A Season to Give Thanks

I love this time of the year!  The leaves start changing color and begin to fall so they can be crunched underfoot.  One of my favorite things is going for a walk where there are lots of trees and a slight breeze, because then the leaves start falling like rain, and it is so beautiful to see.  But I think the best part is being able to spend time with family!

This Thanksgiving Elijah and I were able to spend time with both sides of our family.  We spent Thanksgiving day at my Aunts house with all of my cousins.  My grandparents were even there.  So there was plenty of food to go around and even more fun.  We played games and ate way too much all afternoon.

This is Alec's little one, 8-9 months old and already walking.

Me and my Grandpa

Me and my Grandma

My brother Nathan

My wonderful Husband, whom I love dearly

Setting up to play another game

Us and the grandparents, you can even see our little girl poking out there a bit.



After all kinds of games and way too much food, Elijah and I headed home to try to sleep it off.  The rest of the weekend we were able to spend in Ogden with Elijah's sister Cammy and her family.  Elijah's sister Beth and her husband were also in Ogden for the weekend so it was quite a reunion.  Even more games and food.

The kids playing a game with Uncle Eli

I'm not sure who won but it is a fun game!

That night it was Just Dance competition on the Wii

It is always so much fun to spend time with family.  Getting to talk and enjoy each others company and learning all sorts of new things about each other and our individual families.  I love spending time with our families!!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

That's what little girls are made of.  Monday we found out that is what we are having!  Elijah is getting a new princess and I am getting promoted to a Queen!

According the the ultrasound technician she is the right size in all the right places, so my due date is still February 9ish.  Her heart is beating really fast 146 bpm but apparently that is normal and good for babies.  She seems happy and healthy and now that we know she is a girl I can start planning her room!

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas I am open to suggestions!

 This was the very first thing we saw when we got into the ultrasound.  I guess she was tired of me calling her a he.  She wanted us to be sure who and what she was!

 This one was kind of hard for me to see at first, but there is her nose and lips peeking out.

 And here is my tribute to early morning yoga, she must have been taking notes, 

legs over your head, and relax!

Still showing off that yoga technique. Knees to nose!

Halloween Take 1

This year for Halloween, we didn't have any solid plans and since I am pregnant my original idea from last year kinda didn't happen.  We were going to be Tristan and Yviane from Stardust and I was going to make these amazing costumes and yeah it was going to be spectacular.  As far as I got with the costumes all year was buying the patterns I thought would work the best.  As Halloween drew nearer I knew I needed to make something, but nothing was coming to mind.  My boss invited us to a Costume party at his house last weekend, so I had to come up with something.  I though maybe we could do Ariel and Prince Eric again.  Due to the "baby bump" I didn't think it was appropriate for me to go as a pregnant Disney Princess, that and the mermaid top did not fit anymore, which would be even more inappropriate!

So I got on-line to find something that would be easy and quick and still look like I tried!  So quick, easy, and things I had.  Juno!  One of the easiest costumes I have ever worn!  And Elijah was a great sport in his shorts and headband.  I don't know if we will have to have another costume this year but if so I might just go and get some red fabric and a little fake fur and we can go as little red riding hood and the wolf.  I guess we shall see!

22 Weeks and Counting

I am 22 weeks and a few random days into this pregnancy!  I am starting to show and feel like I am actually pregnant. 

 I guess that is a good thing.  This is kind of the halfway picture.  Hooray!

So this is a typical Trina picture so I figured it needed to be included!

I was going through my calendar and counting back from when we found out and looking through pictures to see what I looked like when I was pregnant and didn't know it.  So this picture was taken Father's day weekend (it is about the best picture of my profile.) and I was supposedly 6ish weeks pregnant.

6ish Weeks

This was a few weeks before I was pregnant.....Timeline is Crazy right?!  I hadn't really paid attention to when we actually conceived but counting back and looking at how much I did without knowing I was pregnant is really interesting!

Week or two Prior to being Pregnant

Those were about the only pictures I could find that had any kind of belly view and were in the "pregnancy timeline."  It was fun to look back and see what all we have done since I have been pregnant.

Now I have to try harder to take more pictures of this growing baby 

so I can keep track of that kind of stuff.

