BKO Illguth

It's Christmas Time!!!

2012-01-12T15:24:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Oh, what a wonderful time of the year. You just can't help but walk around with a smile on your face, at least I couldn't. Especially whenever I imagined Dec. 23rd. This year was Christmas on my side and my family and siblings decided to go to Montana and have a Caffrey Christmas.

I have such fond memories of going up there every couple of years as a child. I big house up on the side of a mountain, covered in snow. The best sledding hill//driveway you could imagine. 14 foot high Christmas tree. Food and games forever. But it's hard transferring memories to a spouse and child, so I was just ready for Bryan and O to experience it themselves. Here's what we came up with :)

O's first plane ride would have been a disaster if Bryan hadn't of been there. He is such a wonderful Dad! Yay for getting O to sleep!!

"Let me out and play guys! We're in Montana!"

Christmas Eve

Santa's cookies got a little taste-testing.

O got to be baby Jesus in our Broadway production of "Jesus' Birth."

He did a most excellent job. Especially when he got to play with the lighter fluid the wise man brought for him :)

Christmas pinata

Christmas Morning!!!

The cuties were his favorite thing in his stocking. Nice 6 am snack.

Wasn't so sure about the ripping-the-paper thing I was doing.

I made Bryan this cute little desk calendar for his work with pics of O and I in it. His tears told me he loved it :)

Sledding

We had the wonderful services of someone to pull us back up the mountain after we had sledded all the way down.

But not everyone always made it up in one piece.

Since sledding and prego doesn't go too well, I built this sweet jump for the sledders.

Uncle Perry getting air.

Bryan getting powder.

Uncle Dan and Jarom built another ramp. Needed more air than 2 inches I guess.

Ha. Love Jarom's face.

Bryan shooting video, not animals, in Yellowstone.

Hahaha! This poor elk who looked like he just got out of a boxing ring let my dad get within 5 feet of him. Look at the face he gave the camera!

And of course, O loved the snow. Not so much the sledding, but the white stuff was an automatic hit.

It's getting colder... 70 degrees!

2012-01-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

When it finally hit December 1st, we were so excited to get ready for Christmas! (Me especially because I knew we were going to Montana! Bryan was fretting about the Bridal Fair.) Out came a bum load of decorations and we were so ready. Here are some pics that sum up that time frame.

Of course Bryan threw a sippy into the Christmas tree box so O would go after it...

No snow is just a given in Mesa. So O decided to make his own styrofoam snow. He would have made a blizzard if I would have let him :)

Then we decided to whip out our gingerbread train. We didn't have enough time to make it last year, so we were ready for it this time. Frosting was a bit dried out, but that candy has a very long shelf life. O didn't mind at all. His eyes just lit up when all of the candy was dumped out on the table and when he shoved his hand into the frosting jar. He was sad when the tub washed off his secret stashes of sugar for his nap time :)

Then there were the Christmas lights at the Mesa temple. O LOVED them. He has a small fetish with lights. It was a blast to walk around together as a family and enjoy the festive season. So ready for snow and Christmas!!!

November Catch-up

2011-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

There were some fun things that happened in November to our family, so we can't go on to December without giving them a blog of their own!

First off, our fam got to go up to Utah to be with the Illguth family for Thanksgiving. It was sooo wonderful to see them. It had been almost a year since we had seen a lot of Bryan's family. And we got to meet two new and beautiful nieces! And Thanksgiving dinner.... holy buckets. I have no problem saying it was my best tasting one yet! I am hungry again just thinking about it!

Cutest decorations! Mel is so crafty. Our family is growing so big! So there will be more kids than adults!!!

We shared the good news of being prego with a girl with binkies and sparkling cider. Mmmm...


Love my adorable husband! Never a dull moment :) And love the snow right?!? Marshmallows and fishing line.

The Illguth Family!

Then after family got sick of us, we crashed with the friends! Jake and Heidi were kind enough to let us stay with them. Poor Natalie didn't know what she was getting herself into! :) But we had a tasty breakfast with the Hansen's and a clown show!

O loved the dove!

And he thought he was Mr. Cool with all of the girls.

Hansen Family #1

Hansen Family #2- (Bryan should have worn grey and we would have been matchy families!)

Then at the end of our trip, we went to Ogden to see the fairy cottage where Steve and Jacque are staying. They took us to the train museum! And O had a blast!!! Choo Chooo!

Bestefar and O

Bestemor and O


Huge Polar Express train!

We also got to celebrate a very special day..... Bryan's birthday! It was a bit low-key this year. He got a much needed drill and work shoes. But we are already getting ready for his 30th birthday. Now that one is going to be fun!!!!

Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice

2011-11-29T10:38:00.001-08:00

Well, it's time to whip out the pink and the purple because...

... We're having a baby girl! And we are very excited to be having another addition to our family on the way. She is due on April 28th, so we're steering clear of the summer pregnancy (thank goodness!!) I am totally ready to decorate her room and have some fun with colors besides blue. (Although it was a very nice color for O.)

Here's our last ultrasound of her that we took a week ago. Her cute little profile shot.

