Surprise! Guess what we bought...

We bought a house! Chase and I are SO excited and we will be moving in sometime around the 16-20 of this month! Things happened pretty fast...

A family in our ward saw a really cute house for sale across the street from their son's preschool. Chase and I mused over the idea and I finally called the realtor for that house to see if we could get a tour. That led to a pre-approval for a loan and over the course of about 3 weeks we had looked at around a dozen homes and found this one! We put an offer down (this was the 3rd house we had offered on) and it was accepted! After that we were wavering a bit about going through it but everything has felt right and this house really is an AMAZING find.

It was built in 1951 and it has that "character" that I was looking for in a house. Great area, it is in my parents ward. We really wanted to stay in the ward we were in, but you know how things work out sometimes... it is only 1,100 square feet, but it is on a really big lot, .17 arces! It has 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and two of the bedrooms are upstairs, dormer style. Our plan is to live upstairs with the nursery and the downstairs bedroom will become my craft room :):) Chase will get the entire detached garage for his space, which is huge and has tons of potential. The other day I was feeling bad that I claimed the room inside and justifying it in my mind. Things like, I'll have the baby and it makes sense that I have to stay in the house.... But then Chase mentioned how excited he was for the garage and I felt better! He actually preferred the garage. An old lady was selling the house because she couldn't take care of it anymore and the inside has been completely redone to sell it. New everything. The kitchen has brand new tile floors and granite counters, appliances, new bathroom, carpet, paint, everything! I particularly love the upstairs with wood floors and huge windows on the sides that let in tons of light. We couldn't be happier :)

Chase's New Truck

About a month after we moved to California, Chase got his new truck! He was very excited and put plenty of research into the decision...

(Here I am pregnant... about 18 weeks?) It is a Toyota Tundra and recently it has been adorned with the company logo. While it is a "work truck" it is still Chase's truck, he just gets a monthly allowance from work to pay for it.
We had to drive down to Visalia to pick up the truck which is only about 1 hour North of Bako, so we turned it into a weekend thing and had a fun time with Chase's family. It has been so nice to see them more often since we have moved to California.

Awesome New Project

I was over at my parents tonight and Saw a tripod in my dad's workshop. I asked him where he got it and he said a garage sale a few years ago. I said, you know, people make some pretty cool lamps out of those. He got very excited and asked me if I wanted one because he had an extra. It was in his "bones pile." He told me this used to be my Grandpa's tripod for his old video camera! I was so excited to bring it home... I am going to sand it, polish the hardware, and paint the feet and mount a lamp on it! It will be a super awesome addition to our home, whatever room it ends up in.

Unfortunately it did already try to kill me. I leaned it against the car to load it and it slid off and fell directly on my head! I saw stars for a few seconds before I realized what happened. When I told Chase he was very concerned... about the car! He asked me if the car was scratched... thanks a lot!

31 Weeks

I hit 31 weeks on Monday and the time is just flying by! My hours were finally cut down at work and I'm ready to start some serious nesting. It's hard because every day there seems to be something more pressing then the procrastinated projects... I still have about 2 months though, hopefully the upcoming holidays don't eat up all my time!

Baby Project #1

Well I did it! I finally finished a project for the baby. I literally have 10-15 that are in the works but this one is completed! It was fun and only took me about 10 minutes, as you can see. Getting the fabric paint was the hardest part, haha. I have many other cute ideas in the wings but I'll also take suggestions!

Pregnancy Eats

I haven't had too many cravings since being pregnant, I'm usually just hungry. So here is a list of things I have just eaten way too much of since I have been pregnant.

Cheeseburgers
Otter pops (we're talking 8-12 at a time)
I'm always thirsty so I've been drinking a lot of water
Coke icee's (this might have more to do with my car's lack of AC then being pregnant...)
Smarties (this began before I got pregnant though)
I also ate a PB&J sandwich the other day, totally unlike me.

Thats about it! Disgraceful I know.

A Little Update

My mom keeps telling me that I need to post an update on here. Its kind of funny because when we were in Utah, she never mentioned my blog, but now that I see her everyday she mentions it a lot more! She says that people want to know...

So anyways, I uploaded a bunch of recent pictures from my phone so everyone can see how things are going! (Caution: Aubrey took all of these pictures, except for the ones that she is in... so quality is questionable. But she is quite artsy!) If I look tired in this picture it is because I am. Most days I am very tired and don't have a lot of energy. I can definitely tell that I'm starting my 3rd Trimester!

Haha, Hopefully my mom won't be embarrassed by this picture, but it made Aubrey and I laugh for about 5 minutes when she took this. Definitely going to credit this to late-night silliness...

