NYC

I am one lucky girl.  :)  Before kids Jeff and I were very spontaneous and would just take off for the weekend to southern Utah, California, Idaho...where ever floated our boat at the time.  Since we have started cranking out kids we have still been spontaneous...just not as much.  BUT, I got a phone call from Jeff one day late February saying, "we are going to New York next week ok?"  Um, ok?  We had some frequent flyer tickets and Jeff had arranged for my Brother and Sister - in -Law to watch the kiddos.  Seriously, all I had to do was pack, it was so nice! :)  I was a little worried because I was super sick with the pregnancy and had just started my medicine and it was working ok, I was still throwing up and had no energy but NYC is one of my FAVORITE places in the world (so far! :) ) So, I was just going to suck it up.  My girls were super excited because since living here in Denver we have been able to get super close to my Brother and his family.  We could have left for a month and I don't think the kids would have noticed.  :) 

We have been to NYC once before with our super great cousins/friends and both of us before we were married had been.  I don't know what it is about the city it is just amazing to me that so many people live in one spot and there are enough jobs and nothing ever stops.  I love it.

Here are some highlights:

~  Hotel a block away from Times Square (I was watching Project Runway after we got back and they used the same hotel!  I thought that was cool.)
~  No morning sickness on our trip
~  Wicked.....AMAZING
~  Lots of New York food
~  MAC store on 5th Ave
~  MAC store at Grand Central Station
~  Swatch watch store 5th Ave
~  Lets be honest, all of 5th Ave
~  Dinner with Jeff's mission buddy and his wife at a fun Cuban restaurant on Houston Street. 
~  Sleeping in
~  Wall Street
~  Canal Street
~  FAO Schwartz
~  New purses
~  New watch
~  Getting lost on our way to Battery Park...we never made it.  It was a beautiful walk though.  :)
~  Awesome comedy show, yeah...note the sarcasm
~  Finally found a great slice of NYC pizza
~  Rockefeller Center
~  Candy store on Canal street
~  Caught in the rain...in early March, it was cold those 6+ block we had to walk
~  New York City Public Library - Jeff really liked this, maybe because it was the first library he has been in since college ;)  Maybe it was because of Ghost Busters.  Either way it really was awesome.  I just wish my feet weren't hurting so bad.  Note to self:  next time just wear my flip flops...WAYYYY better than tennis shoes.  :)
~  Spending time alone with Jeff for longer than a couple of hours.  We have been so spoiled the last two years being able to get away with just us.  It is really hard for me to leave my kiddos and put that responsibility on someone else, but if you can you NEED to do it.  It is nice to remember that before kids and real life it was just the two of you and how much you really like each other!  :) 

Here are some pictures, they are in no particular order:

 Super hot I know.

 The building where the World Trade Centers used to be.

 Jeff on Wall Street

 Jeff trying to sweet talk the security to let him on the trading floor.

 Giant toys at FAO Schwartz, these things are life size.

 Some sort of Nintendo thing that Jeff was super excited about.  :)

 The candy isle...mmmmm

 One of Jeff's favorite stores.  It is a pretty cool building.

 I think this was a Hollister store.  The store front was made up of a bunch of flat screens, it was pretty cool.

 Amen.

 Jeff is a huge watch lover and I guess Swatch was cool in the 80's and is coming back so we stopped at a number of different Swatch stores...Ironically I am the one who found a watch I loved, just not the price I loved.  :)

 Hershey's store on Times Square.  The outside of the building was much cooler than the inside.

 We were hoping to make a taping of the Late Show but we didn't make it, we were super surprised to see Jeff's favorite restaurant from St. Louis right next door though!

 We were there right during all the Jeremy Lin craziness, his stuff was everywhere!

 This is definitely a Yankees town...to bad...

 The "Ghost Busters Library"

 Seriously the library was incredible.  It was gorgeous inside and out.  

 

 We went into this random suit shop and apparently tons of different athletes go there on a regular basis.  Which was weird because it really was just a hole in the wall.  All the walls were covered in signed sports paraphernalia.

 Grand Central Station.

The Mac Store in Grand Central Station was HUGE it spanned the entire size of the building.

 Rockefeller Center

We asked this foreign family to take our picture and after about ten minutes this was the best we got.

We were going to go skating but it was going to be like $60 for an hour or something crazy.  Which was ok by me because I don't think my feet have ever hurt so bad in my life.

This game boy went through the Gulf War and still works!

 

I think this was some sort of Nintendo hand that is rare.  All I know is Jeff thought it was pretty cool.

(Note to self:  Next time take more pictures with us in them!)

And there you go.  Our trip to New York four months later.  We had a great time, but this time I actually came back home and was glad I didn't live there.  :) Thanks Babe for putting this all together for us!

