Sunshine and Summertime

Wow I have a lot of catching up to do since the last time I posted! Summer is flying by, Jake will be starting back to school in about another month and we have been doing so many fun things this summer! The summer started off with me graduating from SUU with my Bachelors degree in Elementary Education. It feels so good to be done with the student phase of life. I am looking forward to the next phase of my life of being a wife and a mother. Although I guess with Jake still having several more years of school, I still might feel like a student in some ways!

It was so fun to be friends with these girls during the block/student teaching.

About a month after graduation we went on vacation to Disneyland/California with my family. I loved being able to go on one last vacation with my family before the baby comes. We drove down to Anaheim, California on Tuesday after Memorial Day. That evening we got ice cream from Cold Stone (mmm....my favorite!) and walked around Disneyland. The next two days were spent inside the two parks, California Adventure and Disneyland. It was a little bit different experience for me. I was 28 weeks pregnant and was unable to ride a lot of the "fun" rides. I sat out during a lot of the rides. I think the most adventurous ride I was allowed to ride was "Pirates of the Caribbean." Even though I had to sit out on a lot of the rides, I still really enjoyed being in Disneyland and just enjoyed being with Jake and my family. On the third day we went to Huntington Beach and spent the afternoon playing in the ocean and laying out in the sand. I was a little bummed that I couldn't go out and play in the waves with Jake and my Dad. I love being at the ocean and it was hard to just sit on the beach. The next day my family left for Utah, and Jake and I headed to San Diego to visit Jake's brother and his family. We were able to go to the beach in San Diego and Jake got to kayak out in the ocean to see some sea lions. It was such a fun vacation, and a great way to start the summer.

Some highlights from our trip!

I love this picture! The last night in Anaheim, we went to dinner
at the Cheesecake Factory. I wanted a picture of the two of us, and
classic Jake pulls a silly face. It is just classic Jake, I love it!

One thing I was able to do this summer was make my first quilt ever! I am so proud of myself for finishing it. I wasn't sure how I felt about quilting, I thought I wouldn't have the patience for it, but it turns out I really liked it, and I was a little sad when I finished it. My mother-in-law helped me to make a quilt for the baby. It turned out so cute and I am excited for him to use it!

At the end of June/first of July we were able to go on a couple of trips to Lake Powell with Jake's family before I got "too pregnant." We love being at Lake Powell and look forward to going every summer. We were excited to get a couple of trips in before the baby comes. I didn't get to participate in the water sports, but I did enjoy working on my quilt and swimming. Jake also took me on a slow jet ski ride, and a canoe ride. Jake was so great about being considerate of me and not being able to do everything we normally do. He sat out a lot on the water sports in order to swim with me or take me on rides. He was such a good sport, and I love him for that! Jake loves being at the lake more than anywhere else, and I know how hard it must have been for him to sit out on some of the activities such as wake surfing and wake boarding in order to spend time with me. I did not take any pictures at the lake because I looked terrible in my swim suit being pregnant. So unfortunately there are no pictures of our trips to the lake. 

A few weeks ago we attended a family reunion with the Garretts at Bryce Canyon. It was so fun to be with all of my aunts and uncles on that side. I had never been to Bryce Canyon before so it was fun to be able to see that. 

Bryce Canyon

And last, but not least, we have spent much of the summer preparing for baby boy. We are getting so excited for him to come. I am due in about 3 weeks, but I would okay if he decided to make his appearance earlier. Being pregnant in the summertime hasn't been as terrible as I thought it would be, but I am definitely feeling more uncomfortable and ready for this little guy to come. We have had a couple of baby showers which we are so grateful for, we are feeling more prepared for him to come. We have also spent some time setting up the nursery and getting things set up such as the crib, car seat, and stroller. I am really excited for how the nursery turned out, I painted the letters of his name and hung them up, which turned out really cute. I waited to post what his name will be just in case we changed our mind, but with only 3 weeks left, we are confident in the name we picked. The letters are hung in his room, and we along with our families have been calling him by the name we have decided on. His name will be Kason Kyle Grant. 

Everything kind of just came together and we ended up with a jungle theme for his room. 

The blanket/bedding, swing, and bouncer are all jungle themed. It was not even on purpose! It just sort of happened, and I am so excited about it!

Oh Boy!

