Happy Thanksgiving!

Another holiday has already come, this being my favorite time of year, it sure does seem to fly by to fast! Thanksgiving is really one of my favorites, not because of the turkey, but because of the warmth that I feel each year with traditions that I grew up with and sharing them with my children. I love to get up and watch the Thanksgiving day parade, then spend time in the kitchen making something delicious and finally spending the rest of the day with family just eating and having fun. So that is exactly what we did, and it was wonderful. We started off the day with a nice cup of hot cocoa and just us girls watching the parade while Bobby was out playing "turkeybowl" and then on to making yummy food to bring to my moms. Kate was such a good helper in the kitchen as I was making stuffed mushrooms, I love it when she helps and she just loves to be a big helper. Then off to my mom for appetizers and a delicious Thanksgiving meal. Such a wonderful day!

Play time with their uncle!

Ella just loving the attention from her uncle

Take 1

Take 2

Take 3--finally a good one

Just some funny things at this "photo booth" at my moms

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! This year Kate was desperate to be her favorite princess, princess Belle. So off to the store we went to doll our little Kate up to look just like princess Belle, but with blonde hair. Ella was dressed as an adorable little spider, mostly because the cute, fluffy costume not only looked so cute on her but would keep her warm as well. Halloween was so fun, I love watching Kate get so excited to go to door after door and say the magic words "trick or treat" to get candy, she loved every minute of it. In fact she kept us out until almost 8 p.m. trick or treating, that's about 4 hours of trick or treating and we finally had to stop her! If it were to her, she would've kept going all night to finish off the wonderful night of trick or treating with her cousins on both sides of the family, we carved a pumpkin and she was just so proud of our work. I truly love this time of year, and it really get so much more fun once you get to do these things with your children!

Lucky #7

Wow. 7 Years?! I cannot believe it, there have been so many wonderful moments. And then toss in a few difficult and possibly hilarious or embarrassing  moments depending on who you talk to and you get my marriage. Our actual anniversary was a pretty relaxing night since we had a newborn. Kate went to my moms, we had a nice dinner at Mimi's Cafe while Ella slept in the car seat and then a walk in the parkway afterwards which is something we love. For the gift this year..REAL tickets! So excited!

On another note, lucky number 7 is the theme for this anniversary and I think lucky is a word that really describes my life with Bobby:

Lucky that I saw Bobby at that dance 8 years ago

Lucky that I found the courage to ask him to dance (yes, I had to ask him)

Lucky that I have someone who really understands me and loves me even more for my quirks, someone who shares the same humor so I always have someone laughing with me in the so many funny moments in life.

Lucky that I found someone as hardworking and dedicated to not only my happiness but that of our daughters. 

Lucky that I found such a smarty pants as he is now a graduate in pharmacy

Lucky he's the kind of dad to our daughters that I'd hoped for, I love that Kate is a daddy's girl and I know Ella will be as well. I want our children to have a great dad as I did. 

and finally, 

Lucky that I was able to find such a truly loving and giving person, someone I will always be able to turn to as my best friend and partner and I am so lucky he loves me. 

Happy Anniversary Sweetie. 

Presenting Ella Grace Nunley

Let's face it, I have not been great at blogging recently. My cute little Ella Grace is now 4 months old, but hey there's no time like the present to write about her birth so I can catch up and write about how cute she has been as she's grown. It's just a very good thing that I am at least caught up on each of my girls journals that I am keeping for them to have when they are older, that way I feel a little less guilty for not keeping up with the blog as well as I should be. Anyways....