Of course the ultrasound tech started at the head with all of the measurements. I was getting so anxious. I had felt that it was a boy so I was expecting to see some male anatomy. Surprise to us! I have no motherly instincts as to baby gender. Wrong for her and O. It took a while for it to sink in that our baby was a girl, but when it did, I was all smiles :) It will be a fun new journey for our family. Plus, it will be nice to have some girl on my side of the family. She'll be the first one with 4 boys ahead of her. She's going to have to be one tough cookie. We'll see what name we pick, going back and forth. And... that's all for now. Let the shopping begin!!!

HaLlOwEeN!!!!!

2011-11-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

Oh, what a delightful holiday! Only Christmas can top costumes, candy, decorating and parties. And boy did we do all of those this year.

So, we had our 3rd annual Halloween party this year. We had all of our regulars come, plus a few newcomers. It's always wonderful to hear how much fun the families all had.

People brought lots of tasty treats. Plus we had soups and chili for dinner with tasty spinach artichoke dip. Mmmm!!!

By far my favorite Halloween decoration is the bubble fogger we got last year. Pop a bubble from the machine and fog floats out. It was a hit this year, especially when the trick-or-treaters came to get their candy. The zombie bride Abbi captures the sure bliss.

Here were our costume winners this year. Although it was a close race because of all of the cleverness people came with!!!

Zombies Abbi and Cooper got best couple. (Poor kids died on their wedding night...)

Elastigirl Brooke got best adult costume. And she totally pulled it off being 5 months pregnant!

Cleopatra Sara got best kid's costume. She was totally decked out.

The Man in the Yellow Hat Daniel and Curious George Benson won funniest costume overall. You couldn't help but smile to see Daniel's total yellow outfit.

And here are just some other people in their smashing costumes.

You couldn't touch Jarom because his red dye, I mean blood would stain everything! But he was gross.

Indian Jones Dean and Marion Danette. Cute duo.

Here were some fun games that we played that night.

The kids started off with the Zombie Trot, a cupcake walk that they actually all had a lot of fun with.

We had a group game called Witch's Brew where each team had to find all 6 of the witch's ingredients that fell into a pumpkin. Boy, was it a messy, but fun one!

For our couples game, we had Sweet n' Sour, a candy corn toss. It was the first couple to 5 "sweet" candy corns. But the catch was, every time they missed they had to take a shot of the "sour" lemon and pickle juice creation we had. (Heard it was nasty. Yeah right like I was trying it!) But here were the guys.

And here were the ladies. Most people chickened out on drinking the stuff :)

After the couple game we played Fright Factor. We didn't get a picture of the kid or men's group. But the kids were blindfolded and told to be the first one to eat everything on their plate. We played it up to be nasty. But all it was were gummy worms in honey. But they were fearless and stuffed everything into their mouths without knowing it!
The guys were hilarious! Wish I had a video. But we put before them a set mousetrap with a gummy worm on it and told them to be the first to get theirs off and eat it. Then we blindfolded them too. The guys were freaking out!!! They and their wives all thought they would lose a finger. But while they couldn't see, we switched out the set traps for just pieces of wood with the worm on it. So funny to see them so apprehensive in getting their worm.

The girls actually got the nasty stuff. The had to be first to eat Spam, spiced octopus, and a sardine. Denise and Janeen on the left were the only two women who would do it. But you gotta do a close up on the audience's faces. It was gross!!!

Our family were a bunch of cavemen. Gotta love thrift store cheap material and homemade costumes!

O was adorable. His feet only touched the ground twice at the party.

And Oh, how he loved trick-or-treating!!! Actually, Bryan was the one running from house to house with him. But O would knock on the door and grab his candy. Huge sugar tooth.

Hooray for Halloween!!! Such a fun night and fun people to be around. Looking forward to next year!!

Old post that I didn't know I had :)

2011-09-06T15:50:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love summer! True, it is ridiculously hot, but you get over it when you decide to just have some fun! And what better way to have some fun then at the pool and during holidays with family!
O was loving the pool and had the pruney feet to prove it!

And because he was not blessed with his father's nice olive skin, he's a little white boy and got to wear the classic baby hat. But he loved swimmin' with Bryan. O even went under the water and got thrown in the air without crying! Go O!

Cousin Miles was a little fish. No fear with swimming. One day O will soar like him! But hopefully he will be able to keep his pants on! :)

And then we had 4th of July. How fun that is to see the absolute delight on the kid's faces when they watch the fireworks or play with sparklers. (At least the ones who can stay awake long enough.) O was so confused that I was giving him fire to play with. But the cousins were going all over with their sparklers.
And here's O with great-grandma Sally. We had a big swim party and bbq at her house before the firework show. And sadly, the show was nothing like Taylorsville Days. Which was a big bummer that we had to miss this year. My first time missing it since I started dating Bryan. But we'll try to make up for it next year. Until then, hugs and smiles for everyone! Hope you enjoyed your holiday!

Summer Fun

2011-09-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

So I love summer time. It was a blast being a kid during it and I am loving having fun with our kid too! So many simple joys. O found one.... juice boxes. Cousin Sloan shared with him and boy does he love sucking from straws now!

Mmmm... Not watered down juice!

Here is another thing summer thing I have wanted to do since college. Oh yeah, my roomies and I totally did finger painting once. Talk about a blast! And if "mature" college girls loved it, what would a kid think about it!?!?

