Shower Power

Two weeks ago I headed to Pocatello for a fabulous baby shower. Getting to Poky was more of an adventure than normal. My car was struggling kind of the last hour or so. I was flooring it and barely made it up the last hill on the freeway before Pocatello. I got to the appropriate exit thankfully, stopped at the light. Then when I tried to press on the gas again it would hardly move. I coasted to the gas station and called my mom to come get me. It was a little stressful, but I am so grateful I made it there safe and sound. I was definitely blessed. So our transmission went out in our Saturn Vue- Ramona. Bummer.

The baby shower was that evening at Aunt Karen's house. A big shout out and thank you to Karen, Michelle, and Rach. It was the cutest shower! The decor was so fabulous, everything being gray and yellow. It was just adorable. And of course the food was delicious. It was a party with so many fabulous ladies there (plus Ben:). Thank you all for your generosity. Our baby boy is one lucky soul who will be a styling little man. I keep joking that I will have to change his clothes twice a day so he can wear all of the cute clothing we have. I dreamed the other day that he was born kind of chubby and of course I was worried that he wouldn't be able to wear all of his cute newborn clothes. Silly mom dreams. Anyways, it was a fabulous shower. 

I loved Rachel's cutest fruit
baby that she made.

Thank you Auntie Karen for the fabulous party. I'm realizing I didn't take nearly enough pictures of all the wonderful people there.  But, what do you do? Although getting to Pocatello was a little stressful, the party was a hit.

Baby Corner Prep

We are now counting down days! What?! 29 days until our due date. I am 36 weeks tomorrow. We're getting very excited to welcome our baby boy into our family.

So, of course we have been getting ready. We only have one bedroom, so we have designated a corner for the baby in our large living room. I few weeks ago, we bought a dresser at a garage sale and decided to spruce it up with some paint. Choco of course made it a work of art. It is cute, and the corner is coming together. Of course the dresser took longer than anticipated and we ran into a few bumps along the road, but the final product is just adorable if I do say so myself.

we found these lamps at a garage sale so
decided to spray paint them too

round one

lamps and frames

turns out I'm not so great at not getting
paint on me. I had blue toenails for a
couple of days.  oops

of course, we should have sanded in the first
place but didn't. so we got to scrape of round one
and sand and then try again. you live and learn.

after re-painting the blue area for the tree,
Choco drew the outline for the tree in
newspaper, cute it out, and taped it on.
quite the laborious process. 

newspaper tree taped on, we
painted the whole dresser our
key lime green

after removing the tape and newspaper.

Unfortunately, Choco's beautiful tree got a little less detailed when he cut it out, and when he taped it, so it wasn't exactly what we had been imagining. But, with a little extra touch-up work he got it to look better. He even added yellow and gray leaves to tie in those colors. Finished product:

our baby corner

Almost There

Happy Summer! It has been weird for me to be in an Elementary School this late into the summer, but I have been grateful to be able to do my student teaching now. I have one more week, then I will be all done!! And it feels so good. Turning in my Teacher Work Sample and doing my last observation happened on Monday. We're on the last stretch. Then I will get to graduate in August! I made it!! Of course I will be 36 weeks pregnant, so we'll see how pleasant Graduation will be :) But we're very excited and blessed.

I spent the majority of my student teaching in a sixth grade classroom, which was more pleasant than I had originally anticipated. I enjoyed it even with the soon-to-be middle schoolers that sometimes had a bit of an attitude. I have spent the last couple of weeks in a second grade classroom. It was quite the jump to these little people. They are so funny, and it has been a good experience. I am excited to be done though.

My body keeps growing along with our baby boy. I am 28 weeks along. We have arrived at the third trimester! I really have been blessed with feeling quite well. I did have a little stretch of very awful back pain. Luckily it happened when I was in Pocatello, so my parents took care of me. My wonderful dad and grandpa gave me a blessing. The pain did not stop right away, but by the end of the week I was back to normal (well as normal as being pregnant is). We were very grateful for this blessing because I didn't know if I was going to make it if I was in pain the rest of the pregnancy. 

Chris did come home for almost a week at the end of this little ordeal. I felt so spoiled to have him home, and we pretty much just partied for a week. I cooked on Sunday, but other than that we ate out every night. Scandalous, I know. We also went to a couple of movies, visited Seven Peaks with our Pass of All Passes, bowled, etc. It was a delightful little week. It was very difficult to say goodbye again. That was about 3 weeks ago. I must admit it has been tough. Maybe it's being pregnant or something, but I have definitely cried more than normal. Thank goodness for my fabulous parents to keep me company. They are truly the best, and we've had fun weekends going back and forth. Chris will be home this week sometime, and I can hardly wait. I've wished he was here to experience the joys and sometimes not so joyful moments of all of the pregnancy. But he will be home soon to finish it off with me before we welcome our baby boy to our family. It was so sweet to have him here for the week so he could feel our baby kick and move. I loved him talking to our son in both English and Spanish (to give him a jump start on being bilingual :). 