Pregnant

So, by now everyone probably knows I am pregnant.  :)  We are super excited to be welcoming a baby boy to our family in the end of September, but I would be lying if I didn't say I am TERRIFIED.  Terrified of having a boy, terrified of having four kiddos...terrified.  :)  Sometimes the only thing that gets me through is knowing without a doubt that this little guy was supposed to be here, now. 

This pregnancy has been awesome, well awesomely awful.  BLAH.  With the girls I would puke and go back to work and be just fine (well, ok).  With this one, not so much.  I would puke and I would be out of commission the rest of the day.  I think my record for throwing up was seven times, after that I knew I had to do something.  Thank goodness for Zofran!  That stuff is a miracle drug.  I was finally able to stop taking it a few weeks ago (I am 24 weeks tomorrow).  So I am finally feeling better, there are still some rough days but MUCH better. 

Jeff has been a peach about the whole nasty house, no dinner, crazy children thing.  He took good care of us when he was home from work.  I think he is glad I am feeling better though.  He is INCREDIBLY excited about a boy.  At this point I think he has bought more stuff for this little guy than I have. 

I was pretty convinced that this little bean was a girl.  So when the day came for our ultrasound I was really nervous that it would be another girl (not that we don't LOVE our girls) but if this is the last kid I wanted to know what it was like to raise a boy too.  ANYWAY, so Jeff and I waited and waited and my bladder was about to burst and they finally called us in.  We went in a little anxious and she checked out to make sure everything was ok and right after that she scanned to see what we were having and she said it was a boy!  Jeff and I just looked at each other and cherred for joy and shed a few tears.  :)  I made her check...and recheck....and recheck that it was a boy. 

After all is said and done, even with all the nasty that comes with being pregnant I just can't believe how blessed we are.  When we were trying to get pregnant with Morgan it just wasn't happening and I was starting to wonder if it ever would happen until I had a great doctor that put us on Clomid, and that is all it took.  And here we are popping number four out in a six year span.  I feel so blessed that we get to bring these little spirits into our home.  Most days I can't believe Heavenly Father would trust us to do this important job but I am so grateful. 

So here we go, bring on monster trucks, baseballs, legos, blue and whatever else boys like!

Christmas 2011

So apparently I didn't even post about Christmas!!!  Awesome.  Our Christmas was fun, we had my parents stay with us and spent time with them and my brother and his family.  It went quick but I loved every minute together.

 So we stopped by a random teacher supply store one day in December and there was Santa!  It was great no lines, and they gave great goodie bags!  My camera was acting weird so here are the awesome pictures.

 

 Our awesome 70's wood paneling behind our Christmas tree with the crooked star.

 Morgan being silly.

 This was the best shot we were able to get with the girls in their Christmas dresses.

 This is what the next few shots looked like, do you like Whitney's shoes?

 Dad and the girls love Angry Birds so he bought the girls these great hats.

Merry Christmas....a little late...

St. Louis

So when the Cardinals made the World Series Jeff was pretty ecstatic.  Well, we were all pretty happy.  So, of course living as close as we do we decided to drive over for a quick weekend trip.  It was a fun trip and we had a great time staying with Jeff's sister Jen.  Jeff went to the game with a friend and the girls and I got to play with Jen and her fun family.  If none of you have heard about all of the fun free stuff in the great city of St. Louis you are missing out.  There are free museums and parks and zoo's...it is great.  Here are some pictures from our trip.

 Downtown St. Louis

 Rally squirrel, during the playoffs squirrels kept running across the field so I think the the St. Louis fans thought they were good luck so the Cardinals used it as a fun gimmick for the series.

 Fred Bird, the Cardinals mascot.

 Jeff helping the girls at the science center build an arch.

 They had it but it didn't last very long.  :)

 There we go!

 Morgan knows quite a bit about dinosaurs so it was fun for her to see what one would kind of look like besides the ones she see's on t.v.  This is a typical Whitney pose.  Silly girl.

 Morgan and cousin Lizzy on a 'hamster run' at the science center.  When you get it going it makes this giant marble run thing drop a big ball and go through this maze, it is pretty fun.

 Whitney and cousin Emily having a try, pretty sure Emily did all the work.

 Nikki wanted a turn.

 At the butterfly pavilion.

On the drive home.  It was a great trip.  :)

We also went to the magic house.  It was awesome.  It was my first time there and if I lived there I think I may take my kids everyday.  It was ginormous and so fun.  Lots of fun hands on things for the kids to do.  We were there on a free day (this is one thing that isn't free) so it was CRAZY.  To bad we didn't bring our camera.  We also went to build a bear and Morgan has been attached to her bunny ever since.  Thanks Cardinals for getting us back to St. Louis!