Maternity pictures

Tomorrow is officially our due date and we are celebrating by posting some pictures from our maternity photo shoot... It is really important for me to remember what it is like to be pregnant and I really wanted our daughter to be able to see pictures of me when she was inside:) Steve said the photo shoot reminded him of getting engagement photos done and in a way it kind of was like that! We think they turned out great though and are so excited to share them with you!

Also, if we don't have her by Friday they are going to induce me. I am scheduled to go in this Thursday evening to get some sort of cervical ripening drug and will stay overnight, then they will induce me the next morning. We are definitely having a baby this week!!! Wish us luck:)

The Nursery

I am so in love with the nursery! After months of work it is finally ready for a baby to live here! Steve and I have had such a great time working on it, even if my need for everything to be perfect did drive him a little bit crazy at times! I am so excited to be able to show off our hard work. It looks like a lot but we really did do it all for very cheap... I feel good about the great deals we got and even though it was a lot of extra work making a lot of the things myself (like the crib bedding, the dresser, the hanging wall bookshelves, the pom poms and frames) it was worth it to safe the money and have a sense of accomplishment in the end:) We also had so many generous gifts from baby showers and my mom who truly spoiled us! She bought us the really cute white storage bench among many other things and I am so grateful for her generosity and love... 

Without further ado... 

THE NURSERY

(Hint... Click on pictures to enlarge and get the whole room experience)

 We still need to buy (or make) a seat cushion and some cute pillows for our little window seat but I think that project will have to wait until after the baby comes since I have ran out of steam for the time being...

 We have a picture to go in between those two white squares but I still need to paint the frame to match... Another project that will probably wait until after the baby.

 And of coarse it wouldn't be complete unless Weston tried it out and gave his seal of approval...

Good news... He loved it! Lets hope baby does too:)

The Name Game...

So Steve and I are still trying to pick a name for our unborn child that is due in 2 weeks... I'm feeling a bit frazzled!!! How could picking a name be so hard? Well, if it was up to me it wouldn't be hard at all because I have my favorite name picked out and it really hasn't changed since the beginning. Steve on the other hand does not share my clarity. It has been really hard working together to try and find names that we both agree on. Steve likes the more traditional names and I lean towards the more non-traditional. I know lots of you have ran into the same problem. I don't want to "ruin" my child's life by giving her too crazy of a name, but if it bothers some people that they miss-pronounce their names I can't relate... People say my name wrong surprisingly all the time and it doesn't bother me at all. So when I consider names I am just looking for something that feels right and Steve is looking for the safest bet. So that is where we are at now.... Just confused. I want her to have a name that we both love! If Steve doesn't love it, it won't work for me either. Now if we could just agree! I can feel the time running out! Thanks for letting me vent...

Christmas 2011

Christmas time was magical as always. I just loved being in Utah with the family for almost a week and a half! I wasn't ready to go back yet but I guess it's back to real life:( At least I have my sister and Haddy with us. They made the long drive back with Steve and I on Monday and will be staying with us until next Monday. Steve & Weston suffer from what Steve calls "vacation separation depression". After any type of vacation they both slip into some kind of deep depression for a little while because they miss it so much, it's nice to have some family with us to ease us back into real life. My mom will also be joining us on Thursday and I'm really hoping to buckle down and get all my projects finished. My goal is to be completely ready for baby in 2 weeks so that I can just relax until she comes.

Here are a few pictures from this holiday season.

Presents under our Christmas tree. It looks so bare now that they are all gone:(

I love Christmas decorations:) I am sad it's past new years now because I'm not ready to take them down yet. I think I will at least leave  them up for another week.

This year we spent Christmas Eve and morning with my side of the family. Besides the water heater breaking the night before it was a very special Christmas and so much fun to have a baby around!

Steve and Weston. Weston has his special Christmas sweater on all ready to open presents!

This year I was pretty sick on Christmas with like a sinus infection or something. So Christmas morning we all slept in and then a few of the family members went to church and when they came back we did presents. It was a very relaxing morning which was nice.

Haddy's first Christmas! She had a lot of fun opening presents and playing with the wrapping paper. It's the simple things for them right? I loved being there to see it.