Aubrey wears this dress most days, and I told her to put on mom's glasses for a funny picture. I think its cute!

Alright, the apparently long-awaited belly pic. This IS my real belly, as opposed to the fake one from the post before, haha. When Aubrey takes a picture of you, she insists on taking at least 5 shots... this was the least blurry, but towards the end of the series, so my face got a little ridiculous...

This one too. But I feel this picture accurately reflects how I feel. I was telling Chase that I try not to complain too much, I know it's going to get worse and every woman goes through this. But unfortuneately he and my family both get to hear about it the most.

I felt that this picture was the best belly-shot. You can see my whole body, and my arm looks pretty muscular. Haha.

Eating ice cream. It was home-made!

Camryn is over at our house a lot and Aubrey takes a lot of pictures of her. This one was too good to pass up! Again, towards the end on the 5 picture series, so the faces get more ridiculous...

Too cute. Aubrey and I made caramel apples as a welcome home surprise for mom and dad when they recently came back from a 4 day trip to Utah. This was hers with all the cute sprinkles and I wanted to document it before she ate it.

Here she goes! She did only get through about 3 bites before she got tired of fighting the apple and put it back in the fridge.

Chase eating his caramel apple. Colin, Chase and I were playing settlers at the time and Chase and I rue the day that we ever taught that game to Colin. He is obsessed and begs us to play with him every time we go over there... which is every day!

I have a lot of baby projects in the works right now but I told myself I wouldn't post them until I finished... and since none are officially "finished"... I am very close on some of them though! Updates soon!

A Bun in the Oven

Well the rumors are true, we are expecting! It's about time I announced it too, because I am officially 18 weeks along. (As a side note, this picture of me is NOT my real belly, it was taken when I first found out and was very excited to see what I would look like...) I am due on January 2nd, which was the same due date my mom had with Aubrey. I actually had my FIRST appointment yesterday. Crazy, I know, everyone there was like, why haven't you come in before?? Well it's because we have finished school, moved, and gotten jobs with insurance, not to mention the hellish experience of actually making the appointment. The bottom line was, "shut up, I'm here now."

Chase and I were very excited to see the baby, because up until yesterday there was lots of speculation that there actually WAS a baby, and I told Chase I needed to eat an extremely large dinner in case I had sextuplets in there...

The first time we saw it, Chase said he was like "wohhh" and I was like, "Where are the arms and legs??" The doctor reassured me that they were there and moved the doo-hicky around to give us a different perspective. It was cool to see a baby moving around with a skeleton and everything and the doctor looked and said she was about 85% sure it was a GIRL!! Chase is still hoping for the 15% chance it is a boy, and he makes sure to tell everyone about that part. I'm hesitant to run out and buy all things pink, but I'm sure that will wear off in a day or two and then, watch out!

Here is a picture of pretty much the whole munchkin. I've included convinent labels if you're like me and suck at decyphering these things... I mean, I was there and saw the moniter! But as soon as we left and were looking at the pictures, all understanding was gone.

I'm going to be posting many pics and updates about our last few months, but right now work is over and I have to go home :)

Happy Easter!

We are having a great Easter enjoying conference. Noelle and Ashlee are over for the day and we had breakfast and are having a pot-luck dinner tonight. These are a few bunnies I made and sent to Tori, Lyra and Aubrey. They are larger versions of the one I posted earlier. Happy Easter!

RC Planes

So I am still into planes. Here is the latest video of the plane I designed and built!

Wish me luck!

I'm making myself this skirt for Chase's mission reunion. I saw the picture and had to have it! I've procrastinated and now only have 3 days left to make the whole thing from scratch! Pattern and all.

Aubrey's dress :)

I'll have pics of her wearing it at my graduation!

Best Friends

I made these and they turned out really good! If you can't tell, it's a bunny and an owl.

http://ashbyfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/easy-owl-pattern-and-tutorial-win-one.html
http://www.chubbyhobby.com/make-and-create/ballet-bunny-plush-tutorial/

Dog Pillow

One project I recently finished was this dog pillow. I was excited to make it and happy that it turned out bigger then I expected! Noelle is totally in love with it and tried to steal it one time... It is the perfect size to embrace, use as a neck pillow, or whatever.

When I finished it I was so excited I woke Chase up to show it to him but he wasn't interested. I was kind of sad, but the next day I came home from school and Chase was taking a nap on the couch and he was totally snuggling with it! It was cute :)

This is hilarious.