A Birthday to Remember

So this year my dear hubby is turning 25 and I decided to do a party for him. I first started thinking about his birthday in late August when I realized his birthday was coming up rather quickly. So being the wonderful woman I am, I figured a surprise party was in order. Nothing too big, just a gathering of his friends and some food. One day while browsing on Pinerest.com I found a tutorial for making wands. From that moment on this surprise party took on a whole new vector--direction and magnitude! It very quickly became a Harry Potter Party! (To completely understand why this was such an amazing plan you have to understand that Elijah is always "accio-ing," things to him around the house. It has yet to work but if it did ever happen the shock would not last very long for me!)

 So the Harry Potter Party Plotting began! I already had the materials needed to make the wands, so my apprenticeship to Mr. Ollivander began almost immediately. I also have some very good friends that I bounced ideas off of. Because of these friends we added winged keys, Snape's potion cabinet, horcruxes and costumes to this amazing party. As the weeks progressed and brought us closer and closer to the party I realized there was no way we were going to get my house decorated in one day especially if Elijah was here. Then inspiration struck!! We would move the party into our barn attic, it looked more Harry Potterish anyway. It would also give us time to decorate without Elijah being the wiser!

 All parties are in need of food, and since this was a Harry Potter party the food had to be from the books or movies somehow. Well lets just say my friends and I had a lot of fun picking out the menu! We had Ollivander's Original Wands (pretzel sticks), Hogs Head Cornish Balls (meat balls), Polyjuice Potion (creamy cheesy bacon dip), Potatoronium Roots (little smokies) Herbology Bites (sour patch kids) Chocolate Frogs (gummy frogs-didn't have time to make them chocolate), Pumpkin Pasties (Pumpkin muffins), Cockroach Clusters (no bake cookies) Lemon Drops, Moaning Myrtle's Friends (goldfish crackers) Moldy Peanuts (roasted peanuts) Dragon Breath Peanuts (hot and spicy peanuts), Whomping Willow Bark (Beef Jerky) Jelly Slugs (gummy worms), Grindelow Eggs (Pizza Bites). For Drinks we had Butter Beer, Pumpkin Juice and Elixir of Life. I think the absolute best part of the whole party is that I was able to keep it a secret and Elijah was extremely surprised and had no idea what I was doing all month. To help with all of the sneakiness, I banned him from my craft room telling him I was working on something for his birthday. It also helped being pregnant, I had several odd cravings this past month, but really it was all for the party.

 To get him up in the attic I sent him up there to get my decorations for Autumn. Then he was surprised by a lot of his friends, I think he was a little confused at first but I guess it truly was a surprise. I had a Harry Potter Costume all ready for him up there, and I proceeded to put on my Professor Trelawny costume. Then it was food and chatting and spin the bottle for the wands. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures from the actual party like I should have but here are some of the ones I did get, I also had Griffith bring his camera so some of these are his.

A Need to Brush up on Nursery Rhymes

This summer has not only been a time to spend with family but it has also been a time to grow closer to each other.  In my last post I said I had thrown up on the plane ride home from Georgia.  Well from that moment on, my stomach never really settled.  It had been two weeks since the flight and I still was not quite right in the tummy area.  I was not quite queasy or nauseated just not quite normal.  I let it go figuring nothing was wrong I just wasn't eating as well as I should be.  So I changed a few things up and nothing really changed.  I was still able to function next to normal but Elijah was concerned and put a deadline on it.  "If you're not feeling better in X number of days you need to go to the doctor."  That is when I realized that this had been going on for about 2 weeks.  Well on July 1st Elijah was working later than normal, and I figured I might as well get the idea of the sickness coming from a baby out of my head, so I took a pregnancy test.  Well all of the pregnancy tests I have taken have lead to an extreme emotion of some kind, this one was the first that included dancing around our little house with a big huge smile on my face!  Well Elijah came home soon afterwards and I got to share our good news with him!  I don't think I have ever seen his eyes sparkle quite as brightly as they did when he heard me call him a daddy to be!  We were able to get an ultrasound done on the 30th of July and found out we were about 12 weeks along and that we are due mid February.  

