What's New?

(Here's the most recent belly shot at 19.4 wks...)

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone and along with it our fun-filled, relaxing week in Utah. We had so much fun at Erin's wedding with Nathan's family and then at my sister's house with my family. I couldn't have asked for more. My parents came out from Virginia and we pretty much just ate good food and took turns playing with little Jake the entire week! It was awesome. Oh and I can't forget to mention--we did go see Twilight! We even managed to convince Dad, Nathan and Wes to come along! Jake liked it too... I think he especially liked being dressed in Twilight colors to match all the girls...sorry buddy...you'll have some say in life when you're older. Haha. It was a great week and I can't wait for the next time we all get together! Let's just say I was a little on the grumpy side the entire 9 hr drive back to Arizona. Sorry Nathan. I've made a New Year's Resolution to be more optimistic about Arizona though...so I'll do better...promise.

Thanksgiving Day...mmmmm

TWILIGHT!

Family picture at Thanksgiving

Another bit of news that we were blessed with the day before Thanksgiving was that Nathan had gotten the Air Force scholarship for Dental School. That basically means that he works as an Air Force Dentist for three years after he graduates and they pay for these next three years of school...plus we get a monthly stipend for living. I think it's a pretty good deal. And growing up in an Air Force family I'm used to the lifestyle. So we are excited about that. For some reason my desire to continue working part-time after the baby comes is constantly diminishing :). (who am I kidding...I never had a desire to keep working regardless!...hah!) But the Air Force is helping that be even more of a possibility right now and I'm ok with that.

Since Thanksgiving it's pretty much been back to school for Nathan and back to work for me. Nathan did very well his first quarter of school and is such a trooper...seeing him constantly studying definitely makes me so glad to be done with school. But he's always the positive one in our marriage...never worries about things like I do...just does what he has to do and rarely complains. He's an example to me and I'm so grateful for all of his hard work.

Last week Nathan had his White Coat Ceremony (all the health professions students are given white coats, make an oath, and prepare to enter their health fields). Apparently this is a pretty big deal, but of course Nathan was telling me for weeks not to switch my shifts to be there (don't worry I did it anyways)...he didn't even want to go himself. Typical. I told him to find out if all of his classmates were going...he comes home the day before the ceremony and tells me that people's parents are flying in for the thing! So of course, despite my nagging, he waits until the day of to call his sisters in Mesa and tell them about it (3 hrs before to be exact!). I felt so bad. Nobody was able to come at that point...and I know his mom would have come down from Vegas had she known. It was a lesson to me to take control in these situations in the future! Oh well...Nathan still could have cared less who was there...to him he felt like he hadn't really accomplished anything yet. But it was a nice ceremony and Nathan donned his white coat (the sleeves of which were up to his elbows! oops!). I'm very proud of him and to all of his family...don't worry you will know about his graduation in advance!

Nathan and a few of his buddies from Dental School

That same night we went and made gingerbread/winter wonderland creations at some friends house. Nathan created a pretty intense snowball fight scene between snowmen and gummi bears. We also went to this house in the area where this guy creates all of these christmas decorations and goes all out decorating his entire house (Christmas Vacation style!). He then opens his home to the public from Thanksgiving through Christmas. It was pretty cool.

This is us at the Christmas House

And here's Nathan with his Snowmen vs. Gummi Bears Snowball Fight

So that's what we've been up to. We're planning on going up to Oregon the day after Christmas to be with Nathan's family. I work Christmas Day-night. And we'll spend Christmas Eve and morning with Brooke and her family in Mesa. It should be good.

Baby update: nothing new. Still pluggin along. I'm coming up on 20 wks on Tuesday! Half-way there! And the belly is growing. My doctor said he was a little soccer player in there...moving around like crazy (I'm a little worried he's already got too much of his dad in him). I love feeling the little movements. It's such a fun thing. Nothing too elaborate yet...just little taps..."mom...am I done yet? tap, tap...can I come out?" haha...I know, I'm crazy.

This was a belly shot at Thanksgiving...17 wks-ish

Can you guess what we're having?!

We were lucky enough to go in for an early ultrasound at our beloved Dr. Judd's office in Provo last week.  I was about 95% sure it would be a girl.  I think my entire family was about that sure we were having a girl as well.  In fact, I'm pretty sure my mom had already bought a couple of girl items.  But as you can see, we were definitely wrong!  There's no doubt about it...our little baby is a boy!  Nathan was very proud.  :)  I'm super excited.  Being with my nephew Jake all week is making me even more excited for a little boy.  And it'll be so fun to have Jake and our boy so close in age!  So now the fun begins.  Picking a name, buying boys stuff...I'm so excited to start!  I was totally set with girl names so now I've got a little bit of a challenge ahead of me...especially since Nathan and I seem to be butting heads on the name issue.  Oh well...I guess we've still got 5 more months to figure it out.  