All suited up and fully covered.

Didn't really know what to think about the junk on his hands. But he loved the squishy sound affects Mom was making.

But it sure was tasty! (Thank goodness for non-toxic)

Of course all 3 of us got our hands dirty. Bryan even made an adorable picture. I will have to take a picture of all of our masterpieces after they are hung up. I am using them as wall art in O's bedroom.

2011-08-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY OWEN!!!!

Our little boy is 1 year old!!! Holy Buckets. I am scared to think of how fast life is going to keep going.
He is such a cutie. His little smile/smirk will melt your heart. He loves making noises and copying all of the funny sounds Bryan and I make.... which is quite a lot. He obviously thinks walking is for the weak because he wants nothing to do with it. Crawling all the way. If he could only drink juice for all of his meals, he'd be the happiest kid in the world. And if Owen finds out you are eating something sugarish and not sharing with him, freak out. Bryan passed that sweet tooth on to him :) But there are some fun O facts.

Now, on to the party! Bestemor and Bestefar came all the way down from Utah for the fun time. They went through some crazy things and we felt very blessed to have them for even the short time that we did. We love seeing the Illguth family whenever we can. First we went swimming at great-grandma and grandpa's. The classic Sessions' family birthday party.

Bryan filled up a TON of water balloons and we have a blast with them in the pool.

Then it was back to our house for pizza, cake, ice cream and presents. O was a good sport for everything he let us do to him.

With cake time, we had gotten him his own personal trashing cake. He wasn't so sure about this thing with fire on it placed in front of him.

It wasn't until Bryan ripped part of it open and he saw the goodness inside that he went to town. Mainly on the frosting.

And he LOVED the cold ice cream. He held it forever it seemed like.

He is getting so good at sharing :)

I also made a separate cake for everyone else. We had a cute bug theme going. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and Oreo crumbs. Topped with sour gummy worms. Mmmm..... (O is too young to have a favorite cake yet, so I went with one of mine :)

Then we attempted to have O open some of his presents. He had no idea what was going on like any normal 1 year old. But he got some wonderful things that he already has a blast playing with. He says thank-you in his own special way to everyone!!!!!

Looking forward to another year full of laughter and smiles! We love you Owen!!!!

1st Daddy's Day!

2011-07-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

I know it was a bit ago, but I gotta do a post for Bryan and his first Daddy's Day with O. I had a blast getting things ready for the day.
Bryan first had "breakfast out of bed" because he was out of bed before O and I could bring it to him. Then he got some simple gifts. My favorite was this tie that I made for him. Boy was that one fun to come up with! I had seen bow ties, so I tried this one.

O sure loves his dad. When Bryan comes home and sweeps him off the ground....priceless. Dad is definitely more fun than mom :)
But I think that this was one of Bryan's favorite gifts. If you know Bryan, you know that he absolutely LOVES Legos and Pirates of the Caribbean (plus he can do a kick-trash impersonation of Jack). When he saw that they had come out with Cap. Jack legos, he about fell to pieces. And he says I'M still a kid at heart! So we got him this set from the last movie. Jack, Barbossa and Blackbeard.
What a wonderful dad Bryan is and he's only on his first one! I have a blast parenting with him. O and I sure do appreciate everything that he does as the father of our home. Happy Father's Day!

VIDEOS!!!

2011-06-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was trying to load videos for the first time the other day. It wasn't working. So genius Bryan showed me another way. But I still am not totally savvy, so I have to post the videos all by themselves. I do what works. Anywho, this vid is one that Bryan put together for a video contest. He did a bang-up job and I wanted to share it. Good job babe!

Beethoven O

2011-06-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

So, Sloan has been playing the piano a ton lately, and O looked like he wanted to do it. I have now found something that he LOVES to do!!!

Untitled from Kara Illguth on Vimeo.

Mr. Mobile

2011-06-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

Here's our little crawler. There's no audio, but he's still adorable.

Untitled from Kara Illguth on Vimeo.

Picture updates

2011-06-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

So here is our cutie pie and what our family's been up to. Not too much, but we are livin' up life in Mesa. O is getting so big! He's still a small baby, but he's already 10 months old. Bryan and I were just planning his 1st birthday party! Geesh... but he's lovin' his new front tooth. (Only 1 on top has come in.) So he loves biting into things... like berries. Obsessed.

Ha. He looks fat here. But this is the best angle for an optimal tooth shot.

Since O FINALLY decided that crawling was the cool thing to do, he loves to pull himself up onto things now. Which also means he now is a lot more whiny and pulling at my legs to be held. He follows me around like a lost puppy. But O's in the picture with his second-cousin Sloan, who I watch 4 days a week. She is such a cutie and it's like I have an older daughter.
Now for some older Easter pictures. He looked so dapper that day.
He loved getting the bright Easter eggs. His cousins were a little faster than him though. He'll catch up one day.

And this last picture is up because O's aunt Aubrey moved to Utah to start on her own. She is going to a hair school in Provo. But we love and miss her and hope she has a blast! I loved my school days in Provo.

