Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having such a wonderful holiday! We had fun in Ogden and had a delicious (as always) Thanksgiving dinner made by mom, and are now enjoying our time in Henderson...we had Thanksgiving dinner (or should I say lunch) with Joe's Aunt Karen, Uncle Mark, cousins, and friends. We are so grateful that they were willing to share this holiday with us! It was delicious of course. Aunt Karen cooked her turkey for 12 hours... it was so tender and juicy. Delish! It truly has been fun despite all the homework I've been doing. Finishing up my portfolio and writing my speech so I can memorize it by next Wednesday. It'll be a scary day, but it will be exciting when it is accomplished! Plus the next day will be my Rexburg baby shower. I look forward to it! I'm grateful for such wonderful friends who are so nice to do so much for me! I'm so grateful for all my family, Joe, and Joe and I are both thankful for our baby boy Ryker! We are also excited to see Kiki go through the temple tomorrow! What an exciting day for her and her family! :) She is going to Indianapolis, Indiana--the same mish her dad served in! :)
Thanksgiving Dinner at Mom's! :) Thanks Mom!
The almost finished product! Can't wait to get this wide load out of my hands and into the ECSE faculty's.

Overwhelming!

I had my first mental breakdown yesterday for the first time in a very long time... I just felt so overwhelmed with school, my calling, and the fact that we'll be moving in the next month. It's so sad! I am really going to miss Rexburg, but I know that it will be much fun starting the next chapter of our lives. It's exciting, yet very scary! I have my portfolio presentation the Wednesday after Thanksgiving break. I am TERRIFIED...as is everyone else who has to do theirs this semester. They start presentations today, and I bet my peers will do great! It will be so nice once I'm past that point. That's the scariest part of this whole program. I'm not even scared to student teach compared to this! I have to present for fifteen minutes in front of a committee (including ECSE faculty, my cooperating teacher for Kindergarten, and some dude high up in the education department) and be able to show them that I know what I need to know to move on to student teaching. They ask me any questions they want after I'm done presenting, and I have to answer them right there. Then, they send me out for like ten more minutes and wait until they call me back in. They tell me my strengths, weaknesses, give advice, and then tell me if they feel I am ready to move on to student teaching. If they don't feel I am, I FAIL. Well, they'll just have me present again the next week. Usually people pass though. The next couple weeks they look over my actual portfolio (that I've worked like 10+ hours on--still not done). This is really all I fret about right now. For my calling, I have to do visiting teaching interview, which aren't hard. They last about 5 minutes, but I'm just starting them and I have 18 girls to interview... and half of them probably won't sign up or even show. I fear it is because they haven't done their visiting teaching, but we tell them that it is okay and that we would still like to talk to them. Also, we are leaving Friday at noon to go to Utah and then Vegas for the break. We want to start moving stuff down, so we don't have to worry about getting a UHAUL, but I feel like I have NO time to start packing that stuff because I have all these other assignments. We have a Relief Society activity Thursday, which I'm second counselor so I must be there. I have an intervention session for my Strategies class Wednesday night, and aside from this I have to do the interviews. Joe is studying for a huge test to get licensed for insurance because we think that will help him get a job easier when we move, and he has been overwhelmed too... he just handles it better than me. Other than that, I am so happy and excited that we know we are having a boy! His name is Ryker Thomas. Don't judge. We love that name and that is his name! We've decided. Ryker because we just like that name and Thomas after Thomas S. Monson. Cute huh?
We had stake conference this weekend and it was wonderful, but I just get so distracted by the babies and especially the boys now that I know we are having a boy. Joe was quite distracted himself. So cute! Also, I just love looking at baby clothes, but I need to just hold off until it's baby shower time! I'm hoping someone here throws me one, but I'll end up having one no matter what, so it's okay. It'll all be fun! My friend Jessica who is the Relief Society president found out the same day that she is having a girl. Everyone thought that we would have the girl and she would have the boy. It's always the opposite of what we think. But Jess and I say that we both knew deep down inside that she was having a girl and I was having a boy. Anyways, I really need to go do some homework. Love you all family and friends! :)

It's a BOY!!!

We are pleased to announce that we are having a wonderful little boy! We are super duper excited. She didn't print any pics that show proof that it is a boy, but we have some great pictures of his head! He's so cute! They gave us a DVD of the ultrasound, and I just watched it. Definitely a boy. Not that I doubted it because I'm pretty they wouldn't make a mistake, but when she said it's pretty clear I kept missing the screen because I was looking at Joe and talking about how surprised he was. He was sure it was a girl, but he is very excited to have a boy too. We both are! Ah! I can't even describe how excited I am! I think it's just the fact that we finally know to say "he." Ok, since everyone has been asking... we like the names Ryker or Ethan. We haven't really looked too much into it though, so we aren't sure on first or middle names or whatever. Anyways, we are so excited about our baby boy! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

4 More Days...

until we find out what this baby is!!! We are super duper excited. Oh, and I just got a call from the doctor saying that they got my blood test results back. They said my CBC test looks good, but they want me on some additional folic acid. My red blood cell count must be low. Also, they want to do a CBC on Joey, so they'll be doing lots of fun things on Friday. The ultrasound will be the best part of course. Hope that everything goes well! Yay for our little baby!!! :)
Here's my updated baby bump at 20 weeks! I don't know why Joe feels he has to get me close up. He's so silly!

Here are our updated numbers!
We have 17 votes for a girl (Matt and Logan voted a girl too; very surprising)
We have 13 votes for a boy
We have 2 votes for one of each (twins, which is pretty much a cop out answer because clearly we are only having ONE baby)
Anyways, this is so fun for me even though it's a 50/50 chance. I still like to see what people think. Next Friday needs to come faster!!!Okay, so I might have cheated a little bit and angled myself to make myself look bigger, but I figure I'll look like that next week if not earlier! :)