Jess and Kenny's

Today after church we went to our friends Jessica and Kenny's house for dinner and awesome hang out time. Its always a great time when we go see them.We had eggs and hash browns for dinner, yum!
After dinner Kenny looks out the window and says "oh what a nice day it is, it would be perfect for a walk" So we all took that hint and suggested that we go for a walk. We walked around on this nice dirt path by their house for about a mile. It was good to have the exercise and the fresh air. Sean and I decided that we should go on a walk together more often.  

Then we played this ridiculously fun game called Cranium Dice. It was girls against boys and I'm sad to say Sean and Ken won. Pretty much you roll dice that have pictures, letters, and numbers, then flip a card that tells you to complete one of four different activities that use the dice.
1. Complete sentences by spelling words with letters on rolled dice.
2. Doing simple math problems with numbers on dice.
3. Finding dice with specific pictures on them.
4. Creating a sculpture out of cards and dice.
  You will just have to trust me that it was a great game.

T-minus 1 and a half days til we go to the doctor for the ultra sound to find out the gender!! We are sooo very excited for this :)

Since then

     Sunday was a wild day for us. Along with having our class to teach, we also were assigned to give talks in sacrament meeting.  Now for anybody else, giving talks would just be a little extra work, for us however, giving talks is super stressful. You see, Deana gets incredibly self concious and turns really red when she is at the podium speaking, and I have never been able to give a talk or a lesson that has lasted longer than 2 minutes. Neither one of us were very confident in our ability to give these talks without freaking out or coming up short. As things turned out though we were both very good. Deana gave her talk in a very calm and collected way without even the slightest hint of freaking out, and I was actually able to speak for long enough that I went over on the time. Many people told us afterwards that we had done very well. Deana's mom dad, sister andrea, and brittany leckey came to hear us. It was nice to have the support.

       Sunday school didn't go as smoothly for us as it had previously. The class was a little more wild on this particular day. We were able to get everybody except for one boy to calm down and pay attention after a short while though. The one boy that didn't calm down was very noisy throughout class and ended up getting into a fight (which he lost miserably) with one of the other boys. Deana even had to pull the apart as one of them was in a headlock. I would have but she got there before me, must be her motherly instinct coming out.

      After church we got to go to a co-ed baby shower for our friend Melissa. The baby shower was really fun and gave Deana the opportunity to spend time with some of her friends from high school. In other news, we will get to see what our baby's gender is on march first. We are both very excited to know. Deana thought that she could feel the baby moving a couple of days ago, but it turned out to be gas. :) Soon enough we will get to feel our child moving around.
      

Great News!

Grandpa was discharged from the hospital on Friday evening. He just has to be on oxygen 24/7. We just hope he actually listens to the doctor and does. He is a pretty stubborn man and doesn't like the oxygen tank. We went to two parties this weekend and they both rocked! The first was Friday night at Blake and Bonnie's house for Celeste visiting Arizona. Then the second was dinner for Melissa Burnham's birthday on Saturday. It was great to spend time with friends, most of whom we don't get to see very often. Life has just become so busy for all of us with school and work and other things we just don't get the opportunity to hang out as much. But hopefully now we will all be able to make more time to get together. Sean and I have missed just hanging out and having a good time with them.I am 15 weeks along now and starting to show. Its pretty exciting to finally look pregnant. I can't wait til I feel the baby move and we know the gender. .

15 weeks, belly bump is starting to show.

