Kansas Trip {Part Three}

Okay, you guys, let's get real! This Kansas Trip was a whole month ago! With my "pregnancy brain" I can't even remember what I had for dinner last night, so I'm not about to try and remember every specific detail about our fun trip to the Kansas City Zoo. 

I can tell you a few things though.. So here they are:

+It was like 75 degrees and sunny on the day we decided to go to the zoo and it felt like summer! (Let's be honest, living in Idaho that's the closest I've been to summer since August.)

+Both babies had a blast! I don't think either had much of a morning nap, and they were still happy! 

+Speaking of no naps, Abbi gave up and fell asleep in her stroller half way through our day and she was OUT! Loud sounds, the sun in her eyes, stinky animals, nothing could wake her up! We gave her about 20 minutes to sleep and then I took her out of her stroller and woke her up. Let's just say I wasn't exactly her 'best friend' after that...

+ Hailey loved the penguins and Abbi loved the Lemurs. I think she stayed at their exhibit for 10 minutes just watching as each one leaped from branch to branch. {And can I just say I had this theme song running through my head the whole time. Drew had never heard of this show,  please tell me I'm not the only one?!?!} 

+We had an absolute blast! I wish we lived closer to Lindsay and Hailey, we could make this a daily thing and I don't think any of us would/could get sick of it. 

Thanks for the fun time Grandma, Lindsay and Hailey! We can't wait until the next time we can get together! 

Welcome Spring!

We love spring! It seems like the perfect time of year. The flowers start blooming, the birds are singing and it's good weather to go on a nice family walk and enjoy each others company. We had a random few days back in Feburary that were very springy. {And I didn't complain one bit.} This particular day, we waited until Drew got home from work, played with Abbi's car, and went on a walk around our neighborhood. 

We LOVE where we live! After only having two weeks to find a place and move, we were really nervous about signing a lease and being "stuck" in a place we hated. But I am absolutely certain that God had a BIG part in us finding this house to rent. It is the perfect size, less than a mile from Drew's school, in a great ward and there are a ton of kids in the neighborhood. We feel so blessed. 

As we walked, we started dreaming. There are a couple houses for sale and a few lots as well. One day we will buy/build a home and we will make it our own and raise our family there. I think about it often. But for now, we are just enjoying life where we are at. We're grateful for a good job, house, ward, community and family. I couldn't help but smile as I was holding my sweetheart's hand, he was pushing Abbigail in the stroller, she was talking to herself, and we were just reflecting on our many blessings. 

I'm looking forward to many more family walks just like this one. We love spring! It seems like the perfect time of year. 

Donkey Basketball

It's Friday Afternoon. Drew comes home from work and announces "Tonight is Donkey Basketball and I think we should go!" I grew up in a city of 60,000 people. I had 800 kids in my graduating class and we never, never, ever had a thing called "donkey basketball". I was sure Drew was pulling my leg. I thought for sure this was one of those times where he was teasing me and after he had convinced me it was real, he would come back a couple hours later and say, I was totally kidding, I can't believe you fell for it kind times. After two hours, I finally told him I would believe it when I see it. We first we to dinner at this cute, local pizza buffet. I gave it a thumbs up, plus it had a little photo booth there so of course we took advantage of it! 

After dinner, we drove over to the gym. We walked in, heard some kids say "Hi Brother Wright!" (I love when he gets recognized around town by his students.) We found our seats and a few minutes later they brought the donkeys in. 

You guys, this was probably the funniest (most funny?) thing I have seen in a long time! They rode donkeys and played basketball. It was nuts! Some donkeys wouldn't move, other donkeys booked it down the court it was hilarious! Abbigail was entertained the whole time! She thought the donkeys were horses. We tried teaching her donkeys say "hee-haw" but she was pretty content with a neigh. She yelled, laughed, cheered, clapped! Sitting on the bleachers wasn't good enough for her. She wanted to be right up against the railing, so she could really see what was going on. She's a hoot. 

^^ Failed Family Photo ^^

Long story short: Donkey Basketball IS a real thing and if you ever get the chance to go to a game, GO! It's root tootin good time! 

Sugar Cookie Photo Shoot (Fail)

Okay, first things first. If you haven't been to/stalked this website, visit it now! I'm not kidding. I'm so not kidding that I'm going to post it again...

CLICK HERE

Drew and I found that website one day and probably spent the next hour peeing our pants from laughing so hard. We weren't laughing AT the people... Okay, maybe we were, but we were laughing harder because we could relate! Seriously, that is the story of my pinterest projects!

