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.

It's a Girl!!!!

I had an ultrasound today and discovered (after an hour) that we are having a little girl! I was so excited, and Nick, well, will learn to be excited. It was pretty funny because she was in a breech position the whole time and she wouldn't move at all. She had her legs crossed (a lady, just like her mother). I tried walking around a few times and going to the bathroom to get her to move positions, but no luck. I finally did a head stand and she flipped onto her stomach.

You can see in these pictures her little foot and her profile and hand across her belly. She's already a chubby thing. At one point during the ultrasound, she was waving, and her fingers were pretty fat, and she has some fat on her neck. I guess I better lay off the ice cream! But overall, she's a healthy girl who likes to kick quite a bit. She also likes to be curled up in a ball. The technician was making fun of her because she had a ton of room to move around in the uterus, but she was tucked away in one corner. I can't believe how cool ultrasounds are. I saw her open her mouth, and make sucking movements with her mouth. We also obviously saw her lady business close up, her kidneys, the chambers of her heart, you name it. I could have sat there and watched her for hours.

Still the thought of labor freaks me out, so I'm just fine with her staying tucked away in my tummy for a little while longer. Now Nick and I need to start thinking of bedroom colors and names :)

Oregon and Snow is funny

It snowed here on Sunday and watching the news ever since has been just as good as watching any comedy show on TV. People freak out in Oregon when it snows, because it doesn't happen very often.

But when you have to be on the road driving with people, that's a whole other story. I drove back from Portland to Salem on Sunday night, and they don't scrape or salt the roads here, so I almost died. I spun a bunch of times, doing 360's in the middle of the freeway across all lanes, and I thought for sure I would run into the median in the middle or go off the freeway, but I didn't. It was a miracle. Since I was fine, I just kept on driving and Nick keeps making fun of me that I wasn't more upset or didn't pull over.

The good news about the weather is that because they freak out about the snow here, they cancel and shut down everything. Tomorrow is my third day in a row off from school, which means no work and sleeping in! I very much have needed it because my growing fetus takes it out of me (tomorrow I'll know the gender!!!)

What We're Doing During Christmas Time . . .

1. Making Nick put up lights on our house.

He almost died doing it. We're too poor to buy a ladder, so he got on the roof to put them up, and he fell off the roof. I came outside and the first thing I said, was "You almost died putting those up?" Now, I'm pregnant, so I tend to be even more blunt and rude than usual.

2. Decorating the house with Christmas stuff.

These are cute little wreaths that my Mom made me. Nick and I also cut down a tree on a tree farm. There's about 5 of them within a mile of our house (gotta love Oregon). We felt like we were ruffin' it, cutting down our own tree :) It was fun. However, we decided that we are never paying for a tree again in Oregon. We're just going to go in the middle of the night and cut one down on the side of the road. They're everywhere!

3. Nick studying for finals.

I'm so glad I'm not him!!!

Nick is being grouchy that he has to study for finals, take care of a pregnant woman and endure me making fun of him nonstop. The last few days I've had a hard time sitting next to him because he has a weird smell to him (I have an unusually heightened sense of smell). It's the fetus, it's not me (That's my coin phrase recently)!

4. Working on my growing belly.

I'm trying really hard to have a cute little baby bump, but so far, its just my middle getting fatter and splurging out everywhere (thought you'd like to know). The last few days I had some bad cramps, which my guess is that my uterus was growing, and I've noticed a little bit more of a bump, so hopefully my dreams will come true. P.S. I generally do not wear shirts this tight. Luckily, I have like 1,000 baggy sweaters from high school, so those have come in handy.

P.S.S. The baby now looks officially human (well, minus the clear skin), and its head is getting even smaller, so Carly, I think you may need to write a new letter, your old put downs are no longer accurate.

Thanksgiving Recap

Nick and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, mostly because we had a nice little break. First Nick found time to organize a little turkey bowl with our ward (of course!) while I slept. Then we went to the Kuykendalls in Eugene, which involved, eating a lot of food, watching the little boys run around, and watching many many old home movies (Nick's favorite part). But it was nice to see and spend time with family. Its especially fun to have the little kids around during the Holidays, it makes it much more entertaining, even though all my my male cousins hate me because I'm a girl - they much prefer Nick.

Here is Nick, Sierra, and some of the cousins: Nash, Hudson, and Jaxon.

Here are the boys harassing Nick.

We then spent the rest of the weekend in P-town with the folks, Sierra, and McKenna. It was pretty low key, with again, more home movies. But it was pretty nice weather, so we were also able to go running and go golfing (it was a big day for me, I was exhausted). It was McKenna's first time golfing ever, so needless to say it was some good entertainment. She had the habit of chasing the ball to pick it up after she hit a bad one.

Sorry the pictures is so blurry, but the sunset was gorgeous. I blame it on McKenna and my crappy camera (shout out for a Christmas present!!!)

My one regret for the weekend was not going back to our ward in Salem on Sunday. Napolean Dynamite's parents are in our ward, and he came to visit. I could have met Napolean!!! And then I could have said to him. "Napolean, what's up with your new Gap commercial?" In case you haven't seen it, here it is. It's weird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQDGvzsWY44

I'm Thankful for . . .

So here is my attempt at scanning pictures. Sorry about the lack of pictures recently, Nick and I's lives are just same ol' same ol', so we don't have a lot of fun pictures to post. Not to mention the fact that I'm not a big fan of getting my picture taken these days.

But here are some small pictures of my first ultrasound at 12 weeks. The thing still kind of looks like an alien, and the one in the middle kinda freaks me out, because you can see the outline of its skull. It's like staring right at the camera. I am almost at 16 weeks now and it looks a little bit more human. So that, I am thankful for. Its legs are no longer fins, hallelujah! And I am also thankful for sleep this Thanksgiving break. I have another ultrasound in a few weeks and that's where we find out if Nick's dreams will come true or he will be greatly disappointed (boy or girl in case you didn't catch that).