First Ultrasound!

I had my first Ultrasound on March 5th (sorry this is a picture of a picture, not cool enough for a digital copy yet). It was so amazing. Granted it was not what I was expecting (being a vaginal one and all), but still totally amazing. At first it showed two blobs on the screen, I was like "Uh-Oh! Twins!", but then she explained that one of the blobs was the yolk sac that kept the pregnancy going until the placenta took over. Fewww! Twins would be fun, but not for the first pregnancy. So no worries just one little blob in there. I was able to see the heart beating. That was honestly the most exciting thing about the whole thing. Jeff wasn't there with me because he was in California, but I was able to show him the picture of our blob. The next one will be a little more interesting for him. Anyway the ultrasound confirmed my due date as October 22nd. That will be fun because my little bro's is on the 20th. Who knows maybe they will even have the same birthday! It's amazing that anything is in my uterus right now, cause I sure don't feel pregnant (knock on wood)! The funny thing about this appointment is that I totally had to lie to my mom. I know I know your not supposed to lie, but when you are trying to keep a secret it's ok. My mom flew into town that night and needed me to pick her up. Well she was able to get on an earlier flight, so she got into Denver at about 4:45. I normally work until 5, but was able to get off early for this appointment. Well just like all doctor's offices, they were running way behind. My 30min appointment turned in to an hour and a half, AGAIN! So I had to fib and tell her that they wouldn't let me off early. She had to wait at the airport for about 45 minutes. I felt bad, but she forgave me. She'll really forgive me when she finds out where I really was! Hopefully I won't have lie too much more!

Families Are Forever!!!

I had one of the best weekends ever! Friday March 6th I was able to attend the temple with my grandma Foster, aunt Trudy, uncle Karl, cousin Stephanie, friend Kathleen, and my mom. It's the first time my grandma has been back to the temple in a VERY long time. She has not been active in the church ever since I've known her. She lives in Wyoming and I had no idea that she was going back to church, and even taking missionary lessons! She decided sometime around Christmas that she was going back to the temple. She decided she was ready, so on March 6th was able to return to the temple. It was such an amazing experience. We first had the opportunity to witness her, my aunt, and my grandpa (by proxy) be sealed together! My dad was already sealed to them when they went through the temple the first time, but his sisters were not there. My aunt said she had been waiting over 26 years for this. It just goes to show that it's never too late! After the sealing we attended an endowment session together. It was really neat to watch her, and wonder what she was thinking. She looked so beautiful, and so angelic. It was an experience that I will lock away in my heart and memory forever. I hope I will get to attend the temple more with her while she is still here. She is my only grandparent that I've been able to attend the temple with. My grandpa passed away a little over 5 years ago, and I could tell he was so proud of her, and that he was there with us on that special day. I don't have pictures of that special day yet, but as soon as I get some I'll be sure to post them. I love you grandma and the example that you are to me.

First Appointment

The day I found out I was pregnant I made a doctor's appointment. I didn't have an OBGYN set up already, but I did have the office in mind where I wanted to go. It's very convenient because it's connected to the hospital where I work. With me having work hours (8:30-5) that aren't very convenient for making appointments, I can just go there on my lunch break. I was able to make an appointment for the next Monday after the discovery. They said that the appointment would only take about 30 minutes, so I planned my break around that. Well it took them about 15 minutes just to get me back to the exam room, another 15 minutes of just waiting. There goes my lunch. Well this was not a 30 minute exam. It was more like an 1:15 minute exam. The Doctor wanted to go over everything. Then of course there was the strip down part of the exam. You know the one where they make you put on that gown that makes you feel more naked when your wearing it than when your not. I won't go into the embarrassing details, I just wish I had been warned when I made the appointment that my Doctor was REALLY going to get to know me. I guess I'd better get used to it, it's just gonna get worse. So a fun appointment to start it all out with. When I returned to work nobody really asked any questions as to where I'd been. Jeff didn't do a very good job at covering for me. He just told people he didn't know where I was. Oh well no harm done, we still have our little secret. My next appointment I will be getting my first ultrasound. I'm really excited for that one.

THE ONE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!

