk. She did great and we had a lot of fun on the trip. It was sad to say bye to Kel Kel...She has always been one of my best amigos. She is doing great though and is going to be such a great missionary to the people of Argentina.

oh yeah.. my uncle had this cool snow sculpture thing going on in his yard when we went to Delta. All the nights that it was below freezing he would leave the hose on to spit up into the air and it eventually froze higher and higher til it got to this point. Its really cool up close. Its like hollow on the inside. Derek loved it. 

We had a combined Family Home Evening with some of our friends at our house a few weeks ago and we had a lot of fun. We played a fun game, had some treats, and were able to share some good laughs. We hope to do more Family Home Evenings with our friends again soon.

We were able to go to a Stake Sweethearts dance last week for all the married wards. It was fun to go to. We were able to party with some friends and get in a few good dances.

Last Wednesday was the last day the Cheap Seats Movie Theater was showing the movie "Life of Pi" we both have been wanting to see that so we took the night to do a date. It was a very good movie and we suggest it to all you out there.

For Valentines day after we both got home from work and school we were able to go to dinner at Wingers and then we came home and watched one of my all time favorite Chick Flick's "Return to Me" Derek really liked it too. You can't go wrong with that movie.

These are the gifts that Deek and I got for each other

When I got home from work I found this on our front door of our house. I have such a cute husband. 

Here's Derek with his Valentines gifts from me.

Quick update of life of Bib: I have been extremely busy with work. This time of year is crazy. It is parent teacher conference, and transitions to Kindergarten for a lot of our kids which involves A LOT of legal paperwork that we have to do and a lot of extra time spent at the school. I have such a good husband though. I had a really late night at the school and didn't get home til 7 PM and he brought me dinner at the school and was able to help me out a bit to get a little caught up on some things. Not to mention my kids have been super naughty lately. I don't know if its the Spring weather coming back or what, but they have been so riled up lately. I just come home every day so exhausted. I do love my job though and am so blessed to work at such a great place with good people. I also have been working on moving from a level 1 teachers license to a level 2 which is basically jumping through a lot of silly hoops that require a lot of energy and effort on my part. My USU classes are going well but its the busiest semester yet. I have a lot of big projects coming up that I am going to try to stay ahead on so I can keep my sanity. In my spare time I've been helping privately teach 2 of my nephews just for some extra help to them with what they are learning in school. I also have been enjoying my Relief Society Teacher calling and enjoyed prepping lessons for that. Oh yeah, and I try to be a wife and best friend to my husband in between all that.

Quick update of life of Derek: he has had an extremely busy semester. It seems that every semester gets progressively more busy and intense for him. He has handled it well though and for the most part stayed right on top of all his homework and projects. He is doing great in all his classes and is a hard worker and has been working on some really cool projects. I don't have pictures of some of them but you can check out a few of the things he has been spending his time with at his private blog here: blog.derekmpayne.com . I have such a talented husband. I know. Work has also been keeping him busy. We are both so excited, he only has one more semester left after this one is over and then the scary/exciting time of job hunting and deciding where we are going to be and what he will be doing for a career. He is so good to help out around the house  A LOT in his spare time. He picks up where I slack off around the house... I think we make a pretty good team.

I think that's all for us this time. We will be sure to be back next week with some more exciting and fun adventures that have been happening in our life.