28 days-day 1

not talking about the sandra bullock in rehab movie, nor the freaking scary zombie movie with the cute cillian murphy but about the even more cute man in my life, my lover husband brett.

my uber creative friend KARLY created this idea of writing everyday for the whole month of february as to why you love your lover, she even made this cute button


 which you can get by clicking on it, leading you to her blog...

and i'm gonna try to stick with this challenge.

i must warn you, it's probably gonna be GUSHY, and MUSHY, and WAY TOO LOVEY DOVEY.

and you may wanna barf, but that's ok, i'm not writing for you, but for my sweet husband.  and pretty sure because it's the love month.

so let's get rumblin!

DAY 1

i love my lover because as he's been going through this pregnancy with me he's been so caring.  usually when i don't feel like cooking and we decide on a cheap hot and ready pizza from little caesar's we ALWAYS get pepperoni.  i hate pepperoni and not wanting to deprive brett of his pepperoni pizzas i usually compromise and just pick em off.  i LOVE cheese pizza, some things in my life i like eccentricity, but with my pizza it's either gourmet or go cheese!

but lately i get quite bummed when things don't go my way (it's the preggo hormones, it's aiight) so last night brett went and got me a CHEESE pizza!  its was so delicioso.  then we watched a movie and ate a ton of popcorn.  i was just so happy!

i'm not saying that i love brett because he gives into what i want, but because he does little things here and there that make me tremendously happy and makes me feel that he really does give a crap about me.

MAHAL KITA     

que pasa turns 20

it was my sweet sistah kyla's 20th birthday this weekend!

in the family, we've been calling her que pasa since we were younger and we have no clue how that started...

 we went to see the movie, the green hornet (which was AWESOME) and after that we all went to red lobster to get our seafood fix.  well, more like MY seafood fix, kyla chose to go there mainly for the biscuits.  such a splurge but felt SO good to have delicious seafood and those virgin berry mango daiquiries and pina coladas!  definitely seafood isn't something i could get all the time living here.  

we got kyla a goofy mermaid card and some cute earrings, i can't believe she's 20 now!

and guess what?  she's pregnant too!!  i'm due in may and she's due in july.  it's gonna be so fun having our kids so close in age.  we'll be having the first 2 grandkids in our family and my parents are just so thrilled.  because the births will be just a few months apart my parents are pretty much planning on being out here in utah for the whole summer and i'm SO FREAKIN EXCITED to spend as much time with them as i can.  it's gonna be awesome.  

this was my plate-THE ULTIMATE FEAST

consisting of garlic shrimp, hand breaded shrimp, snow crab legs, a split lobster tail, and some mashed potatoes.

and i slaughtered that whole thing.  there's nothing like sitting at the table just cracking crab legs and scarfing down shrimp and lobster.  i miss it when i was younger and out east we would go to the fisherman's wharf and get a bushel of crabs and shrimp and have a filipino seafood fest at our house.

one time when i was younger my mom bought me a pound of shrimp and i just sat by myself at the table peeling and scarfing down the entire pound of shrimp.

mmmmm i really want some more right now.

crying over unfinished cookies

it is a well known fact that ever since being married i've grown to be such a crybaby.  i think it's perhaps something unlocked in my heart causing me to go from grinchy to my heart growing 3 times as big.  i like to think it's cuz i've found someone to love and someone loves me back.  like i've said before, i get teary whenever brett does something really sweet for me, a sweet commercial, a horribly sad/horribly happy ending to a movie, or i seriously used to lose it in Sacrament meeting back in our student ward when there would be baby blessings and families from all over come to our ward to witness the daddy blessing his tiny newborn child.  and that's what always gets me, missing my family all the time because they live so far away.

but good gravy, pregnancy has been slapping me with the hormones!

with this pregnancy you take all the stuff i just listed above plus add a couple dumb extra.

like, food.

i never really thought that i've had cravings, just because something would just happen to sound good and if i couldn't get it, no big deal.