Yep you are reading that right! I'm writing this now so that I will remember everything that I'm feeling right now. This won't be posted until after I spill the beans to everyone when we are in Hawaii. It all started the week of February 16th. I had suspected but wasn't sure that I might be pregnant. I didn't want to get my hopes up, so I didn't take a pregnancy test right away. That's what happened a few months back when my period didn't come on time. I went out and bought the test, but unfortunately my period came the next day so I never used it. Well I kept telling myself that I'll just wait until Friday to see if it comes. I even looked up on the Internet some "signs" of pregnancy. I only had two out of ten or fifteen that were possible signs. So Friday came and still no period. So I took the test in the morning before I went to work. It was one of those digital ones that says "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant". It said that it could show results as little as three minutes, and take as long as ten minutes. Well it took about one minute to show "PREGNANT" as the result (see picture). So many emotions went through me in that one second of realizing what it said, joy, happiness, fear, anxiety, but most of all I was ECSTATIC! I didn't think that I would cry but that's exactly what I did. Jeff wasn't home at the time, so I called him and asked him to meet me at work. He said that he had his suspicions because I sounded really happy on the phone and he hadn't seen signs in the bathroom that I'd started my period yet. We are both SO EXCITED for this new step in our lives. We've been trying for the past year, but we were in the mode of "if it happens it happens". Now that it's happened it's very exciting to know that our doubts of being able to conceive are gone. I'm very excited to tell the WORLD that we are having a baby, especially my parents. This will be their first grandchild. My mom and dad have been hinting that they want to grandparents. It's going to be so much fun to see their reactions. I'll make sure to get it on video for all to see. I'm trying to come up with some clever way of telling them, but nothing has come to mind yet. We keep wondering what we are going to have. Jeff is hoping for a boy, I'm indifferent, I'm just excited to be pregnant and becoming a mother. I'm sure there will be many more posts to come in the next 9 months about all the exciting milestones in my pregnancy. I just wanted to share what's going through my head right now. So this is the kick off post that won't be posted until April. It's going to be so hard to keep it a secret, especially because my mom is coming into town next weekend!

New Addition

Jeff and I are so excited, we now have a nephew! Noah Ervin Edmunds was born on February 7th. He weighed 7 lbs 7 oz. I think his lucky number will be 7. Mom (JoEllen) and baby are doing great and are home from the hospital already. JoEllen was probably the smallest pregnant woman I've ever known. She barly looked 6mo. pregnant when she was 9 months pregnant. We are even more excited to go meet the little guy in March. CONGRATULATIONS Jo and Sean, we are sooooooo happy for you!

Noah Ervin Edmunds



Jo at 8 months Prego
(I can only hope that I will look this good when I'm pregnant)

Organizing

I got on a little organizing kick this weekend and decided to attack my laundry room. I'm not a very organized person, I put things where it makes the most sense to have them, and put them back in that same place once I've decided that's where it goes. When it comes to organizing I usually look for other people for ideas. I surfed the net before I tackled this task. The most helpful idea for my solution was to get bins for my junk. I found some great bins at Big Lots. My towels were a big problem as you can see in the before picture. I found the perfect bin that fits all my towels and it fits on my shelf. The other bins hold all the other junk that needed a new home. Jeff was very impressed with my new skill. In fact his exact words were, "Wow you CAN organize". Yep that's me the one with a huge grin on my face because I finally made this small room look good after being here for over a year. My next project will be my scrapbook stuff. This will take me a while and it will take a little something extra. There will another post on this in the future. But for now I'm going to enjoy my laundry room one last time before I go to bed. Ta Ta for now.

Before.....Can you say YUCK!

After......Whala a whole new room!

Happy New Year!

I have been such a slacker with keeping our blog updated, I'm sorry! I will make that one of my new year resolutions, keep blog updated. I probably don't update as much because there just isn't a lot of exciting stuff going on in our lives right now. One thing I wanted to do was write a Christmas letter and reflect on the things that happened in 2008. So I dedicate this post is our "Christmas/New Years" Letter.

I hope you all had a nice Christmas and a happy new year! It's been an eventful year for Jeff and I. To start the year off we moved out of his parents basement and into a place of our own. It's a little small but it fits us just right. With moving out also meant moving into a new Ward. We are now living in the Lafayette Ward in the Boulder Colorado Stake. The ward had split just 2 months before we moved in, and it wasn't split evenly. The Lafayette ward went from an overflowing chapel to a very empty chapel. It was a little different moving into a smaller ward, but nice at the same time. We have been able to get to know almost everyone in the ward in a short period of time. We are pretty much guaranteed to have callings, maybe even two. In less than 2 weeks of being there I was called to be the 1st counselor in the Young Women Presidency. I have loved serving in this calling. It has been so much fun to get to experience Young Women's all over again. I love all the girls, they are a blast to be around. We only have 6 active girls but it makes it fun to be able to get to know them on a more personal level. Jeff didn't get his first calling until about August. He is the Cub Scout Master, and in November he got a second calling as a Ward Activity Member.

