Double Post?

Ok, I know what you are thinking! But I promise, this is not my second post of the day... not technically, anyway!

You see, I'm what you'd consider kind of a night owl. Especially when Dan is off working graveyard shifts. I just can't, for the life of me, go to sleep at a decent time. Tonight though, I'm going to try!

Which is exactly why it is going to look like I'm posting twice in one day, but really, I posted once last night (around 2am) and once right now (at 10:30pm) and I live by the phrase that "It's not the next day until I go to sleep!" haha

And besides, I'm trying REALLY hard to keep up on the whole blogging front because I know how much you all hate love having to read my catch-up posts. So I gotta post! I gotta!

Today was a semi-lazy Saturday. I say 'semi-lazy' because while I did get a few things accomplished, I still didn't do all I probably should have.

Highlights included:

♥ Day #2 of my Jamberry Nails trial.
I'll admit... I wasn't that impressed on day #1, but they are much better the second day... kind of like soup! And now that I can see my regular nail polish start to chip while the Jams are holding strong... Love 'em!!

♥ Waking up to my hubby getting home from work and a text from my sister, Becca, announcing the arrival of their new little man, Lucas Knight Riddle!
Don't feel bad if you didn't even know she was in labor... neither did her own family! haha I was a little sad that I had no idea until the little guy made his appearance, but I'm glad mom and baby are doing ok and that my brother-in-law, Alex is taking good care of them. That's about all the information I have to share other than his stats: He came a week before due date (even though Steph and I teased she'd be a week late, like us) and weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs. 9 oz.! Welcome to the world, little Lucas! Isn't he beautiful?

♥ My sister-in-law, Laura, was awesome and came to sit with Aurora while she napped, so that I could go with Dan to work for the interior design lady again.
If you missed the last post, he helps her move furniture and decor for model homes in St. George. Today was a short day, but I got to look at one of the homes he helped with and OH. MY. HECK. I want to move in like yesterday! I told Dan that one day, one day, I'll decorate the inside of our home like that. It was beautiful. Both homes we had to run by were in spectacular areas of town; Entrada and The Ledges of St. George. And the sun setting on the cloudy skies was the cherry on top of a wonderful time with Dan. I mean, look at those clouds!

Oh, and p.s. Laura and Cody are pregnant!! They will have their baby sometime in August! It is the year of the new nieces and nephews, apparently!

♥ Seeing Aurora's face light up at seeing her dad and then watching her try to eat the peel off the orange was great too. I just really love my daughter, ok!? Could she get any cuter??

New Adventures

Two months. TOO long!

In that time... 

♥ Dan got offered a new job as the general manager of The Port of Subs in St. George and he accepted! 

♥ He started training for the job in St. George in the middle of July and over the few weeks that followed, he did more training in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, as well. 

♥ By August 11th, Dan was done training and we had officially moved our little family to a new apartment in St. George, Utah! 

Since then, we have been loving life as St. Georgians... and for a girl who has never lived anywhere but Cedar City, that is a BIG deal! 

In other news, Dan and I bought life insurance AND Dan started selling life insurance for Primerica on the side of being the GM at the Port of Subs. We loved that the company was all about helping families get where they wanted to be financially. It's helped us, so far, and we've been able to meet lots of other couples through that.

Also, I'm working now, too... two days a week at Port of Subs! haha It's been fun and I get to work with my cute hubby... as my boss! I was nervous about starting work because of finding a sitter for Aurora in a new town, but we have had such luck with finding AWESOME friends here. 

Our great friends, Shaun and Kara Cox live in St. George, and they recently gained a cute little six year old foster daughter. Kara works two days a week also, so we worked out a babysitting swap thing for the days either of us work. That has been a life saver! 

Our other friends, Mike and Bobbi Nessen (who we met through Shaun and Kara) have been life savers on the babysitting front, as well as in many other instances... always willing to help us out when we need it; no matter what it is! We are blessed to have met them. 

And my friends from Cedar, Aimee Sanders and Marissa Wade live in St. George, also, and have been willing to take Aurora if needed. 

Plus, Dan's Grandma and Grandpa Rigby live practically down the street from us and are always so good to us in any way we may need them.

We have truly been blessed and felt the love of friends who have become like family and grandparents who we have grown closer to as we have lived here. 

Also, our ward is basically awesome! We have loved going to church and felt extremely welcomed! 

(Sorry, I think I have rambled a bit... haha)

BUT the last bit of news is BY FAR the most exciting!

WE NOW HAVE A CRAWLING BABY ON OUR HANDS WHO WILL PULL HERSELF UP ONTO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!! 

Look out, world! We love it! ♥♥♥

Cabin Clean Up & Tornado Snow Storms

This weekend, my Grandma Barclay wanted us all to come up for a little cabin spring cleaning in Midway. She had a whole list of stuff to be done and my whole family was going up to join the rest of the Barclay crew in cleaning and fixing stuff up. Well, Dan had to work on Friday and Saturday nights and couldn't get it off, so he suggested that I take Aurora and go up on Friday and come home Saturday (actually, he first suggested that I leave Aurora here with him and I said, "Woah, no! If I go up there without her, I'll never hear the end of it! Too many people need to see her!" haha)

So, on Friday morning, I got my stuff together and before leaving, my mom and I went to say goodbye to my dear friend, Laura and her cute little boy, Kaden. They moved on Saturday to her parents' house in Layton and we are SO sad they had to go! We will miss those two immensely! Guess, we'll have to plan trips to visit and just keep in touch.

