Getting ready for baby

Everything is going well with me and the baby (and Jarod too!). We have weekly appointments and lots of monitoring. I am starting to get ready. I have effaced a little bit more each appointment and I am just starting to dilate (60% effaced and 1 cm dilated). The baby has gotten lower at each appt. too. We are planning to induce on January 6th unless I go into labor before than. So that is only 1 week away! I can do anything for a week-so I keep telling myself! I am done working and just trying to finish organize everything at home and finish up all the last minute things I haven't had time to do that I have wanted to do such, make cute burp clothes!

I found this really great idea online a while ago-its to make really cute burp clothes. You sew a panel of fabric down the middle of a cloth diaper and add some ribbon to the side and you have a cute burp cloth that is super absorbant! The first stack is a sample of ones I made for friends (I have made boyish ones and girlish ones) and the ones at the bottom are ones I have been working on for me! I have a bunch more colors and ribbon that I need to work on and add to my stack.

Baby Shower

A few of the girls at work (Janeene, Kristi, and Jenny) threw a baby shower for me! It was so fun but so snowy out that a lot of people couldn't make it, but we had fun with the few that were there. We had yummy soup and played a couple of fun games. I got a bunch of cute things! Thanks everyone for making the night fun for me and the baby!

New Haircut

A little bit before Thanksgiving I decided I was so tired of my hair and everything about it. I went and got it cut a lot and also got it professionally colored for the first time (my color was looking so bad and pregnancy kept making it darker and darker that I just didn't know what to do with it anymore). So here is what my new style looks like:

Not the best smile (I look so tired-I guess being great with child does that).

Zions and Bryce Canyon National Parks

At the end of September/early October Jarod and I went on a trip to Southern Utah. We wanted to see some of the National Parks and have one last weekend getaway while I wasn't too pregnant to travel. We stayed in St. George and went to Zions National Park first. There were so many beautiful scences and so many pictures but here are a couple of our favorites.

Love the ginormous arch-this was one of many we saw but definately the biggest. We also went through a tunnel that was over a mile long. It was built in the 1920's so it was really small and they only let traffic through one way at a time. It was really neat-they had holes in the tunnel looking out and you could see amazing cliffs and rocks. We had to drive up hundreds of feet of switchbacks to even get to the tunnel (it was little nerve racking). The arch in the picture above was taken on our way up the switchbacks. Zions is very well maintained and they have a shuttle system through part of the park. We parked our car and took the shuttle up the main canyon and got off at all the spots and walked around and looked at all the amazing cliffs-truly a beautiful place.

We also went to the St. George temple and the visitors center they have there. They had just finished painting the temple and it was so bright white! The St. George temple has so much history as the first temple finished in Utah. Something new I learned was that Brigham Young never like the original steeple that was on the temple (it was a lot smaller and looked a little strange on such a big building). Only a few days after he died a lightening storm hit the temple and burned just the steeple down so they had to rebuild it. Everyone says Brigham eventually got his way even after he died.

Bryce Canyon is really an incredible place. The formations of the rocks are breathe taking. There are all of these little peaks and spires for the freezing and thawing of water through the ages and there are just views for miles of all this peaks. Everything is so red from all the iron so things just glow in the sun. Its really amazing that all of this is so high up-we were at 10,000 ft above sea level looking down into the canyon. The park has on main long road with several vantage points along the way. Here are a couple of the amazing views we shared at Bryce Canyon National Park.

This rock has a complete hole through it-so cool!

WICKED!

Sorry for the long time between posts-life gets crazy as everyone knows. Jarod and I were lucky enough to see Wicked a few months ago and loved it! Jarod had never been to a Broadway play before and was really impressed with the music and sets and everything. I felt like I just sat there with a smile on my face the whole time-enjoying every minute. Jarod has definately been converted to the thrill and excitement of Broadway so I am excited about that-now if only we could afford the tickets more often.