Between Husband & Wife

HIS NAME: Timothy Ryan

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN TOGETHER? Married for 3.5 years

HOW LONG DID YOU DATE? When you know, you know...right? We were married one week shy of knowing each other for 5 months. Ya I know it was quick. And I ALWAYS swore I'd never be one of those girls to get married so quickly to someone I just met. I was wrong.

WHERE DID YOU MEET? A YSA dance. Lame I know. Tim stocked me there, but I thought he was stocking my friend. Then he asked me to dance the 2nd to last song (a slow song). He asked if we could hang out sometime. I said sure. He found me later on and asked for my number....in front of the guy I was seeing at the time. The guy and I were pretty much fizzling out so I gave my number to Tim. He called the next afternoon. Where was that wait to call for three days rule?

HOW OLD IS HE? 27

WHO EATS MORE? Tim picks and eats all day long. Never a bunch at one sitting, but little bits all the time. I could probably out eat him in one sitting, but I don't. I have no problem with eating till I'm so full it hurts. While Tim refuses to get full. He hates the feeling.

WHO SAID I LOVE YOU FIRST? Well you decide. After knowing each other for a week (ya I know) Tim said to me "I'm falling in love with you." I replied with a "Well, I love you." He says he said it first cuz what he said was close enough.

WHO IS TALLER? Timmy

WHO SINGS BETTER? We can both hold a tune, but Tim doesn't sing in public. At least not anymore.

WHO IS SMARTER? I dunno cuz our "smarts" are so different. I'm really good at some things that Tim's not and vise versa. We've never had to be smart at the same thing. hehe

WHO DOES THE LAUNDRY? Mostly me and I hate it. Tim totally helps out tons though.

WHO DOES THE DISHES? Once again, mostly me. Tim will help out, but it stops at loading the dishwasher. He doesn't do the dishes that have to be washed by hand.

WHO SLEEPS ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BED? Me cuz it's closer to the bathroom. I get up and pee 100 times a night.

WHO PAYS THE BILLS? Me. I just seemed to get that job. However I actually pay very few of them cuz I've got them all set up on automatic withdraw. Ya, I'm lazy.

WHO DRIVES WHEN YOU ARE TOGETHER? Tim about 95% of the time. I only drive when he's too tired to drive.

WHO IS MORE STUBBORN? Ya, that would be me.

WHO KISSED WHO FIRST? Tim kissed me. Took forever though. I don't blame him cuz I had a nasty cold sore at the time.

WHO ASKED WHO OUT? Tim asked me out. He called the very next afternoon. I was screening my calls and let him leave a message. Then I called everyone that I knew who knew him and asked if I should go out with him. Everyone said go for it. So I did. We went horseback riding.

WHO PROPOSED? Oh Tim. We went to Waterton on the May Long Monday and he knelt on those rocks on the beach of the lake and asked me to be his wife. We noticed afterwards that some old guy was watching us from the deck on his cabin.

WHO IS MORE SENSITIVE? Me for sure. Enough said about that.

WHO HAS MORE FRIENDS? We don't really have a huge group of friends...either of us. We have a few close friends that we love and that's it.

WHO HAS MORE SIBLINGS? Tim wins...hands down. I have 3 sisters. Tim has 14 brothers and sisters.

WHO WEARS THE PANTS IN THE FAMILY? It's all pretty equal. However when it comes to big purchases I usually make the final decision. We've never faught over finances cuz we made that promise to each other before we were married.

Out with the old – In with the new

Tim quit his job on Monday. And today he started a new one. Not a huge career change or anything like that. He’s been hired as a Journeyman Electrician for Lamb Weston. It’s a huge potato plant ("Where every day's a fryday!") and he’ll be doing maintenance there instead of construction like he’s been doing for the last 5 (or so) years. He’s excited about the change and to learn some new stuff. The crappy part is now it’s shift work. Yep 12 hour days (or nights) plus a 45 min drive to work each way. So he’ll have to work some night shifts and he’ll work every second weekend. Totally crappy, but we both feel shift work will work very well for us when I’m at home with our baby. (That day can’t come soon enough.) I’m so proud of Tim and the hard worker that he is. I hope his first day is going well. It’s so strange for me not to be able to call him whenever. I’m sure I’ll get used to it though.

Primary Kids

Have I told you about my new calling? Well I'm no longer teaching Relief Society. Much different. I'm in the Primary. I teach CTR 7, which means I have a bunch of 6 year old boys and only two girls. Oh wow are they....hmmm what's a good word.....busy. In Sharing Time I had to move seats 4 times. And that was to deal only with my entire row of kids. Our Primary is large. Over 100 kids. It's crazy in there. Last Sunday they were off the wall. I got all sorts of 6 year old answers to my questions during our lesson. (Note: names have been changed)

Me the Teacher: Johnny, can you name a body part that we all have that is just like Heavenly Father's? (Now I'm looking for answers like: eyes, ears, legs, etc.)
Johnny: Butts!
(bunch of 6 year olds bursting out in laughter)
Me: Now Johnny, don't be silly. What about eyes?
Johnny: No, boogers!
Me: Never mind.