{Our sugar cookie adventure was no different.}

I love reading other blogs, especially when I feel like I can relate to the blogger. For those of you who blog, you know that blogger that you have never met in real life, but you're pretty sure if you did meet in real life you would be inseparable best friends. Lauren is one of those bloggers for me. Her blog is cute, she is cute, her sweet little girl Millie is stinking cute and they live in the cutest little farm house. If you didn't catch it, they have a pretty cute life.

She posted this post last week and I died. Dare I say that word again?! CUTE! I thought this was the best idea and I couldn't get over how cute she was baking cookies with her prego belly and Millie standing next to her. I loved it and thought "Abbi and I should do something like that!"

Sugar cookies sounded good to me. A few weeks ago, I tried a recipe I found on Pinterest. I wasn't crazy about it. So for this sugar cookie making adventure I decided to go with the tasty premade dough from the store. But that also meant the only thing I could get pictures of was the frosting making.

Maybe I feel like this was a fail because I didn't have my tripod, so I had to hold the camera the whole time and couldn't really get any pictures of Abbi AND me. Maybe it was a fail because I don't know how to edit my pictures and we had terrible natural light. Maybe it was because unlike Lauren, my "prego belly" consist of 5% new baby belly and 95% flabby baby weight from my last pregnancy (so it's not the cutest.) Maybe it was a fail because instead of chocolate chip cookies, we did sugar cookies and the frosting was EVERYWHERE! It got on my walls, floor, Abbi's clothes (hence the naked baby), her hair and all over her body, but maybe that's what made it more fun!

We had a blast and Abbigail especially loved it, but it just didn't turn out how I wanted it to. Looking at the pictures now, I realize I got some cute pictures (Abbi makes anything look cute) but I think we will be trying this again. I can't stop, won't stop until I get my dang cute cookie making photoshoot. 

P.S. You guys should follow Lauren's blog. I'm not kidding. She is the cutest!
P.S.S If you guys have some good sugar cookie recipes, send them my way! Please and Thank You! 

I'm Back!

You guys, enough is enough! I'm pretty sure I've been sulking in my "I don't have anything to blog about" attitude long enough. I was reading past posts I've written and I realized I miss blogging! Plus, I'm only hurting myself when I don't do it. I was so good at recording our life and I've missed so much! So I'm back! Full force! Get ready for some great posts. For now, I'm just going to do some catch up posts. 

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Last year was a pretty challenging year for us. After graduation, we moved down to Inkom where Drew did is Student Teaching for Seminary. We love seminary, but student teaching was only a part time job. When Drew first started teaching, he was able to work with his dad as well, but his second trimester schedule didn't allow that. We were living off a part time job and that's hard financially and emotionally. We were trying really hard to put our trust in God because we had felt good and peaceful about Drew's decision to teach Seminary. This was what we were supposed to be doing. But if we're being honest, there were A LOT of hard, hard days. 

Then, just before Christmas, Drew got a call from his boss asking if we could come to his house and meet with him. I immediately felt my stomach drop. Just before this phone call, Drew had heard about a few different student teachers being told they weren't being hired and we didn't know what to expect. This was either really good or really bad. {Spoiler Alert: It was really good!}

He told us that they would like to offer us a full time position teaching seminary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And you guys, we were speechless. We had been praying for this day to come, but we totally weren't expecting it. He told us a spot had just opened up that morning in Kimberly, Idaho. My first thought? I don't even know where Kimberly, Idaho is, but I don't even care! We are accepting this job offer! ;) He told us we would have two weeks to pack, move and settle in. TWO WEEKS! Drew would start teaching on January 6th. 

After speaking with Drew's boss and his family for awhile, we accepted the job offer and headed home. We were both feeling overwhelmed. We drove home and googled our new home. Kimberly is about five minutes outside of Twin Falls. It has a population of about 3500. There are multiple gas stations, a grocery store, a couple fast food places, an elementary school, middle school and a high school and two different LDS churches. Not huge, but not as small as Inkom. We were thrilled! We told all of our family and then the fun started! 

Our life for the next two weeks was nuts! Between our drives to and from Kimberly to find a place to live, Christmas and packing, we had little time for anything else. Luckily, we have awesome family and they helped us get finished packing in no time. 

On January 3rd, the moving truck came and we headed over to our new home. 