We have had some excitement around our house in the last few weeks. We found out on March 19th what the gender of our baby is! Yep, you guessed it, probably from the title, it is a boy! We are so excited for this new little addition to our family in August. Jake was over the moon when he heard that it was a boy. He was completely convinced that we would be having a girl. I had a feeling that it was going to be a boy, so I guess it wasn't too big of a surprise for me. But it was still fun to have it confirmed. Our little baby has officially graduated from an "it" to a "he." It is so amazing the technology that is available to us these days. The ultrasounds (especially the 3-D) were incredible. It was so fun to see our little guy moving around in 3-D up on the big screen. 

As for a name, we have no clue yet! We have some ideas, but we haven't decided on anything definite yet. 
I have been thinking everything blue for the last few weeks. I have bought a few cute outfits for him and my sister-in-law took me to some garage sales in Las Vegas where I got a cute bouncer that looks brand new for super cheap! I have also been working on crocheting a cute receiving blanket for him as well. I have done a few of these before, but they have been baby girl ones and they usually take me a couple of years to finish because I forget about them. But once I found out I was having a boy I started working on a boy one I had, and I have been working on it a lot lately so that it will be done by the time he gets here in August. 

Isn't this just adorable?

Playing Catch-Up

Oh wow! I am a little behind on my blogging! My last post was last Fall, probably before Thanksgiving. So much has happened since then! Maybe I will do a month by month recap of the last few months.

November:

We were able to spend Thanksgiving with my Mom's side of the family. It was fun to get to spend time with the Beattys since we don't get to see them that often. Carly and I made the dinner rolls at my apartment. It was quite the adventure making rolls for 45 people in my tiny kitchen with one oven. We cut it close, but we made it to my parent's house just as they were getting ready to eat.

December:

December brought a lot changes in mine and Jake's lives. I finished my elementary education block classes, and Jake finished another semester of accounting. That same week that we finished up classes we found out that we were expecting a baby, and Jake got called to be in a single's ward bishopric. I was a little nervous for so many changes all at once, but they really have been blessings in our lives. We spent Christmas with Jake's family. We were able to spend time with Jake's siblings, and do a lot of fun family activities. We surprised our parents on Christmas with our announcement. It was so fun to watch their faces as they opened our present. We bought two Hersheys Candy Bars and made our own wrappers for them. We made the wrapper to look like the original but highlighted "he" in blue and "she" in pink. So the wrapper read "He R She, We will have to wait and see, Baby Grant due August 19,2013."

January:

In January Jake started a new semester with some tough classes. I began my last semester of student teaching. I started out in Mrs. Hunter's 5th grade class. On MLK Day we went with my family down to Zion National Park to have a picnic and go hiking. It was such a beautiful day for hiking and picnicking.  On January 22 we had our very first prenatal appointment. We were able to have our first ultrasound and hear the heartbeat. 

February:

February brought more school for the both of us. I finished up my 5th grade placement and was a little sad to leave. I started my second placement in 1st grade and was a little nervous as to how 1st grade was going to be. We had a low key Valentine's Day. We decided we wanted to keep it cheap so we ordered a pizza, watched a chick flick and ate blizzards from DQ. It was a perfect V-day. I wouldn't have wanted to spend it any other way. We had our second prenatal appointment where we heard another strong heartbeat.

March:

I am loving 1st grade and can't believe how fast the time is going. I only have 3 weeks left of student teaching and then I am done! Jake is enjoying his new calling, I think it was a little overwhelming for him at first, but now he is getting into the swing of things and getting into a routine. This week Jake is in San Antonio all week for work. I am going to miss him! I can't wait for him to get home at the end of the week.

Phew! Now I feel caught up! Maybe from now on I can stay caught up! We will see!

Another Craft

I am just becoming quite crafty if I do say so myself! I recently decided I was sick of not having any fall decorations in my house. As luck would have it, on Saturday my sister-in-law asked me if I would want to do a craft. I told her about not having fall decorations in my house and we decided to make a fall craft. We decided to make fall wreaths. They turned out really cute! This craft we were able to do under 20 dollars. We first went to D.I. and bought two pre-made wreaths. We then went to Jo-Ann and bought ( I don't even know what they are called...I call them picks) fall colored picks. We were a little bummed that Jo-Ann didn't have any yellow ones so we went to Walmart and bought yellow beads. Once we got back to the house we began our project. We had to first undo the all the decorations on the wreaths we bought. We then made felt flowers using fall colored felt that we had. We hot glued the flowers onto one side of the wreath. After that was done we began to arrange the picks and beads around the wreath. It was so easy and they turned out super cute!