  

 but lately i've been noticing when i've been REALLY wanting a certain food and it doesn't go the way i want it to.  i get sad or angry or really disappointed or devastated.

i get severly annoyed when a restaurant messes up my order, i mean yeah it annoyed me before but now, you do not mess with this pregnant women's food, i will straight up kill you.  well not really, but i'll kill you with my eyes!

also last night it really hit me.  chocolate chip cookies sounded so so good so i looked at a recipe and i assumed i had all the ingredients, it doesn't take foreign stuff to make em and i have a whole shelf full of just baking ingredients.

i mixed the butter and shortening, i added the brown sugar, sugar, and oh, i need to add baking soda.  (goes to the baking shelf)  what.the.freak?  i don't have baking soda??  did i throw the baking soda away back in rexburg?  and why do i have 2 things of baking powder?  are they pretty much the same thang?  i don't wanna risk ruining my beautiful cookies.

so i threw down the mixer, left everything on the counter and plopped myself on our living room floor.  (we don't have a couch yet but will soon)  i felt so dumb and angry not having baking soda to make my cookies.  and when brett came down the stairs i started to cry, like a little girl who couldn't get the toy she wanted from the store.

instead of interrogating me as to why i'm crying,  he simply asked what was going on and i told him i felt really stupid and that i didn't have a measly 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

i felt so ridiculous but i was devastated i couldn't make my cookies.  i sound like such a fatty and i felt even fattier when my protruding stomach was catching my tears and now there was a huge wet mark on my shirt.

brett being the sweet husband he is, he left in his shorts to get me some baking soda.

i told him that it was staring to get late and i just exhausted myself from weeping and wailing so i didn't wanna make em anymore.  but he wanted to get it for me anyways so i could make em tomorrow.

and here we are.

  

i woke up, had cereal, then immediately started on my cookies.
i added the rest of the magical ingredients plus the darned baking soda.

no fears and no tears.

after a few mins in the oven and a few minutes to cool

all was right with the world...

...unless of course i forget some dumb ingredient in some recipe in the future...
and you do NOT wanna see this woman angry.

special thanks to brett for being so patient with me during my emotional roller coasters.  he does admit that sometimes i do seem a bit nuts being ok one second and a bawling mess the next.

but i tell him, it's ok, i'm pregnant, he can deal.

protruder alert

we are alive after the last few hectic weeks!

not living in hotels and living off of fast food anymore.

we are settled into our lovely town home and continuing to unpack.

we really have no need to rush and since brett's been working everyday i'm really the only one doing the unpacking.  so being with child i'll unpack as slow as i freakin want!

we really love it here in tooele, ut.

brett's loving his new job and it honestly feels weird when he comes home and he doesn't have to do homework.  we just snuggle and eat dinner on our bed, watching movies.  we don't have any furniture yet but we're hoping to get some once the big bucks start rollin in!

so it feels like we're newly married.

i'm in love with being in a family ward again.

yeah our ward has a LOTTA old people but lots of families and a few young couples like us.

and after being in a married student ward i'll take the old people.  it's so much more fun being in a ward with so much life experience.  married student wards felt really noobie to me.  also what's awesome, is that our bishop comes to church with cowboy boots and huge belt buckles.  our ward has welcomed us with wide open arms and being one of a few young couples in the ward so many sweet ladies have inquired about how my pregnancy is going...  

which is going pretty awesome by the way.  and now that we have stairs it's my only form of working out.  when we first moved in i had such a hard time going up and down and i felt like i weighed 300lbs being out of breath.  but now i'm getting used to them...

my favorite pastime is lying on my back and watching/feeling my baby boy move.

it's seriously one of the greatest feelings and blessings.

pregnancy definitely does come with a lot of perks, like strangers offering up their seats or ladies letting me use the empty bathroom stall when they were there first.  shoo i think i'll fake being pregnant after i've given birth!  jkjk

and i finally made an appt for an ob/gyn here in tooele and

i'm excited to have our baby here cuz the hospital here looks AMAZING.

