"Who's That Sorta Annoying Girl Soccer Player?"

I think about this quote from Rachel in Friends quite often:

"She's like . . . who's that sorta annoying girl soccer player?"

"Mia Hamm?"

"Mia Hamm! She's like Mia Hamm!"

(Rachel is excited about her baby girl kicking inside of her).

My little one is a big kicker. Seriously about every 10 minutes all day and all night. I now realize that I didn't quite know what it was at first, because it felt like gas. I just thought my stomach was bubbling over, but oh no, that is her feet and elbows bumpin' up against my uterus all the time. It is sorta weird, but I love the feeling. It's like she's constantly reminding me that she's there (because believe it or not, as big as my belly is getting, I still do forget). Yesterday, I had another ultrasound (#4), and she had one arm over her face, which she kept jabbing into my side and I could feel it while watching her do it.

With the exception of being tired, I really do love being pregnant. I love getting a belly and just the whole process is fascinating. I think Nick might feel slightly different; he views me as a ticking time bomb, never quite sure what is going to make me cry or upset. But as I explained, its very simple: when I'm well rested and fed, life is good.

On another note, I need help. I'm not very gifted with being creative, particularly with things like fashion or designing, so I need some suggestions for bedroom colors. Here are some samples of patterns that I was considering for bedding. Tell me what you think, HONESTLY! I need some honest feedback. And should I paint my walls. If so, what color?

Like A Virgin

So Carly, being the dear friend that she is decided to come and visit me this weekend since it was a long one. It was a weekend of many firsts for Carly, so here they are . . .

First time in Oregon. It's green and there is a lot of water. We saw some of it.

First time hiking in Silver Falls State Park. And I think it may be her first time making this pose. I made her do it. and hey, it turned out well!

First time hiking with a pregnant women. I apologize for my gasiness, but like everything else, I blame it on the fetus. (P.S. I apologize for how disgusting I look, please realize I am not always this hideous, but am trying to stick my belly out as far as possible. But yes, I do have a belly and I really like it).

First time being asked by a singles ward bishop which singles ward she attends in Oregon, and then having to correct him and tell him that she's married. You have to admit, we do look young. I'm still sort of hoping he thought I was bearing an illegitimate child. What a good missionary he was!

First time seeing "Dr. Seuss" trees. Word to describe Portland :mossy.

First time in Portland and at the Rose Garden/Washington Park. It's particularly exciting when there are no roses and its freakin' freezing!

First time in downtown Portland, which was again pretty cold.

First time at Nick and Lexie's house.

First time eating at a few different restaurants: Burgerville, Newport Bay, Papa Haydn's, La Hacienda Real (the horse picture).

First time finishing Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood (okay, this is only half true because she fell asleep a few times in the movie).

First time witnessing Lexie teach the Miamaids, and understanding truly how spiritual I am (I know its improper English to use the third and first person in the same sentence but I don't care).

First time watching Lexie coach the freshmen girls b-ball team (and then lose by 30 points).

First time at North Salem High School to discover that their bathrooms are disgusting and their soap is cheap and gross- that's how we roll.

First time feeling sick, throwing up, and then feeling better immediately after. I swear it was a bad apple.

First time losing her wedding ring :(

First time missing her flight :(

First time she heard Daniel say, "I tore my ACL, and I hit both of our cars."

So, while there were a lot of firsts for Carly, not all of them were good. You can blame Karma, but as always, I blame the fetus. It will work for another few months at least. Either way, thanks for coming to visit me and spend some time with me. It was so much fun, and I feel like we can never have enough time to sit around and talk.

The End.

Julie's Surprise B-day Dinner

The night before we left, Mike got together a little surprise dinner for Julie at Asian Star in Salt Lake. It was fun to gather together, and I could not get enough Chinese food! Perhaps one of my favorites so far this pregnancy.

Julie blowing out her candles.

Margot Wilson and Julie.

He wasn't very happy with me for continuing to take pictures and bug people :)

Dad.

Aw, how cute. Mac and Sierra.

Sierra and Mom giving funny looks to Dad.

I love this expression on Julie's face.

Be happy Jac, I didn't put the one up of you eating!

Seth.

John and Jan Bradshaw.

Nick was tired. We were late becaue he had a difficult time waking up from his nap (which reminds me that at some point in the near future I am going to post about how long it takes Nick to wake up from naps).

