Baker Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party Extravaganza

 Every year, my family gathers together for our pumpkin carving party at my moms house. If I remember correctly, I think this is our 5th year. We make some food, order some pizza and after everyone is done eating and cleaned up, we get those pumpkins on the table and start carving away.

 Eating potato soup, salad and pizza.

Everyone with their picked out pumpkins.

 A Luke photo bomb.

The de-gutting and carving. I think this is the worse part. Pumpkin guts get everywhere.

The finished works of art.

 Oliver: Lego head pumpkin

Kimmy: Zombie hand pumpkin

Wendy: Asian Pumpkin?

Kade: Scuffed up Lego head pumpkin

Jonny: Cinderella Pumpkin (he helped Ashlyn)

Taleesha: I-am-a-nice-aunt-so-I-will-make-your-haunted-house-pumpkin (she made it for Jack)

Spencer: Twin brace face pumpkin

Mom: My face is the pumpkin pumpkin

Tate: Asian Hulk pumpkin

Luke: Do I have anything in my teeth pumpkin

Ethan: Vampire pumpkin complete with butt on the back pumpkin

Ashlyn: Cinderella pumpkin

Jack: Haunted house pumpkin

 

We missed not having Kat there with his magical elaborate creations and we missed Phia and Kenzie not participating in the pumpkin carving.

 

When we got home, we lit up our pumpkins and were pretty happy with how they turned out.

Love this messy tradition and hope to keep it going for years to come. 

Ward Hallowen

First thing on our Halloween festivities this year was our ward Halloween Party. Oliver requested to be a zombie this year so, homemade zombie is what I went for. I found a couple tutorials online on how to make yourself look like a zombie and took off with it. After sitting for 45 minutes, Oliver was ready.

He loved how he looked and I think even got a little scared when he looked in the mirror for the first time.

 As I was taking pictures of Oliver in his costume, he got an excited look on his face and said "Mom, I have an idea." and he laid down next to the tomb stone so that I would take a picture of him.

 I dressed up as a zombie hunter.

 

Oliver with some of the neighborhood girls.  

The primary presidency was in charge of coming up with a game. We went the easy route and chose Halloween pictionary. Super easy and super fun.  

Luke was studying late that night for his FE exam but was able to meet up with us later on. We ate some delicious chili and desserts and overall had a great time with the ward family. 

Random of Randoms

I love having instagram, however sometimes I don't blog because of it, but it is nice to have to look back on for when I finally do blog. Here are some random things that we have been up to the past few weeks.

On September 20th, our neighbors hosted the 2nd annual outdoor movie night. This was so much fun last year and I am so glad they did it again this year. We watched Hotel Transylvania bundled up with sweaters and blankets.

 The food here does not disappoint. We have the best movie snacks anyone could ask for...and this was only one of three tables.

Oliver and I had our check up at the dentist. Luckily, he isn't scared to go so it makes for a nice trip. Neither of us had cavities and we both got our teeth cleaned which felt so good. 

Since Luke is in the Elders Quorum, he helps out a lot with moves and stuff. This particular day it was nice to just enjoy the company of the young families in the ward with a breakfast. 

Oliver finished up soccer and he was really happy about it. This was pretty much his team the entire season. Most of the time it was 3 or 4 on 6 which {i think} made Oliver hate soccer since his team never got to take a break and they were playing a lot more kids. He still rocked it though and played hard and we are so proud of him. His coach, Joe was so awesome and we were lucky to have him coaching Oliver. 

 Luke and I and our friend AJ are obsessed with the TV series Game of Thrones so naturally we had to throw a big season finale viewing complete with fine cheeses, meats, bread and drinks...served on crown plates and goblets of course. Yes, we are that nerdy.

 

 We headed down to St. George to watch Trent, Amy and Jake finish the marathon. The night before at the packet pick up, they had a kid run. Of course all the Jensen kids wanted to do it...my kid, not so much, but I tricked him into running it while I quickly walked next to him. He was so happy that he did it because he got a water bottle for a prize.

This was Amy's first marathon so we had to be there to support her.

 

 She did so awesome and inspired me to want to sign up to do one. She really is amazing.

 

When we got back from our St. George trip, we decided it was time to buy a car for our growing family. We had been looking for a while and Luke finally found the perfect one.

 

Introducing...Mr. White.

We had to trade in Luke's car which was actually a little sad. That car was purchased when Luke got off his mission, it was with us through our whole marriage, it got Luke through college, and even though it was a little beat up from me hitting a garbage can on the freeway and scratching the crap out of it with a metal snow shovel, it was a great car.

Oliver has started to read. Grandma Lily is awesome and has a great way of teaching her kids. I love watching the work he has done with her. What would we do without grandmas. 

