Sunday, April 25

Gila Valley Temple, AZ


A couple weeks ago I was in 90 degree weather in Arizona assisting and shooting the Gila Valley Temple.  Of course in Utah, it snowed two days ago.
The Temple open house is on now.  If you are in Arizona, you should check it out.  If not, go here to see more photos.
I was on the job to assist, but I got the chance to shoot a second angle of the temple exterior.  This is my only photo on the site.  (The version on the site was processed by someone else).  The other shots are by John Luke.

Thursday, April 22

the results are in...

i had my ultrasound this afternoon and the results are in!  we're having a ....



baby!!!


so we couldn't find out today whether or not we're having a boy or a girl... baby was just being too modest.  will we find out at all?  not sure, it all depends on whether or not i get to have another ultrasound i suppose.  we did find out, however, that baby is healthy and lazy ... well, today anyway.  maybe baby was having an afternoon nap, who knows.  there wasn't a whole lot of movement going on and the legs were close together the entire time.  we were able to check out baby's brain and heart and organs.  everything looks great!  baby weighed in at 10oz and is pretty much due around the 10th (my original due date) so dr. says we'll stick with that date.  here are some pictures of the little nugget...

a few profile shots

legs
 

feet
 

arm & leg
 and a little wave, bye bye!


















ok, just kidding, we found out it's a girl!  a baby sister for kate!

Monday, April 19

the view from here

so it's a horrible picture, but here's a glimpse of our new view.
i made quite a bit of progress today with the unpacking.  stay tuned for actual photos!

Wednesday, April 14

shoes

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...

most, if not all of the hightops (nike, that is)
a handful of the lows
some more i hadn't noticed
a bunch i couldn't find boxes for ... this is quite suspect as there are so many - weston keeps the boxes to all of his shoes 

don't worry, i don't have nearly the amount of shoes as my husband ... regardless of what my mom might say.

Tuesday, April 13

thanks mom and dad

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 :)

Monday, April 12

wish me luck

or call me a gigantic wuss, either one...

weston is out of town for the week and i have decided to "stick it out" and stay put instead of driving home to my parents house for some extra help ... i know, i know - i only have one kid, how hard could it be?

i do have plenty of things to occupy my time, it just depends on the 2 year old that lives with me whether or not i'll be able to do any of it.  i have set up a schedule (yeah, i'm a list junkie) for each day outlining the rooms i need to pack up.  very systematic.  can i do it all by my lonesome?  again, it will all depend on miss kate.

i got a really good headstart on the living room last night after kate went to bed - got all of today's job done. 

weston asked me if that meant i had the day off :)  what a punk. 

Saturday, April 10

new happenings

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!

Friday, April 2

easter weekend in monroe

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!


we let the kids dye easter eggs this morning - thanks to sarah for dealing with the majority of the mess.  they all loved it, naturally, so it was absolutely worth it. 
gotta love those nosepickers!  and no, reynolds did not drink his cup.  it was a close call, though :)  bring on the hunt!!!

and, since cynthia's birthday is on saturday, we decided to take her out for lunch.  this was actually a gift to all of us, since we got a babysitter (elsa to the rescue again!) and had a delicious meal without any screaming mess-makers :)  it was lovely.