Friday Five

It's been a while since I've done a Friday post!  I feel like we haven't had much going on to talk about.  I guess today we still don't, but I'm going to give it a whirl anyway!

-As of Monday of this week, I'm 14 weeks pregnant! Which means I am in my second trimester now.  Hooray!  I've been feeling great and never even got sick!  Things are good :)

- Elise has decided she would rather be a cat.  You can often hear her say, "Meow Meow" when she is upset or happy about something.  The best is when she'll wake up at 3am  from a dream and instead of crying we get meowing. It is hilarious!

-Saturday morning we have a Relief Society activity for our Church!  I am on the committee that helped plan it and it will be a lot of fun!  It is a Christmas craft activity.  We are making ornaments, banners, cards/tags and some yummy cookie mixes in a jar.  I'm also making some delicious wassail to bring :)

-Thanks to our Netflix account, we/I've been getting sucked into a few new TV shows.  On my own I've been watching the show Felicity.  I've been enjoying it and Zack has been judging me for it.  Together we have started to watch the show Firefly.  It's only 14 episodes but we like it so far!

-Sunday night Zack said to me, "Well it was nice while it lasted.  See you Dec. 14th."  He has already been busy and studying hard for his finals week!  This week hasn't been too bad but I know next week will be worse!  In other Zack news he registered this week for Step 1 of the BOARD exams.  Kinda crucial and important for becoming a doctor. Scary and exciting all at the same time!

Nemo's been Found!

Elise's favorite movie as of late, is Finding Nemo.  She loves the part at the end when Nemo and his Dad are reunited!  She gets very excited and it is so so cute to watch!  Please watch the 18 second clip.  You won't regret it.  You might even just smile about it. 

 

Thanksgiving

This year we kept things small. We stayed right here in Milwaukee and didn't even need to get in the car to get to dinner :)  We decided to get together with our friends, the Rogersons.  They live in the building next door.  Katie's husband Colin is an M3 and they have two cute little girls.  Katie and I planned out the menu a week in advance, and mmmmm it was delicious! 

This was the first time I was ever in charge of making so many Thanksgiving dishes!  Since being married I have brought a dish here and there but this year I was in charge of a lot- it was a fun task to tackle! 

One thing I was in charge of were the rolls.  I used my mom's recipe since it is my favorite!  She only makes these for our family a few times a year so I knew that I had to make them!  They turned out great and I think I made her proud!

I also made an apple pie.  I cheated a little on this- I used a store bought pie crust but I did all the filling myself!  I think it was delicious even thought I didn't make the whole thing from scratch! 

Here is the rest of the spread all laid out and ready to eat!  I was also in charge of the green bean casserole, pretzel jello and a veggie tray.  Colin and Katie made a delicious turkey and I'm glad that they took charge of that! 

We started dinner at 3:30 and Katie had her table set beautifully!  We put the girls in the other room at a kid table and we got to enjoy our meal!  We had a great time :)  The girls had a lot of fun playing with each other and we even got them distracted long enough to squeeze in a game or two to play! 

We have a looong list of so many things to be thankful for!  I'll spare you the long list but know what we are incredibly grateful for the wonderful lives we lead, for family, for the Gospel and many many more blessing that we have. 

Zack's Birthday

Zack turned the big 2-7 on November 14th!  We tried to celebrate the day in style and to make sure that he felt loved and appreciated!  We started out the morning by surprising him with breakfast in bed- crepes!  They were delicious, if I do say so myself! 

Unfortunately, real life does continue even if it is your birthday so he had to head off to school!  Elise and I wrapped all of his gifts and made him his birthday cake AND his favorite cookies (homemade oreos) while he was gone! 

When he got him the fun began!  We had a yummy dinner complete with the famous "You Are Special" plate :)  After dinner we got out all of our surprises! 

Elise had so much fun helping Daddy I'm pretty sure that she thought it was her birthday, it was so cute!!  Instead of a traditional card we made him a candy gram!  It's way more clever and funny and comes with a bunch of candy, so who wouldn't like it?!

I always have a very difficult time thinking of anything I can get for Zack for his birthday, I was so relieved when he liked his shoes!