Grandpa and our baby

The week has just begun and its already been a looong week!Sunday: We taught our first Sunday school lesson and it wasn't nearly as bad
as we (mostly me, Deana) imagined. It turns out we don’t just teach boys. There
is one girl in the class. It turns out she is the younger sister of a friend of
mine from girls camp. She is a sweet girl and said she really enjoyed the
"lesson" we gave. The boys weren't even as hyper as everyone said
they would be. I think they like us. We started out with telling them a little
about us and then asked them to tell us their names and something about them.
Then Sean started the lesson only to be stopped in the very beginning sentences
by a boy in our class, named Jake. Sean said something about how plants need
water, and then Jake finishes the sentence "like the living water we get
from Heavenly Father, We already had this lesson last week". So then I
decided to give a little devotional and then play hang man. I pulled my
scriptures out and read to them an excerpt from the bible dictionary under
prayer. They were actually really interested in it and a couple of them pulled
out there scriptures so they could find where I was reading. Then we played
hang man with one rule: the words had to be church related. This was a genius
plan because with each word or phrase that they did we taught a mini lesson on
it and they had a lot of comments. Sean told them a story about a cow
being stolen in a village and asked if the man returned the cow when he was
caught if that was repenting. Then they went through the steps of repentance. They
boys loved the story and said that Sean was so funny and random. We told them
that next week we will be on the correct lesson and they will actually have a
real lesson, so that means no hang man. They were totally fine with that and I
think happy to learn. After church we got set apart and it just made us even
more excited to be teaching this class. I know that Sean and I will grow closer
together and that we will have a good time teaching and learning from the kids.Monday and Today: Grandpa Roland, my mom’s dad, went to the ER. He wasn’t
able to breathe so they had to intubate him (put a tube in his throat to
breathe for him). After hours there they found out he had suffered a massive
heart attack and that was the cause of him not being able to breathe. It was a
really tough day. I was at work when mom called me to let me know he was in the
hospital. She said grandma wanted Sean to come over and help my dad and Corey
(brother in law) give him a blessing. I called Sean and as soon as he heard
what was going on he left work to the hospital. A couple hours later mom called
and said that things were looking really bad and that I needed to come and say
goodbye to grandpa. Crying, I left work right away and rushed to the hospital.
The whole family was there all day. We each went in one by one (they only let 3
people in at a time and mom and grandma stayed with him all day) and said we
love him and talked to him for a while. Grandpa went from stabilized to un-stable
all day. They kept trying to move him but every time they started he got worse.
He was finally moved from the ER to the ICU around 4pm. Today he is doing much
better. He got the tube taken out and is breathing on his own. He is also
sitting up in a chair. I hope this progress continues and he gets to go home
soon.
Also yesterday Sean and I went to the second prenatal appointment. I lost
weight since the first appointment but I’m still at a good weight for just
getting into the 2^nd trimester. The doctor also said that all my
blood work came back perfect. This made me feel accomplished because I am doing
a good job of making the baby’s home a good environment for him/her to grow.
Speaking of “him/her” we get to find out the sex of the baby on March 1^st!
We got to hear the heartbeat again, but this time we recorded it, so I will try
to find a way to get that on here. We’re so excited to be able to finally put a
name to the baby. We will let everyone know as soon as we find out. Until next
time, peace out.

Love and other things

Last night (Saturday) we went on a date. Being married makes us forget to spend quality time together. When you are dating or engaged or newly married all you can think about is spending time together. Then when you're married it's still important but its an easy thing to put on the back burner because you feel like you are together all the time. We have had a lot of time together these past few weeks, espeacially with being sick and confined alone in the house together for a week, but spending time together and spending quality time together engaging in meaningful conversation are compelety different. We hadn't realized this until the middle of this last week about Wednesday. I was at work and I just really missed Sean. I texted him telling him I missed him so much and he said he missed me too. But it wasn't just the "we aren't together right now so I miss you" it was more like "I feel like I haven't really been with you and grown closer to you for the past couple days". He said he felt the same way. We looked back at the past week and discovered that yes we had been together a lot but we had been so busy doing other things and being sick that we hadn't been reading scriptures together or having family prayer. It had just slipped our minds to do those things and we could feel a difference in the way we were spending time together. Its amazing how something so small can be so big in our relationship. When we read our scriptures together and say our prayers together it creates this bond between us that just makes us feel closer together. I can't even explain it in words. After realizing this was missing in our lives we started making it a point to do those things and right away we felt a difference. Our conversations were deeper and we were able to show more love for one another. It isn't that we didn't love each other just as much when we we not reading a praying together its just that with that missing in our lives it was harder to feel the love as strong. I don't know if this makes sence to any one else but it makes sence to us. Somehow the love of our Heavenly Father makes it possible to feel a greater love for everyone. Last night we went on a date and it was such a wonderful night. We first went to dinner at Bill Johnsons (it was delicious food!), then we went to Dairy Queen and got blizzards and walked around the Temple. It is so beautiful there and seeing all the families just made us smile. Then after a while of walking around I got really cold so we decided to go home and watch a movie. Sean really wanted to see Red so we went on a quest to find it in a redbox. It really was a quest because we had to go to 4 different redboxs to finally find it. It was a very funny movie, which was surprising because Sean picked it out. Lately every movie he picked out for us to watch ended up being a flop due to it either being bad acting, inappropriate or both. So we would end up turning it off in the beginning or middle of the movie. I told him before we started Red that if it was bad he was going to lose his rights to pick movies, haha mostly joking of course. Luckily for him it wasn't dirty or bad acting, so he reserves the right to pick movies still.