Everyday is a new little adventure for us as we start planning for February when we will have a little Hall in our arms.  There are moments when I still can't believe we are really going to be parents.  Then I see Elijah's face when he talks about when we have a little one with us, or when he sees a baby at church and just reaches for my hand and squeezes it.  We are going to be parents....and we are going to be amazing!!  We are both so excited and can hardly wait to hold our new baby in our arms.

The Hall Summer Recap

So Elijah and I have had a very busy Summer!  It started off in June we flew out to Georgia for the Hall Family Reunion.  My brother in law Forrest came and picked us up from the Atlanta Airport and the adventure began.  That night the family all was together and we enjoyed a dinner together, that dinner turned into family karaoke and dance night.  Monday we all made our way to Orange Beach Alabama for the rest of the reunion.  Elijah's parents own a condo on the beach front and rented 2 more for us all to stay in.  We rotated cooking and activities.  The beach was beautiful!  We had beach volleyball, corn hole, bowling, and Scattergories.  We even drove to Pensacola Fl to watch the Blue Angels and go to the aviation museum.  My parents and Val drove down on Thursday night to pick us up and take us back home Friday.  Friday morning Randy (Elijah's dad) took us sailing, which was amazing!  I think Elijah would love to own a boat of some kind now.  After boating we went to change and head over to the Hangout for dinner.  The Hangout is a restaurant that is unlike any other I have ever been to.  The food wasn't stellar in my opinion but the atmosphere is worth the cost.  They had trivia, a kids bar and playground, they had little shops, face painting,  they also had live music.  When we were done eating and waiting on the check we had a magician come and entertain us.  He did a lot of card tricks, put Val's phone in a balloon, made a fork bend till it made a "flower," and he also stole my big huge watch without me noticing.  He was very good at his illusions!  Mom even got to keep the fork!  After we finished eating Elijah and I had to say our good byes to his family as we were leaving to spend the rest of the weekend with my family.  I am glad I have become a part of the Hall Family.  I still have a lot to learn but I definitely enjoyed my time there with them!

 That weekend was short with my family but we played volleyball, bocce ball, Frisbee golf, and several card games.  Sunday was Father's day so we all went to church and I got to say hello to everyone there in Albany.  Of course there was popcorn that night, it wouldn't be a Sorensen gathering without it!  Monday morning was Renee's birthday and we had to be in Atlanta to fly back home.  So we drove up early to spend lunchtime with her.  We brought her lunch from the Publix Deli and mom was nice enough to stop by Zaxby's so I could get some of their stellar chicken and Zax Sauce!!  (Zaxby's is an eastern thing, so I have missed it out here in Utah.)  Renee showed us their new house and all of the things they are still working on.  It looks like they have come a long way.  After a quick game it was off to the airport.  We had to RUN to catch our flight at "last call" but we made it and had our little layover in Denver and then it was back in the air to get to Provo.  Last 10 minutes of that flight my stomach decided I was not waiting and I blew chunks on the plane...Fun Times! (more on that later!!)  We landed gathered our stuff and went to find Dani and Andrew waiting for us!  They are awesome friends!!

Then just in time for us to get adjusted to being back home and living like usual, it was time for another family reunion.  My grandparents had just returned from serving a mission in Thailand so of course we had to celebrate their homecoming by having a family reunion.  We were having it up at Bear Lake like we did a few years ago when we celebrated Grandma and Grandpa's 50th Wedding Anniversary.  Five out of the six siblings (of mom's) were able to come along with most of my cousins, if not for the whole long weekend then for part of it.  Elijah was only able to stay till Saturday afternoon (saying goodbye to him for those few days was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do!!)  But we went boating (my Uncle Rich owns a boat and brought it along) tubing, wake boarding.  Then there was card and board games galore, along with Frisbee, volleyball, boce ball, ping pong, Foosball, air hockey and a new game I didn't catch the name of where you throw sticks and knock over boards.  There was always a game going on somewhere.  Along with games comes food and snacks.  That is one thing about the Johnson family, we do games and good food at all gatherings!

 It has almost been a month and I am just now starting to remember that I have to cook dinner on a regular basis, and clean my house, and go grocery shopping.  I love vacation and being able to see my family but getting pampered and not having to do anything except show up for dinner has really thrown off my schedule.  I have to admit I would definitely do it all over again, and again, and again!!