Sunday, January 1, 2012

Catching up and Wrapping up 2011

A new year comes to a close once again, and what a year it has been! We have reached 2 great milestones in our lives this past year.

We got married in the Draper Temple on February 17, 2011 :) What a great day it was!

How does that song go? "First comes love, then comes marriage..." Oh yes! "...Then comes a baby in the baby carriage!" Yes, we also got pregnant in 2011. We are expecting a girl on May 17, 2012. And according to her ultrasound pictures, we are expecting her to arrive with a cute button nose :)

We were a little worried at first that she was going to be a fiesty one, and perhaps a rebel due to the fact that we can only see "the finger" in this picture. But as we looked closer, she is holding up two of her fingers, but the angle darkens out the other. Phew!

We are so excited to meet her! And also excited to be parents even though we have moments of panic. I think that's normal...

Well, our holiday season has been a busy one! I finished my internship at a retirement and assisted living home the beginning of December, and now I am officially a BYU graduate! Woo Woo! It feels so good to be done and look back on all the hard work it took to get here. I LOVED BYU, and I'm glad to be moving on to be a Mom. Rob just finished his first year at the Y and is loving it. He's currently studying exercise science, but is getting ready to change to the athletic training program to prepare him for med school, PA school, or possibly teaching seminary. He works so hard for us through school, work, and helping around the house that words can't say how grateful I am for him! Our first year of marriage has been one full of love, genuine happiness, learning new things, stressful moments, communication, and new adventures!

Here are some holiday pictures from our first Christmas as a family :)

I am proud to say I made these stockings for our first Christmas this year! I was going to make a third for our baby for next year, but wasn't 100% sure what name to put on it. We have found a few names we really like, but I keep coming back to the name I have loved since we got married... I'm feeling more and more sure she's going to be Brynlee because I try to like other names just as much but can't, but I don't want to commit to one name quite yet! Anyway, she'll have a matching stocking to go with ours next year.

Christmas morning in our quiet, little apartment. I'm glad we slept at home and had our own morning. Afterwards we got ready and headed up to be with family for the rest of the weekend.
We've decided to try the pj tradition. So these are our Christmas Eve pj's. We'll see if this becomes a tradition over the years or not. We enjoyed it this year!
The St. George Temple Christmas lights. They don't compare to SL, but they were very very impressive, and colorful! We had fun visiting "warmer" St. George in December.
A close up view of our tree. Lent to us by my Aunt Mary (who's basement we live in).
This year has been a great year full of new experiences and lessons learned! We've gained a lot of new family and started one of our own. We're looking forward to this next year's events including:

1. Baby Girl Draper due May 17
2. Our one year anniversary on Feb. 17
3. A trip out to MN to visit Erin and Jared (sister)
4. Sister Lindsey Draper coming home from the Oklahoma City mission in September
5. Turning one year older and wiser too
6. Experiencing our firsts of everything with a new baby, and learning how to be parents!

Hope you had a great holiday, and have a great New Year!