Smores, tents, smoke and dirt

2011-04-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

You gotta love camping! And the fact that we can do it here in Arizona already!!! (Sorry about the snow UT peeps.) A couple of weeks ago we went a little down south and whipped out the camping stuff. We went with my mom's side of the family, the Caffrey's. They were a blast to camp with. And the Caffrey's are all about food, so we were eatin' well. Here's our lovely campsite. (Had to drive through a creek bed to get here!)

Nice and deserty. The only problem was that you had to watch where you were doin' your business so you didn't squat on a cactus :) But this was O's first camping trip and he did a fabulous job! He loved chillin out by the fire. (Not too close...)

But his bed was the best. It was FREEZING at night and I didn't want him to wake up. So I wrapped him in 3 layers of clothes and multiple blankets made up his bed. He was so toasty and didn't wake up all night, even though the wind was SOOO loud and no one in the whole camp slept!!! Plus that was the night that he cut his first tooth! Go O!

Here is a cool time-lapse picture Bryan took of our tent at night.

And here are my boys with O's ugly hat that served its purpose... no sunburn.

My nephew Miles digging for treasure...

And O and I. Don't judge.... I am allowed to look scary when I am camping. :)

Good grief...

2011-03-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

My last post was when O was 3 months old?!? Gag me with a spork. He's now up to 7. So I've decided on a new tactic. I changed my background to something that I will have to change at least when Easter is over so I HAVE to get back on to do that. Maybe it will remind me to blog.... It's a long shot but worth a try.

4 months of back blogging.... That could be very boring. So to catch up on the BKO Illguth family I shall do some picture highlights until I get caught up to the present.

Start with Halloween. Our party was way fun and everyone had a great time dressing up and eatin' grub. I love the mandatory dress-up rule. We got some good costumes.
Our family dressed up like hill-billies. I didn't get a good picture of all of us. But Bryan was a hoot and O got to wear a flour sack :) This picture didn't quite capture how much the kids LOVED our Halloween treasure box!

Next was Christmas in Utah. It was O's first Christmas and he got to go on his first roadtrip. He did ok on it, except for the fact that he was kinda sick. Poor guy. This was how he spent his Christmas morning. It was so fun to see the Illguth family though!

Hahaha. I love my husband. He dressed up with a snowman kit we got from Steve and Jacque.

Other than those holidays, not too much has happened to us as a family. But Baby O is growing up fast! Rolling over was a big milestone and he conquered that one a while ago. Now he's a steamroller on the floor because he can't crawl yet. He started sitting on his own a couple of weeks ago. He's already had two haircuts. Not because it's growing too fast, but because it was this nasty old-guy comb over looking thing. Here's after his first one.

And this was just an adorable older picture of him!

But here's pictures of what he looks like now. And he's sportin' his new teeth in these pictures! He got them at 6 1/2 months, so a couple weeks ago. So nice to have them in so he can sleep through the nights again!

So there's a tidbit for now. I have some other stuff but I don't want this post too long. And I'll have to figure out how to add some videos....

3 Months Old!

2010-11-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

Dag nab it.... I missed my one post in October. I totally thought that since I was staying home now I would have all of this time to get on here more often..... Guess not. Oh well.

So here are some pictures of Baby O from the past couple of weeks. He's 14 weeks old today, 3 months. But first, here are some little updates about him.
*He started smiling back about a month ago so now we get to see his adorable smile!
*He is so close to giggling because he is SUPER ticklish. (I'll see if I can get a video of it.)
*If he could lay under his mobile or a fan and watch them go around all day long, he would. He just can't help passing out :)
*Hooray!!! He finally took his first bottle and drank some of it about 2 days ago. He hasn't been too fond of them or binkies. He would make the funniest faces.

CHEESE!!!

Squirt is just ONE of his many nicknames.

He wasn't too fond of Tootsie's kiss.

He tries to stay awake with Dad for as long as possible since he doesn't get to spend too much time with him because he's at work all day.

Just yesterday he had barfed EVERYWHERE and as you can tell by his face, he felt so much better. Bryan thought it was nasty, he was holding him, and I ran to get the camera :)

A New Chapter

2010-09-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

So this is the next chapter in our book of Life. We get to start our family! We now have the titles of Mommy and Daddy and we have an adorable little boy who is already a love in our life. It's amazing to me how quickly you can just love the guts out of something so fast. We feel so blessed with this new addition in our lives.

So Bryan put up the last blog and it didn't have too many details. So I'll give a couple before I plop in some pictures.
My whole birthing plan was thrown out the window when I went to my last Dr. appointment on August 11th. I had started feeling itchy a few days before, but by then, I had developed a full blown rash call PUPP. (Stands for something.) Nasty booger that covered by whole body and was super uncomfortable. The only way to get rid of it was to have your baby, so the doctor scheduled me to be induced. At the time I wasn't so thrilled because I had wanted to do most of my laboring at home, but looking back I am glad it happened how it did because I wouldn't have been able to go another day with my rash and how inflamed it was. Plus, I now knew exactly when I was going to have Owen!!!
The pitocin worked quickly on me when they finally got my IV in. After they started me on it and broke my water, he was born about 8 hours later. I wasn't able to handle the pitocin induced contractions as well as I had hoped. I went into hospital at a 1, got to a 3 with the contractions camel-backing, and then ended up getting an epidural. So we'll see how my next pregnancy goes.
So our little cutie was born at 2:59 am. He weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. Nice and normal sized. But the HAIR!!! We have no idea where he got that from. We were both blondies. So these first pics are shortly after we brought him home. Can't believe he's already a month old...