On another topic, we absolutely love our new ward! They are so friendly and welcoming. We have been there 2 weeks and we already have a calling. We were called to teach the 12 and 13 year old boys. Sean has taught a sunday school class before but I never have so this will be a new experience. I have done primary and nursery many times but that is very different. With the younger kids you just bring a picture of Jesus and tell them some simple princilpe like Jesus loves you, or Obey your parents or Taking the Sacrament reminds us of our promises to Heavenly Father. But with the older kids I think they expect a little more than that so I'm a little nervous. Also another thing is that when we were called the Bishop told us that it is a difficult class to teach because they are so rambounxious but that if we love them and pray for help we will be fine. Kinda makes me a little scared but I know that Heavenly Father will prepare us in the way we need to do a good job in teaching His children. Then we met with the Sunday School cordinator who again told us that it is kinda of a difficult class and that one boy in particular will need some special attention. He said he is a good boy and will be the biggest help in the class....if he likes you. And that he doesn't respond well to stern "hey you sit down and listen to the lesson", or "Stop talking and pay attention". That the best way to work with him is to give him love and attention and he will be fine. So I'm really hoping he likes Sean and I. We found his mother and father and spoke with them today and told them that we will be there son's new Sunday School teachers. They both responded with a smile and laugh and "good luck" haha Then they said the same things that the Bishop and Sunday School cordinator said "He is a loving boy and great kid but he has more energy than most can deal with" We made plans to stop by there house (since they live on the same street as we do) and meet the boy before this coming Sunday so he can get to know us a little and hopefully make it a good start to being the teachers of his class. His mother also told us that he loves to help with outside things so if we need help with anything he would jump to the opportunity to come. I think when we do the yard work we can call and have him come help us and it will be a good time to get to know him more. I am really nervous for this calling and really excited at the same time. It's nice because its only durning one block so we still get to go to Preisthood and Relief Society. That is my favorite thing because I have really missed being in the RS and having that support from other women in the church. I know Sean enjoys the time he gets to be in Preisthood and hear the lessons and get to know the men in the ward as well. Also I am excited to be able to teach the kids about principles of the Gospel. I know we will probably learn more from them than we will teach them and that will be a great blessing in our lives. I'm nervous because it will be my first time teaching older kids and I just hope I do a good enough job and that they like us. I think Sean will be great with the lessons. He is so good at talking and explaining things to people and he is just a cool dude so I'm sure the boys will just love him. Next Sunday will be a learning experience to say the least. I love having a calling in the church. It makes me feel apart of something great and that I am contributing. Its such a great blessing to have a calling.

Other than that the only things new is I'm in a new week of the pregnancy. I'm 13 weeks now. The baby is growing bigger and I have to pee all the time. I'm not really showing much still, but I do have a tiny baby bump. If you didn't know I was pregnant you would just think I had eaten too much the last couple weeks and growing a donut baby. haha. Sean is doing great in school so far and we are hoping this keeps up. He is keeping ahead with his homework and understanding everything he has learned so far. Also living with Andrea has been a blast. I just love my little sister. She adds such a fun dynamic in the house. Sean loves having her here with us too. We still get our private time together but then when we want company Andrea is just on the other side of the house. Its perfect. It is nice to have her and the Britts (her two best friends that have become great friends of mine and Sean too) to hang out with while Sean is at school and in the evenings. Mom has started on the baby blessing dress and suit and I am so excited for them. She torn apart my wedding dress and with it is making both a dress and a suit so when I have a boy or a girl we will be prepared for the blessing. She did the same thing for Amanda and is now making them for me and next is going to start on the ones for Robyn. She is my other older sister who is also pregnant. She is 8 weeks along. I think that is pretty much all for now. If anyone even reads this. haha Talk to you later.

The Sickly Couple

Sean’s mom has started to feel better and we have seen some
improvements. She is doing better with remembering things and her energy is up.
We are so happy for her and it’s great to not have that stress of worrying
about her.

