Lately

I feel like I have so many posts with this same title. I guess it is because sometimes nothing fantastic has happened that I need to dedicate an entire post to, but lots of little great things have--so why not put them into one big post?

--Work has decided to cross-train the Pediatric nurses to the NICU. My hospital just built a large NICU that can hold up to 24 babies and apparently they are short-staffed at the moment. That means any time they don't need us upstairs on Med/Surg/Peds, we get to go play with itty bitty babies.(And because of the lovely weather we have been having--read "no snow"-- we have not seen very many sick kids, which means we have been in the NICU a lot!) Mostly, I have just had "feeder-growers" which are babies that are there to learn how to eat. Most have NG tubes and require regular feeds through them if they can't finish their feedings orally. With these patients, I have 3 babies and let me tell you, it gets so busy!!! It is like having triplets!! I cannot imagine ever having triplets. Seriously, when do you sleep? You feed the first one, change them, get them back to sleep, then go on to #2, then #3 and then you have maybe 45 minutes until you have to do it all again. And that is only if everything goes right. For all those who are having multiples, you are a better person than me. I would die. Anyway, the NICU is fun for the most part although by the end of the day my feet and back are killing me from the extra weight/baby I've been carrying around lately. Also, the fact that we had about 7 hours of training before they threw me out on my own makes me nervous every time I'm there. (Not really on my own. The NICU nurses are very nice and will answer any question you have but I do have 3 patients all to myself. It scares me sometimes for sure, but I'm getting more used to it.) I always joke when people ask me what kind of nurse I am--Medical, Surgical, Orthopedics, Pediatrics, ICU, Post-Partum, NICU... Who knows what they'll throw in next!
--Ryan's work can be summed up in one word lately: stressful. He is incredibly busy and has multiple projects he is working on all at once and everyone wants theirs done first (of course). I am just so thankful for a hardworking husband who does his best to support us. And the best part is... he is REALLY good at it. He always has calls from different companies asking him if he wants a new job. Maybe one day, but for now, he stays at LanDesk.
--Ryan found out he is going to Europe for work... again. And no, I'm not going with him. I wish I was but, I'm not. What do you do? Oh ya, I go to California. Lynne and I magically planned a trip to California during the exact time that Ryan is going to Europe. I think it is fate really.
--The pregnancy nausea has finally started to ease up. I have even worked a couple of days without taking Zofran. That is just a miracle to me. Not to say the nausea is completely gone, but I can't even remember the last time I threw up and THAT is saying something, my friends.
--I absolutely LOVE the fact that I'm having another girl. I seriously couldn't be more excited. When people ask me if I know what I'm having I say, "A Girl" with the biggest grin in the entire world on my face! It just makes me so happy! I realized today at work in the NICU that I know nothing about boys. I know, I'm sure I will learn once that opportunity comes, but for now, I'm content just knowing about girl things.

Jackson and Gavin

Just thought I'd let you know that I have really cute nephews. Brooke and Nate make some cute babies.

Cinnamon Rolls

I was looking at pictures from when Ryan and I were dating the other day. I came across these pictures from when Ryan was trying so hard to woo me where we made homemade cinnamon rolls together. It was his dad's secret family recipe and at the time I was not allowed to know all the aspects of the recipe, since I was not yet a Gardner. Well the other day, I asked Ryan if we could make Cinnamon Rolls and since I'm still not sure I qualify for the Gardner family recipe, I had to go it on my own. I chose this recipe since everything I make from this blog is completely delicious and these did not disappoint. The frosting especially is so delicious!
I also learned something about myself during this process. Something I already knew but is manifest to me every time I start baking. As much as I really do not enjoy cooking, I LOVE to bake! Cookies, brownies, cake, cupcakes, cake bites, rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. I just love it. Maybe because they are so delicious to eat! Anyway, here are some pictures of the deliciousness.

Please excuse the fact that I look like death. I believe I just came off a 13 hour shift!

Best News Ever

Expecting a GIRL May 27th!

What's that I said, a GIRL?!?! It has been said numerous times that Gardners do not have girls and yet here we are, having girl #2! Can you believe it? And the even better news? She is looking completely 100% healthy! All her measurements are normal and she is the cutest! Here, see for yourself...