After the visit, Erin and I came home to get packed up in the car to go and the ants were at it again! ALL over my kitchen! ALL over my dishes! GAHHHHH!! So after quickly washing all the dishes and spraying the kitchen down with ant killer, we were finally on the road.

It was so fun to have Erin ride up there with me. We jammed out to the radio and to Disney songs on CD all while Aurora slept in the backseat AND we made funny faces at mom and dad as we passed each other back and forth on the freeway. haha Then we stopped to visit the Henrie's in Spanish Fork.

That was going great untilllllll.... Aurora barfed all over my Aunt Lisa! haha That poor lady took it like only a seasoned mother and loving aunt could.

But then it was back to good and all smiles as we chatted and my cousins, Nick and Alex, sang pirate songs to Aurora. We will be so sad to have them move to Elko! We have loved our spur of the moment visitings to Spanish Fork but will try to head that direction whenever possible!

We then left Spanish and headed up the Provo Canyon to meet up with Steph, Becca, and Alex and Mom, Dad, and Collette for a little pizza and movies at the cabin before the early wake up call for the cleaning to begin.

Poor Aurora continued her barfing at the cabin for most of the night and I was worried we'd have to head home in the morning because she just didn't feel good. Luckily, I had MY mom there to take care of THIS stressed and frustrated mom, and my dad there to tell me that it'd all be ok, because we made it through the night and even were able to stay for the clean up!

Aurora got to meet a few of my cousins and we got a lot done while having a good time catching up. It even got a little adventurous when my cousin, Courtney, lost her wedding ring down the sewer pipe while ripping up linoleum in the bathroom... but don't worry! She got it out! haha I can't wait to stay at the cabin this summer with Dan!

I left on Saturday night and I got home just before the most horrible snow storm hit! This morning it was a beast outside! About 10 inches of heavy, wet snow and TONS of mutilated trees. The poor things just couldn't handle the weight of their new leaves and the snow. Cedar looks like a tornado ran through it! We even made the news!

Oh! And P.S. I almost forgot! Dan found a dog in the car when he went to come home after work on Saturday night! I'm guessing it jumped in the window when it started to get rainy and snowy.

We put it in the kitchen with the baby gate up and gave it food and water. It was the best dog! No barking at all AND it even laid down on this little bed we made it on the floor to sleep! We were going to keep it and try to find it's owners through Facebook but it ran away when Dan let it out to go potty. Oh, well. Hopefully it made it home!

Tuesday

Tuesday was probably one of the greatest days! BUT I guess, to get the full impact of the why, I'll have to rewind a bit to Mother's Day.

Why Mother's Day, you ask? Well, that was the day we found out that we would have a wonderful new addition to our family! I took a pregnancy test a couple of weeks previous and got a negative so we decided we'd try again on Mother's Day. I woke up before Dan that morning and snuck off to the bathroom then waited the suggested 2 minutes (longest, most nerve wracking 2 minutes of my life!). I smiled with excitement when I saw that little positive and I snuck back into the room with the results where I sat next to Dan on the bed and creepily stared at him until he noticed I was there haha I gave him a kiss good morning and handed him the test. That woke him up! He sat up and then a huge smile came to his face and he gave me another kiss and a big hug! He was so excited! WE were so excited! We were going to be parents!! Happy first technical Mother's Day to me! haha

We decided we'd keep the news to ourselves until after my first doctor's appointment (which was SUPER hard seeing how we visited both our moms/families that day). We did tell my parents that following week though so we could ask some questions and since I'm on their insurance. They were so excited! (This will be their first grandbaby!) BUT we swore them to secrecy too until after the appointment. 

Which brings us to Tuesday! Waiting for that appointment was probably the longest wait of my life! I went to the appointment at 2:30pm and filled out the paperwork before they took me in. At 3pm, I was put in the room to wait for Dr. Gatherum and they handed me a gift bag with some new mom goodies (magazines, books, formula, ect.). I was nervous because it didn't really seem real yet and I didn't know what to expect AND right as the doc came in he was called into a delivery so I waited again. Finally he came back in and I asked him some questions (like if it'd be a good idea to go to Ireland in October with Dan's grandparents for free... it wasn't. Dang. haha) and THEN the nurse came in and they gave me an ultrasound!

It was just about the coolest thing ever to see something... someONE inside me and to hear the doctor say "There's your baby" and then even cooler to be able to hear it's sweet little heartbeat! ♥♥ It sounded like a hummingbird, it was so fast! (177 BPM) I wish Dan could've been there to hear it! He was working at the time so I had to meet him afterwards.

When I left they gave me the pictures of our cute little blob (hehe), I set an appointment for July, and then I hurried off to see Dan at his mom's house. Dan LOVED seeing the pictures and hearing about the heartbeat (he's the cutest dad-to-be). Then we told his family. They were SO excited! Candace cried and they all gave us hugs. So fun! Then we headed to my family's house to show my parents and tell my sisters. Talk about excitement! This baby is going to be SO spoiled by all it's aunts. My sisters have only been telling me they want a niece or nephew for just about forever haha

To celebrate, we went to dinner at Sizzler with both our parents. It was so fun! I hope we can be as great of parents as the ones who raised both of us. We are so blessed to have them! Lucky our kids will have them as grandparents.

After dinner we called our grandparents and some other family members. SO AWESOME. I loved hearing all the screams and excited laughter from everyone! Our baby is seriously going to be loved and spoiled. ♥ We love all of you guys!!

♥ Baby Johnson will be arriving January 2, 2014 ♥