Here's some more recent ones.
Owen's first time going to church! He was such a good baby. Passed out for all of sacrament meeting. I sure do have two good looking studs :)
Bestamor came to visit for Labor Day weekend and we got to chill out with her. Grandbaby #6
Who would have thought that we would go through hundreds of diapers in just a month??? (Brandon and Val, just wait. This will be DOUBLED!)
Sunday naps are very much looked forward to. I guess I should say ALL naps are looked forward to!

Owen Is Here!

2010-08-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few pictures of the new miracle in our lives and the smiles on Mommy and Daddy's faces.

Owen Bryan Illguth
Born: August 14th 2010 at 2:59 am (and he's doing great!)

The Last One!

2010-07-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

So it has finally come, the last month of the pregnancy. Well, more like the last 3 weeks. I hit my 37 week mark yesterday, so I am now considered "full term" and he is allowed to come any time he wants. For my 8 month pictures, we took it in Owen's room with his freshly painted walls and his crib that we FINALLY got set up. Bryan did an awesome job making it nice and sturdy for our youngin'. And cousin Benson has already tested it out for Owen. He slept like a dream :)

I need more of a side-profile shot so you could tell that my belly has changed shape. About a week ago, he totally dropped. One day I was having nasty heartburn and regular nature calls. The next day the burn was almost all gone and full instead of 5 bathroom trips an hour. I have had a lot more Braxton Hicks too. My uterus is getting nice and strong so it can get that baby out fast...hopefully.

I am still toying with the idea of going all natural or getting an epidural. Especially after Bryan and I went to these child/labor prep classes. We learned some interesting information and I keep testing Bryan on all of the terminology. He's getting pretty good at it. So much to learn that I am just ready to experience it to understand more. I'll post more of Owen's room when I get more of it put together.

7 Months and Paradise!

2010-06-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

I am hoping that it is just because it's summertime that life is passing so quickly. Maybe when I actually have Owen, life will slow down a bit. Gut instincts are telling me no though. It is almost the end of June! In about 8 weeks we're going to have a squealing small-fry in our home. Crazy crazy crazy.
So I guess it's time for my monthly post. Maybe I should post more often. We'll see. Once I get a computer in my office, I think that will change. So here's how the belly is doing.

It's interesting because now I can tell that he is steadily getting bigger. We are going to gain about a pound a week for the next 8 weeks I'm told. Hopefully that's more him than me :)

One of my doctor's visits a couple weeks ago wasn't my normal in and out. She measured my belly about 5 different times before telling me that I was measuring too small and that I needed to get another ultrasound to make sure everything was all right. Kind of not-fun to hear, but she said I just probably wasn't going to have an 8 pound baby. Ok by me. But the ultrasound showed that he was almost 4 pounds and in the 64th percentile at 31 weeks. She even moved me up 4 days! So my due dates have gone from August 19th-14th-10th. I'm shootin' for somewhere in there. My stomach is in constant motion and I finally felt his first batch of hiccups. So fun! Seems to be doing hunky-dorey.

Next item of today's post: Bryan and I decided to take one last "we don't have any kids to keep us home yet" fling. So we saved our pennies and took a jaunt over to Hawaii to chillax over there. We were there from June 7th-12th. And what a blast we had!!! It was a great blessing and very relaxing. We rented our own car so we could go where ever we wanted to on the island of Oahu. Here's some things we got to do:

This pic was taken at the Polynesian Cultural Center. That was a ton of fun! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Some of the shows we saw were just down-right hilarious. And the night show was spectacular. Good times.

This is what Bryan was doing almost the whole time. If that boy could have little cameras taped to his eyeballs so he could capture everything we saw in Hawaii, he would have been one happy camper. But he is so passionate about film that it was adorable to see his serious face when he was getting "the perfect shot."

When Bryan was pulling off the road with one of his random shots, we just happened to find these massive sea turtles chillin' on the beach on the North Shore. We had gone snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, but only saw fish. These guys were awesome to swim right next to. Gotta love free things!

Fun little beach by the PCC where this dude let us hold a crab he had caught. These were the smartest little boogers I had ever seen! Impossible to get a video of.

One of the best parts of Hawaii, the views and sunsets. And we weren't even on the prettiest island! We saw sunsets from all of the 4 shores, and the West shore was by far our favorite. We got out of our hotel room in Waikiki as often as we could. Way too touristy. Gallon of milk=$8. Gag me with a spork! The Swap Meet was the place to go though. Loved their prices! Also went to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. Very nice. Went on a city tour, got lost/turned around a ton with all of their stinkin' one way streets. I am so not a good navigator in new places. The Dole plantation was cool too. I have never seen so many different kinds of pineapple in my life! But they had yummy samples :)

All in all it was a wonderful vacation. Bryan and I enjoyed our time together and are now looking forward to our time with little Owen.

Oh yeah, 3d Trimester!

2010-05-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

I have now officially hit my 6 month mark! Baby Owen's anticipated arrival is 3 months away. We'll see how fast that time can fly.

