Stories worth blogging about. . .

1) A few weekends ago, McKane went on a guys 259 trip to LA. The morning he left, Beck and I were chillin in my room when I heard someone trying to brake in to my house*. The dogs started barking like crazy and, since they agreed there was a bad man comin, I got a little scared.

I grabbed my tazer, made beck stay in my room, and started investigating the situation. I checked the front, garage, and back doors (which were all locked) and started to feel better about things. I then went into the office to look out the window and make sure nothing suspicious was goin on out front. Everything was clear.

I turned from the window and started to close the safety door to the tazer eject button. Right then I heard a loud bang and then heard electricity going from me to the carpet/closet door like crazy. Somehow I ejected the tazer, instead of closing the safety door. Yikes. It seriously was so scary, and pretty embarrassing, but Mckane and the guys got a good laugh out of it.

Here was the result:



The worst part is that the cartridge inserts that eject to taze are 1 time use only, and they cost $50 to replace. Crap.

*Since our house is so close to the neighbors, when they go to open their side gate, it often sounds like someone is trying to brake in. Also when people put fliers in our door it sounds like they're trying to get in too. So, I realize I was probably overreacting from the beginning, ha ha.

2) Saturday we started to leave the house to meet my family at fountain hills. The boys were going to play frisbee golf, and all of us girls were going to play with the kids at the playground, and walk around the lake. As we were leaving the house I realized I hadn't seen Roxy (our adopted dog of 1.5 years) all morning. We searched the house and backyard and still couldn't find her anywhere.

We got in the car and drove around the block a few times, calling her name constantly- nothing. When there was no sign of her anywhere, I started getting worried. I just was praying she hadn't gotten lost really far away, or gotten hit by a car.

Just when my mind got to the panicking point, we pulled up to this:

ROXY!!! When we found this sign, it was only like 10am on the 21st, so someone had found her and posted these signs within hours. I pretty much started crying right away. I was so relieved, and so grateful for these people.

I called the number, twice, before they answered and when they did I pretty much just cried, explaining that they had our dog and that I was so thankful.

We met the nice couple at the roundabout near our house and got Roxy back within minutes. I cried again and thanked them a million times. They were so gracious, and it was so sweet cause when I looked at the husband he was crying with me, too. I am just SO grateful to them, and have a restored faith in the "goodness" of the world.

*After coming home we discovered a hole in the rocks, underneath our gate. So, I don't know why but, roxy dug her way out of our backyard sometime Saturday morning. The little. . .

It's a. . .

BOY!!
See his little package? Yup, there it is. :)

Here Beckam and I are on our way to the big ultrasound:
My mom met us there to take part in the experience/take care of beckam. It was SO nice to have her there.

We were so excited to find out we are having another boy. It seems like Beckam is surrounded by girls, it will be fun to give him another little boy to play with (though I realize it will be a while before they really interact). We are also excited because Beckam was born in March, and this one is due at the beginning of April. So, we can use the same clothes, swaddles, blankets, etc- how convenient.
The little baby was so good and we got such cute pictures of him throughout the ultrasound. A few great profile pics (one shown below), one of his little foot, one of him yawning, crossing his arms across his chest, etc. We also saw him drinking in there, moving all around, and I swear I saw him strike a few poses :)
We're so excited, and even have a few names picked out for the little guy. We'll let you know if we decide on one.

I'll leave you with my most recent belly shot*, taken a couple days ago, at 18.5 weeks. It was at the end of the day, when my belly always looks bigger, but I also think this one is just comin out a lot quicker too. Crazy that we're almost half way there.

*notice beckam on the floor throwing a tantrum, ha ha. I'm pretty sure he wanted to wear "all of" my watches, and I wouldn't let him, so this is what I got.

Which Birthday?

I had an interesting actual birthday this year. It fell on a Sunday, so it felt a little off anyway, with church in the middle of the day, an accidental nap while trying to put Beckam down, etc. McKane was SO sweet and cooked for me all day. He made eggs and monkey bread (a new favorite of mine) in the morning, and then sweet pork melts and manjar crepes for dinner. They were so good!