Little Ella came on July 25th, 2012 at 2:34 p.m. and she was really pretty easy from the beginning, except that like her big sister, she did not want to come out! She was also a week late and didn't show any signs of coming so my Dr would not let me go any longer and scheduled me to be induced. I was really worrying about Kate and how she would handle the HUGE changes coming, so it was nice to be able to drop Kate off at my moms without rushing as it would've been that way had I gone into labor on my own. However, my personal feelings with induction are that I would really prefer not to do it, I love the excitement that comes with going into labor on my own as I did with Kate. Call me crazy, but I love that whole experience, contractions and all. So I was a little sad that I had to schedule it when I wanted so badly for it to start all by itself. Yet I liked that it had less shock on Kate, I was for sure packed and had everything packed for Kate without any stress, so it wasn't terrible. Bobby on the other hand, loved it this way. So after I got all checked in and induced we hung out while I went through the contractions for a while until they got pretty intense, I got the epidural when I was dilated to about a 5 and then they broke my water. They told me after my water broke that i'd have about 3 more hours or so until it was time to push. Once my epidural set in and I felt the warm and cozy relaxation set in from getting this wonderful med, we put on a movie so I could relax until....a little pain in my side began to get stronger. At first I didn't really think anything of it until it spread to my lower ab and got so much worse that I thought, great I'm going to be one of the stories where the epidural doesn't work. So as I was once again squeezing Bobby's hand to death and grinding my teeth I finally get the drs to come in and check me out. They figured the meds weren't working yet but didn't think to check me until we mentioned it. They were in the middle of explaining that it won't be much different there until they stopped and said "you're dilated to a 10! We need the Dr now!" I dilated from a 5 to a 10 in less than 40 minutes. So at 2:25 I started to push and literally less than 10 minutes and 5 pushes later, little baby girl came and she was totally healthy. They placed her in my arms and a gush of love came for this little girl. I love this whole experience and holding her for the first time to feel that love for this little baby who's been inside me for the past 9 months. Ella was here and she was beautiful, with so much hair!

When Kate met her little sister it was love at first sight. I couldn't have been happier with her reaction, she loved her sister from the moment she saw her and would not leave her side as long as she possibly could. It was truly sweet to see the love between these two already.

There was some debate with her name for a few days, it was either going to be Elizabeth Grace and called Beth or Ella Grace. I first agreed to Elizabeth as Bobby had wanted that name and it really was a beautiful name. But then Ella really kept ringing in the back of my mind for her and I tried to just push it aside. Then we got home and Bobby told Kate her sisters name was Beth and Kate said "no dad, it's baby Ella" and for days we tried to get her to say Beth but she wouldn't, so that got us to thinking that maybe her name should be Ella as I was kind of feeling it too. So her name is Ella Grace Nunley, and we love her so much!!!!

My Turn

I did it. Those three simple words truly sum up how I feel about the past year and a half of hard core school work. Endless nights of working from 8 p.m. after Kate went to bed until 5 a.m. when I could finally get a few hours of sleep before I started the day again. Student teaching, when leaving Kate would actually make me physically sick some days because I missed being with her so much but yet I loved making a difference in my students lives. Then the final portfolio with over 100 pages of written work regarding teaching one unit to a 6th grade class. Whew.....I did it.

So being that I worked this hard to get this degree, there was no way that I was missing my graduation, even if it was being held 4 days before my due date. July 14th, I was able to walk (waddle) across a stage in front of hundreds of people and accept my degree in Elementary Education. My school was incredibly supportive of my wanting to attend the ceremony and even had paramedics on standby just in case I went into labor. Apparently there were even bets going on if whether or not my water would break or if I would start contracting during the ceremony. I assured them that I was a week overdue with Kate and would most likely be a week overdue with this baby (I was right). Still they made wonderful accommodations for me such as seat placement so I could easily walk out to use the restroom during the ceremony if needed as well as a chair while waiting to enter the Huntsman center before the ceremony as it would be a little wait. 

My family was also amazing with this as they came to cheer me on, I loved that Kate was there to watch me graduate as well because she was now able to see both of her parents complete their education, which I hope will instill in her the importance of getting an education in the future. I love that both Bobby and I are done and I love that we did it together, encouraging each other to push through all of the papers and tests and of not really seeing each other because we knew that one day it would be worth it and guess what? We were right. The relief of not only having my degree in case I need it, but knowing that I have accomplished this in my life and watching Bobby accomplish such a huge degree as well so that he can support his family  have totally made all of those difficult moments worth it. We did it!

