Baby Boy Payne, Buckets of Joy, and Easter Celebration

I had a short week at school and had Easter break the rest of the week. It was so nice to sleep in and do some things that I have been wanting to get done around the house. Derek still had work and school like normal but he had a very productive week and we had a lot of fun things this week that we were able to do.

Thursday especially was a fun day for us because we were able to find out the gender of our baby! If you don't know yet we are having a ..................baby boy! We are so excited. His name will be Keaton Max Payne and we are so thrilled to have a baby boy join our family soon. The ultrasound was really fun to see how much he has grown! We both had a feeling it would be a baby boy. We are so excited to have that special spirit enter our home and we are doing all we can now to help prepare to receive him and prepare to be his parents. Here is one of the pictures we got form the ultrasound. Just a good profile shot of Keaton.

Thursday night when we got home we were able to participate in Bucket of Joy day. This is the second annual Bucket of Joy holiday that we celebrate in honor of my cousin Jared Lyman who passed away last year of a brain tumor. He was always writing silly songs, one of those being called "Bucket of Joy" He talks about all of these things that he would have in a bucket of joy if he were to choose. So on his birthday we all put together "buckets of joy" and take it to a family in need. We were able to take it to a family who we know where the dad has been going through chemo/radiation to try and fight the cancer he was diagnosed with. He has several kids and out of a job. They were thrilled to receive their buckets of joy and we had a lot of fun taking them and talking to them. Here is a picture of us before we delivered out buckets of joy.

We had our annual Mother Of All Easter Egg Hunts on Friday. It is always fun to get together with all our family and participate in the family traditions that we always form great memories with. We had dinner, did the kids Easter Egg Hunt, and then the adult Easter Egg Hunt. It was another great day with lots of laughs and fun. Here is a picture of all my nieces and nephews before their Easter Egg Hunt.

We are especially grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ at this time of year and the great sacrifice that he has made in all of our behalf. We are thankful for our close relationship with him and we feel his love each and everyday in our lives. We are greatly blessed and are so thankful for all of the many blessings the gospel brings into our lives.

We have also been able to spend some time with friends and do some fun things with them this week. Tomorrow is back to school and back to reality after such a nice break.

The Nesting has Started and in Full Swing

Since finding out that we are pregnant, the nesting mother in me has come out more that I thought it would. My mom and I bought a few baby outfits just to get things started, I have started making a crib quilt, I have picked out some nursery colors, and making some big plans for the babies room. Here are a few pictures of a few of the things I have started to do. I will continue to post as I finish things up.

I wanted to choose something "cheery" for the baby room. I liked the primary colors mixture and thought it would go for girl or boy.

wall hanging for the nursery

I still have to bind the quilt, but its almost finished.

A boy outfit (just in case), a neutral outfit, and a girl outfit (just in case).

Derek has been sick this week. I think everyone knows when someone is sick in the house it kinda feels like you need to slow down, but life doesn't. He has been really good though to still to try to work on homework and go to a few classes even though he hasn't felt that hot.

Derek had a good spring break. He was still busy working, doing some homework, and doing things around the house to help out, but it was a bit more relaxing for him and not so demanding. We were able to spend some time with family and friends that were in town during his spring break and that was fun too.

I am getting bigger and bigger. I have grown a lot this week and had to go maternity clothes shopping for a few things.  I will post pictures next week of my growth through the weeks.

Thats all from us this week. Until next week...

Quilts, Moving, and More

I am finally getting around to updating our blog for the past week or so. It seems like every night the past couple weeks we have had some kind of project going on, out of town, or somewhere we needed to be which didn't allow me to update as quickly and kind of put us behind in our lives so we are just now catching up. Last week we decided to put up a quilt to tie for a new blanket for our bed (which is badly needed). It is a massive quilt. and very heavy. I have to finish binding it but we are excited to get it on the bed and start using it. Its very comfy. These are some of the pictures from us binding the quilt. Derek's parents let us borrow their living room, their quilting frames, and their help and we all quilted while watching a movie for Family Home Evening that night. We had a lot of fun and it got done pretty quick. 

The rest of the week was filled with the usual scheduled events that we have with meetings, work, and homework. 