McKane had a great plan to go to my parents to eat dinner at 5:30. There he would serve all of us the melts and crepes over a nice family dinner at the kitchen table. Dinner however, ended up taking him longer than expected, so by the time it was ready my brother Peter had left, and my dad's random highschool friend was there and he and my dad were sitting at the kitchen table. Since McKane had a music practice at 6:30, we couldn't wait to eat, so my mom, McKane and I ended up eating on tv trays in the family room. It was weird. McKane left right afterward to his song practice.

I was pretty sad cause I had wanted to spend time with McKane, but didn't because he was cooking all day; then I wanted a nice family dinner, but everyone was gone/occupied and it just turned out weird. I was being dumb, I know, (blame it on the pregnancy hormones) but all throughout the tv dinner I was trying to hold back tears. I knew how much I was blessed with, so I knew I shouldn't be sad, but I was.

We went to my granparents soon after dinner and that did cheer me up. They are the nicest people and it made me realize how blessed I am- also while Kane was at song practice I realized how much he had done for me and how hard he tried.

After crying a bit that night McKane and I joked about how weird of a birthday it was. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it was definitely a different one, ha ha.

On Monday, after McKane's grandpa's funeral, we went out to eat at Olive Garden to "celebrate my birthday". My brother in law Merek, his girlfriend Brittany, and kanes cousin Allison and her husband Jere joined us. It was super fun and we definitely had a good time.

Then on tuesday my mom called and invited me to dinner to make up for my "weird birthday dinner". She made Chicken Alfredo (my favorite), ceasar salad, and yummy bread and we ate with (some of) my family around the kitchen table. It was so neat- we cracked jokes, told stories, and laughed the entire time. Afterward my family went around the table and said something nice about me. I cried for just about every one and felt so blessed for such wonderful family that I am so close to.

My mom watched Beckam for us after dinner and McKane and I went to see Where the Wild Things Are (which I loved).

It was such a fun birthday celebration and made up for the awkwardness of the first one.

p.s. I did get lots of fb posts, calls, txts, etc. so thanks everyone who thought of me. And I did appreciate it- just imagine how sad I would have been had I not received all of that, ha ha.

Peter Peter Pumkin Eater. . .

It's been quite an eventful couple of weeks.

The most exciting event, was my brother Peter's return from El Salvador, where he served a two year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints.
It was quite torturous having to wait for him. His flight was supposed to get in from LA at 5:30pm, but it kept getting postponed due to "extreme weather conditions" in PHX. When do we ever have extreme weather conditions? Seriously!

After waiting for what seemed like eternity, his plane finally left LA and got to PHX around 9:45pm. Whew. (p.s. yes my stomach is huge in this picture, we had just eaten :). But I love McKane in it, and I love Beck's gangsta face, ha ha).
Pete got attacked by all the boys after running through his "Welcome Home" sign.
It's been SO fun having him home. We spent the night he got home over at my parents and just chilled and talked with him the whole next day- went out to eat, took him shopping, etc. I missed him so much and it's WONDERFUL to have him back. (Pictured with his friends: Adam, Adrian, Sterling, then Pete).

We also filled the last few weeks with lots of festive activities.

Pumpkin Carving
The finished product. Isn't it cool? We picked out the most deformed pumpkin in the whole lot, and I love how it turned out.
Gingerbread-Haunted House decorating:
Corn Mazes, Mother Natures Farm, Halloween Parties, etc.
Beck's costume changed multiple times. Last weekend he was a cat, then for our ward trunk or treat and for actual Halloween he was Batman. Friday night I couldn't get him to wear the mask that came with his costume, so for our Sat afternoon party with the family, I painted a mask on him. This didn't go over very well, cause it looked a little weird and he kept touching the paint with his hands. Yikes.
By actual Halloween night he broke down and wore the mask- yay! I didn't get any pictures of him that night, but we had a blast having a pre-trick or treat party with some friends from our ward, trick or treating with the vernons, visiting and enjoying the weather, and watching ghostbusters outside on the Vernon's garage via a projector.
It was definitely a fun Halloween!!
(And a few related pictures)

I hung this skeleton up on our door and after a while noticed his Michael Jackson-like pose. Ha ha.
And our pumpkin looks even cooler now that it's sunken in and molding, don't you think?