  

24 weeks.

and i think i have the dreaded glucose test coming up?

hmm.

an evergreen dream

remember our plans from my last post?

seriously in one week, we've been able to cross off everything on the list besides the popping out a kid part.

*Christmas in Texas and try not to die driving there from ut (plan changed)

*brett finds a job

*we move wherever brett finds a job

*i pop out a kid

since leaving rexburg on the sunday after graduation things have been a whirlwind.
we said good riddance to rexburg on sunday and made our way down to utah with brett's parents.  they have helped us tremendously with our move and we've been so grateful for them.  there was a potential job for brett down in tooele, ut and so far the phone interviews brett has had with the company have gone really well.  so it was sort of safe to assume that he got the job, but still, it wasn't for sure.
but since we were going to texas for Christmas we wanted to dump our stuff in tooele, and if the job didn't work out we figured we'd be in ut anyways and can simply move our stuff outta there.
monday we hung out in tooele exploring the town and putting our stuff in storage.
tuesday was brett's actual face to face interview with the company in tooele which right after that they sent brett to salt lake city for another interview with the district manager.  brett felt the interviews went really well and felt confident about getting the job.  they were gonna let him know at least by Christmas whether he got the job or not.  feeling like we were done with what we needed to do in ut we started heading down to texas that evening.  we got to spanish fork and brett got a call.
HE GOT THE JOB!
but there was a small catch.  they wanted brett to start monday, dec 27th, which meant we couldn't go to texas for Christmas.  definitely a bittersweet moment.  we were absolutely thrilled and relieved brett got a job but we were a bit bummed we weren't gonna go to texas and see my little nieces and nephews.  i was really excited to have a texas Christmas and have nice warm weather for once.  i got a little teary.  the reason why they wanted brett to start early was so that the health insurance could kick in sooner than if he were to start in jan.  we viewed it as sacrificing our Christmas plans so that our baby can have the health insurance he needs.  Merry Christmas baby boy!   but now what do we do?  we headed back to salt lake city and asked brett's bro darren if we could spend Christmas with his family in bear lake.  we haven't seen them in a while either so it would've been fun to see them again.       

wednesday since we knew for sure we were going to be living to tooele we needed to find a place to live and fast!  since leaving rexburg we've been staying in hotels and i started to feel a little homeless.  just driving around tooele there were a few apt complexes but turns out they were either in a really bad part of town or were senior homes.  we went to a real estate agent and she found us this really nice 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath townHOME for a pretty good deal for rent.  we couldn't believe it, brett just got the job the day before and we were gonna be getting a little house of our own?!  it still feels too good and too fast to be true.  we thought we're just gonna get a small apt but a house sounds SO much nicer!  especially now that we're gonna have a baby soon.
thursday we finalized the rent and we get to move in tomorrow, wed the 29th.
friday brett and i made our way to bear lake for Christmas Eve and this was the view on the way.

the evergreen dream
idk if these are evergreen though
but whatever

 it was so beautiful and Christmas Eve with darren's family was really nice.  we're really grateful they took us in for the holidays and let us be a part of their family traditions.  every Christmas we've had since we've been married haven't been too bad and we've been too poor to really get each other something.  our plans ALWAYS change the last minute yet we manage to spend Christmas with some family, which is always important to me (also eating a lot is important to me).  we still haven't been able to spend Christmas with my own family and i hope that will be next year.
saturday-Christmas morning, even though brett and i were too poor to get each other presents, i find it such a joy to watch my nieces and nephews open their presents.  it's the cutest thing seeing how excited they are and i get excited knowing one day i'll get to see the joy on my kids' sweet faces on Christmas morning!  but i'd still want a little something for me brett!


wasn't that such a freakin busy week?
we've stayed in 4 different hotels since leaving rexburg and have had many high and a few low points.
so much worrying as to whether brett would get the job, where we'll live, where we're gonna have the baby, etc etc.
with everything that's happened this past week we've been counting our many many blessings and i'm so grateful brett was in tune with the spirit when He told him we should move to utah.

here's my sweet boy on his first day of work.

he's so excited for his new job.

oh yeah, the company is WELLS FARGO and he's a personal banker!!

i'm so proud of him.

p.s. we also have a name picked out for my other sweet little boy...

brett's grand grad weekend

the time has come for brett to end his hard work with school and graduate so we could get the crap out of rexburg.

and at byui they split up the graduation ceremonies according to your degree so brett's graduation festivities was an entire weekend affair.