Finished Product

Anniversary-Warning! This post may be a little mushy

Last week was our one year anniversary!  I really can't believe how fast it came! It seems like just yesterday I was dating Jake and wondering if this new relationship was going to go anywhere, and now here we are married for a year. What a "one-derful" year it has been. I look forward to the many years to come. I guess I should do a little report about what we did on our anniversary. Well it was on Monday, October 15. So we both had school to attend during the day. That evening we ate dinner at Rustys. We still had a gift card leftover from our wedding that we had saved and decided this was the perfect occasion to use it. Afterwards we went the movie, "Taken 2." We loved it! It wasn't as good as the first one, but it was definitely worth the money. After the movie we went to Maggie Moos for some ice cream since that was what we did on our first date. It was a really enjoyable day/evening.

Jake surprised me with flowers which were gorgeous! He is so sweet when it comes to flowers. I don't think he as missed an occasion!  He also got me the DVD "The Avengers." I really struggled with thinking of a good gift to give him. A t-shirt doesn't quite say "Happy Anniversary, I love you!"  So I did what any good wife would do, I turned to Pinterest. Thank goodness for Pinterest! I found a really cute idea and modified it a bit. I first wrote down 50 things I loved about him. I then picked about ten of the things and thought of little items I could give him to correlate with the thing I loved about him. For example, one of the things I love about him is his laugh. So I went to the dollar store and bought the DVD "Mr. Deeds." I knew that he really liked that movie and laughed a lot during it.  I then taped " I love your laugh" to the cover of the DVD. I placed all of the items in a basket and called it "An All About You Basket." Each item correlated with a thing I love about Jake. I also placed the list of 50 things I loved about him in the basket. It turned out really cute and I think he enjoyed it.

Last, this wouldn't be an anniversary post if I didn't give a little shout out to my husband. Jake, I love you so much and I am so grateful to have you in my life. I love you!

Anniversary Flowers

Crafty Me-Decorative Boards

I am really not a super crafty person. I just wasn't born with the "craft gene." But I recently discovered a cute and fairly cheap craft on Pinterest. I did modify my craft a bit from the original. It was really fun to do this project with my mom and sisters.  We each made one to hang above our beds. We first bought nine 12x12 scrapbook papers in coordinating colors. My bedroom colors are red, cream, and chocolate brown so I bought paper in those colors. We then bought 12x12 canvas boards. You can get a pack of 12 boards for 20 dollars off of Amazon. (The original project I saw used shelving board. We opted for canvas because it is lighter and we didn't want shelving board above our heads. I think the canvases were great! They were already pre-cut and easy to use.) I then painted the edges of the boards brown, my sisters opted to leave theirs white. We then modge podged the paper onto the canvas. We did not modge podge over the top. The final step was to hang the boards up on the wall. We used poster putty because we thought they might hang better than with a nail and picture hanging kit. The poster putty worked great! I am so excited that it turned out! 

In the picture the red looks kind of pink....but  it is red!

Summer Ending

Goodness! I haven't posted anything in a really long time! I know, I know, I should have been updating all summer long. I am hoping to get into a routine with school starting and maybe I will post more often. Jake and I have had a great (and busy) summer! We were able to do a lot of fun things with our families. We started off our summer with the annual Garrett Family hike.  This is no ordinary hike, we usually select ones that are 10+ miles.  This year we were able to hike the East Rim of Zion's National Park. It was kind of cold, but it was a really beautiful hike!  We had so much fun! 
We also spent quite a few weekends at Lake Powell. Jake and I both really enjoy being at the lake. One of the weeks in July we were able to be there with both of our families. Jake's family invited my family to come and spend a few days there. We enjoyed wake boarding, skiing, wake surfing, water weenie, sliding, cliff jumping and sight seeing.  We also spent quite a few weekends up at the cabin. We just enjoy being up there and relaxing. I always love being at the cabin just because I know that it is truly summertime.  We also got the opportunity to attend a couple of family reunions. I was able to meet some more of Jake's family and he was able to spend more time with mine. Another exciting thing that happened this summer was Jake and I were able to buy a second car together. We are now a two-car family! Yay! It has been really nice having a second vehicle. Last week we went to Wicked at the Capitol Theater in SLC. Jake got me tickets back in December for my birthday in August. I had really been waiting years to see this play! It did not disappoint! It was so amazing! Well that is just a short recap of our summer vacation. I will try to post more this upcoming semester!

Hiking the East Rim at Zion's National Park

Wilson Family Reunion

Cabin

Lake Powell

Rainbow Bridge at Lake Powell