Oh, Sweet Child of Mine...

Dearest Child,

So, The reason I actually am dedicated to this whole blogging thing is for you! Surprise! This is a present for you so you can have this little journal of mine with pictures and captions and all sorts of fun stuff to help you get a feel of how much your Mommy and Daddy love you already, and how much they completely love each other. (You will already know this by the time you are old enough to read from here though. All these facts will be very apparent in our home.)

Did you know that this time last year, your Daddy asked me to marry him? Yep. It was super happy. You see, we had been away from each other for two and a half years (actually exactly 2 years and 9 months!) and we were super happy to be back together again. Can't you tell by these pictures from his trip to Tennessee to visit me the same month that I got home from the mission?

Oh yes, this was a happy time. Your daddy told me something interesting the other night. He said, "Isn't it interesting that our kids will only know us TOGETHER? They will see our marriage as something that always existed, and always will." This is so true. You won't know this, but you are coming into the world only a year and 4 months or so (you better not come too much later!) from the time that we got married. We are still rookies at this whole adult life.

But we want you. We absolutely love you and want you.

We don't promise to be perfect parents, but we will give this adventure our all. 

You mean so much to us already.

Yes, so be prepared to be smothered with kisses and lovins all your sweet existence!

Guess what? We don't even know if you are a girl or a boy yet! That is going to be revealed to us in 6 days. Can you guess how excited we are!!?? Also, you have been learning all sorts of new tricks in my belly. You like to push your little body to one side of my tummy, and then kick around like crazy. They say babies this little aren't supposed to be able to kick hard yet, but you are ahead of the curve it seems. You especially like to kick against my pants line (be nice, I haven't bought maternity pants yet and so my normal ones are getting tight!). You seem to be enjoying your space.

They say that babies this little can hear from the womb. We like to talk to you at night and tell you silly things. Hopefully you are getting used to our voices. It will be something familiar.

Well sweet baby, you are also coming into a world full of people who are gonna love you to bits. Your big giant family is going to just spoil you so much.

Enjoy your time in my tummy, and grow all healthy and strong. Oh yes, please stop kicking Mommy when she is trying to sleep... It makes her so excited, she ends up staying awake all the time just thinking about you.

We love you!

Mommy & Daddy

Viva Las Vegas

 Mr. Curtis and I finished another semester at BYU, and we decided that a celebration was in order! So, we packed up our cute car (Louie) and headed down to Vegas. Matthew and I listened to books on tape, and I really liked it. I had never done that on a roadtrip before. I felt like the trip went by a lot faster so we will keep up this tradition.

I loved driving that part of the country. The mountains are so pretty, oh and this guy is pretty cute too.

Vegas was amazing. We had some windy days but we enjoyed the vacation so much. Most days we just slept in forever, lounged in the pool, and then hit the strip at night. There we checked out the beautiful lights and Matthew had his first trip inside of a casino. We saw some cool shows. Oh it was so fun.

Our hotel room had a huge jacuzzi hot tub in it, and that was so nice. My tired feet were soothed after walking everywhere everyday.

Oh and I must mention the delicious food that was consumed on this vacation. Matthew found this amazing deal on groupon called "ultimate day night". We got 100$ of food at really nice places, two free movie tickets, and a free canvas picture of us! It was a great investment. 

We went to this Italian place in New York, New York. It was so tasty and filling. 

I was also craving sushi on this trip, so we found a few amazing sushi places and pigged out. This is a picture of Matthew's happy asian kid face. It was so fun to have every night be date night. I mean, look at this guy. Doesn't he look like a fun date?

I loved M&M world! It was filled of so much chocolate and happy people. Actually, these people pictured with me are busy stealing chocolate from this giant wall. It was so hectic. The workers had to come over and make them stop, but they pretended not to understand English, and just went at it again. People watching on vacation is always fun.

We made one day a museum day and we visited Ethel M's chocolate factory. We found this cool window to take a picture from. Obviously the focal point is my growing belly... or maybe its the bag of chocolate? 