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Because even strangers are asking when I'm due, here are the belly pics thus far!

Besides the nausea and vomiting I've been experiencing for pretty much the entire pregnancy, we are loving this pregnancy. I started feeling her move around a little later than I felt Olivia but now I feel her move around daily and even Ryan has felt her move a couple of times when she was especially rambunctious! We can't wait to meet her cute little face! Love her!

A Colorado Christmas

Since we didn't get to go see Ryan's family this Christmas, we decided to meet halfway (kinda?) in Colorado at Ryan's aunt's house the weekend after Christmas. We had so much fun in Colorado with Ryan's family. Three out of the five brothers were there and we of course got to hang out with cute little Cael! I had the whole week after Christmas off (which was wonderful!) but Ryan had to work Tuesday and Wednesday so we didn't end up leaving for Colorado until early Thursday morning. I was worried that we would have a hard time driving there with snowy roads and all but thank goodness Utah decided to have the most mild winter ever and the drive both there and back was amazingly smooth! We got to Colorado around 3:30 on Thursday and got right into the fun.
We started decorating my very first ever real gingerbread house with real homemade gingerbread! It was so fun to have an actual real looking house and not just our stinky graham cracker ones!

(Us with our awesome gingerbread house!)

(The front of the house. Ryan made the awesome roof. It looked totally pro!)

(Back of the house complete with an outdoor stone fireplace with seating and a pool! My favorite part of the house!)

We had dinner and played games that night. My favorite thing about the Gardner family get-togethers is that they love to play games! Being just the two of us, Ryan and I don't get to play games very often so it was pretty fun! The next day we went over to someone's house to watch the BYU game on a huge giant projector. Ryan stayed and watched the whole thing while the rest of us went and played Wally ball at the local gym. It was really fun up until the point where the ball hit me right in the face and I got a bloody nose. I was a bit skittish after that. Then we all went and saw Mission Impossible Two, which was pretty good, and then played games all night!
Saturday was freezing cold and so windy but we still ended up driving up to this lookout mountain to see all of Denver. It was so windy I swear you could have jumped off the mountain and the wind would have blown us right back up! It was freezing, so needless to say, I stayed in the car for the most part. Then we walked around a cute little street with fun shops and had frets and stoufles (a Dutch or German french fry) and German bakery treats. We made it home just in time to get ready to go to the New Year's Eve party at someone's house. (Ya, I don't know these people, but Ryan's family did, so it was ok.)

The party was actually really fun. They had some really good food (pita bread filled with good chicken and lettuce=A+ in my book!) and they basically had games spread out on a bunch of tables so everyone could play whatever they wanted. We played some Rumikub and some Taboo and just hung out and talked. We left before midnight and made it home in time to watch the ball drop, toast our Martinelli's, and have our first new year's kiss. We stayed up talking way too long and didn't get to sleep until like 2 AM which for me is unheard of these days!

(Us getting wasted on New Year's Eve)

Sunday came and we went to 9 AM sacrament meeting so we could travel home all day. We took Jason and Jenna home and were grateful to have them there so we could sleep some of the way. All in all, we had a really fun time and I have to say Colorado was a pretty fun place. The #1 thing I loved about Colorado=they have the nicest drivers there! Everyone drives in the right lane if they are going slow and if they are in the left lane and you come up behind them, they move over for you. (a completely unheard of concept here in stupid Utah!) It was so refreshing to have good drivers around us for a change!

Christmas Day

Christmas day was much more fun than I had anticipated! Since I got put on call (and never did get called in) I got to spend the whole day with my family. It was awesome! We started the day off with Christmas breakfast with Nate, Brooke, Gavin, and Jackson, complete with orange julius! So good! I think Christmas breakfast is my favorite part of Christmas. Gavin was so cute running around playing with all his new toys and of course Jackson was cute just being a baby! On the way to breakfast Ryan kept telling me he was excited to go to Nate's because my big present was at his house. I was confused as to why my present would be at Nate's house but I was excited to get it too. We kept driving and my butt kept getting hotter and hotter and I asked Ryan, why is my butt on fire? It's so hot!! He played it off and was just like, I don't know, mine is hot too, maybe its just the heater blowing on our feet. I gave him a quizzical look and asked him again why my seat was so hot. He said, "Well if you don't want it that hot, you can turn it on low!" Sneaky!! He got me seat warmers for Christmas! Let me tell you, those are some awesome presents! I LOVE them! The thing I hate most of all is when I'm cold so this solved the problem! Thanks Ryan for the best gift ever!

