32 1/2 Weeks

Here's the latest update on the "watermelon gut" (Seth's terminology). Seriously, this kiddo has grown a TON in the last couple of weeks. It is insane. My Mom officially stated that "okay, you look pregnant now" on Sunday. Yes, it's happening despite my wishes to stay small. Only 7 more weeks! By the way, please notice the shadow behind me that makes me look fatter than I really am. :) We really are getting excited to meet our little gal!

You Don't Have to Worry About Snow in AZ...

I was on the phone with a company the other day who was explaining to me UPS shipping policies. He went on to say that UPS would never leave a package in the rain or snow, then proceeded to say, "I guess you never have to worry about snow in Arizona, though". I kind of laughed as I was looking out the window at this:

Dustin and I decided to take a little mini vacation up to my parent's cabin in Pinetop, AZ and we seem to have impeccable timing as we ran into this huge snow storm. The same thing happened to us last year when we went on vacation up there, too. Anyway, we got 18" of snow from Sunday morning when we got there to Monday night. It was craziness! All I can say is that I LOVE snow plows and husbands that are willing to dig our car out of a driveway with 18" of snow on it and that I HATE icy roads. They are awful. They scare me to death. I informed Dustin that he better find a job somewhere close to home because I will die if I have to live in the snow all the time! We did have a great time being snowed in and being lazy for a few days, though! Lots of yummy hot chocolate!

There was this huge icicle outside the cabin (well, huge if you live in AZ) and Dustin decided to measure it...5 feet 9 inches! It was SO pretty, though. These pictures don't do it justice at all.

Dustin just had to build a snowman, but the snow wouldn't pack well so he had to rescue round chunks of snow after the snow plow finally came through to start his snowman. Notice that it's a replica of himself, complete with spiky hair and everything!

In other random news, a couple of weeks ago we went to Phoenix after a Hancock family reunion (which I failed to take many pictures of) for Thanksgiving and picked up this beautiful cradle that my Grandpa Harold made for our little girl. We love it and are so grateful for he and my grandma who had blankets and sheets made for it. Our little girl is spoiled already! Isn't is pretty?

Mom's & Photoshoots

Everybody loves picture time.

So my Mom's Birthday was on Friday, and since my two little brothers had just gotten their letterman's jackets, we thought it would be fun to get a picture done of all three of us in our jackets for Mom as a surprise present. Well that whole experience was quite hilarious from my brothers realizing they don't know how to comb their own hair to Cruella Deville coming into picture people right after us to do a shoot with three of her dalmatians. Funny times. Anyway it worked and so Meagan and I went down to St. David to give Mom her present yesterday. Judging by her reaction I think she liked her picture.

At the same time Dawn Sheree and Steven brought their boys down to visit as well and had asked Meagan to do a photoshoot with them to try and get some family pictures done. We went and borrowed some of the rustic scenery of Grandpa Kartchner's corrals and tried and tried to get those boys to smile (or even look at us for that matter). It was so much fun that I just had to take a shot of all the good times in action.

The Little Bro Leaves! (and other updates)

On November 4th we sent my little brother, Seth, off to the MTC to start a mission in the Dominican Republic! It's a little crazy thinking that my little brother is old enough to serve a mission! He was so ready, though, and we are so excited for him and this adventure of his. If you want to follow his adventures on the mission, click on the link to his blog from our blog list on the right or just go to eldersethindr.blogspot.com. We got his first letter on Wednesday and it is super funny. Good kid.

We went to Mt. Lemmon a couple of days before he left on a drive and took some photos for his mission picture. It was a great last little chat session before he left.

Here's a picture of us seeing him off at the airport.
In other news, the HOLIDAYS are in the air at the Hancock house! We are so excited! I know we kind of skipped Thanksgiving, but we seriously had our Fall-ish decorations up for FOREVER so now it's time for our favorite...Christmas! Here's some pictures of the fun we had on Sunday. I realized I never got a finished product picture of all the decorations, but decorating the tree will have to do for now.

While Dustin was putting lights on the tree I made some cinnamon rolls for a lady in our ward and they actually worked! I couldn't believe it! Usually my cinnamon rolls taste okay, but look pretty homemade. I had to take a picture of them while they were raising because I was so excited.

