O' Sunny Days!

After last year's spring in Boise, I am so thankful that we've had such a warm, sunny spring.  Chris continues his trend of napping on outside loungers, Bella continues to protect her orange "ball" for hours at a time outside, and we are all enjoying the beautiful weather we've had.

Catalina Chics

This weekend I celebrated one of my favorite girls with my favorite girls.  Lisa and I met freshman year when we lived next door to each other.  As two nerds, we hit it off instantly and I spent the next three years of college sharing a room with her.  I treasure those days and I treasure this girl who is getting married this summer.  In celebration of Ms. Hickey's last few weeks of bacheloretthood, we all headed to Catalina Island and had a wonderful, laugh-filled weekend together.

We made friends at the local watering holes. 

We walked up to the Botanical Gardens in t-shirts designed by the Huz.

We took golf cart tours.

We made the best of not the best weather and I took pictures like it was my job.

We enjoyed massive amounts of girl talk ...

 and I so enjoyed my girl time before this little boy enters the world!

I cannot wait to take my swollen feet to this wedding (fingers crossed) and to top off the celebration of Ms. Hickey with these girls who are such a wonderful gift.

Full Bloom

Although I am writing about it a bit late, we had a great Easter. We had the nicest weather that I can remember for any Easter weekend. We attended a great church service, had a huge brunch with my dad and Robin and then topped it off with Easter dinner with my mom. It was a pregnant lady's dream.

I showed up to my mom's house in a matching colored shirt.

My first batch of bulbs bloomed just in time for a little Easter cheer!  Our grass turned green and now our trees are in full bloom, as am I. Love this time of year!

Weeks 21 and 24

When we were on vacation, several of our friends commented that it appeared that I grow by the day.  I think that they are right. This baby has certainly hit some kind of growth spurt because my baby bump is no longer a bump, it is more like a baby mound and I am now obviously pregnant to the outside world.  These last few weeks have been great.   The baby is up to a pound and more than 11 inches long now, which explains the increased force with which he kicks and jabs.  We lie in bed at night sometimes and just watch my belly moving.  It really is pretty amazing.

And to show have much my size can change based on my where this baby is sitting, look how much bigger this picture is than the the last one (even though it is a little more zoomed in).  Whooooa baby!

The only other side effect that I have these days is that some days I have feet with veins and tendons and bones.  Other days I have Pillsbury dough boy feet.  I thought it was salt intake and being on my feet that was causing their swelling.  However, I had bacon for breakfast and worked in the yard all day last Saturday and woke up to my regular feet.  So I have narrowed the lovely swelling down to being sedentary at work.  Even more of a reason to leave early each day, right? ;) 

I also got knocked out by a cold this week forcing me to breathe like Darth Vader at night, according to Chris, and forcing him for the first time in our marriage to sneak out of our bedroom to sleep somewhere else. 

Loving Life in Palm Springs

We had the absolute pleasure of spending 4 days with 20 of our greatest friends in Palm Springs.  I know it sounds crazy to say that we have 20 incredibly close friends, but we are just that lucky and I don't take it for granted.  We spent four days eating, golfing, shopping, sunning ourselves and catching up with our friends who we so dearly miss.  It is the kind of group that you don't have to hunt out your closest friend, any lawn chair next to any of these people is a welcome seat.

I got some good Mom advice from the 3 wonderful 801 moms (sad that we were missing the fourth mom and the only little girl).

With four little boys already in this group, I was excited for our little guy to join the mix, but this trip made me even more excited for our little guy.  These boys are going to be friends for years to come whether they like it or not (better get used to it Dom).

Dominic, Landon, Drew, & Connor

Chris became a bit of a joke as he was often seen catching a little shut eye on pool floaties and lawn chairs.  I guess he got to enjoy one of his last vacations without having to tend to a child.



Chris also apparently missed the blue shirt memo for the golfing boys. 

This was a big celebration for all of our 30th birthdays with picture cupcakes courtesy of Mrs. Dina.

We also were given a wonderful shower gift for the baby.  So thoughtful and so unexpected.   Thank you so much guys!

Goodbye Palm Springs.  Thank you for being so good to us.

*Thanks Stace for the wonderful pics!*

3 Years Old

There is much blogging to catch up on after a wonderful four days away and a big growing belly, but we have priorities here and today it is Bella's birthday :)  It is beyond ridiculous to wish a dog happy birthday, but we love this girl and know that next year her birthday will likely go by without us even noticing and soon we won't even remember how old she is.  So for today, we celebrate our wonderful little puppy who turns three today and is soaking up all the attention she can get these days.