25 weeks

love the bow tie 

Los Cucos. delicioso 

I was too busy eating to get a good
picture before it was almost all gone.
I love their green cheese enchiladas.

Ruby River Steakhouse. yum

28 weeks!

I have loved feeling this baby move around inside of me. I get the feeling he will be an enthusiastic little boy. I am grateful every day for this miracle.

New Things

It has been an eventful and exciting couple of weeks.

I finished my last finals week at BYU! It was pretty low-key with not too much stress. I also said goodbye to the TC.

We celebrated Choco's birthday the last day of finals. We went to Goodwood Barbecue for dinner, which was so yummy. We had some friends over that night for cake. I made some tres leches cake. It was my first time, and I think I need some more practice. But everyone seemed to enjoy it. Choco appreciated the effort and said he liked the cake, so it was a success. I gave him some new shirts and a fedora. He is so cute in it. He also got a pull-up bar. He is now officially 27! old man :)

enjoying his Goodwood meal

We packed up our first home. My parents came down and helped us move last Saturday. They are the best. It was a long but good day full of lots of cinnamon rolls, packing, cleaning, driving, lunch at JCW's, and unloading. We have been getting settled in to our new place. It is in a great neighborhood. We're in a larger basement and loving it. 

at our new apartment (in front of the closet...classy right?)

I started my student teaching with SIXTH graders at Columbia Elementary. I'm really excited about it, and it has been a great week with them. I was scared of them at first (and maybe still am a bit) but they are wonderful. I'll be teaching more this week, so I'm looking forward to that. We're even doing some salsa dance for P.E. this week, so we'll see how that works.

In other news, my husband is now in Oklahoma. Crazy huh? But the company he works for is slowing down here, so they sent him off to Oklahoma. He will be there 3 weeks, home for 1 week, then gone again for 3 more weeks. It is hard to be apart, as we learned last fall semester, but we will survive. I will be busy with planning and teaching. He will be working a lot, so it will be fine. I'm grateful for his willingness to work and sacrifice for our family. He's hoping to even see a Thunder game while there.

Choco's new work safety glasses that have his
prescription.  He loves to wear them at home too.  

saying goodbye at the airport today

In other exciting news, my belly has kind of really started to poke out this past week. That boy of ours is growing. It is so fun to feel him moving around inside of me. I'm feeling good and doing well at 21 weeks. It is crazy we're past the halfway point.

look at that belly

A few weeks ago, my mom came down with my grandma and grandpa for a short but sweet visit on a Wednesday. I must confess I really love these people. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to go to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point, so I met them there. We first ate lunch at this fancy and adorable little restaurant. Although it seemed too huge, I managed to finish my whole chicken club sandwich. yum. Then we headed to see the tulips. It was a little chilly and windy and it is too early for all of the flowers to be out, but it was beautiful. It is huge! I think my favorite was the little secret garden. It was a fun outing.

dear mom

G and G Boyce

Mom and I left and hurried to my doctor's appointment. It was time for another ultrasound! We got to see our sweet little boy. Everything seems to be good with him. The tec was pointing some different parts out to us (bladder, kidneys, etc.) and we just had to trust her because it was a little tricky to see. He was kind of in a funny position. Silly boy. But it was great. I still am so amazed at the miracle taking place. We sure love our boy. He weighed about 10 ounces at that appointment. Just a shout out to my wonderful mother for this cutest cardigan for baby L. We've got his Easter outfit all set for next year.

So, we are doing great. Feeling blessed and busy. 

We're having a...

We had our first ultrasound last Wednesday to find out the gender of our babe. I was really nervous and excited before. I was worried they wouldn't be able to tell or something. But it was pretty easy to spot that a little boy will be joining our family!

A little boy. We are very excited and grateful. And I must say, he is so adorable (at least from what we can tell). His little hands and feet are so fun. It was a really sweet experience to see him moving around. He is the size of an avocado this week. It is miraculous this little avocado already looks like a little person. He was sweet and moving his hands to his head and walking with his little feet. We just love him so much already.

I'm trying to get used to the idea that I'll be a mom first to a boy. I look forward to and daydream about exploring outside together, going on treasure hunts, playing in the dirt, and just learning together. We'll take trips to the library and museums and the park and wherever else. Probably not too much dressing up or barbies will be happening, but it will be fabulous. I already feel some of the weight and responsibility on my shoulders for raising and teaching this little boy. But when I feel overwhelmed, I just think that I can do hard things and with God I can do all things. I have a feeling we'll need Him on our side for this journey we'll be starting. What a blessing to be able to turn to the best parent for help.