Lastly, here's the 28 week update picture. Seriously, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a good prego shot, that's all I have to say. I got the results from the glucose intolerance test and they were good, thank Heavens, because I was really stressed about that for some reason. The only minor problem is that my blood shows I'm anemic, so iron supplements here I come! If that's the only thing that goes wrong with this pregnancy, I'll take it! I have been so blessed with a nice healthy pregnancy.

Winning Project

This semester we had our final studio class, which is the class where the bulk of the designing happens. For this class we had an actual client, which this year was the University Medical Center. We were commissioned to design a children's garden for the new Diamond Medical Center expansion of the university. The class was split up into five groups of three and let loose.

The project was set up competition style and my group Won!

This means that UMC will now take the concept & material we gave them and contract a licensed Landscape Architect to develop construction documents and then it will be built. Who knows how much of our design will remain after the Landscape Architect puts his two bits on the design, but it is still exciting knowing that we sparked the original ideas.

Here's a bunch of renderings that my 2 classmates and I put together for it, including a fly-through video. Sorry the quality of the video got really bad when I shrunk it down to be manageable online. Hope you can still get the general idea.

Party Time!

So my fabulously creative husband decided we needed to host a Halloween party with his "out-of-the-house" siblings and so we did it last night. We had such a great time! It was kind of a "blast from the past theme" so we did the eating a doughnut on a string game, bobbing for apples, and a cupcake walk. Seriously, though, it was so much fun! Thank goodness that his siblings and their dates/spouses are good sports because it would have never been so much fun with a different crowd. (Warning...lots of pictures!)

The theme for costumes was "opposites attract". We set up a little mini photo shoot to capture everyone at their best, hence we have:

An outlet and a plug

Black and White

Fire and Ice

Redneck and City Girl

The whole crazy crew (one of many attempts to get a super sweet group shot...enlarge for full effect)

We made homemade pumpkin pizzas for dinner and each couple decorated their own jack-o-lantern pizza and Dustin made us homemade rootbeer to go with dinner.


...and while the pizzas were baking, it was time for GAMES!





To end the night reminiscing about Halloweens past, we had what else besides good 'ol dirt cups? Yes, that's right. It was superb.

All I can say is it's a good thing we all love each other. Seriously...can you see what I mean?! We're all crazy! Life is so good!

24 Weeks and Counting...

Here's a picture update for all of those who have asked lately. It is from last week at about 24 weeks. She's growing for sure, or at least I am! The only rule is you can't make fun of how bad I am at taking pictures!

Randomness

I've been meaning to update for awhile, but don't really have any huge updates to write about, so I'll just post some pictures of the random things we've been up to.

Fall...I love it and it doesn't come soon enough in AZ, so I got some decorations for the bar in our kitchen and we've had fun with them. I made pumpkin bread, too which is my absolute favorite "Fall-ish" treat. I got these wooden boxes with glass sides that I want to fill with different things for each Holiday and I love them! It makes doing a little decorating to spice up life way easy.

Canning...I've been trying to can some random things lately and I found a recipe for strawberry lemonade concentrate that was awesome! All went well with the strawberry lemonade and I should've stopped there, because this is what happened when I went to seal the grape jelly I made. Grandma's steam canner is no more...So sorry, Grandma!

Chicken noodle soup...Dustin will die, but neither of us felt very good on Sunday and I was craving homemade chicken noodle soup. I woke up to the yummiest soup ever and homemade bread bowls. He is amazing, but please, don't tell his secrets! :)

A baby gut...It's up and coming. I finally had to go shopping for clothes on Friday with my Mom because things just aren't fitting the way they used to. I almost made it to 6 months, though, which isn't bad if you ask me. Here's a picture at 21 weeks, even though it's not great because it was the day I was sick and not really in the mood for pictures.

Sunsets...this one is from my Grandpa's pond last night after a last minute trip to visit after conference on Sunday. Isn't it amazing?


(Dustin's addition) Meagan and I love nativities and this is our newest addition to our collection. It just came in the mail today, so we naturally had to check it out. Since we had it up, we thought we'd take a picture and share. Hope you enjoy it. We're excited!