So our ward had a Halloween party last Saturday. Darren and the young men were in charge of a Spook Alley so our house was very busy before it started. We couldn't think of what to dress up as, so Darren grabbed some of his snowboarding things to be a Snowboarder. I know... good one, right?? :) I was planning on being a Power Puff girl, but after searching the house up and down I realized I had given it back to my parents to put in their costume box. What a letdown! I had no idea what to do. My backup plan was a pirate, which I was last year, but with no other options, I started to get ready. I put on my pirate tights (black and white stripes) and started to run around the house to find the rest of my costume. Darren saw me and busted up laughing! He told me I looked like a Who! And it hit me. Why didn't I think of that before?! I have been a Who a number of times. In college, my roomies and I would dress up as Who's around Christmas and bring cookies to our favorite boys and sing them a little Christmas Who carol :) Oh how I miss those days! Don't worry Darren, I love these days too! But they might be better if you dress up as a Who with me :)

Side note: The party was great! We had a blast! Even though my husband set off the fire alarm...

What IS that thing?! Not gonna lie... it's a little different being a married pregnant Who...

Oh the good old days! I simply HAD to show a picture of my roomies and I dressed up as Whos! Favorite memory of this night: Tallie sticking her head out the window while she was driving because she couldn't fit it in the car :)

I miss you girls!!!

And this picture is for Brittany. I can't even tell you how excited I am to see you this Christmas! All I wanna do is play! I'm thinking we should, perhaps, try to fit in a Who outing... what do you say? :)

Getting bigger - 22 Weeks

Ok, I'm a week late in posting this, but the past week has been crazy! Anyways, here I am at 22 weeks (5 and 1/2 months)! I am now 23 weeks and I can almost guarantee that I look bigger now than I do in this picture! It's crazy how much your stomach can grow in just one week! The past couple of weeks have been a BLAST because I finally realized what it feels like to have a baby kicking inside of me. Now that I know what it feels like, I realized I had felt it a number of times before... but now, I feel it ALL the time! Darren has even felt our little guy kick and he just loves it! Yesterday was the first time we SAW him kick... what a trip! We are so excited to be experiencing something so amazing! What a blessing!

It's a Boy!!!

Ok, so we got the ultrasound last Friday. I was DYING to post and let everyone know, but Darren insisted on being the one to blog about it... well... it's Wednesday now and nothing has been posted so I'm taking action! This is my favorite picture we got (above)! He looks so cute already! :) For the first half hour or so of the ultrasound, we didn't know the sex. He wouldn't move and we were mostly just seeing his spine. So she had us go run around the office (in the hopes of waking him up and getting him to move around) so we did. We went on the elevator, ran up and down the stairs, did some jumping jacks, and got a lot of weird looks when we started dancing all over the place! Turns out that it worked! As soon as we got back he started to move and we were able to get a lot of good shots!



So she printed off all of our pictures and we were wrapping things up. Darren, being the proud future-father that he is, asked if we could get a printed picture of... his... you know. I couldn't believe he asked that! She laughed and said he wasn't the first guy to want one. So there you have it! Whether the world is ready or not, in less than 5 months, there's going to be another little Darren around!

Dates

Ever since we've started telling people that we're pregnant, we have heard the same two things over and over:

1. Go on as many dates as you can!
2. Go to the movies every weekend!

Apparently these are rare occasions once you have a kid. So after months of getting this advice we decided to take it. Don't get me wrong, we go on a date usually every weekend. However, our dates typically consist of Wendy's or Taco Bell and a red box movie rental ($1 a day baby!). So I guess you could say we decided to go on a REAL date last weekend... and still managed to spend about the same amount of money! I'm not a huge fan of Italian food, but we had a gift card to The Olive Garden that we needed to use. So the night started there. Dinner was delicious and Darren discovered that his favorite drink in the entire WORLD is Olive Gardens Orange-Vanilla Italian Cream Soda! Not gonna lie, it was dang good! After dinner we discovered that my parents and younger sister Bailey had come South for the evening for a little variety in their shopping outing. Bailey was brave enough to join her old and boring married sister (and husband) and came to the movies with us! We saw Traitor, which was pretty intense! Don't worry, we didn't have to pay for that either! We had free movie tickets that we had gotten for a Christmas present last year :) I don't remember the last time I PAID to see a movie... maybe it was Harry Potter...? Unfortunately, our "Free pass to the movies" friend just moved to Idaho for school :( What a let down! Anyways, after the movie, we went home. Darren worked on who knows what in the office and Bailey and I watched What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress! It was nice to have someone watch those shows with me who actually likes them :) Thanks Bailey! It was an extremely enjoyable evening! I just wish I had taken pictures...

18 Weeks

My younger sister, Bailey, always complains that moms-to-be refer to their babies in terms of weeks. So for those of you who don't speak "Pregnant Lady", that's 4.5 months. This is the first of our monthly pregnant shots! Unfortunately, we've been putting it off for no good reason. I've actually been showing for a really long time, but my doctor said that I wouldn't start showing until about 15 or 16 weeks... so I was sucking in until I no longer could :) I swear I'm actually bigger than this picture shows... maybe the camera takes off 10 pounds...?

Sleepover in Magnolia

So... for the first time since we've had this blog, I (Brandi) am posting something instead of Darren! I know that's totally backwards, but he's the technology nerd and I just haven't taken the time to learn how to blog... but it is now being forced upon me! Well anyways, this weekend Darren and I were able to go and watch the girls I used to nanny overnight! They live over in Magnolia and have a cute little community just down the street from their house. We went and got some Mexican food, played at the park (the girls kept asking me how the baby was doing whenever I was on a ride that bounced haha), ate some ice cream and watched "Barbie and the Diamond Castle" before bed. I think that was Darren's favorite part of the night, though he'd never admit it. He was supposed to go do some work on the computer, but I think he got too involved in the movie! According to him, he was "dead tired and comfortable"... yeah right Darren! Anyways, needless to say, we had a blast! I love those girls and can't wait to have some kids of my own to play with!

You just had a feeling didn't you

Yes we are pregnant! Now, I have had a few people say, man "I just had a feeling you guys were!" Yeah right! Ok, I know one certain coworker did for sure so maybe it's possible you did too. Anyway, we are due in February and more thrilled than you could ever imagine! Brandi and I are debating the gender as most couples do. All I can say is that HE is going to be one great athlete! Maybe I just jinxed myself. Anyway, that is our big news for now! Holy crap another little Litchfield is coming...scary stuff!

New Beginnings

That's right I left Google. I have started at a really good company that has already allowed me in just a couple of weeks to expand my recruiting knowledge and skills tremendously. I do Technical Recruiting for tons of companies in the Seattle/Eastside area.

Babysitting - Good practice for the future!

Ok, I know what you are thinking from the title, but no we are not pregnant. We thought it would be fun to babysit for some friends of ours in our ward so they could have a free date night and we could have fun "practicing". Brandi has plenty of practice with her years of Nannying (is that even a word?) so this was mainly for me. It was an absolute blast!!!

Mountain Biking with the Young Men

I really wanted to get the young men in our church excited about mountain biking so as a scout troop we went. I made the mistake of letting someone else pick the trail and we ended riding straight up a mountain on a service road for 3.5 miles. At that point I started to question my own passion for mountain biking!