Little Owen is around 2 pounds now and just over 14 inches long. He can open and close his eyes and is finally starting to put on weight so he doesn't look like a wrinkly alien. (Got that alien part from Baby Center. They said it first, not me!) At 27 weeks, he does not like it when I rest my arms or elbows on him. He gives me a swift kick to tell me that he is already squished enough!

I have been doing wonderful, considering all the things that could be not fun for me right now. Only little things here and there that aren't that fun. Already having poor circulation makes my feet even puffier at the end of the day with the extra weight I now have. I get these nasty cramps in my lower abdomen, not Braxton Hicks, that make me feel faint. Don't really like those. Acid reflux is my constant friend sometimes. Trying not to live off of Tums. But I seem to be carrying Owen really high, so that might have something to do with it. But really, that's it! I have been extremely blessed and have never thrown up. Sometimes I don't even feel prego until I look in the mirror. Reality check.

Besides the baby, the other huge thing on my mind is that SCHOOL IS ALMOST OUT! Since I am not on here too often, it will probably already be over when I write again. I love my students to death and I ADORE being a teacher, but I am so much more excited for motherhood. Eight and half more teaching, or should I say babysitting days left. My students gave up on me weeks ago when testing was over. It's a good thing that we are almost done with my office to so I can have a place to put all of my teaching stuff when it's moved out of my classroom. I'll put pictures of my office area when it's done.

One last thing, Tootsie is a goober. Love her to death, but she is a goober. Here is a picture that captures it all. This was taken not even 24 hours AFTER she had a bath. NOT before.

Goo. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. And I guess she didn't learn her lesson the first time because she decided to go romping in the tree dirty water again today. She didn't like her kennel too much after that. She grew from a 2 year old to a teenager way too quickly.

Our Recent Remodel

2010-05-10T13:53:00.001-07:00

We planed on knocking down the wall from the garage to one of the small rooms in the back when we first bought the house, we just didn't expect it to happen so soon. But thanks to a little push from a future member of our family things are moving along. We decided to do the remodel because Bryan's office was in one of the bedrooms down the hall but we wanted to change that into a baby's room for Owen while still keeping the guest room. So we tore down a few walls to make some smaller rooms into a bigger and better one and that's where the project began. Here is the before and after (and a few in betweens) of our remodel that we've been working on for the past two months.

We had to rip out a beat up old bench tear off the sheet-rock and pull out the insulation.

Kara was having too much fun being destructive and managed to get a few good blows into the wall to help it come down.

Bryan and Dean cutting and ripping down the stucco wall from the inside of the small room. That was a mess!

Kara's grandpa came over to help with the pipe that ran right through the room, it wasn't long before that problem was overcome, then spur of the moment we decided to go to home depot and get a door for the side of the house. I think Home Depot is Bryan's new favorite store, not by choice though. Cutting the hole for the door.

Bryan overcame a major obstacle with putting in the electrical all by his self. With a few phone calls, research on the internet, and a couple of visits from people that have done it before he got it all done only shocked himself once and everything works... no fires yet :)

Bryan ran more than 350 feet of electrical wire through the new room, garage, shed and attic.

Digging a trench to run power to the shed in the back of our house. It now has plugs and a lightso we can see in it at night finally.

The easiest part was probably the insulation the only tools needed were scissors and staples.

This is our new door going outside from Bryan's office.

And sore for a week after putting up the sheet-rock and sanding the whole room.

The new look of the garage, rather than a work space we're going to put in a work banch with cabinets and a place for tools and other stuff like that... you know garage stuff! That's why it's indented a little and the plugs are so high on the wall.

Kara said it best when she sketched this out in the sheet-rock dust. A little over a week after sanding and it was all finished. We were both happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Kara is cleaning and prepping the floor for the special cement stuff we got for floating the floor out to make the two sides more even.

Dean came over to help float it out, We appreciate his help I couldn't have done it a lone it was definitely a two man job.

He also sprayed the texture on the walls well Bryan went around and pulled the bumps down.

This is Bryan after a long day of working on the room and finishing with the texture. Ready to hit the shower and then the sheets.

Tadaa! The after portion of our project. Bryan's starting to move his computer and equipment over to his new office. Next on the list paint and decorate Owen's room. Bryan's not too excited about the work but both of us are excited to have a cute baby room ready for the day we bring owen home from the hospital.

We put edging around the door and the window. We both thought that it looked really nice so we're going to do it to all the windows in our house. No big deal right?

Knocking down the wall and adding the extension put another 100 square feet onto the living space of our home. We hope that the remodel will serve us well while we are there and in the future when we decide to sell it. It was a lot of work but we learned a ton and it was worth it in the end.

Babies!