Just to show how big I was at the time, that gown made me look HUGE

Moving

After about 3 years in our condo/apartment in Birkhill, it was time to move!  We didn't have enough room for both kids for the next year because we want them to have their own rooms, plus we were ready for something different and bigger. We were looking around for town homes to move into by July when my sister came to me with an offer. My sister bought a new house and wanted to rent her old one to people, so they offered us their house for a year with an amazing rent. The house is in Taylorsville, has 4 bedrooms 2 bathrooms, and a HUGE backyard with mature trees for plenty of shade and a a really nice playground. This house has also been completely re-done on the inside so it's really nice, I love it! So obviously we agreed  and moved in at the end of June. Bobby had to do a majority of the moving being that  was 9 months pregnant but I made up for it with unpacking everything. After what seemed like weeks, we finally got settled in and unpacked. Kate loves it here and I love the room.I used one of the extra bedrooms as a toy room and it is so nice having somewhere to put all of Kate's toys so they are finally out of the way. Kate's room will be downstairs in her "big girl bed" and Ella will move to the room next to ours when she is older. I absolutely love living here, so many changes for us this year!

Taken from the living room of the entry way and partial kitchen

Kate's room, I still need to get a bed rail and decorate but we are making progress!

Toy room

Dr. Nunley

Doesn't that name have a nice ring to it? BOBBY DID IT!! He graduated with his Doctorate in Pharmacy (PharmD) and is now a pharmacy graduate. It feels so nice now that we've made it through the long years of school. Bobby worked so hard to get this far and I couldn't have felt more proud as I watched him walk across the stage to accept his degree.

Before the graduation Bobby had a graduate dinner that his school organized at La Caille! Eating there has honestly been on my bucket list and it did not disappoint! It was absolutely gorgeous there and the food was delicious. Such a great night! The graduation was held at the Kingsbury Hall at 9 a.m. Bobby's mom, sister and her husband, dad, grandparents and uncle came as well as my oldest brother and mom and sister so Bobby had a lot of fans in the crowd for him. It was a huge help having my sister there as she was able to take Kate out when she got fussy so that I could record and be there for Bobby.

Good thing was that Kate was actually pretty good so she was there for a lot of the ceremony. I loved having her there, I know she won't remember it, but it felt good for her to see her dad accomplish such a huge task as this degree. The cool thing is that she gets to witness both her parents complete their education and share this experience with us and hopefully one day make an impression on her of the importance of an education as she saw both parents finish theirs. An interesting thing about the ceremony was that the key note speaker at the ceremony, was the doctor that actually delivered Bobby. It was also so neat to watch Bobby repeat the oath for pharmacy and just feeling that sense of accomplishment that he did it and now looking forward to the opportunities that lie ahead.

After the ceremony, Kate was actually afraid of Bobby because he was in his graduation attire and I guess that just looked so odd to her that she wouldn't go to him until he took it off. Once his family was able to congratulate him we went to City Creek to eat lunch at Cheesecake Factory, it was delicious! After that is was more of a relaxed day followed by swimming later at Jo and Dave's house.

The following Monday I threw a graduation party for Bobby and Murray park and invited all family and friends to attend. So many people came to congratulate him and it was just so fun visiting with everyone. My goal for the party was to correlate all of the treats with graduation and then I of course forgot to take pictures of my creations so here are just general pictures of what they were:

I made these cupcakes but most of them I put little Recess cup graduation caps on them shown in the other picture

Swiss Roll Diplomas

 

I may have been a little cheesy with the theme treats but it was fun to make treats like that, I also did sugar cookies and decorated them to look like pills, it was fun! I'll have to do more things like that.





   

Bobby with his dad and mom standing next to the speaker Dr. John Nelson, the doctor who delivered him 

Three generations, Bobby, his dad and grandfather 

Kate having a ball at the fountains in City Creek

Kate and Lennox having a great time and getting drenched

                Such a great day and accomplishment,
             Good Job Dr. Nunley, I'm so proud of you!!