This year Justin was our Christmas elf with his ugly Christmas sweater on.

All the Cook children in our matching pajamas.

Haddy helping Weston with his present. 

Don't I look lovely? Not! 

After Christmas morning we went to Steve's parents house and had a great time. Weston got to play with the kids and we got to play fun board games! We had a fantastic Christmas! 

The rest of the vacation was nice. I had a couple of baby showers (which I already posted about below) and we switched off staying with my family and Steve's family. We got to do some fun things like bowling with Jeremy and Janessa. Having lunch with all the Murray girls while the guys watched the BYU football game, seeing my close friends and enjoying the nice weather! The weather was amazing the whole time we where in Utah, I was surprised because last year it seemed like a giant snow storm the whole time.

I saved the best for last... One night while we where at Steve's parents house his mom ran out to the grocery store. When she came back we were all playing games and she walked in and said that we better drop what we are doing and come make sure there is no damage to our cars. Of coarse we where confused especially when she told us that there was a trampoline in the front yard that had somehow gone over all of our cars in the drive way. Sure enough we walk out and this was the sight we saw...

Yes that is a dent in our car. Apparently it was so windy that the wind caused this tramp to become airborne (like in a tornado movie) and it rolled over all of our cars damaging each one. The insurance adjuster was a little surprised when we told them what happened but we took lots of pictures just in case we would have to prove what happened. Pretty crazy right?

We definitely had an eventful trip and we wouldn't have changed anything about it! We are sad the holidays are over but can't wait to do it again next year with our daughter! 

Baby showers in Utah

I was so lucky to be able to have 2 baby showers while I was in Utah visiting over Christmas. I have been totally stressing lately because I only have 5 weeks to go and I don't feel ready at all! I wonder if I ever will? At least after these 2 showers I feel a little bit better because we really did get a lot of things we needed. Thank you everybody that could come and thanks again for EVERYTHING!

This was me before we left for Utah at 33 weeks.

SWISS MISS SHOWER

My mom has this wonderful group of friends and they call themselves the "Swiss misses" because they all go up to Swiss days in Heber Utah every year and have a girls trip. They are all so nice and wonderful and they put together this little shower for me at the Olive Garden.

The Swiss Misses

It had been a while since I had seen this girl! Kristen and I go way back having grown up in the same ward.

 Myself, Ann and Alli

 My wonderful mother, Robin and Kit who suggested I name our baby girls middle name after her... We will see:)

 I received so many great things...

Baby girl Murray is going to very stylin'.

This was such a fun shower... Very low key and just nice to be able to sit and chat with fun people.

THE FAMILY SHOWER

This was a big one! I was very spoiled and my Aunt Kathy and a lot of other people put a lot of work into making this so much fun. The theme was baby shoes and I loved it! All of the decorations where darling and all of the food was gluten free and delicious! I was truly spoiled here:)

Little Hadder's at the shower entertaining us with her silly faces. 

Janessa, Jennifer, Aubrey and my mother in Law Linda all made the difficult and long journey to come to my shower. I was so glad they did. Linda even came even though just a week earlier she had knee surgery! They are amazing.

 Long time friends Brittney and Ashley. I always love seeing and hanging out with them!

Aunt Linda with Haddy. I love this picture!

The classic "opening presents shot" Here I am modeling the cutest little giraffe and outfit.   

I have so many talented friends and family! My sister in law Jennifer made me tons of cute things. Here are a few of the cute things she made.

Haddy really enjoyed the wrapping paper portion of the night. 

Alli, Aunt Linda, Haddy and myself!

I love this shot. Brittney is due only 1 week after me! Our birthdays are exactly a week apart so it's only fitting that our daughters our too:) 

 Murray family

Harris family

I am so grateful for everyone coming and showering me with gifts. I really enjoyed seeing all of my family especially the ones I don't get to see very often. I love you all SO much and feel so blessed to know so many wonderful people.

31 week ultrasound

Last week Steve and I got to go have a 4D ultrasound done and it was so much fun. I was a little disappointed because we really only got one good 4D shot and one good normal shot. Baby girl had her face VERY close to the placenta and therefore the machine had a hard time determining where the face ended and the placenta began. I guess she is just getting bigger!