2010-04-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

So we made it through the half way mark. I am now officially in my 5th month and week 23. Little Owen decided to make my belly all of a sudden pop out, so this is the result. It's nice to have more of a bump now so that people aren't wondering if it's fat or baby. He kicks like a black belt ninja, which will only get more intense, and is already weighing around 1 pound! (Ridiculous that he is only 1 pound of the bunch I have gained.) Bryan felt him kick on the outside for the first time about two weeks ago. That was way cool! It helps to know that you aren't crazy about feeling something moving in your stomach.
I'm not really feeling sick or anything anymore, which is way nice. A little heartburn and some headaches from heat is all. Nothing bad at all. Hopefully it stays that way :) My feet do kill though. Being on them all day at work is not doing wonders for them. ONLY 5 WEEKS LEFT! I can't believe this school year is almost over! Beauty.
And we do have some other babies at our house. Baby tomatoes! We bought a plant a couple of weeks ago and there are about 7 little green tomatoes on it already. We are surprised we haven't killed it yet. So we'll see if we have some Roma tomatoes within the next couple of weeks.

2010-03-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

HOORAY!!! We finally found out what we are having! And as you can tell... IT'S A BOY! We are super stoked! But it was pretty funny that almost everyone we talked to said we were going to have a girl. Guess we'll save that one for later :)
We already have a name picked out for him. Owen Bryan Illguth. We love it and little Owen is already getting used to hearing his name. So nice not to call him "baby" or even worse, "it."
When we went to do the ultrasound on the 19th, the nurse jellied me up and asked if we wanted to know the gender. We said yes and 5 seconds later Bryan says, "It looks like a boy to me." She told him he was right. I couldn't see the stinkin' screen because I was laying down. But after a while I got adjusted to the funky angle and saw that he was flashin' the world. Not hiding anything. We got a bunch of ultrasound pictures to prove it, but I don't think he wants his goods shown to the world. So I'll stick with these.

This was the only profile shot we got of him. He would not hold still for the life of him. But at 19 weeks, he already looks darn cute!

And here's one looking almost straight on to his face. I have some brain and bladder pictures too, but I didn't think those were too interesting.
So there is the cute little 10 oz. baby growing inside of me. Such a cool thing to think about. But I'll update when more comes along!

4 Months.... already?

2010-03-14T20:30:00.001-07:00

For reals, it has already been a month since my last post??? Holy buckets, what did I do last month?!? Grew more of our baby I guess :)

Well, I never put up a 3 month picture because I didn't look noticeably different. So here's one for 4 months. I have this little belly and people at my work keep touching it. I guess they think it's cute. Such a relief to tell my co-workers I was expecting. Then I didn't have to go around trying to make people not think I was fat. I get to actually be pregnant :) It's nothing too hard core yet, but I swear I stick out more every day. The baby is going through a growth spurt and is about as big as an avocado.

Next cool thing. Bryan's parents are coming to visit in 4 days so I decided to move up my appointment so we could find out what we are having when his parent's were here. So now we are finding out on Friday the 19th! 5 DAYS!!! Here's a little chain I made. I am not excited to find out the gender..... :)

And yeah, I just had to put this in here. I didn't even make it the whole work day with my pants fully buttoned. This was a couple of weeks ago. I now have to do this to almost all of my pants. All I had was orange...

3 months!

2010-02-26T16:00:00.000-08:00

So I had my 3 month appointment about 2 days ago. This one I did solo. Here's a couple of things that I found out:

-I am on week 15
-I am blood type A-
-I don't have any nasty diseases that I could have picked up from my students (thank goodness!)
-I gained 4 pounds (I wasn't super excited about that news, but doc said it was normal)
-My stomach was measured and she said it was getting bigger. It's not totally noticeable yet, but my side profile isn't looking so flat anymore...
-Our baby has a nice, loud, strong heartbeat. It took a second to find it because the baby was so wiggly.
-And lastly, we get to find out what we are having on March 22! The Monday after Spring Break! That's less then 4 weeks away!!! YIPPEE! So when the date gets closer, we'll have to get some votes on what people think the gender is. I have been itching to do at least SOMETHING babyish, whether it be decorating or buying even one piece of clothing.

I need to take a 3 month picture and put it on here in the near future. I just don't look too different. So we'll see. I have found a pair of jeans and work pants that don't fit like they used to. Going maternity clothes shopping in the future is going to be awesome!!! I am looking forward to that one.

Our Little Tootsie!

2010-02-15T19:04:00.000-08:00

So I finally was able to get the dog that I have always dreamed of! And boy, was she worth waiting for! What a little fluffball of joy. So much personality stuffed into one little puppy. She is totally darting everywhere one second chewing on her rope, then curled in a ball in your lap falling asleep. She loves to chew on practically everything: the legs of our chairs, Bryan's nose, your fingers and toes, and especially the leaves when she is supposed to be going to the bathroom. She is just a tiny 6 week old puppy right now.

We have gotten to see Tootsie ever since she was 3 weeks old. In this picture she was around 4 weeks old. She would not leave Bryan's side when we went to visit.

Just like a newborn, passed out for over half of the day. And this bed we got DROWNS her. But she has some way fun toys.

Hahaha! Today she took her first bath. She HATED it! Well, she did fine getting wet and staying in the sink. She looked like a little white rat, as you can tell by the pictures. But what she couldn't stand was the blowdryer. So she airdryed while she shivered her tail off.

I was not her favorite person at this moment...

But talk about an angel. What a fun little addition to our family. And she's preparing us for our upcoming baby. (She bawls all night long in her kennel...) She will bring us lots of smiles in the years to come!