(pics were taken by our sweet friend steve moa!)

     brett's convocation where steve and i attacked brett with candy leis that steve had made for brett.

it's a polynesian thang and it was really sweet of him to make em, pretty sure brett was freakin surprised!  haha  brett was blingin out in candy (which is a great road trip goody)

 brett's dear parents.  their last one in the family has grown up and graduated with a degree!

 steve and gwen and baby sienna!

we freakin miss them so much

i am so proud of my man.  all those long nights with his study group, takin tests and reading powerpoint stuff when he coulda been at home with his barfing woman.  i love him so much! 

 our other awesome friends, robert and raffaela, who we miss so freakin much too.



 hangin out with santa claus AKA gwen's dad.  he grows his beard out every Christmas and does "gigs and appearances" all over rexburg and has done so for 13 years!  this is as close to a mall santa as you can get in rexburg, except he's not creepy.

 baby sienna is about 8 weeks now and she is just the sweetest thing.  and she has these BEAUTIFUL deep blue eyes!  which isn't what we were expecting cuz of steve's togan looks.  she's a beautiful baby!

 the BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY IDAHO CENTER.  this is the thing they've been building for years and i remember in my freshman year that it was just a big hole in the ground.  it looks so similar to the conference center in SLC and holds just 6,000 less.  brett was part of the first class to have graduated in this building!  pretty cool, just one of the good memories we'll have from rexburg.

 our good friend sarah who brett grew up with in texas.  she and her hubby, jared, graduated together!  so cute. i didn't realize till i saw this pic that i'm starting to bust at the seams!  holy crap, i really wouldn't have worn this sweater when you can see the uneven button line.  another thing to throw into the "can't fit into this right now" pile. 

 when brett got his cap and gown, i thought he sorta looked like

*a dementor from harry potter

*a judge

*or a hogwarts professor from harry potter

but he did look cute.

 we're truly grateful for the sweet friends that we've made in rexburg, the lessons we've learned in school, the fact that we met here and spent the first 2 years of our marriage and found out we're pregnant and the memories we'll just always have.

but peace out rexburg.  hopefully if we come back it'll be in 20 years dropping our kid off to school if they wanna come here.

so what's next for the caldwells??

*Christmas in Texas and try not to die driving there from ut

*brett finds a job

*we move wherever brett finds a job

*i pop out a kid

i think that sounds like a good plan yeah?

brett's joined the quarter club!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to BRETT!!

brett turns 25 today and i'm just so blessed to have him.

you may remember his very eventful birthday party from last year.

 all he really wanted for his birthday this year was a ton of snow, we got a little bit yesterday but that just wasn't enough for him, the weirdo.

not being able to provide him the obscene amount of snow he wants i had to think of something else to get him.  he's one of the hardest people to get a present for.  i think it's also a man thing.

also being insanely poor right now i just wanted to get him a little something.  i scooted on over to walmart and got him a cute card and his fav candy

candy always wins his heart.

to celebrate his birth we hung out with our sweet friends steve and gwen last night and played his fav game

have any of you played this?  it's not like all those other board games out there and makes you strategize like crazy.  i slaughtered everyone including the birthday boy. we also ate some peanut butter chocolate cake we got from the grocery store.

all in all i think brett enjoyed his simple birthday and i didn't even take pics, i'm usually good at capturing the moments but it was such a relaxing time i didn't even think about it.

today's (his actual birthday day) events-

ward Christmas program and i spilled orange juice.

at least firemen and the police didn't come like last year's birthday bash!

happy birthday brett, i love you so much and i'm grateful to have an amazing husband who's so patient with me so far in this pregnancy.

i think you'll be a great baby daddy!