Mike and Julie.

Whit

Ainge Gathering in Utah

Instead of making my last post really really long, I decided to break it up into a few sections. A week after Christmas, the Ainge family went up to Midway to spend a few days together in even more snow. We had a mini Christmas, and I got a brand new, nice camera!!!

I've been wanting one for about a year, because I love taking pictures, but its much more fun with a faster shutter speed and pictures that actually look good when you take them!
In Midway, we hung out, played games, watched movies, went sledding, and went skiing/snowboarding. I'm still extremely bitter because my family guilted me into not going skiing. Instead, I took about a million pictures of my adorable niece and nephew. I had to entertain myself somehow! So get ready for a lot of pictures (I had a hard time narrowing them down because I'm very proud of my rookie nice-camera picture- taking skills).

Palmer is focused on playing marbles.

And here he is focused on spelling. He was very excited about spelling the word, Rocket. One of his favorite games is to spell words with scrabble letters. That's my kind of party!

Portia eating an apple, well, kind of.

Portia is imitating Bri while she bites on an apple.

Not sure what he's doing, he's eather focused on something or talking to himself (what he's doing most of the time).

Papa and Portia.

I dunno.

Nick playing with Palmer before he ditches me and goes snowboarding :(

Papa is singing to her.

Bath time and a little bit of snot.

She makes this face quite often, usually when she's trying to have a conversation.

Big mouth :)

They're playing together . . . aww

This is our adult game of Mafia. McKenna is trying to figure something out and Sierra looks slightly slow in this picture.

Ronell trying to figure out who's lying. I think he's staring at me.

My family says this is a usual face I make when I'm around them. But in this picture, I'm trying to explain the rules to mafia.

Sorry for all of the pictures, but I warned you. Trust me, there are many more! (P.S. the mafia pictures were taken by Nick, he's not quite as skilled as I am ).

Winter Break and a Really Really Ridiculously Long Post

Nick and I had a great and long and relaxing Winter Break in Utah, where we got to see family and friends. Unfortunately, I can't find the cord to my camera, so I posted random pictures off

of the internet, as to not bore you and entice you to read my post :)

I flew to Utah from Portland, after a very very long delay, and got into the SLC airport at 3 a.m.. The crazy thing was that I had never seen the airport so crazy. There was luggage everywhere! I was just glad I got in, because apparently because of the snow in Portland, a lot of flights were canceled.

This is what SLC looked like flying into it, only dark.

We attended church, in what triggered my memory of a huge ward with a bazillion babies and so loud that I have to focus very hard to hear the speaker (our old ward in Orem was the same). But it was wonderful with beautiful Christmas music, and I was grateful to be reminded of the Savior during Christmas time.

Then Mike, Julie, Nick, and I all went to St. George for a few days. The plan was for it to be warm, but we made due even with snow on the ground. We had fun playing hours of tennis (although Nick's slice almost made me pull my back trip over myself). We went golfing and it was FREEZING! We saw a few movies, played games, went hot tubbing, and did a little bit of shopping. I found maternity clothes that don't look terrible! It was SO much fun just spending time together.

Okay, so it wasn't this bad, you could actually see the fairway. But it was pretty cold.

\We came back in time for Christmas Eve. We had a great dinner with the Cottle clan, played Rock Band, and stayed up way too late making gingerbread houses. I slept in probaby the latest I have on Christmas, and I probably could have slept a few hours more. But we opened all of our presents. There were so many great ones, but perhaps my favorite was the Brett Favre jersey Nick got as a onesy. I thought that he bought it before we found out we were having a girl, but he didn't. Yeah! Nick will turn our little girl into Favre fan (although I doubt anyone could ever be as much as Nick). We followed up Christmas with our traditional german pancakes and spent a relaxing Christmas day together.



The week after Christmas, Nick and I were able to spend time with some of our friends that we have missed since moving. It started to feel like we were living in Utah and everything was normal. Thanks Amander, Daniel, Carly, Annie, Steven, Meredith, Blake and Blake, Anne, Mary, and Maggie for taking time to see us. We wish we could see you more often. But you're welcome to visit any time!



Now its back to regular life, and I'm exhausted!!! I guess you can never sleep too much when you have a growing fetus inside you.