And then we were doing a little coloring activity after our lesson and I over heard this conversation:

Tom: My dad's a cowboy. (I know Tom's dad and he is the furthest thing from a cowboy.)
Jack: You're dad's NOT a cowboy.
Tom: Ya well your dad's an indian. (Jack is not, nor is his dad, native american.)
Jack: My dad's not an indian, because if he was one he'd be dead.
Me: (very shocked) Why would he be dead?
Jack: Because cowboys and indians only lived in the old ‘n' days.
Me: Oh that makes sense.
Freddy: You guys are insane!

Ya, I'm not sure how successful the lesson was last Sunday. The kids were wild, but we did get through the lesson. Maybe I'll take a treat next Sunday. They sit much better when they know there's a reward at the end. Oh except it's our turn to do the class presentation in Sharing Time. It should be interesting.

9 weeks and counting...

I had my first prenatal appointment last Thursday. Things went well. Met my new doctor. Yes, this is new doctor #96 – I think. I’ve lost track as to how many different doctors I’ve gone to. This one seems very good and I’ve had a bunch of people recommend him to me.

He didn’t check for a heartbeat though. I’ll admit I was disappointed. He said it was too early on to hear it and he didn’t want to make me worry because he couldn’t find it. I guess that makes sense. BUT...the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I told him how incredibly nervous I am because of the whole miscarriage last time. And he scheduled me for an early ultrasound. Yipee! I’ll be 11 weeks and he said that obviously it’s no guarantee that I won’t still miscarry, but I’m crossing my fingers and praying like crazy that this ultrasound will show a baby and not me...empty.

New Niece -- Danyca Rose

IT'S A GIRL! And she's finally here. Danyca Rose was born at 12:15pm on January 11th. She was 6lb 8oz and has tons of black hair. Both Mommy (my sister Jenn) and baby are doing well. Danyca looks just like her big sister Jayda.

Only hours old and already she found her thumb.

Look how much hair she has.

Getting dressed after her first bath.

A Year in Review (2007)

I totally stole this from another blog. Loved the idea, so I wanted to do it here too. Here's a summary of our 2007.

January

Tim started his last year of school

Bought a new car

February

My cousin miraculously survives being in an avalanche

March

Rachel announced she's pregnant

Tim finished school & is now a Journeyman Electrician

Ashlee went to the ER with a kidney stone

Tim turns 27 years old

April

Tim sold his horse Felize

Camping at Fairmont Hot Springs

Tim bought a new Quad

Ashlee bought a new treadmill

Ashlee got her wisdom teeth out

Bought an old holiday trailer

May

Grampa had to go to an assisted living home

Camping at Writing on Stone

Camping at Lewis & Clarke Caverns

Tim fought his first house fire

Jenn announces she's pregnant

June

Camping at Waterton (Belly River)

Bought a new truck

Camping & Quading at Pole Haven

Britnee graduates highschool

July

We're Pregnant

Camping at Writing on Stone

Camping in Montana

Ashlee turns 25 years old

Trent & Tara announce they're pregnant

August

Attended my cousin Kyle's wedding

Grampa passes away

Our 3rd Wedding Anniversary

Attended my cousin Carlene's wedding

September

We lost our baby

Ashlee goes to the ER with fluid on her hip

October

Spent Thanksgiving in Castlegar with Kimmy & Brendan

November

New nephew Dallin was born

December

We're Pregnant Again

Celebrated Christmas in BC

Phew, 2007 has exhausted me! Here's hoping 2008 is AWESOME!

Our Christmas 2007

The Saturday before Christmas Tim & I headed to Jaffray. We were going to BC in search of a White Christmas. Boy did we find it! They had a crazy amount of snow. So awesome!

Every Christmas Eve my family goes carolling to all of my mom’s side of the family. (We have a very large extended family.) All the families wait for us to come. Our crowd is getting pretty big now and we were even missing Kimmy & Brendan as they spent Christmas with Brendan’s family in Alberta. After carolling we ended up at Granny’s house. We took some snacks down there and spent the evening with her. After Granny’s we headed back to Mom & Dad’s and we had to do a little Christmas sing-song. Jayda just loved the mic and Parker thought he was Rod Stewart dragging his mic stand all over the place singing Rudolph. It was so cute.

Christmas morning was pretty slack. There was no getting up early in our house. Kimmy was missing and she was the one that usually got us up super early cuz "Santa came". The best part for sure was going over to my sister’s and watching Jayda & Parker. Priceless. They were so excited about EVERYTHING. Parker got out of bed and told his mommy about all the presents under the tree. She asked him "Who brought all these presents?" And Parker turned to her and said, "Uncle Tim??" Dang that Uncle Tim. He got all of Santa’s credit!