Happy Halloween!

NYC: Day 5

We got up early, checked out of our hotel, and then checked our luggage into the hotel's luggage holding area, so we didn't have to drag it around all day. Then we all walked up to the MET and spent a few hours there.

It was so cool to see rooms and rooms of such famous artists, and even to see paintings that I recognized from 5th grade Art Masterpiece (thanks, Mom). They had The Milkmaid by Johannes Vemeer there on loan from some other museum, which was neat to see. Because it was a "special exhibit", we couldn't take pictures, but it was cool to see in person. Here are some of my other favorites from the MET:

Two Young Girls at the Piano, 1892, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David

Wheat Field with Cyprus, 1889, by Vincent Van Gogh
I loved to be able to see all the little details in the paintings.

Garden at Sainte-Adresse, 1867, by Claude Monet
The Dance Class, 1874, by Edgar Degas
Mother and Child by a Fountain, 1901, by Pablo Picasso (some of his earlier work)
Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887, by Vincent Van Gogh
Still awake? Maybe it was a had-to-be-there thing? :)

Then the Temple of Dendur (pictured below), the Greek statues, the medieval armor, the Egyptian mummies, etc. were really cool to see too. I'm sure there was tons more we didn't even get to.
After about 2.5 hours at the MET, Jeni Macy and I walked over to the American Museum of Natural History (where they filmed Night at the Museum).
All of the exhibits were really cool. I especially loved the marine life one, and the dinosaurs.

At 2:25 we jumped on the subway and got back to our hotel right at 2:45pm, where we met my mom and aunt Amy, got our luggage, and then met our ride to the airport.
The flight home was uneventful, but I was sad to find out that McKane's grandpa passed away Wednesday morning, and McKane had had a HORRIBLE day (In addition to his grandpa dying, he had to do online driving school which took 6 hours, our car battery died when he went to get his driving school test results notarized, there were problems at work, and he hurt his back moving furniture. Poor guy.)

Needless to say he was VERY happy to have me home, and I was so excited to see my boys, and to get off my feet for a while :).

Day 5 Highlights: 1. The cool paintings from the MET, and exhibits from the AMNH 2. Seeing McKane and Beckam again :)

Day 5 things I didn't expect: 1. All of the animals in the AMNH were "real at one time" 2. Reading about the sex changing fish (when the male of the group passes, a female fish just changes to male. Crazy!) 3. Learning of the passing of McKane's grandpa :( It makes me extra sad because we've been meaning to get over and see Grandpa Phil the past couple weeks but because I have had such a bad cough, and just can't shake it, we kept postponing. I'm sure he knows how much we all love him still!