We also got him a new sweatshirt and long sleeve shirt to get him through the cold Wisconsin winter. 

When we sang him Happy Birthday Elise was very excited and enjoyed being sung to.  I think she is getting to be a pro at this birthday thing!  Zack requested I made "BTS" cake or Skor cake if you will. It was very tasty!!  It was a great day and lots of fun!  We had a great time celebrating one of our favorite people!  Happy Birthday Zack, we sure do love you!!

Getting Even

That's right!!  We've decided to go from 3 members of our family to FOUR!!  We are very excited to welcome a new little one.  Due date: May 28th 2013!  Here is a picture of our cute little bean :)

So far everything is going great!  I've been feeling a little dizzy and sick here and there but fortunatley, I've been able to keep everything down!  Thanks everyone for the well wishes!  And thanks cousin Emily for letting me steal the blog post idea.

Notre Dame vs. BYU

We were lucky enough to get tickets to go to the Notre Dame vs. BYU football games a few weeks ago!  My Dad was kind enough to get them for us when he found out that they would be playing and how close we lived!  Its about a 3.5 hour drive from our home- not bad! 

The best part was that a few of Zack's siblings and his Mom all decided to come out for the game too!  We were able to spend some time with them in South Bend as well as Chicago; it was a great weekend!

Here is a picture of Touchdown Jesus as they all call him.  Unfortunately, more touchdowns were made in ND favor than our this game, but we still had fun! The campus at Notre Dame is really pretty and for how large a school it is, it's very close together!  We had fun roaming around the campus to the bookstore and other places.

It was a beautiful day and perfect weather for a football game!  It was fun to be at an away game (neither of us had been to one before!) and to sit among all the other BYU fans who came out to support!  The game started off great!  We just won't talk about the rest....

After the game we decided to do the true "Notre Dame experience" and eat at Legends Grill.  Let's just say it wasn't that legendary...but we had a fun time with everyone!  We loved having Zack's family out for a visit- thanks for coming guys!!

Trick or Treat!

Every year the medical school lets all the kids come trick or treating!  It's great :)  All the offices on every floor decorate and make the school look very fun and spooky!  It's lots of fun to go and follow the footsteps on all the floors to find the different places to go!  There is lots of yummy candy to have and the best part is- I don't have to be outside in the cold!  It's a pretty great set up if you ask me! 

When we got ready to go I tried to get Elise to wear her costume (Minnie Mouse) and she would have NOTHING to do with it!!  I was so sad!  Nothing I could do would convince her to wear it :(  I even brought out another costume I found the week before for next year and she still didn't want it!!  So she finally let me at least have her wear her Halloween pajamas!  I guess that's better than nothing, right? 

We were joined by our friend Angie and her cute girl Kennedy- who Elise calls "Kee", it's pretty cute!  She made a pretty cute little witch!

We got there on the latter end of the trick or treating hours and I'm pretty sure we were some of the last people to come around to the offices!  Everyone kept telling them to take lots- more than one!  So much for teaching her to just take one from everyone! She did get good at saying "trick or treat" and "thank you", so I'll take it!

We were lucky enough to have Zack get a little break from studying so he could come with us!  It was a fun treat to get to see Daddy for a little bit during the day!  After you trick or treat they have even more treats and juice and games to play down in the cafeteria- we had a great time!  Can't wait until next year!! 

Carving Pumpkins

There's nothing like waiting until the LAST minute, but Elise and I were finally able to carve/paint our pumpkins on Halloween!!  I got it all set up and Elise got really excited when she saw what was in store!  I quickly devised a painting smock out of a trash bag for her to wear so she wouldn't ruin her clothes and, of course, some still got on her shirt- but that's okay! 

Elise is a very focused and attentive girl when she wants to be!  Activities like coloring and painting she wants it to be perfect :)  She had a really fun time with her pumpkin!

Mom and Elise saying "cheese" to the camera!

I don't know if you can see it very well, but I carved an owl into my pumpkin!  Elise was really excited when I lit mine and put it out on the front porch. She kept trying to go out and look at it, it was really cute!  We had a great time and I see many more carving nights in our future!