the warmth rang true

i feel like the days are rushing by at an increasing rate. i want to stop and listen. pause. feel the happiness of each & every day as it comes.

there are so many things i want to remember about this past week, the last week of january.

our niece joviah made us a collage of pictures of babies. its so cute and now hangs on our fridge!


there is a little car seat sitting in our living room. its waiting to be washed & loved & then it'll be ready to have a baby put in it. when we went out to buy it and put it into our backseat, we both kept looking back at it in disbelief. a car seat! in our backseat!

i got my hair cut! so refreshing.


eating maple walnut ice cream right out of the box is one of lifes greatest pleasures.

the nesting continues. i finally went through the boxes of stuff my mom delivered to my house; boxes full of books & papers & pictures & little doo-dads from the past 15 years of my life. brian & i were ruthless yesterday; i've purged our second room of everything useless. and i'm so glad. its all gone, and the room is starting to look a little more liveable.
plus! i found a small piece of granite from the regina temple; from the temple in our home town, from the temple i took care of as a summer job, from the temple we were sealed in. its nice to have in our home.


i got to go to a prenatal yoga class on tuesday night. it was just what i needed. i felt grounded & relaxed when i left. baby moved around happily while i did the same. it was so nice.

i washed this adorable little sleeper this week. it may not fit for awhile, but i'm excited to put baby in it.


i got a letter in the mail that began with these words: "congratulations! your student loans are paid in full." ah. sweet freedom.

we're really enjoying our canned peaches from the summer. thanks to my brother & his wife for pointing out the most delicious ones in salmon arm, and to my mama-in-law for helping me can them. we really, really love them.


listening to lots & lots of ben howard and brett dennen.

i'm pretty sure baby doubled in size this week.


...its getting really hard to see my toes over this bump!


while i was putting this post together, i ate a grapefruit. in my bed. life is good.

and it grows

here's the belly at 31 weeks. baby is about 16 inches long and three and a half pounds (according to various pregnancy websites.) at my last appointment, doctor said baby is head down!



we're down to single digits in the weeks countdown!
see you soon, baby!

minus / plus

well, it finally happened. winter has arrived. the usual temperatures that we endure from december until february have happened upon us. i am not loving the minus 40 type temperatures we've been facing, but they're only supposed to stay for a few more days. and here are some things i am loving.

#1. i got on the bus the other day to come home from work. the girl who got on after me took a seat across from me. she then promptly removed her winter jacket, settled into the seat, and pulled an ice cream sandwich out of her purse. what?! it was seriously minus 38 out, and here this crazy girl was eating ice cream. weirdo. i feel like things like this only happen in canada.

#2. now that i talked about ice cream, i want some.

#3. i love my husband. kind soul that he is, he has sacrificed his winter jacket so that his ever-expanding wife has a warm jacket to wear that zips over her belly. baby & i are so, so grateful, bri. (don't worry. work provides him with a jacket to keep him warm.)

#4. i am beginning, with the help of baking classes at the bosch store, to truly realize the full potential of this masterful machine. last weekend i made pizza buns and they were the bomb. delicious.

#5. its official. i am pregnant. yes, we've known this for a long, long time, but i think my mind & body are finally getting the memo. i am so dang achy. my joints are loosening. i feel...heavy. sometimes when i stand up i feel like i'm going to fall forward, i've become so front heavy. and i'm nesting. i've gotten the sudden urge to clean and organize and cook and bake. thats all i want to do. all the time. oh, and sleep.

#6. we got a glider & ottoman on freecycle (thanks to you, jenny!), and now its sitting in our living room. its hard for me to believe that in about 10 weeks, that chair will be occupied by me & our baby. unreal.

its gonna be a good one

i can already tell that 2012 is going to be good to us. the first week alone was pretty spectacular.

brians parents and little brother came to edmonton for Christmas, so they were here when we came home. brian got to hang out with his brother while i worked and we spent the evenings eating delicious food and playing games. we rang in the new year with games and food and cute kiddos and english trifle. it was wonderful!







we got a memory foam mattress topper for Christmas from brians parents and the first night we put it on the bed, i slept for 11+ hours. my hips are no longer achy when i wake up!

i turned 24. and baby & i entered the third trimester. on the very same day. it was awesome. we celebrated with the best pasta in the city and a dark chocolate raspberry ganache to follow. baby kicked in approval of the deliciousness.

brian got new speakers for the computer. so schnazzy. now we just need to work on re-vamping our apartment to put baby in the second room.

we saw a kid put hot water on his hot dog at ikea, thinking it was the ketchup dispenser. i stared and laughed while brian ran towards the kid, almost stopping him from ruining his perfectly good 75 cent hot dog. even though the little boy was disappointed, we couldn't help but giggle. funny.

brian started his new job, and is really enjoying it. he brought some coal home from work! he's been doing good at getting up early and making the over hour long drive to get to work on time.

i started taking the bus to work again. i was so tired the first day that i fell right asleep. like, really asleep. when i woke up i realized i had missed my stop. it was still dark out and i was extremely disoriented. i'm sure the other people on the bus and the driver got a good laugh at the crazy pregnant lady looking around wildly!

also on my birthday, i made my very last student loan payment. we are very happy about this event!

i relived my childhood by going to see beauty and the beast in the theatre. (it was the first movie i ever saw in the theatre!) it was a delightful morning with good friends. thanks, rachael!

our good friends had their baby girl last friday. we're so excited to go meet her this week! and we're so excited for our baby to come be playmates with baby clara!

2012; you've been fabulous already. keep it comin'.

we learned to share

my sister and i have shared a lot. as the youngest in the family and the two girls, we kind of had to. we had our ups & downs, but we learned to do it pretty well.

we've shared a room, we've shared crushes (upwards of 30 posters of JTT, right?) we've shared meals and hugs, laughter and tears. we've shared photoshoots and lots of late night talks. we even shared a name for much of our lives, because i got called 'erin' so often.

its a close one, but this might be the best thing we've ever shared.





our babies are due just 7 weeks apart, hers coming in february.

now we talk about kicking babies and sore bones. i call her for pregnancy advice and we've ordered a bulk load of cloth diapers together (which i will continue to call her about after baby is born and i am learning to wrangle baby into them.)

we're both pregnant. and its awesome. and when we're not pregnant anymore, our little bambinos will be buddies. its the best.

merry & bright

our Christmas was so wonderful. it was all things i believe a holiday should be; lots of food, too many sweets, staying up really late to hang out with family, snuggling sweet babies, wrestling kids, playing silly games and just being. Christmas is the best!

brian, finally reading "the hunger games" and snuggling cute baby sam in his Christmas pjs.


the lovely Christmas tree.


the cast of the nativity on Christmas eve. it was adorable!


joseph leading the donkey in with mary.


the angel that announced the birth of baby Jesus.


for a little while, mary was more interested in harassing the sheep than in her baby.


but then she decided baby was pretty great.


we finally got meet baby violet. she's so sweet.


and brian & haylen rocked some matching shirts.


i surprised brian with settlers of catan! its hard to keep secrets from him but he was very happy.


Christmas morning madness. this is what it looks like to have more than a dozen kiddos in one room on Christmas morning. it was awesome.


we got to ride & feed the horses, too!






i'm thinking this was one of the best moments of haylens young life.


these two are the best of friends.


and christian (and all kids) love dirt piles. good thing tim has lots of them.


we had a wonderful Christmas with our gigantic family. we love them so!