Maternity Photo Shoot

There is this amazing girl in our ward, named Chelsy, who has a photography business called Chelsy Ann Photography on the side of her regular school studies and she is wonderful! She did a maternity photo shoot for Adam and me and I love how it turned out! She was so fun and easy to work with. Here are a few of the shots. You can find more photos from the shoot on her blog here.

You too can feed Nigel!

Happy day! You know our cute fish, Nigel, who we love to bits and pieces?! Well, you too can now have a chance to feed out grumpy-faced fish! Simply scroll down this blog until you come to a little aquarium on the right-hand side of the page where you will find Nigel swimming! You can feed him all you want and he won't even get sick (like the real Nigel does). I've seen these fish-feeding blog gadgets before but I had no idea that I could customize it to be Nigel! I know that you are out of your mind with excitement at the prospect of feeding Nigel, so I won't hold you any longer, have fun feeding!

Macaroni Grill, The Help, 52 Reasons

On Monday was our two year anniversary and it was wonderful!

We celebrated by going to one of our favorite restaurants of all time:

We are obsessed with the bread there! We seriously eat about four or five loaves of it every time we go. The waitress must have been able to tell that we were in love with the bread because she sent an extra loaf home with us-- how nice is that? I got the penne rustica-- best thing EVER! And Adam had the lasagna.

And then we went to this movie:

We really like it! I'm pretty sure at least half the theater was crying by the end. I've heard the book is wonderful and heartbreaking, so after we've moved and things have settled down, I plan on reading it.

 On Pinterest I found this tutorial on how to make this little book out of a deck of cards. I thought it would be fun to make for Adam for our anniversary since we have a lot of memories and inside jokes that have to do with cards. It was fun to make and I thought it turned out pretty cute, so I'm putting up some pictures of it.

I made the cards look more antique-ish by rubbing the front and back of each card with sandpaper.

 

There's a real live person in there!

One thing that absolutely amazes me is when I realize that there is a real live human being inside of me, with a little personality and her own unique quirks. She reacts to things around her like a real person would-- it's crazy! 

Last week, after a bowl of toffee ice cream (seriously, I think I might have become addicted to ice cream while being pregnant), I could tell by Ella's little movements where her head was and my tummy suddenly grumbled very loudly right where her little head was located and she jumped so hard, my tummy bulged where she had rocked back and I busted up laughing! Poor thing! And whenever I sneeze there's several seconds after the sneeze where I can feel Ella curled up very tightly inside of me. I can only imagine how scary that would be to have your whole world suddenly constrict very tightly around you, accompanied with a loud, explosive noise-- it makes sense that she would curl herself up so tightly! She has had the hiccups several times these past couple of weeks.  And sometimes it seriously feels like she is using me like a trampoline, hopping off one side of me just to collide into the other side, over and over again, up, down, up, down. I am completely in love with her-- two and a half months never seemed so far away!

And then, of course, there is Nigel, my most favorite grumpy fish in this entire world! Here is a particularly dashing picture of him, showing off how rugged and tough he is. On the left you can see the red grape I was taunting him with that got him to become so defensive. Red grapes are exactly the same color as him and he will flare up at anything that is the same color as himself, thinking it's a fish.

Happenings at our home

Here is cute-faced Adam on his intramural ultimate frisbee team (the Banana Bombers). Both his upper-division frisbee team and football team made it to the championship match and they had such a good chance of winning both, but the championship slipped out of their hands in both games. Both championship games were on the same night, right after each other-- it was a sad night at our house. 

And I kind of love looking at blogs and this is exactly where I am usually sitting while I pour over them (please note the absolutely gorgeous blanket behind me, made by Laura Tait. Technically this blanket belongs to Ella, but I've been borrowing it from her until she needs it, it's too beautiful to not be out where people can see it)

And this is what our home looks like:

We move in exactly two weeks, so we've been collecting boxes. 

Just some inspirational dancing

In case you are in need of something beautiful in your life, here are some gorgeous dances from this season's So You Think You Can Dance. 

Melanie and Pasha

Melanie and Marko

Melanie and Neil

Caitlyn and Mitchell

Image from here

I may be slightly obsessed with Melanie, but with how beautifully she dances, it's hard not to be.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Today, my coworker, Jordyn, introduced me to Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (by this point you may be wondering if we ever do anything at my work besides look at things online, I promise we do! I'll do a post about working for EFY in the near future... maybe). Words cannot come close to really capturing what this short little movie is about, so you will just have to watch it to see how fantastic it is! Go here to see it.

