It's a good day.

Okay, so I know those pictures are a bit premature, but spring is coming. I'm so excited! Thanks to being pregnant, I'm a little bit warmer than usual, so I can go outside without a jacket and it feels great. Not to mention that the weather actually has been lovely the past few days. This morning the birds were chirping as I walked to my car. Ryan and I are going on a mini vacation this weekend. And yesterday I went and got new underthings to fit my pregnant body, so I feel like a whole new woman. It's a good day.

Ryan is on the BYU home page!!!!

So, as you can tell from the title, Ryan is on the BYU home page. He received an ORCA grant for the research that he is doing, and I guess BYU thought his project was so cool that they decided to interview him and put his story on the home page.

Here is a link to the home page. His is the middle story. Here is a screen shot of it, in case the traffic to the home page is too high due to Ryan's popularity.


And here is a link to the actual story that talks about his research.

Also on a side note, Ryan got accepted to the BYU mechanical engineering masters program. He is going to continue working with Dr. Thomson doing this research. We're very excited.

Our Valentine's Day

Since Valentine's Day last week was a Saturday, we got to spend the whole day together. We mostly just hung out and relaxed, which was fun for us but boring to blog about. I will tell you about what we made for dinner, though. We made fondue and had all sorts of yummy dipping things. We made cheese fondue and had french bread, roasted potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, snow peas, and apples to dip in it. We also had lil smokies on the side that were delicious. Then for dessert we had chocolate fondue with angel food cake, brownies, strawberries, and cheesecake to dip in it. We got so full we ate barely half of everything we made, but it was so yummy and we had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of everything all laid out.



Ryan also got me these beautiful flowers. I'm not a huge fan of red roses so he always tries to get me something a little different. I think he did a good job this year. I love pink daisies!



I also made sugar cookies. I have the most amazing recipe for sugar cookies and they always turn out so yummy and soft (not hard like most other recipes), so I make them pretty much every chance I get. I decided to post the recipe so you guys can give them a try if you want. Seriously, I'm not that good of a cook and they turn out perfect every time.

Amazing Sugar Cookies

1 1/4 cup butter - softened

2 cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

5 cups flour

1 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter, sugar, vanilla. Mix in eggs and milk. Mix in all dry ingredients. Roll dough out on a floured surface to 1/4 inch thick. (I usually have to knead in some more flour until the dough stops sticking to my fingers. Feel free to use a lot of flour for rolling out the cookies too.) Cut into desired shapes. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes. Cool and frost.

Buttercream frosting

1/2 cup butter

4 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1-2 Tbsp milk

1/2 tsp salt

Cream it all together. Use more or less milk based on desired consistency. If coloring frosting, use color first and then milk so frosting isn't too thin.

Store left over cookies in a tupperware container and they will stay soft for days. I'm eating one right now and it's still so good!

And lastly I will post an updated belly picture, cause everyone has been telling me that I got huge in the past few weeks. I think I've been huge all along, but I do feel like I have gotten a bit bigger. I just looked at the last belly picture, though, and the only difference is there is no snow out the window now, which I'm extremely grateful for. Oh well, I'll post it anyway.



Baby Ryan still has no name, but he is kicking harder lately and you can see it if you look at my belly when he kicks. He's been a good baby, so far, and hasn't hurt me or kicked me in the ribs yet. I appreciate that. Hopefully he can keep that up.

100 Days

I have 100 days left till my due date. It seems like so long but I'm almost 2/3 of the way there. He's going to be here before we know what happened. The first 180 days seemed to take forever, but now that I look back I can't believe how time has flown.

Seeing the 100 days left makes me think about the 100th day of school. We used to bring in 100 of something to show everyone. I preferred to bring in 100 things you could eat. I think to celebrate my 100 days left I will eat 100 of something. Maybe m&m's, or those mini marshmallows, or chocolate covered raisins, or 100 cups of ice cream. Yummm! I might have to have Ryan help me with the ice cream. Or maybe I will buy 100 things, like baby clothes, and clothes for me, and baby toys, and fabric for more baby crafts. Any other ideas on what I should do to celebrate my 100 days left?

I have the best husband in the whole world!

Last week I finished the baby quilt. It was a lot more work than I thought it would be, cutting out all the squares and sewing it all together, but I think it turned out really cute. I love it! Here I am sewing the silky binding on. Thanks to Shannon for her help with that.


Here is the finished product.


And here is a close up of the binding. I used a cool leafy stitch on the edges.

On Saturday Ryan and I went to 3 different stores to look at crib mattresses. After hours of going through and looking at them we picked out the one we wanted only to find out it was out of stock. They called the store up in Salt Lake and they were out of stock too, and there weren't any in the warehouse and they had no idea when they would be getting more. I was so sad. I had finished the quilt and I was really excited to finish putting the bed all together. Plus we had a coupon and I had no idea if they would be getting more mattresses in stock in time for us to use the coupon.

My wonderful husband called around to different stores today to try and find the mattress. He finally found one at the store up in Salt Lake that had been on hold for someone on Saturday when we were trying to buy it, but they never came to get it so the store put it back on the shelf. Ryan had it put on hold and drove all the way up to Salt Lake just to get the mattress for me. When I got home from work I had a surprise waiting for me. I was so shocked and excited! We put the sheets and quilt on the bed right away. Here's the picture of the finished crib, with all our baby's stuffed animals waiting for him.

Thank you so much Ryan. I love you!