We came home after that and had Ryan and Andrea Christmas opening our gifts we got each other. Along with the seat warmers Ryan got me cute platters that match our dishes, some movies, and more European candy! I was totally spoiled! Ryan got European Fanta (he is in LOVE with that stuff!), lots of Disney movies, a new pillow, and a clean car (to which he responded, "why does my car smell like a girl?). We opened all our gifts and I could totally tell that Ryan was disappointed because he had been telling me for weeks about this driver that he wanted so badly and it was on major sale. I told him like a million times that I wasn't getting it for him because even on sale it was so expensive! It was actually pretty funny to see his face after realizing he wasn't getting the driver he so desperately wanted. It was so sad. I told him we had to hurry and get ready for church and went in the back to take a shower but came out instead with a big package that was obviously his beloved R-11 Driver. He was as giddy as a 5 year old! Jumping up and down and a smile ear to ear. It was pretty funny! Glad he loves his golf things! We had a pretty fun morning together.

(Giddy 5 year old with his Driver!)

(My cute platter!)

We went to church and then made a visit to the cemetery to see Olivia and we left her a little present for her Christmas. We missed her a lot and were glad we got to go remember her.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Lynne's playing with the babies and eating good food. We continued the Whitaker family tradition of eating paninis for lunch and played a lot of Family Feud on Scott's phone. Christmas turned out to be really fun this year and I seriously couldn't be more excited about the fact that I didn't have to go into work. I was totally dreading it and so not going was the best Christmas present I could have gotten! We hope your Christmas was as fun as ours! Merry Christmas to everyone!

Christmas Eve

We had such a fun Christmas this year! I'll be honest, this year it took me up until the night of Christmas Eve to actually get into the Christmas mood, but once I finally did, it was wonderful. You see, it was going to be my very first Utah Christmas. In the past, Ryan and I have always gone to be with family (California or Illinois) for Christmas. However, this year I was scheduled to work all day (6 AM - 6 PM) on Christmas day so I was totally bummed that I would virtually be missing everything. No Christmas breakfast, no Christmas morning opening presents, no sleeping in until you feel like getting up and opening presents, no Christmas paninis. I was sad. However, I was totally stoked that my parents and Scott were coming into town to have my very first Utah Christmas ever. We decided to have a fancy Christmas Eve dinner and do most of Christmas (the present opening) on Christmas Eve.

The dinner was awesome! My work gave out Turkey Roasts for Thanksgiving and since we headed to California for Thanksgiving, I was left with a huge bird in my freezer. So we decided to have Turkey, delicious fingerling potatoes (seriously, YUM!), jello, Gulliver's corn, salad, and the best rolls in the world! Two years ago, I made Lion House rolls for Thanksgiving and have been dying to make them again. So I did. I was totally nervous that I was gonna mess them up and they were going to be a total let down, but thank goodness I did not. They were pretty much the best rolls ever! (If I do say myself!! haha). Anyway, we had a delicious dinner with Mom, Dad, Dave, Lynne, Owen, Lila, Scott, Me, Ryan, Dave's parents and sister. It was super good and totally put me in the Christmas spirit. Nothing like eating a bunch of food to get you in the spirit!

(YUM!! I could eat those right now!!)

After dinner we opened our presents. It was mostly fun to watch Owen actually be interested in opening presents although he didn't last too long before he was in tears over his moving car andoff he went to bed. We were totally spoiled this year and loved all our fun gifts. After the gift opening I got the best gift ever! I called work to see if they were busy and to see what I could expect the next day and they told me that I was gonna be on call! That means no work on Christmas! I couldn't have been more excited! We ended the night by making homemade Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and playing fun games! It was a fun Christmas Eve!

