Nov 30, 2011

{1st Trimester}

Sorry. I don't write. I love my husband's writing much more than my own. So... I take pictures instead. I know I need to be better at documenting my pregnancy. EVERYONE tells me this. So here is my pathetic attempt to recap my first trimester... in pictures.
 
Most of my days during my first trimester were spent just like this... laying anywhere and everywhere. 
 All day long.
Basically just staring at the wall or the out the window concentrating on not throwing up.

 Foods I may never be able to eat again:
chicken broccoli soup
Certain kinds of pizza... even thinking about it makes me nauseous.
And potstickers from Costco... YUCK!

Food I never got sick of:
Fruit Loops... seriously this was our dishwasher about every two days.
Sweets. I doubt Ill ever get sick of sweets. I'm doomed.
Hot dogs specifically J-Dawgs
Pickles
Mmm... and coconut cupcakes from Sweet Tooth Fairy or 25 Main

Nick & I at his family reunion in Loa. 
Yes, I went camping during my first trimester. And I felt great for the two days we were there. Not sure if it was the fresh air or what but it was nice to feel good for a couple days.

My families Disneyland trip fell right at the end of my first trimester so I was mostly feeling better. We had so much fun... even if Nick had to go on all the rides without me :(
Disneyland video coming soon...

 
 I hate this picture. But its the only side angle one i got in between 6 and 18 weeks... oops.

I realize pregnancy posts are the most boring posts for your average person to read. So just know I am doing this mostly for myself... and maybe my mom :)

Nov 11, 2011

Oh boy, It's a GIRL.

When Ashlee and I found out that we would be having a baby, Ash asked if I would write something about that day. I told her that I would, but haven’t been very timely about it. The problem with measuring pregnancy by the week is that it shows just how many weeks I have procrastinated.  Ashlee is fourteen eighteen weeks into pregnancy, which means I’m about two months late writing this post. That means our baby developed hands and feet faster than I produced this post.

When we found out that Ash was pregnant it was completely unexpected. We were just sitting in the office doing our usual routine. This meant Ash was probably yelling at her monitor thanks to the website Pinterest, and I was finding a way to break my computer. While we were sitting there just out of the blue we decided we should take a pregnancy test. We didn’t have a good reason to take a test. We had taken a bunch of tests towards the beginning of the month and they had all come back negative. As a result we just gave up on the possibility of pregnancy for the month, but for whatever reason we felt inclined to take one now. We didn't have any cups, which are necessary for poor man's pregnancy tests, so we had to go the grocery store to pick some up.
After we got back from the store I had forgotten the reason we went in the first place was so we could take the pregnancy test. I came back and went straight into the kitchen while Ashlee went to take the pregnancy test. I was putting the groceries away when Ash walked back into the kitchen and in a nervous whisper announced, “I’m pregnant.”

I couldn’t believe it. I honestly didn't believe it was a possibility so my first response was a skeptical one. I had to ask if she was certain she followed the directions. She was as skeptical as me so we decided to take another test.

Test number two came back with the same red line.

This still wasn’t enough proof for us. We were examining the red line and trying to determine if it was “red enough”. The next step was for me to consult Google. While I was typing “How accurate are home pregnancy tests” into my computer Ashlee was taking test number three. Google was throwing numbers like 99% percent accurate at me and test number three came back with the same positive results.
You would think that three positive results would be enough to convince us that we were indeed having a baby, but it wasn’t. We decided that we weren’t sure how much we trusted the tests we were taking. They were some cheap ones we bought off the internet so we wanted to get something more reliable, so naturally we went to the dollar store to get different pregnancy tests. And yes -- the fact that we were going to the dollar store to get a higher quality anything should be alarming, but that's how we roll.

After the new pregnancy tests we bought came back positive we were finally beginning to realize that we were having a baby. We were so happy and excited we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We ended up just huddled together on the bed holding on to each other, alternating between laughing and crying just from the joy of it. What made the moment even more memorable was while we were lying there Ashlee's iPod which has 15,000+  songs randomly selected the song Shelter by Ray Lamontagne, the song we had our first dance to at our wedding. The song was followed by one of the best love songs there is.. Spirit On The Water by Bob Dylan. It made the moment unforgettable, we just stayed lying there while the music played.
We have had a few doctors appointments since we found out about the pregnancy. Just a couple of weeks ago we had our second ultrasound and found out that we would be having a girl. We absolutely love the ultrasound appointments. It's so fun to see the baby even if they aren't exactly cute quite yet. We have the ultrasound picture's hanging from our fridge and it's amazing how easy it is to get lost in a daydream staring at them. I'll be brushing my teeth and I'll walk into the kitchen and just go through every ultrasound picture and begin imagining what she will be like. It's funny how much you can love someone that isn't even the size of a grapefruit.


Jul 17, 2011

"Sun a shout, the breeze a sigh."

Nick and I made it to St George for a quick weekend getaway. No one was in town except for my Dad so I had the chance to show Nick the true St George experience. Well, most of it... We didn't get to hang out at FrostTop or cruise the Vard, but other then that we made it to a lot of of my favorite places. 
 