On Boxing Day Kimmy and Brendan came to Jaffray. We were excited to see them. We missed them on Christmas. Tim and Brendan had to keep themselves busy so out in my mom’s front yard they decided to build a snow cave. A gigantic one. Tim and I made one last year at our house, but we don’t get the snow like BC so it took forever for us to shovel enough to make a little snow cave. Tim, Brendan, & Kimmy got tired of shovelling (I just watched them.) and decided to get my dad’s snow blower out. They went around the yard and made this HUGE pile of snow for the cave. And there was still tons of snow left in the yard. Nothing like Alberta! Everyone around stopped by to see what we were making in the front yard. It took a very long time to hollow out but finally it was done. My contribution to it....well Jayda and I made that little snowman by the entrance. Helpful aren’t I?

Tim tried ice fishing for the first time ever. Ya, it didn’t go so well. Nothing! I was bored out of my mind – staring at a bobber in a hole forever...not so fun. Maybe it would have been better if they were actually catching fish.

Then on Saturday Trent & Tara came out to Jaffray to hang out. So much fun! They did some ice fishing (caught nothing again), snowmobiling, sledding, tubing, and had a bonfire. And Tara was my life saver when she showed up with her morning sickness meds which I used a bunch of to "try" and keep my morning sickness at bay. What a sweetie!

Sorry this is such a long post. I should keep our blog more up to date so I don’t have to write novels like these. Oh ya, and ignore the typos cuz this is too long for me to re-read.

Christmas Lights & Baking

After my venting this morning and my update on Friday of what we were up to mid December. Let’s move on to the end of December and talk a little about getting ready for Christmas.

We went out and bought a bunch of outside Christmas decorations. Of course the day we plan on putting them out it had to have been the coldest night we’ve had all winter. That wind cut right through ya. But we got them up with our frozen fingers. It for sure wins over last year’s. But I'm no photographer -- I find it VERY difficult to take a picture of outside lights. So just trust me that they looked good in person. See the presents under the tree in our yard?

Can you see Santa climbing our chimney?

I did some Christmas baking again this year. They turned out much better than my last year’s disaster. They look yummy right? I’ve been told they were. I didn’t eat them. The morning sickness kept me from enjoying the sweets. Blah! However Tim was a little upset that I didn't icing the sugar cookies. It was 11 pm and I was tired. No icing for you!

Why can't I...

....have an early ultrasound with any of my pregnancies? It seems like every pregnant lady I know has had an ultrasound by 13 weeks. Why can’t I? Once again I have to wait until forever to find out if my baby even has a heartbeat. Last time I could’ve found out by 5-6 wks that their was no heartbeat, but instead I didn’t find out until I was in my 14th week. Harsh! The doctor says I can’t have an ultrasound this time too until I’m 20 weeks. And he probably won’t be able to hear a heartbeat for another few weeks or more. So all you ladies out there that have gotten your early ultrasounds.... how’d you pull that off? How did you get your doctor to let you have one? And why can’t I have one?

Our Baby News

Well I’ve been terrible at keep our blog up to date. My new year’s resolution: do better at the blog. So here we go and you’ll see lots of me for the next little while cuz I’ve got tons of things that have happened. Let’s start with about mid December....

We’re expecting again. We are ecstatic but I’m also a nervous wreck. My doctor told me to take a chill pill cuz my blood pressure needs to come down. I’m working on relaxing and letting what Heavenly Father has in store for us just happen. Tim’s been my rock through all of this. He’s been so supportive of his very emotional wife this Fall/Winter. Our family and friends have also been so wonderful while we were on this roller coaster ride. I’m just so blessed.

The pregnancy was a shock to us. I was definitely preparing myself for another "no go". It was such an awesome Christmas surprise. Tim wasn’t home when I took the test so I had to think of a way to tell him. Tim always comes in our back door from work and for some reason empties his pockets on the counter in our bathroom by the back door. Normally this drives me bonkers, but I thought I’d use it to my advantage this time. I grabbed a white board marker and wrote on the mirror knowing he’d see it when he emptied his pockets. Like clockwork he walked straight into the bathroom.

Things have been going pretty well so far. I was hoping I wasn’t going to have the morning sickness like last time. Ya, that was wishful thinking. It’s here....full force. At least I knew what to expect this time. But instead of kicking in while on our summer vacation, this time it decided to start on our Christmas vacation. Sheesh!

Well I have another doctor’s appointment today to get more stuff for this morning (all day) sickness. Hopefully my blood pressure is down some from last time. I’m feel more relaxed these days. However I don’t think I’ll truly relax until I hear our baby’s heartbeat.