 Since we got the new car, we decided it would be a good time to put Oliver into a traditional booster and we bought one of our baby car seats. This is getting real.

 I hosted a Nickel Auction. We had a great turnout and I even made 30 bucks off my stuff. It was awesome!

 

 We have hit up Lagoon a couple of times this Halloween season. It has been so fun to go there with Oliver. He loves it and I love Frightmares.

We got invited to a Halloween Roaring 20's party. I was so excited to go to an adult only party and Capson's did not disappoint. I wish I would have thought to take pictures because they went all out for this party. We laughed to tears and had such a great time. Luke and I won second place for best couple costume and I won first place for guessing how many bullets were in a jar. Seriously, such a great time!

 

And there is the random of random pictures and posts of our life in the past month. It's been busy and so much fun.

Pre-School Fieldtrip

Today I got to miss work to spend the day with Oliver at his pre-school class field trip. I loved going with him and playing with him. Oliver is the type to just play on his own and be okay with it so we would go from station to station and I would play with him or watch him play. At one point we went into this large playroom with huge foam blocks and built forts and towers to knock down. Best part was that it was just me and Oliver for a solid 45 minutes with no one else. It was so fun to just be there with him playing.

 

When we headed up to the second floor, Oliver insisted that we take the stairs. To me, that seemed like a mile of stairs and it probably took me about 10 minutes to haul myself up there.

 I love my little man and I am so happy that we got to spend the day together.

Two to Twenty-Two Weeks

As many of you know, we underwent In vitro Fertilization this past spring/summer. We feel so blessed to be able to have done this and I feel such indescribable gratitude for all those that played a part in caring for us while we were going through it.

 

Here is a timeline of my pregnancy so far (in pictures)

 

Here are our babies as blastocyst and ready to be implanted. These were the best two and I love that we have a picture of them at only about 5 days old as little tiny bundles of cells.

 

June 4, 2013 

This was right after we had the embryos transferred. They had given me some Valium to help me relax. I don't think I had ever been as relaxed as I was after the procedure. I ended up going home and sleeping for a few hours. After I woke up, the only thing I could think of was that I hope and pray that these perfect little embryos would implant and stay with us and that my body will be strong enough for them.

 

Technically this would be week 2 since they give you 2 free weeks.

Bed rest for a week. 

We found out that I was pregnant after doing a blood draw on June 15th. No peeing on a stick for me. I got a phone call from the nurse congratulating me and telling me that my HGC levels were high. This was the message that they sent me through my University of Utah account...

 

You are pregnant and you Quant (hcg) number today is 590.

Repeat on Monday between 8-9
Due date is 2/21/14
Continue progesterone until 7/23/13 get a refill call the pharmacy.
Schedule an ultrasound after 6/28/13 by calling the schedulers on Monday.

 At this point we didn't know if we were having one or two babies, but we were pregnant and that's all that mattered.

Between 5 and 6 weeks.

I ended up getting sick from being overstimulated (OHSS) and put on bed rest until I felt more comfortable. Those that knew that I was pregnant could already tell, what they didn't know was that my cute "baby bump" was actual blottage. HCG levels have doubled which is a great thing. I'm starting to think it might be twins...

 

Around 7 weeks.

Still not sure how many are in there. No sickness yet...but I have a feeling it's coming.

 

June 2, 2013

After having our final ultrasound with our Reproductive Doctor, We found out that we are pregnant with (di/di) twins!!!

 Two sacs, two placentas and two strong heartbeats! Started to feel the nausea and sickness after that was confirmed.

 

8 weeks pregnant!

 

Nausea is in full force and puking is a daily occurrence, but we couldn't be happier.

August 14th.

I am officially 13 weeks pregnant!

We got to see how the babies are developing at our genetic counseling appointment.

 

Baby A.

They couldn't get a great profile picture of the baby because it was moving around too much.

Baby B.

August 29, 2013

15.1 weeks!

We heard the both babies heartbeats this day and then headed down to St. George. Still sick, but still so happy!



 

October 2, 2013

20 weeks pregnant. Anatomy scan.

Both babies looked great. It was such a blessing to see all their little organs and to see that they were developing on track. We had to close our eyes when the tech told us to so we wouldn't find out the genders. I finally don't feel sick anymore!

 

Baby A. Flexing.

Baby B. Relaxing.

October 9th

21 weeks!

 

Almost 22 weeks.

Babies move around a lot especially at night between ten and eleven.

 

Everything so far has been going great. My official due date is on February 19th and I know it will get here before we know it. Luke and I have a lot of work cut out for us before then so we will be busy busy. Oliver kisses my belly all the time and Luke has been able to feel them kick. This change in our life has been so awesome. I love getting bigger and we can't wait to meet the Veigel twins.