 We went downtown right when we got there. I didn't think St George could get any more adorable, but the new carousel and the movie on Main Street proved me wrong.  
 (These are my phone pics from the trip) 


Our trip downtown was followed by a Harmon's grocery trip and a barbecue for Nick, Kiki, and I in my Moms backyard. Afterwards, we took Kiki for a walk.. the walk quickly turned into a panicked sprint home when a thunderstorm rolled into town. I'm so happy Nick finally got to experience a St. George thunderstorm. He's heard me talk about them way too much and this one did not disappoint. I couldn't resist but to stop to take a few pictures... if only I had my SLR. I was pretty proud of what I captured with my phone though.

 

The following day we went to my Dad's glass studio to get in touch with our creative side. Unfortunately it was shortly after that we realized our creative side was a little lacking. We both made our own piece of glass and then combined our talents to create our glass replica of St George. It was a blast and we already can't wait to try it out again.


We ended our night with a trip to Springdale where we had dinner with my Dad & Terri. We went to the Patten family favorite the Bit & Spur. The weather couldn't have been any better. We were able to sit out on the patio with the rain falling all around us. 
It was beautiful.
After dinner Nick and I went to the O.C. Tanner Amphitheater for some Bluegrass. It was no Randy Anderson concert :) but it was a lot of fun


I love this town.

Jun 2, 2011

Before &.... White

If you were to ask us what we were doing any Saturday in the past two months we would have given the same reply every time..."Painting".

We have a routine of going to DI and buying a piece of furniture that we might like. We bring it home and stick in our storage room that now looks like something you would see in the home of a crazy person on an episode of Hoarders. It sits in the room until we have the motivation to fix it up and paint it....
usually white.

Here are some of the before and after pictures we have taken.





Bottom handles will be replaced soon.... and possibly some antiquing... I don't know. Thoughts?
PS- How cute is my cactus?

And the best for last... our record player.
Looks and sounds amazing thanks to my wonderful husband :)

Apr 24, 2011

One Year

Ashlee and I have officially been married for a year. This blog is the closest thing we have to a journal so I wanted to use it to record memories from our wedding. When I think back to our wedding night the one thing I remember more clearly than anything is our first dance. I would be a complete liar if I told you I was looking forward to that dance. I’ve always held on to the opinion that at my height there are just certain things that it was best to avoid and dancing was on that list, so the idea of dancing in front of a group of people was nothing short of frightening.

The night of our wedding when the time came for Ashlee and I to have our first dance I was nervous, but only for a minute.. when the music started and I held Ashlee in my arms all my nerves vanished. I was too caught up in how beautiful my new wife was to even be aware that there was anyone else there other than us. As much as I thought I would dread it, and as much as my tall frame wanted to resist it... our dance ended up being my favorite moment from the night. While Ash and I were dancing there was a quote that came to my mind from one of my favorite books/movie “A River Runs Through It”. I think it popped into my head because of how perfectly it fit the moment.

“It is a strange and wonderful feeling to hold someone in your arms who is trying to detach you from the earth and you aren't good enough to follow her.”

This quote also pertains to our marriage. I will always feel that she is nothing short of an angel and that I am undeserving of someone as amazing as her. We had an eventful first year of marriage and I can't wait for what comes next.

I was hoping to create something nice for us to remember our first year of marriage, but unfortunately I had to change my plans. I started the week off sick then had oral surgery and now I’m stuck preparing for my finals. I still tried putting together this video with some of our memories from our first year.

Untitled from Nick Chappell on Vimeo.

Mar 10, 2011

In case you didn't already know...

I am not a good blogger.
And that's that.

I keep thinking since I have an office job now that Ill be a little better at it... but we will see. My OCD (or OCDC as my mom calls it) stops me from doing fun things like this sometimes (thanks dad). I get too caught up in the writing and format part of it that nobody probably even notices or cares about besides myself. Most of the time, just minutes after starting a post I usually give up and beg Nick to write one. He's much better at this than I ever will be. But since he is currently working a full time job, going to school full time, trying to finish remodeling our house and playing basketball 2 nights a week I figured it was time for me to step it up and give it another shot.
I make no promises.

I finally got some inspiration to blog again when my softball teammate and friend Chloe posted this wedding challenge on her blog. Basically what happened is a bunch of posts and pictures from her blog somehow got erased when she changed her email address, including her engagement, wedding, and honeymoon posts. So instead of trying to upload them all back into one giant post, she had the idea of doing them little posts at a time counting down to her 2 year anniversary next week. So since I never even blogged about our wedding or honeymoon and we are coming up on our first anniversary in April, I loved the idea. Here is the list of separate posts she will be doing and challenged her readers to do too:

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2.
when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3.
proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4.
the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6.
the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7.
the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8.
the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9.
the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10.
the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11.
favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
12.
honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
13. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
14.
first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
15
. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
16.
most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

I'm sure Ill change some things a little bit and mostly just post pictures. And I definitely wont be doing it all in a week. But I thought it would be a good start to get me blogging again. We'll see if it works....


Also, quick update:
- Nick went back to school in January. He does a really good job at figuring out how to juggle a full time job, going to school full time, homework, and my need for attention. I couldn't do it.
- I grew up (not really) and got a big girl job. I am now a receptionist at a printing company called Press Media.
-We moved from Payson to Provo in January and are in the process of remodeling the house. Im excited to get it all done and decorated.