It is so fun to be in the second trimester. My symptoms aren't so bad anymore. Look at that little baby bump. Yeah, there is a little person growing in there.

Guess which one of these bears I am married to... 

Ok, I will spare you from a "mummy" joke here...

So, I am pretty sure that we were the only big kids playing in the "little explorer" part of the museum. It was one of my favorite parts of museum day.

We had a really amazing adventure our last day. We went to this really fun magic show where the guy did death defying stunts the whole time. It was crazy! Also, we got to eat dinner at the Top of the World restaurant in the Stratosphere tower.

This is us at the restaurant. It is honestly hard to capture in pictures how beautiful it really was. We were up so high, and we were overlooking the whole city of Vegas in the room surrounded by windows the actual restaurant rotated so that we got views of the entire city from our table! 

The food was incredible, and we felt like we were a little out of place at a restaurant this nice, but it was worth it for sure. Again, the groupon deal helped us out a lot with the price. 

Matthew and his buddy the Transformer guy, who was cool until he started harassing us for money.

Oh yes, Vegas was super fun, and it was a much needed break after the long semester. But I can't leave out our favorite part of the trip!

We had just a little bit of time to stop by and see this cute little man Fenton, and his wonderful family that I somehow managed to not get a picture with.  Annie and Adam let us hang out with them for a while and play a super fun board game late into the night. We just love the Jones family.

It is just amazing to me how much this little guy has grown in just a few months. His big sister Ella was so much more like a little girl as well. It just makes me happy that our little baby will have some fun cousin friends. Also, It amazes me how much personality each of the Jones' babies have. They are their own unique little individual. I am just so excited to meet our little buddy and see who they turn out to be.

By the way everyone, if you have not voted on what you think the gender of the Curtis baby will be, now is the time, because we find out in 19 days! Yay! Up on the top right of the blog is where you can vote.

I am still guessing that we are having a boy, but Mr. Curtis is thinking girl! We will see.

16 Weeks:

So, this isn't too bad.

Yeah. I am doing ok. I am now 14 weeks along and things are going really well. I am not saying that I have absolutely no symptoms now, because that would be a lie, but I honestly am feeling really great and so very happy.

Guys, I am going to be a Mommy.

Wow.

This picture is taken at 12 weeks along. I feel so much bigger then this picture is actually portraying. For the first time in my life my belly hangs OVER my pants when I sit down. Its just such a lovely baby chub right now. My clothes still fit right now (minus one pencil skirt and a high-waisted pair of pants). I am still comfy in my jeans, which I am thankful for. It doesn't seem like I will need to buy maternity clothes for awhile now. We will see. 

With the growth spurt that baby had these past few weeks, I can see how fast my body can change in a short amount of time. Exciting huh? I really love the fact that I can tell my belly is bigger now. It makes this whole pregnancy thing seem real. (I know I won't be saying this like 5 months from now! haha)

(My Dad came out and visited and these handsome guys came to church with us.)

So, Matthew is really the best man in the whole world. I know I basically just brag about him whenever he is brought up in this blog, but really, he is wonderful.

So, the other day I was really tired and I had school/ work from 7 AM to 8 PM and so I was just so cranky. He came to pick me up from my last class, and as I got in the car, I hear that he is jamming out to "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira! I just love him. We jammed out all the way home, and I was instantly in a better mood. 

I love how much I love life when I am with him.

He is always so willing to serve and to love. He takes care of his little unborn child by making me remember always to take my vitamins. (3 giant pills 2xs a day) Also, he is so considerate of all my random cravings and mood swings. I really picked a good one. 

We helped plan an ice cream party at church, and here are some of the pictures.

Cute idea huh? Ice cream balloons!

It was a summer theme, so we had sand buckets and a photo booth.

I love how awkward we look. This is classic. Plus, the stache is pretty awesome.

This cute girl is in our ward, and she is so cute. She loved the hats from the photo booth.

