Wedding Bells

My bossom friend tied the knot!

And wasn't she a beautiful bride? Congrats Mandy. I love you!!!

Baby Bump

Here we are at 32 weeks and feeling great. As expected, there are many sleepless nights, moments of discomfort, backaches, fatigue and even some new nausea setting in, but overall I am feeling healthy and happy. I love to feel a little elbow or heel in my side and his hiccups are becoming a regular thing. Down to about a month and a half left, yay!

Autumn Thoughts

This is my favorite time of year. I love feeling the chill in the air, which means I can wear sweaters and boots. (Or maybe just boots since my sweaters won't be fitting me!) I love the fall colors. They are the warmest, homiest (that word is for you Kate) colors. I love the produce, namely, peaches. And guess what I did...I bottled my own peaches last week. Eight jars to be exact, and next year I plan on atleat doubling that. I love the excitement in the air, because fall means Halloween, pumpkins, Thanksgiving, snow and then Christmas! Oh, and one more thing this year for us, a baby! I can't believe how fast it is going. I am 30 weeks now. I will try to post another picture soon, if I ever remember to charge my camera and actually take a picture. There is still so much to do, and so much going on. I have been so busy and stressed I have to remind myself to stop and enjoy my pregnancy and the little body inside of me moving around. Between working full time, remodeling our house, being 7 months pregnant and keeping up with all the other pressures of life, time just seems to be flying. It is all becoming very real now. Watching Autumn sneak in and change the fall leaves is like a small reminder to me daily of the major changes that are headed my way in life. Most days are a mix of excitement and anxiety but overall I can't wait for us to hold our baby and kiss him and bring him home. It will be the most memorable December of my life, I am sure. For now, I am grateful for the fall time and the calming feel it gives me. There is certainly a lot to stress about in life. Every one of us has our lot to carry, so stop and take a deep breath today and soak in fall. I promise it will make you feel better!

Call Me Cook

So about once a day, I get an expression on my face that looks like this:


And I am asking myself this.....
"What am I going to make for dinner?"

Sound familiar? Well if so, it is time for you to visit my brother Jake and sister-in-law Amanda's website: www.callmecook.com. It is full of tried and tested wonderful recipes. It actually gets me (a pregnant, tired, usually cranky by dinner time girl) excited about cooking again. Who isn't in need of some inspiration now and then?

Beautiful Bride

July 31, 2009 was a good day. Congrats Whit and Tyler!

Girlfriends. Kenzie, Whitney, Whitney and Annie.

Adam, Todd and Jordan.

Baby Update and More

So I guess it is time to post some pictures of pregnant me. We realized a few weeks back we hadn't even taken a single picture of me pregnant yet so we took my first one at about 18 weeks, which is the one below.



So here we are at nearly 24 weeks and counting. (Please excuse the messy, undone hair!) I can't believe how much he has grown in the last few weeks, which means I also can't believe how much I have grown in the last few weeks.



Here are some things I love about being pregnant:

* I love to feel him kicking and moving. It makes it all real. Todd thinks it is fun to shine a flash light on my belly because baby pushes back on the light. It is their little game.
* I love it when he gets the hiccups. So cute!
* I love seeing other peoples sweet babies and knowing soon enough we will have our own.
* I love hearing his heart beating.
* I love to see peoples smiles when they see a pregnant belly. There is something about it that people are drawn to (obviously more women than men!). It is even fun to have strangers ask how far along I am, except for Todd's coworker who asked him if I was having the baby really soon. Hmmm....NOPE.
* I love just thinking about the fact that I have a little person living inside of me, depending on me. I think it is the neatest thing I will ever experience in my life and I feel blessed I get the opportunity.

Now allow me to make one or two little complaints about being pregnant:

* Insane muscle cramps in my calves. I had heard some people say they experienced these when they were pregnant, and I have now joined the club. Altering my diet a little has helped lately, but I wake up afraid to stretch out my legs at all!
* Maternity clothes. Enough said.

But overall, I feel like I have had a great pregnancy so far and time is flying. December 5th will be here before we know it and there is still a lot to do before he comes.

Some other things have been growing around our house besides me and baby. Todd picked this entire bowl of cherries off of our very own cherry tree in our backyard! I am so happy it actually grew cherries because my favorite dessert in the world is homemade cherry pie with vanilla ice cream. And the great thing is you can freeze these cherries and have cherry pie all year long. Yeah!




This lovely flower randomly grew on the side of our driveway. I liked it until we found the huge, bright yellow spider living on it! Have you ever seen a spider like this in your life?

Our Home Makeover

So I finally gave in and took some pictures of our house. We are getting closer to finishing the projects we have begun, and then have millions of projects waiting, but we have made some progress. This entire process is fun, stressful and very tiring. I don't know if I could do it all over again because now I know just how much work it is! That being said, I have to say there is something very fulfilling in creating your own little nest! Todd and I (and really mostly Todd) have done all the work by ourselves, except for the granite countertops. Those were magically there one day when we got home from work, which felt so nice to just have something done by someone else when we got home, even though we paid the price! So here is a sneak peak of the Crowther house hold.....

BATHROOM BEFORE... (lovely!)


BATHROOM AFTER... (still not totally finished)


KITCHEN BEFORE... (thanks brother Rob, who came and steam cleaned our tile)


KITCHEN AFTER... (also not totally finished yet)

This picture doesn't do the kitchen justice, first because you can't tell from this picture that those cabinets took 3 months to refinish but second, because you can hardly see the cute backsplash Todd put in for me. It is a tan stone in a brick pattern and it turned out so cute! He did such a good job tiling the backsplash and bathroom shower, considering it was his first time ever tiling.

And there you have it! The kitchen still needs painted walls, crown and base board and a few other touch up things and then it will truly be finished. The bathroom also just has a few finishing jobs to do, but for the most part they are done and it feels so good! Our next projects will be our yard and a nursery for baby. Oh boy, there is so much to do still! And by the way, this doesn't excuse you from coming to visit us in Oakley!!!