I will say last Friday wasn't my luckiest day, and with my pregnancy hormones in full swing my emotions were getting the best of me most of the day. Friday afternoon I left work a little early to come into town and find my boss to let her know my decision that I would not be coming back to teach next year. It was a really rough decision that I have been trying to avoid because part of me really wants to stay at my dream job and keep working, but the other part of me (which is my gut feeling of the right thing to do) is to just stay home and be a mom to my new little baby coming soon. It is what I have always wanted to do and its a scary point in my life to move onto but we are so excited to start our family. It is a bitter-sweet feeling to leave the job that I have been so blessed to have. I was VERY emotional telling my boss my decision and then to make matters worse I got pulled over on the way to tell her which put me even more on edge. The officer I think felt badly too because as hard as I was trying to hold back my emotions it just wasn't working out well for me. He was very thoughtful and nice, but then he still gave me a ticket :(. I have taken traffic school online this week to try and get things fixed that way and now hopefully that will get put behind me. 

After calming myself down a bit and coming to grips with what I needed to do the rest of the day we got in the car and headed up with Derek's parents to Springville. We spent the weekend up there helping Derek's sister move into her families new temporary town home until their house is done being built. I didn't do much moving and lifting of heavy boxes, but we all sure did work hard packing things up and hauling things over to her new place. It was exhausting. Derek was even more exhausted than I because of all the heavy lifting involved. 

We got home Saturday night to clean things up a bit and get unpacked and then we were ready for another busy day Sunday with my moms big annual event...Her piano recitals. It may not seem like a big deal to most of you, but you won't understand until you have been to one of my moms piano recitals. There are two of them back to back and the refreshments afterwards is probably bigger than the refreshments served at my wedding reception. It is a big production that takes her and others over a week to prepare for with just the food. She has about 55 students and from setting up for the recital to taking down it was about an 8 hour event for our whole family to try and tackle. We did have fun and it was a success.

After moving family and being on our feet for 8 hours the next day helping with this huge event we were exhausted. We are still trying to fully recover but we are doing well and life is good. See you next week.

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.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We went to Christmas Parties, went sledding, Skyped our favorite missionary, and much more.We spent time with both families on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Here are a few pictures (it may seem like a lot but I could have shared a lot more...so its a few) and I'll explain as I go. 

We were able to go to our annual friend Christmas Party get together. We had a good time visiting and catching up with everyone that we don't get to see that often. 

These are the stockings that I made Derek and I. I thought they turned out pretty dang cute. We (all of the Payne family members) were at the Payne on Christmas Eve Eve (yes that was a double Eve). It was Jeanne's birthday on December 23rd and we all got together to see each other, celebrate her birthday, Skype with Alan, and open presents early because it was the only time that everyone was going to be together til after Christmas sometime.

This is Noah opening one of his presents...as you can tell he was super excited. 

Alan sent all of us a Christmas package and we had a lot of opening it. Thanks Alan for all the great presents and goodies ... although some of those Niceragua "goodies" weren't all that great tasting. Alan sent me this purse. I love it.

This is all of us Skyping with Alan. We had a lot of fun talking to him and it was good to see him too. He is doing great. 

Then came Christmas Eve morning. We went sledding with all of my family. It was really fun to go with all the kids. I hadn't been sledding in awhile. Its a good work out. We all had some good laughs and had a lot of fun. 

My cute nephews (and niece) getting all dressed up for sledding. 

My brother Joe and nephew Eli after just going down the hill together. They had a blast. Derek and I also went down several times together and have pictures ... but not at the moment. Maybe another time. 

 After sledding we all went back to my parents. We had our annual Christmas Eve dinner and program. 

Here we all our listening to Grandpa Lyman's Christmas story. 

All the grandkids acting out the Nativity.

All the kids in their Christmas Jammies. We spent Christmas Eve night at my parents house. We stayed up and watched The Santa Claus and then headed to bed. 

Christmas morning we came down to find lots of presents to open from each other. 

Derek and I Christmas morning in front of the Christmas tree. Don't mind that we had just got out of bed and I didn't have make up on and my hair is everywhere. We opened all our gifts and we were both very happy about all the things we got. We were very lucky to get all the things we did. 

We had Christmas breakfast with all my family before we headed out to the Payne's to visit them some more and enjoy the rest of Christmas day with them. 

We have had a great Winter break and are enjoying all the time off that we get to sleep in and spend time with eachother, with friends, and with family. 