New Project

I've recently been called to the Relief Society Activity committee and I came up with the idea to make these wreaths for an activity. Next week a bunch of sisters are coming to my apartment and I'm teaching them how to make these! I already made mine (The one above isn't mine, I tried to take a picture of mine and it didn't look so good...) but mine did turn out Amazing!! It's really the perfect craft, super cheap ($3) and takes a while to put together. It can look as good as you want too! Right now its hanging in my apartment, making me smile every day :)

Facegoo

Facegoo is a new app I got on my phone. I photoshopped this picture during Church yesterday and it make Chase and I laugh uncontrollably for 5 minutes before we realized the new bishop was looking at us... oops!

Visit from the Smiths

Nicole, Phil and Tori came into town last week for Phil's brother's wedding. I knew they were coming and one night I was trying to decide what to give Tori when she came... So I made her this:
It's an Octopus. I gave it a little personality with the teeth and the mouth (I know that's not how octopuses really are... DUH.)

Tori liked it and he was christened "Oscar" (sorry baby boy Smith, you'll have to find a different name, haha) I suggested Ollie but Tori vetoed it.

Even Phil liked it, lol. Well it was fun seeing them and we can't wait until we're in California and it can become a regular thing!

RIP Chase's Mustache

Well, Chase's grad-stache had a nice 6 week run. Here is a picture from it's early days... I came home from school and Chase had made this loaf of bread all by himself for dinner! I had to get a picture.
He finally decided to shave it because I complained too much that kissing him was pokey... Other then that I never complained! It caused quite a stir though, mostly people at church. He told our Bishop that for some reason the thicker his mustache got the more he wanted to buy a gun and shoot things...

Well he DID shave it off and has been upper-lip bald for about 2 weeks now. Who knows if it will ever return??

Pics from Thanksgiving and Christmas

Here are some of the best pictures from Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Aubrey on Chase's shoulders while he played the Wii fit, so cute!

Colin playing the Wii with his sweet set-up and Aubrey sitting with him (a rare sight!).

Chase's mom makes AWESOME guacamole and she hadn't even finished before everyone swarmed around and devoured it. From all sides!

This is from Christmas day in Lodi. My dad got all the boys remote control planes and we went to the Lodi High track to test fly them. It was hilarious and my dad wins the award for most ridiculous crashes and Ryan wins for actually hitting a person (not intentional). It was fun.

At Chase's house over Christmas. For some reason everyone thought it was hilarious that I needed 2 boxes of cookies before I settled down to watch a movie... but they were going fast!

Until next year!

Airplanes

In my Christmas post I mentioned Chase's obsession with planes. Here are a few pictures from one of his maiden flights. He asked me to come with him and it seemed like a nice day, so what the heck?
After we got to the park he explained in detail how I was supposed to handle his plane and launch it for him. Then he made me pretend like I was going to throw it so he could correct my technique, which he did. Then he finally turned it on and I launched it... perfectly. Well, the launch was perfect at least. The plane climbed for a minute then promptly turned upside down and dropped like a rock straight into a lower parking lot. I only had time to think, "oh man..." before it blasted straight into the ground and pieces went flying. Chase seemed kind of shaken, and after some damage assessment we determined that the plane was no more but luckily all his electronics were fine so he could build a new one (see the Christmas post). The whole ordeal was quite funny...Broken plane :(

Christmas

I always put off blogging because transferring pictures to my computer holds me up. So this time I thought I would post and put the pictures up later.

Fall semester finally ended and with a little bit of drama that got worked out, Chase graduated :) No break for him though, as he started grad school at BYU on Jan 4th. He's getting his masters in civil engineering and so far (4 days) he is enjoying it. The weirdest news is that he has decided to grow a "Grad-stache" over the break that is pretty full now and getting lots of attention. He said that his teachers notice him a lot more and he would shave it when he couldn't take the ridicule any longer. He said one guy told him if HE grew a mustache his wife would divorce him! I said that seemed a little extreme and Chase admitted to me that this guy was kind of weird anyway... But other then that I'm am not aware of any ridicule and he always passes it off as jealousy, so I think the 'stache might be here for awhile.

We headed to Lodi for the first week of break and had a really fun Christmas with my family. I had not celebrated Christmas with my family ON Christmas day for 3 years, so it was fun. Aubrey is at the cutest age where she was excited for Christmas to come and finally understood what was going on. I made her a tutu which ended up being a big hit and she would put on her leotard (from Mom), tutu, and ballet slippers (from Noelle) at least twice a day and leap and twirl around the house for anyone that would watch her. She also got a tiara and matching wand and I taught her how to tuck her wand into her tutu like it was holstered. Her favorite thing was to stuff her wand down the front of her leotard and ask me where it went. Obviously her leotard is skin tight so that was no mystery... Besides her tutu she was obsessed with our "pet" (we brought our pet gecko out to California with us) and would ask to hold her at least 5 times a day, and she was obsessed with my iPhone. Once I was leaving and she asked if she could play it and I said no because it was my phone and I needed it. A few minutes later my mom came running out to the car saying that Aubrey had burst into tears because I wouldn't let her play with my ipod, so I handed it over...
This is a picture Aubrey drew on my phone, which she called "Chase."This is a picture Aubrey took of Zaya. She was pretty handy with the camera!