We however are not doing so great. Sean has been sick on and
off for about a month now. I finally convinced him enough yesterday (Monday) to
go to urgent care and see what is wrong. After spending hours there he was
diagnosed with an Upper Respiratory Infection. He was up all last night
coughing with a fever and tossing and turning. I in turn got no sleep either
and was tossing and turning. I started feeling sick last night as well but I
thought I was just being a hypochondriac so I ignored it. As I was ‘driving to
work this morning (feeling like crap) I called my sister Amanda and she told me
that It’s better to be safe than sorry and to go to the doctor asap if I didn’t
start feeling better soon.   I spent 2 hours at work and nothing was
feeling any better so I left work and went to urgent care with my mom. After
sitting in the lobby for what felt like forever (2 hours) I was called back and
the doctor diagnosed me with bronchitis. I was scared what that meant for the
baby but the doctor reassured me that the baby will be fine. Obviously it’s
never a good thing for the baby for mama to be sick but that as long as I don’t
take any medicine that is bad for the baby and that I keep my temperature lower
than 100.5 then the baby will have no side effects. The only thing is I am very
limited on what drugs they can safely prescribe to me. I luckily am allowed to
take one kind of antibiotic so that’s good. I can’t take any decongestive, or steroid
to help with the other symptoms.   Sean and I both have pretty high temps right
now so we are taking Tylenol  to lower
them. We are just a sickly couple, stuck in bed. The doctors said we are both
highly contagious so we get no company for the next couple days. Looks like all
day tomorrow is a PJ party in bed for us two. Ugh! Being sick just makes us
want to sleep all month.

Other than being sick everything else is going great for us.
The house is completely clean and all is done with curtains in every window. We
both have such anxiety when things are dirty so a clean house is perfect. We
went to our new ward on Sunday and loved it! Everyone is so sweet and
introduced themselves to us right away. It is a very friendly ward. Also the
baby is doing great as well. My next appointment is the second week of February.
Baby Howell is as big as my palm! Fingernails have grown and the baby has irises
this week. We can’t wait until the 14^th week when the baby will be
able to hear our voices.

Sean starts school this week. Actually today, but he unfortunately
is going to miss the first day due to the fact that he doesn’t want to get
everyone else sick. He was unable to get signed up for any other classes, so he
just has the one for this semester. He originally signed up for a Calculus
class and a Chemistry class with a lab attached the week before his mom went
into the hospital. With all the craziness of that week he forgot to pay for the
Chem class and was dropped. He was also going to sign up for one other elective
but by the time everything with his mom had slowed down and he was able to get
online and look for one they were all full. He can’t take any other Chem class
until the one he was dropped from is complete and the Biology classes he needs
are all full as well.  He bad luck with
school registration this semester. At least he has the one Calculus class. Next
semester he will get a full schedule. We are going to go to bed now. Hopefully we feel better soon. We will let ya know.

The Hectic Life

So this week has been very hectic. To start out, we decided to move. Our friends Grant and Anette decided to move to Texas and asked us to rent their Mesa house while they were away. Naturally we were very excited to do so because it is a house and not an apartment. We were super excited and all ready to start the big move on Tuesday. On Monday night however I got a call from my brother David saying that my mom was acting strange. He said that she couldn't remember her e mail password and couldn't figure out how to send an e mail once he logged her in. He also said that she just didn't look right. He hesitated to call the ambulance however because he didn't know for sure what was going on. Deana and I quickly went over to her home to see what was wrong. Upon asking my mom several questions and doing  several tests I discovered that she had some memory loss. We rushed her to the hospital. Doctors were able to determine that my mom had a bleed in her brain caused by high blood pressure. The memory loss was a result of  blood being spilled on her brain. She spent the entire week in the hospital while doctors got her blood pressure down and ran various tests to see if there were any other problems. The week was very stressful for both Deana and myself. I was very worried that my mom would not make a recovery and that I would never be able to have a real conversation with her again.
  
     On top of my mom not being well, we still had to get everything out of our apartment this week. Our efforts were severely hindered by the stress of my mom being ill and the time that we needed to put into taking care of her. Luckily Deana is a master planner and a very hard worker. She was able to get everything packed and I was able to get it all moved out by Friday afternoon. Our new house is amazing. We love being in a house and not an apartment. We are very excited to get everything unpacked and settled in.
   
        My mom is making a full recovery and getting all of her memories back. We are very grateful that things have worked out so well for her and for us.