(All the presents under the itty bitty tree!)

(Ryan's favorite Christmas present was that the Cardinals won the World Series)

(Us and Lila on Christmas Eve)

(I swear this is like a tradition with my Dad and his girls but they say it was a one time thing. Since we did it this time, it makes it twice--and a tradition!)

Lila Jo

Welcome Lila Jo Kimball

December 17, 2011
7 lbs 7 oz
20 inches long

Isn't she the cutest! I love newborns! They are just so tiny!

She is all cheeks and is totally her momma's girl!

Gingerbread Houses

We had a fun Christmas activity the other week with Nate, Brooke, Gavin, and Jackson. We made Gingerbread houses! Ok, so really they were cheap graham cracker houses but it still turned out really fun! Who knew that making Gingerbread houses from graham crackers is super hard? Next time we will just have to go the extra mile and make our own gingerbread.

Brooke making a house and Nathan eating all the candy!

I got a little busy holding the cute baby so Ryan had to help me keep my house standing. Harder than it looks.
The boys' house was pretty much a disaster zone but as Nate said, "It was really about being together and having fun, and I had fun!"
This is my house that took like 24 hours to make. I had to let it dry overnight so that I could actually put candy on the roof without it collapsing. But I finally finished it the next day and it turned out really cute! (Love the brick). It won't be entering any contests or anything but at least I had fun making it!
Brooke's house won the contest because hers was the only one that didn't keep falling down. She didn't have time to finish decorating it so she left it at our house and I decorated it for her. It was fun to decorate a house that wasn't constantly falling down!

A Day of Gratitude

We had such a fun Thanksgiving this year. I was really looking forward to it this year because it meant we got to get out of the freezing cold weather. We got to take Lynne and Owen along on our long drive to CA so we had loads of fun! We got to California late Wednesday night and we were totally exhausted so we went straight to bed.
The next day was Thanksgiving. Mom made her infamous waffles for breakfast. Yum. Then it came time for preparing the Thanksgiving grub while the boys watched football and played Family Feud on Scott's phone. Then there was Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma Donna's. We had like a million people there and it was seriously delicious!! Love Thanksgiving food!

Brian teaching Cadence how to stuff her face on Thanksgiving

On Friday, we had the best day at Disneyland thanks to Scott and some of his friends. The whole family went (we even got Dad to spend half a day there!) All the kids had so much fun running around and seeing Mickey and all. We went on a bunch of rides, saw all the fun Christmas decorations, saw World of Color (awesome), and got VIP seats for the firework show! It was an amazing day and we were so so so exhausted afterward.

Us in front of the giant Christmas tree

California Screamin! One of my favorite rides!

Fun Autopia! I rode with Charlotte and she couldn't see over the steering wheel so we were basically just bouncing back and forth and she was cracking up! It was hilarious!

Our awesome VIP seats for the fireworks right in front of the Castle

The castle after the fireworks. It was beautiful all lit up!

On Saturday we had to sleep in so we could recover from our long Disneyland day. The boys watched the Michigan vs Ohio State game which put Ryan in a good mood for the rest of the day. Then we headed to the car show in LA to look at all the fun new cars coming out. It was fun to see all the new models and dream about which car we would buy if we were rich. (I think Ryan and I both decided on the BMW.) The car show wore us out even more so we headed home and had a wonderful dinner at good old Fudruckers.

Sunday was Lynne's birthday so we had a good family dinner with cake and ice cream to celebrate.

Happy Birthday to Lynne. The boys were a little weary of the fun sparkler candles.

Monday the boys had all gone back to Utah so us girls went and had our nails done for some pampering and then headed off for some shopping. Basically what us girls do best when we are all together. It was a really fun day! Tuesday we just got up and drove back to freezing cold Utah. It was a really long drive but it was worth it to spend the weekend in California. I love having the whole family together with all the grandkids together playing. It was such a warm fun weekend! Can't wait until we get to go back!