And so, that's where we're at. I'm excited we'll have an older brother for our family-to-be. I'm sure he will teach us so much. We took a couple pictures after we just found out. Also, I had to throw in a couple of Chris a few Sundays ago. He is so cute. I hope our little boy looks just like him, especially that dark curly hair.

15 Weeks. Apple.

This week has gone quite quickly. It's been good with school. And I'm now 15 weeks along. Baby L is the size of an apple. And honestly, I think my bump has grown. Who knew I would be happy for my pants getting a little snug in the waist?

I had another appointment last week. It was very short but sweet. I love to hear that little heartbeat. On Wednesday (as in this Wednesday) we have our gender check appointment! Can I tell you how excited I am? I know that whatever the baby is, he/she will be exactly who we're supposed to have join or family. So, obviously we're good either way. But, we maybe would like to start with a boy. Because that's maybe what we want, we both think it is a girl. And today, I really think it is a girl. Only time will tell. To be honest, I go back and forth trying to imagine our little one. I would like to say I already "know," but I really don't so we'll see. I think I've had dreams of both scenarios.  Anyways, enough rambling. Gender revealing coming soon. 

Here is me (and Choco) at 15 weeks. (I thought I would be so good at taking these weekly but that hasn't happened.)

Sister Boyce

Today, we went to hear my dearest cousin talk before she leaves for the MTC on Wednesday! Katie and I had a little date to the temple on Thursday. It was so special to be in the temple with her. A dinner of temple cafeteria food was a perfect way to finish off the evening. I even had a piece of chocolate cream pie. Yum. Ever since we were tiny, Katie and I have been close as cousins and friends. I sure do love her. I'm so proud of her and her good decisions. Seattle, Washington is receiving an amazing Sister.

She spoke on the Atonement and did a wonderful, sweet job. I'm excited to hear all of the experiences she will have. Oh dear Sister Boyce.

Last weekend, we took a little trek up to Pocatello. Highlights of the trip included Grandma's annual tea party (honestly I love this tradition and was so happy we could be there for it. Thanks Gram!); seeing and visiting with Carrie, Kev, and their adorable boys; sending Brit and Addie off on their European adventure (so excited for them!!); and Sunday dinner of yummy roast, potatoes, carrots (delish). I love my parents, and it's always so great to spend time with them. We are so grateful for them. 

In other news, practicum is going great. I feel so tired every day, blame it on the pregnancy,  but with a little nap after school I make it through the day fine. I'm still not feeling so hot but hanging in there. Third grade is pretty great I must say. I also found out that I will be in West Jordan for my student teaching, so we're on the hunt for a new home for a while. Life is going great. 

our little lime

We have some exciting news. A baby is coming our way.

Our little lime will be joining us in September. We are obviously very excited and grateful.

I'm 12 weeks along making the baby about the size of a lime. How cute is that? Our little lime. Maybe we'll call her (if it is a girl) Lime Lopez...then again, maybe not. I do think the food comparisons are too fun though. September 12th is our due date for the little one to join our family.

We've been to the doctor's once and got to hear the baby's little heartbeat. So tender. It truly is miraculous.

I found out last week that I will be able to student teach Spring/Summer in Jordan district. This is a great blessing. I will start student teaching April 29, right after this semester ends. I'll finish mid-August and graduate then. With my Elementary Education degree complete, we'll be all ready for this baby to come our way.

So, exciting times our coming. I have been a little nauseous. A little throwing up and just not feeling super great. But I'm hanging in there. And of course it is for great purpose. Here are some 12-week pictures. I like to think I have quite the bump, but it might mostly just be food :)

sorry, I was laughing.

I didn't know what to do with my arms because
 Choco was saying I was sticking out my belly
 by the way I was putting my hands on my waist.
Thus the ridiculous picture of my hands in the air. 

       
And so, that has been life recently. Choco has been wonderful to take care of me. I'm so grateful he is here and always sweet and understanding. He is excited to be a dad. I know he will be so wonderful. 

Yesterday, was our 1 1/2 year anniversary. Go us! To celebrate we went to the YW/YM etiquette dinner. We even had to do a funny skit about good dating/eating manners. It was funny, at least we thought so. Choco got some new glasses, which was very needed. He's so hip now and kind of looked like a professor last night. He is so cute. So we had to take a picture.

Also, I just had to mention Valentine's Day. Choco brought home this beautiful homemade Edible Arrangement  He decided the real thing was too expensive, so he just made his own for me. It was so like him to be so creative. I love that about him. It was perfect. Yummy, sweet, and even in a mom mug for me. I have the best Valentine. We finished the evening out with our traditional Chinese food and a movie.

I think mom is the best title I could be given. I'm excited to be called that soon enough!