Merry Christmas everyone ( a little late) ... and a Happy New Year! 

I can't believe its 2013!

Christmas Concerts, Caroling, and Vacation Getaway

It has been a couple weeks since I've been able to update our blog again so I thought I would catch you all up on all of the new and exciting things that have been going on with us. We have had a pretty eventful and busy past couple weeks and are excited to share them all with you. I'll quickly rewind to two Saturdays ago to the big day my family had been waiting for for a long time, and that is The Piano Guys concert. We have had the tickets for almost a year now and are huge Piano Guys fans. The concert was so fun and entertaining, and they played all their big hits and our favorite songs. They are really fun to see live and we all enjoyed ourselves. If some of you are not sure who the Piano Guys are: 1. I'm very sorry. You are missing out. And 2. Here are two of my favorites of there's that I will share with you so that you can also start to love them and get into their music as we all have.

I hope you enjoyed those videos. They are my two favorites. And now back to blogging.

For family home evening last Monday we went Christmas caroling with my siblings and their families. We had a lot of fun going to some elderly people and family friends. After caroling we all got together at my sisters house and had hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls. Yum. Here are a few pictures from that... Just kidding... I guess they somehow got erased... :(. There were some really cute ones. Dangit. Anyway...

One of my favorite cousins and best amigos in the world was able to come over to our house on Wednesday night to visit us. She is leaving on her mission to Argentina in about a month and we wanted to spend some quality bonding time before she left. So she came and hung out with Derek and I for a few hours. We made Ice Cream Sundaes, played Yahtzee (one of our favorite games), and just chatted for a bit. We had a lot of fun with Kelli.

Also a little side note. This is our red pomelo that we bought on a whim from Smiths the other night. We thought it looked interesting and good, and we weren't quite sure what it was so we bought it and brought it home to eat. A lot like a grapefruit but 3X as big and a bit sweeter taste just in case any of you are wondering. It took a bit to peel. Derek is here peeling it...

We have been planning a long needed weekend getaway with some of our close friends (Pace and Amanda Clarke) for quite awhile now. We planned it so we could go as soon as finals were over and the fall semester let out. I took a day off of school and we headed out for Midway, Utah. Woohoo! We had a ton of fun and didn't want to come back. Here are a few pictures from the trip... I will explain as we go. 

This is our cute little condo that we stayed in. If you have never been to Midway this is basically what their entire town looks like. It is all Swiss themed and its wonderful. You should all spend a weekend getaway there at some point in your life. We were up in the really high ritzy part of town up in the mountains and we had the greatest time. Here is a quick tour of the inside. 

The living room

The bedrooms

The kitchen

The guys chillin on the couches.

Random fact about Midway: They have natural hot pots EVERYWHERE. Derek and I went out on a run one morning and ran into at least a dozen...and it wasn't a very long run. Here are a few that were around the condo.

On Friday night we headed into Salt Lake to do some shopping at City Creek Mall, went and saw the Christmas lights on Temple Square, and went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert featuring Alfie Boe and Tom Brokaw. I cannot even begin to tell how absolutely amazing the MoTab concert was. Alfie Boe was the guest singer and he was so powerful. He sang "Bring Him Home", one of the songs he is most famous for (also one of my top favorite songs of all time from Les Mis) and it was BEAUTIFUL. It was by far the best I had ever heard the song and it was just so moving. He also sang several Christmas songs with MoTab accompanying him. And then to make things even better they told the story of World War II Candy Bomber Gaile Halverson and he made an appearance as well. The story was so touching and they had real candy parachutes come from the ceiling and it was seriously one of if not the best performances I have ever been to. Not only that, you could feel the spirit so strongly. President Monson came in the room and everyone (all 21,000 people) fell completely silence and stood as he walked in. What an amazing experience and a wonderful night of feeling the spirit so strongly through music and celebrating the upcoming holiday of Christmas and celebrating Christs life.

In the oh-so-famous picture spot on temple square. Me and Derek above and Pace and Amanda below.

We were sad to leave such a great getaway and vacation but it was good to come home too. Derek and I are doing great. The semester is over for both of us and we get a couple weeks break from the stresses of classes. I have one more week of teaching preschool and then it will also be my Christmas break. If I don't talk to you before then Merry Christmas to all of you! Until next time.