These are some cute boys! They will be best friends one day

Trying to get a good picture of all the grandkids together is pretty much impossible

California

Since Ryan keeps having to travel for work, I decided to take my own little trip last week and go visit California! Every time I go to California I fall in love with the weather. I left snowy Utah to arrive in sunny California! I had so much fun hanging out with my family and getting to see my cute niece and nephew! They are both getting so big, it's crazy! It was in the 80's one day so we headed to the beach, had lunch at Ruby's on the Pier, and played in the sand/water with the babies. It was a blast! Other than that I ate a ton of Thrify's Ice Cream and celebrated my Dad's birthday. I'm so glad that I get to go home pretty often to get a break from snowy cold Utah.

Of course I forgot my camera charger and took no pictures so this is the only one I could find. This is Cade and me at the beach (hence the crazy hair).

Ireland

One perk of work is that every now and again you get to go somewhere cool and your company pays for it. So at the beginning of November I got to go to Ireland - a place I'd never been to before. Two things I knew about Ireland before going there: bad weather and exceptionally nice people. Turns out the weather isn't that bad - they say it rains all day, but it really just is partially cloudy with a chance of rain. And there were some really nice days even though it was November. It also turns out that the people are indeed exceptionally nice. It borders on ridiculous sometimes. I'm glad I can now pronounce Ireland as the nicest country in the world, especially because it displaces Canada from that position.

I was in Ireland for a whole week (after 2 days in London) to train our European finance team on some new integrations we'd made between our sales and accounting systems. Though I'm sure you'd love to hear about the joys of making Salesforce.com and SAP talk to each other, how about I just show you some pictures of stuff I got to see/do?

St. Michans Church - Handel wrote the Messiah here

Catacombs under St. Michans-hanging out with Crusader mummies

Ireland has castles

The Barge, a famous pub. Went here for breakfast and to watch the Ireland national soccer team play Latvia....or Estonia....

Getting artsy with my phone camera inside Johnnie Fox's - highest pub in Ireland. Also, Google's #1 search result for "pub ireland".

I got to see a lot of other really great stuff, including taking a tour of the Guiness Factory. It has an awesome bar at the top with all glass windows that give you a great view of Dublin. Also, the beer is supposedly to die for - I had a Fanta Orange (no supposedly-s, it IS to die for). I also toured Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells which is billed as the world's most beautiful book. I'd never honestly heard of it before, but it was quite beautiful. The book is actually the 4 gospels but it's written in amazingly fine writing with beautiful illustrations. It's ornate to the nth degree. Overall, it was a pretty horrible trip. I missed my wife non stop and I would never consider going again :)

Olivia's Headstone

I realized we never posted a picture of Olivia's headstone. It turned out so beautiful and we are really happy with it. The footprints are actually Olivia's footprints. I can't believe how tiny they are. I love that there is a part of her on her headstone so we can truly remember her. I'm so happy that we ended up burying her at a cemetery close to our house so we can go visit her often and one that is so beautiful. I love that she is somewhere pretty.


When we first buried Olivia here, all the Christ statues at the cemetery were broken due to some vandalism but recently they replace the statues and the one in the children's cemetery is beautiful. There is the statue and the sign underneath says:

"Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God".

Halloween Party

Guess who was in charge of the Ward Halloween party this year? Yup, you guessed it--The Gardners!!! Can you believe they would put us in charge of the second largest ward party of the year? I still can't believe it. It was really stressful to get all the decorations up, the food ready, and all the activities planned, but it turned out pretty fun. The only thing that kind of stinks is that when you are in charge of the party, you don't get to enjoy it very much. We were busy running the contests and getting the food out and all. All in all, it was a definite success! Happy Halloween to you all!

Babysitting

This past week, our friends from our ward went to Hawaii and asked if Ryan and I would watch their 4 kids for them while they were gone. For some odd reason, I said yes. So this last week we babysat 4 kids for 3 days.
The hardest part was probably how exhausting it is! Having kids means getting up early EVERY day! There is no sleeping in! Let's just say there were a lot of naps for me those 3 days!
We had a lot of fun watching them! They are such crazy kids so I'm just glad we kept them alive and got their homework done, etc. All in all, I'd do it again! Having four kids all at once is a little much but it was pretty fun!

The only picture I have of any of the kids. This is Alyssa who stuffed her PJ's with all her clothes to be fat! She was hilarious!!