We absolutely LOVE it here! The town is small enough that I pretty much know my way around and can even remember street names when talking to other people! Twin Falls is close enough that we have plenty of options for shopping and eating out. The weather is very mild compared to our previous homes (Rexburg and Inkom) and we love that! The people we have met are extremely friendly and we feel very comfortable here! We're excited to continue our adventure here and see what life has in store for us! 

Catch Up.

Okay you guys, let's get real. I don't know what happened to me. One day I was all "I love blogging!" and "I'm doing a post everyday!" Then one day I woke up and I didn't feel it. I didn't feel like taking my camera places to document and I didn't feel like putting my thoughts and feelings into words and creating a blog post. I just wasn't (and still not) feeling it.

I'm in a blogging rut

So in hopes of documenting events that have happened in the past two months, I'm  doing this catch up post. Hopefully, I can do something and my desire for blogging will come back full force! For my blogging friends, any suggestions? How do you find inspiration for blog posts? How can I get out of this rut? 

Okay, Let's get down to business...

Halloween (yup, it's been that long, my friends)

I have a love/hate relationship with pinterest. Seriously, I get so much inspiration from pinterest and I actually feel like I could be creative/crafty (which doesn't come naturally) so naturally I wanted to make Abbi's costume and I wanted all three of us to match. So I turned to Pinterest. Long story short, Halloween this year was SOOO stressful for me and procrastinating probably didn't help my feelings one bit. But I was doing everything last minute and I know we could of had better costumes but this is what we came up with: 

Seriously, Abbi could make anything look cute... But safe to say next year I'm going to buy our costumes. 

Also, the week of Halloween my Sister-in-law gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and their little boy Ryker came up to Inkom and stayed with Drew's parents. It was So fun to play with Ryker! Abbi LOVES him! She would follow him everywhere and laugh at every silly thing he did! They are so funny. 

At the beginning of November there was a gorgeous fall day and I forced Drew and Abbi to go outside and take pictures with me. I think they turned out pretty good. Obviously, they would have been better if Abbi would have been looking at the camera, but it was her nap time and I'll take what I can get. 

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, We drove to Washington to spend time with my family! We had such a nice time! My Aunt Holly and Uncle Casey and their seven kids drove up from Utah. We had a packed house, but that made it all the more fun! Of course we got spoiled while we were there. (My mom is really good at doing that, and I love it! ;) 

Also, 1000,000,000 brownie points to my Sister-in-law Nicole for having her baby while we were there! Seriously, It made my whole week! There is just something about holding a newborn baby that makes the whole world seem okay again. Right? Kaysen is the cutest little guy in the world! I'm one happy aunt! 

Proud Grandma and Grandpa. 

Seriously?! Have you seen anything cuter?

Drew's Birthday! 

On December 3rd, Drew turned 25! I can't believe I married such an old man! But in all seriousness, I am so blessed to have Drew in my life! I knew two weeks into dating Drew that I wanted to marry him. It was the easiest and best decision I have ever made! For his birthday Abbi and I took him his favorite lunch at school and then we he got off work, We dropped Abbi off at Nana and Grandpa's and We went out to dinner. It was pretty relaxed and very enjoyable! Happy Birthday Handsome! 

The next day, we had our ward Christmas party! Santa came! Abbi met Santa for the first time last year:

She couldn't have cared less about the guy. This year was a whole different story! 

She couldn't stand him! But, I guess that's pretty typical.. Maybe next year will be more of a success! 

Let's speed things up a bit, shall we?! 

We set up our Christmas tree that same week and I LOVE it! So does Abbi! She loves taking the ornaments off the tree, I hate love putting them back on and we both love the eat the candy canes off the tree! MMMMM! 

Drew's Great Grandma Passed away on December 7th. She was 97 years old! NINTEY SEVEN! She was so sweet and happy. She is and will be missed by many, but we are so happy she can be reunited with her sweet husband. I'm grateful that we will be able to see her again! Also, a lot of family came from out of town for her funeral, some of whom I hadn't met before. That was nice to have the whole family together. 

Abbi learned how to say "cheeeeese"...

... and how to take pictures of herself on the iPad. 

It's been snowing quite a bit lately, one morning we took Abbi out and introduced her to the snow. She loved it until she fell... then she didn't like it anymore. 

I think that pretty much gets us caught up. Life is so busy, but at the same time nothing is really happening. Does that even make sense?! Abbigail is such a joy. Her personality shines through and even though she can be a handful, I love how independent and stubborn she is ( I guess she gets that from me.) 

Thanks for reading this EXTRA long catch up post. If you finished you deserve a plate of Christmas cookies or something...