Chase and Colin had a really fun week and had a great time playing with the RC airplanes my dad gave to all the boys. They also went shopping together at one point and after we left Chase told me it was the most fun he's had at my house. (The whole week... not just the shopping with Colin.) We also got to meet Tamie and Ryan's baby for the first time. She is adorable and it makes me glad to see Ryan so happy with his new family. Seeing my friends and family getting married isn't as surprising to me as seeing them start having kids. I was really excited to give baby Lyra the hair barrettes I made for her but then I met her and her hair is like 1/2" long! Oh well, she'll wear them down the road.

MY favorite present was a cast iron grill pan and panini press which I did not expect at all! I was excited to use it and one night we had two kinds of soup and panini sandwiches that turned out delicious! I have a few bugs to work out, but I'll get the hang of it! Noelle and I also gave my dad the Christmas present we had been working on for 5 years... a toupee made out of our own hair. We had been saving our brush hair for a long time to come up with this masterpiece! We also made an infomercial with Chase's and the Shield's help. It turned out hilarious and got just the reaction we wanted. I'll post the video on here when I get it from Noelle. Chase gave me a new fossil watch and some adorable pearl earrings which I love! I think he cheated though and spent more then $50 which is what we agreed on this Christmas... I got him a small drill and some drill bits, but I think he likes those too. I loved being in Lodi and spending time with my family. I am excited for school to be over and for Chase and I to maybe move there :)

After that first week we headed down to Bakersfield to spend time with Chase's family. We had so much fun and it was way relaxing. I had a lot of fun playing with Tori and the result was that she liked to follow me around. Her favorite activity was coming in the bathroom while I was getting ready and going through my things. She liked to do the things I did which included putting baby powder in my hair (Sorry Nicole, if she does this at home...), putting on makeup, and applying chapstick. Another day we also painted her finger and toenails and I put tiny hearts on her nails and they we so cute! Little did I know that she likes to chew on her nails and by the end of the night she only had polish left on about 3 fingernails... haha. Good thing I used the scented polish so she could chew strawberry and kiwi off her fingers! Tori is so much fun to play with but I can already tell Chase and I are a bad influence on her. Chase taught her this weird throaty noise that she makes and sounds like a dinosaur and Chase and I laughed and laughed at her, but Tori gets in trouble for making it from her mom and dad. Oops!

I got lots of good Christmas presents from everyone including a cute homemade necklace from Nicole, a headband from Ashlee, and nail polish from Alex that I wanted so bad but didn't tell anyone about! How did he know!? I also got an immersion blender from Chase's mom, a new watch from his dad, and a very nice Williams-Sonoma gift card which I feel is the best present of all :)

We also went bowling one day which was so fun except I got the lowest score out of everybody on BOTH games! I guess being good at Wii bowling means NOTHING in the real world. Chase's dad also gave him an RC airplane and they went and flew it a few times. It crashed the second to last day and Chase spent the WHOLE day gluing it back together with this special epoxy stuff... then they went to fly it the last morning and Chase's mom went to watch. I stayed home to pack the car when I got a text saying "Plane crash" and when they came home, his airplane was no more... Chase salvaged the electronics but the airplane itself was beyond repair. So once when he had 3 airplanes he now was down to 1 (after another fatal crash of his home-made one that happened in Lodi) Poor Chase!

New years day we also had a super fun Bunko party with 20 people. It was so fun we decided to make it an annual thing. I had a lucky streak and although I didn't get the prize for most wins, I got the prize for most Bunko's rolled (4!) and I was told it was the biggest prize. I got a gift certificate for a pound of See's chocolate which I am really excited to use. Chase won the prize for the 50-50 record (a Rudy Giuliani bobble-head) and Ashlee won for most wins (2 big chocolate bars). Chase's mom was worried that all her prizes were going to her own family members and that the guests would think the whole thing was rigged, but how can you rig Bunko??

We were sad to leave California but ready to get back to our normal lives. Although out of everyone I asked NO ONE was ready for school to start on the 4th, haha. But that was our fun Christmas and I'll get some pictures up here soon.