Disneyland!

I know we just went to Disney World in October, but ever since I saw Kate's love for Disney both at Disney World and at home afterwards, I knew that this would be a trip that we would take frequently. There were a couple a factors that contributed to taking such a last minute trip.

First and so sad... when we went to Disney World, we forgot to bring the camcorder charger, so we recorded what we could on the camcorder and then added other videos on the camera and Ipod. When we got home, Kate loved watching the camcorder version of the trip so much so we just had it hooked up to the t.v. Now the sad thing about this is that our camcorder is the older version where it is still tapes..I made the wonderful mistake of thinking I had fast forwarded the tape and then taped Kate's birthday party and recorded over half of the trip.When I discovered this I was just soo sad, even teared up a little bit. It was at that point that I told Bobby we needed to go again and get some of the memories back that I recorded over, like meeting Mickey and walking in the park at the beginning etc. At least we had other videos from Disney World, but I still needed the footage that I lost.

2nd reason: It just happened to be good timing as Bobby's rotation was just about to end and he got a two week break. To make it an inexpensive vacation we deal searched like crazy and invited Bobby's family to come and split the costs. His mom, younger brother and cousin were able to come this trip. Also, Nate and Chelsea came with us again, making it seem even more like the first one! Kate was only 5 months older from our last trip so I figured her reactions would be about the same if not better. So I made sure to pack the camcorder charger and went nuts recording her the whole time.

Giving Chels loves on the teacup ride

Loved riding on Nate's shoulders

The difference with this trip is that I was 31 weeks pregnant which means no big rides. But I really didn't have a problem with that as it was more fun watching Kate have a blast there anyways. Kate had loved Disney World, and she's been talking about Mickey and Minnie and especially seeing Rapunzel for the past few months. So needless to say when we told her a couple of weeks before that we were going to Disneyland, she was so excited and asked to go everyday until the day we actually went.We drove to California in a mini-van with Bobby's family and stopped in Vegas for a night each way and enjoyed the sights there too. The day finally came where we could go to Disneyland and when we were there Kate demanded that she had to see everything, all of the characters, especially her favorite Rapunzel and her soon to be next favorite Ariel. Of course I still got the same reactions from the first trip, fun to wave to the characters from far away but the second she got close she froze. Except for the parade, this was my favorite part of the whole trip! Kate would go crazy and wave as hard as she possibly could to her favorite characters, like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and the princesses. I haven't seen her so excited, and it honestly made me so happy that she was this happy in this moment.

So happy on the carousel, we rode it soo many times. 

Kate LOVED having her grandma with her all of the time. 

The trip was so much fun, Kate had a blast and was sad to leave. She still asks almost everyday of we can go to Disneyland. I also got all of the memories I had accidentally erased and tons more on recorded, which made me feel relieved, so everything worked out great. We probably won't last too long and end up going sooner than we promised (in 2 years..yeah I don't think we'll make it that long).

Just love this picture

Student Teaching

I was doing the final part of my Bachelors degree in Elementary Education from January 5th to March 22nd. This was the final battle for me in getting this degree, and I was oh so excited to be done with it. In order to complete my degree I needed to do the full time teaching and submit a final portfolio or teacher work sample that when finished, is roughly 80-100 pages of work. Basically a small novel.. sounds like so much fun right?! Being pregnant didn't make it too much easier as morning sickness hit me hard this time around, and my energy was dwindling at times. But to be so close to the end, I just put a smile on my face and got through it knowing it would be better soon.

