i had my ultrasound this afternoon and the results are in! we're having a ....
baby!!!
i started packing things in our bedroom - sort of my last big item... i've been putting it off. i had no choice. i had to start with the dreaded shoes. hopefully weston won't be upset that i didn't wait for him to get home to pack his own shoes ... he's very fond of them.
i, however, have a very strong love/hate relationship with the husband's shoes. i love them because he loves them, it's that simple. and i hate them because they are literally everywhere. i guess it takes something like packing your house up to make you really take stock of how much you have, especially how much of one thing.
(for example, the other day when my parents were here, it seemed like the photos, prints, and frames were seeping out of the walls!!! just when you thought you had them all gathered, stacked, even packed in the vans, there was another pile just waiting to be discovered somewhere! i still think that, come moving day, we'll be walking out with a few more picture frames that went unnoticed.)
well, the shoes are kind of like that. everytime i thought i was getting all of the shoes rounded up and put in their correct boxes (i'm not kidding - you'll see what i mean in just a second) there were 3 or 4 more pair or 3 or 4 more empty boxes that i hadn't even noticed before!
just to give you a smidge of an idea of what we're talking about here, i took a few photos along the way. please keep in mind, this is not the entire shoe collection...
i owe a huge shout-out to my parents for driving to help me out this morning. as soon as they arrived, they were at work loading both vans FULL to the gills. we drove to the new place and unloaded ... well, i carried pictures, frames, and 12-packs of soda (come on, there were like 15 of those!) down the stairs. my mom helped unload the cars and took everything to the inside of the house. my dad shouldered THE REST of the work - carrying all of those blasted boxes up and down those stairs like a 25 year old!
then, as if that wasn't enough, they came back to our place and helped me pack up another 12 - 15 boxes to be hauled later.
thank you! thank you! thank you!!!
and in-n-out hit the spot, thanks for that, too :)
so, quite a bit has been going on lately.
first, and i'm sorry i have no pictures yet, we bought a new car. after weston got rear-ended in december, we have been looking around trying to replace the car. as i mentioned in a previous post, we had decided to upgrade to a family size vehicle. we came across a deal that we couldn't pass up. we dove in and got a minivan! weston officially feels like a part of the cottle clan now (5 out of 6 couples have a caravan). so we got a sweet deal on a 2005 dodge grand caravan and we are loving it. it's a little embarrassing loading up the ONE child into the HUGE van, but we know we'll grow into it.
second, we are now really moving. we made the decision last week and it is what it is. don't get me wrong, we are excited to upgrade our living situation - for SURE - we will be moving into about 2000 square feet. as i also mentioned before, we are so sad to leave our awesome ward. it will be a challenge to start over, but we know it's the right thing for us to do at this point. we were also sad to leave such a great area with just about every shopping/eating amenity you could ask for, but we're only about 10-15 minutes away. so, needless to say, i have been ultra busy trying to go through all of the stuff we've accumulated in the last 5-6 years (gotta love that purge!), getting my hands on moving boxes, packing and hauling said boxes, and repeating. what a mess and how overwhelming!!! but, it has to be done.
so, you ladies out there ... i have a question. our new kitchen is quite a massive room. besides the dining table/chairs, what in the WORLD do i do with the rest of the space??? i need another "area" or two in there to feel like it's not a sea of emptiness. i was thinking of a little nook area to sit and read (read? like i read...) but it's got the great 7 foot windows all throughout so it would make a nice "chill" spot...
suggestions? i really need some, so please please please offer!!!
stay tuned and maybe we'll be getting some photos up here soon.
oh, and we get to find out in less than 2 weeks whether we'll be having ourselves a little phoebe or a little phoebo!
since cynthia and her boys and sarah and her kids have been in monroe visiting my parents, i decided to bypass the loneliness that comes with general conference weekend (weston is gone all weekend shooting on temple square) and add kate and myself to the bunch.
thursday morning, the city held an easter egg hunt. since they got snow the night before, it was moved from the park to the high school. we were only about 10 minutes late but missed the entire thing! thankfully, elsa was sweet enough to divvy out her share of the candy to these 4 sad looking kiddos. sorry for the blurry photo - it was the best one that was taken!
