Winter Girls Night Gift Exchange

This Christmas, my party planning parter (and life partner, ha!) and I planned a fun winter girls night. We had a hot chocolate bar, and a gift exchange (kind of like a classy white elephant). It is always nice to have a nice get together with friends, and I've got some fabulous ones!!

The Happiest Autumn

This Fall has been one of my favorite Fall's since I can remember. Having a little kid makes everything so much more magical. I can't even tell you how excited I am for Thanksgiving and Christmas with this child.

Celebrating the season with Calvin and friends has been an absolutely memorable. We went to pumpkin patches, halloween story times, Fall festivals, Halloween parties, Trick or Treating, and 'Meet the Turkey" days at our local park.

Andelin Family Farm
When Collette and Justin were here the week before Halloween, Collette and I took Darwin and Calvin to a local Pumpkin Patch. It was so well done, and the kids had an absolute blast. They even had a "train" made out of barrels!

Somersett Fall Festival
Calvin was able to experience his first costume wearing experience at one of our good friends neighborhood's Fall Festival. Calvin's favorite part was jamming to the music, but he and Emmeline were definitely the cutest pumpkins in the patch.

Halloween Story Time

This gem of a picture is the best we could do with a 3 2 and 1 year old.

Halloween
Calvin and I partied in the morning with some jack o lantern quesadillas. Later in the evening we went to our friends house and had a little party after we took the kids trick or treating. Our parting consisted of a lot of festive treats, chili, and Halloween episodes of Brooklyn 99 and Community. We are wimps.

We do love our friends, and holidays!!

Rancho San Rafael Meet the Turkey
Our last festive activity (before it snowed and turned the seasons from Fall to Winter), was a nice run down to our local park. We were going to let calvin play and enjoy the beauty of the colors, but then it turned out there was actually a Meet the Turkey event. Calvin had a lot of fun seeing the turkeys, but his favorite was definitely petting the bunny!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Favorite Things Party

Through the past year or so I had seen the ideas of throwing a "favorite things" party floating around the great world wide web. I had been itching for an excuse to throw a party, and a Favorite Things party sounds like the perfect excuse to throw a party, have a girls night, and get cool stuff (kind of like Christmas :). And so, two of my friends and I threw a party, and it was a raving success. 

The basic idea is you bring 4 of something you love, and you leave with 4 things your friends love! There was lots of delicious treats, but also great things like cleaning supplies, and nail polishes. 

I also had people bring along their favorite pot luck item to eat. It was pretty funny the things we ended up eating. We had everything from doughnuts, to Italian sodas and a plum upside down cake (soo delicious). I didn't get tons of pictures, but here they are, in all their glory, haha!

And just for good measure, here is a picture of Calvin:

A Rexburg Shower

This past Thursday, two of my wonderful friends here in Idaho, Holly and Camilla, threw me and the baby in my belly a shower! They made it a "shower" theme, and did such a good job with the decorations. Holly has a 6 week old baby, and she made those rain drops one handed. Now that is what I call impressive. It was even complete with a waffle bar….mmmm delicious. 

I had so many of my friends show up. During the past 2 1/2 years I have made wonderful friends living here, and it was so nice to have one last hurrah/girls night with them before we move {in FIVE days}. It was pretty much the perfect evening with friends. 

Did I mention that I also have a lot of pregnant friends? (And quite a few that just had babies). Well, I do and we all decided to take a lovely baby bump picture together. I am pretty sad that I won't get to see any of their cute babies in person. 

Thanks Holly and Camilla! It was a wonderful shower, and I am blessed to have such incredible people in my life. You guys are the best, and I will miss you. 

Temple to Temple Relay + A coed Baby BBQ

Last Saturday was an eventful Saturday for Robert and I. We started off our morning with a race, hosted by BYU-Idaho. It was the Temple to Temple Relay, starting at the Rexburg temple and ending at the Idaho Falls temple (39 miles). My little sisters good friend Micah is an avid runner and asked Robert and I if we wanted to join his team. We were obviously very excited and jumped all over that. 

I was a little bit slower on my leg than I would have liked (8 min/mile), but I had to remind myself that I am 33 weeks pregnant. Robert totally ROCKED his 7 mile leg, averaging 6:20 min/mile. Considering when he runs it's usually with his much slower pregnant wife, and he didn't really train it was pretty impressive. My husband is awesome. 

Overall our team got 2nd place of the 78 teams! It was a lot of fun and I am glad that in baby boy's first race he placed. Whoot Whoot!!

Right after the race we hurried home so we could set up for the Baby BBQ Robert and I were hosting for our good friends, the Cowlings. They are expecting their little girl in September and decided to make their shower a casual BBQ so we could have one last big hurrah with all of our friends and help them celebrate this fun time in their lives. 

So it wasn't too girly, we decided to play one game of root beer chugging from a bottle. It was pretty hilarious.

It was a blast! We had delicious Italian Sodas and Robert was our grill master. Three cheers for wonderful friends and pregnancy. I am just sad that we will be gone when this little girl makes her presence. She is going to be pretty dang adorable.