She is still in the perfect position for delivery and has her body bent in half with her feet right up close to her mouth. I loved seeing the 4D images but by far my favorite part of the ultrasound was watching her move her mouth, tongue and hands. It was fascinating to me to see a real baby moving around so much doing real baby things. It seemed like she had recently discovered her tongue because she kept sticking it out and in over and over again. She also kept trying to shove her hands AND feet into her mouth multiple times. 

I love this picture with her mouth wide open. She looks like she is either yawning or getting ready to shove her hand in her mouth again.

This was the 4D shot that we got. I feel like she has very feminine features and I love looking at her pretty lips.

So now we are in the home stretch. With only 8 weeks to go it is really starting to set in that we will be getting a child soon. Hard to believe because even though I know we are pregnant I have a hard time imagining that she will ever actually come out of me.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving this year we had a very pleasant surprise! We originally were planning on going to a friends house to share the great feast with them but a few days before we found out that Steve's dad Mike and 3 of the kids were going to be coming to stay with us for the weekend! This was exciting news because that meant that we wouldn't be spending the holiday alone and I had an excuse to make thanksgiving dinner (which I actually really enjoy making). Dinner was delicious and we got to play lots of board games over the long weekend. The kids enjoyed just dance on the wii and I think they played it every spare second they had! Steve and Mike got to enjoy golfing a couple times while I hung out with the kids and enjoyed some fun activities.

I think one of the highlights for the kids and myself was taking Weston to the dog park. Now that it's nice weather I really try to take him once or twice a month to interact with his other furry friends. He really enjoys it and it always wears him out. We have a bunch of dog park options here and I usually just take him to the closest one but this time since I had the kids with me I decided to take him to the fancy one a little further away. I wish I took pictures because it is truly an amazing park. It has a man made lake for the dogs to swim in and an area with an obstacle coarse for training. The kids had a total blast playing with all the dogs there and seeing the many different breeds and personalities. 

After we got home from the dog park Tanner and TayLynn kept BEGGING me to let them go swimming in the pool. They had actually been begging me for the last 3 days and I kept trying to tell them that the water was too cold but they didn't believe me. I finally gave in and let them find out for themselves. They didn't last too long:)

This is where they stood for about 20-30 minutes daring each other to be the first one to jump in... 

This is TayLynn realizing that I wasn't lying about how cold the water was. 

That is as far as anyone made it but it didn't stop them from trying again later that same day! The kids did have a grand time trying to conquer the cold water and I was happy they had fun.

The night before they all left we decided to go and see the Mesa temple Christmas lights. They looked amazing and it was so fun to get into the Christmas spirit and remember why we celebrate it each year. I LOVE Christmas time, I love everything about it and I am so excited to travel back to Utah and spend it with family again this year.

After the smaller part of the Murray clan left we attempted to do family Christmas pictures at home. They did NOT turn out good at all I am sad to say but I posted a few of them anyway because I really put a lot of time and thought into them and I didn't want them to be a complete waste.

I had this brilliant idea to take pictures of us in ugly Christmas sweaters, I even got the dog one but after showing them to Steve he informed me that they were not ugly enough. I disagree, I think they are hideous but Steve was worried people would think we were serious. Just for fun here are our reject Christmas pictures even though we ended up using one for our Christmas card:)

Ugly sweaters # 1

Giant over sized Christmas tree sweater.

Negative: Really bad lighting. We had serious camera issues.

Positive: At least Weston was looking at the camera in this one:)

Ugly sweaters # 2

Come on. How is what I am wearing not the ugliest thing on this planet???

Negative: Bad lighting again, dog interested in ANYTHING other that getting his photo taken. 

Positive: Nothing. Just nothing. 

Normal clothes # 1

This one will be part of our holiday card but due to the bad lighting I had to improvise a little bit. It was still the best option out of all of them so WINNER...

Normal clothes # 2

What does Weston keep looking at??? You would think a bright flashing light, a stuffed toy and mounds of treats stacked by the camera would attract his interest. I guess not:)

Happy December from the Murray's!