As for other news...we've been having a blast here in Utah since last Wednesday.  Nathan's sister Erin got married on Friday so we had a fun and busy few days with his family...and now we're just chillin with my family at Kristie's house.  I'm already getting weepy when I think about leaving on Friday!  It's so great to be with family!  I'll post some pictures of the wedding and such as soon as I get my hands on some!    

cereal

So the other day I opened our storage closet (ignore the mess) only to find this...

I asked Nathan why there were stacks of Oh's cereal boxes piled in the closet. He responded with, "I'm just building up our food storage". So that's that. If the world comes to an end and anyone is hungry, we'll have plenty of Oh's. Thank you Nathan.

And here is me trying to show off my baby bump. Not much to brag about yet, but I figured it's about time I start documenting. This morning getting ready for church I realized I won't be able to wear a large majority of my skirts anymore...it took me a while to find one that fit right! Here we go...

For some reason this slight change in angle makes me look a lot bigger. Whatever. It is what it is :).

Picnics in November?

I've been feeling a lot better about life since the temperature dropped below 90. I can leave my windows wide open during the day and even go running outside now! Seriously people...I'm so excited about it. The only thing better at this point would be a little snow to help me feel truly christmasy... But don't worry...despite the sunshine and 80 degree weather, I have begun to play the Christmas tunes. I decided if I waited for the weather to feel right I would miss my chance...so here we go...Christmas is in the air! Tonight I decided that Nathan and I needed to go on a picnic for dinner. I made stuffed peppers and grabbed a bottle of sparkling cider to celebrate the change in seasons. We walked over to this pond by a park down the road and put down the jeans blanket. It was nearly dark by the time we actually got there but we had a great time...we even got a little chilly!

The last week of October we had a lot of fun with Nathan's family. They were all in town for his nephew Carter's baptism. And then Ashley and her kids stayed for Halloween as well. I was so excited to finally participate in some fall activities with all the kids. I drove over to Mesa one day to go to the pumpkin patch with everyone. Let me tell you, the pumpkin patch at 95 degrees is not my idea of fun. I don't think the kids enjoyed it either. They were all running around beet red in the face, sweaty, and grumpy by the time we left. I didn't blame them. Brooke and I agreed that our favorite activity that week was sitting in the shade by Uncle Glen's pool while the kids played happily in the water. Nothing to do with fall...but let's face it...it's hard to do traditional fall when you're sweating to death. Oh well...we had fun nonetheless. I had to work on Halloween but Nathan went trick-or-treating with the kids and had a good time. We were happy to spend some time with family. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me all week so no pictures....sorry.

One last thing. Two weeks from today I will be back in Utah! I seriously can't wait! It's all I think about anymore. The first exciting thing on the agenda will be finding out the gender of our little baby...that is if Baby Larson is willing to share. I will only be a little over 16 weeks so it's a bit on the early side but we're keeping our fingers crossed. Next fun event will be Erin's wedding. I love weddings. And then we have the premiere of Twilight. Who knows when we'll actually get tickets but we will definitely be seeing it sometime that week. And then it's a relaxing 5 days with my family at Kristie's house for Thanksgiving! I can hardly wait to see some snow and make yummy food and listen to Christmas music and play with Jake. Can't wait. That's all. Thanks for reading :).

Introducing...

BABY LARSON #1

That's right, folks. Nathan and I are happy to announce that we will be welcoming a little baby into our family on or around May 5, 2009! We have been waiting for this baby for some time now and we are so super excited that it's on its way! As far as pregnancy goes, I can't complain too much about the past 11 weeks (ok so the first 4 don't really count, I know). I've been very lucky. That doesn't mean I feel great...definitely nauseated, headachy, tired... But all in all it's been bearable. I'm still able to work, run, and occasionally make dinner so I consider that pretty successful :). Probably the hardest thing for me is knowing that I won't be going to my favorite doctor in Orem, or delivering at my favorite hospital in Orem. But I've had some great recommendations for an OB here...she's one that I work with and I'm thinking I'll be ok :). These past weeks I've been plagued with paranoid thoughts of what could go wrong or be wrong (the whole being an L&D nurse doesn't help the situation)...but this morning at our first ultrasound everything became a little brighter for me! I'm so excited that there's actually a baby in there and that it's where it should be and doing what it should be (even if it is still the size of a cinnamon bear). We're so excited for Baby Larson and I'm so excited to continue experiencing pregnancy...what an amazing thing. I work with it everyday but to experience it for yourself is truly miraculous. When we left the ultrasound room I was looking at the pictures and said to Nathan, "This one's actually mine!" We are so happy and so excited to finally share this news with all of our friends! Thanks for all of the love and support you all give us every day...we are so blessed.