In April Jeff and I took a trip with my parents to Cancun, Mexico. It was our second time in Mexico, our first in Cancun. We had a blast. We snorkeled, body surfed, saw awesome ruins, ate good food, got sun burnt, got suckered into one of those lame time share presentations, relaxed, got ripped off by a bus driver, and best of all did NOT get Mandamus's revenge, YAY! We did all that in 4 fun filled days! That's about the only exciting vacation we had this past year, we hope to have more this year.

Two major things happened to Jeff this year.
#1- In June he finally decided to go under the knife. His "raptor" toes were causing too much discomfort, so he needed to get them fixed. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of seeing Jeff's feet, he had a pinkie toe that looks like a "Raptor's toe" from Jurassic Park. So his friends gave him the nick name "Raptor Toe". The medical term for it is "Hammer Toe Cock Up". It was an outpatient surgery which meant he was in and out the same day. The doctor said that he needed to stay off his feet for 4 WEEKS! So because of this he advised that Jeff just do both his toes (one on each foot) at the same time. They drugged him up, cut him open, stuck pins in his toes, wrapped them up in very stylish booties, and sent him on his way. It was quite entertaining to see him hobble up the stairs when we got home. His 94 year old grandfather could of get up the stairs faster than he did! I took pictures just so he could see what he looked like. He didn't think that was funny. These pictures are on the blog under "Raptor Toes" if you'd like to see them. So with Jeff needing to be off his feet for 4 weeks what do you think he did with his time? Yup Video Games! LOTS of Video Games. Needless to say I was glad when it was time for him to return to work, less brain cell frying there.

#2 thing that happened to Jeff-
He switched jobs/careers. He had been work at Sears Grand for over a year and decided it was time for something new. He was introduced to the world of Financial Advising and Life Insurance. He has been working with a great company called World Financial Group. Until he can get his business going he got another job at the same hospital that I work at. He doesn't have the best hours for "us time", but it's the best hours for him to build his business. He works every weekend and Mondays. We actually work together one day a week, so that's nice. The ultimate goal is for him to be able to support a family so that I can be a stay at home mom. Since there are no kiddies in the picture yet, I am more that happy to be working and supporting us, and supporting Jeff with his new career path.

Jeff had a more eventful year than I did. Nothing truly exiting happened to me, at least not exciting enough to share in this letter. I love serving with the Young Women, that keeps me busy. I love spending time with Jeff, he keeps me entertained. I was hoping to post something like "I'M PREGNANT!!", but that just hasn't happened yet. But thanks to the " I really want to be a grandma, so read this" Christmas present from my mom, we should have some luck in no time. Thanks for the book mom, I've started reading it and it has a lot of useful info. Other than not getting pregnant and staying busy with work and church not much to report.

I thought I would just share some pictures from our Christmas "vacation". I had about 10 days off around Christmas and enjoyed every minute of it. Jeff's sister Jo and her husband Sean flew in from Seattle and stayed for a week. It was tons of fun to have them here. Jo is due February 14th with their first baby. It's a boy, and we're excited to have our first nephew! Since she grew up in Colorado we decided to throw her a baby shower. I had a fun time planning it, and it was fun to see ladies from the old ward that I hadn't seen in a while. We got in plenty of Rock Band playing while they were here. That was also a big hit in Laramie on Christmas Eve. It was fun watching my dad get in on the action. My family stayed with us in our teeny apartment for two nights. I loved it. I can't wait until we have a house and we can fit everyone comfortably. Cameron (my brother) got us tickets to the the Jeff Dunam show for Christmas. We all went to that in downtown Denver on the 26th, it was HILARIOUS! We also ate at the Cheesecake Factory, ummm yummy! Like they say, all good things come to an end. The first day after everyone had gone home, I already wanted to do it all over again. Time flew by way to fast. I wish that my family and Jeff's sisters lived closer so we could have good times like this all the time.

That pretty much wraps up our year for you. We hope that you have a fine 2009 and that all is well.

Love Jeff and Nicole Larsen

This is Jeff's Christmas present, birthday present, anniversary present, and Christmas present for next year.