NYC: Day 4

After getting ready for the day, we walked over, then through, the NYC library, then we headed down 7th Ave (the fashion district). You can't really see it from this picture, but this is a cute statue of a button with a needle going through. I loved it.
After shopping a bit, none of the clothes fitting me, and realizing I'm just going to get fatter, we moved on. We took the subway down to canal st. and participated in that interesting/shady/fun experience.
My cousin Macy and I got matching "Dolce & Gabbana" purses from a basement-hidden room, and I *was so excited about mine. (*Read my "Day 4: things I didn't expect" to learn why I'm not as excited about it anymore). I've wanted a black purse, since my other black one broke.
After shopping along canal st for a bit we saw China town, Little Italy, the SOHO district, a few cool churches, and I found the beloved Brooklyn Industries store, which is like an Urban Outfitters. It has the cutest NY & regular Tees, and I wanted to buy everything!! I limited myself and just bought this shirt, but I love it!!Then we walked up to Broadway and 13th/14th st for a little piece of heaven on earth: Max Brenner's. This restaurant is also a must do in NYC! Lunch was amazing, and my dessert was even better!
After searching through pages and pages of yummy chocolate desserts, I settled on the Chocolate, Peanut Butter Crepe with toffee bits inside. Drizzled with chocolate and powdered sugar, and served with Dolce De Leche ice cream, candy-tasting bananas, and caramel. YUM!!!
I'm salivating just thinking about it. After loading up on food we walked all over Greenwich Village. This is another must do in NYC. It was such a cute, fun little town with beautiful homes, streets, and stores.
Cool buildings
And the Famous Magnolia Bakery (unfortunately, we had just eaten our Chocolate dessert so we didn't actually try any cupcakes)
We walked from Greenwhich village, passed the flat iron building, the flower district, Madison Square Gardens, Penn Station, etc. till we got to Broadway and 46th st.

Right off of walking the streets, we went and saw the musical Billy Elliot.
The story was very good, and it had some really neat messages and touching moments. The best part was the dancing, which was just awesome! The music, written by Elton John, didn't really do it for me, but there were a few pretty good songs. Overall it was really neat to see such a "talked about" show on Broadway. But I still think I liked Wicked, at gammage better.

We walked around times square one last time and hit up the hershey's store (had to get my pic with the Reeses section!), the M&M store, Jamba, etc.
On the way back to our hotel, I noticed Regina Spektor was at Radio City hall the night we left!!! As you can see from the sign, it was sold out, but I was still pretty bummed we missed it by a few hours! I totally would have stayed one more night for that (I know, it would've been such a sacrifice, right?).

One more stop by Rockefeller CenterThen we called it a night. (We had left the hotel at 10am that morning, and didn't get back till 1am! I know, we're wild and crazy, ha ha!)

Day 4 Highlights: 1. Max Brenner's 2. Brooklyn Industries 3. Greenwhich Villiage 4. Billy Elliot

Day 4 things I didn't expect: 1. To make it out of the dungeon-basement-locked room on canal st alive :) 2. To discover that the emblem on my REAL Dolce & Gabbana purse is totally off to the side and is supposed to be centered. DANGIT!!!

NYC: Day 3

Monday we woke up and started the journey/trek again. We first walked through the plaza (it was especially fun to see cause I just watched Bride Wars a couple weeks ago) then we headed over to Central Park.

Since I had seen the enormous size of prospects park, I wasn't as shocked by how big Central Park was, but it's HUGE!! We saw a lot of the sites in the park. The Pond:
This gold guy:
Cool Lookouts:

The Mall
The Fountain

The Lake

The Conservatory Pond

The Obelisk
Belvedere's Castle

Since it was Columbus day, we also got to see a NYC parade on 5th Ave. We didn't stay for the entire thing, but it was fun to see, and even more fun to talk with the police officers standing right by us, they were hilarious!
After walking the length of the park, we cut over to Broadway and started walking further north. We ate at a local pizza shop that was SO good, then kept walking up to the Seinfield Diner

Then to Columbia University.

It was quite the walk, but fun to see both of those things. Columbia University was such a beautiful campus!!

We then headed back down and passed the John Lennon IMAGINE memorial, and the Dakota building where he was shot.
To end the day we saw the LDS temple/church, then walked up to 5th Ave where we saw all of the cool shops (Prada, Diesel, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks,etc). We ate dinner at Alfredo's, which was pretty good, but pricey. Then walked back to our hotel around 9:30pm. Once again, after walking so much, we crashed pretty hard that night.

Day 3 Highlights: 1. Belvedere's Castle 2. Central Park in general

Day 3 things I didn't expect: 1. To see the Abercrombie model standing in the front of the store in just his briefs. Maybe that's how they got such prime real estate on 5th Ave :) 2. The Parade (totally forgot it was Columbus day) 3. My legs to staying attached to my body.