Our Little Friend

So the other night we hear a knock on our door and it's our neighbor. He was standing kinda funny in a crouched position holding a shoe in his hand. Ok, I thought, this is odd. Then I turned to see what he was looking at. Don't worry...it was just a giant scorpion outside our front door! Alright so maybe it wasn't GIANT. Frankly I don't have much experience with those freaky little things so who knows how big they can really be. Either way...it was alive and about a foot away from me. Nathan came to see it and he and our neighbor had a little discussion about how to kill it and whether or not this meant that we were going to find more in our apartment. Apparently they had found one in their apartment a couple days ago and had the manager send someone to spray (and yes I made an appointment for this "sprayer guy" as soon as I could...we have to wait till Tuesday though). Dang it. I'm so paranoid now everytime I feel something on my foot or whatever...I keep thinking I'm gonna find more of those suckers around here. So far so good...but I'm keeping my eyes open! Anyways...just thought I'd share my little poisonous stinging bug adventure with you all. Just another fun Arizona experience. On the bright side...the weather has been in the 80s all weekend so I think we're on our way to some normalcy around here! Thank goodness.

I put the picture underneath my story just so that wouldn't be the first thing everyone sees when they pull up my blog...not a pretty sight.

Nathan wanted to have something to measure against so you could see how big it was...kinda hard to tell with the pen so far away but he wasn't getting any closer to it than that!

Missing Fall

Kind of a blast from the past...Kristie and I at the pumpkin patch...love those memories.

So we finally made it to Arizona. Hooray. We had planned on living with Nate's family until we could find a house to buy, but with family being at least 30-40 min away from the school and all...things just got too stressful for us and we weren't ready to buy. Sooo...we signed a 3-month lease on an apartment right next to the school so that we'd have time to get our heads on straight and make good decisions. I think it was a smart move. And now we're gonna need a lot of incentive to actually want to move again. We're loving being right by the school and, let's face it, moving stinks. So who knows...we may just extend that 3-month contract.

Nathan sacrificed his precious studying time to get us moved in the first weekend in September. The following weekend he, again, gave up that time to help us buy some furniture...a new couch, a dining room table, and a dresser! It felt so great to have something other than boxes to sit on! We feel very comfortable in our new little home, which is actually quite a lot bigger than Union Square was. Honestly, I don't know of an apartment that's not bigger than Union Square. Our new place has 2 bedrooms AND 2 bathrooms...we're livin' large, folks. Nathan has been doing pretty well in school so far, despite having to constantly be there for poor little me. He does a great job at juggling school and family. I'm so grateful for all that he is doing for our family...I would not want to be back in school for another 4 years, but he's such a good sport about it.

Our new dining room table...it barely fits in our dining room!

Our new sectional! It's super comfy. (We're still working on the wall space...turns out our big mirror doesn't look so big anymore compared to the couch)

Another bit of news, I got a job! Not sure if I should have exclamation marked that last sentence! As much as it'll be a good thing for me to work and actually be productive (I know our bank account will appreciate it)...I love being home. I love finding things to do at home and just being a good wife. And I'm a little nervous about this new job. I do feel like it's the closest that I'll get to finding a hospital like Orem or AF. It has a good reputation and I felt good about it. The other hospital I got offered a position at, however,...I left the interview in tears because it just was so far from being Orem that I just didn't want to work L&D anymore!! Haha...oh dear. I'm glad Nathan puts up with me. So I start my job on the 29th. I've got a few more days to be lazy...which is good. I've really enjoyed this past few weeks of not working. I could definitely get used to it. :)

Nathan's got a great group of friends in his dental class and their wives are all great too! They've always got stuff going on for me to join in on. I'm in a book club! Something I never thought I would be in...and it's fun so far. Pretty much an excuse to get together with a bunch of girls and talk and eat junk food. It helps to already have that friend network, because I'm not gonna lie, I've been pretty homesick. Homesick for all my family and friends that I left in Provo, homesick for my mom & dad, homesick for Orem, and homesick for SEASONS! It's a cruel world that doesn't allow the climate to blend into 4 distinct times of the year! It depresses me when I see the weather channel map and Phoenix is ALWAYS the hottest city in the States, by far! I am just such a holidays & seasons girl...I thrive on that change every 3-4 months. So right now as I'm thirsting to pull out the sweaters, make the pumpkin food, light the candles, watch the leaves change, and celebrate everything Fall...I find myself avoiding the outdoors and sweating to death in shorts and a t-shirt. Blah. Not my idea of fall. So that's pretty much the deciding factor for me...when Nathan's 4 years are up...we're outta here :). I know so many people love Arizona...but it's not for me. Granted, I've only been here 3 weeks. I know, I know...I'm going to try and be more positive and look for the wonderful things about this place. They say it actually starts cooling down around January :).