Blog Spotlight: A Dose of Lovely

There's been a trend in a lot of my posts, I have this desperate need to tell the world about blogs that I have discovered and fallen in love with. So we'll just make this a regular thing and I'll post blog spotlights every once in a while, is that a good idea? I would set a certain day to post these blog spotlights, but giving my blog posts a due date would suddenly make it seem like homework-- and then I would protest and never post any blog spotlights ever.

So here is the first official blog spotlight: A Dose of Lovely. This is an adorable fashion blog written by these gorgeous girls,  Isabel and Carissa. What I especially love about their outfits is that so much of their clothing is thrifted and they dress up the items so that they look ridiculously cute and trendy. They also feature products that they love and certain Etsy shops that sell cute vintage clothing and fun accessories. 

Check out a Dose of Lovely here.

Hyperbole and Half

Majority of the wonderful things I know about on the internet I learn about at work from my coworkers, and this is one the latest things I was introduced to. This is a blog you may have heard of called Hyperbole and Half. The author of the blog illustrates each post with pictures she made on Paint (or something similar to that program). They are the funniest stories and pictures! The facial expressions are hilarious! Here are some examples of the work that illustrates her stories:

 

My favorite stories are about her simple-minded dog. This one is my very favorite.

So if you are in need of a something to make you laugh, definitely go check out her blog!

Six months

At six months I am still fitting into most of my normal clothes, including my jeans, is that normal? The Baby of Cuteness is a little bit big for her age, so you would think it would be making me bigger, but I guess my torso is long enough she can just snuggle in there without having to stick out too far.

I have had this secret desire to find out if she has any music preferences before she is even born. It could be useful to know in case there is a time in the future when she is crying and nothing will settle her down except for her favorite kind of music, which maybe sounds cheesy but I've heard of things like that happening. So I've been putting on all different kinds of music-- jazz, R&B, alternative, Jon Schmidt, Norah Jones, Michael Jackson, classical music-- to see if she has a preference, but she hasn't reacted to any of them, much to my disappointment. And then yesterday I went to one of the EFY variety shows for work and one of the acts performed to a Justin Bieber song and the Baby of Cuteness went crazy! She was kicking and bouncing up against my ribs and dancing throughout the whole song. Really, Ella? Really? Apparently I've been listening to the wrong kind of music this whole time. 

Tillamook (not a post for the lactose-intolerant)

Okay, let’s talk about one of the wonderful things on this whole entire planet because I’m afraid that there are too many sad people in this world that are completely unaware of this lovely gift from heaven. It’s called Tillamook. I grew up a couple of hours away from Tillamook, Oregon and its factory of deliciousness and so I was completely unaware of how incredible it was because it was what I was used to every day. I just thought that everyone regularly bought Tillamook products.

Image from here.

And then I moved to Utah. I went grocery shopping to stock up my little fridge in my freshman dorm and I got a block of cheese. I bought a certain brand of cheese that will remain anonymous, let’s just say that it was not Tillamook.  I was shocked when I tried cooking with it for the first time because it was completely different from what I was used to and when I ate slices of it plain, it tasted terrible! And then I began to realize what I had always taken for granted growing up.

Tillamook ice cream is without a doubt the most wonderful store-bought ice cream you can find! It is creamy and thick and just heavenly! Baby girl Jones is in love with Tillamook ice cream, at least that’s what I tell Adam when I come home from the grocery store with three cartons of the stuff. He has no complaints, in fact he won’t let me buy any other brand anymore. Favorite flavors: 

I know the last two flavors are kind of regular ones but they are  so perfectly creamy, they are to die for!

When I was little, I thought that Yoplait yogurt was obviously the best kind of yogurt because it came in the coolest shape, but now, I have learned better. You’ll never guess what kind of yogurt I think is better than Yoplait. Favorite flavors:

Northwest Berry Patch                                Pomegranate Blackberry                                    Key Lime

Two that I MUST try in the near future:

Baked Apple Pie                                         Strawberry Lemonade

(I can't decide if the baked apple pie flavor would be good or not)

Now you may be thinking, “Well, the problem is that when I go to the grocery store, the Tillamook brand of cheese and ice cream is so much more expensive than every other brand.” Well, luckily there is another little heaven-sent thing called WinCo. Okay, I could rave about how glorious WinCo is for at least two days straight, but we’ll just focus on the Tillamook aspect of WinCo. At this glorious grocery store, you will find Tillamook brand products for the same price as store brand products at other stores, and when they have sales, it costs even less than store-brand products—it’s awesome!

Image from here.

Anyway, I just need to make sure that more of the world is aware of this blessing, it would hardly be fair for me to hog the secret to myself.