Our Tiny Miracle

2010-01-23T16:29:00.000-08:00

You gotta love it when a new chapter starts in life. And this is a chapter that we have been looking forward to and major excited for! Bryan and I are going to be welcoming in a new addition to our family!!! And no, it's not our maltese puppy, which is going to happen around Valentine's Day. We are going to have a baby!

I had my first doctor's appointment last Wednesday with the same doctor that my sister Brooke is using. Bryan came with me so we got to experience everything together. When we finally got to the ultrasound part, what a miracle it was to be able to see a little growing human being inside of me! We got to see it wiggle around and watch it's tiny heart beating. The picture above and below are what we saw. The baby is looking at you in both of them. It was a beautiful experience and interesting to see the cause of all of my nausea :)

I am almost 11 weeks along now and due in the middle of August. This summer is going to be a fun one! Hot and prego. I think I am going to be living in the pool. I'm not showing yet, but when I start to, I will be putting up some pictures. Bryan and I are super stoked and are having fun making future plans. God has His timetable and we are thankful for this little peanut!!!

Hot Cocoa---not so good

2009-12-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

Here was a laugh.
Bryan was making hot chocolate for us. He was making his first with some cinnamon and milk. He took a sip of it to check the flavor and I heard him gag from the other room. The poor guy had grabbed the cocoa instead of the hot chocolate mix. I had to taste it just because, and boy did it taste nasty! The problem was soon fixed and we enjoyed some normal hot cocoa. It was just a fun moment that brought smiles to our faces. :)

Birthdays and Presents

2009-12-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

So... something very important happened almost a week ago. It was Bryan's birthday! My hubby turned 27. This is his year to make his first feature film he says. We shall see if that goal gets made. Here are some pics of his special day that we tried to make special.

He got a wok so that he can work on his New Year's resolution to make more Chinese food.

He's the goober with the yummy ice cream cake. :)

But there was something else that happened a couple of days ago that was cool. I came home from work like normal but Bryan met me at the door, which is not normal. He wouldn't let me turn around to see into the kitchen, but when I did I saw a fridge!!! A beautiful stainless steel fridge was sitting in the place of our borrowed white one. It looks perfect with our other appliances. Out only thing left is a matching microwave for over the stove and our kitchen will be ready for its makeover. But here's a picture of it. We are so lucky to have been able to find one for such a good deal. (We love craigslist)

Such a cute bow! Gotta love early Christmas presents!

2009-11-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

It's official, I really stink at the blogging thing. I need more of a balance in my life. Less work and more living. Even Bryan got on here before I did!
The biggest reason why there are no new posts is because there's nothing new happening. Except for one thing... our Halloween party! So here are some pictures of the first party in our house. It was so much fun and we really had a good turn out.

Our cute nephew in his dragon outfit.
My sister and her posse.

Some teams about to rob some graves.

Everyone seemed to have a good time so I think we will be doing it again. Plus we now have enough Halloween decorations to last us forever.

My Princess

2009-09-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

Kara doesn't know that I'm doing this but I thought I would just try this thing out. She'll probably kill me once she finds out :) On the day that we signed the papers for our house we went to a park to relax a little bit and enjoy nature before heading back into the city. We were so happy and thrilled and worn out at the same time, finally all the paperwork for the house was finished, all we had to do was sit back and wait. At the park there was an ugly looking toad that needed a kiss from a beautiful princess so Kara obliged without hesitation. I'm so very lucky to get a kiss from that same beautiful princess everyday!

2009-09-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

So.... this is what Bryan and I did for our date night tonight. Bryan thought it would be fun to have a "small" fire to burn all of our dead branches in our backyard. It was NOT small and now our whole house, and probably neighborhood, have a nice smokey stench. I am just glad that no one called the fire department on us... You know Bryan and fire.

2009-08-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here is an inside look at our new home!

A new adventure!

2009-08-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

I have entered a whole new world of blogging... we shall see how it goes. Either I will be pretty good at keeping this thing up (since Bryan so kindly told me that he was never going to write on it :) ) or there will never be anything new. I'll try and stick with the first one.
We are on our new adventure and just enjoying every bit of it! Moving down here was a leap of faith, but we know that this is where we are supposed to be at this time in our lives.
Here is a little recap of what has happened in the past month:

-went on our last family outing with the whole family for the next two years. Perry took off to the MTC and then to New Zealand a few days after that. We miss him! But he is doing wonderful.
-I got a 3rd grade teaching position at Burke Basic school. HOORAY! That was a huge blessing. It is a wonderful school and I have already met some wonderful staff members. Teaching almost 40 students is going to be interesting though. We'll see how that goes. They are cuties!
-after babysitting a house for a week, we moved into my parent's basement. Our apartment that we were going to stay in fell through. Bummer at first, but it has been another blessing in disguise staying here.
-because I got a job so quickly, we were able to get approved for a home loan and found a beauty of a house after searching for about 3 weeks. (All of the house info and photos will be another story.) It is in need of a remodel and we are excited to get our hands dirty! Now that we are just in the signing papers process, hopefully we can be in it within the next two weeks.
-garage sales are awesome! I am so glad that Bryan is good at negotiating. That is not in my nature at all!

I think that is about it. I'm telling you, it's not that exciting, but I hope that our loved ones in Utah will be able to get some good stuff out of it. Love to all!