Happy Halloween!

Ben took Riley to a party the other night, and they had a duck pond that he loved.

They also had a apple bobbing bucket, and Riley was playing in that for a while. When Ben went out to check on him, he found a few half eaten apples on the ground, and also some of the apples still floating in the water had a bite taken out of them! Hmmm, I guess Riley was taste testing the apples for people.

Riley and Kortley didn't get to spend hardly any time together on Halloween, but we were able to get this picture (after some serious coaxing since Riley was playing hard to get, as usual). In case you can't tell, Riley is Mike Wozowski, or the one-eyed Mike from Monsters Inc. His hand is in a pouch in the front where he put all his candy. Kortley is a cute little witch! Riley took quite a while to warm up to anybody (except his uncle Sam) on Halloween. He seems to have "performance anxiety" and whenever people pay too much attention to him, he clams up (and sometimes freaks out!) I love his personality, but I do hope he eventually will react a little more sweetly to people who are just being friendly to him! But he is definately a riot, and when he lets his guard down he is SO much fun and very entertaining...as long as he doesn't know everyone is watching him :)

STUFF

So there's this little cat that hangs around our house sometimes, and he's REALLY friendly and has a real healthy sense of entitlement. This cat has several times darted into our house and casually walked around as if he belongs there. But you can see he's a fun cat, because he dove right into this pile of leaves with Riley.

We went last Sunday up the Nebo Loop and had a picnic. Riley was in heaven being up on the mountain. The only way we could get him back to the car was to pretend that a bear was chasing us!

I love this picture because they are making the same wierd face.

Eating our healthy lunch of cheez-its! Halloween pictures soon to come!

I FINALLY DID IT!!!

No pictures for this post, but I think you will be grateful because what I am so proud of finally doing is placing a urinary catheter! All throughout nursing school I have not had the opportunity to place a catheter...and it has been driving me crazy because I really need the experience before I become a "real" nurse. Well, the other day I got my chance thanks to my nurse preceptor who is an awesome teacher. She is the nurse who is helping me at Nephi hospital (which I love!) for my last clinical. The lucky patient was a very old man, which for some reason made me less nervous. It went great! Some people might think a catheter is easy to do, and I'm sure it is after you've done it a lot. But the whole procedure has to be sterile and done just right to prevent infection, so at first it's a little tricky. Anyway, sorry to bore with my big "milestone". Now I just need to master I.V.'s.

Things have been busy lately so I don't post as much, but I have to mention that this pregnancy has been brutal so far in comparison to my first. If the wrong thing pops up on my T.V. (for example a picture of a piece of chicken) I run the bathroom and...well, you know. I can't even wear a certain pair of earrings because they make me sick. I bought them during a really rough week when I was really sick every day, and I guess they bring it all back for me. I'm just barely getting to the point where I can look at the grocery adds without gagging. Riley thinks the whole thing is funny. He likes to run with me to the toilet and laugh at me! Little punk :)

So there's a little bit of an update! I'm not posting this so anyone will feel sorry for me. I actually find it all very funny! To think that this little person inside me is causing me all this grief....and yet I already love him/her SO much. Next post I'll put up some good pics. But for this post, a urinary catheter and puking don't exactly make for great pics!!!

Visit to Boise

This a picture of one of the buildings at the old Boise State Penitentiary. These building's were really bleak, and the cells were just as bad. And these buildings were COLD! The cells were SO small, with room for maybe one person to stand and maybe to a pushup, but the cells were for two people. It would have been a bummer to be on the wrong side of the law back then. I don't know for sure, but I hear prisoners at most jails these days have it pretty okay.

Please nobody enlarge this picture. Just see it from a distance and imagine it is just a nice picture of a mom and daughter. This was probably the fifteenth shot we took, and each time we had to push the timer on the camera and RUN slipping and sliding to this spot, then strike a dorky pose. I think I do dorky REALLY well. I had a great time with my mom, and saw four movies that I highly recommend, listed in order of recommendation:

1. The Duchess (Beautiful, wonderful, intriguing storyline!)

2. The Secret Life of Bees (good movie that I wouldn't mind owning)

3. Max Payne (a bit scary)

4. Eagle Eye (really entertaining)

Getting a pumpkin the FUN way!

We went to the red barn in Santaquin where we heard you could go on a hay ride to a pumpkin patch, and then pick a pumpkin! So that's what we did last night with Riley, and I'm really glad we did! It was the perfect evening to go...nice and sunny but also nice and chilly :) I LOVE fall!
Ben and I decided that Riley would pick the pumpkin....but our desire to get the best pumpkin possible won out when Riley picked and OKAY pumpkin and Ben and I had our eyes on a PERFECT pumpkin. So we did something very devious....Riley only thinks he picked the pumpkin, but as Riley and I walked back toward the hay ride, Ben picked up the perfect pumpkin. Oh well, as long as Riley thinks he got to pick!

Yes, we took Riley in his pajamas and I was basically in mine too. But oh well, if people like our fashion sense....great! If not....even better!!!

Sunday, Oct 5, 2008

..........and I don't mean Santa Claus, although we are looking forward to his visit too! No, the visitor we are expecting is coming in April and I don't think he or she will be coming down the chimney. This pregnancy has been a little rough so far with feeling sick! I think I threw up once with Riley, but this time I am always gagging or dry heaving or trying frantically not to throw up in the car. But it's getting better and even with all that I have been gaining weight (hardly seems fair to be that sick and still put on weight!).

This time around, it will be very convenient since I live right by the hospital that takes our insurance....I will just waddle over when the time comes! No road rage from Ben trying to get me to a hospital half an hour away. Anyway, we are excited and grateful to be having another child. I have to admit I am much more excited to have this one than I was to have Riley, but only because now I know (because of Riley) how much it means to have a child! Can't wait!

We're Still Kickin'!

Yes we are still alive! Life got really busy really fast, but I finally have a couple days where I don't have to be somewhere for school, so I am really appreciating it! I just spent 30 hours doing some clinicals at the psych ward of UVRMC. It was very interesting...I'll leave it at that. Ben and I spent last weekend up in Park City! We love Park City in the Fall, and this is our second annual fall trip there. We hope to keep up the tradition for many years!
Just like last year, we went down the Alpine Slide. We also went down the Alpine Coaster which is about five times as fun as the Alpine slide. But we were having way too much fun to take pictures. I was pretty much screaming the whole way down...and since Ben doesn't scream, he just giggled the whole way down and kept shouting "You are crazy! You're crazy!" to me since I controlled the speed of our little coaster.
So here's some pictures from Ben's "guys night out" to Fish Lake. I guess all four of them stayed in the same tent. I personally think that could get a little smelly. But they had fun and I'm glad Ben got to go and have some fun with these guys. By the way they are all Nuttals. The person taking the picture is Jeff Nuttal.