Life is so good. We are almost done with this semester. (My last!). I landed a great internship over the summer working with troubled teen boys, and we are going on vacation to Vegas soon.

We are going to find out the gender of baby Curtis this next month! Feel free to put in your guesses!

1 + 1 = 3

Yes, thats right. MATTHEW AND I ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!

I've noticed that I love reading how little Mommy blogs and stories about pregnancy. So, I bet I would enjoy writing one. I already am so excited and I feel like I am always talking about baby things, so maybe this will also help me vent.

I CAN"T BELIEVE THAT I AM GOING TO BE A MOM! This handsome guy is going to be a Daddy!

Oh, I am so excited.

How things are going:

So, today I am 11 1/2 weeks pregnant. I thought I should write about how the first trimester has gone so far. Hmm.. It was really hard at first actually. 

I was super nauseous all the time around the 5 weeks to 10 weeks time period.

I craved a few random things:

Popcorn

Fresh fruit

Oatmeal (which I always had hated before pregnancy)

Nilla wafers

I still avoid these things at all costs because they make me soooo sick:

Bbq sauce

Strong tasting foods in general

Just smelling Bbq sauce makes me want to hurl. Yeah, so that is avoided in our home right now. Poor Matthew. He loves his super savory meats. I don't mind if he cooks them for himself. I just can't even be around. I eat soups a lot.

I am still in school full time, and I have NEVER been so extremely lazy in my life with my classes. I skip class and sleep in sometimes and I do the work so last minute. Well, its also my last semester... so I blame it on pregnancy and senioritus. 

My professors are really understanding. They all are married and have kids. So they know that morning sickness is no joke. The bad thing for me was that this sickness was anytime of the day.

So, I am SO tired all of the time as well. I can feel my thoughts getting fuzzy at around nine, and its a miracle if I'm up past 12. I just always feel like napping too.

I can tell that I am getting a belly now! I haven't gained weight yet. I actually lost a bit during the first few weeks, but I think if I weighed myself now I would have gained it back. It all seems to migrate to my belly.

See this cute man? He is my sweet husband. I feel like I am doing well in this whole pregnancy thing because of him. He holds me when I randomly emotional about not owning a vacuum or other ridiculous things, he always is willing to make me smoothies, and he kisses my belly every morning saying hi to his "little buddy". This man wins for being the best Daddy ever. 

It was really fun to tell the family. We emailed pictures to our parents and Matthew's sister and husband while skyping them so we could see there reactions. It was really so fun. My siblings came over for dinner that night and we had this sign hanging up in our room. Crystal yelled before anyone else saw it, "YOU'RE PREGNANT!!!" Then the rest of the family came in and Jason said, "Does this mean we gots to treat ya special?" Haha my family. I am excited that little buddy is going to come into such a happy and loving environment.

So, here I am, at 10 weeks pregnant. I can see how my belly is getting bigger, but I know it has so much more to go! 

Keep growing cute little child. I am so excited to meet you someday and be your Mommy. 

I love you so much already.

Our Retirement Home

So, I realize that this is a little hasty, to pick out a home for our retirement before we are even done with school... BUT this home just made me so so happy! Here is a link to the website.



Its like the size of an RV basically, but it is soooo gorgeous on the inside.



I can just imagine what it would be like to put this somewhere on the Oregon coast. Or maybe up near the Smoky Mountains.



Sure, its not so grand-kid friendly, but I can imagine that we would spend more time outside then inside most days.





It is such an adorable place. I just had to blog about it. I think that I might post later about the type of home that I want to raise a family in, since that is closer then retirement! But tonight I am thinking of the day where I get to sit in this beautiful house, holding my sweet guy's hand and growing old and gray (or technically, white, as described by this informative article I read about redheads). I imagine that we will still go on adventures like we do now, exploring and taking pictures.

I love that life just seems so exciting to me. I wake up thinking most days, "Wow... this is such a wonderful life." The stress of school, and trials that my family is going through lately still haven't beaten my spirit. I just am so lucky to be living the life that I have with the man of my dreams.