Honestly, I absolutely loved my students and loved to teach, it felt good to be doing this again and hopefully making a difference in these children's lives. I loved being around their enthusiasm and watching them see concepts for the first time and I loved that we truly learned from each other and had fun while doing it. I taught both 5th and 6th grade with roughly 60 students. I did learn very quickly of a few adjustments that I had to make that I'd definitely taken for granted such as:

• Waking up at 8:30 a.m.--heavenly
• Fresh lunch at home, NOT a frozen meal (no time for anything else)
• If needed, an afternoon nap or relaxing time when Kate naps
• More time to do homework (didn't love the 3:30 am work nights on a school night)
• Most important...More time with Kate..that was tough to adjust to..

Kate really had a hard time in the beginning, she would cry every time she was dropped off which just killed me. Won't deny had a few really rough days when I had to see that.. Kate was being watching 4 times a week by my sister, Becca, and once a week by my sister in law, Natalie, and then my other sister in law, Jo, helped out in the end too by watching Kate a few times. So grateful to have family to help. It seemed to go by really slow at first, January was a slow month, but it helped with Kate's birthday. The February I had my birthday and finding out what we were having to look forward too and March..well that just meant that I was almost done! By March, Kate would wake up in the morning and say things like "Stay with Mommy today? No go to Beccas?" and it would just make my heart sink. I was just ready to be able to say "Yep! You're with me today!" to her usual morning requests. 

The fun moments during this time such as:

                                                            Making cookies for Valentines Day

Date night for my 26th Birthday--19 weeks along

Taking Kate on the carousel at South Towne Mall

IT'S A GIRL!!!

It's just so funny  how teaching and having a career can be so different when you have kids..before Kate I couldn't wait to have a career and now, I couldn't wait just to be home with her. I now feel like I would rather be home with Kate, teaching her as I have and being there with my children to watch every moment of them as they grow, rather than going to work all day. Don't get me wrong though, I absolutely love teaching and still miss many of my students.. I guess I just understand now what I have been taught in church and that is the importance of a mom at home and how incredibly valuable raising children is.  

Catching up!!

Now that school is finished, I have time to catch up on things that I have been putting off, like my blog! So these will be short and sweet but at least an update on what has happened.

First---Even though this is way late to post, being that I'm now 32 weeks along. In the beginning of November we found out that I am pregnant again! So Kate will be 2 1/2 when the next little one comes. Yay!


Next......

• In November, my little brother Matt came home from his mission in Russia. I was so incredibly excited to see him and for him to meet Kate for the first time. I was about 26 weeks pregnant when he left so he'd only heard and seen pictures of Kate. He got in at 11:00 at night but I kept Kate up because I knew I wanted her too see him and she would be fine staying up one night. I've had 2 other brothers go on missions and I just love the part when you first get a glimpse of them when they come home, it's just so exciting! And what my family didn't know yet, is that I had just found out that I was pregnant with our 2nd baby when he came home, making me even more emotional (dang those hormones!).  

Oh yes, there's more......

• Christmas was great and busy! We split Christmas between Bobby's moms, dad's and grandparents and my family. So not a lot of time to relax. We relate very much to the movie "Four Christmases" with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn during this holiday season. If you haven't seen it, you should, it's a great movie! It was also nice because Matt and my mom came over to our house Christmas morning to watch Kate open presents.

And more.....

•  Kate's 2nd B-day came quick!! On her actual birthday January 17th, we didn't get to do much as I had to do my weekly conference call for my student teaching and Kate was sick so didn't feel up to it anyways. So really just had pizza and cake and ice cream at my mom's house. Which was still just as fun!  Then for her birthday party, we held the same kind of party as we did for her 1st birthday and had people come to our lounge at our complex that Saturday. It was great to see everyone and Kate had a blast playing with all of her cousins and opening her gifts and of course the cake! Ever since we got home from Disney World, Kate has just loved Mickey and Goofy so I found a Mickey cake for her that she loved. It was a great party and I love that we have such wonderful family and friends to share these moments with us!  Also, we got Kate a kitchen for her birthday this year, she absolutely loves it! I set it up in the living room and had her walk out in the morning to find it, it was so much fun watching her notice the kitchen then running to it with excitement screaming "kitchen kitchen!" Gotta love those moments.